Thursday, January 08, 2009

A Night at the Flicks

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.  What time is that, you ask?  Is is the crisp winter?  The new year, with all the promises it holds?  No, my friends.  It’ a couple of months before the Oscars, and the studios are sending out screener DVDs to the academy members, which means that the Chinese DVD pirates end up with them, resulting in us poor lao wei being able to see good quality, recently-released films on DVD.  In the last couple of days I watched Benjamin Button and Gran Torino, both of which I loved.  (Eastwood is fucking brilliant, and the visual effects in Buttons more than make up for Brad Pitt’s atrocious New Orleans accent.) I’ve got Milk and Slumdog Millionaire and a whole bunch of other films to watch in the coming days.  On top of that I recently watched the most recent season of House (in a one-day marathon of viewing) and the final season of Boston Legal, which was an even bigger vehicle for David E. Kelley’s left wing agitprop than any that preceded it, though the characters and stories were still great.  Next up is season two of Californication, a show I love in part because it takes place exactly where I used to live and work when I lived in Los Angeles, and I recognize half the locations in it.  (In the opening credits there’s a brief flash of David Duchovny outside a building with an abominable massive piece of art comprised of a ballerina with a hobo’s head—I used to work a block from there, we called it the “clown building” and I used to park in there all the time.  (Useless trivia—you remember the exploding bus in the film Speed?  That’s the same corner where the filmed the explosion.  More useless trivia—in Californication all the names of Hank Moody’s novels, such as “Seasons in the Abyss” and “God Hates Us All” are the names of albums by the band Slayer.  I fucking love Slayer.)

I still think, overall, Tropic Thunder has been my favorite movie so far this year.  I thought I was going to crap myself laughing at the “You never go full retard” scene, which I think has some of the best comedy dialogue I’ve heard in years (not to mention the most accurate) and the Tom Cruise scenes are awesome.

Remember, folks, these movies cost about a buck each.

Update: In the first few minutes of the first episode of season two Hank’s daughter is playing Guitar Hero.  The song she’s playing?  “Raining Blood” by Slayer.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Frosty Brew

My ayi comes Mondays and Thursdays.  In addition to the cleaning and washing and stuff she also does all kinds of errands for me, like my pay my utility bills, and make sure tat I have crates of beer delivered.  A crate (seen here) costs less than $5.  It’s 9:20 pm right now and I just heard the guy deliver it.  I’m sure he’s got his little tricycle covered with crates of beer making his deliveries.

The cool thing is this:  it’s fucking freezing outside today, well below zero.  So the beer he just delivered to me was ice cold, suitable for drinking the minute I brought it into the apartment.  And who says there aren’t awesome things about living here.

Monday, November 24, 2008

You Lie Like A Rug

As I’ve mentioned before I have hardwood floors all through my apartment.  When I first got here I bought a rug from IKEA so that I could protect the floors from the inevitable sloppy food and spilled drinks.  Needless to say that after a year of being here the thing was as filthy as the piece of carpet in the garage of a frat house where they do the keg stands. 

Last Thursday I left a note for my ayi to get the thing cleaned.  She obviously called some kind of cleaner because I came home today and there it was, looking like it did the day I bought it.  I’m sure many of you have had rugs cleaned before.  What did it cost?  Remember this is for pickup, cleaning, and delivery.

Cost to me: ¥136.  In dollars that’s $19.91.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Pirates of the Communism

Some coworkers and I went to a new DVD shop tonight after work.  With the Olympics so close many of the DVD shops in town have either gone out of business or temporarily gone legit, actually stocking the shelves with legal Chinese DVDs.  Once the games are over they’ll all go back to selling the bootlegs, but government is making sure that tourists aren’t stopped going back to their home countries with armloads of DVDs.  The store we went to tonight is in the back of a dress shop, you walk through the shop and go into a little room in the back, full of DVDs. 

I got 19 individual DVDs, as well as some boxed sets:  A collection of every Cohen Brothers film; Season 4 of Boston Legal; and Seasons 1-3 of Battlestar Gallactica. 

