Collaborative Writing

Today I mailed a letter to my "sister" who lives most of the year in Belarus*. To address the envelope, I printed out a copy of her address, which is writtent in Russian, that my mom emailed to me. But since my sister didn't put a postal code in her address, I had to hunt down some Chinese colleagues to see if any of them could write Chinese characters for "Belarus" where the postal code should go -- you know, so China Post could direct the letter to the proper country.

When I got to the post office, the letter was sent without too much trouble. The postal workers used the Chinese characters to figure out how much postage I would need and didn't seem all that perturbed that the postal code was missing (cost for postage: 7 Yuan). What struck me about this experience, though, was how collaborative everyday mundane things are here for me. All told, it took about 5 people to properly address one envelope. This experience is not unique. If I want to get water delivered to our apartment, I have to use a Chinese-speaking mediator. When one of my packages was held hostage at the post office, I had to enlist help from one of my students to retrieve it. Most of this collaboration is a result of my poor Chinese language skills; if I could speak the language better, I could do more things for myself. As it is, I'm pleased when I can just accomplish simple tasks, like asking the bus driver how much the fare is and understanding his/her reply.

*She's not my biological sister; she's a girl from Belarus who stays with my family for several months each year.

Fried Duck's Nude

***This here is a guest post by our resident cowboy, D***

Just down the hill from the college where RB and I teach is a place
called "The International Center." It's something of an all-purpose
weigh station (e.g., hotel, restaurants, gift shop, etc.) for business
people and teachers working down at the end of this very long dusty
road. What follows is a selection of items available on their
"Western-Style Food Menu."*

Soup. How about starting off with some "Threw Teeth Hits Seafood" or perhaps "French Onion Pumpkin Soup." I'm not sure what the first one is, but doesn't that second one sound tasty?! And then there's the "Example Soup." We have often speculated that this one is made up of various leftover ingredients from the kitchen.

Snacks. Need an appetizer? Why not try a "Soya Duck Kidney" or perhaps "Chicken Feet Thai Style?" Another option is "Bone with Salt & Pepper." Yum! One name had my dad laughing so hard that I thought he might need medical attention - "Fried Duck's Nude."

Seafood. In the mood for seafood? One choice is something called "Roasted Epinephelus Portugal Style." As for what this is, well, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe you're feeling a bit adventurous. If so, then the "Pan-fry Jewfish Vanilla" just might hit the spot.

Roasted. So, you're more of a meat eater. Well, you could order an "Angus Pig Redeye Steak." Do you suppose that this is pork? beef? mystery meat? There's also the [less confusing?] "US Cow Redeye Steak."

Pasta Specialties. If you go oodles over noodles then maybe the "Baked Tuna Spaghetti" will have you salivating. Don't forget to ask for some "XO Sauce Catsup" to go with your "Fried Spagherri." Or, for a wild time, you might try "Malaysia Fried Wet Hoer Fun!"

* Note: The restaurant has two different menus, but you do not get to choose your menu. One is for Chinese people and the other (with much higher prices) is given to foreigners, westerners, etc. This is common practice here and is generally referred to -- by foreigners -- as "the foreigner markup."

Best Quality

Two months ago, in preparation for the grand inauguration of the college, benches were placed all along the common pathways on campus. It does lend a nice atmosphere to the campus -- on my way down to the bus stop I get to visit with current students and former students who are lounging on the benches.

This poor bench didn't survive but a week. And by the looks of the sign that's posted on it, the college didn't hold out much hope for its longevity to begin with.

I've Got School Spirit

Down in Gongbei, there's a massive underground mall called "Port Plaza." It's filled with stall after stall of cheap goods for sale (food, clothes, wallets, electronics, shoes, you name it). Expats and Chinese alike love it for its low-cost counterfeit designer goods -- handbags, t-shirts, clothes, etc. People from nearby cities take bus trips just to shop there.

