“So what keeps you in China?” asked M, a 20something American (Erie, Pennsylvania) coworker, university certified Sinophile (and unlike me who after 5 years still can’t count reliably to 10) who is also wicked fluent in Chinese spoken and written.
I hadn’t been complaining, He was just curious. It was about 2am in a cut-rate drinks bar called Smuggler’s in Sanlitun, a largely expat, though not exclusively so, shopping, eats and adult beverages area in Beijing.
“Hmmm,” I mused, “Employment in a business that’s going down the tubes in the US. US creditors. The IRS. My Shenzhen girlfriend til she … never-mind-don’t-wanna-talk-about-it and…uh, knowing all sorts of cool, and sometimes off the rails mad batshit foreigners and Chinese. And nights like tonight. Better than movies.”
Smuggler’s is barebones with large wooden tables, benches, garage sale chairs and frequently reeking, vomit stained clogged toilets in the men’s room. It’s got a loose British theme, decorated as it is with large reproduction posters of random UK sporting events – “Football match, Swinesbury Tottenspur v Earl on Higglesbottom at Lord Marlsborough IV Greenswiddle Pitch, Shepherd’s Bush” – circa 1930something, old London subway maps, and the odd art school student painting of someone who might be either Keith Richards or just a mental patient’s self portrait.
Late weekend nights it’s often packed with a healthy mix of mostly Euro-trash and yup-scale Chinese, and that night had been especially fruitful for “chaos- and hilarity-ensued” alcohol-fueled incidents.
There were four tables in our area amd the fun began at one kitty-corner and comfortably out of bottle swinging range where eight burly male Chinese (non-orthodox) Muslims were celebrating a birthday party with many, many beers.
All seemed jovial, according to my friend who was randomly translating their loud, occasionally ribald male bonding jokes until seemingly out of nowhere one guy grabbed an empty Tsingtao bottle by the neck, swung it across the table and hammered it firmly into the chrome dome of another celebrant.
Yes, there was blood. A lot of it. And though the bottle didn’t break, some beer glasses fell and shattered on the scuffed, muddy floor as the partygoers began trying to wildly restrain the assailant while others began pressing napkins to the stunned victim’s forehead in a largely vain attempt to stop the blood spouting into the spilled beer and broken glass on the floor.
“Eww, nice one,” I commented as we watched the scrawny small Smuggler’s waiters (no bouncers, they) struggle to maintain order as the injured guy began slurring that he didn’t need to go to a hospital for what appeared to be an at least 25+ stitches gash.
We never figured out what sparked the sudden assault and no cops arrived as half the birthday celebrants began hustling the bottle swinger out, followed by another group propping up and pulling his staggering victim behind him.
Waiters began mopping and sweeping within five minutes it was as if nothing had transpired.
Twenty or 30 minutes later, two stylishly dressed and groomed men, one late 20s German and the other perhaps mid30s North American sat at the table next to us, locked eyes passionately and began talking excitedly in English, fingers fluttering just on the edge of bitch slapping. It was like tense foreplay, hard to tell if they wanted to suddenly kiss wildly, beat the bejeebus outta each other, or both.
“Kinky stuff,” my pal observed drolly. An Outkast tune on the sound system was cranked too loud to hear what they were discussing until the North American rose to shove and topple his Germanic Boytoy back-on-floor, ass-up in his chair.
Boytoy upped himself slowly, slipped briefly on his spilled beer, righted himself and confronted his swain with “I vill hit you hard!” before shoving back. A shove and half-assed punching match began between cries of “I love you! I hate you! You are my leader! I respect you but I vill hit you very hard!”
Damn, I thought. Where’s an HBO series scouting crew when we need one? Their table tipped over, chairs too, more broken beer glasses until I finally went to another room full of glottal drunken Euro accents and collared a Chinese waiter to come establish order.
He wasn’t too successful as the amateur Passion Play Lite kept playing. “I never said that!” “Oh yah, you did!”
Finally I roared in my best Colorado barroom bellow: “Take it outside!”
They did, but not before Boytoy rose on his toes to yell at his retreating partner: “You are, you are … (pause, draw breath to propel heatseeking Mach 12 in-your-face, whop-ass missile insult) SO STUPID! VERY STUPID!”
“You know,” I told M as we rehashed the havoc. “If I was back in Boulder at this hour, I’d probably either be bored in a Denny’s or asleep worrying about paying the cable bill. This is live, international and it’s free.”
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Broken English
One of the joys of turning Chinglish into English as a "foreign native English speaking polisher expert" are the times when the material's garble mystically morphs into prose that could be passed off as quasi-Bob Dylan or James Joyce genius.
More often its just a soundalike vocabulary or grammar slip as in a story about a ferryboat "collusion" rather than collision Or "From a distance the village looks like a piece of silver as many stoned houses makes the village look shining far away." The writer meant "stone houses," of course.
