Friday, December 14, 2007

Thursdays With Auntie

So my ayi came today for the first time, which was a good thing because this place was a filthy shithole.  Of course, like everything involving China, it started out as a complete and total clusterfuck.

When I moved in I was given two sets of keys by the landlord.  The representative of the management company who handled the lease recommended that I leave one set with the management office here at the complex.  That way, if I lose my keys, they’ll be able to let me in.  No problem with that. 

The management office is open almost 24 hours a day.  When the ayi was over here the other night (Tuesday) we walked down to the office and told the staff in there that the ayi would be coming by today (Thursday) and that they should give her the spare set of keys so she could get a copy made.  Notes were placed in my file, everything was cool.  They said that when the ayi arrived they would call me on my cell phone, confirm that it was okay to give her the keys, and we’d be good to go.

Today, shortly after 10:00 am, my phone rings.  It’s someone from the management office, speaking in broken English, confirming that it is okay to give the keys to the ayi.  Yes, I said.  Then, about 15 minutes later, the phone rings again.  The guy on the other end starts trying to tell me something but I can’t understand him, so I hand the phone to one of my Chinese employees who speaks good English.  It seems the ayi went upstairs to my apartment and the key wouldn’t work.  I said that was bullshit, that I had personally used both keys when the landlord gave them to me, so I knew for a fact they worked.  The office said they would do some investigating and get back to me.

Another fifteen minutes goes by.  They call back, and again I hand the phone to my Chinese employee.  They said that the security office confirmed that the key did not work.  Again, I said that this was bullshit, I knew it worked.  I then asked if they were using the key on the big thick silver key ring.  Their response:  What big silver key ring?

There was the problem.  They were giving her the wrong keys.

I explained that during the plumbing disaster which transpired when I first moved in I had given my spare set of keys to the management office.  They were on a huge silver key ring.  If the keys they were giving the ayi were not on a big key ring then they weren’t giving her the right keys.  Again they said they would do some investigating.

Another fifteen minutes.  Another ring.  Another phone hand-off.  They had located the employee to whom I had given my keys, but it was his day off, and he didn’t know where they were.  At least, however, they now knew what they were looking for.  They told the ayi to go to lunch, that they’d find the keys while she was eating.

Another fifteen minutes.  Another ring.  Another hand-off.  They’ve now located the keys, so everything is all set for when the ayi returns from lunch.  Excellent news.  Then, an hour or so later, I get an email from my buddy Richard, who recommended this ayi to me.  She had called him and told him what happened, and said she was leaving.  I wrote back to Richard and told him the story detailed above.  Richard tells me he’ll call and see if he can straighten it out.  A few minutes later I get another email from Richard.  “She’s got the key cut, she’s been to Carrefour’s, and she’s cleaning as we speak.”

So the total pigfuck worked out in the end, and she did a super job.  As Richard promised, she left a little notebook (a knock off Disney “Snow White” notepad called “Princess,” actually) detailing the ¥500 I gave her Tuesday night, minus the ¥164 she spent today on cleaning supplies, plus a bunch of notes in Chinese which obviously I will have to have someone translate for me.  She also included the receipts for everything, just as promised.

The place looked great.  For the first time in a couple of weeks I wasn’t leaving footprints on the dusty floor.  All the dishes were washed and in the drying rack next to the sink.  The towels were washed and hanging in their proper places neatly.  The shower is spotless.  The place smells great.  All in all, a hell of a first day.  I go to work, I come home, and everything is cleaned.  Her next trip here will be Monday—she comes Mondays and Thursdays.  I’m going to put my dirty clothes in the kitchen right above the washer and see if she does them for me.  Also, it appears that she washed one of my sheets.  The top one.  It doesn’t appear that she washed either the fitted sheet or the pillowcases, which is a little odd.  On Monday I’ll strip the bed before I leave, see how she likes them apples.

All in all, though, day one was a complete success, post goatfuck of course.  Everything clean, everything where it should be.  It feels like home. I get the cleanliness of a woman without having to do anything but throw a few bills at her.

