 Wednesday, January 16, 2008Sunrise in BeijingThis is what greeted me this morning. (Click the image for a much larger version.)
 I have seen many sunrises since I got to Beijing. Usually, however, they’re on the weekend, as I’m stumbling out of a bar. Tuesday, January 15, 2008Giant Fucking QI feel like shit today. I have caught some other bug or virus or some damn thing. I almost never got sick in the US, but this place has a whole host of amoebas and various viruses against which I have not yet developed antibodies. Since I got here I haven’t been what I’d describe as healthy, only varying levels of sickness. Thank God I have a lot of NyQuil. I don’t do illegal drugs anymore. Now I just do the legal drugs. Tonight I’m on NyQuil and Sudafed. Let me tell you something, folks. Forget about cocaine and heroine. All you need is NyQuil and Sudafed. I’m telling you right now, I took the NyQuil five years ago. I just came out of the coma tonight before the fucking show! Claus Von Bulow was standing over my bed going, “Denis, get up! There’s something the matter with Sunny! Hurry up!” I love NyQuil. Man, I love it! I love it. I love it. I love it. It’s the best thing shit ever invented. Isn’t it, huh? I love the name alone. NyQuil - capital N, small Y, big fucking Q! I love that fucking Q, don’t you!? What a great advertising idea! Put a huge fucking Q on the box. They’ll get high and stare at it. “The Q is talking to me! The Q is talking to me!” I love NyQuil, man. Because NyQuil has never changed, man. It’s never changed. All the other medicines are doing that inner-child thing. “We know that there’s a small child inside of you, so now we have grape and cherry and orange flavor.” Not NyQuil! They still have the original green death fucking flavor! You know why? Because it doesn’t matter what it tastes like! It’s so strong you go, “Hey this stuff really tastes like…” Bang! You’re in the coma already! “What happened?” “He said ‘tastes like’ and he went right into the coma, it was unbelievable!” We have reached the point where the over the counter drugs are actually stronger than anything you can buy on the street. It says on the back of the NyQuil box, on the back of the box it says, “May cause drowsiness.” It should say, “Don’t make any fucking plans! Kiss your family and friends goodbye. Say hello to Claus!” NyQuil, NyQuil, NyQuil, we love you! You giant fucking Q!
NyQuil is the secret for all you twelve step recovery program people. Yes, all you AA people, NyQuil is the key! It’s the thirteenth fucking step! You can drink it! It’s over the counter! Drink as much as you want. “Are you drunk?” “No! I have a cold. Same cold I’ve had for two years. I just can’t seem to shake it. I’m high as a kite and my teeth are green. Merry fucking Christmas!”
ManholeSo the other night I was out, showing my liver how much I hate him, and I was in the expected state of blissful inebriation. Richard and I were walking down the street, going from one place to another (understandably I don’t remember the specifics) when somehow, through my alcoholic haze, I noticed that he was about to step into an open manhole cover. I pulled him out of the way right as he was about to step in it. This, of course, made the two of us grumble about the “fucking Chinese” and their slapdash safety standards. There wasn’t a blinking light or a cone or a piece of tape or anything, just an open manhole in the dark where anyone could fall into it. I went to work the other day and relayed this anecdote to my employees, who told me an interesting tale. It seems that often times the peasants from the countryside will come in to Beijing and go out stealing manhole covers, which they then take back to their villages, melt down, and sell the steel. So far from it being half-assed Chinese safety standards, it was some asshole and his friends out stealing manhole covers. Posted by Lee on 01/15 at 02:33 PM in Nightlife & Entertainment •
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Monday, January 14, 2008Ren DeTo further illustrate the point about “Chinaman” allow me to write a bit more about how you describe things in Chinese. If you want to refer to a Chinese person you say meiguoren, meaning “American person.” However, suppose you want to describe an American object, like a TV or a computer? You use the term de (pronounced “duh"). Thus while an American person is meiguoren, an American car would be meiguode. In other words, there is a character (ren) for describing people in Chinese, and there is another character (de) for describing objects in Chinese. (There are lots of contextual variations on this rule, of course, but these are the basics.) In English, and most western languages, we don’t make this sort of distinction. “He is a Chinese person” and “This is Chinese food” both use the same adjective to describe the subject of the sentence, whether it is people or food. However, this is not how Chinese works. “Chinaman,” being literally the way a Chinese man would refer to himself in Chinese (zhonguoren) is a perfectly legitimate means of referring to a Chinese, whether or not the left-wing hurt-feelings police have deemed it otherwise. The point of these last two posts has not been to try to get some grass-roots movement going to legitimize the use of the word “Chinaman.” It’s primarily to show that these stupid rules which society foists upon itself, usually rules decided by a self-anointed elite, are often the result of people who know absolutely nothing about what they’re being offended over. Saturday, January 12, 2008OrientalsIn one of my earlier posts I asked a question about the use of the word “Chinaman” to describe Chinese people.
