I was traveling around Beijing all day today, on secret errands which I can't disclose due to patient <--> National Security Agency confidentiality agreements (signed implicitly via tapped phones and hacked email accounts). I've been on the subway a billion times, but today was the first time I noticed that the directions you get at the screen doors before entering the train are vastly different in Chinese and in English.
Here's what Chinese people get:
Ladies and Gentlemen, the train is arriving. Please remember to keep elbows away from gonads as you board the train, avoid spitting on each other, and most importantly, don't forget that it is our culture's great tradition to respectfully give your seat to elders, children, cripples and pregnant women (if it's a boy). Ride safely and politely, for God's sake!
And here's what foreigners get:
Ladies and Gentlemen, the train is arriving. Please stand firm and hold the handrail.
Now comes the pop quiz. Which way did you interpret this scenario? Is it that Chinese people need all those reminders to help keep them in line and not tear each other to pieces like wild animals? Or is it that foreigners are utterly hopeless, so wasting reminders on them isn't worth the cost of the electricity? Or did the writers guild go on strike in the middle of penning the 2nd announcement? Or did they flip a coin? Either way, shame on you, why don't you go think something nice about people for a change.
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
Take off your shirt. Now take off your rib cage.
I went to get a physical examination today. There's only one place in all of Beijing where foreigners can get a physical that carries any legal weight, so I got up at 6:30AM and triathaloned it there - walked to the subway, subway'd to the bus, bus'd to the middle of nowhere and walked some more. It was good weather to be healthy in, a relentless shower that occasionally scaled up to fairly convincing rain. The puddles were what made it fun, and I had extra time to enjoy them because I had no idea where I was going between the legs of the triathalon. Yes, it was very wet there. No, it wasn't very erotic. Yes, I just can't help myself.
Whenever I need to find a bus in China, I'm at a loss. And by a bus in China, I mean a bus anywhere. And by a bus I mean anything outside of our apartment. I'm hopelessly dependent on knowing where everything is beforehand, and since Yuan Yuan already knows where everything is, I don't even need to depend on that. If I'm looking for something and it's not on my computer, I call Yuan Yuan and ask her.
"Honey, where'd you put the tomatoes? In the fridge? Great. Which shelf? Okay, they're the red ones right?"
But this time Yuan Yuan was too busy to go with me, and the bus stop, sensing her absence, grew particularly nefarious. I got off the subway, picked one of the three available directions at random, mostly by virtue of it having a news-stand where I could ask for directions, and splashed merrily along. What I took to be a news-stand turned out to be a hot-dog stand, which I should have suspected was part of the bus stop's evil plot to waylay me. It must have known I was on a 30 day trial of being vegetarian and was testing me. If I even so much as licked a hot-dog (you get a free lick before you buy it), I would never find someone to take my physical in a million years. Unless I took a cab, then maybe in 15 minutes.
I asked the hot-dog vendor where the Beijing International Hygeine/Health Protection center was. He pointed at a hot dog. I repeated my question. He wasn't very happy about it. He assumed an irritated expression and wagged his thumb in a direction over his shoulder, roughly the direction from where I had come, but also only ~15 degrees off from another direction, over a bridge, which I was later to discover led straight to Hell. I pointed in the direction I had come from, and said "hmm?" He didn't confirm or deny and just repeated his pointing. I decided he was obviously lying and went across the bridge. 10 minutes later I came back and went in the direction he'd pointed out. I'd always had a weakness for reverse psychology, but how did the bus stop know that?
The physical examination itself was uneventful. I will therefore describe it in mind-numbing detail.
I was one of the first to arrive, and there was virtually no wait. I went from room to room getting signatures on my health sheet. I felt like I was carrying around a petition. "Will you vouch for my state of health please? I already have 5 signatures, I just need 2 more."
