Paris on Shanghai

The American beacon of all things culturally and philosophically relevant came to Shanghai last week. Yes, Paris Hilton dragged her DUI-STD-OMG-ridden self to my little city, and made an important proclamation.
“Shanghai looks like the future!”

Yes, that is really all she could come up with. Now, to be fair, Shanghai has a few pretty cool buildings, and all put together, it looks quite modern.

The building she was probably seeing, The Oriental Pearl TV Tower, is actually pretty hideous during the day (and was built almost 15 years ago), but even I still get excited to see it all lit up at night.

But I feel obligated to paint another picture of Shanghai (dare I say a more accurate one?), than the one Paris has so eloquently given the world. From what I can tell on the internets, her China tour was given just a touch more press in the media than that cyclone in Bangladesh a week or so ago (killing how many thousand?)

Here’s the incredibly futuristic Shanghai that I see on my way to work everyday. Don’t think I’m complaining necessarily, because it definitely all adds up to some sort of unquantifiable charm. I step out my door, and go to the elevator to ride down from the 8th floor. My building is blessed with two elevators, but in some sort of technical oversight, they weren’t wired to communicate with each other. In effect, everyone hedges their bets, pushes both buttons, the elevators pretty much run in tandem, and everyone waits twice as long. Hopefully if the future, we will figure out how to solve this dilemma.

I exit my building, and the vast majority of the residents get on this futuristic vehicle with two wheels and a chain. It appears that in the future we will all be getting around pedaling in a circular motion, though, some of us may be blessed with some sort of battery that propels the lazy ones around. For those of us not yet up to speed with this whole bicycle thing, we get to walk to work, dodging these strange conveyances, because in the future, people drive on the sidewalk if there isn’t enough room on the streets. You won’t need coffee in the future, because a moped coming right at you at 40 miles an hour tends to wake you up.

Before I get to the metro, I cross a bridge over a little tributary to the river. It turns out, in the coming years, we will do away with wastewater treatment systems altogether, and just use trucks to haul the sludge to the edge of the river and dump it directly in. I consider it my lucky day when I see this in the morning, because I can save the 50 cents on breakfast I would have normally spent. Along these lines, any number of activities can take place conveniently on the sidewalk. We are much more efficient here in the future. You can brush your teeth, throw your garbage, take care of #1, and the occasional #2, and even “satisfy” yourself right there on the curb. I kid you not:

There’s just fewer restrictions and social norms holding us back here in the future.

And finally, in the future, the government will give us all little spit bags to use. Why? Because of increasing pollution, we will all develop a persistent hack, that causes us bronchial irritation. With each city having at least 20 million people in the impending days, that is a lot of loogies, and a possible health hazard. Why fix the pollution problem, when you can issue spit bags more efficiently?

So yes Paris, you’re absolutely right- with each passing day, Shanghai marches further and further into the future.

Chinese Puzzle

This probably won’t be of much interest to the people reading who actually speak some Chinese, but, you never know.

In Chinese, each individual character has its own meaning. For example,
hao=好＝good.
But, if you put the character together with another one, it usually changes the meaning altogether. Example, haoxiang= 好像＝ appears/looks like

Anyways. I’m not sure why this happens (maybe do to how ancient Chinese is?), but for some nouns where Chinese previously had no word for it, they just kind of put two words that describe it together to take on the new meaning.
Example: Hand手 + Machine机 ＝ Cellphone

Try your hand at figuring out what nouns these combos are describing: (answers at bottom).

1. Sour Milk
2. Safety Hat
3. Electric Brain
4. Beautiful Country
5. Dragon Head
6. Pulled Stomach
7. Soft Glass
8. Invisible Lenses
9. Roasting Box
10. Fire Car

1. Yogurt
2. Helmet
3. Computer
4. America!
5. Faucet
6. Diarrhea
7. Plastic
8. Contacts
9. Oven
10. Train

Ok, I’m a dork, but these are kinda interesting, no?

I guess this can make learning Chinese a bit easier, because once you learn tooth, and doctor, lo and behold you’ve got dentist. But honestly, when are you ever going to assume that people will understand that.

Anyone have suggestions for some new additions to the lexicon??

You Velly Happy

Because I live with a Chinese host family, 3 months in now, they have a pretty good idea of my general routine. Work during the week, and go out Friday and Saturday night. I don’t think it’s excessive generally, but I realize that it isn’t necessarily normal for Chinese people to stay out super late. Every morning after they always ask me, in that broken English way that I’m never sure if it’s a question of a statement, “You velly happy last night?” (R’s are extremely hard for Chinamen to say). The first time, I just was just kind of confused, because, well, yes, the spirits I had imbibed did make me happy, but its kinda of an odd question. Over the course of these 3 months, the happy has gotten morphed into just about anything. Such as:”Tonight you go to Happy?” How happy you last night?” “You always so happy!” ” You velly like happy.”

