Before I start the story off, I figured I'd explain Chinese tap water. It sucks. We can't drink from it, and not even the Chinese will. The water comes straight from the lake (Tai Hu), and is treated in some way, but is still full of lake-y goodness. Today, Wuxi smells odd everywhere you go, because the lake is warming up, and algae is growing like mad. What this means is that the processing plants that clean the water get backed up (literally, the pipes fill) with algae. So today, the entire city (or anything close to a water source) smells odd. This is common, and happens from time to time. I am told it will happen more often as it gets hotter.
(EDIT) I have since learned that this case is quite severe. It turns out that blue-green algae has backed up the processing plants, and this stuff is evil. It can cause liver damage, rashes, and all sorts of random crap. I can't shower in it, I can't ingest it, I can't even shave with it, because the algae releases a toxin that causes all this shit. So for two days now, I've been sponge bathing, and not shaving/brushing my teeth. They've been opening fire hydrants and pouring the water all over the streets because it has this algae which releases the toxin. The worst part is boiling it causes MORE toxin to be released, so there's no solution other than dumping it. Hooray for no showers! I feel like a scum bag!
(END EDIT)
Anyway, today was the day I started with my first tutor job here in Wuxi. I am teaching a 14 year old Korean boy named Hyeon Ik Kim English for 100 yuan an hour (About 15 bucks CAD an hour). His understanding was quite good, but his speaking needs practice, as is often the case with anyone who learns a second language. The whole thing went pretty well, despite my lack of knowledge about the Korean language. All I remember from Aaron in high school is "No nun na ugh Chingo", meaning "You are my friend". We got through the lesson plans without much problem, although the reading comprehension hour needed a bit of filler. The kicker, and reason for the first paragraph, was the mother. She doesn't speak much English, and won't speak to me in Chinese because it seems her Chinese is worse than mine (no, really). She offered me juice in broken English, and I said I was fine, but as the Asians love to do, she insisted I have something, so I took her up on her offer of water.
Go ahead and guess... yup, she served me tap water. I thanked her, as I hadn't noticed yet. I didn't touch the water for the first hour because I was busy trying to figure out how to stretch a two page story into an hour long lesson. After the first hour, my Korean boy went off to answer the phone, and I sipped the water. As I tipped the glass back, I noticed how murky the water was, and quickly recognized the taste with a thought of "Aww dammit..." and sat there, alone in the living room with a mouthful of lake water. I discreetly had to spit it back into the cup (Hey, it's either spitting or sitting on a toilet for a day) before the boy made it back. The cup sat full all lesson long, and my mouth got more and more parched as it went. Eventually, I just kept making the boy speak to me without needing responses from me for as long as possible. I explained the situation when the mother showed up at the end of the lesson as nicely as possible, since I don't know Korean culture and didn't want to insult her. They fired the last tutor, so I'd hate to start a pattern. It went surprisingly well, and I asked a few questions about Korean and Chinese culture, and told her a bit about Canadian culture, so I don't think I've broken any international borders thus far.
And yes, Tai Hu water tastes awful.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Day 36: Soho Again?!
I'm really getting exhausted with all the trips to Soho, but it's so fun, and every time I go, I pick up more and more Chinese. I've started bringing a notepad to the bar with a pen, and Li Bin Hui and I just sit at the bar or in the back staff room and teach each other words. Other people have gotten into it too, so if he's busy serving someone, a bartender will help, or even just other patrons. My vocabulary has grown considerably because of this place.
One bad bit about Soho came up tonight. Alex, who goes to Soho even more than I do, had seen this lady before, but tonight was the first for me. She's this crazy lady up on stage, and Soho pays her presumably to sing and entertain the crowd. What she does, I do not call singing. I call it yelling too loud into the microphone. It was painful to the ears, mainly for the volume reason, but she wasn't great either. Jessica had her fingers in her ears the whole performance. The lady also drank a bottle of beer while she was up there. I say drank, but she would have said chugged. It took her forever to finish the bottle, and she had to stop halfway through. Unimpressive. My unintentional whisky chug was way better.