Assuming an average cost of $15 the individual discs would cost me $285.  According to Amazon.com the Battlestar sets would cost me $123.  Boston Legal is $42, and it’s only available on pre-order.  A rough estimate, based on various individual prices on Amazon, puts the Cohen Brothers set at about $300.  Total for all purchases:  $450.  Add in sales tax of 8% and we have a grand total of $486.  Click below to see what I paid.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Moneypenny

I went out DVD shopping again last night.  Among other things I got a beautiful boxed set of all 22 James Bond films.  This cost me a whopping $30.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

It’s Back to HBO

Yesterday my Chinese DVD player went on the fritz.  Goddamn it, when I spend $35 on a piece of home electronics I expect it to work longer than 5 months.

I really need to get my pirate satellite dish hooked up. 

Friday, March 07, 2008

I’ve Been Framed, Part II

I got my framing back today.  The workmanship is amazing.  Hand-cut, hand-painted, with brown paper on the back, the whole nine yards.  And the total cost for this, including pick-up and delivery, was less than $19.

It almost makes me want to go home and find something else to frame, just for the hell of it.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Sammich

I couldn’t eat the same Chinese food today.  I needed a break.  I asked a coworker where I could get a sandwich, and he said there was a little shop just a few blocks from here.  I had our receptionist call over there and I ordered two BLTs and some potato chips. 

I didn’t get exactly what I asked for.  I got two ham sandwiches with lettuce and tomato (something got lost in the translation) and a little pack of French fries.  It tasted pretty good, though.

Total cost, including delivery:  ¥63, which is $8.87.

Here’s the funny thing.  The name of the place is Tube Station.  If you’ve ever been to the UK you’ll know that “tube station” is how you say “subway station.” Thus the name of the joint is a blatant rip-off of Subway.

Batter Up

Holy crap!  I just found out tonight that Saturday and Sunday of next week there will be two exhibition games of Major League Baseball right here in Beijing, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres.  I’m buying my tickets tomorrow.

Note that the most expensive tickets are $183.  This is about what you’d pay for a slightly-better-than-average ticket at Dodger Stadium. 

Update: Here’s a great illustration of how cheap labor costs are here.  From the ticket website linked above:

Home Delivery (Beijing Area)：
Within 4th ring road, the delivery is free if the charge exceeds 100RMB per order. If the total is below 100RMB, RMB10 will be added.

To put this in terms of dollars it says, “Delivery is free if the charge exceeds $14.  If the total is below $14, $1.40 will be added.” This is so they can pay a guy to get on a motorcycle and deliver your tickets to you.  A buck forty covers that expense—the guy’s salary, the gasoline, the depreciation on the motorcycle, etc.

Monday, March 03, 2008

I’ve Been Framed

I have had for a while a poster I wanted to get framed.  I had one of the girls in the office contact a reputable framing guy.  He actually came out to the office, picked up the poster, will make a frame by hand, and return it to me on Friday.  The cost?  ¥130, which is $18.28.

In the US, you couldn’t go into a frame store and buy a decent poster frame for $20.  Here I get a hand made frame, and delivery service.  As I’ve said before, in a country with a billion and a half people, the heaviest thing I ever lift is money.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

What time would that be?  Why, it’s the award season.  This means that every studio is sending out DVD screeners to the members of their various academies.  And when there are screeners floating around, they’ll end up for sale in China.

Tonight a coworker and I went to a DVD store which is, I shit you not, the Mecca of DVDs.  It’s larger than the DVD section at your local Best Buy.  I’d be willing to bet, without exaggeration, that they had 20,000 different DVDs in this place.  It was ENORMOUS.  And it was in a basement, down a set of metal stairs.  You’d never know that it was there even if you were walking past the front door.

So, what did I get?  Here’s the list.

Juno
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
We Own the Night
The Number 23
Rescue Dawn
Meet the Robinsons
Awake
The Illusionist
The Golden Compass
Into the Wild
Jackass 2.5
Blood Diamond
Michael Clayton
The Island

And I also got three boxed sets of TV shows.

Blackadder, Seasons 1-5
Californication, Season 1
House M.D., Season 4

So, let’s assume that each one of the DVD moves above would be an average of $15 retail at Best Buy.  That’s $210 worth of movies.  And let’s give each one of the boxed sets an average price of $30.  That’s $90, giving us a grand total of $300.  With an 8% sales tax this is $324.

For all the items listed above I paid the whopping sum of ¥320, which works out to $44.75.  So I paid roughly 13% of what the items would cost in the US.

