Pudding and Chopsticks

Awesome, I finally got off my butt and set up an email for Pudding and Chopsticks. So if you would like to send me hate mail or my fav, love mail, by all means direct your correspondence to homer (at) pudding and chopsticks . com.. Got to do it this way. I wouldn’t want any robots sending me love mail.. I hate when that happens.

Peace.

Homer.

We all like to look at photos, including myself. I promised that I would take some more of the city and whatever else I could. So here are some from the other day. I went to a restaurant called Gust. Kinda weird I know. It’s a chain restaurant I think. I then walked to a bookstore to get a book on Chinese. After that I walked to a massive round about that would put Colorado round abouts to shame. After braving my life across 5 lanes of death circling traffic I finally arrived in the center to see Mao doing something with his hand. Along with a bunch of people holding guns. Then.. I walked to work. Fun times. So let’s do this.

These cart bike machine things are all over the city. I see them full of trash, people, boxes, and my favorite full of beer.

If you are from America let me explain this photo to you.. It called every other country has mass transit and the US does not, because of all the car and oil companies. I don’t think that I’ve seen a empty bus yet here..

Hello Mr…    Um.. Well, ni hao bro. Left, bro, dude, Left.. Oh S, LEFT.

Xiao Long Bao.. Yes.. give some of that sweet sweet nectar of the dumpling…

Interesting fence. If I am translating it correctly it says “Trespassers will be shot, since our courts take to long, survivors will be shot too.”

Taken from the round about. I think this is about the only time you will actually look down a street in China and walk away with all your limbs, attached.

Yo dude. What are you doing with your had? Do you need a taxi?

I read a few different blogs every day on China. Mostly they are just random things about expats (foreigners) living in various parts of China. It’s good to gain others perspective. China for one was new to myself and I wanted to be as prepared as I could before I got here. Now that I am here I read the blogs and think to myself, yep.. Isn’t that the truth. Well, I’ve come to one of such blogs where I feel the need to write about it. It’s about trust. Trust is a big thing with me. I trust all my friends and family. I trust that the sun will rise, the moon will set, and the sky will be blue. Things like that. When I was living in the US I trusted that what I bought is what I bought. Well folks this here is China. You can’t trust that so much. Why? Well, I think more than anywhere, the Chinese are only looking out for themselves. The guy, who owns the food stand, store, or restaurant, is only looking out for himself at any length. Lets say you go buy a soda, or oj, or whatever at the little shop on the corner. You better make damn sure that the cap screws off and some sort of pressure is released, that is fizzes, how ever you want to tell that it’s real and not a fake by all means check. I hate to say it but it’s been known to happen. Fake Coke, oj, eggs, and all kinds of other things. You go to a restaurant and use some soy sauce. Does it smell like soy sauce? It might not be. They fake that crap too. I know it’s hard to believe. But if they can make an extra Yuan (1/7th of a USD.) Then by God they’re going to fake the H out of that soy sauce. The blog that I read put China something like this.. It’s like playing a game of Minesweeper on easy. 99.9 percent of the time you click or choose it’s going to be ok. But there is that .01% that will bit you in the ass and game over.

http://www.thehumanaught.com/blog/china-expat-life/living-without-trust/

Ok. I have to say sorry again. Last night I ended up watching the World Cup. Which inevitably meant I got up late today and haven’t had anytime to write till now. I know I promised more pictures as well. Hopefully tomorrow I can deliver.

I have been having to take a taxi to work lately. The whole 1 mile to work. Woo.. I know. But whatever it gives me something to write about. So here goes.

How to take a taxi in America.

1.   Wave your hand like you are trying to swat a fly from mid air. Hope the guy stops.

2.   Get in.

3.   Tell the cabbie where you need to go.

4.   Trust the cabbie.

5.   If he goes the wrong way. Tell him what’s up. Yo wrong way bro…

6.   Pay the fare. Usually means giving up an arm or a leg if you are in Vail and need to get to Edwards or Wildridge.

7.   Get out.

8.   Say a farewell. I like to use “peace,” but that’s just me.

9.   Go on your merry way. Buy some Junior Mints, or perhaps a Slurpee.

Ok, now how to take a taxi in China.

1.   Don’t wave you hand. There is already a taxi in front of you…

2.   Admire the VW car.. and the cute little light on top.

3.   Ask him if he can take you where you need to go. Myself, I need to know if he can go to Tai Yuan Bei Jia street.

4.   Say it again… I can’t speak Chinese worth a bb gun shot to the chest. ”NO bro I don’t speak Chinese very well. I need to go to Jia Lun… Damnit..”

5.   Get in anyway.. Repeat previous step. If all else fails show him a piece of paper that you wrote that crap down on… This one bro, this one….