"Cold and worm dishes offer various specialties." Although, yeah, worm vs warm may not be such a stretch given the stereotype of (particularly southern Chinese) eating everything but the table legs at a banquet). Or "The colorful cultures of ethnic groups also add lust to the city." I think the writer mean "luster." Or maybe not.
And there are the times when the writer reaches for her or his trusty Chinese-English dictionary that was last updated in the 1970s by Russian editors. Overwriting is common as in this description of a charity fund raiser, not an orgy. "The evening was characterized by vibrant atmosphere ventilating godlike excitement as guests enjoy the coming together of friends."
Some may be awkwardly phrased but, yeah, you get the point. "Some netizens hold a similar understanding that 'Happiness is the feeling a cat gets when it is eating a fish; it is the feeling a dog has when it is enjoying meat, and it is the thing Ultraman feels when beating monsters!'"
And this from a description of an "ethnic minority" dance that could pass as square dance calling with a little tweaking. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—crash your neighbor's crotch and then going on to the music: one two three four five six seven.
"The more hard a guest of Primi minority was crashed on his crotch, the more warm welcome he received in our village. Three Primi young people dancing with their five Yi ethnic counterparts in the last program Dance of Crotch Crashing for the special performances of Guarding the Forest.
Outdated or terms so obscure that I can't tell if they are real or not often pop up as in "Venezuela has been declared territory free of analphabetism." I looked up analphabetism and found, no it has nothing to do with unusual sexual practices but is a real word that means illiteracy. How analphatbetic did I feel then?
A colleague of mine, James Palmer and I were discussing this recently and he came up with the "Is it James Joyce or Chinglish?" test Here's a sample Pick Joyce or Chinglish for each selection. No Googling allowed.
A.The creating cabin called as time tunnel. B. He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. C. He is easily taken apart from his hometown fellows when he makes some utterance. D. Wonder what kind is swanmeat.
A and C are Chinglish. B and D are Joyce.
In that spirit I offer the Dylan (who will bestow Beijing with his Bobness on April 4, thank you jeebus!) or Chinglish? quiz.
A. With 100 eyes of 100 Hamlets, the mountain crawls under the paintbrush of 100 artists. B. His hindbrain hit by electricity as he orders four treasures. C. The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face. D. With his businesslike anger and his bloodhounds that kneel,if he needs a third eye he just grows it.
A and B are Chinglish. C and D are Zimmerman.
Them sometimes it becomes near-poetry, or perhaps inspiration for a children's book. "Now the Changsha Zoo is selling tiger's whispers which raises citizens' curiosity. Some Chinese characters written with chalk on a blackboard in the zoo says, “There are some tiger’s whispers for sale, and specially for drivers and children.”
He meant "tiger whiskers" but I think tiger whispers is much better, 'specially for drivers and children. I'll take two boxes, please.
More often its just a soundalike vocabulary or grammar slip as in a story about a ferryboat "collusion" rather than collision Or "From a distance the village looks like a piece of silver as many stoned houses makes the village look shining far away." The writer meant "stone houses," of course.
"Cold and worm dishes offer various specialties." Although, yeah, worm vs warm may not be such a stretch given the stereotype of (particularly southern Chinese) eating everything but the table legs at a banquet). Or "The colorful cultures of ethnic groups also add lust to the city." I think the writer mean "luster." Or maybe not.
And there are the times when the writer reaches for her or his trusty Chinese-English dictionary that was last updated in the 1970s by Russian editors. Overwriting is common as in this description of a charity fund raiser, not an orgy. "The evening was characterized by vibrant atmosphere ventilating godlike excitement as guests enjoy the coming together of friends."
Some may be awkwardly phrased but, yeah, you get the point. "Some netizens hold a similar understanding that 'Happiness is the feeling a cat gets when it is eating a fish; it is the feeling a dog has when it is enjoying meat, and it is the thing Ultraman feels when beating monsters!'"
And this from a description of an "ethnic minority" dance that could pass as square dance calling with a little tweaking. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—crash your neighbor's crotch and then going on to the music: one two three four five six seven.
"The more hard a guest of Primi minority was crashed on his crotch, the more warm welcome he received in our village. Three Primi young people dancing with their five Yi ethnic counterparts in the last program Dance of Crotch Crashing for the special performances of Guarding the Forest.
Outdated or terms so obscure that I can't tell if they are real or not often pop up as in "Venezuela has been declared territory free of analphabetism." I looked up analphabetism and found, no it has nothing to do with unusual sexual practices but is a real word that means illiteracy. How analphatbetic did I feel then?
A colleague of mine, James Palmer and I were discussing this recently and he came up with the "Is it James Joyce or Chinglish?" test Here's a sample Pick Joyce or Chinglish for each selection. No Googling allowed.