A few weeks ago I was out on my usual weekend epidemic liver-destroying, life-shortening orgy of alcohol, and one of our group was an Indian. (Dot, not feather.) In the course of the conversation I, being American, referred to the Chinese using the term Asian. He said, “You know, we in India always find this funny. We think of ourselves as Asian.” “How do you describe the Chinese?” “Chinese and other eastern Asians are, to us, orientals.” Now, think about this for a second. In the US, you would never hear someone refer to an Indian or a Kazakh as an Asian, but they most certainly are. The dividing line between Europe and Asia is generally considered the Ural Mountain range in Russia. By some definitions, the Middle East (with the exception of Egypt) is considered part of Asia. But you would certainly never hear anyone refer to an Arab as an Asian. In the US the word “oriental” is considered racist, and thus the generic term “Asian” is used instead. But think about it, isn’t it more racist to use a term (Asian) which refers to so many diverse peoples together to simply describe one subset of that group (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and other east-Asians)? In other words, in the current PC lexicon, “Asian” means “slanty-eyed.” If you don’t have slanty eyes you’re not an Asian. The word “orient” simply means “east.” Thus an “oriental” is merely someone from the east. The opposite of orient is “occident.” There is (or at least used to be) an oil company called Occidental Drilling. By any standard, is this racist towards western people? Would any of you in the US or Europe be offended if someone called you an occidental? I think the Indian way makes more sense. Asia is a massive place. “Orientals” is a far more logical term to use to describe East Asians, at least in terms of differentiating them from Kazakhs or Iranians or Pakistanis. But then again, I’m not a stupid liberal pussy who gets offended by these things. Update: I left the text below as follow-ups in the comments, but I thought they would make good additions to the main post itself. Plus we must not forget the way you say “Chinese person” in Chinese, zhongguoren, which literally means “China Man.” (See the post from a couple of days ago.) When in a conversation with a Chinese they’ll often say something like, “I work for France company, and my boss is France man. My other boss is Germany man. There are no America man who work there.” In Chinese this sentence structure is perfectly correct, so it makes sense that they would speak English in this manner, by simply transliterating the words from one language to the other. Think of a Russian speaking English. “Is good, yes?” Even though this makes sense in English the sentence structure is Russian, because this is how the words transliterated from Russian to English. Since people from other countries who learn English often speak using their native tongue’s sentence structure and syntax, it makes perfect sense that a Chinese immigrant would describe himself as a “China Man” since zhongguoren is how he would describe himself in Chinese. (He’d turn to someone and say “How do you say zhongguoren in English?” and his friend would reply “China Man.") Meiguoren, which is how you say “American person” in Chinese, literally means “America Man.” So by declaring “Chinaman” to be racist, we’re essentially saying that it’s racist to call someone a “Chinaman” in English, but if you refer to someone as a Chinaman in Chinese (zhongguoren) then that’s perfectly acceptable. This is why I don’t understand stupid PC idiocy. It’s probably because most PC morons have no comprehension of the world outside their own little leftist enclaves, where all “Asians” have yellow skin and slanty eyes. Also, many people here will refer to the French, for example, as “France man” though there is a specific term for it, “French.” (France is Faguo.) This is because the term for a French person, Faguoren, literally means “France man” and this is how the English-speaking Chinese will translate it into English. They don’t understand that there is an adjective related to the noun “France”, because there is no similar sentence structure in Chinese.
Remember, Chinese has no past or present tense, differentiations between masculine and feminine, none of that stuff. It’s very simplistic, and everything is spoken in very simple phrases—me go here, you no want, how can be, etc. So “China man” or “France man” or “America man” fits perfectly into the way that the Chinese speak, and when they translate this into English you get something which some unknown, intangible, incomprehensible left-wing politically correct politburo has determined to be racist, even though the term “Chinaman” is exactly how a Chinese would refer to himself, Zhongguoren.
