Well, Since Claire doesn't blog I'm going to do this for her. She noticed this story on the web today:
If you've noticed that your Jack Daniel's is carrying a little less kick these days, you're probably right.The famed "sippin' whiskey," which advertises a recipe traced back to the nation's first registered distillery, has lowered the alcohol content of its flagship brand, Old No.7 Black Label.
The whiskey now registers 80 proof, instead of 86 (or 40 percent alcohol versus 43 percent), and some drinkers feel betrayed.
"You can't screw with a legend like that and get away with it," said Frank Kelly Rich, editor of Modern Drunkard magazine. "I'm sure Jack is spinning in his grave."
She was surprised that there was such a thing as Modern Drunkard. I wasn't. I was surprised that it's editor was being quoted as a source in an AP story.
Modern Drunkard is one of those things that speaks to me.
It says, "have another drink."
I say, "okay."
It says, "be obnoxious, immature and rude"
I say, "sure."
As for the JD, I can only shake my head in sadness at the decay of all things and the eventual swirl of civilization down the drain of entropy. Normally I'm into Maker's Mark anyway, but alas, JD is the go to whiskey in China. I can only wonder if they've already been experimenting on me.
I'm off.
It's national day, and I'm going to go on over to Beijing and do some touristy crap.
This has happened twice now.
Motorcycle taxi drivers think it's a good negotiating tactic to point out that I am a foreigner and should therefore pay more. I consider what occurs afterwards to be a quick lesson in American consumer psychology. I spit out what few words of mandarin I know, pointing that my TA is zhong gou ren and therefore she shouldn't have to pay extra. Mostly I just make it clear that I would rather walk than be charged more for being a foreigner.
Finally the cabbie concedes, a bit baffled. I swear that some of the motortaxis expect you to want to pay more for being a foreigner. They are totally thrown when it annoys you.
The crappy speakers crapped out. It wasn't the Clash that did it, though. It was Pimsler Mandarin.
The shower, toilet and phone are all slouching towards fixedness. Everything should be back in order when I get back from Beijing next week.
Resident Evil II: Apocalypse is a little hard on the self esteem.
Resident Evil II is a Zombie movie. Resident Evil II is a video game movie. How can it negatively affect my self esteem?
Well, have you ever been confused by a zombie movie? Right. Ever been confused by a video game movie? No, I don't mean confused by why someone would make a Super Mario Brothers movie. Okay good.
I didn't get Resident Evil II. Rough, huh?
Let me start by saying that I bear the Resident Evil franchise no ill will. The video game is a fine way to kill some stuff without feeling bad about it. The first movie fulfilled its zombie movie requirements with charm and verve. The zombies appear and attack stuff. A haphazard explanation is put forward but not dwelt on and then an adequately hot chick kicks some ass. What's not to like?
But in Resident Evil II: Apocalypse the 'not to like' piles upward and upward into unscaleable mounds that eventually collapse harming millions of innocents.
I will summarize quickly before the mounting bile taste causes my innards to splash upon the keyboard. There are zombies. They like to eat people; those people don't to want get eaten. The Umbrella Corporation is really, really evil and they probably make really crappy umbrellas too. They make real good zombies, though.
There's a chick who's not Milla Joslavicsoundinglastname and one chick who is. The one who is drives motorcycle through a catholic church as though that were an acceptable way to behave. The one who isn't is an undercover agent who has infiltrated a gang of ninja hookers. She wears a tube top and she has some kung-fu and but then you forget why she's there and so does she.
There's a Zombie with a rocket launcher. The Umbrella Corporation makes him kill SWAT team guys and then you don't care. He's supposed to fight Milla Whatsherface but you don't care even though he's really her boyfriend.
Along with the requisite zombie dogs (seen it . . .) there's also some really grosszombie t & a. I figure that's the only true selling point of this movie. And it's gross. But, you don't see it everyday, that's for sure.
That's enough summary. Any more and I'll start to get sad and confused again.
The main problem is the Umbrella Corporation. They're really, really evil and therefore relieved of the burdon of plausible motives. My poor little brain searches for motivations and rationales and fails. Then the plot doesn't make sense seeing as how the Umbrella Corporation was moving it forward with its acts of random malevolence. Then I don't get a zombie/video game movie. Then it is the time for sadness.
That's how Resident Evil II destroyed my self confidence.
Now I can not feed myself nor operate the DVD player. I shall soon perish from starvation. Way to go, Resident Evil II: Apocalypse.
