Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Bad news about Lee

This is JimK...Please read this.  We’ve lost Lee.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Fun With Subtitles

Okay, this is fucking awesome.  I’m sitting here watching old South Park episodes on DVD.  I randomly stuck one in and it was one where Trey and Matt introduce their favorite episodes.  They’re performing at an old folks’ home when the turn to the camera, and announce that we’re about to see their favorite episode, “Conjoined Fetus Lady.” The dialogue then goes something like this.

Matt:  ‘It’s all about the boys and their trip to China to compete in a dodgeball tournament.”
Trey:  “We got the idea when Matt and I visited Beijing, China.  Here we are at the Great Wall.”

[Photo of them at the Great Wall.]

Matt:  “And here we are at the Forbidden City.”

[Photo of them in an alley.]

Trey:  “And here we are at Tiananmen Square, where students were massacred by the Chinese army.”

[Photo of them in front of the Forbidden City.]

Trey:  “And here we are reenacting the Tiananmen Square massacre.”

[Photo of them in Chinese army clothes pointing their fingers at a Chinese guy’s head as if they were guns.  Cut to another shot of them strangling the same guy.]

Matt:  “After we got out of jail for reenacting the Tiananmen Square massacre we came home and thought, ‘Wow, China is really stupid.  Let’s make fun of it.’ So we did.”

Trey:  “And this episode has that old ‘Woman who has a conjoined twin attached to her head’ joke in it.”

I was really curious to see how the Chinese subtitles would translate this so I started the DVD over again with the subtitles on.  When it gets to “We got the idea when Matt and I visited Beijing, China” there is an accurate translation.  I recognized the characters for Beijing and China.  The funny part comes through the rest—this exact same translation remains on the screen through everything I quoted above, until it gets to the last line, about the conjoined twin joke.  For the entire section dealing with Tiananmen the translators conveniently forgot to put up subtitles.

High-larious family entertainment.  Of course, the fact that I’ve just written the words “Tiananmen Square massacre” is probably going to get this site blocked by the government.  Note to the government functionary who will be evaluating this:  this is a personal blog designed for my family and friends, not a political or anti-government website.  We’re lao wei, we all saw what happened live on TV.  It’s on YouTube, for God’s sake.  No Chinese are going to be reading this, so please, cut me some slack.  I’m making fun of the DVD, nothing more.

Monday, February 09, 2009

So Where the Fuck Have I Been?

Honestly, I just needed a blogging break.  Between the Christmas holidays, followed, by the Chinese New Year, I couldn’t have been fucked to blog about anything.  I’ve been partying, relaxing, enjoying time off work, and just generally being a complete lazy fuckhead. 

I’ve got some AMAZING video of the fireworks this year, which I’ll be posting any day now.  Unlike last year I kept my goddamned mouth shut, so you don’t have to hear my idiotic commentary where I use the word “spectacular” every five seconds.  I also got some great shots tonight from my office window (my home office, I mean) where you can see fireworks going off right outside my window. 

See?  That towering inferno below could have been my apartment.  Ah, China.  There are SO MANY ways to die here, it just makes every second count.

Monday, January 19, 2009

RTKBA

Those of you back home might be surprised how popular SUVs and Jeeps are here.  Pickups haven’t taken off, but there are SUVs and Jeeps everywhere.  This morning a Jeep pulled in front of my taxi.  It had a lot of sport accessories on it, so it looks like the owner might take it offroading.  (I don’t think he was a poseur, it actually looked like it had been offroad.)

Like all cars it had a license plate.  This one, however, had an additional license plate frame, which had been attached to the rear gate of the Jeep off to the left.  I swear I’m not making this up—It was a standard American sized license plate with the NRA logo in the center, with the words NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION clearly on it.  It’s the type of plate that, in some states, you’re allowed to put on the front of your car.

I didn’t get a solid look at the guy because he pulled onto the freeway in front of us but I’m almost positive he was Chinese.  He may have been an ABC—American Born Chinese—but whatever he was he was prominently displaying the NRA colors.

