Unfortunately, I also had my first genuine "I hate China" moment in Shaolin. It made me bitter for the rest of the day, and I had no more patience for the hagglers, and annoying little women who constantly bother you to buy something, and have incessant high pitched chatter. These are the ones who assume you're an idiot, and talk about you in Chinese in front of you. This one really pissed me off.
It started when Chris and I left the Shaolin temple, but Jordana and Thomas were still looking around (buying shoes). We stopped at one stall, selling stamps. The stamps looked pretty cool, and the guy would carve your name in English and Chinese in the bottom, thus creating the stamp. I asked how much, and he gave us a ridiculous price, so Chris and I talked him down to a decent price. Originally, he wanted 50 yuan for my stamp, and 100 for Chris' (it was bigger). We got both of them for 70 (20 for mine, 50 for Chris'). The first pisser was that he started carving away my name, then suddenly pulls out a second price on us, AFTER he had started carving. He suddenly tells us that English carving is free, Chinese carving is 50 yuan! Well, Chris and I told him to stop, as we didn't want to pay that much, so we got pissed off. The guy wouldn't stop carving, so finally, I put my hand out and said stop again. He stopped briefly, and we said the Chinese was too expensive, so he lowers it to 30 yuan. Chris told him he didn't want any carving in his, since he was happy with it as a paperweight, and I just succumbed to 30 yuan for the Chinese name, despite the fact that I didn't want to pay that much. I felt bad because he had already started (the tricky bastard).
It gets worse. Not only did he spring the extra cost on us, but once finishing, the guy springs a 110 yuan bill on me. He wouldn't even sell the stamp to Chris, because he wasn't getting extra money for the carving. Now, we start protesting, and Thomas and Jordana had gotten back. The guy had pulled another one on us: it wasn't 30 yuan for the Chinese carving, it was 30 yuan PER character! So 20 yuan for the stamp, and 30 * 3 for the carving! This was horseshit, so we walked, making it audible and clear that he tried to rip us off.
So now, his wife starts chasing after me, and yelling that my name is already in the stamp, that I have to buy it. She was even hitting me in the elbow with the stamp (it's a large, hard object), and finally, since she wouldn't stop hitting me and yelling incessantly, I stopped. At this point, I was pissed off, and I started yelling at her. Chris and I started looking up different words for "Liar", "Cheat" and "Thief", and since there were other vendors around, she started getting more attention than she would've liked.
At this point, she started haggling with me, and I started walking again. She started at 80, then 70, then 60, all the while, Chris and I were yelling 50 yuan at her. She was as furious as I was, so it wasn't going well, and she kept hitting me in the arm. She wouldn't budge past 60 yuan, and I refused to spend any more than 50, since it was already the jacked up price anyway. The problem was she wasn't going to let me leave. So after standing there, and making a big scene for long enough, she gave up and sold it to me for 50 yuan. I suppose it's a victory of sorts, but I would've preferred to have not given them any cash, since they tried to rip us off so bad. The worst part is, now this stamp doesn't represent Shaolin to me anymore. Instead, it brings up bitter memories of the first time I got swindled in China.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Trip to Henan Province: Part Three
Quick Note: Shaolin is a style of Kung Fu. It's where all that "Crane Stance" and "Tiger whatever" stuff comes from. It's also super old, and the same style Bruce Lee knew. I never got it clear enough to know if it's true, but I believe this was also the birthplace of Bruce Lee.
Once finished at the Grottoes, we had to make our way to Shaolin, but to cab back to the main city, then catch a bus would've taken a while. Time was not something we had to spare, since the three others had to work on Monday, so Thomas haggled a cab down to 200 yuan to take us to Shaolin. Expensive, but that's because it was an entirely different city. A bus also would've taken a lot longer. The cab ride was only about an hour, and total cost was about 80 yuan more than the bus. It wasn't so bad split four ways.
We got to Shaolin, and once again, before even getting into Shaolin, we were harassed for buses and whatnot out of Shaolin. We largely ignored them, but once again, a few ladies followed us in, and bothered us while we got tickets into Shaolin. One really, really, really positive thing (really!) about this place was that they had lockers. What a godsend! The Grottoes were exhausting because of the sheer weight we had to carry around (especially myself, with the laptop). Now we could walk around unburdened.
