Wednesday, August 27, 2008

My First Day in Wuxi: Cow Stomach, Chinese Bureaucracy and a Very Special Ultrasound

So this will officially be my second post within a day. While I don't think I'm going to keep up this frenetic pace (I've officially tied the number of posts I made all of last year with 4 months left in the year! ... just ignore the part where I lost y password for 5 months, preventing me from logging in), I legitimately have nothing to do. Like seriously, I've spent more time online (I'm grateful this signal is holding out), than doing anything else since I arrived. Tomorrow I have nothing planned and nothing to do. Maybe I'll wander into the city. Who knows? The world is my oyster!

Anyway, it's time to talk about China and Chinese people. I am a wai guo ren. No matter how much I try to pretend I'm Asian, I'm not and nothing is really going to change that unless I opt for a radical surgical procedure on par with turning me into a woman. I'm a white boy and will always be so. However, I've spent a decent amount of time here and know the language fairly well. I'm not fluent by any chance, but I have a basic grasp of Mandarin (or I'd like to think that...). Anyway, Chinese people see that I'm white, and assume I don't know Chinese. I can't count how many times I get bemused looks when I say hello or thank you in their language because they think I'm trying to be cute. The purpose of that long introduction is that since people assume I don't know Chinese, they frequently talk about me in front of me, assuming I don't know what they're saying. Sometimes I like to feed this (I pretended I knew no Chinese for an hour after I was picked up at the airport yesterday because I wanted to see if the school people were talking about me; they didn't), because I think it's funnier for me to trick them than to let them know. This came up today as I was registering at the local police station (a requirement here in the communist paradise and is actually a two part procedure: registration and a permit application). The policewoman, who seemed awfully nice, started talking to the foreign affairs secretary of my school, asking some general questions about me, not in an official capacity, she was just curious and shooting the shit as my papers were processed. She asked if I knew any Chinese, and was met with the answer that I know a little. She then inquired as to what I was doing and he told her I'm an English teacher. She then laughed and wanted to know how I'm supposed to teach beginners English to a class of Chinese kids when I don't understand Chinese. Little did she know I was eavesdropping the whole time! I just kept a blank look on my face as they chatted, then said thank you and goodbye in very cheery Chinese as I left the office, which she seemed to find adorable.

We continued on our travels on the foreign affairs secretary's (Mr. Wang is his name and he will now be referred to as such) electric scooter, a first for me. I was scared shitless at first since I was riding on the back without any type of restraining device and nowhere to put my feet (which frequently scraped the ground). It wound up being a cool ride; this place reminds alot of Florida for some reason. Before the afternoon smog rolls in (unless the really cloudy and hazy atmosphere has occurred by random chance two days in a row..), it looks really nice here and is legitimately green. It's cool, and the humid weather also applies to the Florida analogy. Anyway, after dropping me off, I decided to go to the store to get some supplies to set up my apartment since aside from sheets and a bed mat, they gave me nothing, not even TP. So I had to pick up some water and soda, hangars, cleaning supplies, and, of course fangbian mian (Chinese ramen, like the American stuff but on steroids). Walking into the store, I couldn't find a basket to hold my innumerable supplies, so in typical me fashion, instead of asking a shop keep for something to hold my shit, I just decide I can balance it all. I manage to pick up two bottles of soda, two bowls of noodles, a tupperware container, a plastic cup, and a pack of sponges before I dropped everything. Someone came over immediately, took all the stuff out of my hands and gave me a basket. Quite helpful. Anyway, after buying three completely full bags of stuff (and spending less than $20 to set myself up- I love China), I decided to go to the restaurant next door for some food.

There are five cafeterias on campus, but I was too nervous to go in them because I didn't want to be stared at (a common occurrence here since I'm the only white person I've seen in this town though supposedly there are more--- as a quick aside, I wore my Holy Cross shirt with the Chinese writing on the front and people were fascinated by it in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuxi. I didn't understand why it was so enthralling but it elicited constant stares). Anyway, of course I entered the restaurant and was stared at. Awesome. I sat down and was handed a menu I couldn't read. I never really learned how to read food items, I just memorized the names of good dishes. All I wanted was some dumplings. This wasn't me pre-ordering my food like I did in Korea (I'll probably write about that tomorrow since I'll have nothing else to do when everyone back home is sleeping and I'm at my computer); I just wanted some fucking dumplings. I'm in love with them.

