 Wednesday, December 12, 2007NiiiiiiiceBeing 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. Posted by Lee on 12/12 at 03:16 AM in Nightlife & Entertainment •
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007Yummy, PeriodI’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. Delicious AnimalsAh, 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.
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?
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 AttitudeThe 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 BastardsHere’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?”
We drive right past the San Yuan Bridge exit.
“Hey, asshole! Diaou tou, diaou tou! Feng Huang Cheng!”
He gets off at the next exit and almost misses the U-turn lane.
“Diaou tou, dickhead!”
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 EmbarrassmentI 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 SnowIt 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. Sunday, December 09, 2007Home EntertainmentSo I did a little DVD shopping today. I bought:
The Brave One
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. Posted by Lee on 12/09 at 04:48 PM in Everything is Cheaper •
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Saturday, December 08, 2007PanaphonicsTonight 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. Posted by Lee on 12/08 at 12:17 AM in Everything is Cheaper •
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Friday, December 07, 2007Oldie HawnLike 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 FoodI 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? Thursday, December 06, 2007What’s Up, Doc?The trip to the doctor turned out to be quite an experience. The appointment was at 5 pm, and I was seen by Dr. Shia.
Cambridge and Oxford. This guy ain’t no slouch. The facility itself was quite impressive. The decor was sort of a hybrid of my favorite Chinese restaurant and a regular doctor’s office. You can see pictures of it on their website.
 The staff all spoke fluent English, and were professional to the highest degree. It was, in most respects, exactly like going to a doctor in America—you fill out the patient info form, a nurse takes you into a little room to check your vitals, then you meet with the doctor. The difference here was that I didn’t have to sit in the little room for 3 1/2 hours, I was taken right in to the doctor’s office. (Just like this one.) He took a standard patient history, and I showed him the medication I’m currently using on my hands. I told him that it worked, but that it wasn’t working well enough, and asked if he had anything stronger. Since he’s a UK/Chinese doctor and wasn’t familiar with this particular medication—the same medications are often marketed under different names in different countries—he Googled it right there in the office so he could see chemically what was in it. Once he figured out what it was, he then knew what he needed to give me that would be more effective. While I was there I also asked him about a scalp itch problem I’ve had. He said it was something similar to the eczema on my hands, and that he had just the thing to treat it. He wrote the prescriptions, then said he’d go get them from the pharmacy. Five minutes later he came back in, explained the dosage and use, and I was done. He walked me to the cashier, where I essentially paid a co-pay for my medications of ¥243, about $32. Just like in the US. I also asked him about the medication for managing my OCD. He said that the drugs I take are available in China, but that—just like in the US—it was a preexisting condition, and that my insurance wouldn’t pay for it. I still have my insurance in the US, so it looks like the best course of action will be for me to get my medications back home three months at a time and have them sent over here by my mom. All in all, though, between the three facilities I’ve visited—Bayley and Jackson, United Family, and International SOS—I feel absolutely confident that I can receive top-notch medical care here one way or another. Powdered Goat TesticleOne issue about living in Beijing is the dry air. Everyone has humidifiers. Since I got here the eczema on my hands has become almost unbearable—every time I open and close my hands I get little cracks in my skin, like paper cuts. I brought some prescription skin cream with me from the US and I’m almost out of it, so today I have my first experience with expatriate medicine in China. I’ll be going to the Bayley and Jackson medical center. It was recommended to me by coworkers, and they direct bill my insurance company, just like in the US, so I’ll have no out-of-pocket experiences. I’ll post a report later on this evening about the experience. Evil Chinese Date Rape ToysThe greatest magazine in the world, Reason, has a story up about the recent spate of Chinese product recalls.