This country never ceases to fascinate me.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Frosty Brew II

I just had my latest crate of beer delivered.  They’re running late tonight.  It’s almost midnight and they just showed up.  I had the little security panel on my wall ring, and when I answered all I could see was the top of a woman’s head.  I said nihau? (hello?) and she said pijiu (beer).  This little woman, maybe 45 years old and under 5 feet tall, was humping up a crate of beer.

It’s so fucking cold outside that the beers in the crate were twice as cold as the ones I had in the fridge.  It’s been cold as a witch’s tit lately, bitter biting cold wind blowing in off the Gobi Desert.  It’s “turn your nuts into raisins” weather.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

TV Guide

I’ve been a DVD-watching bastard lately.  Since pirate DVDs are my only source of TV and movies I have amassed quite a collection.  I mean, they don’t cost but a few dollars each, so why the hell not?

A few months ago I bought a boxed set of the X-Files.  I was a big fan of the show when it was on so I undertook the herculean task of watching the entire series from the pilot through the second movie, one after the other.  It took me almost three months but I actually did it.  I’d come home from work and watch about four episodes a night.  It was a really interesting way to see the show again because there wasn’t the gap between the episodes and the seasons, so you noticed all kinds of little details that you might have missed on a regular viewing schedule.  There were things I noticed about the Syndicate, as well as its members Cancer Man, the Well-Manicured Man, the Elder, and so on.  I’d forgotten about Spender, and that CSM was father to both he and Mulder.  I also found that I enjoyed the Dogget episodes a lot more now than I did when they were originally on, when they were trying the whole supersoldiers thing. 

Other than that in the past week I’ve watched the most recent seasons of Entourage (which is the best fucking show on TV right now), Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I just now finished the third season of Dexter.  I need to find season six of The Shield.  Last time I was at the DVD shop I bought what I was told was season six but it was actually five, but I watched it again anyway to get me back up to speed with the whole thing between Shane and Vic.  I have to go do some running around tomorrow, I’ll see if I can find it somewhere.

It’s a pain in the ass having to watch all your TV on DVDs, but sometimes it has its benefits.  I really miss my fucking TiVo, though. 

Update: I’ve watched some crap movies in my time.  A lot of them I really liked, even though they were awful.  (There’s something appealing about a really good bad movie.) Right now Max Payne starring Mark Wahlberg is on.  It’s been on for about fifteen minutes, and it’s such a monumental piece of shit I’m not even going to finish it, and I’ll damn near watch anything.  Calling this movie an unholy crapfest is an insult to unholy crapfests.  Not only am I going to switch it off I’m going to smash the DVD into a few pieces lest it somehow fall into someone else’s DVD player.

Capitalist Barking Dog

One of my neighbors has a yappy rat dog, and the fucking thing has been barking non-stop for about six hours.  I think it’s up one floor but I’m not sure.  I’d like to throw it off the goddamned balcony.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Technorogy

So I’ve had a problem with the fire alarm in my kitchen recently.  It’s been going off for no reason in the middle of the night.  The problem is that with this system there’s no battery and no reset switch so my only option is to rip it out of the roof by the wires.  Last time my ayi was in here I told her to contact the mamagement office and tell them to replace it.  I just got out of the shower and both she and here are in here replacing the alarm.

You know when you splice two pieces of electrical wire together, you use electrical tape to bind them and cover the copper join?  Well, he’s using plastic wrap (cling film for you Limeys).

While he’s here I’m also going to get him to look at that crispy electrical switch that always makes a sizzling noise when it comes on.  I swear to Christ this place is going to go up in a fireball one night.  I need to get about five fire extinguishers for my apartment, though I’m sure they were made with the care and attention to detail as the fire alarm and the light switch.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Ping An Ye

Well, it’s Christmas Eve here in Beijing.  We haven’t really had any snow this year despite record cold winds blowing in off the Gobi.  As I wrote last year, there are Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE here.  And unlike the US, the decorations don’t say “Happy Holidays” or “Enjoy Your Festive Non-Denominational End of Year Celebration” but they actually use the word “Christmas.”

You come to a country where religion is outlawed and you see “Merry Christmas” everywhere. In the US, a country with a right to religious freedom written in the Constitution, and businesses are terrified of saying “Merry Christmas” for fear of offending someone.

Tonight and tomorrow night I’ll be with my friends, eating turkey and other traditional Christmas fare, all of us far removed from our families back home.