Not too shabby, huh?  Whenever I end up returning to the US I’m going to have the world’s largest pirate DVD collection.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Free Market

I went out shopping yesterday at one of the fashion markets.  This is where they sell all the knock-off clothes and stuff, as well as a lot of Chinese touristy items.  In the parking lot there are big busses of tour groups who are brought here to shop.  It’s almost sad to hear some of these people in the stores, because they have no idea how to haggle Chinese-style, which is an art form in and of itself.

1.  You never, ever act really interested in anything, even if you want it.
2.  When you ask how much something is, assume that the price is being marked up by at least 400%.  You must immediately assume a posture of high indignation, and say something like “How stupid do you think I am?” and walk away.
3.  They will then come running after you with a calculator.  To make sure that nobody gets the numbers wrong, they type their price on a calculator.  You then type in your offer, which should be about 1/5 of their original price.  They will act like this is the most insane price in the world, and say they could never sell it to you that low.  However, this is the dance—you’ve just set the high and low price ranges, and essentially set the parameters in which the haggling will take place.
4.  One other thing to know is that all of these stalls sell the same shit.  You can usually find exactly the same thing just a few steps away, and these people all know it.  What they count on is that the tourists don’t know this.  The tourists generally don’t know how low the people will actually go.  They also feel a general need to compromise on a price, whereas I’m just a hard-hearted fuck who tells them what I’m willing to pay and says “Take it or leave it.” Sometimes you might actually have to walk away, they’ll follow you eventually when they’re convinced you’re going to actually leave.

I fucking love to haggle.  It’s the ultimate battle of the wits.  And I have the advantage of (a) not being a tourist and thus knowing how the game is played, (b) living here, and knowing that there are fifty other places I can go to buy the same stuff, and (c) knowing what this stuff is actually worth.

For example, say I saw a Chairman Mao t-shirt I wanted, and asked how much it was.  They’d probably say something like ¥80.  To convert between RMB and USD you divide by 8 (it’s actually about 7.6, but 8 works for rough calculations.) The American tourist thinks, “Wow, a t-shirt for $10!” What they don’t realize is that they could get the same t-shirt for $1.50 if they haggled.

Case in point:  I need a parka.  I’ve been wearing my old Navy peacoat, but on the days when the wind is blowing I wanted something more insulated.  I looked around until I found one that fit me and asked how much.  “¥780, but for you I give special happy price, ¥680.” So they wanted $100 for this parka, which is probably about what it would cost in the US.  I said, “You’re crazy,” took the coat off, threw it at her, and walked out in a huff of righteous indignation and offense.  She ran after me and asked how much I was willing to pay.  ”Er bai,” I said (¥200).  She wailed about how low it was, so I started walking away. 

“Okay, how about ¥400.”

”Bu, er bai.” (No, ¥200.)

We went back and forth a little bit, and I ended up paying ¥200, or $27.  I also bought a pair of binoculars for ¥40 ($5.50).  That one was particular amusing because she originally wanted something like ¥300 and then I made her an offer of ¥50.  Eventually I got her down to ¥50 and then, just to be a dick, I told her I’d only pay ¥40.  “No, no, I need to make profit,” she wailed.

“Okay, then don’t take my ¥40.” I started to walk away.

“¥45, okay?  Special price.”

“No, ¥40.” I got them for ¥40.  Do I feel guilty?  Hell no.  First off, if they won’t make a profit they won’t sell it to you, so the fact she sold it to me for that price meant she made at least some money.  And second, there is a virtually unlimited supply of tourists for them to fleece and bilk on a regular basis.

I also bought a couple of Chinese art gifts for people. The price on them, the one that’s there for the tourists, was ¥980 each.  I got two of them for ¥300, ¥150 apiece. 

By far the strangest purchase of the day was a baseball.  I walked past a stall full of sporting equipment.  The girl in there says, “Hello, hello, you want football?” (Meaning soccer, of course.) I said, as a way of being dismissive, “No, I only like baseball” and kept walking.  “Hello, hello, baseball!” She ran to the back of the store and came out with an actual regulation baseball.  Now, I brought my baseball glove over here with me, but for some reason didn’t bring a ball.  I asked the girl how much it was, and she said ¥80.  I said, “Look, I know what this is worth.  I’ll give you ¥10.” She asked for 40, then 30, then 20, then 15, then finally gave it to me for ¥10.

