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[senor boogie woogie]

Hola!

This is the Senor in China. This has been a weird weekend. I want to ask several questions that maybe other China vets can enlighten me on.....

Two driving questions,

First, why do Chinese drivers in the far left lane on a highway have their left turn signals on? They do this intentionally. Why do they do this?

The signs on the highway that go 0KM 50KM 100KM 200KM that flash by like a Burma Shave sign. What is the purpose in these signs except to educate people on distances and the metric system?

A beggar question, I was in my wife's hometown and the beggars were out in force. They see me from a distance, and sometimes I have to run to get away from them. Now I see a new style of beggar, mainly young male students wearing their school uniforms kneeling in front of a large message. They are some coins on the message. The boy always has his head down like he is guilty of a capital crime. He never talks. Is he begging for school money?

I see a dirty man with four fairly large circus type monkeys. He was really an entertainment beggar. I want to know, where does he get the monkies? I doubt there is a wild circus monkey jungle in Zhejiang Province. So, if the monkies were imported, how does the man afford them?

My lovely wife went into the hospital for some elective surgery.She is good! She is sleeping in a room with three other ladies when a nurse sets a small burning dish on the floor. The smell is supposed to chase away bugs. What the interesting was that the repellant smelled exactly like marijuana! The whole freakin' hospital smelled like a Phish concert. Why in the hell don't chinese invest in screened windows and doors instead of my recovering wife inhaling Bob Marley's cigar?

One last query, how come Chinese do not have CLOTHES DRYERS??? Koreans do not use them either, WHY?

Merely an observer of Chinese life.....

SENOR

[gerard]

Senor--I am NOT an old China hand but I can comment on 2 of your questions. The school boys I have seen while out in town with my students. They say it is a scam------that if these kids want to go to school they could. Maybe my students are brainwashed but I will take their word for it. I was going to toss these boys a couple of bucks but my students physically stopped me. They say in the PRC all have the right to an education so who am I to argue??? As for dryers it is so freaking hot in Asia most of the time who the hell needs a dryer. Not to mention it would take up valuable space in small apartments---I am tripping over stuff now---like who needs a microwave anyway??? All I use it for is to heat up tea. Waste of space. Even in winter the clothes dry fast enough. Is it like you sleeep in and want a shirt washed and dried before you drink a coffee???

[MyTurnNow]

1. Drivers. Why do they drive wih turn signals? Same reason they pull the parking brake 20 times a minute for a 3-second stop: they are morons. I don't know what it is, but being in the driver's seat of a car seems to reduce the IQ even of very bright people here to approximately that of kelp. Don't ask why....TIFC. Personally, I file both of these within a very fat and rapidly-growing folder labelled "Unclear On The Concept".

2. Schoolboy beggars. Are they begging for school money? Who cares? Don't give them anything.

3. Monkey beggars. Monkeys are not from Zhejiang and not from abroad. They are probably from deep southern China, which has zillions of monkeys. Almost definitely poached from the wild and almost definitely mistreated very cruelly by the "beggars". Don't give them anything, either.

4. "Herbal" bug repellents. 1, screens and stuff cost a lot of money while herbs are very cheap. 2, as we all know, Chinese medicine is the absolute best cure for all of the ills of the world and nothing could be better. Right? Sure. Relax, put on a Jimi Hendrix CD, load up on Oreos, and enjoy, man.

5. Clothes dryers- why don't they use them in China? Oh, you silly laowai. Why pay good money on machines and energy to do something that the air does for free? Sure, south of the Yangzi the process can take weeks, and the underwear streaming in the breeze is oh, so attractive. And sure, you always look like you've spent the night drinking baijiu and sleeping restlessly in a crowded bus seat in the mountains of Guizhou-but again, TIFC. Who's gonna notice?

Regards,
MT

[MyTurnNow]

True, everyone in China has the _right_ to a basic education- it's mandatory through Year 9. But _not_ everyone in China has the money to pay the tuition...there are genuinely families here that really can't send their child to school, especially families in rural areas. I can't tell you how shocked I was to learn that tuition money was required to send kids to public schools here in this Socialist Paradise.
Still shouldn't give money to those schoolboy beggars, though. The money you give them will go for such vital educational supplies as sports shoes, Backstreet Boys CDs, and computer games.

[MyTurnNow]

What's being widely missed is that a lot of the beggars you see are farmed out by pimps (??? OK, what would _you_ call them?) who drive vanfuls of them around and plant them in likely areas. The pittance they get is taken away in exchange for a bowl of rice gruel and a filthy cot to sleep on.
And some of the other "beggars" make better money than we do...