Also, while we were there, some people were admiring Alex's tattoo, which is the Chinese character for Dragon. They were already fairly chatty with us, but I remember their excitement when I pointed at her tattoo, then pulled up the back of my shirt and showed them an actual picture of a dragon (the tattoo on my back). From then on in, it became half of a Chinese lesson as they showed off some of their tattoos. They kept telling us the words for their tattoos. The weirdest part about this to me was that it's rare for the Chinese to get tattoos, but we happened upon a group who all had tattoos. It makes me wonder if they all have them, but actively hide them.
The last interesting bit about this night happened at the very end. Jessica was ready to go, I wanted one last drink, and Alex wanted to stay and drunkenly dance with her bartender (I'm beginning to think she's got an active crush on the guy). So I asked Li Bin Hui if he could swing us a pitcher of beer to satisfy my thirst, and give Jessica something to do while we waited for Alex to finish up.
As a bit of foreshadowing, the last time we went to Soho (the 26th), Icey - one of the gogo dancers - came up to me with a napkin saying "beer vinegar" and pointed at the free pitcher of beer I had. I told her I didn't think there was vinegar in it, she must have the wrong word, but she insisted. I couldn't taste it, so I kept drinking. This time, it tasted like I was drinking diluted vinegar, not beer. Both Jessica and I made a face and acknowledged the vinegar taste, so I asked Li Bin Hui about it. Apparently, the Chinese think vinegar and beer mixed together is "very delicious". We originally thought they were doing it to prevent us from asking for free stuff, or to cheap out on the beer, but apparently, they thought they were making the beer more enjoyable. Blech.
One bad bit about Soho came up tonight. Alex, who goes to Soho even more than I do, had seen this lady before, but tonight was the first for me. She's this crazy lady up on stage, and Soho pays her presumably to sing and entertain the crowd. What she does, I do not call singing. I call it yelling too loud into the microphone. It was painful to the ears, mainly for the volume reason, but she wasn't great either. Jessica had her fingers in her ears the whole performance. The lady also drank a bottle of beer while she was up there. I say drank, but she would have said chugged. It took her forever to finish the bottle, and she had to stop halfway through. Unimpressive. My unintentional whisky chug was way better.
Also, while we were there, some people were admiring Alex's tattoo, which is the Chinese character for Dragon. They were already fairly chatty with us, but I remember their excitement when I pointed at her tattoo, then pulled up the back of my shirt and showed them an actual picture of a dragon (the tattoo on my back). From then on in, it became half of a Chinese lesson as they showed off some of their tattoos. They kept telling us the words for their tattoos. The weirdest part about this to me was that it's rare for the Chinese to get tattoos, but we happened upon a group who all had tattoos. It makes me wonder if they all have them, but actively hide them.
The last interesting bit about this night happened at the very end. Jessica was ready to go, I wanted one last drink, and Alex wanted to stay and drunkenly dance with her bartender (I'm beginning to think she's got an active crush on the guy). So I asked Li Bin Hui if he could swing us a pitcher of beer to satisfy my thirst, and give Jessica something to do while we waited for Alex to finish up.
As a bit of foreshadowing, the last time we went to Soho (the 26th), Icey - one of the gogo dancers - came up to me with a napkin saying "beer vinegar" and pointed at the free pitcher of beer I had. I told her I didn't think there was vinegar in it, she must have the wrong word, but she insisted. I couldn't taste it, so I kept drinking. This time, it tasted like I was drinking diluted vinegar, not beer. Both Jessica and I made a face and acknowledged the vinegar taste, so I asked Li Bin Hui about it. Apparently, the Chinese think vinegar and beer mixed together is "very delicious". We originally thought they were doing it to prevent us from asking for free stuff, or to cheap out on the beer, but apparently, they thought they were making the beer more enjoyable. Blech.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Pollution In China:
Something that has always struck me as unusual here in China is the pollution. Air pollution is horrible (seriously, my snot is black, and we have to wipe the kitchen counters down daily to get rid of all the carbon in the air that has settled), but the ground has almost zero litter in the city. This is true of all the cities I've been to. I'm sure this isn't true in the small villages, or the outskirts of the cities (which quickly turn into a ghetto like environment), but to have 4 million people in Wuxi and no litter boggles my mind.
