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So, I've been reading the Shenzhen Daily newspaper a lot recently. It's not bad for an 8 page publication. I think I am going to start reading it more often because there are some really funny articles. These quotes from the Shenzhen Daily may become a common addition to the blog. Check this one out! I'm not even going to underline the crazy parts. Good news for New Jersey squirrel eaters |
| 2007年11月01日 02:10 Shenzhen Daily |
SQUIRREL eaters in the U.S. state of New Jersey have been told that the bushy-tailed rodents are probably safe to eat, after earlier being advised the unlikely delicacies could contain toxic metals. The Environmental Protection Agency said earlier this year it had discovered high levels of lead in a squirrel taken from near a waste dump in the Ringwood area and advised people to eat the rodents no more than twice a week. Officials have now said the test results were an error. “A blender that was used to process the tissues into usable samples was defective and was identified as the source of the lead contamination,” the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement dated Monday. The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife describes squirrel as “good table fare,” offering recipes for squirrel chowder, stew and barbecue. (SD-Agencies) |
I’ll share my weekend with you. It basically consisted of clinging to a toilet and not straying far from it, writhing in stomach pain and curling up into a ball at the edge of my bed to sleep.
How did this happen? I’ll tell you.
After being on the brink of being sick for a few days before my trip to china I was wary of getting a head cold during the flight full of sick coughing, babies, breathing recycled air. Somehow, even though I’m not much of an in-flight-sleeper, I managed to feel health throughout my flight and my arrival. After a week of trying to adjust to a 12 hr jet-lag however, the airborne pathogens of this country got the best of me. So I had a little bit of a head cold. I had a slight cough and sneeze.
In attempt to head off the impending cold at the water’s edge, much like the famed 300 Spartans, I asked around for some medicine to act as a buttress to my walls, a fortress to my army of white blood cells. Some of my Chinese friends came through and handed me a foil pouch of powder. Telling me this is a traditional eastern medicine that will cure my cold, they handed me the package. I inspected it. It looked legitimate; something you might buy at the local supermarket. Still I had my doubts. I voiced them. “No, I think maybe this might make me sick.” But my concern was met with strong rebuke. All the Chinese around me assured me that it was an herbal cure and that taking this medicine would make me feel much better. It was Friday night, and not wanting my weekend to be hindered by a leaky nose faucet, I decided that I would take the medicine.
That night at dinner I emptied the brown granular condense of the foil bag into my cup of boiled tea water. Norvin and I were at The Northern. I don’t know why we call that restaurant The Northern, but we do. We ordered a selection of the normal food. We drank the normal tea. The only difference between what Norvin ingested and what I ingested was my choking down of the most disgusting flavored medicine water in a couple of brown gulps. I would have done it in one, but the water was too hot, and once I had got the flavor into my mouth I didn’t want to stop and continue later after the water cooled down.
Now because I fancy myself as somewhat of an engineer, or shall we say, scientist, I’m going to refer to Norvin as the control. He ate all the same things as me and was quite alright. Unfortunately for me, I woke in the middle of the night with the very intense desire to run to the water closet. And run I did. In fact, I barely made it. Simply imagine someone pouring an entire pitcher’s worth of…shall we say…black tea…into the toilet from a distance of maybe 1 meter. Ok, stop imagining it. It was pretty terrible. It felt like someone had a vice-grip on my bowels and was slowly knotting them up and squeezing them out.
Like clockwork, this continued every half hour on the half hour for about 24 hours. The color of the liquid changed. The constancy varied. But the liquid kept coming. I tried in vain to rehydrate after every jettison but it was difficult. My stomach wanted to remain empty. I was exhausted. And the weekend was slipping by.
Saturday was my first official Chinese lesson. After canceling twice before, on last trip, I promised my self I would make it to this one. The teacher is in Shekou, about a 25 minute ride away. I ate as much bread (in hopes it might soak up the pain) as I could fit into my shrunken stomach and got in the cab. Being it was the second day, I felt a bit improved and I made it through the ride without incident. It was during my lesson that things became apparent that I hadn’t expelled all of the medicine. Hěn kuài! Hěn kuài! Quickly I ran to the bathroom. Thank god, a western toilet.
After my lesson, Norvin and Alexi met me out in Shekou for lunch. I was a beautiful day. The warmth soothed my aches and made me feel better even though my head was swimming from the 2 hour lesson. And again, like clockwork, this time every hour on the hour, I stood from the table and ran off in the direction that I might find the nearest bathroom. Again, the control, that is Norvin, was fine.
Sunday it was every three hours, and in lesser amounts each time.
So that was my exciting weekend. I managed to watch a couple of DVDs throughout the mess. That’s one thing you can always count on china for. The earliest releases of the movies still in the theater. It didn’t ease the pain. It just made the time go faster.