Shaolin was amazing. There were 12 year old kids that could have kicked my ass. They were all doing all sorts of flips, and there were several shows on a day. I have a 3 minute video of one of the routines. What is unfortunate is that this whole Shaolin area became such a tourist attraction. It's now filled with all sorts of fake crap, and some of the monks were clearly fake (I saw one secretly buying cigarettes off of a tourist off in a corner). It used to be a school, where they would train and learn all the time, but now, it seems like it's more of a "Learn what looks cool, so we can make more money". China is excellent at taking their oldest parts of history, and either destroying it, or covering it in so much fake, pirated crap that it is now unrecognizable, and has been stripped of most of its historic value.
Anyway, we saw several very cool things, like the 1000 pagodas (a forest filled with literally 1000 pagodas - although small), the Shaolin temple, which was impressive, but a lot of it, you had to question the legitimacy, and the training center, where the students actually practiced. We watched towards the end of the day, when the place was about to close to the public, so we got to see more training and less tourist-y crap. Out in the fields, they had huge lines of Shaolin students all marching and yelling out soldier-like responses. It was a lot more authentic feeling as we left.
Once finished at the Grottoes, we had to make our way to Shaolin, but to cab back to the main city, then catch a bus would've taken a while. Time was not something we had to spare, since the three others had to work on Monday, so Thomas haggled a cab down to 200 yuan to take us to Shaolin. Expensive, but that's because it was an entirely different city. A bus also would've taken a lot longer. The cab ride was only about an hour, and total cost was about 80 yuan more than the bus. It wasn't so bad split four ways.
We got to Shaolin, and once again, before even getting into Shaolin, we were harassed for buses and whatnot out of Shaolin. We largely ignored them, but once again, a few ladies followed us in, and bothered us while we got tickets into Shaolin. One really, really, really positive thing (really!) about this place was that they had lockers. What a godsend! The Grottoes were exhausting because of the sheer weight we had to carry around (especially myself, with the laptop). Now we could walk around unburdened.
Shaolin was amazing. There were 12 year old kids that could have kicked my ass. They were all doing all sorts of flips, and there were several shows on a day. I have a 3 minute video of one of the routines. What is unfortunate is that this whole Shaolin area became such a tourist attraction. It's now filled with all sorts of fake crap, and some of the monks were clearly fake (I saw one secretly buying cigarettes off of a tourist off in a corner). It used to be a school, where they would train and learn all the time, but now, it seems like it's more of a "Learn what looks cool, so we can make more money". China is excellent at taking their oldest parts of history, and either destroying it, or covering it in so much fake, pirated crap that it is now unrecognizable, and has been stripped of most of its historic value.
Anyway, we saw several very cool things, like the 1000 pagodas (a forest filled with literally 1000 pagodas - although small), the Shaolin temple, which was impressive, but a lot of it, you had to question the legitimacy, and the training center, where the students actually practiced. We watched towards the end of the day, when the place was about to close to the public, so we got to see more training and less tourist-y crap. Out in the fields, they had huge lines of Shaolin students all marching and yelling out soldier-like responses. It was a lot more authentic feeling as we left.
Trip to Henan Province: Part Two
I was woken up just before our stop, and spent most of the time leading up to the stop looking out the window. Everything had changed drastically overnight. The soil was a different colour, there was a ton of poor housing, the land was all farmer fields, and the air... oh, the air. I thought it was foggy out. Good Lord, was I wrong! The smog was so thick in this area, your view of buildings less than 100 metres away was obscured. All my pictures from this trip look like I was taking pictures of things from far far away, but they were way closer than they appeared.
Once we left the train station at Luoyang, we were immediately harassed for tourist trips, buses, etc. This was a recurring theme on this trip. One man wanted to take us on a bus to the Shaolin temple, which was on our agenda, but not until later. He followed us to the ticket office, where we bought tickets to return to Wuxi on Sunday, and followed us back, continuing to harass us and tell us we need to get on the bus or we won't ever be able to get there (they're a little drastic in their sales approach - a now or never sales pitch). We made our plans over his voice, and headed off to the Grottoes.
