Babies “R” Us

Not that it matters—as I’m not in a position of authority in America or China—but I very much question how many people actually follow the one-child policy here. Babies are everywhere. I’ve been told that there are four babies in China for every one in the US, but it doesn’t seem like this could possibly be true. Maybe it’s because I live in Boston—where basically a quarter of the population is in college—but I see far fewer babies in America than this ratio suggests. Not that I’m saying I wish I saw more babies in Boston, I’m merely trying to point out a personal observation: in order for this baby factoid to hold true, most of Boston’s student populace would have to be parents. Anyone who knows me will probably agree that I shouldn’t be having kids any time soon, and quite frankly neither should the rest of my demographic.

Does coat-check accept kids?

The idea of my friends trying to raise children right now terrifies me. I hear news of people I that knew back in the day procreating, and it frightens me that they are raising the next generation of Americans. I shan’t mention any specific names, but I think we all know a few people who fit the description of “they just had a kid? Oh f***…”

But I digress. My point is that Baby (as Asian babies all look the same, I shall refer to them as a single entity) is everywhere. Really. Everywhere I look, I see future-Mao wearing his ubiquitous puffy jacket and pseudo-pants. You can’t walk down the street without Baby holding you captive as he goes through his usual daily errands: Baby walking; Baby sleeping; Baby defecating in the street; Baby eating; Baby throwing cats; Baby laughing; Baby playing with raw meat; Baby drinking Coca-Cola; Baby falling down; Baby darting in front of traffic; Baby running with sharp objects. Everyday it’s the same. On occasion you want to tell Baby to stop, but you just can’t bring yourself to pull him aside and explain “no, Baby, orange kitty doesn’t like it when you sit on his face.”

I’d consider some of his usual activities normal, but surely some of these are only until he knows better. It’s tough, but you have to watch Baby make his own mistakes. Baby’s parents seem to be of the mindset that Baby should learn through experience; quite the contrary to many over-protective American parents, Baby’s seem to adhere to more of a hands-off approach. Baby is rolling around in trash? Good for him. Maybe he’ll find something better to play with than those rusty scissors he has now.

I’m sure Momma and Papa Wolf have had a tough time watching me struggle through many of my own life lessons. There was never any shortage of advice, but sadly it was all-too-often cast aside in attempts to do things my own way (teenagers say the darnedest things, right?). And now, as Baby begins to go through the same motions that I once did, I have to just sit back, watch, and restrain myself from intervention: Baby’s first steps; Baby’s first solid food; Baby’s first bike ride; Baby’s first time driving a clutch; Baby’s first trip to Montreal; Baby’s first tequila shot; Baby’s first time waking up behind a toilet.

Oh, Baby, the places you’ll go.

Zai jian,

Jhw

Free Bird

It was Magical—love at first sight. If such a thing were ever possible, this was it. I don’t know what caused it, but it was the kind of thing that would we’d be describing in stories to our children someday. I couldn’t look away. Everything was perfect—the setting, the mood, the ambiance. Truly, the stars had aligned. Was it the way her dark, forbidden eyes glistened in the fluorescent lighting? Or perhaps her words that flowed like a song over the intermingled backdrop of Chinese families and reggae beats? Could it have been the way her hair flowed as it danced with the windblown steam of hotpot and rice?

Perhaps I’ll never know what instilled this fervor in me, but the words that came from my mouth could not be stopped.

“Mamacita,” I whispered.

“Marisella,” she corrected.

“Mamacita,” I whispered, “will you share this pigeon with me?”H

I’ve made jokes about this before, but I’d never actually seen it on a menu—or tried it—until today. That’s right; I ate one.

Flying rat.

Street chicken.

Tuscaloosa firehawk.

…Pigeon.