So let’s look at the pay scale.  As I said before, she asked for a flat rate of ¥800 per month, which is just over $100.  If she comes twice a week that’s 8 times a month, or $12.50 per day.  $12.50 is ¥92.  Originally the deal was for ¥20 an hour plus expenses.  If she does the laundry she could well be in here for 3 hours or more, waiting for the clothes to wash and dry.  But, if she does a good job, I don’t mind kicking her a few extra bucks.  We could probably talk her down to ¥700 or so.

Now, lest any of you think this poor woman is being exploited by working for $2.70 an hour, let me put it to you this way.  Suppose I end up paying her ¥700.  She has, to the best of our knowledge, at least four other clients who are paying her in that range.  That’s around ¥3,500 to ¥4,000 a month cleaning kitchens and toilets and washing clothes.  It’s also roughly twice what the college educated kids who work for me make in a month, and they are perfectly content with what they are being paid, which is a fair wage by Chinese standards. 

So, do I feel like I’m “exploiting” this woman for hiring her so cheaply?  Fuck no.  This is the oldest form of capitalism known to man, the barter system, and she’s managed to parlay her willingness to clean into a rather lucrative career by Chinese standards.  So, we’ll give it a month, and if all goes well then my Auntie will be coming twice a week from now on.

Here’s something else that’s funny.  One of my Chinese told me that ayi, which as I said means “auntie,” is how a little kid would refer to a cleaning lady.  He said that a man with my age and position of authority would more appropriately refer to her as “older sister,” and said she would find that respectful and appreciate it.  I don’t remember the words but it was something phonetically pronounced like “die juh.” However, when I said it it sounded like the Chinese word for “robber.” I tried and tried, but half the time I was saying “older sister” and the other half was “robber.” I figured the last thing I needed to do was to start out my relationship with this woman by mistakenly referring to her as someone I thought was going to steal from me so I took the chickenshit route and called her ayi.

So far so good, Money well spent, I think.  I’ll give progress reports as we go along.

Oh, and for you puerile, lurid scumbags out there (you now, people like me) who are wondering if she gives happy endings, trust me, liquid Viagra injected directly into your testicles couldn’t get that job done.  She’s a little bitty old woman.  Monday will be the true test of her Dragon Magic, and we will see if it is indeed more powerful than my Tiger Magic, ha ha!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Erevator

As you know, I live on the 25th floor of my apartment (which is actually the 21st floor).  In western elevators the buttons start at the bottom left and go sequentially to the right, then up.  The bottom row will be 1, 2, 3, the the row above it will be 4, 5, 6, and so on.  That way the buttons for the top floors of the building are at the top of the array.

Not in China.  Here’s the inside of the elevator at my building

I guess they figure that since the elevator starts at the bottom and goes up that the buttons should too.  Thus I find myself pressing one of the bottom buttons to get to one of the top floors.

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Rong Arm of the Raw

One thing you see all over Beijing, especially in restaurants and other public places, is this happy little fellow.

I asked what this meant and was told that it’s a reminder to watch your belongings, and to ensure that when you leave you always take everything with you.  I thought it would be a hell of a lot funnier if it was something like this.

Hi, I’m Petey the Policeman, here to remind you that we are always watching you.  There’s always one more bed available at the labor camp.  And remember, I love you!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Spic and Span

Last night I finally got around to hiring a cleaning lady, or as they are known in Chinese, an ayi, pronounced “eye-ee,” and meaning “auntie.” She came recommended by my friend Richard, who has been using her for over two years and said she’s trustworthy and won’t steal my shit.

Last night Richard, his Chinese girlfriend, her brother, and the ayi came over.  I showed her around the place, and told her what I wanted done.  Basically she’ll clean the entire house twice a week, wash my clothes, do all the dishes, buy my groceries, and even cook for me.  And let me tell you, she was horrified by the state of my apartment.  Beijing is a very dry city, known for its summer dust storms, which I am so looking forward to.  When you combine that with the amount of pollution and general filth that there is in the air, things tend to get very dusty very quickly.