Although the "Monkey Spankers" are pretty bad (I've seen them beat the monkeys pretty brutally) IMHO the worst of the lot are the ones who force children into it. Some are parents but many are the "pimps"- these kids are farmed in from poor rural areas. Hell has a very, very special place pre-heating for these monsters even as we speak.
MT

[Roger]

Beggar brigades in Shenzhen in the late 1990's... In May, 1997, they all disappeared! So did the flower girls (Hunanese kids aged 8 to 12 that stopped you in your tracks, suddenly knelt down and clung with their arms around your legs to you, begging you to buy their flowers when an old matron was quietly watching the scene from the nearest house entrance), as did those older girls that accosted mature men "yau bu yau xiaojie?"
ThenHK was handed back to the Peking mandarins, and two months after, beggars and street chickens were back in full force.
Some of the girls are now working in Macau and in Hong Kong!
Some of the kids turn up in Hong Kong too, stealing for a living.

[Seth]

Few beggars in Luoyang, as I think everyone here is used to being dirt poor, anyway. Xi'an has quite a few, but they're usually the diseased leper type, so I do give them some change when I can. I've seen people starving in the streets there. In Guangzhou I was accosted at every corner by the flower children, it got a bit bothersome after a while. Once I was with a couple of Nigerians and what I thought was his Chinese girlfriend. I gave in and bought one of the flowers and not knowing what to do with it, I have it to the guys girlfriend. She seemed oddly touched. Later I found out that she was a prostitute. But prostitutes are people, too. I hope I made her day in an otherwise sad and abusive life.

Monkeys aren't hard to find in China, there are quite a few still wild here in Henan. But if you ever see an animal or pet market...the images will haunt you for days.

[Roger]

Here is a tentative list of recurrent phenomena that tell you: I AM IN CHINA:

Where in the world but in China...

a) Lifestyle, leisure
- ...do people refrain from eating food that has accidentally dropped beside their bowl or plate? Oh yes, the starched white tablecloth could harbour germs... but did the cook rinse the vegetables thoroughly enough, and wash his hands after a visit to the loo???

- ...do women dressed in white eat sunflower seeds and chat animatedly, then, upon a gesture from a lonely figure with a mobile phone in his hand, they break into loud sobs and howling? O yes, they are the hirelings that the survivors of a deceased rented to attend the funeral rites of their beloved one!

- ...do guests invited to a wedding have to present the bridegroom with red envelopes containing a decent amount of money? Yes, in Hong Kong and in parts of Guangdong, you have to pay to be an honorary guest at a wedding, and they tell you how much you should contribute!

- ...do people mop floors all the time, and sweep the rubbish into dark corners and under furniture, while others step with their dirty shoes on the still-wet floor??


- ...do grocery shops put vinegar, wine, beer, soft drinks, liquid detergents on the same shelves and racks? As well as sugar, salt and washing powder in another shelf... Because the Chinese names are all prefixed with the same classifier...
Don't worry... every three months the shop will move shelves, racks and goods to totally different locations, causing more confusion to its veteran customers...

- ...can you buy an ice-cream whose package says "coffe & vanilla flavers", and when you unpack it, you will find vanilla and - strawberry?

- ...does a shopkeeper insist that that EPSON ink cartridge you are holding in your hand - identical package although slightly darker than the last one you bought in Hong Kong - is "from Korea", and thus "a little cheaper" than a Japanese original? It may be 15 kuai cheaper, but still cost 95 RMB.
And it will last for a grand total of 5 A 4 size pages of printing!

- ...can you find "Imported wine from French", under which you will read "vin rough"?

- ...do people press the "Open Door" button when the lift begins slowing down, and press the "Close Door" button when they have entered it the first, thus closing the lift in the face of the others in the lift lobby?

- ...do visitors to a scenic spot, a park or a museum (having forked out 50 kuai in admission fee) have to run the gauntlet of crazy stallholders of a trinket bazaar or through the maze of a supermarket?

- ...do construction workers finish the tops of high-rises and work their way down from floor to floor, until the funds of the developer runs out - at the 4th floor above ground?

b) Travel and traffic
- ...do you have to pay a "insurance surcharge" on top of your long-distance bus ticket? And when the bus actually crashes into an oncoming lorry, you are asked to return to the city where your journey began, to claim indemnity!

- ...do drivers turn on aircons, and passengers open windows wide?

- ...do buses and lorries coast down any steep road?

- ...do steep descents have a "no ride bike" sign? Oh yes, Flying Pigeons are still made much like the first models a hundred years earlier - without brakes!
But you do see motor scooters negotiating the bicycle ramps on pedestrian bridges!

- ...did a friendly conductor refuse to take my money for a paper ticket? In Shenzhen, every time I took his bus, until one day, a ticket inspection took place!
Then another phenomenon kicked in: The ticket inspector ignored the only laowai on board the bus, possibly thinking it would be too embarrassing for him to fine me for travelling without a valid ticket!

- ...do buses change routes unexpectedly? Your Chinese fellow-passengers may not notice and you ask the driver. He will say, "meiyou shiyou...", and stop at the nearest gas station to refuel...