D and I don't venture into Port Plaza often, and D never without me as a guide. Once you get underground, it's almost impossible to find your way back out again. The place is laid out like a wagon wheel; there's a center shopping area and then many halls that branch off the center like spokes. It has about 8 or 10 exits, each of which takes you aboveground to a different location in Gongbei. If you get lost, you can just walk around the outside of the wheel, but since the place is so big, that takes forever. And like most shopping around here, there really isn't much worth buying. Fake handbags. Low-quality clothing. Cheap shoes. Ugly jade. Underwear and bras (10 sizes too small -- the average Chinese woman doesn't even need a bra, but you'd never know it from the sheer quantity of bra stores all over Zhuhai). Still, it is good for people-watching and playing "spot the expat" game (spot the expat [usually not hard] and guess the person's country of origin).

A couple weeks ago we were just taking a day off and decided to brave "the underground." We weren't in any hurry, so it didn't matter if we got lost. As we were browsing through one of the hallways when I spotted a t-shirt on a mannequin that I just had to have:



This shirt epitomizes for me some of the half-assed counterfeiting that goes on here (it's the inattention to detail that is mind-boggling). The name is misspelled. The color scheme is all wrong (SU's colors are blue and orange; this is mustard yellow with black lettering). The insignia is so-so.

When you look at the back, it's even better:


As far as I know, SU doesn't even have a sailing team. There is a sailing club (one of my students in WRT 307 designed a web site for the club for one of his projects in the class). But still.

The original asking price for this masterpiece was 120 Yuan. I ended up paying 40 Yuan for it -- still too much, but good bartering on my part, no? It cracks me up to think someone took the time to design and make this t-shirt, that the stall's workers put it on a mannequin to lure people to the stall, and that throughout the country there might be people wearing shirts like this.

Tragedy Strikes

No, I'm not talking about the continuing cold weather here. I am talking about my computer . . . that died.

My hard drive bit the dust, taking with it all my files. I did back up my files daily to an external hard drive, but for some reason I cannot access them with my new computer. What the hell is an incremental backup, anyway?

Needless to say, I have been in the most unpleasant mood and am ready to sacrifice a goat or two to the gods if that would help my situation improve.

Anyway, if you've emailed me in the past week or so and I haven't gotten back to you, that's why. I hope to have everything up and running in a few days.

I am getting ready to call apple support. They have a China number. Any bets on whether they speak English or not?

Update: Thanks to the help of my fabulous-computer-genius brother, I was able to recover my files. It certainly pays to have one of those in the family.

Flat Nasty*

We were warned by several English colleagues that many goods and services would not be available over the (Chinese) New Year holiday. A lot of people take 1-2 weeks off during this time and travel to be with family. This results in a temporary shut down of stores, factories, schools, restaurants, etc. Today we ventured out into the cold to stock up on necessities -- TP, water, coffee, bacon, eggs, cheese, potatoes, baked beans, and bourbon (a.k.a. "survival food"). Our quest came with a heavy price, though: we were subjected to more chaos and filth today than during all of our other days here combined.

The streets and stores were packed. And the grocery store -- well, I'm still a bit faint from the experience. You know how busy and chaotic US grocery stores are the day before Christmas or Easter (or, heck, the Super Bowl)? Well, lemme just tell you: You ain't seen nothin'.

First, to even get into the store, we had to by wily and quick. Cars were everywhere, driving wherever they wanted (on the sidewalk, in the bike lane, in the wrong lane). We saw one woman, down on the pavement in front of a car, apparently hit by the vehicle. The beggar brigade was out in full force, too. Today there was a new guy; one of his legs was mottled and swollen, and a palm-sized open wound adorned it. When we passed him, he was cleaning the wound with a cotton swab and trying to solicit money from passersby.

Once we were in the store itself, we had to wait around for a bit before we could even snag a shopping cart. Once we secured one, it was a battle just to maneuver it around the aisles. "Traffic" was at a complete standstill in most aisles. And rather than say, "excuse me" and try to wiggle their way through, our fellow shoppers just used their carts as battering rams to bust through blockages. There were no fights, but I half-expected one to break out at any moment.

