Pudding and Chopsticks

Since I’ve been living here I have read numeous things online about China. I recently found a site that I believe expresses the real issues here. www.Chinasmack.com I usually read it everyday. I came across a story today about living conditions at Beijing University. The top university in China. I then found a tagent about a job fair.

http://www.chinasmack.com/pictures/150000-recent-graduates-at-shenzhen-job-fair/

You think the US is bad. Try this. No I am not downplaying the fact the that States are not doing to well. One could argue the PRC isn’t either.

The site is pretty much just Chinese news translated to English. It’s what Chinese think of their country and it’s issues, not what a western mind thinks it is.

I can’t sleep. Not sure why. So I am surfing the good ‘ol net. I refound a website that has a lot of good info the PRC. Is refound a word, probably not, but who am I to care.

The website is. www.middlekingdomlife.com

If you ever wanted to know how the Chinese think read this little tid bit I copied from their website.

This blog post really doesn’t have to do with thieves and swindlers. But I really liked the way that sounded. And the fact it reminds myself of Timmy in Colorado. Something he might say after a few canned brewskis when someone was bugging out. “Hey, take it easy out there. Watch out for thieves and swindlers.” Yep that’s Timmy. Bless his little soul. Anyway. To the heart of the matter. I just returned from Hong Kong. This time it was a solo trip. I’m all grown up now and can go to Hong Kong myself. Yah.. The monthly visit. This time however instead of a in and out I took the liberty of walking around a bit. So I took the MTR into the city to go to a market. The Ladies Market to be exact.

I popped up from the subway only to be lost. Well, yes and no. People in HK are smart enough to lock their internet, so I couldn’t google map myself. So I had to find my way, the good old fashion way, I found a bus map. Ha ha. Funny. After a few blocks of walking I found the market. Which, apparently is in the heart of the densest population on the planet. At least that what one website said. It was on the Internet so it must be true. I snapped a photograph. It’s located in an area called Mong Kok. Yeah I know, sounds funny.

It’s pretty long. 3 blocks long. With three isles. For those that can do preschool math thats 9 blocks of awesome, well for the women anyway. The guys clothes were, well, they were not out in force. I did find some things though.

One of the isles. I won’t complain about how people like to walk like they’re 90 and do it three wide, I’ll spare you the rant.

I ended up getting a long sleeve shirt, and two sweaters for around 200, um, I guess you would call it Hong Kong Dollars. Or about 25 USD. Good ol market, how I love thee.

I would like to tell you about my haircut today. It’s been awhile since I have had a haircut. The beginning of September if I remember correctly. It really hasn’t grown as fast as it usually does. But yes, it was getting long. So I ponied up some cash and headed to the salon, the professional salon. At least I think it was. Eh, whatever. So I roll in and from a friends recommendation I ask for Hugo. The Chinese pick the weirdest of names. But yeah, so I get escorted to the second floor for a shampoo. There are individual wash stations surrounded by mysterious translucent curtains. Ok, ok, a sink a bed type table and a see through curtain. So I lay down and the young cute girl starts washing my hair and giving me a head massage. It was awesome. Rinse, two shampoos, tow rub downs, and I thought I was done. Nope, she comes around the table and gives me an arm and hand massage. Does it get any better than this. Well yes, she has me turn over and then proceeds to give me a back massage. Ok, now I’m done. An hour later I am finally all loosened up for my haircut. Man oh man. So I show the guy the photo that I show everyone. He glances at it and says ok. So he goes to town. 45 minutes later another shampoo and I am done. Asians are craftsman. He didn’t leave a singular hair uncut. By the time he was done, every hair was perfect. Probably the best haircut ever.Total cost, and your going to hate me, 14.70$ USD. Ah, this is life… Tomorrow is Hong Kong. Face B here I come.