In America we have dust bunnies.  In China we have dust wolverines.  My apartment is full of the latter.

She’ll come Mondays and Thursdays, and we figure it’ll take her two or three hours a day to get done everything she needs to do.  The price?  ¥20 an hour, which is $2.70.  And that’s a good price for her, too, she was quite pleased that I agreed to it.  Initially she asked for a flat rate of ¥800 a month.  Richard and I did some quick math.  ¥800 is just over $100.  If she comes twice a week that’s eight times a month.  $100 divided by 8 is $12.50 a day.  That’s not an unfair wage for a top-to-bottom house cleaning, washing, and shopping.  We worked out a deal that for the first month I would pay her hourly plus her expenses (taxi to and from the store, etc.), and that if everything was satisfactory, after the first month we could come to an arrangement on a flat rate.  Considering that a decent maid in LA, who works for a bonded and insured company, will run you $60 an hour, $100 a month isn’t a bad deal.

She asked where my cleaning supplies were and I said that I really didn’t have any, so I gave her ¥500 and told her to go to Carrefours and buy anything she needed.  She’ll just leave me a list of her expenses, with receipts, and we’ll go from there. 

The great thing is that I’ll never see her.  I told her not to come before 10:00 am, by which time I’ll be long gone for work.  She’ll have her own key, can just let herself in, and when I get home at night it’s like the cleaning fairies have visited.

Ah, no more dishwashing.  Seriously, if there’s one thing I hate more than anything it’s doing the dishes, and if there’s one thing I hate more than that it’s doing the dishes by hand.

Niiiiiiice

Being as close as China is to Kazakhstan, you meet a lot of Kazakh girls in bars.

Note to self:  Kazakh girls do not find Borat jokes funny.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Yummy, Period

I’ve written about some bizarre products before, but this one has them all beat.  A little while ago a female coworker handed me this bag and asked if I would like one.

I looked at her and said, “What the hell would I want a maxi pad for?”

“In case you get a nosebleed,” was the response.  I stared at her in shock, then she started giggling.  “No, these are for eating.” She took out a pack, opened it up, and popped a small marshmallow in her mouth. 

Yes, that’s right, these are marshmallow candies designed to look like sanitary napkins.  I asked what the Chinese characters on the front said, and it was something like “soft cotton women accessory” or something like that.  Combine that with the Hello Kitty-esque logo, and it looks completely authentic.

But wait, there’s more!  Here are Queer-Aid bandages made of chocolate.

Apparently they also have candies named “Meth” and “Amphetamines” and “Viagra.” Unfortunately these come from Taiwan and aren’t available here in Beijing, so don’t ask me to buy you any to give to your brother-in-law for Christmas.

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Delicious Animals

Ah, it’s a great time to be in China.  The snowy winter, the upcoming Olympic games, and the latest deadly virus to kill us all.

Scorpions scamper in bowls, water snakes coil in tanks and cats whine in cramped cages, waiting to be slaughtered, skinned and served for dinner.

Welcome to the Qingping market in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where everything from turtles to insects are sold alongside fowl and freshly caught fish.

An outbreak of the SARS virus in 2002 resulted in a local gourmet favourite—the civet—being banished to the black market. The racoon-like animal was blamed for spreading SARS, which infected 8,000 people globally and killed 800.

But exotic wildlife and squalor have returned to the Qingping market, making health officials worried that another killer virus could emerge.

“We face similar threats from other viruses and such epidemics can happen because we continue to have very crowded markets in China,” said Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert in Hong Kong.

“Even though official measures are in place, they are not faithfully followed. We are not talking about just civet cats, but all animals,” he added.

Having been to many legitimate markets here, I can assure you of two things.  The vegetables and fruit are delicious and safe to eat—you can buy Washington apples there—and the fish and fowl are as fresh as possible, because they’ll kill them right in front of you.  I am reminded, once again, of another classic line from The Simpsons.