There were 7 components:
1. Blood test - barely felt it, the nurse was a pro. She was also a cutie pie. As she pricked my arm, she asked if I smelled a horrible stench. I was a bit perplexed, wondering if I'd accidentally crapped my pants, and whether she was now going to say she was obliged to give me a sponge bath. I raised an eyebrow quizzically. She explained that they were eating some Durian (fruit) earlier, and asked if I hated the smell. I admitted to hating it, but not to having smelled it. I complimented her on her needlework. She single-mindedly pursued the Durian offense and asked me if I'd dare try it. I said I'd do it for my country. She let me go in one piece.
2. Blood pressure & heart rate test - 115/68 I think, maybe not. The heart rate was 53, which the software the nurse was using labeled as "A bit too slow." I asked her if my heartrate was indeed too slow. She said yes, a bit. It was a dialogue for the ages.
3. Ultrasound (it's a boy)
4. X-Ray. I tried to go to the X-Ray room 3 times and each time some other doctor would rush over and intercept me and examine me. Then when the X-Ray was the only one left, a nurse's aid came up to me and took me outside to a bus. I climbed in, stood in front of a portrait of Mickey Mouse, with the words "Look here" inscribed on his forehead, got handed a big heavy triangular lead-filled groin protector and smiled for the judges while they irradiated my chest.
5. Electric conductivity test. The doctor clipped what looked like declawed jumper cables to my hands and feet, then stuck some leads to my chest. I asked her belatedly if she was going to shock the capitalism out of me. She said no. I can't remember what happened next.
6. Eyes and ears.
7. Food/Height test. This was the final test and held the biggest surprise. The doctor has the 2nd floor all to himself, and a spooky sign "Surgery -->" pointed right to his door, where he sat, beckoning me to come in quick before I missed my chance for a free amputation. He sat me down in a chair, scrutinized the palms of my hands for the briefest of moments, then probed all around and behind my jawline (presumably looking for hidden food caches, as the examination requires an empty stomach), then had me stand on what looked like a weighing device but with no display or little brass weights or demarcations of any kind. I asked if I needed to take off my flip-flops, he said no, and then pronounced me tall.
Guys, it took 27 years, but I've finally reached 1.8 meters. I'd like to thank my flip-flops, for giving me that extra boost, my doctor, for not giving a damn about accuracy, my parents, for believing in me, I couldn't have done it without you, and Yuan Yuan, who is always saying life would be perfect if she were just a little bit taller. Your dream has finally come true! To me.
Whenever I need to find a bus in China, I'm at a loss. And by a bus in China, I mean a bus anywhere. And by a bus I mean anything outside of our apartment. I'm hopelessly dependent on knowing where everything is beforehand, and since Yuan Yuan already knows where everything is, I don't even need to depend on that. If I'm looking for something and it's not on my computer, I call Yuan Yuan and ask her.
"Honey, where'd you put the tomatoes? In the fridge? Great. Which shelf? Okay, they're the red ones right?"
But this time Yuan Yuan was too busy to go with me, and the bus stop, sensing her absence, grew particularly nefarious. I got off the subway, picked one of the three available directions at random, mostly by virtue of it having a news-stand where I could ask for directions, and splashed merrily along. What I took to be a news-stand turned out to be a hot-dog stand, which I should have suspected was part of the bus stop's evil plot to waylay me. It must have known I was on a 30 day trial of being vegetarian and was testing me. If I even so much as licked a hot-dog (you get a free lick before you buy it), I would never find someone to take my physical in a million years. Unless I took a cab, then maybe in 15 minutes.
I asked the hot-dog vendor where the Beijing International Hygeine/Health Protection center was. He pointed at a hot dog. I repeated my question. He wasn't very happy about it. He assumed an irritated expression and wagged his thumb in a direction over his shoulder, roughly the direction from where I had come, but also only ~15 degrees off from another direction, over a bridge, which I was later to discover led straight to Hell. I pointed in the direction I had come from, and said "hmm?" He didn't confirm or deny and just repeated his pointing. I decided he was obviously lying and went across the bridge. 10 minutes later I came back and went in the direction he'd pointed out. I'd always had a weakness for reverse psychology, but how did the bus stop know that?
The physical examination itself was uneventful. I will therefore describe it in mind-numbing detail.