I ate my first earlier this evening. Actually I shared three pigeons with three other people—which in all actuality means I only ate ¾ of a pigeon—but let’s just round to the nearest bird. I may have romanticized the scenario a bit, but it was a life-changing moment nonetheless. Having eaten this, I now consider myself part of the Chinese “in” crowd; which, by the same standard, also coincides with the Westernized “out” crowd.

I guess this means that I still don’t know who I can eat lunch with in the middle school cafeteria.

…Damn.

Anyway, I’ll give it 4 out of 5 stars. This, despite my relatively modest palette, should hold some clout, as I’ve been eating nothing but Chinese food for the last 3 months. It was slightly gamey, moderately boney, but with a hint of ginger which really set the tone for the tone rest of the meal—which happened to be more pigeon. Perfect. If you’re ever in the Zhongshan neighborhood, be sure to stop by and try some. It’s the little restaurant on the right (between 4 others that look exactly the same except for different colored signs), with the crowd of Chinese people sitting in lawn chairs outside. There should be a man nearby displaying his pirated reggae wares via his moped’s over-powered speaker system, and a floral awning in front of the restaurant. The subtle tones of energy-saving white lights, draped artistically from the awning with extension cords, will let you know you’re in the right place.

…Or just try making flying hand-gestures towards your mouth, while repeating “gezi” (guh-zi) in an exaggerated first tone. The locals will know what you came for.

Ask for Willy, and be sure to preorder any wings for your Superbowl party ahead of time, as they get pretty busy that time of year.

Zai jian,

Jhw

Green Means Go

Unless you’re a car, van, bus, moped, taxi, truck, or motorcycle, in which case so do red and yellow. Although really, red and yellow don’t necessarily mean “go”, so much as they are just signs that you shouldn’t bother slowing down or stopping. And why should you? You, my dear Chinese driver, are the only one on the road. Therefore, there is no reason that you should follow rules or laws; 5 PM in Shanghai has essentially the same amount of traffic that Wilsonville does at 2 AM on a Monday. And despite the light clearly having turned red 5 seconds ago, there are no other vehicles on the road that might be in the intersection that you are not slowing down for. You have the right of way—always. And who could deserve it more than you? Your taxi is a gift from god that is exempt from moral righteousness and traffic signals.

And pedestrians? They don’t have wheels; they don’t have an internal combustion engine; they don’t have souls. Peons. If they’re not bigger than you—and few are—what concern is it to you? So don’t worry about giving them the “right” to walk across the street; it’s more of a privilege anyway. If they’re in the way, they need to move regardless of what their petty crosswalk sign may be instructing them to do. Little green man, or little red man, you’re still perfectly entitled to turn right, left, or hell, even go straight on red. After all, you’re more important than everyone else—especially pedestrians.

So keep driving Shanghai, and enjoy every minute of it. Someday you may actually have traffic laws to worry about...

Zai jian,

Jhw

ATM Withdrawal Withdrawals

As many of you know, until this Tuesday I’d been without a debit card for two weeks. Yes, I’d become “that guy”; I was borrowing money from people with absolutely no way of paying them back. I had an expired credit card, no working debit card, and no way to access my savings. Regardless of my situation though, the Bank of Rachel invested a lot of capital into my pursuits. I should take this moment to not only thank her, but also the Bank of Reed, as well as Lauren Financial Services, as they were my three largest financers. I really am fortunate that I’m here with other American students, because if I’d been traveling alone I would’ve been in a pretty tough situation.

Lesson learned: always have back up.

On a less serious note though, despite all being finance or economics students, no one who lent me money questioned how or when I would be paying them back. I found that kind of funny in its own way.

Other lesson learned: the sympathy card works better than the one-arm-pushup guy.

[For those of you who are not Northeastern students, and therefore don’t frequent Cappy’s at 2AM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlnzd8TO4kE. Feel free to fast-forward 30 or 40 seconds.]