The Grottoes were all in a mountain in Luoyang, and were essentially little man made caves all with Buddha carved into the rock. The carvings were so intricate and detailed, but largely very similar. I have a lot of pictures from that day, and I'm sure a lot of the Grotto pictures look very similar. What was interesting though, was that almost all the Buddhas had no head. This was because during the Cultural Revolution in China (See: Chairman Mao), anything discovered to be Buddhist (among other things) was destroyed. So because the Grottoes were all carvings of Buddha, they smashed the head off of each of the Buddhas (except the really big ones, as I would imagine it's quite difficult) so they now all have no face. However, apparently, the Europeans have many of these heads, mostly serving as paperweights. I guess they were a big touristy souvenir back in the day.
Once we had walked for hours, and we were all exhausted, we headed back. On the way back, we had come across a few interesting things. We stopped at a temple, which featured two memorable sights: A large bell, and a pond. The bell was huge, and had a hanging log used to hit it with. You were allowed to hit the bell, and apparently the number of times you hit it meant something. 3, 6 and 9 hits all meant different prophecies for you. I believe 6 was for long life, and 9 was for wealth. Most people hit it 9 times. The unfortunate part was that the bell had clearly become nothing more than a tourist attraction, as they had slapped all sorts of gawdy Chinese crap on it (cheap poster like Chinese Characters, etc) to the point where it looked more like fake pirated shit than a historic bell. You can never be sure what's a real attraction, and what's fake and unimportant here.
The other cool part was the pond. Once again, who knows if it's real or fake, but the Chinese love to throw money away for luck, so it's at least plausible. It was a pond full of fish and money, and you were supposed to throw in bills. If your bill floated, it meant long life. If it sank, it meant wealth. I don't know why they're mutually exclusive, but they were clearly popular. The weird part is it was full of coins as well. I'm not sure why, since it's quite clear that coins will sink. I don't think it's much of a prophecy, but what do I know? I'm just old whitey.
Also on the way back, we stopped at this little area, for lack of a better word. I'm not sure what to call it, but there was stairs leading down to water, about waist high, and a small tunnel, leading to who knows where. I don't know the purpose of this thing, but there were a bunch of boys playing there. They were mostly wet, and spraying water at each other. They also had a bag of crabs that I assume they had gathered from the tunnel. What was funny was that a few of the boys were swimming in the water, and they were butt naked. We hung out with the kids a bit, and Thomas was snapping pictures of everything he could. If it didn't cost so much to get into the Grotto grounds, I would have assumed they were very poor kids, as they were dirty, and showed all the signs of beggar children. They did hit us up for money eventually, but that's because Thomas was taking so many pictures of them. Thomas eventually let them take his bottle of juice, by telling one of the boys asking for money to take the bottle out of the side pocket on his bag. They all grabbed for it and started yanking on him as much as they could, like vultures over a carcass, until the bottle got loose and they all ran off.
Once we left the train station at Luoyang, we were immediately harassed for tourist trips, buses, etc. This was a recurring theme on this trip. One man wanted to take us on a bus to the Shaolin temple, which was on our agenda, but not until later. He followed us to the ticket office, where we bought tickets to return to Wuxi on Sunday, and followed us back, continuing to harass us and tell us we need to get on the bus or we won't ever be able to get there (they're a little drastic in their sales approach - a now or never sales pitch). We made our plans over his voice, and headed off to the Grottoes.
The Grottoes were all in a mountain in Luoyang, and were essentially little man made caves all with Buddha carved into the rock. The carvings were so intricate and detailed, but largely very similar. I have a lot of pictures from that day, and I'm sure a lot of the Grotto pictures look very similar. What was interesting though, was that almost all the Buddhas had no head. This was because during the Cultural Revolution in China (See: Chairman Mao), anything discovered to be Buddhist (among other things) was destroyed. So because the Grottoes were all carvings of Buddha, they smashed the head off of each of the Buddhas (except the really big ones, as I would imagine it's quite difficult) so they now all have no face. However, apparently, the Europeans have many of these heads, mostly serving as paperweights. I guess they were a big touristy souvenir back in the day.
Once we had walked for hours, and we were all exhausted, we headed back. On the way back, we had come across a few interesting things. We stopped at a temple, which featured two memorable sights: A large bell, and a pond. The bell was huge, and had a hanging log used to hit it with. You were allowed to hit the bell, and apparently the number of times you hit it meant something. 3, 6 and 9 hits all meant different prophecies for you. I believe 6 was for long life, and 9 was for wealth. Most people hit it 9 times. The unfortunate part was that the bell had clearly become nothing more than a tourist attraction, as they had slapped all sorts of gawdy Chinese crap on it (cheap poster like Chinese Characters, etc) to the point where it looked more like fake pirated shit than a historic bell. You can never be sure what's a real attraction, and what's fake and unimportant here.
