English Banditry (Entries tagged as culture)

Chinese Cable TV: Top entertainment value for your dollar.

nospam@example.com (your host) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:24:00 -0700

[Deactivate Chinese ability]

A charismatic speaker stands before a crowd of several thousand Chinese students of all ages. They raise their hands and shout out as male and female attendees alike have tears running from their eyes. Obviously a very mesmerizing preacher has taken it upon himself to lead god's lost little children to the salvation which can only be known through the salvation of the lord and savior Jesus Christ. But how on earth is such a thing being permitted on Chinese state-controlled television?

[Reactivate Chinese ability]

"Do you realize the sacrifices your parents have made to send you to college?" (The camera pans to more students driven to tears.) "Repeat after me, I - will - not - let - my - parents - down, I - will - learn - English - well." (Attendees all repeat after him in unison). Is this guy a fucking English Bandit manufacturing machine or what? If they're going to be this crazy to make me their "tool" should I feel any remorse if someone shouts their English at me like this and I spontaneously bop the little jackass in the mouth? Welcome to the future of China and a crazy ass dude named Li Yang's genius ploy to become filthy stinking rich: Crazy English.

Wikipedia reads:

His method can be described with the quote "To shout out loud, you learn." Students practice his technique by going behind buildings or on rooftops and shouting English.

Chinese TV is a barrel of laughs, though I'm not exactly sure if the remaining 1.4 billion are laughing their guts out for an hour at a time like me. For my 60 yuan every 6 months, I'm really getting top value for my money!!!

Continue reading "Chinese Cable TV: Top entertainment value for your dollar."

Taking the JLPT in China

nospam@example.com (your host) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:48:15 -0700

So last time, I related the tale of the challenges involved in getting a seat in this crazy country, one which might just have more students of Japanese language than Japan has population. I got lucky with that and was able to make a last minute adjustment to take the test in Jinan, Shandong. That's a swift 9 hour over-night train ride away. Get on the train. Flop on the bed. Wake up and suddenly you are there. The problem is that China grants admission to testing rooms based on a form called a 准考证 Zhunkaozheng, and they won't mail it to you, you have to show up in person with photo ID to claim it. The deadline for doing so meant I had to travel north four days in advance of the test.

I enter the Zhunkaozheng claiming room to bewildered expressions. Yes, just as I thought, I'm the only whitey out of more than 80,000 seats in this country. It seems other people don't come to CHINA to learn JAPANESE. I have to go to another office to register to have the results mailed to me as I'm not spending 18 hours and 800 kuai to claim it in person. The funny lady looks bewilderedly at the name written below the address and says, "No one knows what this [crap] means. Is this a name or something? You have to have a Chinese name. Write your Chinese name here." Yes, one needs a Chinese name to take an internationally conducted Japanese exam.

The fervor of it all way immense. If you want to be a part of something big, come take your JLPT test in China. For the past several weeks I didn't go a day without seeing someone doing some last reviews of JLPT prep books on the subway on the way to work. Now in the final stretch, studying around the clock myself, I entered a 24-hour McDonalds (to get a hot chocolate!) not even near the testing university and saw entire aisles of seats claimed by students zombie eye-edly scanning up and down the pages of their well-worn JLPT prep books. On the final night one unfortunate fellow (seems to have been a Japanese guy helping his Chinese girl with a few tough grammar points) made his native status a bit too obvious to surrounding parties and got totally ambushed. "Hey excusay-muah? Just a quick question..." A book shoved in his face I saw it took him more than 15 minutes to escape their merciless onslaught.

Test day arrived swiftly. The party of proctors (is three really necessary in one small room?) didn't want to let me in the room because they were convinced I should be taking a Chinese language exam instead somewhere else in a room with a bunch of non-Chinese. You'd think with three proctors they could force people to follow the rules, like the first one printed on the very first line on the cover of the test book "Don't open and start until instructed to do so". I turned and admired the girl behind me as she seemed full of entrepreneurial spirit and about ready to open her own 711 with the assortment of coffee, chocolate bars, and white rabbit candies arranged across the top of her desk. So much for only being allow pencils and erasers. I heard the sound of everyone flipping to the third page of the vocabulary section as the head proctor finally gave the word "go" and I flipped to the first page. It's not that I refuse to culturally assimilate in China, it's just that I'm trying to meet the international standard for this test, not the cheating Chinese one.

The extra minutes the room of cheaters stole on the vocab section didn't make an oodle of difference, I had no problem finish the section with surplus time. The listening section requires one to bubble in the correct one out of four options in the first wrong and the incorrect three out of four on the row after. An obvious Chinese test pro next to me began bubbling in all four in the odd rows, seeing as it is faster to erase one correct one later than to bubble in three wrong ones. Many others followed her lead and began bubbling away before the recording began. If only they used the headphones equipped on every desk I might have had a prayer on listening. Instead, they used a blaring boombox and crap cassette. Adjusting the volume and making sure everything worked the proctor played random segments of the tape allowing us an unfair "preview" off all the questions we're just supposed to be able to hear once. It didn't help, my hearing sucks. I guessed on every question for 35 minutes and got rather depressed. My brain's foreign language auditory processing unit just sucks in dealing with blaring noises and classroom echoes.