Now this whole fiasco wasn’t entirely my own fault, and had Bank of America sent my [first] replacement card to China like I’d asked—and not Oregon—I would’ve only been without money for three to five days. I still question how they confused “Zhongshan Bei Yi Lu” with “35^th Drive”, but I have to give them credit for trying to make it up to me by rush-delivering my [second] replacement card to China. It would’ve been helpful, however, if they hadn’t taken it upon themselves to change my pin number without telling me. Cool, Bank of America, thanks for that one. They also have a strict policy of not giving out pin numbers over the phone, so sending it to me with my [second] replacement card would’ve been a nice touch. After a significant amount of begging, however, I was transferred to a department which reset my new pin number to my original one. Need I remind you of the powers of the sympathy card? It’s almost as if 20 one-arm-pushup guys were in that call center hustling them for me. How wonderful.

Anyway, I like to think that I’ve learned a few things in my life, one of which is to always look on the bright side. Sometimes things may not work out how you would’ve hoped, but you can’t let that bring you down. If there’s one thing that Grandma Wolf has taught me, it’s that when life throws you lemons, you take those lemons and make them into a delicious glaze to put on poppy seed bread. She also taught me how to make cheesecake, and that I’m remotely related to a pirate—the cool kind, not the Somali kind. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing she doesn’t know.

But I digress. This debit card fiasco caused me to have some interesting exchanges with people, which I might not have had otherwise. These are the kinds of things that make you grow as a person—or at least give you fodder to write about at a later date.

Firstly, I really hate having to ask people for money; it’s probably the biggest reason I’ve held nearly back-to-back jobs since I was 16. I thought that I could handle it for a week, but when Momma Wolf informed me of Bank of America’s street name—and country—mix-up, I accepted that I was in it for the long haul. I became strangely okay with knocking on people’s doors and requesting money, or asking “who wants to pay for Jason?” when dining out for meals. I think the only motivating factor for people was that they knew I was keeping track of my debts on a yellow post-it note—obviously a highly accurate and sophisticated method—and that I was probably going to pay them back later. I consider myself to have a high level of integrity though, and I can honestly say that I repaid everyone I owed money to. So that’s nice, makes me a good person, yada yada yada…

Anyway, the next interactions are only related because they happened while I was still on a high from my first ATM withdrawal in two weeks; it’s bizarre how much of a rush I got when the ATM didn’t immediately decline my card. Actually, it felt so good that I made the maximum withdrawal four times in a row just because of the feeling it gave me. Does that mean I have a problem…? Maybe. Pseudo-psychological issues aside, as I walked home from the bank with more Yuan than would fit in my wallet, I had a strong craving for xiaolongbao (dumplings). There’s a restaurant on the way home that serves them (“Red Place”), so I stopped in for a bite. Because it was an awkward dining hour, the restaurant was deserted and I got to enjoy my dumplings free of the usual crowds, cigarette smoke, and old men taking noodles to the face. You pay for your food at the same time you order it, so when I finished my dumplings I was about to leave—when the waitress brought over another plate of food. I was intrigued. I hadn’t ordered it, nor had I paid for it, so maybe this was karma’s way of apologizing for Bank of America’s tomfoolery? I had to investigate further.

The people at Red Place don’t speak any English, nor do they speak broken Chinese, so when I tried to tell the waitress that I hadn’t ordered the food, she just smile-and-nodded at me. I get that a lot here. She then brought me a bowl of soup, and yet another plate of food. Of course my first thought was that she had brought me someone else’s meal by mistake, but the restaurant was literally empty. I then ran through a list of other possible scenarios in my mind, but finally decided that she was just really happy that my bank issues were settled too. I finally had money, so it was the perfect time to give me a free meal. It’s so simple.

Thanks, China, I love you too.

In my defense though, I tried again to tell her that I hadn’t ordered the food, but got the same response; I then ate as much as I could, and actually had the audacity to ask for the rest of my free meal “to go”. 

My name is Jason, and I have no shame.