6.   When he says ok and pulls the meter sign thing down, put on seat belt. Hopefully it has one. If not, I recommend repeating Hail Marys as fast as you can.

7.   Hope to God the Chinese guy in front is taking you where you need to go..

8.   Drive on wrong side of road, check. Speed, check. Pull out in front of traffic, check. Pull out in front of a 30 ton bus, check. Split pedestrians, check. Honk horn, double triple check.

9.   Oh S… He’s not going the way I need to go.. um.. Think fast.. Pull out book of useful phrases that you wrote down.. No right bro right.. yo yo yo yo..

10.   Make grunting sound.. You will sound more Chinese.

11.   When you have snaked enough people, possibly hit one or two, and have almost passed your destination, point and say here dude, here.. jar, jar, jar, dude, jar.. Remember to do this in Chinese though.. 99% don’t know English.

12.   Give the dude money.. For my ride it’s a 1.25 or so, for a mile. The minimum. 8 yuan for 4km.. Not a bad deal.

13.   Get your change.

14.   Get out, make sure you have everything. A wallet full of fat stacks of cash would be a nice payday for someone.

15.   Dodge a car mirror driving by. Maybe even a electric bike or a crowd of people.

16. Shut door and give international symbol for awesomeness. Peace….

There is this thing that happens when I go out in public. I get stared out. Now, I know that I am a handsome guy and all but I don’t think that is it. It’s probably because I am the only white guy most of these Chinese have ever seen. There are a good amount of foreigners here in Shenyang, so I’m not sure if that’s it either. It might also be because I got more muscle then 3 average Chinese men combined (Excluding construction workers, those guys are beefcake.). But who knows. People look in my basket at the store to see what I am buying. Oh, what did the foreigner buy? Kids love to stare, old people stare, normal people stare. But whatever. It doesn’t bother me. I suppose that I understand. In America I would have said something smart like “take a picture it last longer” but here I don’t. For one I can’t come close to saying that in Chinese, and two, they probably won’t know what picture is nor the phrase. Cultural differences I suppose. My quick wit and sarcasm doesn’t go very far here. Blank stares and the words I don’t understand usually follow with the English speaking Chinese people I know. So what do I do to combat this staring initiative that has been placed on myself. I stare back. Nothing like staring at a person who stares at you. It’s like a gentleman’s duel. You start it I am going to finish it. Most of the time I win. They look away pretty quickly and go about what they were doing. Spitting a loogie or something. I also wave. Most of the time they freak out and act like they weren’t even looking at me in the first place. I got to thinking that just now I might be stared at because I have hair. Yes believe it or not. When I was meeting the kids for the first time at the school most of them pulled my arm hair and said something along the lines of  “whoaa.” Yes kids, that there is man fur. I suspect they are interested because most of them are teenagers and don’t have hair. Hell, even grown ups in Asia don’t even have hair. Not that I’m Grizzly Adams or anything, but I am a fairly manly man. I ate my hot sauce when I was a kid. So yeah. I got hair. But anyway, whatever. People stare. In America it’s not polite. In China no ones gives two rat’s bums if they stare or not. So if you can’t beat them join them. If you end up being stared at by a few ladies, awesome, throw out a wink or two, make um blush.

I have been extremely busy and just got the Internet at the apartment. If all goes to plan I should be posting inspiring pieces of litetaure everyday. My goal is to become extremely famous and further the English language and the use of slang. But I’ll be happy with one or two people reading this a day.

The other day I got my haircut. I needed it bad. I was beginning to resemble a household cleaning apparatus. Namely a mop. A friend and I went to a barbershop in the Korean part of Shenyang. Smart me, brought along a photo. I do this at salons in America. I like my hair. It likes me, I want it to look good and not like I just had it hacked by Edward Scissor hands. Although he worked wonders with hedgerows, I’m pretty sure he would of lopped off both my ears.
We walked in and met the barbers. All guys. This is the first thing I really noticed. No girls cutting hair. Well whatever. I gave him the photo, he studied it for a moment and said one of three English words he probably knows: Shampoo. He pointed toward a sink where I sat down. A different dude came over and shampooed my hair, rinse and dry. He then motioned me to the first gentleman who was standing next to a chair. The entire place was modern. You couldn’t really tell the difference from an American salon. He took another look at the photo. Which I forgot to mention was of Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie.  I like his hair. So anyway back to the story. He pinned up parts of my hair and began going to town on the lower region of my skull. Meticulously he made his way, cutting, trimming, slicing, and chopping. He then started on the upper region of my skull. He stopped a couple times to study the photo and then proceeded to go back to getting back to chop, chop chopping.

His hair was some sort of a mohawk mullet cut. Interesting. Not my first choice but who am I to judge another man’s mohawk. He stopped and said the second word he probably knows: Good. I’ve gotten my haircut by several people. I like to have the same haircutter person. It provides a sense of order in my otherwise rock star life. But in recent years I’ve been living away from home and have had to change stylists more than I would like. I’m always a little skeptical of them at first until they get done with the first cut. Think of it as a job interview.