>So, Otis?
Yeah.
>Haven't heard from you in a while.
Yeah.
>Tell us about your new apartment.
I'll tell you something about our apartment. Something that will make everything else you wil hear just so much sauce.
>Okay
This morning I thought it would be funny to play "mile end" on our shitty speakers. Claire complained. I think it was too close to real and not enough close to joke.
>That bad?
All Chinese apartments are bad. Each has it's peculiar badnesses. We are just getting to know ours.
>Cockroaches?
Check.
>Plumbing?
The toilet came apart in my hands. We got it replaced, but the new one doesn't seem to, you know, work. We couldn't find a plunger at the grocery store.
>Electric?
Some sockets work sometimes. Some don't ever.
>Hot water heater?
It's either off or causing nerve damage.
>Dirt?
The landlady did not clean it before she gave it over. THere is a layer of dirt and grease on just about everything. The toilet installation guy took off after leaving a pile of rubble in the bathroom.
>Random junk?
A bonanza of it. Several hats, a toy model of the Hubble, bunches of maps of China (oh, THAT's where I live), mysterious jars of liquid and plenty of good old styrofoam. Oh, and a computer left over from the Qing dynasty.
>So you're pretty unhappy?
Oddly enough, no. An awful lot of time is going to be spent fighting with my apartment but I don't think it's as bad as all that.
Last night, for instance I tapped my laptop into the computer speakers, took a shot of baiju and put on The Clash. For some reason, I was really happy.
I'll have to get back to you on why. Right now, I just don't know.
Part I: Things to Bring
Part II: Things Not to Bring
Part III: Advice
Trance music sucks in China in exactly the same way it sucks in America. Trance music is the dark, sucking core of the universe around which all things are sucked.
There is small hope for China, musically. You hear trance everytime you walk by a store and I've seen more pictures of Kenny G than of Mao (oy, imagine the cultural revolution that puts his face in front of the square). I hadn't even known there was such thing as an Irish boy band before I moved here, but now I find their countenence more comforting than the ubiquitous face of the fucker who owns California Beef Noodle USA.
The western music that is loved here makes me cringe. I've heard Hotel California more times than I can count. Elton John could declare himself emperor of China if he so wished and I don't think the party would dare oppose him. I've even heard Nickelback in two different places, goddamnit. As a westerner I am expected to know the words to Fernando and Country Roads. I had never even heard Fernando until I came here.
Then there's actual Chinese music. I'm going to come out as a philistine and admit that I would rather undergo Chinese oral surgery than undergo Chinese Opera. Pop music is better by a difference that makes no difference. Cantonese and Taiwanese pop sounds like The Neptunes at best and at it's worst sounds like what it would be like to die of cloying sentimentality.
This is why yesterday I was surprised by something. Yesterday, when we were shopping for pirated movies (oh, shut it) I found the western section. Yes, the gang of four was there (The G, John Tesh, Elton John and The Eagles) but on the bottom rack there was something else. There was The Clash. There was Mum and Lamb. There was an assload of Pixies cds. There was Leonard Cohen. I was dumbfounded and delighted. The selection was not very good, but Christ it was a sight better than I ever expected to see.
The meat cuts in china feature an awful lot of skin and bones. Eating is rather like crossing the street. Something I used to do without thinking, but now must pay careful attention to on peril of death.
We've been going beer drinking with motley assortment of expats. There is a sizable number of Americans, a few brits (one is scottish actually, but I'm going to act like an american and not make a distinction) and a few Austrailians. The brits are fun lads, but a bit hard on the liver.
We mostly drink beer. I had some Jack Daniels when I was feeling homesick, but it's relatively overpriced. Chinese liquor is called baiju (white spirit), it's cheap but intimidating. Baiju's reputation amongst the foreigners here is so bad and so consistantly bad that I still have not tried it. Not only does everyone dislike it but they nearly all say the same thing: "tastes like lamp oil," "tastes like kerosene,"and my favorite, "tastes like vodka that hates you."
The Chinese as a whole do not seem possessed of exceptional alcohol tolerence. They get flushed and silly quickly, especially from baiju. I've already seen many a grown man step out on to the street, wobbly and belligrent.
Chinese girls are expected not to drink, especially at more formal occasions. When our boss took us out to dinner with his family, Claire -my fellow lao wei- was the only woman particapting in the toasts. The rest of the women drank fizzy milk (yup). When our boss took us out again for teacher's day, only one TA joined the boys for beers.