A.The creating cabin called as time tunnel. B. He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. C. He is easily taken apart from his hometown fellows when he makes some utterance. D. Wonder what kind is swanmeat.
A and C are Chinglish. B and D are Joyce.
In that spirit I offer the Dylan (who will bestow Beijing with his Bobness on April 4, thank you jeebus!) or Chinglish? quiz.
A. With 100 eyes of 100 Hamlets, the mountain crawls under the paintbrush of 100 artists. B. His hindbrain hit by electricity as he orders four treasures. C. The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face. D. With his businesslike anger and his bloodhounds that kneel,if he needs a third eye he just grows it.
A and B are Chinglish. C and D are Zimmerman.
Them sometimes it becomes near-poetry, or perhaps inspiration for a children's book. "Now the Changsha Zoo is selling tiger's whispers which raises citizens' curiosity. Some Chinese characters written with chalk on a blackboard in the zoo says, “There are some tiger’s whispers for sale, and specially for drivers and children.”
He meant "tiger whiskers" but I think tiger whispers is much better, 'specially for drivers and children. I'll take two boxes, please.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Nothing Changes on New Year's Day
Worst New Year Eves ever – two in China.
1.Camp Casey, Tongduchon, South Korea, 1975. Pull frozen lonely guard duty at a 2nd Army Division ammo dump where I ring in the New Year politely defending “Freedoms Frontier” from a wizened mama-sans offer of “No 1 girl give you No 1 sucky-sucky good time.”
Resolution: Report for sick call and fake flu when assigned to guard duty on a holiday.
2.Louisville and Englewood, Colorado, 1989 Big fight about nothing in particular with soon to be ex. Displaying what can only be described as “remarkably poor judgment” I impulsively seek comfort by ingesting a dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms after domestic dispute and before we go to a party hosted by a couple I dont much care for. Spend evening ignoring wretched spouse, watching people’s faces melt and viewing MTVs Aerosmiths Rockin’ New Year with hosts’ 13-year-old son who periodically appears to catch fire.
Resolution: Get divorced before New Year. Restrict mushroom use to non-hallucinogenic salads and Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup.
3.Shenzhen, China, 2005. At 8:30 pm C impulsively decides we aren't going to a posh hotel overnight party affair for which Id already booked reservations and paid a deposit. She cites no particular reason, except “I don't have anything to wear,” switches on a Chinese TV soap opera and pouts in icy silence. I walk out without speaking and take a bus back to Hong Kong where the New Year arrives in a Wanchai bar amid forced revelry and Thai and Filipina hookers. At some point I drunkenly hit on a “lady boy,” realize my mistake and wake up guilt-ridden, depressed and alone.
Resolution: Buy C a new dress or prepare to scrutinize gorgeous flirtatious women carefully for Adams apple and stubble.
4.Beijing, China, 2010. At 1:38 am following a pleasant party sponsored by my employer at a cutting edge nightclub, my companion and I are preparing for bed at her place. My cell phone beeps with a text message alert. I open it and read New Year terms of extreme endearment from another woman of whom my gracious hostess was unaware until she “accidentally” looked over my shoulder and “accidentally” read the message. Emotional chaos and ill feelings ensue. Nobody's fault but mine. Resolution: Honesty is the best policy, especially when it comes to romance.
1.Camp Casey, Tongduchon, South Korea, 1975. Pull frozen lonely guard duty at a 2nd Army Division ammo dump where I ring in the New Year politely defending “Freedoms Frontier” from a wizened mama-sans offer of “No 1 girl give you No 1 sucky-sucky good time.”
Resolution: Report for sick call and fake flu when assigned to guard duty on a holiday.
2.Louisville and Englewood, Colorado, 1989 Big fight about nothing in particular with soon to be ex. Displaying what can only be described as “remarkably poor judgment” I impulsively seek comfort by ingesting a dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms after domestic dispute and before we go to a party hosted by a couple I dont much care for. Spend evening ignoring wretched spouse, watching people’s faces melt and viewing MTVs Aerosmiths Rockin’ New Year with hosts’ 13-year-old son who periodically appears to catch fire.
Resolution: Get divorced before New Year. Restrict mushroom use to non-hallucinogenic salads and Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup.
3.Shenzhen, China, 2005. At 8:30 pm C impulsively decides we aren't going to a posh hotel overnight party affair for which Id already booked reservations and paid a deposit. She cites no particular reason, except “I don't have anything to wear,” switches on a Chinese TV soap opera and pouts in icy silence. I walk out without speaking and take a bus back to Hong Kong where the New Year arrives in a Wanchai bar amid forced revelry and Thai and Filipina hookers. At some point I drunkenly hit on a “lady boy,” realize my mistake and wake up guilt-ridden, depressed and alone.
Resolution: Buy C a new dress or prepare to scrutinize gorgeous flirtatious women carefully for Adams apple and stubble.