So once again, my Chinese isn't great, but it's decent. I know my pronunciation isn't bad, but usually people can understand me within the context of the conversation. I ask the waitress for some dumplings. They either don't have them or she didn't understand me. Then she rattled off some crazy Chinese at me which went straight over my head. I didn't even get one word. Even after asking her to repeat herself, I still didn't understand her; I think she was talking about the type of food they served at the restaurant but it meant nothing to me. Then I tried to order some kung-pao chicken, another tasty, reliable dish we ate in Beijing all the time. They didn't have that either. They also apparently didn't have noodles, or I fucked that one up also, I really don't know. I didn't know what to eat, and I think the lady asked me if I like spicy food (... I think that's what she said...). I said yes, I like spicy food and then she said something, I think it was the name of a dish. At this point I was somewhat exasperated and hungry (and pressed for time since I had my physical at 1pm), so I told her I'd eat whatever she was saying. I was presented with this:


(by the way, if I did that correctly and actually uploaded the photo [and I make no promises there], then I also found a way to put up songs on here, which is awesome).

I was somewhat concerned by the dish since nothing in it looked recognizable. I found out the twisty things were crunchy and tasty with a mouthful of rice, but the other stuff was unrecognizable. After some trepidation, I decided to give it a taste. A little chewy, but tasty, once again with a mouthful of rice. While I wasn't shoveling it into my mouth, I was making a pretty good pace with it. The waitress walked by and I asked here what I was eating. She moves her hands to the top of her head to make ears, says 'moo', then says duzi (that's Chinese for 'stomach'); using my powers of deduction, I realized I was eating cow stomach. Phenomenal. I guess this is real Chinese life. I ate probably half the plate or so (I was full at that point but got hungry 3 hours later) and paid and left because I had a doctor's appointment at 1!

So after the drive to the hospital through Wuxi (with the same driver as yesterday, who will absolutely figure in at another point in this story), we arrive at the hospital. After some paperwork, we went upstairs to the examination room where Chinese bureaucracy was displayed at its finest. Instead of sitting in one room and having all the tests done there, I walked in, sat down, had whatever test that room did performed on me, then get up, and went to the next room. Instead of employing a few nurses to do many tasks, they employed about 3-4 nurses per room to do one task. Absolutely ridiculous. I mean ONLY ONE TASK. One person weighed and measured me. Another took my blood pressure. Another checked my heart rate. Normal standard stuff. Then the weird shit started. (Also, before I begin the weird shit, I had the most ghetto eye test ever. I didn't have to take off my glasses. The lady told me stand behind a piece of tape, gave me a metal spoon and asked me to read the chart. I didn't understand why I needed the spoon until she gestured to me that I was supposed to use the spoon to block one of my eyes as I read. No technology, just spoons. Nice, China. Nice.)

I believe I can now say with conviction, I am the only person my age that I know, who has had an ultrasound. i'm not joking right now; there is no hyperbole in my statement; I read the English on the door and I've seen them in movies: I got an ultrasound today. I have no clue what purpose it served or what they were looking for, but they did it. I couldn't stop giggling the whole time during the procedure because 1) it was ridiculous and 2) I'm ticklish. I'm sure the nurse thought I was retarded. After the ultrasound, I don't even know what they did next. I think it was something relating to electromagneticism, but that's just a guess. I had to lie down. Clamps were put on both my wrists and one of my ankles then I lifted up my shirt and they attached some clips to my chest. I got nervous at this point because I thought they were going to shock me. I wanted to ask the nurse if this was going to hurt but I couldn't remember the words. Anyway, it didn't hurt, and I still don't know what they did.  After a chest x-ray (unlike Alex and Estee, I was not given the choice of a low radiation option for an extra fee. I'm just going to pretend Wuxi is more advanced than Beijing and all the x-rays here are low radiation. Maybe that'll help me sleep tonight., I got my blood work done and was told to go to the bathroom for a urine sample. The urine sample had me pee in a cup with a spout, then POUR THE URINE INTO A TUBE! I don't understand that at all. Why not just make the cup the sample holder? Why have an extra step that heightens the risk of me getting pee on myself? Argh. Anyway, no spills and after that, I was done. (Quick note here, the note being fuck you Alex!!! That douche informed/scared the shit out of me on Saturday night (while I was drunk so maybe my judgement wasn't at its apex...) by telling me they performed an STD test at the physical (that was a legitimate statement since every form here asks if I have AIDs or an STD). However, I wasn't scared of the STD test, I was more concerned about him telling me they stick a needle into the man's urethra (we're going scientific here, it's too painful otherwise) about two inches deep. I've been squirming the past few days and was dreading it while at the hospital, but of course they didn't; he was just fucking with me. Thanks.)