“Good” he said. I looked at the hair that was on my head. F yeah.. Good. This guy had given me probably the best haircut I have ever had. Really. He rocked. He spent so much time in the details. Making sure that the sides were even and everything was straight. F yeah, my new haircut guy. For sure. I gave him a thumbs up, he laughed. I got up, paid my 4 American dollars. 30 RMB if you were wondering and we were off on our merry way. When he said the last word he probably knows: Bye. Indeed brother of the haircut, indeed. I will see you in 5-6 weeks depending on my hair growth.

I apologize for not having any photos. It’s dark here and my fragile face only looks good in window light. So tomorrow when it’s sunny I will bring sexy back with some interesting poses.. Or something.

I going to come right out and say it. I ate a bug. A damn big one at that. The story goes like this. After work we went out to eat some food. We decided to have some chicken at a restaurant that we thought was some sort of Buffalo Wild Wings knock off. Nope. It was a different animal all together.  Their menu didn’t have any photographs for me to point at and double check that it wasn’t going to kill me. But what the hell right? Well as luck would have it a friend of a friend came along. She told us what everything was. We were at the mercy of a girl. Dang. She ordered and we were along for the ride. We haven’t been drinking in a few days and all that would change. Snow beer here we come. Again, we put a losing beer pong team to shame. Glass after glass till the food arrived. What arrived was… Meat on a stick or 肉串，rou chuan.

I have to say it wasn’t bad. The little pieces of meat were like finger punches to the face. Meat, fat, meat, fat, meat, fat, all spiced up ready to go. There was also something else ready to go: Silkworm larvae. I’ve seen these little devils before. Last time they were stir-fried. Not this time. Roasted over hot coals or some junk. By that time I was intoxicated. Further I was in China, here to try whatever I didn’t think was going to kill me. So I thought about it. A couple of the girls jumped into it. I was told that if the shell was hard not to eat it. Only eat the insides. Fair enough. So I snatched the wooden stick off the plate, eyeballed it, took a photo and then set it down.

Everyone was talking, while I was eyeballing this little barbequed creature. I picked it up and slide it off the skewer with my panda like chopstick skills and piled it into my mouth. Bam, I gots a bug in my mouth. At first it didn’t taste like anything. But then it hit me. The damn thing tastes like nothing. Nothing. Mashed up cardboard, that’s about. It had a funky taste. Not too overpowering. It really just tasted like mashed up wet newspapers. It could of used some hot sauce. But lets not lie to each other; hot sauce really makes everything better. So as I ground this once thriving bug between my molars, it occurred to me. I just ate a bug. But whatever it wasn’t a big deal, even though these things rival small dogs it wasn’t that bad. Looks like I am going to have to place a call home for someone to FedEx some hot sauce over.

These little gems were burn your face off and melt you taste bugs into pools of snot. We did what any respectable group of friends would do…. Played paper, rock, scissors odd man out.. I’m the only one who didn’t lose. Yes, champion, but alas no, I manned up and ate one too. Never doing that again…

So you got some soup. Now slurp the bejesus out of it. That’s one thing you notice over here when you eat. If you eat with native Chinese of even someone who has been here for awhile is that they slurp everything. It’s a sign of goodness. That you enjoy it. Back home I think that if I was slurping something I would of got a hand upside the head. But here, nope. Just shows that you are having an awesome time. I still have yet to get the hang of it. Must be that my mom has taught me well.

I get home late usually and sleep in. I haven’t had time to go out and explore. Slacking I am. I apologize for that. I wanted to be writing about all kinds of stuff. It’s happening slowly. Oh, forgot I went to a book store today. It would’ve put Barnes and Nobles to shame. Four floors of printed material…. All in Chinese. That sucked. I wanted to find some books on learning Chinese. It kinda happened. I was looking for specific books on the HSK. Which stands for: Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi” “汉语水平考试.” It means Chinese Proficiency Test. Basically colleges and jobs have a TOEFL. Test of English as a Foreign Language. Same thing for the Chinese. They have the HSK. All I really wanted was some sort of path to learn, but, all the damn books I could find at this book store where all in Chinese characters and a little English. Makes since huh? Not really. So I had to settle for some generic learn Chinese books. They look legit. I really just need something to do. That’s about it. I learn new stuff everyday anyway.

I’ll keep writing about whatever I do. Try to take photos when I can. So hang tight.

I lucked out and had the camera with me. Looks like this old women got sick of the sidewalk. I don’t think anyone cared. Why? It happens all the time. It’s China.

The first thing you have to do to drive in China is to prepare to drive. How does one prepare?

