Bob & Vik's A-Z of China

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A is for…Adoption: We met a Chinese girl who worked for an agency that sold - sorry, provided - children to foreign couples that wished to adopt Chinese babies. Apparently the largest consumers of Chinese babies (no reference to E is inferred) are Americans and there are places in China where it is possible to find hordes of American couples living in the same area waiting for their mandatory four week residence to pass. To understand why this practise is popular please refer to C.
B is for…Babies: When not being sold to - sorry - adopted by Americans, babies are a much loved part of Chinese society. Strapped to their mothers back, wrapped in layers of blankets and knitwear, it is not unusual to see women hard at work in the fields or scamming tourists while their children sleep on their back and their husband’s stand on street corners doing bugger all except (see S).
C is for…Cute: On several occasions Vik has commented on the cuteness of Chinese babies. The phrase “want one” has been used, but I would suggest that other than following procedures outlined in A, should we be blessed (cursed) with the ability to reproduce, genetics will cruelly burden us with fairly bizarre, white, pasty, Scottish looking children. I should also point out that while D can also at times fall into this category only one of B or D should be cross referenced with E.
D is for…Dogs: For the most part they wander the streets leading fairly solitary loveless lives - sniffing this, fighting with that. Generally, the smaller breeds seem to be accepted as pets or tolerated as second class citizens while the larger one’s often find themselves viewed as E.
E is for…Edible: Nearly anything is edible - as long as you fry it and add chilli then serve with noodles or rice (refer to N, P or D).
F is for…Foreigner: How Chinese are you? Answer this simple question to find out: You are walking along the street and you spot a person of foreign origin. Do you a) pretend you haven’t noticed them and walk by or b) draw their attention with a greeting in a language you suspect may be their own (see H) or c) do you stop, dumbfounded, let your mouth fall open and stare at the freak as long as you can? If you answered a) then I’m afraid that there is little chance you are genuinely Chinese. If you answered b) and have been told by your parents that you are most certainly not Chinese, it may be worth asking to see your birth certificate, just to check (see also A). If you answered c) then you will be pleased to hear that you are 100%!C(MISSING)hinese. Go forth into the world knowing that nobody can ever out stare you - that it is possible for you to sit opposite a foreigner on a train and stare at him for 3 hours solid without flinching despite his desperate attempts to break your eye contact with hand waving, book reading or staring back.
G is for…Gyms: Walk through any park or open space between 5:30am and 8:30am in any Chinese city or town and you are guaranteed to see people using the outdoor gyms. Fitness and health is really important to the Chinese (see also M) and quite apart from their avid gym use, there is nothing more amusing and entertaining than watching early morning Thai Chi, Line Dancing and of course, that old favourite and core of all good exercise regimes, Walking Backwards.
H is for…Hello: Parents cajole their children into saying “halloh” to foreigners - some don’t even need that much cajoling but are keen to see if they can get a response. Maybe I’m being cynical, because there is no doubting that for the most part the Chinese are an inquisitive and friendly people, but every so often I begin to feel like a trained monkey. Like saying “roll over” to a dog and taking delight from its resulting roll, people take great pleasure in making the foreign monkey say “hello”.
I is for…Information: We live in the age of the information super highway. But in China it’s less of a highway and more of a roundabout. We arrived in Xiagun (commonly known as “New Dali”) rather than our intended target of Dali. No problem says the Lonely Planet - just get local bus number 4 from Xiagun to Dali. There’s even a map showing where the buses leave from. So we wait for half an hour and nothing appears. I ask an old man at the same stop and he indicates, before hopping on a number 2, that this is the right place - number 4 leaves from here. After an hour I go into the Triumph bra shop behind us and ask the bemused girls at the counter. They say the number 4 doesn’t run anymore but that we need a number 8 or 9. We find the stop for 8 but the bus driver says we need a 4. The driver of a number 2 wants us to get on his bus. The receptionist at a local hotel draws a map of bus stops and says we need a number 8. A tourist office worker says we need number 4. The driver of the number 12 says number 4 doesn’t run - we need number 8 or 2. After 2 hours we got on a dodgy minibus that was crawling the streets looking for passengers and eventually got to Dali. If knowledge truly is power then you can rest assured that the world is safe from the residents of Xiagun.
J is for…Jobs: There are too many people in China. Jobs are scarce, resulting in excessive numbers of people hanging around watching foreigners (see F), playing cards or just biding their time engaging in what Chinese do best (see S). Sometimes they keep people occupied by making up jobs such as the one featured in our last blog - hand carving chips in the road or simply have too many people doing one job. The phrase “too many chefs” must have originated in China (refer to W).