Part of the reason, as far as I can see, is because of the sheer numbers of the Chinese. Since labour is so freely available, there are people in blue coveralls picking up trash and sweeping the streets constantly. Even more effective than this are what we call the junkers. The junkers are essentially people who make a living by grabbing all the trash they can and recycling as much of it as possible. Apparently, it's quite profitable, so two interesting things occur because of this:
1) You see filthy people walking around with giant bags of crushed plastic with them (bags bigger than themselves).
2) People get excited to get your trash.
This second one is interesting. I won't even put large plastic stuff in bags anymore, I lay them in front of the dumpster, because people will run up to it all excited. They seriously yell and run for it. Fortunately, the junkers tend to work in groups, and seem to have territories, so I don't think I'll see anyone fighting someone else for my trash.
Even funnier is when I put beer bottles down by the dumpster. Now, I know there is a deposit on the bottles, but it's already so cheap (3 yuan == 44 cents CAD for a 700 mL bottle) that I honestly don't care. Even further, I bet the deposit is about one jiao (worth 0.1 yuan - the Chinese dime) and jiao are so worthless and hard to get rid of that you will see them discarded on tables or on the floor, and no one will bother to waste the time and effort to bend over in order to get the jiao. We even joke that beggars wouldn't bother to pick them up. Anyway, even non-junkers will get excited and run for the bottle, because the convenience store I bought the bottle from, and could get the deposit from is literally about 15 steps away from the dumpster. They need the money more than I do, so I just leave it and occasionally get some entertainment when someone gets excited as I walk away.
Part of the reason, as far as I can see, is because of the sheer numbers of the Chinese. Since labour is so freely available, there are people in blue coveralls picking up trash and sweeping the streets constantly. Even more effective than this are what we call the junkers. The junkers are essentially people who make a living by grabbing all the trash they can and recycling as much of it as possible. Apparently, it's quite profitable, so two interesting things occur because of this:
1) You see filthy people walking around with giant bags of crushed plastic with them (bags bigger than themselves).
2) People get excited to get your trash.
This second one is interesting. I won't even put large plastic stuff in bags anymore, I lay them in front of the dumpster, because people will run up to it all excited. They seriously yell and run for it. Fortunately, the junkers tend to work in groups, and seem to have territories, so I don't think I'll see anyone fighting someone else for my trash.
Even funnier is when I put beer bottles down by the dumpster. Now, I know there is a deposit on the bottles, but it's already so cheap (3 yuan == 44 cents CAD for a 700 mL bottle) that I honestly don't care. Even further, I bet the deposit is about one jiao (worth 0.1 yuan - the Chinese dime) and jiao are so worthless and hard to get rid of that you will see them discarded on tables or on the floor, and no one will bother to waste the time and effort to bend over in order to get the jiao. We even joke that beggars wouldn't bother to pick them up. Anyway, even non-junkers will get excited and run for the bottle, because the convenience store I bought the bottle from, and could get the deposit from is literally about 15 steps away from the dumpster. They need the money more than I do, so I just leave it and occasionally get some entertainment when someone gets excited as I walk away.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Day 34 - The Dark Soho Experience:
We went to the Soho yet again tonight. I wouldn't mention it, as normally the visits to the bar are routine: Haggle with the bartenders, get a 40 ounce bottle of vodka and some coke for 250 yuan, drink, chat with Li Bin Hui and the gogo girls, then stumble home. However, this time was a lot cooler. We only went because there was apparently some kind of party occuring today. Apparently, even days are lucky, as are Saturdays, and since 2 and 6 add up to 8 (a Chinese lucky number, or so I'm told), today is especially lucky. Chalk another one up for Chinese superstition.
Anyway, there were fireworks all over the place today, and Soho was having some special party. Li Bin Hui even text messaged me ahead of time to make sure I was coming, and he wanted to know how many people I was bringing. I'm going to guess that most, if not all, bars and anything else open late at night were celebrating tonight, because we had a brownout. The entire bar lost power. No music, no lights, nothing. It would've been pitch black, if Soho didn't have candles lit at every table as part of its look.
They lit even more candles, and kept selling booze right through, but they were facing the dilemma of entertaining the guests (ourselves included). They tried getting one of the bartenders to do his normal routine of juggling flaming bottles, but he was too drunk (possibly our fault... whoops), and the gogo dancers had nothing to dance to, so they just tried to look pretty and get people drunk.
