“That place changes you, man” he said to me, “Big time”.

When he came back to the US, where things were supposed to be better, sometimes they weren’t.

Sometimes they were just different. He had nightmares. He took to drinking heavily.

That he went to Vietnam in 1993, and travelled there as a sex tourist isn’t really relevant to the point i’m trying to make, instead living in Asia does change you, despite what I wrote before.

Now I don’t want to be the “this is what i’m learning in this foreign land” kind of asshole, but maybe this will be of use to you. Or me.

A few things you realize after living in China for a little bit:

People take themselves too seriously in the US.

In China there’s so many people that you can’t possibly be important and not much is serious.

This is actually very freeing. Sometimes I’ll write something stupid here or Facebook,  act like an idiot at a bar, in front of coworkers– whatever— and I just don’t care anymore.

Not that I don’t care about people in the US or what they think about me, I just don’t personally think it’s important what I say or how I behave (with limits of course).

Eating Weird Stuff Stops Being Weird

I was a pussy about eating certain stuff when I first got here. A shrimps head? Oh no! Now I just toss them in the old wood chipper as if they were any other food. It’s food. I used to ask people what something was before I ate it. Is this pork? chicken? beef? Like I somehow have some principles about what i’ll eat. I eat cows and pigs and chickens because people in my country have been doing so for a long time. I didn’t really choose it or anything. Once you eat some weird crap and it makes you full, and not sick, and it starts to taste sorta good– well you add it to the stuff you’ll eat.

Chinese people would be appalled that Andrew Zimmern makes a ducal salary on a show eating “Bizarre Foods” that they pay top dollar to eat willingly.

You’re On Your Own Kid

Whether you’re in the US or China or anywhere else, you’re pretty much on your own. I think it just becomes more pronounced when you’re somewhat isolated compared with your regular life. Maybe the movie Lost In Translation touched on this, I don’t know, I’ve never seen it.

But being on your own— or realizing that you are— is a great step towards self-sufficiency. So many of people’s problems come from being disappointed, let down, betrayed or hurt by other people. Because i’m surrounded by a billion people and yet I feel somewhat alone (not lonely really)  isn’t so much a commentary on modern metropolitan city life as it is a commentary on life. You’re alone. Accept it. It’s good. There, now go meet other people and act accordingly.

Two Examples Of This:

If i’m having a bad time at a bar, and I want to leave, I don’t have any sort of “well you gotta stick with your people” ideas, I say fuck off to my friends and go somewhere else. It feels pretty good. I’m in China, I don’t even know you assholes.

Chinese people are notorious for just disappearing or having very truncated goodbyes. You might have a great dinner with a friend and afterward they might just be like “Ok bye” and turn and walk the other direction. The other night after a company dinner I was like “Where’d William go?” and they were like “He’s Chinese, he saw his bus and left”.

How many times have you stayed too long during the unwinding period? God knows I have.

Take Your Time

Take Your Time is an english figure of speech that Chinese people like a lot. I always feel like I need to rush or hurry up with things and I have no idea why. Here dinner takes 4 hours or more. Why eat dinner and rush to the bar? The bar can be right where dinner is, unless you’re not with the people you want to be with, in which case just get up and leave.

I have no idea why i’m rushing most of the time the same reason I have no idea why I say “you too” when a waiter tells me to enjoy my meal.

Um, I mean if you eat later, I say.

I’ve Calmed Down A Lot

This is similar to not taking myself so seriously and also taking my time, but I’m just a lot calmer here. The other day I asked the taxi cab to take me to Wal-Mart so I could buy a room heater. He takes me to a hooker street.

I know i’m not in the right place but I just shrug it off and start walking back towards my place. I see a group of 20 soldiers standing around. I walk up to the one in the fanciest uniform (supposing he’s the bossman and is the most educated> speaks english) and ask “Do you know where wal-mart is?”. Silence.

In Chinese I ask.

Silence, then he begins to speak and then the whole group laughs at me. “Wall-marrrt” he says. Normally this kind of thing would really piss me off. I just shrugged it off and said “Yeah ha ha (sarcastically) i’m a white guy and i’m lost ha ha. I get it”. And seriously, from their perspective, probably the first white guy they saw this month lost in whore-town, it’s probably pretty funny.

On my walk I found a crappy store and they sold heaters.

After I got in a cab and my phone was dead (I keep a collection of chinese texts with important addresses in my phone) and I was forced to give directions in Chinese. And despite what I said before about not absorbing any mandarin, it worked.

I told him my street and street number and where it’s near: it was like someone else was talking through my mouth.

You Can Try To Explain It To People, But They Don’t Really Care

I want to communicate to people what its like here and how it’s changing me and then I realize they don’t particularly care and also the time difference makes it so everyone is always off-beat with you. When it’s Friday night at 2am my friends are sitting in their office watching the clock at noon. Try having a conversation about being dropped in whore town and soldiers ridiculing you when you’re lost and then alas, finding a heater after all! And I spoke useful Mandarin! —- while you’re friend is staring at a spreadsheet pretending to work.