I was one of the first to arrive, and there was virtually no wait. I went from room to room getting signatures on my health sheet. I felt like I was carrying around a petition. "Will you vouch for my state of health please? I already have 5 signatures, I just need 2 more."
There were 7 components:
1. Blood test - barely felt it, the nurse was a pro. She was also a cutie pie. As she pricked my arm, she asked if I smelled a horrible stench. I was a bit perplexed, wondering if I'd accidentally crapped my pants, and whether she was now going to say she was obliged to give me a sponge bath. I raised an eyebrow quizzically. She explained that they were eating some Durian (fruit) earlier, and asked if I hated the smell. I admitted to hating it, but not to having smelled it. I complimented her on her needlework. She single-mindedly pursued the Durian offense and asked me if I'd dare try it. I said I'd do it for my country. She let me go in one piece.
2. Blood pressure & heart rate test - 115/68 I think, maybe not. The heart rate was 53, which the software the nurse was using labeled as "A bit too slow." I asked her if my heartrate was indeed too slow. She said yes, a bit. It was a dialogue for the ages.
3. Ultrasound (it's a boy)
4. X-Ray. I tried to go to the X-Ray room 3 times and each time some other doctor would rush over and intercept me and examine me. Then when the X-Ray was the only one left, a nurse's aid came up to me and took me outside to a bus. I climbed in, stood in front of a portrait of Mickey Mouse, with the words "Look here" inscribed on his forehead, got handed a big heavy triangular lead-filled groin protector and smiled for the judges while they irradiated my chest.
5. Electric conductivity test. The doctor clipped what looked like declawed jumper cables to my hands and feet, then stuck some leads to my chest. I asked her belatedly if she was going to shock the capitalism out of me. She said no. I can't remember what happened next.
6. Eyes and ears.
7. Food/Height test. This was the final test and held the biggest surprise. The doctor has the 2nd floor all to himself, and a spooky sign "Surgery -->" pointed right to his door, where he sat, beckoning me to come in quick before I missed my chance for a free amputation. He sat me down in a chair, scrutinized the palms of my hands for the briefest of moments, then probed all around and behind my jawline (presumably looking for hidden food caches, as the examination requires an empty stomach), then had me stand on what looked like a weighing device but with no display or little brass weights or demarcations of any kind. I asked if I needed to take off my flip-flops, he said no, and then pronounced me tall.
Guys, it took 27 years, but I've finally reached 1.8 meters. I'd like to thank my flip-flops, for giving me that extra boost, my doctor, for not giving a damn about accuracy, my parents, for believing in me, I couldn't have done it without you, and Yuan Yuan, who is always saying life would be perfect if she were just a little bit taller. Your dream has finally come true! To me.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Breaking News: Milk-in-a-bag Spoils
I made an absolutely stunning discovery today, truly world-tipping, given a flat or cow-shaped world, and mind-blowing, given you have a mind and not just a head full of brain. I had just gone five straight minutes without consuming something sugar-rich and nutrient-free...which reminds me, why don't they print that on snacks? I want to go into the store and see an honest Coke can that says in big letters cut from a Santa Claus suit: "No nutrients. Just calories." Assuming Nike doesn't own the rights to that phrase yet. Then I'll probably look around to make sure no one's watching me and grab the Coke Zero instead. They could be making billions with this strategy. If only people were up to date on their Jewish humor.*
Where was I...ah yea, I had just gone five straight minutes without consuming something sugar-rich and nutrient-free and was crawling like the legless T800 from the bed to the squat little table that houses all my snacks, intent on making myself a cup of coffee. The current coffee-making procedure, honed by a year of...honing, is as follows:
1. Buy a 90 (Chinese) cent packet of coffee+sugar+stuff-not-on-ingredients-list.
2. Buy a 200ml bag of milk.
3. Get a Chinese girlfriend.
4. Wait till said girlfriend gives you a cup for a present. It's one of those few things in the universe that even entropy is powerless to prevent. That and my pants from falling down without a belt.