The other cool part was the pond. Once again, who knows if it's real or fake, but the Chinese love to throw money away for luck, so it's at least plausible. It was a pond full of fish and money, and you were supposed to throw in bills. If your bill floated, it meant long life. If it sank, it meant wealth. I don't know why they're mutually exclusive, but they were clearly popular. The weird part is it was full of coins as well. I'm not sure why, since it's quite clear that coins will sink. I don't think it's much of a prophecy, but what do I know? I'm just old whitey.
Also on the way back, we stopped at this little area, for lack of a better word. I'm not sure what to call it, but there was stairs leading down to water, about waist high, and a small tunnel, leading to who knows where. I don't know the purpose of this thing, but there were a bunch of boys playing there. They were mostly wet, and spraying water at each other. They also had a bag of crabs that I assume they had gathered from the tunnel. What was funny was that a few of the boys were swimming in the water, and they were butt naked. We hung out with the kids a bit, and Thomas was snapping pictures of everything he could. If it didn't cost so much to get into the Grotto grounds, I would have assumed they were very poor kids, as they were dirty, and showed all the signs of beggar children. They did hit us up for money eventually, but that's because Thomas was taking so many pictures of them. Thomas eventually let them take his bottle of juice, by telling one of the boys asking for money to take the bottle out of the side pocket on his bag. They all grabbed for it and started yanking on him as much as they could, like vultures over a carcass, until the bottle got loose and they all ran off.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Trip to Henan Province: Part One
This was a busy trip. Even just getting started was hectic. It all started on Friday morning. I hadn't even woken up yet, and Chris called me. Jenny had backed out in the last minute on a trip that she, Chris, Thomas and Jordana were going to take to Henan Province. Chris told me I was going to take her ticket. It was great news, because I had wanted to go with them before, but didn't want to be the fifth wheel. People have a tendency to pair up when they're hanging out together, and I didn't want to be the odd one out, so this was great news. There was a catch though. The train left at 7:10 PM. I tutor my Korean kid from 5 to 7. There was no way I was going to make it from New District to the train station in 10 minutes. I told Chris I'd call him back if I could do it.
After a lot of phone calls and Chris' peer pressure, I finally arranged it so I tutored my Korean kid from 4:30 to 6:30, and all was settled. It didn't help that the phone number I had for the kid was wrong, but when all was said and done, the matter was resolved anyway. When I got to the Koreans' apartment, the mom was very eager to chat with me about the trip, and actually interrupted the grammar lesson (thank God, because that shit is mind numbingly boring) to chat with me more. She even let me leave a bit early, and told me to be safe on the trip, because she finds me very interesting. I thought that was cute, and I was very grateful.
I had my cabbie book it to the train station, and he made it in record time. I didn't think he even understood what I meant when I told him I had very little time in broken Chinese, but he made it to the train station in far less time than I ever thought possible. Chris, Jordana and Thomas all made it in a bit later, and it turned out we still had plenty of time.
Once on the train, we settled in, and looked for a power source for my laptop. I had brought it for the train ride, and no other reason, so we could watch movies. Turns out this train didn't have one. So now, I essentially have a six pound paperweight in my backpack I have to lug around on the trip. I wasn't terribly impressed. We watched half of The Jacket (good movie), then went to bed. I had a hard time sleeping, as I'm normally a night owl, and it was only 11 PM, so I was pretty much just looking around the car from the top bunk. At one point, I saw the biggest cockroach ever. It was the only cockroach I had seen on the train, and you get pretty good at picking them out in China, because they're everywhere. This one was different, because it was HUGE. About the length of my index finger, and about twice the width. It was crawling along the wall right over Jordana. I debated whether or not I should wake her up, but decided against it, since I figured she'd just freak out. It eventually crawled away, and then fell onto the floor. I didn't sleep too well that night.
After a lot of phone calls and Chris' peer pressure, I finally arranged it so I tutored my Korean kid from 4:30 to 6:30, and all was settled. It didn't help that the phone number I had for the kid was wrong, but when all was said and done, the matter was resolved anyway. When I got to the Koreans' apartment, the mom was very eager to chat with me about the trip, and actually interrupted the grammar lesson (thank God, because that shit is mind numbingly boring) to chat with me more. She even let me leave a bit early, and told me to be safe on the trip, because she finds me very interesting. I thought that was cute, and I was very grateful.