The produce section was especially brutal. There, I had to muscle my way to the produce I wanted, bag it while protecting my two inches of floor space from poachers, and then fight my way to the produce weighing counter. Once I was at the counter where my produce would be weighed and priced, I had to simultaneously push my way forward to get to the scale and fight off "cutters" -- people trying to elbow their way in front of me. It was more like a rugby scrum than a line -- not a surprise given the Chinese disaffection for "queuing up." By the time I'd managed to get my produced weighed and priced, I felt like I'd survived 10 rounds in the Thunderdome.

We also got an extra helping of what we "public bodily fluid" sightings. In China, bodily fluids -- and the processes for making them external to the body -- are public activities. For example, we saw several people engaged in what I am convinced is the most beloved pastime in this country: exuberant nose picking. I've written before about this topic, but two sights today awed me:

1. One the crowded bus, a five-year old (or thereabouts) sat on his mother's lap, facing her. First she cleaned his ears out, using her forefinger as a cleaning tool. Then she set to work on his nose. Pick, pick, pick. Flick, flick, flick. (He was spared the indignity of a "spit bath" -- but maybe that's just a U.S. thing. . .)

2. In the dairy case at the grocery store, there is a mirrored panel next to the cheese. As we approached the case, we watched a man excavating the contents of his nasal passages, using the mirrored panel to help him see what he was doing. He was taking great pains and sustained effort go get every little crumb, and at one point he had both forefingers in his nose at the same time, one for each nostril. Needless to say, I selected packages of cheese that were at the wwwaaaaayyyyy back of the cheese case.

3. And then, of course, were the less spectacular nose-pickers -- like the woman in line in front of us at the checkout -- who just casually picked and flicked. Her efforts were very modest; she didn't even go up to the first knuckle.

We also were treated to a fun game that we sometimes get to play here: Dodge the River of Urine. As I've mentioned before, parents here train their children to just pee wherever they happen to be. Babies don't wear diapers, they have these split bottomed pants instead. So, when they have to go, they just squat down and go (or are held by their parents while they go). Today we saw an older female child -- maybe 7 -- drop trou and let loose on the sidewalk. I had to do a quick two step to avoid the Niagara-like run-off. I don't know how old kids have to be before they use public toilets, but some men, apparently, never learn; it's pretty common here to see men of all ages urinating in public.

Add to this all the lovely smells of our town (sewer fumes, cigarette smoke, B.O., exhaust fumes) and the sounds of everyone coughing up loogies, and by the time we got back to our compound, I was ready to douse myself with hand-sanitizer or maybe just take a refreshing shower in Clorox Bleach.

Some days this stuff just strikes me as funny. Other days, like today, it's just flat nasty.*

* NOTE: "Flat nasty" is a bit of slang that we picked up from D's cousin Tad. I can't find an official definition for it, but when D's cousin used it, it basically meant "flat (out) nasty" -- i.e., this thing is just so foul/gross/nasty that it couldn't be any fouler/grosser/nastier. I'm sure this definition doesn't get at the subtlety of the phrase, but you get the idea. I encourage you to incorporate it into your daily lexicon. It's surprisingly useful -- and fun to say!

Mail-order Cowboy

About 8 weeks ago, D ordered this gear from Sheplers (not pictured are the cowboy boots he's wearing). He just received the packages today. The shipment took about one week to arrive in China. And then it sat in customs for-freakin'-ever.

We weren't even sure if customs in Guangzhou would let the stuff through. Apparently, customs deemed some of the items as "suspicious" (we found this out from the shipper). D had to answer questions about the content of the packages and then testify that they were for "personal use only" (?!?). Then, it took several calls and Chinese-written emails to the shipper -- DHL, regional office -- to sort out the delivery. On top of all of this was the gigantic customs fee that D was charged -- 600 RMB.

I haven't ordered anything from non-China retailers since we've been here because, quite frankly, it'd just be one big pain in the ass. In other words, I don't think that D's experience is unusual (heck, it takes 4-5 weeks for non-retail packages to get to us). Timely delivery of mail-ordered goods is another "luxury" that we don't have access to here -- in fact, a lot of companies won't even ship goods to China (I don't know why -- maybe not enough people from the PRC buy the goods? Or maybe there are govt. restrictions?)

I am glad, however, that D ordered this stuff; he looks awfully cute in that get-up.