5. Take the cup and fill it with recently boiled water, which will be known as "really hot water" from now on.
6. Wait 10 seconds. Empty the cup.
7. Pour the contents of the coffee packet into the cup.
8. Fill the cup approximately halfway with really hot water.
9. Mix.
10. Add milk to taste.
You know those games where you can't save? Where you go back to the very beginning if you die? Think Wii Tanks, the original Prince of Persia, Einhander. When you first start playing the game, it's mildly annoying, having to redo the first 2-3 levels over and over. Then as you get better things get a whole lot worse. By the time you can make it to the second to last boss, you probably have no hair left and the walls are spattered with blood.
Something similar happened here. I fulfilled all the requirements. I bought the coffee, wooed the Chinese girl, got my cup and all for nothing! Cause when I added the milk, my coffee turned into a Pollock painting, though slightly better-looking. The milk had gone sour. I smelled it to be sure. Who knew? Maybe those chunks coming out of the bag were chunks of unspoiled milk. They weren't.
However, on the whole this blood-curdling experience has led to a very positive discovery. Namely that the "milk-in-a-bag" is real milk! Hmm, that might be a bit of a stretch. Ok, it contains real milk. No, still not it...ok, it has something organic as an ingredient. And it's taken me a year to discover this as no matter how long I've kept the milk-in-a-bag unrefrigerated prior to today, it has never gone bad. Bag open, bag closed, bag empty with the contents in a puddle on the floor...never. If it weren't for the lack of coffee coating my synapses, I'd have jumped up and down excitedly. As it was I crawled back to the bed empty-stomached and gagging on an unwritten blog entry and sour milk fumes.
* Two beggars are sitting reclined against a wall, their cups in front of them. Each one also has a sign.
One sign says: "Please help an old war veteran."
The other sign says: "Please help an old Jew."
The passers-by provide a continuous stream of coins into the soldier's cup while largely ignoring and often snickering at the Jew.
Finally one passer-by asks the Jew: "why don't you change your sign? Can't you see you're getting nowhere with this one?"
At this, the Jew turns to the other beggar and says: "Did you hear that, Moishe? This goy wants to teach us how to run our business!"
Where was I...ah yea, I had just gone five straight minutes without consuming something sugar-rich and nutrient-free and was crawling like the legless T800 from the bed to the squat little table that houses all my snacks, intent on making myself a cup of coffee. The current coffee-making procedure, honed by a year of...honing, is as follows:
1. Buy a 90 (Chinese) cent packet of coffee+sugar+stuff-not-on-ingredients-list.
2. Buy a 200ml bag of milk.
3. Get a Chinese girlfriend.
4. Wait till said girlfriend gives you a cup for a present. It's one of those few things in the universe that even entropy is powerless to prevent. That and my pants from falling down without a belt.
5. Take the cup and fill it with recently boiled water, which will be known as "really hot water" from now on.
6. Wait 10 seconds. Empty the cup.
7. Pour the contents of the coffee packet into the cup.
8. Fill the cup approximately halfway with really hot water.
9. Mix.
10. Add milk to taste.
You know those games where you can't save? Where you go back to the very beginning if you die? Think Wii Tanks, the original Prince of Persia, Einhander. When you first start playing the game, it's mildly annoying, having to redo the first 2-3 levels over and over. Then as you get better things get a whole lot worse. By the time you can make it to the second to last boss, you probably have no hair left and the walls are spattered with blood.
Something similar happened here. I fulfilled all the requirements. I bought the coffee, wooed the Chinese girl, got my cup and all for nothing! Cause when I added the milk, my coffee turned into a Pollock painting, though slightly better-looking. The milk had gone sour. I smelled it to be sure. Who knew? Maybe those chunks coming out of the bag were chunks of unspoiled milk. They weren't.