I had my cabbie book it to the train station, and he made it in record time. I didn't think he even understood what I meant when I told him I had very little time in broken Chinese, but he made it to the train station in far less time than I ever thought possible. Chris, Jordana and Thomas all made it in a bit later, and it turned out we still had plenty of time.
Once on the train, we settled in, and looked for a power source for my laptop. I had brought it for the train ride, and no other reason, so we could watch movies. Turns out this train didn't have one. So now, I essentially have a six pound paperweight in my backpack I have to lug around on the trip. I wasn't terribly impressed. We watched half of The Jacket (good movie), then went to bed. I had a hard time sleeping, as I'm normally a night owl, and it was only 11 PM, so I was pretty much just looking around the car from the top bunk. At one point, I saw the biggest cockroach ever. It was the only cockroach I had seen on the train, and you get pretty good at picking them out in China, because they're everywhere. This one was different, because it was HUGE. About the length of my index finger, and about twice the width. It was crawling along the wall right over Jordana. I debated whether or not I should wake her up, but decided against it, since I figured she'd just freak out. It eventually crawled away, and then fell onto the floor. I didn't sleep too well that night.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Hanging With Li Bin Hui
Last night, we were at Soho, and Li Bin Hui told me he was free the next day, so we made plans to meet today. As I stood at the meeting place, I happened to spot Chris, so I hijacked him as well. So when Li Bin Hui and I met up, we all went to HL-Mart, which is a supermarket, and Chris bought a few groceries. We then headed back to Chris' place and Chris made us some sandwiches. Afterwards, Chris and I took Li Bin Hui out to a giant market, consisting of several giant buildings, all filled with hundreds of little shops selling all sorts of random crap.
Li Bin Hui knew the place, I had never been there before, and before long, Alex called us to meet up with us because she was bored. We had to get Li Bin Hui on my phone, talking to some random Chinese guy on Alex's phone, just so we could find her. The place was that huge. We shopped around quite a bit, and kidded with Li Bin Hui a lot. He seemed to have the idea that he had to help us as much as he could, despite our insistence that he just relax. He kept taking over any haggling with the shopkeepers which kind of sucked, because I don't bother with their cultural habit of "saving face", so I think I could've gotten a better price for some things. However, he was incredibly helpful with a lot of it.
All in all, we all picked up a few things. Chris got a remote control helicopter, and while we were at that shop, I saw the same one I have for only 150 yuan. I was so frustrated, because that's only about 20 bucks CAD, and I know my parents got me mine for far more. On a side note, Chris ended up breaking his propellors within the day. Oh well. Anyway, Alex finally got speakers. She had been looking for cheap speakers since we got here, and never found a price she liked. She finally found some for 25 yuan.
I picked up Majiang (finally!), and this is where I really owe Li Bin Hui. The guy offered it to me for 150, which was right out. I wasn't going to spend anywhere near this. Li Bin Hui chatted a bit with him, and suddenly the price was 80, and I got him down to 70. If I had been on my own, I wouldn't have gotten it nearly as cheap, so I owe him big for this one. We never did find a good price on dice though (China for me is all about the gambling/drinking games), so I'll keep looking.
Finally, the one thing I really prized, even though I know I spent too much on it, was a shot glass stand. China doesn't really have shot glasses, they're all clear, with no labels at all, and they're few and far between at best. I got two from Soho, thanks to Li Bin Hui and Andy (Alex's bartender), but that's it. This stand came out of nowhere. I was really excited. It's a large plexiglass wheel, and it has two levels of holes to hold shot glasses on. It spins, so you can pull out shot glasses from either of the two levels, from any direction. I love it, and I know I got ripped off, but they wouldn't budge in the least! They wanted 150 yuan for the whole thing (plus a full rack of shot glasses), but the shot glasses were all just typical glass shot glasses, so I asked how much for just the stand. I ended up paying 80 or 90 yuan for it. I know full out that it's not worth that much, but I couldn't find it anywhere else, and I've never seen it anywhere in Canada or China, so I consider it worth the extra cash. I expect it to be a big hit at the next party we have back in Canada.