Fortunately for me and unfortunately for my figure, Chinese beer is great, especially Qingdao's. It's light and it tastes of mineral water. It's also cheaper than water and less dangerous.
I teach four year olds.
I teach lots of kids. Lots of kids. Some of my classes have forty-five kids in them. Chinese kindergartens are like that. In fact, I'm told the classes were split into smaller bits to protect the sensitive westerners who might be teaching them.
Getting through the five and six year old classes is all rather easy. You identify which kids are interested in learning English and do your best to keep them engaged. If they stay engaged and they want to learn, they will. Given those two things, this job is fun and not that difficult.
For the other kids, just keeping them entertained is the best you can do. Teaching foreign languages to children involves lots of games that can instill comprehension but do not require it to function. The kids not interested in English get to play along (usually mindlessly repeating me), or they can simply space out.In every class with forty odd kids, there is plenty of both.
The four olds are a different matter. The four year olds can barely speak Chinese. They have a hard time with such hallowed attention users and time passers as "jump" and "color." The talents of four year olds fall squarely into the categories of "falling down" and "crying."
In one class, the teacher was terrified that I might allow the children to play with books and crayons for fear of the damage they might do. This is not the good class of four year olds. It's rough to be in the worse of two four year old classes. In this class, if I have them sit down, they fall out of their chairs. If I have them stand up, they fall down. Every activity is accompanied by the sobs of at least one child.
The other class of four year olds is not so bad. Yeah, I can't see them learning a lot of English. Yeah, they squirm a lot. They also don't cry much and are fascinated by just about everything I do or have them do for forty minutes. They also managed to color in a book without injury. I'm still a little scared to try that with the other class.
The worse class has a hard time repeating things. It's a horrible thing to think to yourself, "Jesus, kid. Can't you even mindlessly repeat me like the other kids do?"
They also aren't real into saying hello. That's hilarious. It feels like every kid in China has come up to me and said "hello!hello!" in an obnoxious manner. The adults do it too. They think it's bloody hilarious. So I feel weird about it, but I actually want this group of kids to become hello!hellos. I feel like that's a reasonable goal.
My standards for western food have already fallen.
My only complaint about eating at KFC last night was that it was overpriced. At 20 yuan, you should have hostesses in traditional-looking Chinese dresses and the chef (wearing his puffy hat) should slice the meat at your table.
I've also eaten some dreadfully questionable ice cream. I used to turn up my nose at Cold Stone, but now I would welcome one. I can't really hang with Chinese desserts, they utilize too much bean paste. So cheap, crappy ice cream has become something of a necessity.
Claire says we are going to feel embarassed about coming back from a developing country, fatter than ever.
I've got further to fall still. There is a hotel here that serves something that resembles pizza, hamburgers and spaghetti. The pizza might have corn and cucumbers on it unless you are careful. The burgers are wrong in a way that I can't quite put my finger on, and I'm afraid of trying the spaghetti. Claire and I find it rather ill, but to Shelley and Chris (who have lived abroad for much, much longer) it is warming comforting warmth and comfort.
I understand where they are coming from. Eating really spicy, greasy (though usually tasty) Chinese food for nine meals in a row can feel exhausting. Even one familiar (though ill-prepared) dish can seem refreshong.
The first thing to get used to is being an alien. I don't mean an alien resident in a foreign country. I mean the big, black eyes and enlarged head bit. Children will be awed or upset by your presence. Adults will try unsuccesfully not to stare. They've seen things like you on television, and maybe their friends have told them about the lao wei they saw when they were in Shanghai or Beijing. But they've never really believed until now.
Lao wei is one of the few mandarin words that I know. It's the not too rude, not all that polite word for foreigner. I hear it here and there. It amuses me to cause such fuss. I rather like being a public spectacle (anyone who has shared a dance floor with me can attest) and I have a kind of malicious anticipation at all the little weird things I am going to do to shock and astonish onlookers.
Now, I also want to be able to interact with people using more than a few broken sentence fragments, and say a complete sentence without hashing up the tones. But I also plan on using my foreigness as an excuse to tell people that I just ate a couch and that my pants are on fire.
Shelley, my host, says that he feels weird when he goes back to the states now because no one stares at him. He has gotten to like being a freak, a talking monkey.
I've never minded people thinking me odd. I've always been distinctly uncomfortable with being taken seriously. Talking monkey is a role I could seriously get used to.