So what happens? Drunken Laowhy attack! Jessica, Alex and Chris got up on stage, and did anything they could, while I was cheering from our table, and entertaining the tables around me. I tried to get up on stage, but Li Bin Hui told me not to, as apparently, I had been designated the job of entertaining the entire back of the bar. Li Bin Hui started bringing me free beer to cheers (Ganbay!) with people, and the girls and Chris were getting flaming shots up on stage to shoot, just to entertain people. Watching white people actually kept them happy for quite some time!
Because of all the cheers'ing we were doing, the whole night was hazy, but I'm glad I remember it all. We made a train of Chinese people, we gave English lessons, Chris and I sang on stage (everything from Happy Birthday, to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, to We Will Rock you). We Will Rock You went surprisingly well, because the beat was easy to keep, people actually helped, and they knew the lyrics, which was mind boggling! Apparently, everyone knows the words to Happy Birthday too, but they didn't like that one so much, I think because they knew it wasn't the gogo girl's birthday like we tried to pass off. Tough crowd.
Eventually, the bar stopped giving us booze (I'm told the manager is quite cheap, we get most of our free stuff from the lower employees and supervisors), so other customers starting giving us shots and drinks to keep dancing and singing. The only part of the night where I nearly got too drunk to control myself was around this time. One of the customers handed me a glass of what I thought was beer, and got me to Ganbay the bar from the stage. It turned out to be whisky. Now, the reason this hit me hard was because Ganbay is not like our version of Cheers. When someone yells Ganbay, you are expected to finish your drink, not sip from it. So I was there, up on stage with my half drunken swagger, and I yelled Ganbay and threw back my drink. Discovering that it was a full glass of whisky actually took me a few seconds after I had swallowed because my mouth was numb.
By the time 1 AM hit, most of the patrons had gone home, bored of the weird foreigners, so we took the juggling bartender, Li Bin Hui, and the gogo girls out to barbeque. It was a lot of fun, since I finally got to talk to Li Bin Hui outside of his work, and everybody sort of taught each other a bit of Chinese or English. I still struggle with the tones though. Jiao has 4 meanings I know of so far, depending on the tone (dime, name, teach, and pepper - as in green pepper). The gogo girls paid for the barbeque, which frustrated me a bit, since I know that while going out is relatively cheap for me, it isn't easy on their wallets, but I'm determined to pay the next round. Chris apparently treated them to a 200 yuan meal the other day anyway.
The Soho people are awesome. They treat us so well, they're fun, and they keep finding us ways to get free stuff, which is always a bonus. We ended the night with some arm wrestling between the Chinese guys and the White guys, and Rock Paper Scissors, which truly is an international sport. All in all, a very fun night, and I now love Chinese brownouts.
Anyway, there were fireworks all over the place today, and Soho was having some special party. Li Bin Hui even text messaged me ahead of time to make sure I was coming, and he wanted to know how many people I was bringing. I'm going to guess that most, if not all, bars and anything else open late at night were celebrating tonight, because we had a brownout. The entire bar lost power. No music, no lights, nothing. It would've been pitch black, if Soho didn't have candles lit at every table as part of its look.
They lit even more candles, and kept selling booze right through, but they were facing the dilemma of entertaining the guests (ourselves included). They tried getting one of the bartenders to do his normal routine of juggling flaming bottles, but he was too drunk (possibly our fault... whoops), and the gogo dancers had nothing to dance to, so they just tried to look pretty and get people drunk.
So what happens? Drunken Laowhy attack! Jessica, Alex and Chris got up on stage, and did anything they could, while I was cheering from our table, and entertaining the tables around me. I tried to get up on stage, but Li Bin Hui told me not to, as apparently, I had been designated the job of entertaining the entire back of the bar. Li Bin Hui started bringing me free beer to cheers (Ganbay!) with people, and the girls and Chris were getting flaming shots up on stage to shoot, just to entertain people. Watching white people actually kept them happy for quite some time!