4.Beijing, China, 2010. At 1:38 am following a pleasant party sponsored by my employer at a cutting edge nightclub, my companion and I are preparing for bed at her place. My cell phone beeps with a text message alert. I open it and read New Year terms of extreme endearment from another woman of whom my gracious hostess was unaware until she “accidentally” looked over my shoulder and “accidentally” read the message. Emotional chaos and ill feelings ensue. Nobody's fault but mine. Resolution: Honesty is the best policy, especially when it comes to romance.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Away in a stranger (land)
While the novelty of Christmas in China has pretty much lost its sheen – the sight of Beijing noodle store clerks in red and white elf and Santa hats no longer bemuses me – I gotta say there are some moments.
An outdoor bike repairman who fixes tires and adjusts gears and cables near my apartment in the coldest weather recently strung some scrounged silver and gold tinsel around his portable worn wooden work table. A nice touch and if I had a bike I’d mess it up just a little just so he could fix it.
There was also a 10 or 11-year-old Chinese boy skateboarding slowly in my apartment lobby while sawing away on a wincingly bad version of Jingle Bells on his violin as his father shot video for gawd knows what purpose. If he'd been a dog it would have been excellent for one of David Letterman's old Stupid Pet Tricks. Nonetheless, I watched for about 10 minutes and left happier than when I'd arrived.
Another are my newspaper’s plans for a holiday party, to which only three foreign staffers that I know of have been formally invited (as in told specifically where and what time it will be.)
I am not one of them and I not miffed. I know we are welcome but I've long since learned Chinese protocol when it comes to foreign employees frequently simply does not include niceties such as clear invitations that give us time to plan. It simply never occurs to them just has it never occurred to me that spitting on a public bus is perfectly normal and hygenic behavior. We're just supposed to suck the info up via telepathy or osmosis and then jump at the last minute.
But most of us won’t be jumping anywhere except to our own makeshift expat gatherings or on a flight back home as the party is being held after sundown on Christmas Day at a far distant hotel and – due to skinflint budgetary concerns – will be lacking booze and food, though I’ve heard rumors of “free fruit.”
Mmmm, mmmm. “Hand Santa baby another brown apple, a wrinkled saggy Mandarin orange and a couple of those gratis grapes, won’tcha my little Sino-elf?”
“Who holds a Christmas party on Christmas Day?” asked one American rhetorically. Indeed. But it's not just any Christmas party. Dozens of Chinese employees have been roped into learning traditional Sino song and dance routines (none having to do with the holiday, which isn't officially recognized, of course) – many on their days off with no overtime – in order to bring cheer and reflected glory to their benevolent leaders.
“I did not go to university to dance like someone in the North Korean mass games,” remarked one slightly cynical reporter. “But I need this job.”
She had just emerged from a large conference room as deadline loomed where instead of working on the next day’s stories, she and three other reporters had been frantically rehearsing steps, dips, sways and bows as an instructor hired for the occasion clapped and counted “one, two, three, four … again!” in Chinese.
The irony of a newsroom on deadline being used for choreography purposes for a foreign holiday in an atmosphere where the staff is frequently harangued to “work harder, work longer!” wasn't completely lost on her.
“Dance longer! Dance harder! And make deadline too!” I replied. “Merry Christmas!”
An outdoor bike repairman who fixes tires and adjusts gears and cables near my apartment in the coldest weather recently strung some scrounged silver and gold tinsel around his portable worn wooden work table. A nice touch and if I had a bike I’d mess it up just a little just so he could fix it.
There was also a 10 or 11-year-old Chinese boy skateboarding slowly in my apartment lobby while sawing away on a wincingly bad version of Jingle Bells on his violin as his father shot video for gawd knows what purpose. If he'd been a dog it would have been excellent for one of David Letterman's old Stupid Pet Tricks. Nonetheless, I watched for about 10 minutes and left happier than when I'd arrived.
Another are my newspaper’s plans for a holiday party, to which only three foreign staffers that I know of have been formally invited (as in told specifically where and what time it will be.)
I am not one of them and I not miffed. I know we are welcome but I've long since learned Chinese protocol when it comes to foreign employees frequently simply does not include niceties such as clear invitations that give us time to plan. It simply never occurs to them just has it never occurred to me that spitting on a public bus is perfectly normal and hygenic behavior. We're just supposed to suck the info up via telepathy or osmosis and then jump at the last minute.
But most of us won’t be jumping anywhere except to our own makeshift expat gatherings or on a flight back home as the party is being held after sundown on Christmas Day at a far distant hotel and – due to skinflint budgetary concerns – will be lacking booze and food, though I’ve heard rumors of “free fruit.”
Mmmm, mmmm. “Hand Santa baby another brown apple, a wrinkled saggy Mandarin orange and a couple of those gratis grapes, won’tcha my little Sino-elf?”
