Above, Shenzhen circa 1970.

And Below, Shenzhen today (2010).

They call America MeiGuo which means “Beautiful Kingdom” or “Beautiful Country”.  What about France you ask? Fag’guo. Not even joking.

2. Most people in China are pretty friendly to foreigners but say “HALLO” to you all the time which gets a little annoying after 8 months. I’ve noted that when i’m dressing sharp or snappy I get more HALLOs then when i’m not.

3. Sprite is called Xue Bi ( Schway Bee) and Coke is called K’o K’ou K’o Le which means, roughly “let your mouth be happy” and also sounds like, well Coca Cola. 7-Up is qi qi (chi chi) and means 77. Beer is piujiu (pee-gee-oh), but usually you can just order Tsingtao (Ching Dow) as it’s really the finest beer around.

4. Breakfast options in China are limited. You have stuff that they eat for other meals (noodle soup, rice, etc) and then you have like bing bread– some bing bread is good, some is awful– depends on what’s inside. I’d say its sort of like a flat, dry exteriored piroshki, but more chewy. Ask whats inside before committing. They will run you about 1 yuan each (15 cents). You can also get dumplings, buns, etc. Many people eat hardboiled eggs too.

5.  Add Oil. If you’re feeling beaten down or depressed people will you to Ka-Yow (cantonese) or Jyah Yo (mandarin).  This means to add oil or gasoline. As far as Facebook in Hong Kong goes its probably the most often used comment. 加油! Add oil la! Oh yeah, they say “la” and “ah” and “ar” a lot too. Basically its a word particle that means nothing on its own but when added to something it sounds nice. For example “how are you la?”, or “I miss you la”, or “what you doing ar?”. You get the idea.

6. Generally, Chinese people don’t like ice or cold drinks. I know some who drink Tsingtao warm. Water is usually hot, sometimes warm, almost never cold. If you’re in a restaurant and you request ice water (baizah bing kuai shui, is how I say it, prob a better way) chinese people will look at you. Look at him, he loves that cold drink in his mouth. As such, finding like a bag of ice isn’t easy. If you need some for cocktails or something go to a restaurant, be sure to have a Chinese person tell them you want ice for drinks, otherwise it may be contaminated.

7. Chinese People Cover Their Mouths When They Use A Toothpick. This is sort of an asia-wide thing and is widely reported but when you consider that Chinese are pretty ok with most other personal grooming (or lack thereof) it’s a bit discordant. There’s spitting out a bad taste from your mouth and then there’s an old chinese guy hawking up a loogie from deep inside his soul that probably has particulates from the Qing Dynasty.

8. Don’t Drink The Water. Well duh. Andy your tips are getting pretty lame here. Hey asshole, I wasn’t finished… even some bottled water is not ok to drink. The amazing thing about the human body, if you’re sensitive to your own body, is that you’ll know almost immediately that it’s not good. There’s one that comes in a fancy bottle called Watson’s that is regularly contaminated. I drink a sip of this and immediately my stomach turns over.

9. That’s fuckin’ teamwork. Chinese girls will often share the load by carrying a plastic shopping bag down the street with each one holding a handle. See the photo below for reference. It’s cute and I tried it once and it does make it easier but sometimes creates awkward confrontations with oncoming pedestrians.

10. Chinese girls also hold hands. They’re not lesbians. Chinese guys sometimes walk around with their arms around each others neck, and are also not gay. It’s possible that some of them are gay and are taking advantage of this being culturally okay but there’s really no way to even quantify or investigate that, but certainly it does happen.

11. Chinese “Great Wall” Brand Wine is foul. Really.  Probably some of the vilest stuff i’ve had since this one time I went camping, left the ice chest with a few beers outside for 3 afternoons, came home at night and saw the chest, removed the beers, refrigerated and drank it later that night. Great Wall wine tastes like how windex smells.

12. People in China love the number 8. The reason is that eight is pronounced Bah, which sounds like Fa, which means Wealth or Prosperity. Also they love 88 because it resembles this character: 囍, which means Double Joy or Double Happiness, which is a kind of happiness that is only possible at a wedding. To add to this, it’s also the name of a popular brand of cigarettes. A pack of Shuang Xi’s (囍) vary in price depending on which variety you want. My friend Felix smokes the 6 元 per pack (84 cents) ones, but if you’re feeling fancy you can spend up to 30元 per pack. I spoke about developing a Quadruple Happiness brand (囍囍!!!!!)  that will practically make your head pop off with happiness to Felix and he didn’t think the idea was funny at all.

13. Chinese People Like or Don’t Really Get This Blog. But they are never angered by it or offended, and I don’t aim to be offensive but sometimes I joke around. Most Chinese people I know who’ve read this blog are just like “Why write about China? What’s the big deal?” . They think, oddly, that I’d write about America since I know more about that.