Anyway, you'd think the day ended there, but of course not. The Mr. Wang had to buy something at a market, so our driver had to navigate a minivan in an extremely crowded parking lot. Now, he is not a patient driver. He enjoys using his horn unnecessarily and once again today pulled in front of someone and slammed the breaks so they could potentially hit us. Anyway he was annoyed in the parking lot because he had to wait for some people to unload stuff from a truck. The second he had open space he sped through, honking his horn. He was honking at a lady in the way. She didn't move, and he didn't stop driving. Luckily he hit the brakes and didn't hit her that hard. She seemed more pissed than hurt. He, not surprisingly was pissed she didn't move and glared at her as he drove by. Good times. (On the way to the hospital, I saw a scooter driver on the ground who'd just been hit by a car, I think he was bleeding from the leg, but he had too many people around him to be able to tell.)  After that, we got back here without incident (except for my breaking my ipod on the walk back to my apartment when it fell to the ground AGAIN. So I'm ipod-less, and trying to figure out a way to get a new one. Drats!


P.S. This has no relevance to anything above, but I felt like including it anyway since it happened yesterday at the Shnaghai airport. So I was waiting at the meeting point for Mr. Wang and had my bags in a cart. I was looking for him so my back was to my bags. I turn around and there's some Chinese guy, around my age, like 3 feet behind me, creepily looking at me. I asked him if he was Mr. Wang, but he wasn't. Then he didn't move, he kept standing there. Every time I looked over, he had a video game in his hand but seemed to be creepily looking at me. I didn't know if he wanted to hump me or steal my bags. Finally he moved away from my general vicinity, but HE WAS STILL FUCKING LOOKING AT ME. Not like the Chinese curiosity look but just really sketchy. I got really pissed because his look was annoying me. Finally, after 20 minutes, he walked away and I was saved from his creepiness.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Wuxi

So this is going to be a quick one, but will be followed by some absolutely mammoth posts hopefully within the next week. First order of business is that I am here in Wuxi, safe and sound. The ride I took here from Shanghai today probably should have killed me. The school's driver decided he wanted to ensure his tax dollars did not go to waste (yes, even in communist paradises like China there are taxes!) so he utilized all four lanes of the highway to the fullest extent. But it wasn't just the weaving in and out of traffic, there was also driving in between lanes to get by cars; there was the squeezing himself in between buses and trucks; the time where a truck decided he was going too fast, so he CUT INTO OUR LANE AS WE WERE TRYING TO DRIVE BY HIM! Like seriously, I've always chuckled at the thought of slowing down asshole drivers by getting in their way, but you aren't supposed to actually do that. So after almost hitting the truck, we sped up, cut off the truck, then slammed on the brake, almost causing the truck to rear end us. Also, at several points bridges/highways were under construction. Most of them were well marked when we had to drive on the other side of the road. However, this being China, not everywhere was fully marked. So we drove on the wrong side in their left hand lane, getting honked at by every car. That was bad enough. Then he decided he wanted to pass the car in front of us, so he swerved into the lane that contained oncoming traffic, almost hitting a bike and another car before swerving back into our lane. Good times.

Other than the drive, not much else to report. EIther this is the most polluted place I've ever been, or visibility was just bad because of the weather today (I honestly don't know the answer to that question). I have yet to see Wuxi, because I'm in suburb that reminds me of Florida for some reason.... except if you replaced all the old people and hicks with Chinese people. I'll wander into town tomorrow when I have to register with the local police. The apartment the school gave me is bigger and nicer than I thought it'd be (with those being relative terms in China). I have two rooms, a bathroom, and a room with a washing machine (no dryer, so those dryer sheets were a worthless addition to my already bloated suitcase that gave me fines in both Seoul and Beijing!). As for appliances, I have cable TV (with one English station!), AC (which is currently not working, leaving me to sweat my balls off), a fridge, microwave, hotpot, and internet (which isn't supposed to be working right now, but I'm not complaining). Anyway, I have an early day tomorrow so I must be off now but I'm going to attempt to get some Korea and Beijing stuff up here, and I've taken about 600 pics in the past week, so stay tuned on Facebook for that!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Visa Goodness

Ok so a few quick notes before I take what will most likely be a leave of absence for a few weeks (though since I regularly do that without cause, it's not like me not writing for a few weeks is a big deal).