Afterwards, Alex, Li Bin Hui and I all went back to my place to drop off the stuff (Majiang weighed about 20 pounds!), and we took him to Mario World - an arcade. None of us seemed terribly into it, and I even walked away from a game that was still going. I suspect we were all just too tired to make anything of it. We left after killing about 10 yuan between the 3 of us, and walked Li Bin Hui to the bus stop.
As we left, we said goodbye to Li Bin Hui, and I shook his hand with the bus far in my palm to pass it off to him, but he spotted it. So we wrestled for a bit, trying to leave the other person's palm up so they would have the cash. It was only two yuan, but Li Bin Hui had insisted on paying bus fare for Chris and I earlier, so I wanted to get him back. After a bit of wrestling, I got him to give up, and Alex and I took off to sleep. The shopping had easily exhausted us.
Li Bin Hui knew the place, I had never been there before, and before long, Alex called us to meet up with us because she was bored. We had to get Li Bin Hui on my phone, talking to some random Chinese guy on Alex's phone, just so we could find her. The place was that huge. We shopped around quite a bit, and kidded with Li Bin Hui a lot. He seemed to have the idea that he had to help us as much as he could, despite our insistence that he just relax. He kept taking over any haggling with the shopkeepers which kind of sucked, because I don't bother with their cultural habit of "saving face", so I think I could've gotten a better price for some things. However, he was incredibly helpful with a lot of it.
All in all, we all picked up a few things. Chris got a remote control helicopter, and while we were at that shop, I saw the same one I have for only 150 yuan. I was so frustrated, because that's only about 20 bucks CAD, and I know my parents got me mine for far more. On a side note, Chris ended up breaking his propellors within the day. Oh well. Anyway, Alex finally got speakers. She had been looking for cheap speakers since we got here, and never found a price she liked. She finally found some for 25 yuan.
I picked up Majiang (finally!), and this is where I really owe Li Bin Hui. The guy offered it to me for 150, which was right out. I wasn't going to spend anywhere near this. Li Bin Hui chatted a bit with him, and suddenly the price was 80, and I got him down to 70. If I had been on my own, I wouldn't have gotten it nearly as cheap, so I owe him big for this one. We never did find a good price on dice though (China for me is all about the gambling/drinking games), so I'll keep looking.
Finally, the one thing I really prized, even though I know I spent too much on it, was a shot glass stand. China doesn't really have shot glasses, they're all clear, with no labels at all, and they're few and far between at best. I got two from Soho, thanks to Li Bin Hui and Andy (Alex's bartender), but that's it. This stand came out of nowhere. I was really excited. It's a large plexiglass wheel, and it has two levels of holes to hold shot glasses on. It spins, so you can pull out shot glasses from either of the two levels, from any direction. I love it, and I know I got ripped off, but they wouldn't budge in the least! They wanted 150 yuan for the whole thing (plus a full rack of shot glasses), but the shot glasses were all just typical glass shot glasses, so I asked how much for just the stand. I ended up paying 80 or 90 yuan for it. I know full out that it's not worth that much, but I couldn't find it anywhere else, and I've never seen it anywhere in Canada or China, so I consider it worth the extra cash. I expect it to be a big hit at the next party we have back in Canada.
Afterwards, Alex, Li Bin Hui and I all went back to my place to drop off the stuff (Majiang weighed about 20 pounds!), and we took him to Mario World - an arcade. None of us seemed terribly into it, and I even walked away from a game that was still going. I suspect we were all just too tired to make anything of it. We left after killing about 10 yuan between the 3 of us, and walked Li Bin Hui to the bus stop.
As we left, we said goodbye to Li Bin Hui, and I shook his hand with the bus far in my palm to pass it off to him, but he spotted it. So we wrestled for a bit, trying to leave the other person's palm up so they would have the cash. It was only two yuan, but Li Bin Hui had insisted on paying bus fare for Chris and I earlier, so I wanted to get him back. After a bit of wrestling, I got him to give up, and Alex and I took off to sleep. The shopping had easily exhausted us.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Some Written Chinglish:
This is a short list of some fun Chinglish I've seen around. Most are from T-shirts. Essentially, they view English words on t-shirts similarly to how we view Chinese as a tattoo. It's cool, because it's different. The problem is, no one speaks English, and apparently no one proof reads it:
"Caivin Klein": This is what brand my belt is. I like to refer to it as my "Authentic" CK belt.