K is for…Knife (as in “Under the”): A friend had shown us photographs he took of a surgical operation conducted in the open air on man in a city street. I wow’ed and ooh’ed at the graphic pictures, but I doubted the authenticity of the subject matter. At least I doubted it until we witnessed an operation ourselves. On a walk through the back streets of Dali we happened to glance into a house with its door wide open. Only it wasn’t a house - it was a doctor’s surgery. A worried looking patient lifted his head from the stretcher he lay on to watch us walk by. His jumper was rolled up revealing a bare torso. The doctor was stood over him wearing a surgical mask, examining said torso. The Doc seemed too engrossed in his subject and the pointy tools in his hands to notice us.
According to a friend with recent firsthand experience of the Chinese Health service a number of optional extra’s are available during your treatment… for a cost. These extras include receiving anaesthetics, being treated by a doctor rather than a student and, it would appear based on our sighting, having the door to the surgery closed.
L is for…Last Bit, Leaving: You should probably ignore this bit until the end as it is exactly what it says - the last bit. We are now leaving China and this A-Z was compiled as a way for us to try and explain some of the complexities of Chinese society as we have found it. Overall, we liked China, then hated it and now we like it again. It’s a place that definitely takes some getting used to, but on the whole it’s been great. We haven’t had many of the bad experiences with transport that we read about in other peoples blogs and guide books and we haven’t fallen prey to any scams or rip-off merchants (other than the lady selling oranges - but they were good oranges and absolutely worth 1 RMB each). Personal highlights would have to be The Great Wall - it never failed to impress, despite my high expectations - and brushing our teeth under the stars in Tiger Leaping Gorge which is probably one of the most beautiful and dramatic place I’ve ever visited.
M is for…Meat on a Stick: A personal favourite of mine. In every province, in every city, it is the one food certainty you can be assured of. Served on the street by men with grubby hands and no understanding of the words “bacteria” or “hygene”, the quality, spiciness and type of meat/fat varies from place to place but for the most part it is a cheap and deliciously carnivorous snack/meal option. (See also P, Y and D).
N is for…Noodles: Along with that old favourite, rice, noodles are the foundations on which all of China stands. Peasants plough on them, soldiers march on them and everybody loudly slurps on them. Watching a chef make noodles is a strange experience. It seems to involve, in its initial stages, a lot of beating, slapping and twisting. The next stage is magical, for from this beaten, slapped dough appears the long strips of noodles. But how they appear is a mystery. I have watched - on several occasions - but still I can’t quite fathom it.
O is for…Olympics: The hype surrounding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is ridiculous. Please God, don’t let this sort of fever grip London or life in the UK will be unbearable. The Friendlies (the mascots of the Beijing Olympics) adorn every building, product and television advert. China’s great hope for the games - their number one son and all round hero - is the 110m hurdler Liu Xiang who currently holds the World Record. The figures 12.88 (referring to the World Record time) can be found everywhere. Somebody should really let them know that there is still a year and a half before the games actually start. A build up of anticipation, hope and hype lasting years for a race that will be over in less than 13 seconds cannot be good for the health of the nation and more particularly for poor Mr Xiang. .
P is for…Pork: …and Pork is for peasants. Considered to be “poor man’s meat” by the Chinese, apparently some restaurants can take offence if a person perceived as rich (ie. a foreigner) chooses this meat over the more expensive beef or even chicken option. Being a self-styled connoisseur of the entirely pork based favourites, Sweet & Sour Pork and Pork-with-melty-fat-on-a-Stick (refer to M), I clearly possess a poor palette - in every sense of the words.
Q is for…Quiet: It is not possible for Chinese to be quiet. If Being Silent was to become an Olympic event for Beijing 2008 the Chinese wouldn’t even qualify for the first rounds as their most silent competitor would be disqualified for at least one of (refer to S).
R is for…Railway Stations: These places are where you can watch everything happen at once and where everyone will watch you all at once (see also F). Walking into the ticket office at a Railway Station is an… initially unnerving experience. Imagine, if you will, turning up at your bosses wedding reception dressed as Chewbacca from Star Wars. As you walk into the plush hotel lobby, picking up a glass of champagne from the stunned waiters tray, hundreds of eyes would shift in disbelief to watch you. People would nudge their neighbours and point at you. There would be giggling and there would be staring. By the time you get to the top table some people have accepted your presence while others are still absolutely dumbfounded. The really inquisitive ones want to be near you when you get to the top table and explain yourself to the boss. They crowd around you as you reach the table and try to communicate. But of course, you are Chewbacca and nobody understands a word you say no matter how much you repeat yourself and wave your hairy arms. If you can imagine all that then you will have some idea of what it’s like buying tickets for the trains in China.