14. Workers often wear sportscoats and slacks to dig holes. I don’t understand it really. Also, the bike taxi guys wear similar outfits. So do beggars– if not that outfit they wear the Mao jacket with matching pants. Mafia guys wear athletic warm-up clothing or sorta 1980’s gay clothing. Office girls dress like prostitutes. Prostitutes dress like office girls. Hong Kong business guys dress like American yuppie casual (The North Face, Eddie Bauer, etc). Girls in front of massage parlors wear furry jackets and traditional dresses. The girls at the bowling alley wear track suits. All girls wear what would be described in the coastal US as “Granny Panties”. Guys wear briefs or gross underwear-in-a-tube type things. The other day I saw this old white guy wearing a fancy, ornate Mao jacket with his Chinese wife/girlfriend inside of a KFC. I had a series of wtf moments like… gone native.. posterboy for old gross foreigner..poser… pervert… KFC??

12. Most office buildings have hotels built into them. Oh cool, for visiting businessmen. Yeah but they rent them in 3 hour blocks.. oh cool, in case someone wants to stretch out a little, rest their eyes a little... Yeah, something like that. There’s one in my office building and I see nervous couples and unbothered hooker and customer duos all the time. Last Thursday this kind looking old Chinese guy was heading up with a 21 year old and a bag of snacks– like fish crackers and stuff.

13. Time Passes Strangely. 3 months in China for me felt like 6 or 9 months— in a very neutral way; not good or bad. The best way I can describe time passing slow here is just that your life is more dense. You learn a lot. You get mad a lot. You are happy a lot. You’re confused a lot. Now that i’ve been here for 7  months I feel like i’ve been here a year. I think living in such a foreign place just wakes you up. You pay closer attention to everything. Back home I was so familiar with everything that I just slept through life most of the time.

14. Chinese Culture is hard to define. “How’s China?”, people ask me.  It’s, uh, China I say. American culture is  also hard to define, until you’re not inside of it. Then it’s easy. Don’t mind what those snot nosed, scarf wearing, suburbanite tramps say after returning from Europe— Americans do have a culture.   If you don’t think America has a rich, positive culture you’re just not apart of it or don’t understand what the word culture means. You probably think it means old buildings,  exclusionary behavior or dressing like an asshole.

It was shocking to see all those people camped out  there but what was more shocking is that they weren’t mad to be waiting around like that. They seemed happy actually.

To better explain Chinese New Year in Guangdong Province (you might know it by its old name, Canton, i.e. Cantonese) you have to start from the beginning.

When an average Chinese person reaches working age in a rural area they have a few options:  farm, get married/have kids, or go work in a big city at a factory and then move on to a better job.

Doing this last one, is to “go out”, or Chuqu.

I asked my friend Li Hong Yen about this time period  and she said “I finished school. I had not much to do, not so much money or skills. I was bored. So I went out.”

The interesting thing about going out in China is that so many people do it that it’s an ingrained part of their culture. Parents in the US get worried when their kids go away to a sanitized University– imagine setting out on your own to work in some dirty factory for god knows how long. They don’t feel sorry for themselves about it nor do they think it’s weird. If you stay in your hometown you have a pretty good idea about how that will be, going out means endless possibilities.

One thing they report is that their parents constantly ask them when they’ll be married and to only marry someone from their province. To put this into perspective, imagine a girl from Davenport, Iowa goes to New York City and her family tells her to only date boys from Western Iowa while in NYC.

Often they work in factories, and it sucks, but it’s only for a year and to save money. Most factory workers are women, most are between 17-19. In some sense, it’s too bad that the US thinks we’re too good and clean to have factories. I think there’s a lot of aimless 18 year olds that would be happy to work at a factory while they sorted out what it is they want to do. Li Hong Yen worked at a factory, “We made shoes” she said like you might say you just made cookies. Someone needs to make shoes, after all. Now she works in merchandising for an import/export company and lives in an apartment and not a dormitory.

In China, leaving home, family and friends and working yourself silly a thousand miles away is seen as a rite of passage.

Case in point, there’s a Taiwanese song from 1979 (the year I was born, incidentally) called “The Olive Tree” that is about Taiwanese people traveling far away for school and work. Because of all the Chuquing going on in mainland China it became a hit with those who had chosen to go out.

The main chorus is:

Don’t ask me where I’m from. My hometown is far away. Why wander so far? For the olive tree in my dreams

So i’m back at the train station and there’s all these people and they are sleeping, reading books, playing checkers, talking, cooking food— just hanging out waiting. While this seems like it sucks, I think past generations of Americans in the military have gone through this and made some of the best bonds and memories of their lives. It’s this struggle that makes people happy, ultimately, I think. Modern America has reduced, and continues to, reduce the amount of struggle people have to endure. But without the struggle we have no payoff. We need a payoff.