Everyday I talk to Chinese people. Well, rather I chat online. I had an interesting conversation last night that I thought I would talk a little bit about. I was talking to someone I know when they said that they didn’t have to work and instead went to see the sun setting over the wall outside the city. Or something like that. Now I thought that well, they went to see the sunset. Hey, people do this. So I replied with something like, oh thats good, what color was the sunset? They didn’t understand. I began to get confused. You know the sunset, sun, setting, color, they were lost. I was lost, then it hit me. They had seen a move that the title was watching the sunset or something. Then it occurred to me. Well, it didn’t really just occur to me. My American friends and I often have this conversation. If a Chinese person has never heard the phrase that you just asked or told them. They won’t know what the hell you are talking about. It comes comes down to a way of thinking. In America, I’m guessing it’s not English related, if you make up a phrase and we have a little bit of context, we’ll get it. Here, you can’t make up anything. It’s all been said and that’s all you can say. Take for example, um, gee, the only phrase I can think of isn’t the most appropriate. Well, ok, how about the phrase “Dude, I just took a digger on my bike.” We know what that means. Well. At least I do. So, you on a bike when you took a digger, what does digger mean? Well what does dig mean, ok now a digger must be similar, oh it means that probably you where hot dogging around and the front end of the bike stopped and in a hole or something thus sending you over the bars. Ok. Chinese person. Um, you can’t dig with a bike…. See, no creativity. No outside thinking. That’s the way it is. Now of course there is slang here. Most of the younger people use it. But it’s not like American slang. You don’t compare two things or replace one with something. Don’t drop the soap or you’ll get a banana up the tail pipe. This might blow their mind. How does a car relate to bananas and dropping soap. See, they can’t wrap their mind around it.

Here is another one. You ever see a girl with a nice, we’ll say rear end. One might say, oh, looks like pigs in a blanket. Ok. So you got two pigs in a blanket rooting around. Looks like the girls rear when she walks. Get it? Not to hard to understand. To the Chinese person. Pigs don’t have blankets, nor could they be in her pants because pigs are big. See?

This relates to me messing up my Chinese typing. So each character means something, easier than English word that can mean tons of things. But get this, when I mess up the word order, it blows their minds. Or if I directly translate phrase I use in English. I want you have good day at work. Ok easy. Even if you don’t know what the phrase means you get it. If I try to say that in Chinese. No one understands. Why? There is a different phrase for saying have a good day at work. God forbid someone say it differently. So yeah. This makes Chinese harder. The lesson here. You can’t directly translate all your saying from English into Chinese. You must learn their saying. Hey, have fun. Nope. People will be like, what, I can’t have fun. It’s something you do. So you must say, play happy. 玩的开心。

Weird but whatever. So what do we English people who speak Chinese do. Well what anyone would do for fun. We translate our slang and speak it in Chinese… You can even use Chinese to make up things like you do in English. No one understands. It’s great.

So I got up this morning, at some breakfest and went back to sleep. It was great. I slept into to about noon and deceided to head out to go shopping, or looking, whatever you want to call it. I had a few places in mind that I wanted to go. The first is Walmart. No not Walmart itself but the building that Walmart is in. It contains knock offs and misc items. I hailed my taxi and told him I wanted to go to Walmart. I can say now that I finally have some confidence in speaking Chinese. I think that I could speak it awhile ago but I just and shy doing so. It’s changing. When I got there I could tell that, yeah, it’s the weekend. So many people, and then there was me.  A dude in a purple beanie. Hey, sorry, I didn’t feel like fixing my hair. What can you do. I started on the first floor peaking into Walmart. They might have some sweaters, usually not but it was worth the little time it would take. I entered the store, walked 20 feet, took a look and turned around to leave. There is one entrance to this Walmart. Think of it like a horse shoe. I entered on the left. The exit is on the right. I though I would sneak out since I hadn’t bought anything. The women stopped me and point the other way. I had to walk around the entire Walmart just to exit, are you kidding me? I said a few things that I am sure no one could understand and proceeded to do my best impression of a Nascar weaving in and out of all the baby strollers, moms, kids, people to get the hell out of there. Hold on a sec.       Ok cool, I had to go get my bowl of noodles. Ok, so where was I, um, oh yeah knocks offs. I also did some hand rail testing on the escelators and yes the hand rail does run slower.