Nuts OffEvery day I get the weather forecast sent to my cell phone. Today’s forecast is for a high of -3 and low of -9. (That’s Celsius, in Fahrenheit it’s a high of 26 and a low of 15.) It’s fucking cold here today. Friday, January 11, 2008Waitress!One of my favorite things about eating here is how you deal with waters and waitresses. In the US if you’re at a restaurant and you need something from the waitress you have to look around to find her, then wait for her to see you, and wave or say “Excuse me, miss.” Not China. The word for waiter or waitress is fu wu yuan. When said quickly this sounds like “foo-yan.” If you need the waitress you literally just yell “foo-yan!” and one will come running over to your table. If you want to get the check you yell Fuwuyuan! Maidan! The last word, maidan, is pronounced “my-dan” and it means the bill. (The word for menu is caidan, pronounced “sy-dan.") Honestly, imagine how great it would be to be able to sit in a restaurant in the US and just yell “Waitress!” every time you need one. Sanford & SonOne of my Chinese crew came in from lunch today carrying a magazine, and on the back there was a full-page advert for Lee jeans, featuring a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. Since my name is Lee she showed me the ad. The text underneath it reads as follows.
Now, have any of you heard of the word “sanforized” before? Because I have a pretty damn good vocabulary, and I’d never heard it. I figured that this was some kind of Chinese mis-translation, so I looked it up in my Oxford English Dictionary. Sure enough, there it is.
You learn something new every day. Especially in China. Thursday, January 10, 2008Well HungHere’s another piece of useless information about the Chinese language: the noise a pig makes is heng heng, (pronounced similar to “hung"). In other words, this is how you say “oink” in Chinese. Being the truly warped individual I am, this immediately made me think of the Chinese communist version of Deliverance. You have been accused of crimes against the people! Your actions are counterrevolutionary! Accordingly, you will remove your trousers and I will force you to heng heng like the capitalist pig you are! Heng heng like a pig! HEEEEEEENG HEEEEEEEEENG! Seriously, I need help. MC RenFollowing up on this post from yesterday, here’s another cool little Chinese language factoid. As I explained, “China” in Chinese is Zhongguo, which means “Middle Country.” Here it is in characters, zhong and guo.
 To refer to a person as being Chinese you add the word ren as a suffix. Ren means “human,” so to refer to a Chinese person you use the word Zhongguoren. Here it is in characters.
 Note that the character for ren looks like a pair of legs walking. Many Chinese characters look like the object they describe. The word for “door” looks like a door, the word for “house” looks like a house, and so on. I also mentioned that America is Meiguo, and that you refer to an American person as Meiguoren. Here are the characters.
 Here’s the cool thing. The word mei (pronounced like “may") means “beautiful.” So “America” in Chinese, literally translated, means “beautiful country.” And “American” means “beautiful country human.” Absolutely fascinating. Seriously, I love learning this stuff. Kneel Before ZodOne of my Chinese employees just told me an amazing anecdote, and I have to share it with you. She said that last night she was getting off the bus after work. There was a young woman standing near the bus stop. Behind her, getting off the bus, was a man. As soon as he stepped off the bus the young woman rushed over to him, dropped to her knees in front of him, and started wailing. He just stood there in shock. The young woman then started bowing, in the traditional Chinese fashion—the way one would have bowed to the emperor a century ago—hands outstretched, touching the forehead to the ground. (Think of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, bowing before the emperor.) She said that the guy tried to get the girl to get up but she just continued wailing and bowing, so he walked away. And she still kept wailing and bowing. The whole bus was just sitting there, watching this spectacle in amazement. Here’s my own theory. This girl is the guy’s ex-girlfriend. He recently dumped her because of something she did, like cheating on him. She’s been trying to get him back but he’s been spurning her advances. So, as a demonstration of her sorrow and regret, she prostrates and publicly humiliates herself in front of him. The girl who told me this story said that an old woman who got off the bus with her remarked, “That girl has no dignity.” Lady, you said a mouthful. Wednesday, January 09, 2008Heaven and EarthYesterday I wrote a post called The Middle Kingdom, and it dawned on me that many of you might not know what this meant. This is how you say “China” in Chinese: Zhongguo, pronounced “Jong-gwo.” The following characters represent China.