S is for…Smoking, Spitting, Shouting, Singing (loudly & badly): There is a Chinese gene that scientists haven’t yet managed to isolate that makes all of the above socially acceptable. When you have been in China long enough to cope with and accept one of these traits, another one begins to piss you off. Without actually experiencing an entire nation of people who make each of these traits into an art form, it is very difficult to describe. It is almost like they were such quiet, cute (refer to C) babies (refer to B) that all their dribble and their desire to make noise missed its opportunity to be released in those early stages but at a certain point (approx 10 yrs) could take it no more and decided to assert itself with a vengeance. Years of excess baby mucous and screaming is now manifesting itself in a desire to coat the streets with gob and fill the air with unnecessary decibels.
T is for…Taiwan, Tibet: We met a bloke from Malaysia who had been forced to beg immigration not to confiscate his copy of Lonely Planet China. Apparently it is on their “dangerous” publications list because it treats Taiwan and Tibet as separate countries. In China, the Dalai Lama is seen by many as a terrorist bent on tearing the country apart. Our Malaysian friend was lucky. He got to keep his Lonely Planet (others weren’t so fortunate) but on the condition that he let the immigration officers cut out the map on the back of the book which illustrates the Lonely Planets crime.
U is for…Underwear: There are an incredible amount of underwear shops in China. I think there may be one per person. They usually have more staff than customers (see J) and the staff there are tend to wile away their hours watching confused tourists waiting for buses that will never arrive (cross reference with I).
Babies don’t wear nappies, but instead have pants that are split down the middle so that, should nature call, their mother simply opens the split and baby can do its business in the street. We had been previously warned about this practise by other travellers but had never witnessed it until last night when we saw two mothers holding their children like weapons, firing jobby onto the street outside our hostel.
V is for…Vehicles: Why buy a car or motorcycle when you can make your own! How on earth some of the things that pass for vehicles here make it more than a few miles is a mystery. Many of the creations that chug along the streets look like the hideous love child of an old motorcycle and a World War II military supplies truck. Just like watching the A-Team when they are left with nothing but a length of pipe, a torch and 150 paperclips, you never know what oddity is going to lurch forward from each corner or junction. And they test these beasts to breaking point by loading them with the most ridiculous amount of crap. If its not a dozen fridge freezers or 1.5 million beer bottles, its Budget Sofa Warehouse’s entire 1968 stock of brown three piece suites.
W is for…Workmanship : The meaning of the word “workmanship” in China is slightly different to that in the UK. In about 1860, a ship full of all China’s workmen, simply known as the “Workmanship” sunk off the coast of Mauritius with the loss of all hands (and feet). Since the complete loss of Workmanship, China has relied on people not too involved in games of cards or domino’s to lend a had knocking up some buildings and stuff (see also J). The result is structures that need replacing every ten years and roads that include craters that wouldn’t look out of place on the surface of the moon.
X is for…Xenophobia: The Chinese (especially in the north) have a strong dislike of the Japanese. History is something that is not easily forgotten - which is ironic in a country where cultural heritage cannot stand in the way of commercial development. We met a Japanese man in Dali who had been refused from four hotels due to his nationality. On a bus journey from Kunming to Lijiang we were treated to a movie about outnumbered, brave Chinese peasants armed with pitchforks fighting off ridiculously stupid Japanese troops. An English teacher we met spent an afternoon trying hopelessly to convince her students that they didn’t hate the Japanese after one of them declared how he’d kill Japanese if he saw them! I was given a lecture by a Chinese structural engineer about how he hates the Japanese (he underlined the word “hate” several times) and told me that he won’t buy Japanese products. On these grounds the title of my last blog (“Bobdget Jones Diary: Too Much Love in China”) should have been caveated with “(…unless you’re Japanese)”.
Y is for…Yuck, Yak: Dried Yak in packets in supermarkets is a bizarre sight. Bits of Yak hanging to dry in doorways in residential neighbourhoods is just weird. But whole legs of Yak hanging infront of you as you eat your dinner is just wrong.
Z is for…Zebra Crossing: I understand that a Zebra Crossing is so called because of its black and white stripes. But while a zebra crossing the road in the UK would most likely be enough to bring the traffic to a halt, a Chinese driver just wouldn’t give a damn. If anything, zebra’s crossing the road would add to the sport and provide the possibility of a nutritious meal at the end of the day (refer to E or M). There is only one thing that’s black and white nature would be startling enough to halt traffic. Incredibly popular in China, but incredibly rare, I speak of course, of Michael Jackson.
A Michael Jackson Crossing would cause Chinese drivers to halt, wind down their windows and let their jaws drop (refer to F).