“Who holds a Christmas party on Christmas Day?” asked one American rhetorically. Indeed. But it's not just any Christmas party. Dozens of Chinese employees have been roped into learning traditional Sino song and dance routines (none having to do with the holiday, which isn't officially recognized, of course) – many on their days off with no overtime – in order to bring cheer and reflected glory to their benevolent leaders.
“I did not go to university to dance like someone in the North Korean mass games,” remarked one slightly cynical reporter. “But I need this job.”
She had just emerged from a large conference room as deadline loomed where instead of working on the next day’s stories, she and three other reporters had been frantically rehearsing steps, dips, sways and bows as an instructor hired for the occasion clapped and counted “one, two, three, four … again!” in Chinese.
The irony of a newsroom on deadline being used for choreography purposes for a foreign holiday in an atmosphere where the staff is frequently harangued to “work harder, work longer!” wasn't completely lost on her.
“Dance longer! Dance harder! And make deadline too!” I replied. “Merry Christmas!”
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Riding with the King
"Doing Burger King for lunch, join us?" read the text message from a US pal Jeff last Saturday. A frisson of excitement - almost erotic - ran through me as I read it.
Unlike ubiquitous McDonald's and KFC, BK has yet to really crack the Chinese market. There are only two in Beijing - one in the airport and another in the Xidan area of Beijing, an hellishly packed shopping mall zone the size of Lichtenstein that in my mind is sort of like those 14th century maps that showed unmapped regions containing sea monsters, dragons and cyclops reading: "Here be dragons."
My mental Beijing map that includes Xidan says the same and shows demon eyed Chinese shopping 'bot zombies crushing anyone and anything underfoot for space and bargains at a Levis outlet as multiple PA systems compete at 170 decibels in the aural equivalent of water boarding.
So I have avoided Xidan and others like it since coming to Beijing, unlike Shenzhen where C - for whom these mall plague zones are like oxygen - would often lure me under false pretenses that I'd rather not admit to buying into at this point. But the thought of a real Whopper and BK onion rings seemed irresistible. Hell, I'm told some expats here used to make pilgrimages - a fast food Haj - to Beijing International Airport spending more on taxi fares than the meals to indulge themselves in fatty greasy Flame Broiled Goodness.
Done, sealed, delivered see you there,I told Jeff. I was one my way to the Promised Land after, what? maybe three years since I'd last snarfed a Whopper Jr for the equivalent of about $112 at the Hong Kong Airport. Outside Xidan craning up at the multiple malls, I looked in vain for what Jeff had told me was the "Joy Center" complex while disco versions of Christmas carols cranked like hell's own anthems and I tried to squeeze into as small a space as possible for an overweight guy in three layers of winter clothing in order to avoid the shopper tsunami.
Jeff finally located me on a pedestrian bridge where he said later, "it looked like you wanted to jump." Close, yes. But the King called.
Inside on the third floor Jeff yelped, almost trembling: "No line!" His Chinese girlfriend rolled her eyes and patiently explained to me, "Last time we were here the line was out to here..." pointing toward a vista that went from BK to electronic equipment, luggage, sportswear, weird stuff no one really buys and eventually where dragons be.
Order made, settled in and inhaling the Whopper (or huangbao "Emperor Burger" as it's translated here) and rings suddenly I felt at peace with it all. The grease felt oh so right at the moment. It was almost with regret that I wiped it off my mouth and cadged another onion ring from Jeff.
Unlike ubiquitous McDonald's and KFC, BK has yet to really crack the Chinese market. There are only two in Beijing - one in the airport and another in the Xidan area of Beijing, an hellishly packed shopping mall zone the size of Lichtenstein that in my mind is sort of like those 14th century maps that showed unmapped regions containing sea monsters, dragons and cyclops reading: "Here be dragons."
My mental Beijing map that includes Xidan says the same and shows demon eyed Chinese shopping 'bot zombies crushing anyone and anything underfoot for space and bargains at a Levis outlet as multiple PA systems compete at 170 decibels in the aural equivalent of water boarding.
So I have avoided Xidan and others like it since coming to Beijing, unlike Shenzhen where C - for whom these mall plague zones are like oxygen - would often lure me under false pretenses that I'd rather not admit to buying into at this point. But the thought of a real Whopper and BK onion rings seemed irresistible. Hell, I'm told some expats here used to make pilgrimages - a fast food Haj - to Beijing International Airport spending more on taxi fares than the meals to indulge themselves in fatty greasy Flame Broiled Goodness.
Done, sealed, delivered see you there,I told Jeff. I was one my way to the Promised Land after, what? maybe three years since I'd last snarfed a Whopper Jr for the equivalent of about $112 at the Hong Kong Airport. Outside Xidan craning up at the multiple malls, I looked in vain for what Jeff had told me was the "Joy Center" complex while disco versions of Christmas carols cranked like hell's own anthems and I tried to squeeze into as small a space as possible for an overweight guy in three layers of winter clothing in order to avoid the shopper tsunami.