Today I called Li Hong Yen to see how she was getting on (16 hours into her train ride) and she said that she had to call me later because she was playing cards with some people on the train.

When she arrives in her hometown, along with her other family who’ve traveled a comparable distance, everyone will let loose and party for the next 10 days or so because they probably won’t see each other until next spring festival and it was so hard to get there.

This got me thinking about the people I know from Canada and how they are such fun-loving, satisfied  people and I think I nailed it down to the fact that in Canada is very cold for most months out of the year and there’s only a short time when you can be outside and enjoy the summer weather.

I contrasted both of these thoughts with being from Los Angeles where have a surfeit of good weather (and presumably free time that is easily had) and because of that we don’t enjoy our free time or our good weather. Wealth is wasted on the old and youth is wasted on the young.

Back to the Canadians, their version of The Olive Tree is a song by Ian Tyson that Neil Young (a Canadian also) did a better job with called Four Strong Winds. The song, according to friends from Canada, is their unofficial national anthem because they can all relate to having to live their life and have fun when they can before the terrible winter starts.

Here are some lyrics from that song:

Think I’ll go out to Alberta
Weather’s good there in the fall
I got some friends that I could go working for
Still I wish you’d change your mind if I asked you one more time
But we’ve been through this a hundred times or more

Four strong winds that blow lonely
Seven seas that run high
All those things that don’t change
Come what may
If the good times are all gone
The I’m bound for moving on
I’ll look for you if I‘m ever back this way

If I get there before the snow flies and if things are looking good
You could meet me if I send you down the fare
But by then it would be winter
Not too much for you to do
And those winds sure can get cold way out there

The good times are all gone
So I’m bound for moving on
I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way

So despite my pushing and screaming, i’ve had a cultural experience here in China. I respect and in some ways, envy, their Chinese New Year and how it’s a scarce period of rest like how Canada has a short window of good weather.  Things  in a lot of ways are too easy for those from warm, urban areas. We take too much for granted and as a result do little with the time or resources that we have.

For example, I’ll never know how it feels to spend a week with family after traveling 20 hours by train and working for the past 11 1/2 months a thousand miles from home. Or how summer feels after a hellish winter. China has hellish winters too, only adding to their misery+relief happiness when it’s all over with. Those lucky Hun Dans (this means bastards but I doubt its pluralized with an S like english is).

Here’s Neil Young and some of his friends singing about Canada:

Oh, about my Chinese New Year. My best friend is coming to visit and we’re going to fuck around in China for awhile then go to Boracay Beach in the Philippines.

I hope a couple of assholes like us from LA— tired, balding, 30 years old, unmarried, collared shirt depressed office monkeys– will be drinking a cold beer in 80 degree weather looking at this beautiful turquoise water.

It took us a long time to get here too.

This message plays after the driver dips the red vacant sign that starts the meter.  One of the first things that you’ll notice is that there isn’t a female end for the seat belts. And you’ll wish there was.

so from what i understand i put key in and then try and crash pedestrian, correct?

My first cab ride in China was terrifying. It didn’t start that way.

Ni Hao, Na Lia.

I asked if I could smoke in his cab and he said I could and that he would smoke too.

Cab rides start off slow. They never start in 1st gear because they think starting in second will save them gas money.  Of course this ruins the transmission, which is a lot more expensive than gas, but I guess they don’t care. So by the time you rattle up to speed its as if you just robbed a bank and the police are hot on your trail:

Zooming in and out of traffic. Honking and menacing pedestrians. Cutting people off. Sharing lanes that weren’t meant to be shared.

My first cab ride I was like, whoa my cab driver is driving like an asshole.

Is my taxi driver an asshole?  He doesn’t seem like an asshole but why is he driving like this?

After awhile you realize they all drive like assholes, unless they’re really old, and when they are it’s weird that you miss the asshole drivers because while it is terrifying you do get places quickly.

Another thing about taxi drivers is that if they don’t want to take you somewhere they’ll pretend to not understand you. Just sit there and say yes over and over and repeat your destination. They don’t like my street because theres a lot of restaurants and traffic and it makes it difficult for them to get another ass in the seat quickly.

Also expect to listen to either shitty cantonese ballads or talk radio that sounds really rehearsed and polite. If the driver hears a song he likes he’ll turn it up and rock out and sometimes sing along.

If you see two cabs and one has a GPS thing on the dash pick the one without it. The driver with the GPS is a new driver and probably doesn’t know where anything is and unless your chinese is good you’ll be fucked.