Because of all the cheers'ing we were doing, the whole night was hazy, but I'm glad I remember it all. We made a train of Chinese people, we gave English lessons, Chris and I sang on stage (everything from Happy Birthday, to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, to We Will Rock you). We Will Rock You went surprisingly well, because the beat was easy to keep, people actually helped, and they knew the lyrics, which was mind boggling! Apparently, everyone knows the words to Happy Birthday too, but they didn't like that one so much, I think because they knew it wasn't the gogo girl's birthday like we tried to pass off. Tough crowd.
Eventually, the bar stopped giving us booze (I'm told the manager is quite cheap, we get most of our free stuff from the lower employees and supervisors), so other customers starting giving us shots and drinks to keep dancing and singing. The only part of the night where I nearly got too drunk to control myself was around this time. One of the customers handed me a glass of what I thought was beer, and got me to Ganbay the bar from the stage. It turned out to be whisky. Now, the reason this hit me hard was because Ganbay is not like our version of Cheers. When someone yells Ganbay, you are expected to finish your drink, not sip from it. So I was there, up on stage with my half drunken swagger, and I yelled Ganbay and threw back my drink. Discovering that it was a full glass of whisky actually took me a few seconds after I had swallowed because my mouth was numb.
By the time 1 AM hit, most of the patrons had gone home, bored of the weird foreigners, so we took the juggling bartender, Li Bin Hui, and the gogo girls out to barbeque. It was a lot of fun, since I finally got to talk to Li Bin Hui outside of his work, and everybody sort of taught each other a bit of Chinese or English. I still struggle with the tones though. Jiao has 4 meanings I know of so far, depending on the tone (dime, name, teach, and pepper - as in green pepper). The gogo girls paid for the barbeque, which frustrated me a bit, since I know that while going out is relatively cheap for me, it isn't easy on their wallets, but I'm determined to pay the next round. Chris apparently treated them to a 200 yuan meal the other day anyway.
The Soho people are awesome. They treat us so well, they're fun, and they keep finding us ways to get free stuff, which is always a bonus. We ended the night with some arm wrestling between the Chinese guys and the White guys, and Rock Paper Scissors, which truly is an international sport. All in all, a very fun night, and I now love Chinese brownouts.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Day 33 - Electronics and Nan Chan Se
Chris and I made it out to the electronics market today (finally). This place was called Dream World, and to a rich geek, it really would be. Four floors of computer parts of all types. I say rich geek, because a lot of tech stuff is more expensive in China, despite it being manufactured here. My theory is because of shipping costs. I'm fairly certain that the stuff is manufactured, then sent to Canada/USA/wherever to be assembled/packaged (so they can claim it is an American product, or wherever it was assembled), then it gets sent back to China for retail sale.
A second contributor to the price problem is clearly the colour of my skin. I was asking around the floor that had video cards all over the place for a certain model of video card that is quite new. I know the high end version of this goes for upwards of 600 bucks CAD (as of the time I left Canada, anyway). The low end version sells for 250-300 bucks CAD. They offered me the low end version, for the high end price. I laughed and said no. Sometimes, I think they forget that my lack of mastery on the language does not equal stupidity. I wouldn't be asking model numbers and questions about memory if I didn't know what I wanted and what price to expect.
Eventually, Chris and I found a spot that carried laptop batteries and I communicated (mostly with pen and paper) that I needed a laptop battery for the plane ride back. This went fine, as I brought the model number (see?!) of the battery, my laptop, along with the voltage ratings and the mAh of the battery. My problem was that they clearly didn't know much about batteries, as I wanted a high charge battery (something with higher mAh) to hold a longer charge. The plane ride is 12 hours, and I only have battery power for 3 of them. They kept saying a higher mAh wasn't doable, or that it would damage the laptop. I insisted, so they called their provider.
"Provider" is simply the term I've given the mysterious men on the other side of the phone call. Every shop that doesn't have what you want, can get it within two days from some mystery man only a phone call away. I suspect it's just a family member sitting at home checking out Chinese eBay, or something along those lines. It's mildly suspicious, and I know the legality is probably a bit of a gray area, but it's nothing abnormal in China.