Jeff finally located me on a pedestrian bridge where he said later, "it looked like you wanted to jump." Close, yes. But the King called.
Inside on the third floor Jeff yelped, almost trembling: "No line!" His Chinese girlfriend rolled her eyes and patiently explained to me, "Last time we were here the line was out to here..." pointing toward a vista that went from BK to electronic equipment, luggage, sportswear, weird stuff no one really buys and eventually where dragons be.
Order made, settled in and inhaling the Whopper (or huangbao "Emperor Burger" as it's translated here) and rings suddenly I felt at peace with it all. The grease felt oh so right at the moment. It was almost with regret that I wiped it off my mouth and cadged another onion ring from Jeff.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
A slightly rewritten version of an upcoming Turkey Day column in Global Times.
Thursday marks the seventh Thanksgiving I've spent in Asia, my fourth in China and one for which I’ve never felt more like a thankful 21st century Pilgrim.
Observing this oldest of American holidays overseas has ranged from barebones to bizarre. Barebones was South Korea, 1974 while semi-horrified I watched a wet market poultry butcher dispassionately take a live chicken (turkeys being as scarce as their teeth), behead it with a cleaver, briefly boil it, then pluck it and singe the pin feathers off with a blow torch seemingly before its scrawny legs had stopped flopping.
Until then it had scarcely occurred to me that all chickens didn't originate frozen and wrapped in plastic labeled “Tyson” with a blue United States Department of Agriculture stamp.
Bizarre was Hong Kong Thanksgiving 2005 in a restaurant called California where celebrants were served by Chinese waiters and waitresses dressed as Pilgrims and Indians like large children in a school pageant.
But between the extremes it's been the Chinese people and friends who've guided, taught, scolded, loved, comforted and aided me through the more routine days for whom I am truly grateful.
This generous cornucopia of souls includes an elderly Shenzhen beggar with mangled paralyzed legs and his tale of woe neatly chalked in Chinese characters on the sidewalk outside my apartment for several months. I could not read his story, but his stoicism and situation moved me enough to make small daily donations as my two healthy legs took me to work every morning.
He never said a word until one morning I saw something new on his sidewalk testimony. In simple flawless English were two sentences thanking and wishing – presumably me, as there were virtually no other foreigners living in the area – a long life and happiness.
There was also the neighborhood shop keeper who took time on American Independence Day to scrounge almost 25 minutes though his insanely packed storage place to give me clandestine fireworks left over from Chinese New Year to help me properly celebrate July 4 the USA way.
Unsung Lei Fengs also include a busload of Shenzhen passengers who stopped a thief from slitting my pack back, and in a united civil show of force evicted him sans the pocketknife he’d tried to use. When one of my rescuers offered it to me, it looked surprisingly familiar, perhaps because the thief had slickly picked it from my pocket before trying to use it on my bag.
I owe a debt of thanks also to an 81-year-old Canadian missionary educated Chinese obstetrician and gynecologist who humbled and amazed me during a random encounter on a hot Shenzhen summer night when he spontaneously and flawlessly recited Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s masterpiece was, he told me, one of the memories that had sustained and inspired him while he’d been confined to a corpse cluttered morgue for five years during the Cultural Revolution.
A dignified aging hooker fallen from privilege who shared her glory days one lonely night telling me of the pride she still felt at being 17 and “the second best girl Chinese chess player in Beijing” also taught me more about life, survival, changes and circumstances.
Close at heart are my Chinese “sisters,” coworkers and “foreign babysitters” in Hong Kong and Beijing who helped a hapless American get back into the several apartments from which he’d carelessly locked himself, loaned him the laptop on which this was written and brought him tea, sympathy and soup when he was ill while asking, "do all foreigners live like pigs?” before cleaning the place up.
Others have eased the way in other ways, such as wild Rose, a Hong Kong reporter with a penchant for sipping codeine-laced Madame Pearl’s cough syrup while regaling me with tales of her Beijing childhood as her father smiled to himself while preparing and serving us The Best Duck Soup on the Planet.
Gratitude goes also of course to C, the Dandong girl who, until the distance and time drove us apart (and she cut out my heart and stomped on it! - whoops, that's another column), gave me several years of smiles and sanctuary on the 20th floor of her Shenzhen apartment with an unlikely romantic balcony view. Despite the smog and the sounds of the pile driver pounding out a new subway stop below, it remains one of the most blissful vistas I’ve ever seen. Or maybe it was just the wine we shared that Thanksgiving evening.
Thursday marks the seventh Thanksgiving I've spent in Asia, my fourth in China and one for which I’ve never felt more like a thankful 21st century Pilgrim.
