shorter Chinese law

This is a quote that I want to remember when people ask me about China back home. Minus the mixed metaphor, though.

China: What a carve-up

The legal vacuum doesn't just create a loophole, but also a noose, which tightens retroactively as soon as an entrepreneur or government official has annoyed someone more powerful than himself . . .

The Running Dog knows its China. Everything here is technically illegal. Since the police can not possibly (and do not want to) enforce everything, the only thing that's actually illegal is pissing off someone in power.

Imagine what Chinese economic growth figures would be like with a functioning legal system.

not for you

Grasslands.
That's our name for the restaurant right next to work. There is, I suppose, nothing to distinguish it from a thousand other restaurants dishing out "farmer food" other than exceptional quality and friendliness. Like many Chinese restaurants it is family run. There is a mother (I don't know her name, I just call her Big Sister) and her two sons. The taller, friendlier of her sons is called Han Bing (said with the same tones, I believe, as if he were a type of Korean pancake). He's a med student when he's not working at the restaurant. He's young and earnest and hence nicknamed, "Doogie Howser."

Grasslands is one of the best things about life in Dongying. Han Bing and Big Sister teach us useful Chinese and put up with our western quirks. We also help Han Bing with his English homework. We force every visitor to eat there.

One such visitor was Heather. Heather is a friend of a friend. A Chinese-American whose parents where both from Guangdong province, she spoke no Mandarin. I think she could get by in Cantonese.

Being a non-speaking Asian American in China can generate some amusing/ exasperating experiences. There were taxi drivers that insisted on trying to talk to her rather than Shelley (who is totally fluent) and other bits of confusion.

Then there was her trip to Grasslands. She was introduced to Han Bing and Big Sister, and they found out that she couldn't speak Mandarin and was from America. Big Sister said something and Han Bing translated, "She doesn't like you."

Heather was, I think, too shocked to be properly upset.

Chinese people can be amazingly blunt. They'll call you fat, tell you have a big nose, point and laugh at your hair . . . the list goes on.

Heather was shocked, but the food arrived and no more issue needed to be made of it. But when we got to the plate of caramel covered apples, Han Bing decided to clarify.

"I like you," he said, pointing to me, "and you and you," to Elizabeth and Jessie.

And that was the end of the list.

I have an inkling of where this kind of sentiment comes from. Perhaps they feel that Chinese Americans have abandoned the homeland. Perhaps they suspect them of being Guomindang or Guomindang sympathizers.

Yet to understand is not to sympathize. This will forever remain one of those things about China that I just can't get used to. Like when my fourth graders take turns taunting each other by saying, "you are a black, black man from Africa."

Shelley arrived later and told Han Bing that they had hurt his friend's feelings. Han Bing apologized in a not-really-understanding-why-he-apologized way. Things have been less family-like since then. Sometimes good things go away.

sometimes you just have to live in a Bright Eyes song

Sigh . . . Sometimes I feel like the pronoun in The Calendar Hung Itself. I find myself having a frustrated little interview with the anti-hero of that song whenever I listen to it.

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?
I've probably done that.

And does he sing to you incessantly from the place between your bed and wall?
No.

Does he walk around all day at school with his feet inside your shoes? Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you.
Jesus, no.

Does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched and does he cry through broken sentences like, "I love you far too much"?
Yes and then no.

Does he lay awake listening to your breath, worried that you smoke too many cigarettes?
no.

Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor? For every speck of tile there are a thousand more that you won't ever see but most hold inside yourself eternally.
Most assuredly not.

Listen, Mister Narrator, just because you are all poetically crazy for her doesn't mean your love is purer and better. My love is a soothing kind, not a bright burning wreckage. I treat her like a girlfriend and not a missing part of my own psyche. Your lack of self control is not the same as passionate love.

And quit leaving folk songs on our answering machine.

what it sounds like from inside my head when my head is in east city middle school

dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences
dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences
dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences

"Hey foreigner! hweeeellloooooo HAHAHA!"

dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences
dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences

"eh! Eh! Old foreigner. Hallo!HALLOO!"

dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences
dontgetupsetatculturaldifferences

"HELL-o! HUHLooooo! ha ha ha!"

the dreaded

Translation of absurdly popular Chinese song. I like the bit about the mouse and the rice. I think it has a certain affinity for the 50 cent line, "I love you like a fat kid loves cake."

Come to think of it, in mandarin I think that would go:
"wo ai ni jiu xiang xiao panze ai dan gao"

Dying Monolingual: Pin Yin Lyrics Archives

wo ai ni ai zhe ni
jiu xiang lao shu ai da mi
bu guan you duo shao feng yu wo dou hui yiran pei zhe ni
wo xiang ni xiang zhe ni
buguan you duo me de ku
zhi yao neng rang ni kai xin wo shen me dou yuan yi
zhe yang ai ni

I love you, loving you, as a mouse loves rice
Every day has a storm, I'm always by your side
I miss you, missing you
I don't care how hard it is
I just want you to be happy
Everything, I do it for you

six great things about china (in no particular order)

1. New Years/ Spring Festival - yes, yes it's noisy and it's dangerous, but it's also one big who-gives-a-damn party. It's also really touching to see a family gathered around for the first night dumplings.

2. Movies - I love the lack of restraint in Chinese movies be it in psychotic gong fu pictures or screw ball comedies. China and I seem to agree about a lot of things cinematic: car chases should destroy as many things as possible and fat people being hit by things are funny.

3. Tofu - Chinese doufu dishes are proof that vegetarians should not be allowed to cook anything. I thought tofu was a waste of time until I had it stirfried with red oil and pork. Now it's my favorite thing to eat.

4. Xinjiang Barbeque- mmmmm. lambstick.

5. Politeness - I actually really dig that the Chinese don't say please and thank you all the time. Politeness is like swearing, if you save it for a special occasion, it has more impact.

6. Beer - Chinese beer tops out at 5 percent so in order to actually get drunk you have to drink for an hour and take on enough water weight to simulate a pregnancy. But it does have that tasty spring water and it compliments the barbeque perfectly.

me vs. mandarin, round 2

T.A.: Is there anything I can get for you?
Me: shi, gei wo yige baoze
T.A.: What are you saying?
Me: uhh . . . ni zhidao . . .baoze [points to bag] . . . for . . . zheige [points to a felt fuzzy dice].
T.A: [walks off, possibly in search of a bag]
Shelley: You just asked her for a dumpling to put the dice in.

monitored

There have been rumours of this sort of thing going on in Dongying. This is hardly a confirmation of their substance, but it does make me nervous.

The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > Chinese Censors and Web Users Match Wits

Already the most sophisticated in the world, China's Internet controls are stout even in the absence of crucial political events. In the last year or so, experts say the country has gone from so-called dumb Internet controls, which involve techniques like the outright blocking of foreign sites containing delicate or critical information and the monitoring of specific e-mail addresses to far more sophisticated measures.
Newer technologies allow the authorities to search e-mail messages in real time, trawling through the body of a message for sensitive material and instantaneously blocking delivery or pinpointing the offender. Other technologies sometimes redirect Internet searches from companies like Google to copycat sites operated by the government, serving up sanitized search results.