However, on the whole this blood-curdling experience has led to a very positive discovery. Namely that the "milk-in-a-bag" is real milk! Hmm, that might be a bit of a stretch. Ok, it contains real milk. No, still not it...ok, it has something organic as an ingredient. And it's taken me a year to discover this as no matter how long I've kept the milk-in-a-bag unrefrigerated prior to today, it has never gone bad. Bag open, bag closed, bag empty with the contents in a puddle on the floor...never. If it weren't for the lack of coffee coating my synapses, I'd have jumped up and down excitedly. As it was I crawled back to the bed empty-stomached and gagging on an unwritten blog entry and sour milk fumes.
* Two beggars are sitting reclined against a wall, their cups in front of them. Each one also has a sign.
One sign says: "Please help an old war veteran."
The other sign says: "Please help an old Jew."
The passers-by provide a continuous stream of coins into the soldier's cup while largely ignoring and often snickering at the Jew.
Finally one passer-by asks the Jew: "why don't you change your sign? Can't you see you're getting nowhere with this one?"
At this, the Jew turns to the other beggar and says: "Did you hear that, Moishe? This goy wants to teach us how to run our business!"
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Rash Decisions And Other Staples
Today is the third day of a really nutty 30 day trial. The rules of the trial are a bit ambiguous, but several items have been agreed upon:
1. No sweets (excluding ones that grow on trees (excluding ones that grow on trees in Johnny Depp's Chocolate Factory (exluding ones that also grow on trees outside the factory))).
We can pretty much stop here because it's already enough for full-scale clinical depression. I'm an extreme sugar fiend. I eat chocolate before and after a meal, floss my teeth with Twizzlers and use a Jawbreaker for a retainer. When I make myself a cup of tea, it doesn't matter in the least what flavor the tea it is because I drown the flavor in copious amounts of miracle powder. In fact, if I can tell what flavor tea I'm having by the time I finish a cup, I make an appointment with my physician; it is extremely aberrant.
So it's day three now, and I can't help but notice that I suddenly have tons of free time. At least three extra hours. Granted, now I spend them prostrate on the floor of my room, suffering from withdrawal, but they're extra nonetheless. If you could have an extra few hours of life every day with no ultimate changes to your lifespan, with the "BUT" (fancy word for "caveat") being that they were full of suffering, would you take them? I would without a second thought, but only if I were on a 30-day trial of taking them.
Generally, I'm feeling more deflated across the board (hmm, can't think of a way to not be redundant in this sentence, oh well). I experienced this before - during my 4th attempt to quit drinking soda. The abrupt disappearance of the sugar high renders life gray and uninteresting. I'm sure glad I'm giving up sugar and not heroin (NEVER giving that one up).
2. No snacking. Only eat when hungry.
Snacking all but disappears when you eliminate sugar from your diet. Now I only have the urge to snack every three minutes as opposed to after every successful swallow. I spend a lot of time in my room upstairs working up my hunger to earn permission to indulge my mouth. "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry," is the mantra of the month.
3. Decide what to do for the generalized version of this 30 day trial.
The original plan was to give up all impulses. Obviously this is only feasible for living Buddhas and select igneous rocks, but there's a saying about bars and settings that's popular in this house - something along the lines of "set the bar high for everyone else." After much fruitless discussion, we decided to start off with the obvious sacrifices - #1 and #2 (not the ones you're thinking of...well...definitely not the ones you're thinking of after reading this sentence), and then kick it into high gear the second to last or last week of the trial. I'll let you know how that goes if it goes anywhere.
Went to New York today as a chaperone for Gene on his field trip to the dentist. Gene dropped me off at 80th and Broadway and went off to the torture chamber. I took a slow walk to Barnes and Noble a few blocks away, scaring pidgins and people with my hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day-for-months pale zombie face, and read about three pages in half an hour. I decided I was better at walking and went back out to partake of some pollution.
Later, I came to check up on Gene and he was still being held prisoner. The warden said he was due for release soon, but time passes very differently inside and outside the prison; I ended up waiting for another hour. Anyway, I went outside again, and just then this guy passed me carrying a box. The box read "China" and nothing else. Thank God I'm practicing stifling my impulses, otherwise I would have snuck into that box and prayed it was on an express delivery route to Shanghai...and probably would have ended up as dinner. Still, it's obviously a sign that China's anxious for my arrival.