Observing this oldest of American holidays overseas has ranged from barebones to bizarre. Barebones was South Korea, 1974 while semi-horrified I watched a wet market poultry butcher dispassionately take a live chicken (turkeys being as scarce as their teeth), behead it with a cleaver, briefly boil it, then pluck it and singe the pin feathers off with a blow torch seemingly before its scrawny legs had stopped flopping.
Until then it had scarcely occurred to me that all chickens didn't originate frozen and wrapped in plastic labeled “Tyson” with a blue United States Department of Agriculture stamp.
Bizarre was Hong Kong Thanksgiving 2005 in a restaurant called California where celebrants were served by Chinese waiters and waitresses dressed as Pilgrims and Indians like large children in a school pageant.
But between the extremes it's been the Chinese people and friends who've guided, taught, scolded, loved, comforted and aided me through the more routine days for whom I am truly grateful.
This generous cornucopia of souls includes an elderly Shenzhen beggar with mangled paralyzed legs and his tale of woe neatly chalked in Chinese characters on the sidewalk outside my apartment for several months. I could not read his story, but his stoicism and situation moved me enough to make small daily donations as my two healthy legs took me to work every morning.
He never said a word until one morning I saw something new on his sidewalk testimony. In simple flawless English were two sentences thanking and wishing – presumably me, as there were virtually no other foreigners living in the area – a long life and happiness.
There was also the neighborhood shop keeper who took time on American Independence Day to scrounge almost 25 minutes though his insanely packed storage place to give me clandestine fireworks left over from Chinese New Year to help me properly celebrate July 4 the USA way.
Unsung Lei Fengs also include a busload of Shenzhen passengers who stopped a thief from slitting my pack back, and in a united civil show of force evicted him sans the pocketknife he’d tried to use. When one of my rescuers offered it to me, it looked surprisingly familiar, perhaps because the thief had slickly picked it from my pocket before trying to use it on my bag.
I owe a debt of thanks also to an 81-year-old Canadian missionary educated Chinese obstetrician and gynecologist who humbled and amazed me during a random encounter on a hot Shenzhen summer night when he spontaneously and flawlessly recited Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s masterpiece was, he told me, one of the memories that had sustained and inspired him while he’d been confined to a corpse cluttered morgue for five years during the Cultural Revolution.
A dignified aging hooker fallen from privilege who shared her glory days one lonely night telling me of the pride she still felt at being 17 and “the second best girl Chinese chess player in Beijing” also taught me more about life, survival, changes and circumstances.
Close at heart are my Chinese “sisters,” coworkers and “foreign babysitters” in Hong Kong and Beijing who helped a hapless American get back into the several apartments from which he’d carelessly locked himself, loaned him the laptop on which this was written and brought him tea, sympathy and soup when he was ill while asking, "do all foreigners live like pigs?” before cleaning the place up.
Others have eased the way in other ways, such as wild Rose, a Hong Kong reporter with a penchant for sipping codeine-laced Madame Pearl’s cough syrup while regaling me with tales of her Beijing childhood as her father smiled to himself while preparing and serving us The Best Duck Soup on the Planet.
Gratitude goes also of course to C, the Dandong girl who, until the distance and time drove us apart (
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Soldier Boy
My cell phone text msg read: "I'm in PLA hospital, receiving drips. Outside soldiers r drilling, singing 'strength is iron, strength is steel.'"
It was from a coworker whose bout with tonsillitis had laid her low for a few days. Being a mostly traditional Chinese woman albeit with some western education and exposure, she'd taken the usual route of having her ailment treated with a mix of "Traditional Chinese Medicine" (hot cupping, unspecified herbal treatments) and an expensive IV drip (100 yuan or $14.60 a shot) that delivered saline solution and supposedly reduced her fever.
The IV drip culture at Chinese hospitals is enormous, so much so that there are drip junkie hypochondriacs who repeatedly haunt the wards where dozens upon dozens of people lie on identical gurneys getting their fix of saline solution medicinal bliss. A perceived cure-all and definite moneymaker for the hospitals, it was 40 yuan a fix when I first arrived and us now hitting 100 at the exclusive People's Liberation Army hospital in Beijing
I've never had one though the few times I've been unlucky enough to have to use a Chinese hospital I've been urged to lie down and get pinned for everything from a small cut (4 stiches) on my forehead to a stomach rash.
But I digress. It was the comfort she took in hearing soldiers drilling outside the ward as she was trying to recover from a 101 or so degree fever that intrigued me.
I was a very reluctant member of the US army ('72-'75, 2nd Army Division, Signal Corps, Camp Casey, ROK) and no stranger to saluting, standing at attention, at ease, drilling and chanting inspiring patriotic basic training ditties such as, "If I die on the Russian front, bury me in a Russian cunt, one-two, three-four ... " and "I don't know but I've been told, Eskimo pussy is mighty cold, count-off, one-two.."