"Ulgy Girl": This is another one of my favourites. This was on the shirt of a girl walking around downtown in big block letters. I love it because it's a double whammy, not only is it spelled wrong, but it insults the wearer.
Other T-shirts:
"Favorite Stove Ranges"
"2% Hommie"
"Foppery"
"Biella Italia"
"Yourng Blood"
"Fairy Fox Sports"
"RNA Sweat: I wanna be your dog"
"Electric Snow"
"Love is in the fish"
"Egoist"
"How many flapper..."
Lastly, this was all on ONE t-shirt. The girl sat facing me on the train to Xuzhou:
"Sport Girl OK Stripper Androgynou"
"To Da Break of Dawn"
"All Starz"
"Girl OK"
Here's the kicker. All of the shirts from Ulgy Girl to this line here were seen within hours of each other. All are spelled as they were on the shirt, and if I didn't write it down in time, I didn't include it. I've seen all of this Chinglish in a matter of about 3 to 4 hours, before getting on the train. Now extrapolate that to the month and a bit I've been here... I'm amazed my English hasn't gone in the John.
One last one, this is from Carrefour, the french-owned Chinese Walmart department store. It is a sign on the door into receiving:
"This door merely supplies to the exigence must keep it very expedite"
Not a single typo, I swear. You figure out what it means.
"Caivin Klein": This is what brand my belt is. I like to refer to it as my "Authentic" CK belt.
"Ulgy Girl": This is another one of my favourites. This was on the shirt of a girl walking around downtown in big block letters. I love it because it's a double whammy, not only is it spelled wrong, but it insults the wearer.
Other T-shirts:
"Favorite Stove Ranges"
"2% Hommie"
"Foppery"
"Biella Italia"
"Yourng Blood"
"Fairy Fox Sports"
"RNA Sweat: I wanna be your dog"
"Electric Snow"
"Love is in the fish"
"Egoist"
"How many flapper..."
Lastly, this was all on ONE t-shirt. The girl sat facing me on the train to Xuzhou:
"Sport Girl OK Stripper Androgynou"
"To Da Break of Dawn"
"All Starz"
"Girl OK"
Here's the kicker. All of the shirts from Ulgy Girl to this line here were seen within hours of each other. All are spelled as they were on the shirt, and if I didn't write it down in time, I didn't include it. I've seen all of this Chinglish in a matter of about 3 to 4 hours, before getting on the train. Now extrapolate that to the month and a bit I've been here... I'm amazed my English hasn't gone in the John.
One last one, this is from Carrefour, the french-owned Chinese Walmart department store. It is a sign on the door into receiving:
"This door merely supplies to the exigence must keep it very expedite"
Not a single typo, I swear. You figure out what it means.
Chinglish Speech:
I've noticed a few patterns Chinese people follow when learning/speaking English over the past month and a bit. These are little things you pick up and are caused by poorly translated (usually direct literal translations) words from Chinese to English. I felt like listing a few:
"Oh, I know, I know!"
This means they don't know. Invariably, if a Chinese person says they know, they don't. They probably have no fucking clue what's going on or what you're saying. If a Chinese person says this to you, ask them in Chinese if they understand ("Nee ge dao ma"). Because they don't.
Example:
Me: Where are my friends?
Li Bin Hui: Oh I know, I know!
No, no he doesn't.
"Hello!"
This means they are excited that a white person is near them. If you say Hello back, they will giggle. A lot. Forever. Saying Hello in Chinese (Nee Hao) makes them smile, but it secretly disappoints them because you won't speak English to them.
"Nice to meet you!"
95 % of the time, this will be butchered to the point where you don't understand it. Almost identical to "Hello!", it is mostly said to get an English answer out of the weird foreigner. If a Chinese person you know says it, they actually mean "Good to see you again", or "See you later".
"Ahhhh-mell-ee-kan"
Usually uttered by small children, since they are taught more English right from the start. They think you are American. If you answer "No, I'm Canadian", even in Chinese, they will become terrified and run away because the demon in white skin is looking at them.
"OK?"
This actually means OK, but is often used gratuitously. "I am going to help you, OK, OK?" or "How are you, OK?" are common phrases. When said to you, you will often feel that they do not actually know the meaning or usage of the word OK, but that they have memorized where to say it, along with the rest of the sentence, and just think it should be there. When Asians study, they don't learn, they memorize. So the entity "HowareyouOK" is inseparable to them.