The moral of the story, be careful taking traditional medicine if it’s not your tradition.
So here I am again, back in
It’s good to see that some things are still the same. The food is still crazy. The driving is still crazier than the food. People still stare when they see Americans.
This is a picture of the map that told us where we were. Our plane flew from Chicago O’Hare airport over the North Pole to
She forgets how to pronounce “wine”
I saw about 4 movies on the flight. Here are my personal reviews.
Oceans’ Thirteen: 
X (4 out of 5 bombs for action packed fun.)
Evan Almighty:
XX(3 out of 5 crucifixes for Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman{
}but doesn’t provide quite enough humor, or plot depth{
}.)
License to Wed: zzzzz (5 out of 5 Zs for sleeping through this movie. This is no reflection of the movie, I simply finally got a few hours of sleep.)
Below I have embedded the movie. The entire movie. It’s playing right now. Can’t you tell? Oh, you think it’s a picture? Keep watching.
Away From Her’s Julie Christie, thinking about what she can’t remember.
Snazzy picture time!
Ok, that's enough of that. You can enjoy those movies in any country. Lets get back to the real reason this blog exists, to document the wonders of China!
This guy decided to take a nap next to his tricycle on a pile of dirt. I guess it’s more comfortable than the sidewalk.
Norvin’s lunch of choice today included a baby octopus! Yummy. His advice? Eat the tentacles first. Notice the delicious “dong ni cha” in the background. Mmmm, cold milk tea.
Truck Bus Collision
This is an excerpt from the Shenzhen Daily. To me it’s so ridiculous it’s funny. Words have been underlined to…uh…underline the ridiculousness.
“A container truck crashed into an unlicensed bus in Long-gang District on Saturday…The truck and bus collided because of the malfunctioning of traffic lights at the intersection of Lanjing Road North and Lanzhu Road East in Pingshan Subdistict…The lights were not working as the underground cables had been stolen…quoting traffic police. The bus driver, a man in his 30s fled after the collision.”
Yeah…Only in
Bryson is the best at bargaining. He showed us all how to do it. He was going to buy a jade bracelet for his mom, and they said 480RMB at first, but by the end of the negotiating Bryson had them down to 76RMB. That is incredible. You have to remember at a certain point, you are arguing over pennies. He said 75 they said 76. It’s funny to think that 1yuan (or RMB) is only about 0.15USD.
Still, we had to watch out; they must have thought we were dumb, because we then went to help someone get a pair of shoes we were bargaining with them and they wouldn’t budge and neither did we, so the shop owner says, “ok, ok, you can buy one pair for 250RMB, but next time you come I give you two for 500RMB.” What? Such a deal right? Haha, you just have to laugh.
Dan bargained for about five minutes on some polo shirts and when they couldn’t come to a deal, he walked. He got about 50 steps away, and when the shop owner saw that he was serious about leaving, she ran to him and grabbed his arm and brought him back to the store and gave him two for his price.
This was the most ridiculously fun, exhausting and crazy place to shop. Every corner of the tiny hallways was covered with shop owners calling two you, pulling you into their little lair of counterfeit items. “You want hand bag?” “You want Rolex?” “You want Oakley Glasses?” “You want MP3?”
The mp3 players were hilarious. Some of them were blatant knock offs of the iPod. As I’m walking around I heard someone trying to sell me an Mp4 and then even an MP5! Haha.
You definitely want to be a cautious shopper while in Lohou. You never know what you are going to get. For example I don’t trust any of the DVDs without checking them out first. They know that they have bad quality ones, the kind that were illegally filmed in the theater, so you have to ask if the quality is good. “Hao? Bu hau?” Which means good or bad. They will usually be honest if you ask them, but if you don’t trust them, have them open it up and pop it in the DVD player. They always have one there for that reason.
The DVDs (in Chinese “Deeveedee”) are some of the best deals around. You can usually get the new releases for about 10RMB which is like a buck and a half
Mike bought some “Qui dza” or chopsticks from Lohou. When we got back to the hotel he was showing it to one of the girls who works there. He was pretty proud he had bargained the shopkeeper down from 300RMB. He asked her if he got a good deal and when he told her he had paid 150 her eyes went wide. “No, No good. 50RMB.” Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all. It was still a pretty good deal for his chopsticks set compared to American prices, but I guess it pays to have some one native who knows how much things should cost.
Although we all had a good, but exhausting time bargaining at Lohou, I don’t think anyone enjoyed the experience more that Steve. By the time he was done, he looked like Shopping Time Barbie, with three or four bags in each hand. It was great. We would watch as shop owners would drag him into shops, pull clothes down form the shelves, hand them to him, and tell him how good he looks. You could tell just by his actions that Steve was saying “Oh, I don’t need a winter coat, but oh, you say it looks good on me? And oh yes, you are correct, this does feel like good quality material…and for that price how could I pass it up?” I think Steve was in second heaven.