Lisa: Uh, how is the Feast of 12 Delights with Triple Happiness Sauce?
Waiter: Very disappointing.
Lisa: Then, I’ll have the Sweet and Sour Rice.
Waiter: Oh, very good. Would you like that with the fragrant bee bellies or the cat noses?
Lisa: Neither, thank you.
Waiter: Is there any way we could enhance your dining experience here by hurting an animal?

Other than installing half-assed plumbing, there’s really nothing the Chinese love more than hurting an animal.  A delicious, delicious animal.

Monday, December 10, 2007

“Thatz” With Attitude

The story below reminded me of something else I’ve been meaning to blog about.  The Chinese word for “that” is “niga,” and it’s pronounced exactly how it’s written:  just like “nigga.” Think about how many times you use the word “that” in a day, it’s got to be hundreds.  All day you hear people saying the word “niga.”

But it gets better.  The word is also used in the same context as “ummm” or “errr” would be in English, as a way of pausing a sentence while you think of what to say next.  Take this English sentence as an example.

“Umm, I don’t know.  Ummm, let me think for a minute.  Errrr, shit, I can’t remember his name!”

In Chinese this would sound something like this.

“Niga niga niga… blah blah blah. Niga niga niga… blah blah.  Niga niga, blah blah blah.”

One of the guys I work with is black.  He pointed this out to me.  Honestly, I never would have made the connection.  It’s damn funny, though.  Maybe it’s why Chinese youth like rap so much, they keep hearing a word they understand.

Update: Lest anyone think I’m making this up…

Thai Food and Dumb Bastards

Here’s another great anecdote I forgot to write about.  I told you the story about going computer equipment shopping with our IT guy from work.  He’s Chinese, so he obviously speaks the language fluently.  After our shopping was concluded I took him out to dinner.  We ate Thai, which he had never had before.  He told me to order for the both of us.  The menu was huge, and I noticed a couple of sampler platters of various items, so I ordered those.  I also got some garlic shrimp, some asparagus, and some pad thai.  As I was ordering the waitress said to my friend, “That’s a lot of food you’re ordering.”

Now, I get this a lot.  Usually the person saying it is a little Chinese waitress, about 4’11” and 102 lbs.  Of course it’s a lot of food.  Inevitably the food always gets eaten—the lao wei have big appetites.  My friend and I had a few beers and shot the shit, then the food started coming.  Jesus, Mary, and Glaven!  When I hear “sampler platter” I think of a small portion of different types of food, hence the word “sample.” This was a full serving of each portion of food on a gigantic plate.  The plates were so big that they ended up taking the entire table.  Take a look at this.

Needless to say we only ended up eating about a third of this, the rest I took home and ate later.  It was delicious nonetheless, but a bit pricey, even for China, though still less than half of what it would have cost back home. 

Part Two of the adventure came in the cab.  It took us about 15 minutes in the freezing cold to find a taxi.  Our office was roughly halfway between where we were at and my house, so my friend told me just to drop him off at work.  He told the cabbie in perfect Chinese where I wanted to go.  The guy had no idea where it was.  He then told him it was at the San Yuan Bridge (Sanyuanqiao), a very famous bridge that all cabbies in Beijing know.  He didn’t know where that was, either, so my friend gave him detailed instructions on how to get there.

While we were driving I began telling him about what I did the previous weekend, and in the course of doing so I mentioned that I met my friend at the North Gate of Worker’s Stadium, which in Chinese is “Gong Ti Bei Men.” The cabbie heard me say this and his ears pricked up.  “Gong tie bei men?” My friend then explained that I was just telling a story, that we didn’t want to go to Worker’s Stadium, and that he should continue on to the 3rd Ring Road, which is where our office is located.  Eventually we made it to the office, my friend jumped out, and I continued on my way home.