But I and most vets thankfully left that behind long ago. I've also been a civilian patient in a VA hospital, but the closest I came to any quasi military presence there were a couple of friendly American Legion members who distributed silver dollars and crossword puzzle books to patients on Easter.
As I told my coworker, the idea of soldiers drilling outside a hospital ward gives me the creeps. China's different, of course. The PLA is part of the nation's fabric and children are taught how to march in orderly lines beginning in kindergarten. It's cute and also a little scary to see. Many college and high school students have compulsory military training - normal stuff for them. Just part of the deal.
The affection for military culture might also be explained through the entertainment propaganda mainline. While movies and TV shows about Mao's armies defeating the Japanese and Chai Kai-shek's nationalist forces are abudant, the People rarely if ever lose and if they do it's only a temporary setback until final victory is won. Losses are little known here such as China's own debacle in Vietnam in a bloody, brief border war in 1979. The PLA had its arse handed to it by the NVA, though the nation claims "victory" when the war is mentioned at all.
There is no Johnny Got His Gun, MASH, Catch 22, Apocalypse Now,Born on the 4th of July, Full Metal Jacket or even Hogan's Heroes equivalent ... only noble victory and clean quick deaths for the common good.
I spared her my half-baked "China needs its MASH" theory and sent a message wishing her well though still saying I had the heebiejeebies with the idea of soldiers chanting revolutionary slogans outside a hospital ward.
"Cultural difference," she replied."We Chinese like our soldiers. Their marching and chanting boosts morale and enhances bonds with civilians. It instills strength and inspires us to recover soon."
Me? I'd rather watch Apocalypse Now, which I did after that exchange. She's back at work now, though. Score one for the healing power of the PLA.
It was from a coworker whose bout with tonsillitis had laid her low for a few days. Being a mostly traditional Chinese woman albeit with some western education and exposure, she'd taken the usual route of having her ailment treated with a mix of "Traditional Chinese Medicine" (hot cupping, unspecified herbal treatments) and an expensive IV drip (100 yuan or $14.60 a shot) that delivered saline solution and supposedly reduced her fever.
The IV drip culture at Chinese hospitals is enormous, so much so that there are drip junkie hypochondriacs who repeatedly haunt the wards where dozens upon dozens of people lie on identical gurneys getting their fix of saline solution medicinal bliss. A perceived cure-all and definite moneymaker for the hospitals, it was 40 yuan a fix when I first arrived and us now hitting 100 at the exclusive People's Liberation Army hospital in Beijing
I've never had one though the few times I've been unlucky enough to have to use a Chinese hospital I've been urged to lie down and get pinned for everything from a small cut (4 stiches) on my forehead to a stomach rash.
But I digress. It was the comfort she took in hearing soldiers drilling outside the ward as she was trying to recover from a 101 or so degree fever that intrigued me.
I was a very reluctant member of the US army ('72-'75, 2nd Army Division, Signal Corps, Camp Casey, ROK) and no stranger to saluting, standing at attention, at ease, drilling and chanting inspiring patriotic basic training ditties such as, "If I die on the Russian front, bury me in a Russian cunt, one-two, three-four ... " and "I don't know but I've been told, Eskimo pussy is mighty cold, count-off, one-two.."
But I and most vets thankfully left that behind long ago. I've also been a civilian patient in a VA hospital, but the closest I came to any quasi military presence there were a couple of friendly American Legion members who distributed silver dollars and crossword puzzle books to patients on Easter.
As I told my coworker, the idea of soldiers drilling outside a hospital ward gives me the creeps. China's different, of course. The PLA is part of the nation's fabric and children are taught how to march in orderly lines beginning in kindergarten. It's cute and also a little scary to see. Many college and high school students have compulsory military training - normal stuff for them. Just part of the deal.
The affection for military culture might also be explained through the entertainment propaganda mainline. While movies and TV shows about Mao's armies defeating the Japanese and Chai Kai-shek's nationalist forces are abudant, the People rarely if ever lose and if they do it's only a temporary setback until final victory is won. Losses are little known here such as China's own debacle in Vietnam in a bloody, brief border war in 1979. The PLA had its arse handed to it by the NVA, though the nation claims "victory" when the war is mentioned at all.
There is no Johnny Got His Gun, MASH, Catch 22, Apocalypse Now,Born on the 4th of July, Full Metal Jacket or even Hogan's Heroes equivalent ... only noble victory and clean quick deaths for the common good.
I spared her my half-baked "China needs its MASH" theory and sent a message wishing her well though still saying I had the heebiejeebies with the idea of soldiers chanting revolutionary slogans outside a hospital ward.
"Cultural difference," she replied."We Chinese like our soldiers. Their marching and chanting boosts morale and enhances bonds with civilians. It instills strength and inspires us to recover soon."
Me? I'd rather watch Apocalypse Now, which I did after that exchange. She's back at work now, though. Score one for the healing power of the PLA.
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