Some quick tips:

• Save business cards to places you go often or learn to say their chinese name
• Save your address in chinese on your phone somewhere so you can just show it to them.
• If you feel like they’re taking you the long way just keep asking where they are going. This makes them think you know a faster way and basically tells them to cut the crap.
• It says no smoking but you can smoke in 99% of taxis
• You can also drink alcohol in Taxis
• I’m not sure about eating in the taxi as portable food isn’t super popular in China
• Most taxis have annoying advertising monitors behind the front seats which have sort of an iPhone interface where you can select different ads or crap games. Believe me there is nothing good to look at on those. Turn them off as soon as you get inside the cab.
• The driver will always ask you where you’re from (if you’re clearly a foreigner). When you say Mei Gua (if you’re from America) they will usually give you a thumbs up and say “America is very good”. I’ve had this exact conversation 1,000 times.  I just nod, yeah it’s good, thanks, China is good too.
• If you’re waiting for a cab and you see one and wave him down don’t think that just because you waved it down some bastard (Hun Dan, I learned a new word) won’t walk up and jump in right in front of you. It’s happened to me twice.  Two other times it almost happened and I said “no no no, you can’t, i am very angry” and they stepped aside.
• Strangers do not share cabs in China. Forget that possibility.
• Don’t take unmarked taxis. It’s just a hassle and they’ll usually rip you off.

And fellow Shenzhen Wai Laos, stop tipping the taxis. Everytime I give them 20 kuai on a 16 kuai ride its taking longer and longer to get my change. I know why this is happening. Stop it.

Shenzhen is full of thieves, prostitutes and hustlers.

That  said, it has a bad side too.

An example of a bad thing is that my area of Shenzhen, Luohu, is all city all the time.

Buses, trains, taxis, malls, stores, shops, shoppes, strip malls, bars, pubs, clubs etc etc. (Sorry, got tired of what I was doing there.)

There’s not much in the way of parks or recreation or the outdoors. I hear there’s a mountain directly to the west of me, though I’ve never been here on a clear enough day to see it. In SZ you can basically see 10 city blocks in any direction and then it sort of fades out into a movie like backdrop of blurriness that  says: “there’s more stuff over there but it’s not really that important to the plot here”.

On Thanksgiving I decided to venture out to the countryside, to the cold weather, to a place that has history, culture, stereotypically good food:

Hunan.

Just say it to yourself. It sounds good. (Hoo-Nawn)

You’ve probably heard of Hunan because like Sichuan, restaurants in the US will often name their restaurant after a Province.

Don’t be fooled, it’s pretty much all the same food in most of them, but if you come to China and try to order something you really like to eat at Hunan Palace or Sichuan Garden they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about:

Well certainly they have Egg Rolls. Nope.

General Tsaos Chicken? Nope.

Sweet and Sour– Nope.

Hey you interrupted me there man. Ok sorry, try one more time.

Egg Foo Young. Nope.

Let me try one more time. Orange Chicken! Nop– Ok, well actually they do have a chicken dish that uses the dried orange peel (chéunpí) but I guarantee you its only vaguely similar to the delicious orange chicken of those United States.

In other words if you ate it you’d be like who put this hard inedible dry shit in with these pieces of chicken and bone and carrots and peppers?!

Well where is that dish from Mr China?

Hunan.

With that I found a cheap ticket and flew to Changsha, Hunan Province. After landing at an airport located on the top of a mountain (for safety, certainly) I took a long cab ride down the valley to Changsha where a friend of a friend was waiting for me with a room key to a hotel he works at.

Keep in mind my chinese is that of a 4 year old boy at this point. It’s amazing I can get around like this.

The town was dead. It was  cold. I wanted to eat hot pot.

We headed out in a cab and I was like “this town sucks”, when it’s a smaller city and I had come there for that reason.

I remembered this and sort of cooled my jets and was like “Ok, I can eat hot pot in a tent”

Upon sticking my head into one of the above tents the locals looked at me here like a complete freak. Girls in China will often look, whisper to a friend, smile and then giggle. Men will look at you like “I hope you don’t plan to stay long”.

First few tents were dog and fish only.

Friends reading, I have to tell you I will probably eat dog again. I just don’t care anymore.

Anyhow, tent #5 had lamb.

My new friend quickly ordered some beers and then told me that he wanted me to try something, which was like chewing tobacco but makes you sorta stoned and tastes like “ancient chinese herbs”. You know the taste.

It looks like this:

I look like this eating it:

Anyhow, i’m still here in Hunan and I  went to the famous tower at Yueyang (a very nice city integrated with nature) and I planned to go to Chairman Mao’s House to take some photos and goof off but my pictures are all coming out horribly with this fog and I sort of miss Shenzhen.

This dude likes to get stoned on herbs and eat hot pot. Not a bad dude.

Overall, I think Hunan would be a great place to visit and check out the sights, but just not in Late November.