- ...did a bus get stuck in a traffic jam for half an hour, then, when it arrived at a toll-station 300 meters from its final destination its engine died - "meiyou shiyou!"
One of the passengers even had the nerve to demand a minibus to pick us up. Had it come we would probably all have arrived another half an hour later!

- ...do standing passengers have to duck below the window frames? Every time, an overloaded bus in Guangdong passes a checkpoint or a police car!

- ...do cars and motor cycles negotiate those now-ubiquitous roundabouts in clockwise direction? And not even swerve aside in the face of oncoming traffic...

- ...do locals exclaim: "To see a 2500 year-old house where Confucius was born foreigners travel to Qufu...They must be CRAZY..."

[MyTurnNow]

Roger hit on a lot of good ones.

This place abounds in amusing misspellings, misusages, and general weirdness. But it's home. ;-{)

Roger's wine reference brought up a couple...
My first New Year's Eve here found me drinking "Red Spanking Wine" as a champagne substitute. Not far off-tasted like very strong cherry Kool-Aid with a shot of grain alcohol lurking in it.

This was my favorite until....my teaching staff and I discovered the joy of Multi-*beep* Liquor, available in fancy boxes at the local Beatrice convenience stores. Great stuff unless you actually drink it...it's solvent-grade baijiu suffused with the penile essences of...no, not one, but SEVERAL presumably formerly rather studly animals.
It's labelled in English and makes a thoughtful little gift for the folks back home.

MT

[MyTurnNow]

*Beep*it!
Dave's software edited out the word *beep* in my above message. The bit suffused into the bad baijiu is a fleshy cylinder to which all men are greatly attached both physically and emotionally, and which is notorious for its downright rascally but definitely pleasurable behavior patterns. It's often known as "John Thomas", "Peter", "Wally", or "My Red-Headed Friend". Male creatures use it both to ease nature and to help create new nature. So think of it as "Multi-Wally Liquor".
MT

[Stitch]

When its at night, and there's a car approaching you, why does the approaching car first turn off its light, then right when it is like 10 m in front of you, flash their brights so you are completely blinded? I never understood the logic in this.

[Edward]

wild circus monkey jungle
wild circus monkey jungle
wild circus monkey jungle

That had me laughing straight for at least 5 minutes; I am have tears in my eyes. And of course Roger's GREAT insights...

"...do people refrain from eating food that has accidentally dropped beside their bowl or plate? Oh yes, the starched white tablecloth could harbour germs... but did the cook rinse the vegetables thoroughly enough, and wash his hands after a visit to the loo??? ..."

OMG Roger, you could not have said it any better!

I will add one I guess, although most of you robbed me of my best fire!

Men standing around in business suits with their pants legs rolled up, and their bellies hanging out, because they have also rolled up their dress shirts [with ties on!] to cool off! And all for total public scrutiny, because I usually see it somewhere near the entrance to a plush hotel, bank, or shopping area...

Bravo all

Edward

[Jed]

Motorbike mechanics wearing suits still amaze me

[Paul G]

A few years ago, on a bitterly cold winter day in Beijing, my wife decides that her car, which she is trying to sell, will sell faster if the engine is clean. So, she takes the car to the car wash and tells them to pressure wash the engine.

I try to explain to her that washing the engine is not really a good idea because the ignition system could get wet and not work, but what do I know.

A short while later we are stuck on the side of the third ring road, traffic speeding by within inches of her car, and I'm freezing my butt off. The car won't run because the electronic ignition is ruined by water.

We were there for only about five minutes when a guy drives up on a small motorcycle. Strapped behind him on the seat is a box about the size of a shoe box. My wife explains the problem to him and replies that he can fix the car because he is a mechanic and he just happens to have the exact part we need in the box on his seat, as well as the tools to fix the car.

At this point I am thinking that I am witness to a minor miracle in progress. However, when the guy says that he wants 200RMB to replace the part, my wife thinks that is too much and calls a garage to find out what they would charge. Our would be savior waits patiently as she makes the call. When my wife discovers that the garage would charge 140RMB for the repair, she starts haggling with the guy about his price, apparantly oblivious to the fact that we would somehow have to get the car to the garage on the other side of town for her to save the 60RMB that she is so concerned about. She was about to send the guy on his way when I intervened and said that I would pay for the repair regardless of the cost.

For months after that my wife frequently reminded me how foolish I was to pay so much for the repair. She often told the story to her family and friends and they all agreed that I was, indeed, quite gullible.

Only in China would so many people think it foolish to spend an extra $7 to get out of a jam......and only in China would they completely overlook the sheer stupidity of having the engine washed in the first place.

[Roger]

Hilarious, Paul! An extra brush to the painting of your wife as we know her... When it is her own money US $ 7 matter a lot. When it is US $ 300'000 from someone into her own pocket then she can p;ut up a real fight!
There is a proverb in German, roughly translated as follows:
"Only recalcitrant donkeys don't budge! The more clever ones surrender..."
But with Chinese, it seems it works the other way (sometimes).