I’ll reiterate the fact that the people at Red Place don’t speak English or broken Chinese, so when I tried to make hand motions of me leaving with cabbage and chow mien, I got the same enthusiastic smile-and-nod response. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I actually thought she understood me; after 10 or so minutes of being ignored, I decided that I was better off just going home.

While I was walking back though, I remembered that I had promised myself that I would get a haircut as soon as I had money again. Let me take this opportunity to make it clear that I didn’t ever enjoy borrowing money from [13] people, and I did so only for necessary expenditures—like St. Patrick’s Day pub crawls. Haircuts, however, did not fit into the “necessary” category, so my curly locks had begun to fall into their natural, unruly state. Some of the other guys in my program had already gotten haircuts, and though they told wild stories of shampooing and head massages, one thing they all mentioned was that English was never spoken. I didn’t want to end up with some kind of reverse mullet—as is so popular here—so I came up with a plan: rather than smile-and-nodding at everything they asked me, I would have Figo [my Chinese roommate] write down instructions for the people who worked at the hair salon. Brilliant.

…Or so I thought. Figo was pretty confused by my request, and asked me no less than four times what he was writing and for whom. This obviously concerned me, because between me only knowing a few characters, and his terrible handwriting, I couldn’t read anything he wrote. Though I wasn’t sure what he actually put down, I figured at the very least that having something was better than having nothing. Then again, while I may love surprises, there’s always the possibility that Figo secretly thinks I’d look better with bangs or something. Whatever, the mystery note could be fun, right?

Right.

I walked into the hair salon, one of the employees made a scissoring motion to his hair, and I eagerly smile-and-nodded in response. (See? It goes both ways.) Anyway, I was in; at least they knew I wasn’t just another lost white person. The hairstylist fired off some questions, none of which I understood the first, second, or third time that I asked him to repeat them, and I finally just succumbed to the fact that I had to trust Figo’s taste in hair.

I’ll admit that I haven’t spent much time in hair salons—my roommate Nick has been cutting my hair in our living room for the past year and a half—but I’m fairly certain that the Chinese have a different take on the haircutting process than Americans do. There were four people in this haircutting establishment, all of whom touched my hair at some point. I don’t know if they had some kind of strange affinity for curly hair, or if all haircuts required this level of sheer inefficiency, but surely they could have managed the process with just one person. It took one to wash my hair, one to cut it, one person to wash it again, and one to blow-dry it. The last step was completely unnecessary anyway—though I did kind of enjoy the warm-breeze sensation—as the guy who washed my hair also dried it off with a towel. To finish it up, all four were involved in the payment process.

This is another exciting, though sometimes embarrassing facet of language barriers: paying for things when you have no idea how much they cost. It’s very similar to playing The Price is Right, but with the added bonus of incorporating purchasing power parity into your guesses. If you pay too little: game over. You get confused looks, and then yelled at by some very small Chinese woman for more money. If you pay too much: well, you still lose, and now Bob Barker is muttering about you under his breath while he struggles to find you an absurd amount of change. I’m getting better at this, but that’s still a relative concept because I was absolutely terrible when I first got here. Airing on the side of caution, I gave the haircutting collective 100 Yuan ($15 USD). They gave me blank stares for a second, sighed, and then all four of them began the process of finding me change.

It turned out to be a $3 USD haircut.

…Game over.

In the end though, I could’ve picked a worse country to have no money in. Bank of America may have left me high and dry for two weeks, but at least China gives me free meals and cheap haircuts. Most importantly, I’m here with other American students who are kind enough to buy me meals and loan me cash for basic necessities.

…

But that being said, you have no idea how good it feels to have money again. Can you imagine two weeks of your life without making any impulse buys? No gum? No busts of Mao? No pirated versions of the movie Shark-topus? It’s horrible. Having to constrain yourself in China is like going to Disneyland and spending the whole time sitting on a bench. But now, cross you fingers that this doesn’t happen again, those days are behind me at last. Next up: tailor-made footie pajamas.