"I speak little English"
This means you're about to have the same conversation with this guy as everyone else who has memorized this sentence. I will now show you this conversation:
Him: Hello! *awkward stare*
You: *Uncomfortably* Hi...
Him: I speak little English
You: *Dreadfully* Oh?
Him: Where you from?
You: Canada
Him: Ohhh... Janada, Janada, Janada... Why you here? Bidness?
You: No, not business, I am on vacation
Him: Ohhh... Vay-Cay-Shun. You student?
You: Yes, I study computers *demonstrate typing with hands* in Canada
Him: Ohhhh... Janada, Janada, Janada... How long you here in Wuxi/China?
You: One month.
Him: Ohhhh... How long you stay here?
You: 2 more months
Him: Ohhhh... I know, I know (see above for what he actually means)
This is where the conversation fails. It will always fail here. I have yet to have a conversation longer than this. Sometimes, just sometimes, someone will start a continuation of the conversation if you sit around in awkward silence long enough, and ask you if you have seen a certain city. If you say Yes, they have nothing to say to you. If you say No, the city is always beautiful, and often turns out to be their hometown.
This conversation is set in stone, and will not vary. You will have it in the most awkward of places (IE: Waiting by a urinal, waiting for your turn in the stall, or even while using a urinal.) I am nice, and so I always see the conversation through, but you will eventually tire of this conversation, and learn to make it as efficient as possible so it ends sooner.
"Oh, I know, I know!"
This means they don't know. Invariably, if a Chinese person says they know, they don't. They probably have no fucking clue what's going on or what you're saying. If a Chinese person says this to you, ask them in Chinese if they understand ("Nee ge dao ma"). Because they don't.
Example:
Me: Where are my friends?
Li Bin Hui: Oh I know, I know!
No, no he doesn't.
"Hello!"
This means they are excited that a white person is near them. If you say Hello back, they will giggle. A lot. Forever. Saying Hello in Chinese (Nee Hao) makes them smile, but it secretly disappoints them because you won't speak English to them.
"Nice to meet you!"
95 % of the time, this will be butchered to the point where you don't understand it. Almost identical to "Hello!", it is mostly said to get an English answer out of the weird foreigner. If a Chinese person you know says it, they actually mean "Good to see you again", or "See you later".
"Ahhhh-mell-ee-kan"
Usually uttered by small children, since they are taught more English right from the start. They think you are American. If you answer "No, I'm Canadian", even in Chinese, they will become terrified and run away because the demon in white skin is looking at them.
"OK?"
This actually means OK, but is often used gratuitously. "I am going to help you, OK, OK?" or "How are you, OK?" are common phrases. When said to you, you will often feel that they do not actually know the meaning or usage of the word OK, but that they have memorized where to say it, along with the rest of the sentence, and just think it should be there. When Asians study, they don't learn, they memorize. So the entity "HowareyouOK" is inseparable to them.
"I speak little English"
This means you're about to have the same conversation with this guy as everyone else who has memorized this sentence. I will now show you this conversation:
Him: Hello! *awkward stare*
You: *Uncomfortably* Hi...
Him: I speak little English
You: *Dreadfully* Oh?
Him: Where you from?
You: Canada
Him: Ohhh... Janada, Janada, Janada... Why you here? Bidness?
You: No, not business, I am on vacation
Him: Ohhh... Vay-Cay-Shun. You student?
You: Yes, I study computers *demonstrate typing with hands* in Canada
Him: Ohhhh... Janada, Janada, Janada... How long you here in Wuxi/China?
You: One month.
Him: Ohhhh... How long you stay here?
You: 2 more months
Him: Ohhhh... I know, I know (see above for what he actually means)
This is where the conversation fails. It will always fail here. I have yet to have a conversation longer than this. Sometimes, just sometimes, someone will start a continuation of the conversation if you sit around in awkward silence long enough, and ask you if you have seen a certain city. If you say Yes, they have nothing to say to you. If you say No, the city is always beautiful, and often turns out to be their hometown.
This conversation is set in stone, and will not vary. You will have it in the most awkward of places (IE: Waiting by a urinal, waiting for your turn in the stall, or even while using a urinal.) I am nice, and so I always see the conversation through, but you will eventually tire of this conversation, and learn to make it as efficient as possible so it ends sooner.
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