This gets to the heart of something near and dear to my heart, overregulation of business. While China is indeed a police state, and their bureaucracy is truly something to be marveled for its sheer size and scope, there’s what I’ve described as the the “oddly libertarian” aspect to life here. Take my apartment complex, for example. From where the taxi drops me off to the front door of my building I have to walk down one set of stairs, across a courtyard, then up another set of stairs. It’s about a three minute trek. Before you get to the first set of stairs there is sort of a shallow trench cut into the sidewalk. They have run some kind of pipes into the ground, obviously on a temporary basis, and apparently aren’t going to re-pave the area until the work is complete. I tripped over it a couple of times when I first moved in. You’d never see this in America because of the liability it would open for the company. Some numbnuts would be walking along, not watching where he was going, trip over the trench, and then the complex would have a lawsuit on its hands. The first set of stairs, near the health club, has no lighting. At night it’s damn near pitch black. There are no handrails, nor those little reflector things to show you where the edges of the stairs are. You just have to pay attention to what you’re doing or you’re going to end up going ass over teakettle. Then, as you walk across the courtyard, there are a couple of concrete things sticking up out of the ground about six inches. I don’t know what they’re for, presumably the base for some future object, but they’re very easy to trip over. Again, you have to pay attention to where you’re walking. The final set of steps, as well as the rest of the trip to my door, is well-lighted. The thing is, I find this danger curiously refreshing. It’s nice being treated like a sentient being, with the ability to take care of myself, rather than as some drooling idiot who can’t pay attention to where he walks. Remember, America is the country where screwdrivers come with warnings like “Do not stick in eye” solely to protect the company against legal liability when some dumbass inevitably does so. Now, let’s look at this in the context of restaurants. When I lived in Los Angeles there was a huge scandal involving corruption and incompetence at the LA County Board of Health, the agency responsible for inspecting restaurants for food safety. One of the local news stations did an undercover investigation and found that some of LA’s finest restaurants had rats and cockroaches in the kitchens. The board of health was grossly underfunded, its agents taking bribes to allow restaurants to open, and so on. The public was outraged, and immediate reforms were in place. Whether these have had any tangible effect I have no idea, but they give the appearance of having an effect, and in politics the essence is more important than the existence, to paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre. Compare this with China. Yes, they ostensibly have food safety inspectors here, but the general rule of thumb is “Never sit in a restaurant at any table where you can see into the kitchen.” God only knows what they’d have in there—live chickens and rabbits in cages, that sort of thing. I imagine that their food standards are quite a bit lower than ours. Here’s the thing. Since coming to Beijing I’ve had some of the best food in my life. I haven’t had a single case of food poisoning. I feel terrific. So this leads to the inevitable question: if Beijing is able to provide clean, healthy food with minimal regulations (or minimal enforcement of a larger set of regulations) then it proves that the regulations weren’t really necessary in the first place. The solution is simple—if I go to a restaurant and get a bad meal, I tell all my friends to avoid it. Eventually it gets a reputation, the expats stop going, and it closes down. Adam Smith strikes again. There are a billion and a half Chinese. Obviously they’re not all dropping like flies because of an inferior food supply, especially here in the cities. Yes there are dodgy, disgusting restaurants, and the solution is to just avoid eating there. It’s Milton Friedman in action—you’re free to choose whether you eat there, and they’re free to choose what to serve. Some people (like me) would rather pay a higher cost for better food. Others, including a number of expats, will choose to eat at the dodgy restaurants, partly for financial reasons and partly because it adds to their “Chinese street cred.” The point I’m making here is that, in the US, we have so many regulations for so many things, and compliance with these regulations costs an incredible amount of money. These costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. Are the benefits of these regulations worth the price we pay for them? My time in Los Angeles shows that, even in one of the biggest cities in the wealthiest nation in the world, with countless regulations concerning food safety, crappy food will inevitably end up being sold. Safety is, therefore, a relative illusion. Conversely, my experience in Beijing shows that we could probably do away with a lot of regulations if we as a society started placing a greater emphasis on the responsibilities of the individual as well as his rights. Here in China you’re responsible for making sure you don’t bust your ass when you walk down the street. If you trip over something, it’s because you didn’t watch where you were walking. And if you eat at a dodgy restaurant, just don’t eat there again. Earlier this year I was the foreman on a jury trial in Los Angeles. The case involved an alleged hit and run injury. Basically the defendant was coming down Queens Blvd. in Hollywood and came to the intersection with Sunset and wanted to turn right. (See the Google Map of the intersection.) As anyone who has driven in a city knows, when you’re turning right like this you have to look left to monitor the traffic as you pull in. As the defendant began to pull forward, the plaintiff walked right in front of him and was knocked over. He wasn’t sent flying, he just fell backwards. He was suing for past medical bills, future medical bills, and the infamous “pain and suffering.” As a matter of law we found that since the plaintiff was on a crosswalk the defendant was technically at fault. As such we awarded the plaintiff his past medical expenses, and we gave him (if I remember correctly) about $10,000 for future expenses. But we all agreed that, in principle, the guy was a moron for walking out in front of a car which was turning right, so when it came to pain and suffering we gave him a big fat zero. Nada. Zilch. In America, as in most of the west, we have this idea that if we just pass a new law, why, we’ll all be safer! Whether it’s laws regarding evil plastic Chinese date rape toys, or fingerprinting British citizens who are trying to come to Disneyland for a holiday, the principle is exactly the same—how much these laws will cost us (either in terms of finances or liberty) versus how much they will benefit us. As my experience in China shows, and as any good capitalist can tell you, usually minimal regulations provide a comparable, and often superior, result. What minimal regulations do not provide is the opportunity for politicians to show that they’re “doing something.” You can’t point to a law you didn’t pass as an accomplishment. (Well, to me that would be the greatest thing a politician ever said. “During my term in office I did damn near nothing!") I’m not advocating abolishing safety standards for toys or health standards for restaurants or anything of that nature. The point is that more laws do not inherently equal better quality, and often times leads not only to a result the opposite of the one desired, but creates situations where the “law of unintended consequences” comes into play. There should only be as many laws as are necessary to achieve a desired result. In other words, “limited government,” a concept that seems to have died in the United States along with Barry Goldwater. Wednesday, December 05, 2007Thanks for the MammariesThis morning in Chinese class we were discussing the verbs used during transactions such as purchasing, ordering, that sort of thing. One of the example sentences we learned involved asking for a glass of milk: wo yao niu nai, which literally means “me want cow milk.” Which of course begs the question, what other kind of milk would there be? Considering the wide variety of animals the Chinese eat, I shudder to think.
Homer: Crap on a crust! They’re milking rats! Milking rats!!
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