The provider came up with a battery close to what I want (7200 mAh, which should get me around 5 hours more laptop time), but I was looking for something closer to 9000 mAh. I'm still not sure I'm going to buy it even now after the event, but I humoured them and got a price. Surprisingly, the extended life battery was equivalent to about 77 bucks CAD. This is (I think, you can never be sure in China) a great price, relatively speaking. In Canada, an extended life battery goes for well over 100, sometimes even over 200. However, I hadn't even haggled yet, so this low price threw me off. I started wondering if the battery was new or refurbished, or if they were somehow screwing with me, so I got a bit scared off. I told them I'd think, and come back. They didn't like that so much, I got a lot of resistance and "You pay deposit now, pay now!"
Chris and I also headed over to Nan Chan Se, where we got prices for modded PS2's (for Rob), looked at some games, and just random adventuring. What amazed me is how efficient Chris and I are shopping together. I've said before that doing something in China usually takes setting aside the whole day, but Chris and I got through the electronic market in 2 hours, finding everything I wanted and then some, plus when we got to Nan Chan Se, I got a belt (finally!) and sunglasses. I had set aside a day of belt/sunglasses shopping before, and gotten nothing done. Today, I had gotten a good idea of my battery situation, prices and locations of the PS2's, an "authentic" Caivin Klein leather belt (that's NOT a typo), and polarized sunglasses. It was the most productive day I've had in China yet.
A second contributor to the price problem is clearly the colour of my skin. I was asking around the floor that had video cards all over the place for a certain model of video card that is quite new. I know the high end version of this goes for upwards of 600 bucks CAD (as of the time I left Canada, anyway). The low end version sells for 250-300 bucks CAD. They offered me the low end version, for the high end price. I laughed and said no. Sometimes, I think they forget that my lack of mastery on the language does not equal stupidity. I wouldn't be asking model numbers and questions about memory if I didn't know what I wanted and what price to expect.
Eventually, Chris and I found a spot that carried laptop batteries and I communicated (mostly with pen and paper) that I needed a laptop battery for the plane ride back. This went fine, as I brought the model number (see?!) of the battery, my laptop, along with the voltage ratings and the mAh of the battery. My problem was that they clearly didn't know much about batteries, as I wanted a high charge battery (something with higher mAh) to hold a longer charge. The plane ride is 12 hours, and I only have battery power for 3 of them. They kept saying a higher mAh wasn't doable, or that it would damage the laptop. I insisted, so they called their provider.
"Provider" is simply the term I've given the mysterious men on the other side of the phone call. Every shop that doesn't have what you want, can get it within two days from some mystery man only a phone call away. I suspect it's just a family member sitting at home checking out Chinese eBay, or something along those lines. It's mildly suspicious, and I know the legality is probably a bit of a gray area, but it's nothing abnormal in China.
The provider came up with a battery close to what I want (7200 mAh, which should get me around 5 hours more laptop time), but I was looking for something closer to 9000 mAh. I'm still not sure I'm going to buy it even now after the event, but I humoured them and got a price. Surprisingly, the extended life battery was equivalent to about 77 bucks CAD. This is (I think, you can never be sure in China) a great price, relatively speaking. In Canada, an extended life battery goes for well over 100, sometimes even over 200. However, I hadn't even haggled yet, so this low price threw me off. I started wondering if the battery was new or refurbished, or if they were somehow screwing with me, so I got a bit scared off. I told them I'd think, and come back. They didn't like that so much, I got a lot of resistance and "You pay deposit now, pay now!"
Chris and I also headed over to Nan Chan Se, where we got prices for modded PS2's (for Rob), looked at some games, and just random adventuring. What amazed me is how efficient Chris and I are shopping together. I've said before that doing something in China usually takes setting aside the whole day, but Chris and I got through the electronic market in 2 hours, finding everything I wanted and then some, plus when we got to Nan Chan Se, I got a belt (finally!) and sunglasses. I had set aside a day of belt/sunglasses shopping before, and gotten nothing done. Today, I had gotten a good idea of my battery situation, prices and locations of the PS2's, an "authentic" Caivin Klein leather belt (that's NOT a typo), and polarized sunglasses. It was the most productive day I've had in China yet.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Finally!
I'm getting started on posting all the stuff I've written over the past month. Sorry it took so long to get online, but Internet's hard for me to get to, and wireless signals are few and far between here.
Here we go...
Here we go...