I love this country.

Zai jian,

Jhw

Professor Wu

I really like Asian jokes. I don’t mean jokes about Asians, I mean jokes by Asians—my Finance teacher, to be specific. Please allow me to introduce: Professor Wu.

She’s a lovely gal, and makes sure to tell at least one mid-lecture joke per class. I’m not particularly sure why, as they don’t relate to the topics she discusses at all, but they do make for an excellent source of entertainment. They've also almost all had an underlying violent theme, which seems a little bizarre since she’s such a small and adorable Asian woman. It’s quite the juxtaposition. Anyway, it’s not just the jokes themselves though; it’s the person telling the jokes and the way she tells them that makes them so good. There’s something special about how bad she is at giving punchlines—laughing right before, during, and after them. I wish I could do them justice, but I will do my best via writing.

So yes, I’m considering making this a sort of pseudo sub-blog. I write her jokes down word-for-word as she tells them, so why should I be selfish and keep these little bits of joy all to myself?

Enjoy!

Today’s class lecture topic:

Foreign exchange reserves management in China.

Today’s completely unrelated mid-lecture joke:

One day, a professor gave his class some homework. He asked his class to give him their own opinions about other country’s food shortages.

The American student raised his hand and asked the professor, “What is another country?”

The European student raised his hand and asked the professor, “What is a shortage?”

The African student raised his hand and asked the professor, “What is food?”

The Chinese student raised his hand and asked the professor, “What is my own opinion?”

[Get it?]

I’ll admit today’s joke was a little lame and potentially slightly controversial, but don’t worry. She’s had some real gems in the past. Please enjoy this one from two weeks ago:

Class lecture topic:

RMB exchange rate and exchange rate policies in China

Completely unrelated mid-lecture joke:

A panda walked into a restaurant and ordered a huge meal. He ate lots of food until he was very full. When he was all finished, he pulled out a big gun and started shooting everyone. People outside were very concerned, so they called the police. When the police came to arrest the panda, he said “no, no! It’s fine.” He then pulled out a dictionary and flipped through until he found the definition of panda.

“Panda: eats shoots and leafs.”

I think everyone in the class was a little surprised by the violent mid-joke plot twist. Need I remind you that she’s a very small, adorable Asian woman? Anyway, please don’t think that I’m trying to associate my blog with violent Pandas. Any panda that tries to dine and dash—let alone shoot restaurant patrons—is not a panda I want to play with. But then again, I’m sure not all pandas are like that, and you shouldn't pass judgment on a species just because of a few bad seeds that grew up in a rough neighborhood…

Zai jian,

Jhw 

A Purrfect Situation

I guess I’ll start off by talking about “Cat Place”. It’s a little restaurant that we call such not because of the food it serves, but because of the loving, slightly-feral cat that calls it home. Don’t worry, America, cats are still one of the few things here classified under the “non-food” category. Instead, they serve the dual purpose of rodent-control, and providing me something to play with while I eat meals. Cats freely wandering an eating establishment may not give off the impression of cleanliness to the average Westerner, but try to see it from a perspective of trade-offs. Would you rather have mice in your food, or get to play with kitties while you eat?

…Kitties!

I don’t know all the laws in China, or even if there are any, but there’s a few “suggestions” that I've noticed. For one, there seems to be some kind of restaurant safety code, monitored with inspections similar to those that take place in the US. It’s based on a three tiered scale of exceeding, passing, and failing. However, the results are represented with graphics so that they are internationally understood: a green happy face, the Wal-Mart smiley face after a long day at work, and Charlie Sheen. Restaurants don’t need to put up their results, nor will they be shut down because of them, but I’ve seen them posted in certain upscale establishments. KFC, for example, proudly shows their pissed-off Wal-Mart smiley face, proclaiming to the world that they passed their inspection. Cat Place, however, doesn’t display their results. I can’t help but assume that their cat isn’t doing a good enough job. Perhaps they just need more cats; this has generally been my solution to problems in the past. Just ask Momma Wolf. She’s up to six now.