When you go into one of these little shops there is someone on your ass right away. “You like, we have new style.” Usually in broken English. This is what I call “store English.” You try to carry on a conversation, not going to happen, you say you like something. Oh you like, very good quality. So funny. What’s even funnier is when you pretend to not understand any Chinese and they start talking about you, oh he’s cute, he’s doesn’t understand. Then you bust out the oh, you think I’m cute, you kinda cute too. That usually blows their mind. Fun stuff. There are a lot of foreigners at this place. Probably because of all the knock offs. You can find just about any watch you want, I mean any. You want that 250,000$ Porche Design, no problem, 50$ usd. So great.

Oh snap some foreign guy taking a photo of me building a manhole. S.

After meandering around there a bit I headed to a street that I’ve only been to once before. But I deciede to go and check it out again. The first time it looked like it might have some clothes that I would actually wear. I walked in and out of the stores looking for well, I don’t know. I found some things, actually pretty cool sweaters and what not. But, the sizes here run small. I need to wear a XL or XXL. Everything is a size smaller and depending on the cut, I may have to go up. Asia. What are you going to do. I also love people who walk three wide down the isle, the sidewalk, the whatever and take the entire path up stopping without notice to check out some crazy ass color panty hose. Damn it annoys me.

Pretty much every place that I went to didn’t have a big enough size or everything ran small, which now that I think about it are one in the same. I did find some that would fit, but I decieded to hold off. Not sure why, but, I did. I then explored a little bit, found a river, walked, took some photos and then walked back to the street with all clothes. I found what I think it the holy grail of neon clothing. They had neon t-shirts, hoodies, one of a kind screen prints. Totally rad. However they wanted 200 yuan for each. About 30$ us. What the h. Actually not too bad but man, that’s a lot in the states for a shirt. Dispite that, I will probably head back to get one or two. Too good to pass up. So all and all I ended up buying a couple dvds. Brand new, new releases for, um, 2.50$ us. But hey you didn’t hear that from me.

So that’s about it. A Sunday full of exploring. Here are the photographs from today.

Once you head out of the modern downtown away from “foreigner country” the city becomes much more interesting. I like it a little better actually.

Dude on bike, street sign, and trees with white on the bottom apparently for the “bugs.” At least that’s what I hear.

The path.

The river thing, man made, nonetheless. Plastic bags and all.

Oh this wasn’t from today but rather last night. Oh sweet Mary mother and Joseph this is a dipping sauce.

And the ender.. Me.

Hey..

I haven’t had chocolate milk in over six months. I’m depressed, angry, and most of all I had lost a good friend. Chocolate milk and I haven’t seen each other in sometime. Too bad really. But today, thanks to a impulse buy at the supermarket, I will now review Vitasoy’s Rich Chocolate Soyabean Drink. I was hopping to comment on the misspelling of the word soy, however the curds on me. It’s spelled correctly. Probably one of those Australian translations or something. So on with it.

Look at that packaging. Cutting edge. Kids love it, and so do I, why do you think I bought it in the first place.

Chinese. Blah blah blah contains soy and sugar, maybe some coco beans.

For those of you that were born pre-industrial revolution that silver circle is where you insert the sucking mechanism.

Sucking, slurping, drinking, and surfing the internet.

BAM, in your face with rich chocolate goodness. PaPOW..

So lets get down to the business end of this post. I am an expert when it comes to chocolate milk. I drank it everyday at my beloved Grandmothers house. Who on a side note, I talked to this morning. She’s awesome. I drank so much of it, I would spoon out the entire cup of chocolate milk, the entire thing. So if you have ever asked the question, can you drink a cup of chocolate milk with a spoon, yes you can.