The character on the left, zhong, means “middle.” Note that it’s a vertical line bisecting a square. The second character, guo, means “country,” but more in the sense of a nation. So China’s name is, literally, “Middle Country.” (America is ”Meiguo.") There hasn’t been a “kingdom” here since the emperor was overthrown in 1911, well before the founding of the PRC in 1949, but the general idea for thousands of years has been that China is special, halfway between heaven and earth. Thus, the Middle Kingdom. In Chinese, to denote a person, you add the suffix ren, which basically means “human.” Thus to refer to a Chinese person you would call them Zhongguoren, or “Middle Country Human.” And American is Meiguoren. Seriously, isn’t this stuff fascinating to learn? A Chink In My ArmorFrom the Oxford English Dictionary:
From the website of the China Central Place housing development FAQ.
That’s the problem with Chinese apartments. Too many chinks.
Monday, January 07, 2008The Middle KingdomI have to say, too, that my bouts of homesickness, infrequent though they were, are virtually nonexistent now. I am developing a true affinity for this country, for its people and culture and history. I really am starting to feel like this is home, not just some place I happen to be right now. When I first moved to California I felt that way for a while, too, like an outsider. And even though here, as a 6’5” white guy, I stick out like a turd in a punchbowl, I’m really starting to get the hang of the place. My language skills, which still completely suck, are getting better. Things are going good. And I have to admit, too, that I honestly feel younger here. In LA, which obviously has a hell of a nightlife scene of its own, going out is prohibitively expensive. You go out to a bar on Sunset, for example, and you’re going to drop at least $200 buying $15 cocktails. Here even the most expensive drink will be about $6. (The bottles of Yanjing that I now have delivered to my house are about 41¢ each for 600ml bottles, or about 20 oz, a little bigger than a standard US longneck.) So we go out on the weekends, and I’ve seen many a sunrise as I come stumbling out of a bar. I feel like I’m in college again. It’s fucking liberating. (I would have said “It’s like being in college again without the classes,” but when I was in college I never went to class and did nothing but drink and party until sunrise, so it’s literally like being in college again. Only this time I’m pissing away my own money instead of that of my parents.) A girl I know once described me as a “manboy.” (She didn’t mean it in a derogatory manner, she said she’d always had a thing for manboys.) I think that’s probably a pretty apt description of me, a manboy. And this place is fucking Disneyland for manboys. I’ve always been a really independent guy—it’s why I’m 37 years old, never married, and do crazy shit like move to China. Well, here I’m a millionaire, and now my wallet doesn’t get to dictate my actions, either. I can do what I want, when I want, however I want. It’s an amazing experience. If I want something I buy it, or I hire someone to buy it for me. I hardly ever cook anything except snacks, I eat out almost every night, or I have restaurants deliver food to my house. It’s a hell of a great life. I love this place. Update: Lately I’ve been watching Boston Legal on DVD. (It’s a great show, despite David E. Kelley’s blatant left-wing spin on everything.) I bought the first three seasons, and just watch one episode after the other. One just finished, and it contained something that I thought was quite germane to the point that I tried to make here. Almost every episode ends with Alan Shore (James Spader) and Denny Crane (William Shatner) drinking scotch and smoking cigars on the balcony of Denny’s office. This was the closing dialogue.
Denny Crane: “It’s fun being me. Is it fun being you?”
That really struck a chord. It’s fun being me. I really have a hell of a lot of fun doing what I do, playing by my own set of rules, telling the whole world to fuck off. It’s fun being me. Most of the time, anyway. Drunken Lao WeiOne of the best things about this country is the cheap cost of labor. You can pay someone to do ANYTHING. For example, if you go to see something like the Tomb of Chairman Mao, and there is a line, you can hire someone to stand in line for you. You give him your cell number, and when he gets close to the entrance he’ll send you a message. A fixture of life in China are guys on bicycles (well, tricycles if you want to be technical) with a flat wooden bed on the back, delivering goods of all kinds. One of the most common is beer by the case. I asked my ayi to start arranging for me to have beer delivered, and when I came home from work today this is what I found.
 So, not only does this woman clean my house twice a week, do all my washing and all my shopping, she now ensures that I have a perpetually stocked case of Yanjing, the local brew (which is actually not half bad). It’s like magic—I leave dirty clothes on the floor of my bedroom, and I come home and they’re clean and folded and put away. I eat the food out of the fridge, and somehow it mysteriously fills itself back up again. Now I never have to worry about running out of beer. And this all costs me less than $100 a month. |