First off, I officially have clearance to enter China legally!!! The visa paperwork arrived on Monday and today I spent the day in New York City at the Chinese Consulate getting my visa approved. Now, for those of you who have never been, there is no straightforward way to enter because the sidewalk is divided by metal barriers which can only be entered from the sides of the building. Of course, for a person with my caliber of intelligence, it took me about 5 mins to figure out how to get into the building. Whilst I was wondering outside the building, I heard loud shouting and hollering. I normally would've just ignored the shouting since I was in NYC, and people do strange things there all the time (today I saw a fully grown male in a Jane costume. As in Tarzan's Jane. Without shaving his copious amounts of body hair. He was also wearing earrings. It was weird); however, it sounded like Chinese people were doing the yelling so I had to listen in. I soon realize there was a Free Tibet protest across the street! Needless to say, that made entering the consulate rather embarrassing, what with people screaming about bloody Olympics, Chinese genocide, and something or other about the Dalai Lama (quick fieldtrip for everyone, go to the Google and use it to look up Xinhua's (the official Chinese news agency) interpretation of the Tibetan protests. Interesting stuff). Getting into the embassy I had to show my passport, go through a metal detector, and they made me check my camera. Unless they thought it was a bomb, I don't understand the no camera rule; the place looked like a DMV, except there were a bunch of Chinese people in there. Whatever. Anyway, I got stuck in traffic so I didn't get to the embassy until after noon and was fearful they wouldn't be able to process my application in the same day (for a fee of course, gotta love those pseudo- communist capitalists!). However, the paperwork was taken care of in less than two hours and I now have a shiny (not really) new visa inside my passport! How exciting! I also realize I need to start going places other than China. 15 pages of my passport have been used, and I think China has 9 of those pages. So now that I'm legal, and my plane leaves Tuesday morning, I have pretty much no time to get everything together to live in China for 11 months. Good times. I'll attempt to post an update before I depart, but I make no promises.

P.S. Alex started his own blog, which I presume means he won't be guesting here any more, and good riddance! Anyway, here's the link to his blogpiece. I plan on posting a rebuttal to his interpretation of the Beijing Opening Ceremonies, but I fear by the time I get to it, it'll be old hat and I won't remember my specific points. In case I don't get around to making said post, I disagree with his opinion.

P.P.S. I'm thinking of changing the URL because, you know, having my last name attached to a blog on which I frequently go on profanity laced tirades about a myriad of subjects may not be the smartest thing I've ever done, so if, for some reason, you have this favorited, it may not work in the future.

P.P.S. While typing that last P.P.S., I accidentally deleted the screen and was pissed that I was going to have to rewrite the whole post again, which would've been disastrous. Luckily Blogger is retard proof and saved a draft of the post.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Massachusetts Turnpike Memorial Part II.

Ok so it's time for part two of the series on the Turnpike since my storied toll collecting career is officially over. Today I'm going to talk about shoddy work conditions because that seemed to come up multiple times. First off, I work outside. Fairly straightforward. However, knowing that our job is carried out outside (that sounded awkward), several things occur that shouldn't (both customer and Turnpike Authority having fault here):

1) It is a known fact that when you are outside, there is wind. Very basic stuff. However, people insist on dropping money into your hands when it's windy out and it could blow away. Then the bills get carried to the ground and the morons sit in their cars, staring at you blankly, expecting you to get out of the booth to get the cash they dropped because they're retarded. I mean seriously, the way some people hand off money, you'd think they've never seen the stuff before. It's ridiculous. Balled up, sweaty bills, with random coins jabbed into them. How the hell am I supposed to handle that? Or driving by, not stopping, and throwing money into my hands. I hate that. It makes me want to stab people. The worst offenders (and this has nothing to do with weather) originated with the increase of the tolls to $1.25. Coincidentally, people started confusing nickels with quarters, and conveniently shoving the nickel in the middle of the other four quarters, and speeding off before they can be caught. Fucking tightwad assholes. I absolutely took every plate down that shorted me 20 cents. I don't care if I had the change to cover it, if you're going to try and screw me, I will absolutely write you up and not care. Bastards.