We all learned a thing or two about bargaining. You can not go there as a pushover. You have to pick a number hold your ground. Then try not to be fooled by any of their tricks to get you to buy two or pay more than you were expecting.
My favorite was the shop owner who said, “Ok how about 50RMB? No? Ok, how about 25 USD?” HAHA…you are going the wrong way, buddy.
Cultural Differences
Here are some cultural differences that I have noticed between us Americans and the Chinese.
Big noise, little people
The Chinese are loud. I always used to think that Chinese people were quiet. But maybe that is because they are a little more timid when they speak English, but get 6 Chinese around a table in a meeting and it is a Mandarin shouting fest. Actually they seem to prefer having 4 or 5 conversations going at once. And it doesn’t stop there, if the cell phone rings, they will talk over it for a while and then, “Wei. Ni Hao...” (Hey, Hello) right in the middle of the meeting. Additionally they repeat the same thing many times. All the time I hear “doi doi doi” witch means something to the effect of “yes yes yes.” Or maybe, “right right right.”
Milky White (or as I say, melky)
Another thing that was initially confusing is the use of umbrellas on nice days. Basically, the Chinese women will bring a parasol with them to protect them from the sun and heat. I was later told that it is considered very attractive to have lighter, pale skin. So, on hot sunny days you can see everyone hiding under their little umbrellas. Which basically means I am pretty damn attractive here because I’m quite pale. Oh yeah. I just think it’s an interesting change from the
Is it raining?
Rice or Ice Cream?
Order of operations at restaurants are also confusing. The seem to bring the food out when ever they have it ready, which is fine, except when you order dessert with your meal and it comes out first. Also, white rice, the American-Chinese staple is not nearly as popular here. In fact, you almost always have to request it special. And who knows when it may come out; probably when you would be expecting dessert. I really found that surprising. I am just so familiar with the American-Chinese restaurants that give you piles and piles of white rice, so that there’s no room for much else in your stomach.
Road Rageless
Even though the average driver in china leaves much, much, much to be desired, there seems to be few occurrences of road rage. In the
Here are some more pictures
Wow, I have been slacking on posts. This week went by so fast. I have been working hard at work and enjoying the company of my US group here. So it's 11:30 on a sunday. We are headed to Lohou later today. I have no idea if that is the correct way to spell it, just to get something up on the blog, here is a post.
“It’s so good I just want to put it in my mouth and let it explode!” Sarah, on the deliciousness of a particular soup-filled Chinese wonton.
“I’m so good with chopsticks now, I can lift and drink my tea with them.” Brian, the guy who took about 5 trys to pick up a single peanut with the sticks. Actually, it’s pretty damn difficult.
“Donde Estan?!” Eric, speaking Spanish to the Chinese…they didn’t know what hit them.
“Afro-metheus” The name used to describe the guy who says what was just said moments ago. It kind of evolved from After-metheus, the brother of Prometheus.
“Ni Hou-you doin’?” Long, with an awesome pick up line
I started seeing a bunch of these guys and they always kind of amused me. So now I pass them on to you. The adventures of stickguy.
Good ol' slippery floor...watch out!
Look out NYC
This weekend. Where do I begin? The group of Mike, Brian and I took a trip to
We already have some HK Dollars from our earlier trip to
So after Aqua, we went dancing in the down town part of the city at night. For only a few HK you can ride the MTR subway system. It’s super clean, modern and was a quick enjoyable method of transportation. (see also video of Getting around in HK below.) We used the MTR to get everywhere, food, hotel, bars, sight seeing, almost nothing was out of the range of the MTR. NYC’s subway is probably much more extensive, but HK’s would definitely beat it for cleanliness, modern-ness, and ease of use.
View from
Saturday, we wake and grab some food and Mike goes for his usual morning Tai Chi; he fits in so well here. We walk, take the subway and walk again over to the Mong Kok district to check out the street market. There you can shop for most anything your heart can desire. I bought a shirt, sunglasses and two traditional Chinese scrolls to hang in my room. Bargaining is the name of the game here. See below for my original play on the subject of bargaining.
The Haggle: Bargaining at a
A Play in One Act.
Act One:
The year is 2007 but vendors have everything from ancient wood carvings to modern Channel knock off purses. You, being the wily young American tourist, browse the stands, not being drawn in by the constant beckoning of each shop owner. You look. They try to persuade you, but you are unmoved. Then you happen upon a t-shirt with a terrible English translation hanging high upon a hook, in the small market stand. Being the American tourist you are…you have a weakness for such things. You ask the woman how much for this t-shirt with terrible English translations.