After all, they’re a purrfect solution to everything.

And isn’t that one thing the world needs more of? Cats? Big cats, small cats, fluffy cats, skinny cats, catty cats? Absolutely. Not everyone may agree with me, but China seems to understand of my logic because cats are everywhere. These majestic beings roam the backstreets, sing out beautiful melodies at night, and most importantly, faithfully serve restaurants such as Cat Place. They’re doing their catly duties so well, in fact, that Shanghai is seemingly devoid of rats—both those flying and non-flying. While Boston and New York are plagued by pigeon herds, I have yet to see any here besides those that are caged with chickens in the back alleyways. I can therefore partly explain away their downfall by their lack of “non-food” designation, but rats are another story: I’m relatively certain that they are not one of the indulgences in “three delicacies” dumplings, so what could it be?

That’s right, America, kitties.

I think we can all agree though, that America already has enough feral cats. So really, what we need are better feral cats. The problem here is obviously that American cats are getting too lazy. Obesity is an epidemic not only for our people, but apparently for our pets as well. If they were doing their jobs right, I wouldn’t get jumped by street-thug pigeons every time I tried to get into my apartment building in Boston. I can’t think of a solution outside of importing Chinese cats, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

In the meantime, please spay or neuter your pets. Not only are they not doing their jobs well enough, but Momma Wolf will not accept anymore kittens. I’ve tried. She does have a certain fondness for Tabbies though…

Good luck.

Zai jian,

Jhw

Merry Christmas

To say the least, I’m facing a few challenges with the language here. I spend three hours a day in my Chinese class, but all it does is make me miss the alphabet. I daydream for hours about roman letters—about words with Latin roots. Though writing and I had our disagreements in the past, we’ve been on relatively good terms for a few years now. Ever since I learned how to read in third grade, it’s been pretty smooth sailing. But now? Learning characters? It’s like I’m playing Pictionary 24 hours a day. I’ve even started to dream about little stick-figure men wearing various hats and standing on top of compartmentalized boxes.

This one has a friend, this one likes flags. Can’t guess it? Oops, time’s up.

Anyway, Mandarin is rough, but I’m building a nice foundation. You wouldn’t believe how well I can introduce myself to strangers and ask for their surnames. Where would I be if I couldn’t tell them my nationality and (after politely letting them know how nice it is to meet them) ask where the cafeteria is? I can even invite them into said cafeteria and ask them to sit! Wonderful. 1.3 billion friends-I-haven’t-met-yet, and all of them love dumplings just as much as I do. We’re perfect for each other.

…But maybe not yet.

Food is where it gets slightly problematic. Sure, I can ask the waiter what time he went swimming yesterday, but I don’t know how to order what I want for lunch yet. You’d probably think that this is a huge problem, but once again you’d be underestimating the wonders of Chinese ingenuity. Like many other things, the US has this, but China just manages to do it better.

But where am I going with this, you ask? The rail system? Counterfeit products? Economic growth?

Nay. Picture menus.

China has the best usage of picture menus that I have ever seen. It’s fantastic. Not only are menus covered with pictures though, but so are the walls! Everywhere you look there are portraits of food; there’s artwork everywhere. It’s like the Louve, but instead of angelic murals above the furniture, there’s chow mien. Even better.

There’s no question about how much I’ll be paying, or what my meal will look like. All I need to do is find something that looks pretty, point, and then smile and nod at every question the waiter asks me afterwards. Language barrier schmanguage barrier, it’s like Christmas three times a day. I may or may not know exactly what I’m eating, but who cares as long as it looks good? And regardless, I love surprises. It may be mystery meat, but it helps if you try not to think about that.

…Just assume it's pork, and think happy thoughts.

“Ooo! What did Chairman Claus bring for me today?”

Zai jian,

Jhw