The Land of China, Part 6

The first few entries in my journal maintained a fairly reverent tone. It took me a while to really observe some of the more absurd details of the culture. I could easily write several pages about poor translations. I guess I had always realized that China was known for poor English translations, but I had no idea just how ubiquitous they were - to the point that it was unusual to see a single properly translated sentence.

7/6/07

Standing outside a fashionable clothing store, comparable to Abercrombie and Fitch, I realize that it must be very trendy to wear clothing with words in English. It apparently makes no difference what the words even mean, as long as they are in English. A woman's umbrella features a picture of Mickey Mouse with the caption "Lovely Rat." Another girl's shirt is designed to look like the Jack Daniels logo, but instead of Jack Daniels Bourbon, it says "Duck Junior Beanstalk." K and I are on a mission to purchase the most ridiculous t-shirt. She bought one today that says "Play Music Feel Violin." Not bad, but I think I can do better.

It makes no sense, yet sounds so obscene.

The Salt Lake Men's Choir is huge in Nanjing.

Nanjing has a Wallmart, which is as chaotic and loud as you'd expect it to be.
They call it "WARR-MUU." (That's my phonetic approximation.)

7/7/07



We walked into a student cafeteria in Nanjing neat the Foreign Language University. We are absolutely the only white people there. There is no English anywhere. We wait in a long line, terrified. How and what are we going to order? We get to the front of the line and pantomime "dumpling." (Small circular shape with hands.) "Dumpling!" the proprietor finally says, with a glimmer of recognition. Success! I hold up six fingers, as in, we would like six dumplings apiece. The guy behind the counter looks confused, but gives us an extremely low price (even by Chinese standards). We pay and take a seat at a long communal table. A moment later, he is talking to a student next to us. The student taps us on the the shoulder and says, in shockingly perfect English, "He wants to know if you really want only six dumplings." He explains to us that dumplings in this restaurant are very tiny appetizers, a fraction of the size of the things we get at Chinese restaurants back home. Six of them would basically amount to bird food, not lunch. So with the help of this student, we revise our order and end up getting a tray of bigger dumplings - the kind we wanted in the first place - and two bowls of noodles. We thank the kid and he says "No problem," in a super casual tone. What a nice guy. My inability to communicate or seemingly to do anything according to proper rules of Chinese etiquette makes me feel a little like Borat. I am completely incapable of keeping a low profile here.

Xuanwu Lake is this really lovely spot in the middle of Nanjing.
A nice respite from the chaos of the rest of the city, and for one of those "I can't believe I'm in China" moments. 

7/8/07

The majestic Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum, one of Nanjing's major attractions.

On the steps of the Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum, a kid approaches us and says, "Picture!" He holds his hands in the shape of a camera. Now what does that mean? Do you want us to take your picture? Sure. No, you don't? Ok, well what do you want then? A picture of us? No? Are you trying to sell us something? We finally deduce that he wants us to take a picture with him - a group shot of the three of us. This is completely bizarre to me. In what situation would this kind of behavior be appropriate at home? Maybe if you ran into a celebrity on the street, or Bigfoot. But certainly not if you happened to run into a couple of Asian tourists. Can you imagine showing this picture to your friends later, as proof... of what? That you really saw white people? We humor this kid, of course. We stand in a row while an old guy, perhaps his grandfather, tries to take a picture. (P.S. - This guy has no idea what he is doing, first holding the camera at an awkward diagonal, then upside down, before finally figuring it out. Hope it's a keeper. Maybe we are in a frame, on top of a mantle somewhere in China.)

The mausoleum, by the way, is massive and awe-inspiring, and has a ludicrous number of stairs. Sun Yat Sen is kind of like China's George Washington. The main difference is that his monument doesn't have an elevator.

Quote of the day:

"A book, or a watch?"
- Guy on a street corner, offering me both a book and a watch

7/9/07

The Monsoon of 2007. View from in front of our hotel.