Market woman: 100
Not dollars. She does not pluralize any of her numbers. You know only a fool would pay the $100 strait up, although you are tempted. After all, it’s only about 13USD. You, like a chess player, thinking many moves in advance, set your price significantly lower than her starting price.
American tourist: $50.
Market woman: (laughs) No, no no. (still laughing) Ok, $90.
American tourist: $60.
Market woman: (laughs) No, no. $85, ok? Ok? $85. Ok.
The last Okay, is not a question; it’s a statement. She thinks she has you there. Here’s where the magic happens.
American tourist: (groan, then start to walk away...)
Stage hands to sprinkle a small amount of glitter around the feet of the American Tourist to illustrate the magic.
Market woman: ok. (she steps to you and grabs your arm) ok, $80 Ok? OK? Ok? $80
You can tell by the number of
American tourist: $70
Market woman: Ok, ok, $79
American tourist: What?!
Surprised by this coy move to take only $1 off, you stand dumbfounded for near a second. But you are a bargaining force to be reckoned with…you play the trump card one last time. Stage hands again sprinkle glitter.
American tourist: Nevermind (you start to walk away…)
Market woman: …Ok…(she makes a face like you are breaking her heart)…$75.
The barrage of
You pause…the silence is painstaking. Everything around, the bustle of the market…the din of the streets, near and beyond, all silence themselves, waiting for your answer. It seems as if the very earth it self stops turning, waiting, waiting for…
American tourist: …Ok, $75.
American tourist exits stage left with a t-shirt and a smile. Market woman secretly rejoices for charging the American tourist an additional $25HK. She starts the bargaining at $75 for the locals.
End of Act One. Curtain Call.
Mike, Brian, and a street vendor that is not happy I'm taking pictures of her bootleg men's thongs.
Later that day, we head to
View from Victoria's Peak
The land of inconsistencies strikes again. In our case there was no light show. There was light, there were buildings, but no orchestrated show. Nonetheless the view was amazing. On the way down from the mountain, we stopped to grab some food at, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Make no mistake. This was not restaurant that pretended to be styled after the Forrest Gump movie, it was the real deal. They had the movie playing in the background and everything. And their fried sea food was amazing. Trust me. After a few weeks in
Oh yeah, Authentic Chinese Food
Happy Birthday!
We took the MTR back to the Hotel and shot over to Lan Kwai Fong. Lan Kwai Fong is the “premier dinning and entertainment center” of
Note the "Engrish" on the t-shirt
Our last morning, Long took us to a Vietnamese restaurant. The food in HK is great. I recommend going. It’s accessible enough for someone who doesn’t speak Chinese well. And yet it is still a world of a difference from the
Reading Gibberish
So, it was one of my trip goals to buy some clothing in china. But not just any clothing; I wanted clothes with English writing on them with really bad translations. Just like all the people in
Goal complete! The first store I went into, I found a shirt with tons of English writing on it…almost all of it makes no sense at all. AWESOME! Haha. I guess that’s just my sense of humor.
Even As Your Stronger Is...
Long Division
As I have said before,
Division of the rich and the poor
Traditions
Every Wednesdays there is a Chinese tradition that was started in…the Ming Dynasty, I believe…of playing basketball after work. And so, just as Attila the Hun, and Confucius did so many years before, we donned our polyester mesh shorts and jerseys, and took to the court. Today’s game was the Golf / Bose team versus Motorola. “Bring it on Phone boys, or should I say phony boys?!”
Just like the Viscous Conquerors versus the Peaceful Philosophers in the days of lore, sweat poured from each of us in the humid, warm weather. Muscles strained, the crowed cheered, amazing three-pointer shots were made and eventually, tears flowed. The blood of the weak covered the court and the reveling of the victors could be heard for miles. And if you listen hard and the wind is blowing in from the East in just the right way, you can still hear the old masters talking smack, “Confucius say, you are suck!”
Norvin takes a shot...
The Chinese drive down court.
This is why we say Bryson is in the NBA.
I'm in this one...waiting for the jump ball to come my way. Notice the Referee. The Chinese take everything seriously.
Bryson teaching the Chinese how to jump. Notice we actually have a bit of a crowd watching us!
I learned a new word today. It is awesome. Now I can just point at something and not know what the hell it is really called and still have someone understand me.
Today’s word: zhèige
Translation: this
When writing, pinyin “zh” makes a “j” sound and an “e” at the end of the word makes an “uh” sound. So basically, it is pronounced “jigga.” Who would have thought Jay-Z was speaking Chinese? “Jigga WHAT?!”