On the way back from New York, we dropped by the King Fung Food Market - a Chinese grocery store in my town. At checkout, Gene, with his usual lack of sensibility, casually mentioned to the Chinese cashiers that I study Chinese. All of a sudden, there was a blinding tornado of blood and headless torsos, followed by an investigation into my abilities. I came out relatively unscathed, being 38.9% Chinese by the latest estimate, but I fear (and am secretly eager) to return. Sometimes enjoying life as a masochist is so easy it's unfair.
1. No sweets (excluding ones that grow on trees (excluding ones that grow on trees in Johnny Depp's Chocolate Factory (exluding ones that also grow on trees outside the factory))).
We can pretty much stop here because it's already enough for full-scale clinical depression. I'm an extreme sugar fiend. I eat chocolate before and after a meal, floss my teeth with Twizzlers and use a Jawbreaker for a retainer. When I make myself a cup of tea, it doesn't matter in the least what flavor the tea it is because I drown the flavor in copious amounts of miracle powder. In fact, if I can tell what flavor tea I'm having by the time I finish a cup, I make an appointment with my physician; it is extremely aberrant.
So it's day three now, and I can't help but notice that I suddenly have tons of free time. At least three extra hours. Granted, now I spend them prostrate on the floor of my room, suffering from withdrawal, but they're extra nonetheless. If you could have an extra few hours of life every day with no ultimate changes to your lifespan, with the "BUT" (fancy word for "caveat") being that they were full of suffering, would you take them? I would without a second thought, but only if I were on a 30-day trial of taking them.
Generally, I'm feeling more deflated across the board (hmm, can't think of a way to not be redundant in this sentence, oh well). I experienced this before - during my 4th attempt to quit drinking soda. The abrupt disappearance of the sugar high renders life gray and uninteresting. I'm sure glad I'm giving up sugar and not heroin (NEVER giving that one up).
2. No snacking. Only eat when hungry.
Snacking all but disappears when you eliminate sugar from your diet. Now I only have the urge to snack every three minutes as opposed to after every successful swallow. I spend a lot of time in my room upstairs working up my hunger to earn permission to indulge my mouth. "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry," is the mantra of the month.
3. Decide what to do for the generalized version of this 30 day trial.
The original plan was to give up all impulses. Obviously this is only feasible for living Buddhas and select igneous rocks, but there's a saying about bars and settings that's popular in this house - something along the lines of "set the bar high for everyone else." After much fruitless discussion, we decided to start off with the obvious sacrifices - #1 and #2 (not the ones you're thinking of...well...definitely not the ones you're thinking of after reading this sentence), and then kick it into high gear the second to last or last week of the trial. I'll let you know how that goes if it goes anywhere.
Went to New York today as a chaperone for Gene on his field trip to the dentist. Gene dropped me off at 80th and Broadway and went off to the torture chamber. I took a slow walk to Barnes and Noble a few blocks away, scaring pidgins and people with my hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day-for-months pale zombie face, and read about three pages in half an hour. I decided I was better at walking and went back out to partake of some pollution.
Later, I came to check up on Gene and he was still being held prisoner. The warden said he was due for release soon, but time passes very differently inside and outside the prison; I ended up waiting for another hour. Anyway, I went outside again, and just then this guy passed me carrying a box. The box read "China" and nothing else. Thank God I'm practicing stifling my impulses, otherwise I would have snuck into that box and prayed it was on an express delivery route to Shanghai...and probably would have ended up as dinner. Still, it's obviously a sign that China's anxious for my arrival.
On the way back from New York, we dropped by the King Fung Food Market - a Chinese grocery store in my town. At checkout, Gene, with his usual lack of sensibility, casually mentioned to the Chinese cashiers that I study Chinese. All of a sudden, there was a blinding tornado of blood and headless torsos, followed by an investigation into my abilities. I came out relatively unscathed, being 38.9% Chinese by the latest estimate, but I fear (and am secretly eager) to return. Sometimes enjoying life as a masochist is so easy it's unfair.
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