Next time on Occasionally Bob:

Don't miss the sensational new movie from Director Bob - "The Panda Proxy"
A hard hitting action adventure based on a made up story.
Too hot for Chinese censors to handle "The Panda Proxy"'s release has been delayed until we reach Vietnam.

The Sunday Times says: "The Panda Proxy will have you reaching for the Kleenex and nibbling your cane furniture."
The Los Angeles Times says: "Never in the field of cinematography has one man's vision been so squiffy."
Panda Review says: "Deep man. Really deep."

The Panda Proxy

It's all about the bamboo, baby.

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Photos

Washing vegetables, Dali
Imagine how Health & Safety would react if restaurants in Edinburgh let their staff sit in the High Street scrubbing vegetables outside their premises. I like it. The food is fresh too.

The 3 Pagoda's, Dali
At 121 RMB (about 8 quid), we decided this place - as interesting as it seemed - was not worth the money. We still managed to get some decent photographs from outside the complex walls.

Naxi Family Guesthouse
A fantastic place to stay. We brushed our teeth beneath more stars than I've ever seen and were treated to some great food courteousy of the Nice family.

Overtaken...
... by a 90 year old lady with a large wicker basket on her back. Not embarassing in the slightest.

Telegraph Poles - Tiger Leaping Gorge
Nearly every decent photo opportunity or stunning view was marginally spoiled by the presence of wires, cables and telegraph poles.

Squatting
This is the view, while squatting in the toilet at the Halfway Guesthouse in Tiger Leaping Gorge. Michael Palin took in this same view from this same position during his "Himalaya" series. It may be the toilet with the best views in the world, but it is also the most exposed - not only to the elements, but also to anyone further down the hill!

It may look like a haystack...
...but it's actually a pile of pine needles.

Rough and rugged...
...the mountains not bad either.

Comments

[Jenn]

You've done it again
I think this may be your best blog yet. Wonderful job! It helps me remember China exactly as it is. Have fun in Vietnam, you'll have no lack of things to write about there as well!

[Po]

Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers quote...
'Bye China - Good morning Vietnam...... keep on bloggin'.....

[thewug]

You do have a way with words... LOL...

[Marco]

Exact view of China
You really told it as it is. I live and work since 3 years here in China and many parts of this culture still pisses me off (refer to F,H,I,Q,R, especially S,T,W,Y,Z did i mentioned S already?!). Anyway, there are many nice things too...... I have some trouble to recollect them now, but i am sure there are. About Z, as a foreigner your chance to get hit by a car on a Zebra crossing is dramaticly reduced due to the widely spreaded believe that a foreigners live is too much worth and the costs for treatment would ruin the live of the chinese driver, and this is why i like it to just walk into the traffic as if i dont care to force the drivers to slam their brakes as they never did before. Another free advise is to complain loud and agressive if something is not ok, dont try to be friendly in the beginning because you will not succeed until you became really angry. Since i dont like to be angry, i will begin my complain already in a way that seems that i will explode if i got any denial. This works great! Greetings from Chongqing (The Capital of "S")