Then I realize that I am supposed to be correcting their English in exchange for my free room and board, but at this point I just think its cute, and am always amazed when they find a new creative way to use happy. Then my Australian friend, Nick, told me about his crazy landlord/realtor (we’ll call him Sam) who has also tried to broker him women and drugs. Unfortunately, over the last 3 months Sam had developed a little heroin addiction himself. When Nick went in to see him one day after a week of his colleagues saying he was home sick, the Realtor explained that he had been “happy” all week. Happy, here, meaning high on Ecstasy and Heroin. Now I’m just hoping my host family doesn’t think that I am also a drug addict, and I really should teach them more specific vocabulary.

11 weeks into teaching, and I can honestly say that I have more respect for my past teachers with each passing day. It’s a hard job, even though I realize I have it pretty good here.

Things that are good about my job:

1. I don’t have to grade any homework, ever.
2. The kids don’t have exams on anything I teach, so I am just trying to expose them to as much English as possible.
3. If kids start acting up uncontrollably, a Chinese teacher will promptly yell at them. Being the good cop is more fun anyways. Though if I could yell at them in Chinese I probably would.
4. First graders are eager enough to learn, so on breaks they always crowd around and want to practice whatever they have learned in their actual English class. I’ve never seen their textbook, but when you get asked “how old are you?” or “Teacher! How many [insert classroom object] are there?” by 200 different kids on the same day, I have a fairly good idea thats what they’ve been studying.

Things I don’t generally enjoy:
-Cafeteria Food (see below)

-Chalk

-Commuting during rush hour. I have never had so much respect for the way everyone in DC stands to the side to let everyone out, before they try and get on themselves. Seems like a no-brainer, but the sight here is really best described (by my friend Nick) as a rugby scrum. It’s an epic struggle of pushing from both sides that is humorous to watch the first few times, but really disheartening when you have to join in. Here’s a pretty good example of every day for me:

So that’s why they have the one child policy!

Blue Steel Called

Normally, when Chinese people come up to you on the street, it’s because there is a deep-rooted notion that all white people have money, and the Chinese people have a deep-rooted belief that they are somehow entitled to a portion of it. They may be new to capitalism, but they are quick learners. I’ve all but completely tuned out the nonsensical shouts of “Hey, you need shoes? DVD’S. I have watches.” Or, “North Face. Special price for you. Just you.” Yes, that is a special price indeed when you try to charge me 20 times what it is actually worth. Then there is the more subtle, “Where are you from?” line, which inevitably leads to the starving art student story, whereupon they lead you to a back room, give you alcohol, show you crappy reprints of ancient-looking scenes, and somehow get you drunk enough to buy them. Trust me, it only takes making that mistake once.

So it was with great skepticism that I stopped to talk to someone in the Subway station by my house when he asked if I had a moment. I’m not sure if this will go down as a momentous occasion, or the beginnings of another great scam, but there is only one way to find out. Turns out, there was a team recruiting Westerners to be represented by their modeling company. Yes, perhaps it is the rebirth of a nascent career cut short by the ravages of puberty. Regardless, I’m pretty sure the only requirement is that you be white, and somewhat young, but of course, I was intrigued.

I met up with them in their offices in the “YuCheng Mansion.” Chinese people have an odd way of calling 30 story buildings “mansions.” I have stopped questioning it. Our first meeting consisted of the man speaking virtually no English, so there was a lot of miming and hand motions. I think he got really excited when I told him that I played the piano. I’m not sure if I should be concerned about what kind of modeling/acting jobs he would be able to get me with my piano skills, but at this point I have just starting accepting that its all quite odd. I did check no to the magic abilities and Kung Fu boxes, however.

Then he took my measurements, and took 3 digital pictures of me, and told me that his boss wasn’t there right now, and that I needed to come back tomorrow. Sort of annoying, but again, nothing is as you may expect it at this point. However, I was thinking that perhaps the industry in China was just “undeveloped” enough, that these 3 pictures would suffice, and I wouldn’t need any sort of professional picture to get jobs. This is not the case. The next day, a Russian lady, and the same man were there to meet me. The Russian lady was the interpreter turns out, which apparently lends more credibility and trust to the whole operation, because she is perceived as being neutral. In short, they convinced me to immediately go to some photography studio and get a portfolio done, because they were SO confident that I will be able to land acting jobs. Because A) Chinese people LOVE foreigners. Sort of true, though I think they are more entranced by the foreign lifestyle. And B) I have a “special” smile. I hope by special they don’t mean, “he rides the short bus.”

The photography studio was also sort of a trip in itself. I got my “portfolio” done in an hour, including hair and makeup. Chinese efficiency is again at work. The wardrobe choices were totally bizarre, and I had to draw the line somewhere before the green t-shirt coupled with the leather vest with fringes and a top hat. No kidding. So that is pretty much where I stand. I took some pictures, apparently am being represented, and am now just waiting for that big break. All in the span of about 24 hours.

At this rate, my fifteen minutes of fame are probably going to feel more like fifteen seconds. If this isn’t the start of some elaborate scam. We shall see.