Monday, May 21, 2007
Bowel Movements:
Disclaimer: If the title didn't tip you off, this is going to be a bit of a crude post, so those with weak stomachs, bladders and the faint hearted should not go on. As for the rest of you, consider yourselves warned.
Just once in China, just once, I'd like to walk out of the bathroom without thinking something along the lines of "Well, I don't know what just happened, but that was weird!". Travelling to China apparently makes just about everyone (the foreigners, anyway) talk very openly about bowel movements. Questions like "So... you solid?" are not uncommon in my apartment. The worst part, in my opinion, is that you never know what's going to happen when you walk ominously into the bathroom. You just know it probably isn't going to go well. It is for this reason I have decided to classify the behaviours of my unforgiving digestive system:
"Solid Shit"
A rarity in China, this one is a normal trip to the bathroom to those of you in first world countries.
"Mud Butt"
This is where I feel like I'm peeing brown out my ass. It's severely dehydrating as well.
"The Plug"
You sit (or squat, if a western toilet is not accessible) and start off with something like a Solid Shit. Typically, this has a constipated beginning, followed by great relief when a normal poop begins. Once the first one drops (the plug), the rest of your time in the washroom is spent enjoying the wonders of Mud Butt, or something like it. This is often accompanied by many thoughts of "Why can't my ass make up its mind?!" and "Oh God, what next?". If I were religious, this would probably also include prayers.
"Rapid Fire"
A constant flow of little soft bullets coming out of your behind. None are terribly large, and the consistency is not great, though far more preferable to the infamous Mud Butt.
Earlier in the blog, I posted something about customers warning me at Staples that when I am in China, I am going to have low grade diarrhea. This has not been totally true, though it is becoming more true as time goes on and I've been in China longer.
I also mentioned something about Western toilets and Squat toilets. I have found there's about a 30-40% chance of getting a Western sit-down toilet in any given store. Squat toilets are a bit of an adventure, though often frustrating, because they take too much concentration. You have to make sure you hit the target (the bowl), you have to keep squatting in the same position, you have to make sure you don't pee on yourself, you have to make sure you don't poop on your pants, and it's all just too much work. I want to just sit down and wait for it. That's it. Especially since kids use the squat toilets too, and suck at aiming.
Just once in China, just once, I'd like to walk out of the bathroom without thinking something along the lines of "Well, I don't know what just happened, but that was weird!". Travelling to China apparently makes just about everyone (the foreigners, anyway) talk very openly about bowel movements. Questions like "So... you solid?" are not uncommon in my apartment. The worst part, in my opinion, is that you never know what's going to happen when you walk ominously into the bathroom. You just know it probably isn't going to go well. It is for this reason I have decided to classify the behaviours of my unforgiving digestive system:
"Solid Shit"
A rarity in China, this one is a normal trip to the bathroom to those of you in first world countries.
"Mud Butt"
This is where I feel like I'm peeing brown out my ass. It's severely dehydrating as well.
"The Plug"
You sit (or squat, if a western toilet is not accessible) and start off with something like a Solid Shit. Typically, this has a constipated beginning, followed by great relief when a normal poop begins. Once the first one drops (the plug), the rest of your time in the washroom is spent enjoying the wonders of Mud Butt, or something like it. This is often accompanied by many thoughts of "Why can't my ass make up its mind?!" and "Oh God, what next?". If I were religious, this would probably also include prayers.
"Rapid Fire"
A constant flow of little soft bullets coming out of your behind. None are terribly large, and the consistency is not great, though far more preferable to the infamous Mud Butt.
Earlier in the blog, I posted something about customers warning me at Staples that when I am in China, I am going to have low grade diarrhea. This has not been totally true, though it is becoming more true as time goes on and I've been in China longer.
I also mentioned something about Western toilets and Squat toilets. I have found there's about a 30-40% chance of getting a Western sit-down toilet in any given store. Squat toilets are a bit of an adventure, though often frustrating, because they take too much concentration. You have to make sure you hit the target (the bowl), you have to keep squatting in the same position, you have to make sure you don't pee on yourself, you have to make sure you don't poop on your pants, and it's all just too much work. I want to just sit down and wait for it. That's it. Especially since kids use the squat toilets too, and suck at aiming.
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