2) Once again, with the outside theme, if we're going to work outside, you'd think we'd have strong equipment that could withstand variances in the weather. However, since this is the Turnpike Authority, everything is done on the cheap, so of course our computers and ticket machines are complete shit. The ticket machines are horrible because in any type of high temperatures or humid conditions, they break. While the high temperature thing isn't that bad, we work in fucking Boston which is humid as shit during the summer. Of course, the ticket machine breaks whenever it's humid and there's no way to fix it unless a) the humidity goes away or b) the machine stops its bitch fit and decides to work for a few minutes before breaking again. I get pissed, will hit the machine to the point of breaking my hand (one of these days I'll either finally break that bad habit naturally or I really will break my hand, forcing me to stop). Inevitably, I hand out blank tickets because I don't like having to deal with those machines. The blank tickets I'm sure piss off the people at the other end of the toll who have to deal with my laziness, but that's their problem. Other than the humidity, heat also gets to the machines. One of the booths has an automatic ticket machine next to where a collector has to work. The machine already makes the booth very cramped, because it takes up half the width of a small space to begin with. It gets even worse when it's hot because the ticket machine jams. If it's jammed because of overheating, that means the door to the automatic machine has to stay open, which further restricts movement and is immensely frustrating when someone is trying to give you a break and two people can't fit in the freaking booth. Argh.

3) Just a random complaint that I won't elaborate on, but the machines are also sensitive to sunlight. I mean, it's not like the machines are outside in booths that often don't have tinted windows, it's not like they'd need to withstand possible periods of sunlight...

4) My last day at my usual interchange, I was in Lane 7, easy day, shouldn't have been difficult. I keyed into the booth and started taking cars. Naturally, someone asked for a receipt, which I attempted to oblige. However, when I printed out a receipt, there were two, one of which was blank. I got really confused but at first assumed the person before me had just put new paper into the machine and printed a receipt but never tore it away. A minute later, I printed another receipt and two came out again so I asked the guy I relieved if that had been happening to him. In true J.D. (name protected) fashion, he responded "Of course, it fucking happened to me. It's been fucking happening for two fucking days now. I fucking told them in the office but no one listens in this place it's a fucking piece of shit." I was slightly peeved it hadn't been fixed, so I called the office to let them know. They pretended they had no clue it had been broken, and told me to call them back if I couldn't fix it, which I'd already told them I couldn't. They obviously had zero interest in coming out to do anything so I just left it and handed people double receipts all day, which was somewhat awkward but i figured better than throwing out the blank half of the receipt.

5) Lastly, the tiny metal spiral, rickety staircases you have to walk up to get into your lane are a SERIOUS safety hazard. As a quick background, to get to your lane, you have to walk in a tunnel under the highway, then walk up a staircase. Going up is never the issue, it's always walking down with a giant ass money bag full of coins and singles (no joke, those things are fucking heavy. I thought I strained a muscle in my forearm last week because I had $417 in change and $1008 in singles [yea I know the exact figures...]) that becomes a problem. I can't count how many times I've almost tripped down the stairs because everything I'm carrying is too unwieldy (I also can't walk across lanes anymore because someone stole my safety vest on Father's Day last year and no one's bothered to get me a new one. Sure my bosses will yell at me for crossing Fast Lanes without the vest, but no one's willing to actually solve the problem and get me a new one. bah.). Anyway, it gets even worse when it's raining out because the stairs are slick and it's easy to trip. Not good times.

I'm done with occupational hazards for now. Tomorrow (or next update, whenever the hell that will be) is probably going to center on people getting more belligerent than ever this summer. Seriously, the road has populated with a bunch of impatient assholes all summer. So stay tuned!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Massachusetts Turnpike Memorial Part I.

In honor of my last day at the Turnpike, I'm going to recount some choice experience I've to share:

'What's your sign?' - Melissa
'Uh... what?'- me
'What's your sign?' - Melissa
'You mean like zodiac?' - me
'Yea' - Melissa
'Uh.. I'm a Scorpio' - me
'O you sexual' - Melissa
'Um.. what?!' - me
'You sexual... you a freak' - Melissa
'Uh... um... thanks?'- me

She then proceeded to only address me as Scorpio from thenceforth, at point screaming 'SCORPIO!' at the top of her lungs because she had a question she needed to ask me that couldn't be said in front of patrons. Needless to say she scared the shit out of me to the point where I jumped at my own shadow. I was legitimately scared she was going to rape me. Bad times.