To get from the office to my house is a straight shot down the 3rd Ring Road.  You go down until you hit the San Yuan Bridge, then U-turn.  (U-turn in Chinese is “diaou tou”—I hope I’m spelling that right—which is pronounced “deeyow toe,” with an upward pronunciation on the “toe.” As we approached the San Yuan Bridge the conversation went something like this.  Remember, I speak about 20 words of Chinese.

“Blah blah lah Gong Tie Bei Men blah blah blah?”
“Bu, wo bu yao Gong Tie Bei Men.” (No, me no want Worker’s Stadium North Gate.)
“Blah blah blah blah blah blah Sanyuanqiao blah blah blah”
“Sanyuanqiao diaou tou.  Wo qu Feng Huang Cheng.” (U-turn at San Yuan Bridge.  Take me to Phoenix City)
“Blah blah blah blah blah blah.”

We drive right past the San Yuan Bridge exit.

“Hey, asshole! Diaou tou, diaou tou!  Feng Huang Cheng!”
“Blah blah blah Gong Tie Bei Men blah blah blah?”
“No, you dumb fuck!  Wo bu yao Gong Tie Bei Men.  Diaou tou!” I point towards Phoenix City.  “Wo qu niga!” (Take me that!)

He gets off at the next exit and almost misses the U-turn lane.

“Diaou tou, dickhead!”
“Blah blah blah diaou tou?”
“Diaou tou, shi!  Dui!  Diaou tou!” (U-turn, yes!  Correct!  U-turn!)
“Blah blah blah Gong Tie Bei Men?”
“No, dumb fuck, wo bu Gong Tie Bei Men!  Diaou tou!”

He U-turns.  Eventually I got the dumb bastard to go where I needed to. 

You know on American Idol, when Simon Cowell describes someone as the worst singer in the world?  Well, this guy was the dumbest cabbie the universe.  Not only was he given instructions in Chinese by a native speaker, he had me pointing at the building I wanted to go to, giving him directions in Chinese, and he still couldn’t figure out where to go.

It’s just part of the charm of the place

Embassy Embarrassment

I can’t believe I forgot to blog about this but I did.  Last week, as I wrote below, I went to the doctor.  The clinic I visited is in the embassy district of Beijing.  (Being a capital city, there are hundreds of embassies here.) All the embassies are guarded on the outside by soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).  As someone told me once, they are there primarily to stop people from climbing the walls to seek political asylum.

At any rate, the clinic is down a small side street off a main road.  I waited for five minutes for a taxi but none drove past, so I decided to walk down and catch one off the larger street.  I crossed the road to where I was walking alongside the wall of an embassy—I think it may have been Poland but I could be mistaken.  As I walked I noticed a group of about eight soldiers marching in formation coming down the street towards me, goose-stepping in perfect synchronization.

It was a weird moment.  On the right of the sidewalk was the embassy wall, then there was the sidewalk itself, and on the left of the sidewalk were trees about every 20 feet.  There was only room enough on the sidewalk for either me or the soldiers to pass; one of us was going to have to get out of the way of the other.  If the trees hadn’t been there it wouldn’t have been a big deal, we could have just walked past each other, but the trees made it so that I would have to get off the sidewalk and into the gutter.

It was a tough decision.  I was in the Navy, I know how to march, and China is still technically an enemy nation.  There was a big part of my red, white, and blue heart that wanted to stand my ground and march right past these guys with my shoulders back and my head held high.  The trees made this impossible.  So, with rationality trumping my pride, I stepped into the gutter and let them pass.

But man, did it suck to have to do that.

Chairman Snow

It snowed here for the first time last night.  Not a huge blanket of snow, but more of a light dusting.  Still, it’s pretty cool, I haven’t seen snow in years.  Of course, being Beijing and all, this might not be snow, and could very well be a fine layer of some kind of deadly toxic pollutant.  I’ll find out when I go outside.

All these pictures were taken from either my living room or office.

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Home Entertainment

So I did a little DVD shopping today.  I bought:

The Brave One
Transformers
Superbad
28 Weeks Later
The Futurama Movie
30 Days of Night
Sin City Director’s Cut
Hot Fuzz
Terminator
Terminator II
Terminator III
Boston Legal, Seasons 1-3

The grand price?  ¥440, or $60.

