Practical Jokes Taken Too Far
The Chinese are real practical jokers. Sometimes it seems they can't take anything seriously. The station master of the Shanghai city subway system seems to be the biggest joker himself, and this morning again he caught me with one of his dirty tricks.
One of the survival strategies I employ during the commute to and from work is to keep earphones in my ears and a PDA screen glued to my face at all times. It may sound like an annoying anti-social behavior, and surely the people who have to avoid me because I am about to walk right into them without looking probably think I'm a dick, but after getting way too angry and frustrated at the impenetrable mass moving human wall that pervades the entirety of all public areas in Shanghai one too many times in the past years, I realized the best way is to just forget it exists, forget that I cannot possibly hope to ever move more than 20% faster than the slowest mosier in the crowd, and just assume the identity of a slow motion human pinball.
The problem happened when, gazing with full attention at my PDA screen, I stepped on to the upward-bound escalator at my destination station. The spontaneous sensation of an earth-quake took to my senses as the masses of humans around me moved upward on the escalator as in correlation with my expectations, but my own body, in contrast, seemed to have no stair propelling it forward and upward along with them. I lost my footing and very nearly fell on my face when I came to realize that once again the station attendants must have randomly decided to pull the "turn the escalators off in the middle of rush-hour" prank. As I climbed the stationary escalator steps all the way to the top, a strong feeling of sea-sickness overwhelmed me. The last time this had happened, I was nearly to the top when the steps suddenly stopped moving.
The thing is—this kind of shit happens every day here in Shanghai. One week you go down to wait for the subway to work and see that every single one of the time-till-arrival LCD TVs have gone missing. A week later they magically reappear, but they won't be there more than a few weeks before they disappear again. Another day the screens will work all day, but when the last train for the night in a particular direction has left the station, station personnel will turn the screens off to "trick" everyone into waiting for a final train that will never come.
- In the office I work in, the handle for the faucet in the lavatory has disappeared randomly and inexplicably, as in the "here's a sink but you can't wash your hands after taking a dump" prank, more than 10 times in the past few months. But, that's not nearly as good as when you put soap on your hands FIRST and then realize the sink faucet handle is there but is glued in place. I shit you not!
- WHEN IN THE AIRPORT, THE ASSIGNED GATE NUMBER FOR MY FLIGHT WAS CHANGED 2 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE FINAL GATE CLOSING CALL ON THREE OCCASIONS! I ALMOST MISSED THE FLIGHTS! AND I KNOW THOSE FUCKING JOKERS IN THE AIRPORT WERE TRYING TO PULL THE PRANK ON ME BECAUSE THEY SAW THAT I WEAR HEADPHONES TO PASS THE BOREDOM AND THOUGHT I WOULDN'T HEAR THE ANNOUNCEMENT.
- City workers in Shanghai actually booby trap the sidewalk tiles such that when it is raining, if you accidentally walk across the wrong tile you will be sprayed with a puddle of cold dirty water. The bastards are experts at disguising the "trigger" tiles as well, so the only safe way is to locate them in advance on a dry day, and then avoid them any time it is wet out.
- It seems there may even be a competition for cruelty in pranks going between the various city management groups, as recently I have observed that the subway station master has upped the ante. Previously I had assumed the warning beeps and flashing lights which proceed the subway door closing were computer controlled and thus could not be omitted by human error. I was disturbed to learn that such is not at all the case when the subway conductor nearly succeeded in slamming the subway doors on a woman's face with NO WARNING AT ALL!
The thing is, pranks are really cool and all but, myself, coming from a culture in which they are generally reserved for friends, acquaintances, and enemies, I have had a lot of trouble adapting to the Chinese prank style of giant corporations (i.e. "melamine poisoned milk and the kidney stone joke") and, indeed, the city government itself (Mr. Subway Station Master) trying to fuck with me. That's why it's very hard for me to condemn my fellow expats when they get fed up with this shit and do something incredibly anti-social about it thinking, mistakenly, that they can "teach Chinese to stop pulling these ridiculous tricks".
McDonald's Crosses The Line
(This is not a work of fiction.)
It was pouring cats and dogs outside. A young foreign man entered a Shanghai McDonald's both hungry and with an intense pressure in his bladder. Longing for a swift and relaxing visit to the little boy's room, our hero was not looking forward to yet another round of Chinese practical jokes. He marched swiftly to the bathroom only to stop unexpectedly, dumbfounded with exasperation that the door refused to open. He opened his eyes wide to take note of his surroundings. Oh not again! The Chinese had succeeded in pulling the "we know you really have to piss, that's why we're going to fuck with you and close down this whole bathroom" prank yet again. A sign was posted on the door that directed the would-be race horse urinator to climb several flights of stairs with his already painfully full bladder and expel his waste in a porcelain bowl on the third floor.
"No! Not today I'm not", he thought as he smiled smugly at the ingenious Chinese sign. Taking no further consideration of his surroundings, the man spontaneously whipped out his cock and began spraying a stream of dark yellow urine on the battered wooden door. A stream, not dissimilar except in size to those left on department store floors across China by children with open-crotch pants at the direction of their parents, flowed swiftly down and away from the door itself. A river of yellow spontaneously streaking across a large expanse of the floor further magnified the conspicuousness of an already larger-than-life utterly inconceivable spectacle.
Soon, a nearby security guard took note of the odd event transpiring. Shocked far beyond the wildest expectations he had had in 15-odd years of humdrum play-with-your-cell-phone-and-act-official guard duty, the poor man's mind couldn't even begin to conceive of a possible appropriate response to this obvious violation of the building whose sanctity he was employed to protect. The guard approached from a distance, rustling his keys enough in the process for our hero to take note of his presence, and then stopped dead in his tracks gawking and thoroughly disoriented. Our hero, having a bladder still not satisfactorily relieved from its prior state of fullness, took note of the guard's presence and returned to the more pressing matter of pissing at hand, literally.
A few seconds later, a practical eternity to the guard and any other passersby happening to pay witness to the absurd sight, the otherwise respectable young man pulled the elastic flap of his underpants over his cock and zipped up his fly. Nonchalantly he returned to the table he had come from to join his friend and enjoy a fine meal.
A few minutes later a more official looking head security guard approach the table. In Chinese he said sternly, "Which one of you just took a pee on the door over there?" The two foreigners seated at the table, our hero included, feigned inability in the Chinese language and continued their conversation in English. The head guard repeated his words, but, assuming doing so in a language that wouldn't be understood by the "foreigners" was in vain, he soon gave up, turned, and left.
If we were to discuss the greatest virtue Chinese have, I think with little doubt I would have to say it is: tolerance for one's fellow man. Damn!!!