Doesn’t quite translate.

Hey Andy-

I’m a fan of Misanthropy Today and was curious what it’s like living and working in China. Is it a lot different?  I’ve been considering working abroad for awhile.

Take Care!
Brian

Hey Brian-

Well i’ve already written a little about the subject but if you want just a 50 feet up view, here goes:

Have you ever vacationed in Mexico? If so, you know that you spend most of your time walking, shopping, eating and then going to loud discotheques at night time. You walk, shop, eat and drink way too much. By the end of your trip your body needs another vacation.

Living and working in China is pretty much like that except imagine having to go to work every morning during your vacation in Mexico. Yeah, you’re in a strange land experiencing new things and flavors but you’re still required to wake up at a decent hour and do the same job you do in the US.

Pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell.

Andy

“Forget about work, drink one of these. “

Prior to this, for 100 Yuan ($14.50) I could call the US on my cell for maybe 15 minutes. Seeing that 100 Yuan would last you a month or two if you just called in China this would make you pissed and looking for other options.

Then all of my family and friends got calling cards or calling plans, but this is way simpler and cheaper.

Here’s how it works:

I add someones name and number to my Rebtel account and then it spits out a local chinese number that I can add to my mobile.

When I call that number it relays my call through a local number in whatever area code you might be in.

Here’s where it gets better:

You then call me on that same local number that shows up on your display. So, my china number for you would be (your area code) xxx-xxxx.

Pretty sweet right?

Anyhow, when I figure out what my Rebtel # is in LA i’ll post it here.

It’s very stressful to be here since I don’t speak Chinese and almost nobody speaks english and I’m lost in some way 90% of my day.

• Ever had to draw a picture of yourself naked in the shower with 6 inches of water building up at the bottom to express that your shower drain is clogged?
• Ever had to see 10 friendly turtles trying to escape from their cages before some Chinese guy is eating soup out of their shell?
• Ever get kissed on the cheek by a drunk, not-gay according to my boss just chinese, son of a bitch at a bar and you can’t punch him? Or to have his companion, who was not his girlfriend, grab at your ween through your pants?
• Ever visit a country where their own food is leaps and bounds better in your home country?
• Ever give a panhandler a little bit of money only to have 15  CIA operative panhandlers suddenly appear and follow you and your co-workers for 10 blocks?

If you haven’t, all of this is waiting for you in Shenzhen China.

So with all of this i’ve been thinking about not writing this blog after all, but on the other hand my Dad was always a “you gotta finish what you start” kind of guy, most memorably this time he accidentally hit a baby deer during a camping trip and seeing that the deer was in some pain after impact, immediately threw the car in reverse and gave him a second helping of 1972 Dodge Dart.

It was the right thing to do! he shouted at my mom who was fake crying. She could be such a drama queen.

Here are your tips for the day:

1. Don’t give panhandlers money unless you have a wheelbarrow full of Yuan.
2. You will feel lonely after a little while. Imagine walking around and not knowing what anyone is saying or what anything is. Most times when I walk by a shop or a building I have no idea what their business is.
3. You will lose weight. I’ve been eating like 1/2 a meal per day.
4. Women in China don’t mob you like you might think because of what that Honger did to me, however just like some dudes in the US are bananas for asian chicks, there are some that will make a point of talking to you.
5. Kids will say Hello to you a lot.
6. Every so often someone will look at you like you’re from Mars.
7. None of the liquor that you recognize is real, it’s all fake.
8. Most of the western brands of cigarettes are fake.
9. You will think that you’re about to see 1,000 pedestrians a day get hit by a car but you won’t see any. Terrifying.
10. Don’t talk to Chinese people about politics. They will all say the same things. Sort of like talking to a Democrat. If you bring up Chairman Mao they will say “70% good 30% bad, but he helped make China what it is today. We owe him a lot”.
11. If you need to use the restroom do it while you’re at your hotel or apartment. I won’t go into details.
12. M0st buildings have a ping pong room. Go in there and sneer at bad players until one challenges you. I wiped the floor with an honest-to-goodness chinese person today at ping pong.
13. The internet is horribly slow most places, including my hotel.

So there’s a lot of trying things about China but I think if you focus on the good things, like me drubbing this shirtless chinese guy at pingpong, you’ll know it’s all worth the price of admission.

As you might have guessed from the title of this post i’m moving to Shenzhen, China for work.

Shenzhen (prounounced Shen-Jen) is in the Guangdong province, which means not much to me except another instance of the word “dong” in a Chinese word. For any foreign readers, in the US ‘dong’ means a peenor. A peenor means a penis.

I will be moving to the Luohu/Dong Men area. I don’t really know what to expect or how cheap/not cheap apartments will be there. I’ve heard wildly conflicting reports. I’m also a little worried that I won’t make any friends and i’ll just live some depressing Dilbert type of life.

I know nothing about China.

I have a camera.

I like to drink Tsingtao beer.

I’ve been thrown out of several dozen bars.

This will be interesting.

(Advice please)