Passing out the reading and grammar section the proctors didn't even give the word "go" because I was the only person in the room who hadn't started immediately upon receiving the test book. Finally I made eye contact with the head proctor and she nodded for me to go. The dirty bastards got a full two minute head start on me, and this is a section where 30 seconds can make a difference of a few percentage points. Remember the test is "normalized" internationally in part based on the performance of the cheating Chinese (who comprise 40% of test takers). For the full 70 minutes the three proctors clickity-click made laps around the room eyeing everyone and consequently made me nervous as hell. There is nothing more intolerable to me than having someone watch me take a test or do a math problem. Ugh. Sit your ass down, woman!

So now I get to wait until March for the results.

The McDonald's Incident

nospam@example.com (your host) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:31:59 -0700

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!!!

China Postal: The Consistency Of Our Service Never Changes, Only The Assholes That Do It Do!

nospam@example.com (your host) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:46:48 -0700

In this ever changing age of technology, it's always comforting to know that some things never change: people cheating on their wives, computer crashes, students' lack of enthusiasm for school after returning from the summer holiday—and the Chinese postal service beating the living fucking hell out of your packages with a baseball bat before delivering them. I assume my birthday present didn't look like this a few days ago when my parents sent it:

The good thing about all of this, though, is that they were polite enough this time to affix a sticker to alert me to the fact that they bashed the piss out of my gift before giving it to me. Kudos to the genius who thought of that. If I hadn't seen the sticker there, I might have just assumed it was a modern art box design. This is definitely an improvement over a box I shipped from China to the USA five years ago which they had beaten the shit out of then poked a hole in the side and poured in dirt to mix with my books and clothing, but to which no such sticker had been attached.

The other really great thing about the Chinese post office is that THEY WON'T EVEN ACTUALLY DELIVER. That's right—if you get a box, they'll send you a postcard which says: "We have your box, come get it your damn self cause we are so busy bashing the fuck out of people's packages we don't have time to come give you". Of course, pray to god the sender didn't write your name in Chinese on it, because if you're like me—having graduated long ago and pitched my only ID (my student ID) that actually had my Chinese name on it—you're going to have a helluva a time trying to convince the counter lady that the English letter composed name printed on your passport is the "equivalent" of the Chinese name on the box. And, yes, you do need to take your passport. No, they won't let you use the postcard as "proof" that it's your package.

Differences of Culture: Dispersion of Body Waste

nospam@example.com (your host) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:39:02 -0700

So the other day I'm doing a job interview, yeah? And I was thinking "this one really takes the cake", that is, until I mentioned it to a friend and realized just how much deeper the rabbit hole goes. There's a huge difference in tolerance for sharing one's "body waste" between Chinese culture and the West.

Case in point:

A Scab In The Interview

Guy shows up to a job interview for a managerial level position in shorts which reveal his battered legs. As one is APT TO DO WHEN NERVOUS, he twitches away and finds a "outlet" for the nervous energy as he speaks. Personally I prefer scribbling on a slip of paper, clicking a pen, or screwing and unscrewing a pop bottle cap. Hell, even if he went crazy zipping and unzipping his fly it would have been better than .... THE HORROR THAT MANIFESTED ITSELF AS HIS OUTLET FOR NERVOUS ENERGY WHICH CONSISTED OF PICKING AT HIS KNEE SCABS FOR A FULL HOUR. I wanted to puke like --- THE WHOLE TIME.

Nails To Be Cutten

I don't even have to get specific with this one. Everyone who's been in a Chinese office has had the pleasant experience of being rained on with stray finger (or god forbid TOE) nails from a neighboring desk or cubicle farm. Why do at home that which can be done at work? **click-keh** *click-keh*

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Chinese Girl Culture

nospam@example.com (your host) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:44:11 -0700

[View Polish Version]

Looking at the title thinking I'm going to talk about something in China similar to the cuteness movements of Japan, plastic surgery of Korea, or fashion of elsewhere? Hardly. Haha!

Seat Relocations

In China, if you're a guy, there's a heck of a good and simple way to find out if girls think you are disgusting or stinky slime-bag. Find a seat next to a girl on a half-crowded bus or subway, and see how quickly she relocates to another spot should a seat between two girls, or next to a less disgusting male open up. Girls have no hesitation WHATSOEVER. (And it makes good sense -- it's congruent with the Chinese public behavior philosophy of "People You Don't Know, Don't Exist.")

Just the other day a real weirdo plopped down three spots to my left. The attractive girl two to the left immediately relocated to my immediate left. I thought she might have been between a rock and a hard spot with that move -- because just being a strange alien foreigner gets me some automatic "move away" points. Much to my surprise, when the weirdo looking dude disboarded, the girl did not relocate, but stay in the spot next to me. That's a first!