I also bought a bunch of groceries at Jenny Lou’s, the preferred grocery store of foreigners since it carries items from all over the US and Europe.  Now I’m off to IKEA to buy a frying pan, since I forgot to buy one last time, so I can make chicken quesadillas for dinner.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Panaphonics

Tonight after work the IT guy at our office took me down to one of Beijings huge electronics markets.  I want to build a 1 terabyte RAID, and need the components—two drives and a FireWire 800 case.  Seriously, you have never seen anything like this in your life.  Imagine a four-story shopping mall, and inside it’s like a huge swap meet or garage sale.  Everyone is screaming at everyone else, and all these little retailers are selling every conceivable computer and electronics item, from computers to cameras to phones.  Remember those pictures of people looting electronics stores after Katrina hit New Orleans?  Well, it was just like that, except everyone was Chinese and there was no water.

A brief aside:  I have a two bedroom apartment.  One bedroom I use as an office.  All my music is digital, meaning that if I’m in the living room or bedroom I can’t play music and hear it properly.  I’ve wanted to buy an Apple Airport Express and a second set of speakers so I could stream the music wirelessly via AirTunes.  Apple stuff, though, is not easy to find in China, and it’s usually pretty expensive.  So imagine my surprise tonight as I was walking down through the melee when I saw one in a display case.  I asked how much—¥480, or $65.  I managed to talk her down to ¥460, but she wouldn’t go any lower.  This is a genuine Apple product, not some knock off.  It probably came from Hong Kong.  Here’s the interesting thing:  these are $99 in the US.  So not only did I manage to find what I was looking for, I got it for 30% cheaper than I could back home.

Next I needed speakers.  Actually, I needed two sets of speakers.  Why?  When I first got here and began plugging in my computer stuff I stupidly assumed that all the power transformers would handle 220v electricity.  Boy was I wrong.  Everything worked fine except for my Bose speakers, the transformer to which fried about one second after I plugged it in.  I’ve been meaning to buy new speakers since then, so I decided to just buy two sets.  I managed to find a decent-sounding Chinese brand, subwoofer and everything, and talked the woman down to ¥200 ($27) a pair.  Thus I walked out of the computer mall with two sets of speakers and an AirPort Express for $118.

As for the RAID, I couldn’t find a case.  The hard drives, though, are cheap as shit.  They’re all made in China, so they’re much cheaper than US retail.  They’re all the same brands, too—Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, etc.—just a lot cheaper, about $100 for a 500 gig drive.  The only FW 800 RAID case I could find the guy wanted ¥1100, so I told him to shove it up his ass.  (Which sucked, because it was a really cool-looking case, too.  Oh well, maybe next time.)

The booth where I bought my speakers also sold headphones.  One of the brand names was brilliant.

That’s right, folks.  They’re a gen-u-ine “Yihao!” brand.  (They even got the font correct.) Which, of course, brings to mind the immortal Homer Simpson line:  “I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there’s Magnetbox, and Sorny!”

And, yes, the receding hairline you see reflected in the packaging is moi.

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Oldie Hawn

Like most people, I listen to my iPod at work constantly.  Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of late 80s-era industrial and goth:  early NIN, Revolting Cocks, Ministry (before they started to suck), that sort of thing.  Right now I’m listening to “Assimilate” by Skinny Puppy, a song I’ve loved since I was in high school.  (The lyrics are awesome.)

Then it dawned on me.  Most of the Chinese I have working for me, all of them college graduates, were probably born around the time this song came out.

Fuck, I’m getting old.

No See Food

I just realized something.  My refrigerator doesn’t have a light in it.  I tried to open it in the dark and couldn’t see anything.  It’s made by Siemens, a global appliance manufacturer, so presumably they intentionally decided to omit the fridge light for the Chinese market.

What, the Chinese don’t open the fridge in the dark?