I love doing this shit. 

P.S.  When the weather gets warmer I’m planning on playing catch in Tiananmen Square.  Yes, the video will go on YouTube.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

That Takes Guts

So as a thank you for their hard work on this recent project I took my crew of seven out to lunch.  We went to eat hotpot.  I think I’ve talked about hotpot before, but basically it goes like this.  There’s a huge pot of broth recessed in the center of the table, and inside is an entire duck.  They turn on the heat, and within 5 or 10 minutes the broth is boiling, the duck comes apart, and you dig in.  Once you’ve eaten the duck, or at least most of it, you then add in a variety of items.  Thin strips of beef and pork, meatballs, lamb, various veggies, shrimp balls, that sort of thing.  One of my favorite items are rice cakes, which are roughly the size and shape of a domino.  By this time the broth is so hot the food cooks almost instantly, and you just reach in with your chopsticks and grab what you like out of the pot.  You can either dip it in a spicy sauce, or there is a sesame sauce which has an almost peanut-like flavor to it.  It’s absolutely delicious.

We ordered about 12 different items to add to the pot.  All of us are stuffed.  The grand total?  ¥128, or $17.54.

I did try one new item today, though.  I told my guests to order whatever they liked, and the waitress brought a plate of some type of meat I’d never seen.  I asked what it was, and was told, “You won’t like this.  It is the… umm… I’m not sure how to say, the inside of the duck.” Basically it was duck intestines.  Not wanting to look like a pussy I started chowing down. Actually they weren’t bad, a little chewy but otherwise tasty.

Remember, the Chinese will eat anything.  Fish heads, duck eyes, hearts, tongues, you name it.  If it comes from an animal, they’ve figured out some way to eat it.  But I have to admit, a lot of these “gross” items are, if you’re brave enough to try them, quite tasty.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A Little Off the Top

‘Twas nary a month ago that I had my first Chinese haircut.  Today I had my second.  The last one was at a salon a short cab ride from my apartment, and with two taxi rides included cost a total of $6.70.  The other day I noticed that there’s a salon down an alley near my office, so I whipped in there today after lunch.  The guy gave me a great haircut, even better than the last place.  Total cost:  ¥10, or $1.34. 

I used to get my hair cut at Supercuts in LA, and that was $12.  So this was essentially 1/10 the cost of a Supercuts hairstyle.  Think of it like this:  I could get my hair cut at the Chinese place for a year for just a little bit more than the cost of one Supercuts.

I’ve found my new official haircut place.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Purses and Puke

I came home sick from work today.  Basically I went out Saturday night and got completely shithammered.  Sunday I was nursing a pretty severe hangover, but had mostly recovered by the evening.  I then went out with the girlfriend of a guy I know here to a secret store which sells super-realistic knock-off purses.  I bought two of them for my girlfriend for Christmas.  (I’m not blowing any surprises here, I told her to send me requests for what type she wanted.) I got her a Chanel and a Prada, about $5,000 worth of purses, for about $120.  The Chanel one even comes with a little card and booklet certifying its authenticity.  These are perfect replicas. 

Basically there are three grades of knock-offs here, A, B, and C.  Type C are the obvious fakes, you can find these for sale in little carts on the street.  Type B are better quality, you find them in the markets, but they’re still obvious fakes.  Type A are the good ones, virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.  These were type A.  The location of the store is a well-kept secret because the government, as a member of the WTO and beholden to protect intellectual property, is cracking down on the really good fakes, thus the secrecy.  (Baby steps.  First purses, then DVD stores.  But the black market will always meet the demand.)

After we bought the purses we went out for a quick meal of noodles and some kind of beef.  It tasted quite good, nothing dodgy there.  This morning I woke up with a sick feeling in my stomach.  I went to work, made my morning coffee, and within an hour I was retching it back up.  Maybe it was the ice in the drinks on Saturday night, which I am sure are made from tap water, or maybe it was the beef noodles, but something got to me.  I just felt worse and worse so I took off, came home, drank a little Pepto Bismol, and took a nap.  Now I feel okay.  I just made a sandwich and seem to be tolerating it well, so hopefully it was just a temporary thing.