Being Naked

Compared to their Western counterparts, a lot of Chinese girls seem to be natural born nudists. Just ask the nearest chick you know who lives with a female roommate if either of them has any inhibition in walking around the house ass-naked or sleeping that way year-round. The cold winter nights pose no particular problem, as roommates are liable to sleep ass naked in the same bed to keep each other warm. Absolutely no lesbianism involved, just pure sisterly love and caring.

One of my friends who stayed in a hotel room with a whole troupe of females relayed to me the fascination it held for some Western chicks observing a spontaneously formed Chinese chick nudist colony for the first time. (Being that he is a male, I haven't the foggiest how he ended up there.)

Lonely Nights

Again in stark contrast to their Western counterparts, I know of numerous Chinese girls who find it very troublesome to have a roommate that often travels out of town or stays many nights at a boyfriend's place. They want somebody to share their bed and keep them company at night. In some cases it's also a matter of feeling unsafe (or downright terrified) being alone at night.

Versatile Utensils

Just as Chinese seem to put no limitations on brands and enthusiastically buy Playboy dress clothes or Pepsi footwear, there is no artificial cultural limitation imposed on the use of electric appliances. Take for example the blow dryers supplied in public showering facilities. The bush down there ain't so terribly different from the head of hair up top, now is it? Who has a good reason not to spread'em wide and blow that crotch dry? Keep from catching cold!!!

On Idiocy: An Open Letter to the English Bandits Of China

nospam@example.com (your host) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:07:53 -0700

Yes, I mean you, asshole.

STUDYING IN JAPAN

Maybe you were the son of a bitch Chinese foreign student at a party in Japan. When I approached you ever so politely in Japanese, you responded in your retardo English. You asked me things like "How long you study English?”, things I will never understand. As polite as I was to you, you continued to break rapport through our entire "broken" conversation as you tried to burgle my English. Your English is a piece of shit, but you, being the arrogant mother fucker that you are, continued to vomit your disgusting infected wound of an excuse for "English" upon me. I don't know what kind of a tramp you had for a mother, but she certainly didn't teach you the proper manners of polite society. You have a lot of nerve treating another person like you tried to treat me. I did not come all the way to Japan to help a stupid Chinese boy like you who didn't learn English for a shit review the basics of English he should have mastered by age 14. As cool as you thought you were, you sure as shit didn't impress me. There are a million non-native English speakers in Europe and around the world who could walk circles around the ability you MIGHT gain IF AND ONLY IF you were to spend every waking moment of every day for the rest of your worthless joke of a life studying English. I'm sure your little Chinese buddies standing behind you were impressed by what a badass you are, but in the REAL world you were the jackass. The joke is on you, because while you thought you were showing off -- you were the fool. I was replying back to you in perfect Polish and you didn't even notice the difference, YOU STUPID FUCK.

Continue reading "On Idiocy: An Open Letter to the English Bandits Of China"

The Lost Art of Dirt Smearing

nospam@example.com (your host) — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:41:07 -0700

(Alternate Title: Maximizing Filthifying Efficiency)

The Chinese Custodial Art Masters' floor mopping techniques are truly 獨一無二 (unique, unparalleled) in this world, not just for their superficiality and face-giving basic purpose and how utterly useless they are when it comes to increasing the degree of sanitation of any facility (including hospitals, no doubt) by even a single degree, but also for their efficiency in contributing to further filthification of the facilities in which they are employed. Since the additional filth is in most cases conveniently siphoned off the shoes of members of the general public, it can also be said that in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, traditional Chinese Custodial Art mopping (insert random obligatory 5,000 years of history reference) is a kind of public service insofar as it reduces the frequency at which the general public needs to clean the soles of their own shoes. First let's do a run-down of the basic principles followed by Traditional Professional Chinese Custodians across the vast nation of 55 ethnic minorities:

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One's Own Sword Used Against Him

nospam@example.com (your host) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:09:00 -0700

Thinking back a few years, I'm pretty sure I'd read a passage like this and feel annoyed. What arrogance! What silly short-sightedness! (The following applies in no less degree to China)

Rather than talking of a particular region or country, Japanese are notorious for asking "how do people do this abroad" or "what do foreigner think about that" or "if I go abroad, do they have this or that" ? My answer is invariably the same "but where ? in which country ? for whom ?" [Source]

But reading this today, I've realized the behavior is now thoroughly a part of the way I express myself in Mandarin. I haven't put the slightest bit of thought into it for ages, but yet I am sure I speak in this manner on regular basis. I tend to refer to the way anything is outside of China as merely being that way abroad (国外). It's also just dawned on me why I like it so much -- basically it gives me a free license to insult without causing offence! When I say "we do such and such" or something happens in "such and such way" abroad, I am telling the listener that his homeland is uniquely unconventional and bizarre and fails to do things in the "normal" way that the rest of the world does. What gives me the right to claim I know how the whole rest of the world does something? Well, nothing! But no one has called me on it yet, so it's my listener's problem if he lets me get away with this blatant bit of logical fraud.