In the market surrounding the Fuzi Temple, people flood the streets and crowd around large boxes of t-shirt. This seems like an ideal place to find a poorly translated t-shirt. I spy a new entry in the contest: a t-shirt that says "I have plenty of milk. Do you want some?" Worn by a prepubescent girl. Gross.

A man offers K a laundry basket full of puppies.

On the walk from the Fuzi Temple area back to our hotel it starts pouring relentlessly. This is a scary storm, with angry thunder and lightning. We catch a cab, but a bus breaks down in the lane right in front of us, making it difficult for the cab to move. We get back to the hotel right before the worst of it starts. The power goes out in the hotel for a little while. This is a straight up monsoon. When we finally emerge, the street in front of us is totally flooded. Bikes wade their way through deep rivers. We cross Hunan Rd., a main thoroughfare, through a tangled gridlock of cars, buses and bicycles. We turn into a popular area called Shiziquiao (pronounced "Cheesy Cow") is a blocked off pedestrian mall full of restaurants and kiosks. After a brief search for a place with a menu in English, we settle on a Korean BBQ type place with Hibachi grills in the middle of each table. The menu is more exotic than I would have expected: Sparrow, Pigeon, Duck Liver, Stomach and Beef Tendon. But we stick to the relatively normal stuff, like chicken, mutton and something called "imported meat" (which is roast beef, we think). When the food arrives, K puts a skewer of meat on the grill. It must be fairly obvious that we don't know what we're doing, because a waitress comes over and starts grilling our meat for us. No complaints here! The meal actually turns out to be one of the best yet. Tasty grilled meat dipped in soy sauce and curry, corn and sweet potatoes. Plus the comfort of knowing exactly what we are eating.

We start to walk back to the hotel only to be caught in another downpour. Oh boy. No cabs, so we have to make a run for it. There's no way to avoid it: we end up getting completely soaked. Not only are we rained on, but in our haste to get back, we step in puddles of who knows what. At one point, K kicks a stray tentacle off her flip-flop. 

On the plus side, The Blob is on tv in our hotel. How comforting to watch a bad American movie before bed.

Two other shirts I saw today: "Jesus is Lord" and "I am a Dry Bone Gangster"

At this point, I stopped keeping up with regular entries. The rest of the journal is mostly just notes, some of them indecipherable. Around a month into my trip, I was apparently starting to lose patience with certain aspects of Chinese culture. My entry for 7/24 is just a list:

7/24/07

Annoying China Things

1.) People try to answer your questions even though they obviously didn't understand them

Me: "Do you know where I can find a post office?"
Guy: "Yes." (blank look)

2.) Some places don't let you pay with credit card.

Guy: "That will be ¥3000 please."
Me: "Ok. Do you take Visa?"
Guy: "No."
Me: (grumbling) "Ok... do you know where I can find an ATM?"
Guy: "Yes."

3.) Constant loogie hocking. Gross wads of phlegm everywhere. Any time or setting is acceptable. Even occasionally on the floor of indoor restaurants. Both men and women partake.

4.) People have the worst, loudest ringtones imaginable. And they go off absolutely everywhere. Restaurants. Trains. Especially trains.

5.) In Marketplaces, or just on the streets, people peddle all kinds of worthless crap. (Or else they just generally bug the hell out of you.)

6.) People often see us on the street and yell, "Hello!" When younger people do this, it's actually kind of endearing. But when a guy in his twenties elbows his buddy, says something in Chinese like, "Check this out," and then gives us a big awkward wave and greeting, it gets old really quick.

7.) Long plastic flaps hanging in doorways. These seem unsanitary. And do I hold the flaps for the next person? Why aren't these just a door?

8.) No one has ever heard of elevator or subway etiquette. Everyone seems fine with just pushing their way into an elevator before the people inside have a chance to exit.

9.) Hotels often won't provide an extra room key. Come on... how much can one extra card key possibly cost? I will be happy to return it too.

10.) No napkins in some restaurants and bathrooms. I know we're trying to save paper and money here. But there are times when napkins are absolutely necessary.