Ok, so this bad boy is thicker than most, ok hold on, I must state that I am a expert in anything that is called a chocolate drink. Yes I am aware of the fact that this is really soy beans and not squirted out the milk sacs of a heffer. Ok now, it’s a little thicker than some other soy milk drinks that I have had. That scores points. I like thick chocolate milk. Almost like drinking pudding, which yes, I have done. There are times when you want to drink a light chocolate milk. Dates, business outings, etc. The color is a little on the watery milk side. Almost a dark skim milk. Not the most awesome looking thing. The initial taste is similar to regular 1-2% milk. However it quickly changes into the powdery soy milk default taste. Not bad. On another side note the straw makes a funny noise when you stop sucking and let the air rush back in. Um, it’s not that cold. The best milk is the coldest milk. Just short of an hockey rink. This didn’t seem to like get as cold as regular milk. Either A: I opened the fridge door to many times getting beers, or B: the low fat content doesn’t allow for the proper convention of lower temperatures throughout the soy chocolaty goodness.

So that’s about it. Until I think of something else to write about, oh wait I just remembered. Why do the hand rail on escalators always run slower than the steps? You always end up in a position that you would see in a Snoop Dog video. Lean back lean back. Huh, something to think about I guess.

I like airports. I like watching people, whether it is with a beer in hand or a laptop in an airport, I digg it. Watching people do their thing. I recently had to return to southern China, back home I guess. Although I really was digging the city I was in, it was time to leave. The following was typed on my phone because I couldn’t find a seat to sit down and type on the laptop.

Ok, so nothing ever works out the way it’s supposed to in china. Think of it like a river rafting adventure, you have a general heading and most if the time you can get there. Other times you totally miss your mark. I get to the airport to find out that my flight is at 5 and not 230. Luckily I had someone with me to talk to them, he argued about something and was given a piece of paper. He gave it to me and said my new flight was at 3. Ok cool I can live with that. I headed to the check in counter to do work. I get there and I am told that I am on standby. Ok not good. I’m not entirely sure how that works in China. So I waited a bit and tried a different guy. He started to stare at the computer screen. I assume that he was doing some hardcore work to get my extremely famous ass on a plane. Then it happened. The b I t c h that had told me that I was on standby had to stop what she was doing and stroll up to tell the guy some thing. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me and said, come back at 230. Wtf… Awesome. So I am waiting and typing this. The thing I don’t get is this, if I return at 230 get a seat, how the hell do I get through security, find the terminal, and board before 3, that’s assuming I get rolling asap. Dumb. Anyway they’re delaying a bunch of flights so it’s probably going to be awhile. Mostly likely till my original flight. In fact now they are delaying flights and saying that they will announce new times later. So like I said, a raft on a river.

So now some people watching, mind you this might suck I got nowhere to sit and have to type on my phone.

I think winter fashion is easier in china

A girl wants to take a photo with me. Don’t know why, but ok. Ok now it’s my turn to take yours.

Whoa she’s skinny.

Massive KFC ad. Chinese love KFC. They’re like Mickey D’s in America.

Pea coats all over.

Pink backpack

Lots of people look at me.

Oh snap Japanese style, high heels.

Yellow coat, low-rise jeans, oh.

Red dress

Not delayed yet so that is good.

Logos. Random why put a big A&F copy logo on your shirt? Looks bad.  That’s why I cant by 70 percent of Chinese clothes. No style with shitty logos.

Pretty sure that the baggage restrictions here don’t matter. Big crazy size boxes and huge junk getting checked… None of that would fly in the US.

Security is full, what a joy that is going to be.

Cute middle age women.

Sweaters are awesome; girls in sweaters are even more awesome.

Christ a ton of people just rolled into security. F… Don’t think it’s going to happen.

That was it. I didn’t have time to write anymore. The dude asked if there was anyone for the flight I needed. I understood his Chinese.. Thank god. He hooked me up and I was on my way. I ended up getting through security and to the gate before they started boarding. So all and all everything was fine. Good times.

Here are some more random photos from the last time I put some up. I take photos everyday people……

Dang, I almost started typing Chinese here.. Some night shots..

The rest is food from a much of old ladies. I am guessing it’s about as Chinese as you going to get.