Update: I had some kind of weird formatting issue with the previous post and this one, the other one wouldn’t display properly, so I deleted it.  I’ll see if I can dig it out of a cache and repost it.

So Long Nuts

Those of you with testicles will appreciate the nut-shriveling factor inherent in this story.

Winter truly arrived in Beijing yesterday with the highest temperature of the day down to minus 8.8 ℃. Media reports say it was “the coldest day in December in the last 57 years.”

Strong wind ripped off part of the metal roof of a university’s gymnasium and the thermal insulation layer of a hotel in Beijing. It also blew away a man who was mending his own roof in Shijingshan District. The man landed on the top of a 15 meter-high tree and was rescued by firefighters (see front page image).

According to Sun Jisong, a meteorologist from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, the cold weather will not last and the temperature is going to rise to above zero in the coming days.

Yes, it’s THAT FUCKING COLD here.  Must be that global warming thing I’ve been hearing about.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Yes, I Am Alive

I realize it’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted anything.  I really don’t want to use the super lame “I’ve been really busy at work” line but the fact is I’ve been really busy at work.  We’ve taken on our biggest project to date and aspects of it have turned out to be far more difficult than we had imagined.

Not a whole lot exciting has happened in the last few weeks, though I do have a couple of interesting anecdotes.  Last weekend when I was out with my friends we had a couple of Russian guys from Siberia hanging around with us.  They were telling us all kinds of stories about life there.  One of them asked me, “In America, are you taught that Russia is a police state?” I answered that we’re taught that things have gotten better since the days of the USSR but that there are a lot of gangs now, the Russian Mafia.  He laughed.  “In Russia we prefer the gangs.  Nobody goes to the police.  The gangs will steal your money, but the police will steal your money, torture you, and throw you in jail.” (Insert Guantananmo reference here.)

They then described how the police would torture someone.  They’d start out with something called the “elephant.” This is where they handcuff you to a chair and put an old WWII-era gas mask on you.  This has a long hose hanging down in front of it where the air canister would attach, giving you a look like an elephant with a trunk.  The police would take the hose and block the end off with their hand, cutting off the victim’s oxygen supply.  They’d keep this up until you passed out, after which they’d take their hand off and you could breathe again.  The police would then do this over and over and over to you for even days at a time, making you pass out then reviving you, until you admitted guilt to whatever they were trying to pin on you.  Another technique is more traditional.  They take an electric wire, plug it into a socket, and touch the live ends to your fingertips.  This technique is known for some reason as “internet.” They said the elephant was preferred to the internet because it didn’t leave any marks. 

One of the Russians mentioned that his family wasn’t originally from Siberia, they were from the west.  How did they end up in Siberia?  “Many years ago Stalin put my family on a train, so now I come from Siberia.” It’s a whole different world out there, folks.

The other tale happened last night.  I ended up at the emergency room.  As many of you know I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and I take medication for it.  As part of the OCD I also am prone to anxiety.  Since these medications are hard to get in China (one is almost prohibited for doctors to prescribe and the other is not sold here) I have my mom buy them in the US and FedEx them over.  I’ve done this ten times or so since I got here and never had a problem.  This time, for some reason, the box got held up in Chinese customs.  It’s been there for almost a week.  I had to write out a letter detailing every medication in the box, the dosages, the amount I take, why I was importing them, and so on.  This then had to be translated into Chinese, faxed to FedEx, who then gave it to the customs department.  It’s been in customs for three days, and I’m out of pills.  In other words, the stuff I take to stop me from going nuts is sitting in customs, and the fact it’s in customs and may or may not be released was giving me maxor anxiety.

Yesterday at work all day I was anxious as hell.  My heart was beating rapidly and I was forcing myself to try and remain calm.  I got home from work and got some dinner.  As I was eating I began to feel very lightheaded.  My heart was racing, at one point I checked and it was 120 beats per minute.  I was dizzy and honestly thought I was going to pass out.  I recognized what was going on—I was having a panic attack.  I’ve only had a few of them before, but they’re the worst feeling in the world.  The way a doctor once explained it to me is that as humans evolved we developed our sense of fear, and as a part of that sense there is an alarm which says “You are in imminent danger of dying.” When you see a rattlesnake near your leg, or you’re underwater for too long, this is the sense you feel.  During a panic attack this alarm goes off for no real reason.  All of a sudden you literally feel like you are about to die.  It’s awful. 