1.    Don’t get a drivers license. It’s not like anyone here really uses what he or she has learned while obtaining one anyway.

2.    Get a car. This is obvious. Good chance it will be a VW.

3.    Learn to drive a stick. Haven’t seen a car yet that is an automatic.

4.    Put weird seat covers in your new car. Beads, mats, clothe, whatever it is we shouldn’t be able to see the stock seat, for whatever reason.

5.    Tie little red pieces of what looks like a shop rag around the rims. The more the better.

6.    Make sure that your horn works. You will need this later.

7.    If you plan to drive at night, neon is a must. Also obtain trance techno music. This will make you blend in more past midnight. If you are a taxi drive, you have gotten this already when you were hired.

After you are prepared to drive its time to turn her over and take it for a spin.

1.    Start the car. Better to make sure it is out of gear less you run into someone. If you do run into someone, drive off. If you feel generous toss a hundred out the window.

2.    Test horn again. Just to make sure. This will become your lifeline.

3.    Depress clutch and place transmission into gear.

4.    Slowly release the clutch while simultaneously depressing the gas pedal.

5.    Release parking brake that you forgot to release before you tried to move the first time.

6.    Repeat step 4 and began to move.

7.    Immediately start honking the horn at everything that moves in front of you. If you do not do this you will get no where in traffic and have to wait for people to cross the road.

8.    Run red lights.

9.    Split people on the cross walk while turning left. Why should you have to wait for them to cross? You’re bigger anyway.

10.    Split people while turning right. See reason from above.

11.    Split random people in the road for whatever reason. Remember to be laying on the horn through out this. If not, you are not following everyone else. You will look weird and people will wonder if you horn is broken.  If it is I am pretty sure they give them out for free.

12.    If the left turn lane is too long proceed to drive on the wrong side of the road and make your left hand turn while cutting everyone off. Honk horn, their in your way your not in theirs. If was your idea to cut them off anyway.

13.    Use your turn signal.

14.    Weave in and out of traffic, cars, people, pushcarts, donkeys, and whatever else is in your way. Every second you save might be useful later. Maybe just maybe.

15.    Get on the horn again.

16.    Look impatient.

17.    Sing along to pop song.

18.    Honk horn.

19.    Run red light. No one was coming anyway.

20.    Arrive at restaurant.

21.    Park where ever you feel you should. Including the middle of the road. Who cares, people have steering wheel to maneuver their car around yours.

22.    Honk horn before you close the door. You might be awhile eating hot pot and not be able to honk for an hour or two.

23.    Drink at restaurant.

24.    Go back to step 1 in driving your car. No one will know that you are drunk because you will be weaving the same way as you do when you are sober.

25.    One more time, honk horn, it feels good.

So that’s how to drive here in China. Pretty simple huh? Can’t wait to do it myself. Going to be a blast.

Would I be cheating on Kit Kats if I said that I might of found a new type of sweet to fall in love with. Chances are I would. Last time I was in China a year ago I found something that intrigued me. They have Oreos here, I’m pretty sure. But what they also have here is a decadent little thing called…. An Oreo Chocolate Wafer. At least I think that’s what it’s called. Not one hundred percent sure. In any case it’s mean. It’s nasty. It’s as good or better than a Kit Kat. You ever had those orange, pink, chocolate wafers you can get for cheap? Little wafers things with crème in the middle? Yeah. This is just like that but tastes just like Oreos. Dang, I think that I am in love.

Again we have a box. Much like the Kit Kat that came in the box the king size of the Oreos deals also come in a box. When you open in you will find 5 little Oreo Wafers staring you in the face whispering eat me, eat me. So you amuse them and pick one up. It’s wrapped in a plastic that much like the Kit Kat you can tear off super easy. I suspect that if it took more that half a second to do so Chinese people would be angry. Half of everyone here can’t wait to cross the road and go for it in the middle of traffic. Just my logic. So you tear the clothes off this sweet little innocent bar and you see the dark rich chocolate. Your not sure what it is going to taste like. You violate it, snap apiece off and place it in your mouth. The clouds part, a beam of sunshine radiates onto your face, and some cheesy religious music starts to play. You are in Heaven. The crème cuts the heavy chocolate flavor. It sticks to your teeth but you don’t mind, because you have dental from work. So you stick the rest of the wounded bar into your mouth. Again sunlight slaps you in the face. You repeat this until all five are gone. Your clothes are half torn off and you wonder, what just happened? You can’t remember. There is a 10-minute period that you can’t figure out what you just did. You go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. You see chocolate stains all over your lips. A puzzled look crosses your face. Your fingers are covered in the chocolate blood. You walk back to where you regained consciousness. The wrappers strung out all over, the evidence is clear. You just MURDERED five Oreo Chocolate Wafer bars and you feel good.