I tried to calm myself down with breathing.  I even made a couple of stiff drinks, but those didn’t help either.  I knew I was going to have to go to the hospital.  I was avoiding going because, even though I have great health insurance here, and there are a number of for-profit hospitals who employ Western doctors, they don’t direct bill my insurance, so I’d have to pay cash, and I had no idea how much it was going to cost.  Eventually I admitted to myself that this wasn’t going to stop on its own, I needed something to help me calm down.  I called a friend who came over, got me in a taxi, and took me to the SOS International emergency room.

I had an EKG and they determined I wasn’t having a heart attack.  I was hyperventilating, and my heart rate was above 90 when they first checked it.  They eventually gave me something to help me relax, and within a couple of hours I was more or less normal.  The visit cost me ¥3,300, about $480.  I filed the insurance claim today, so I should have that money returned within a couple of weeks.

Thankfully, according to the FedEx tracking page, the customs people have released my package, so hopefully FedEx will deliver it to me tomorrow.

Welcome to life in China.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Money For Nothing

Had a really odd experience in the taxi ride home tonight.  After we had driven off the driver asked me (in Chinese, of course) if I could speak Chinese.  I said not really, that my Chinese is very bad.  He asked where I was from and I said America (Meiguo).  “Ah, Meiguo!” he said excitedly, which he followed up with something that sounded like “Leering papers bang, bu hao!” (These last two words mean “not good.") I had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say, so I replied that I heard him but didn’t understand him.

“Ummm… uhhhh… Leerung Burse Bang.  Uhhhh… bank!  B-A-N-K!” I said “Yinhang ma?” (You mean bank?) He responded in the affirmative.

It was just then that I realized what he was trying to say:  Lehman Brothers Bank.  In other words, since I was American and the collapse of Lehman was the precipitating event in the financial mess he was saying “Lehman Brothers Bank is bad!” He was getting confused on the middle word, which we all know is an abbreviation for “brothers” but to him looks like “bross.”

People in America buy homes they can’t afford, Iceland goes bankrupt, and a Chinese cabbie forms a bad opinion of Lehman Brothers.  It’s a strange world we live in, my friends.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Woof Woof

There is, for some reason, a pack of dogs outside my apartment howling at the moon.  I don’t know where they are but I can hear them all the way up here on the 25th floor.  It’s a little creepy, actually.  It kinda sounds like the food pens in back of a Korean restaurant.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Gas Giant

I don’t know what the hell is going on lately, but the last four or five taxi drivers have been farting in the cab.  I don’t mean they farted before I got in, they fart multiple times while I am in it.  The odd thing is they are completely sneaky about it.  They’re all SBDs, you never hear them do it, it just hits you like a blast wave.  Now, if there is only you and the driver in the cab, and you smell a fart, are you going to have any problem figuring out where it came from?  If the cabbies are going to fart in the cab, why not go up on one ass cheek and let ‘er rip?  Why be surreptitious?  Proudly float that air biscuit, and claim it as your own!

Of course, I quickly learned how to say fart:  fang pi.  Now I can say Wo bu yao nide fangpi, which means “I don’t want your farts.” It’s actually got kind of a cool cadence to it, I could see it being in a rap song.  “Woe boo yow need a… fahng pee!”

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Psycho Pharmacology

I’ve mentioned before about how Chinese drug stores sell all kinds of stuff over the counter that would be considered a prescription item at home.  You can buy Prozac and Zoloft and other antidepressants.  You can buy anti-anxiety drugs similar to Valium or Xanax, I mean, these are drugs which, if you have no experience with taking them, can seriously screw with your brain chemistry.  They also have tons of side effects as well as interactions with other drugs.

You can also buy both birth control pills and the morning after pill right there at the counter.  But I was also surprised to see Viagara up there as well.  I wondered why, in a country with population controls so serious that they will perform and abortion on an eight month old fetus, yet they will sell drugs over the counter to help you straighten out your Longfellow.  If your goal is population control, why would you enable someone to “get they fuck on” if they otherwise could not?