I'm Ticked Off

Dear Google and every other stupid search engine on the planet:

Just because I am writing from China doesn't mean you should detect the country and then FRICKIN' SWITCH the language of the page I'm accessing from English to Chinese.

You even do this on my own damn blog. I refuse to sign in or touch a page when I cannot read the language it's in.

If I am using Google English, I expect it to stay in Google English. If I am using another site, and I'm typing away in English, I will be extremely, extremely pissed off if YOUR computer suddently realizes that I'm accessing from within China and changes the page I'm using, AS I'M USING IT, to Chinese.

What's really upsetting for me is the face I use a VPN which is supposed to make my presence on the Net far more secure than it actually is.

Oh, and MSN? BING is frickin' annoying, hard to use, and when I'm typing in something into the MSN address bar, I do NOT want it to default immediately to a Bing Search in--you guessed it--Chinese.

You suck for doing this. I have spoken.

Puppy Love

I have two horrid little doggies, one which was my first dog ever, the other one I took in after its family had to repatriate. That one was a nice little doggy but he quickly learned that Ayi loved him to bits and he became a Little Emperor. In addition, I rescue a pet every year, help it to recover, then find a nice family for it. So far we've saved several little doggies, losing only one to distemper, and the families that adopt these pets have not turned out to be jerks. They're lucky little doggies.

As for my two divas, well, they're no dummies. Dog Number One, a four-year-old female, has been battling me to be Top Dog for quite some time. If I have her to myself for a while (that is, without Ayi) she's fine. She's docile, well-behaved, and loves to go on her walks and runs. However, if Ayi's been around, Dog Number One wants to be hand-fed, carried from place to place, and stroked constantly. Suffice to say, Princess didn't take too kindly to having other pets around--such as the rescue puppies, or our other house mate, the Little Emperor. Little Emperor, aged six, male, and with his junk still intact, is a good-natured Peke with a wide smile and forgiving nature. Unlike the Chihuahua puppy who at the age of six weeks was kicking Princess's ass (she's still terrified of the breed) The Emperor calmly stays his ground and tolerates Princess's freak outs in a manner reminiscent of my dear departed grandfather and his wife Totsy. However, even his patience is tried by Princess's latest and oddest behavior. Princess, who is spayed (or is it neutered?) has taken to mounting the Little Emperor from behind and,  ahem, trying to peg the Peke. I have no idea what Cesar Milan would say to this--must look it up.

Did Ayi teach her to do this, and if so, HOW? She is responsible for teaching them both to beg (a bad bad habit) as well as teaching them to fetch bits of sausage out of her mouth, which is so horrific that you have to see it in person to understand just how gruesome it is. Two doggies  is well beyond the legal limit and in two months' time I will have to go pay their yearly licensing fee of 1,000 RMB to keep them legal residents of the city. Actually, the rate depends on what area of town you live in, and whether or not the Animal Control Officer on duty likes you or not: sometimes I pay the foreigner's fee (2000) and sometimes the local's  (500.) Diplomats  pay only 20 kuai. Technically, only  dog can be registered to my household so Doggy Number Two will be registered to a friend who lives near by. Two dogs is a lot of work and to tell the truth, if I didn't have them I wouldn't bother having an Ayi. However, I have them, and I have her, and she loves them, so except for the drain on my wallet, and the turn of my stomach when they retrieve a Vienna sausage from her mouth,  it's all good.

However, as I was walking to work this morning I saw a woman trot by with a fat little puppy tumbling after her and my heart melted and I said "OOOOOooooooooohhhhhhh," and I realized that every hormone in my body was shouting, "Me want cute puppy!"  I'm perimenopausal and made a mental note to ask my sister to send me some of the hormone cream that Oprah raves about (now with even more yam!) and perhaps daily application will calm the forest that has sprung up on my chin and quell the puppy love in my heart. Two dogs is crazy, three is just plain nuts. 

Seduced and Abandoned...

Without a good man's name, she dreams of Indiana while she walks the streets of shame. (I'd still like to hear that song sung--haven't ever heard it, just heard the lyrics quoted.)

I just deleted a post, not because it's untrue or anything but rather, I don't want to put that much negativity into the world.

Basically, someone went behind my back and lied about it as well. I am a control freak about many things (it's also called PROFESSIONALISM, folks) and someone I have had a rocky time with anyway used my name to get his foot in a door, lied about it, and when confronted had the gall to state if I "stuck with him I could really go places," because he had--and again, I quote-- "a major in with this place."

Yeah, the "in" is ME. I heard from the company in question---my relationship with them is fine, they are not aware that I did not know anything about this other person, other than what information they forwarded me directly, and I am not going to poison the internet with more of my own brand of vitriol.

Suffice to say, if you claim to be my friend and then cross me, particularly behind my back, you are not anyone I will work with again. I don't have to "get you back", as just being that much of an asshole is going to trip you up anyway. Just don't ask for my help when you're down.

Beijing Pets

This is a culture which does not, in general, hold a sentimental attitude towards animals which extends any further than a photo op. At Girls Street, a shopping area for you guessed it, women, I see young things buy puppies long enough to have their picture taken with them in a variety of poses and settings. As soon as puppy does something "bad" such as pee (usually IN the owner's purse) it's beaten, thrown away, or in one case, picked up my Sweet Young Thing's thuggish-looking elderly boyfriend, hit over the head, and tossed away (not even tossed into the garbage can nearby.) A lot of people buy their kids pets, such as chicks, rabbits, and puppies, then "set them free" in local parks, figuring that animals can fend for themselves. I am sure that you understand that, having been raised badly by humans, THEY CAN'T.  In some areas of Beijing there are some alleys the locals don't dare to use due to the packs of feral cats and dogs fighting for their survival there. One of my friends lives in a chi-chi housing complex which was designed for people with disabilities--he has an important job in TV so he got this cushy, government-sponsored flat almost for free--and he was bitching to me about the number of abandoned animals. In the meantime, the fact there's a beggar with cerebral palsy outside guarding Friend's car from dogs peeing on it in exchange for a few small coins does not attract his attention or compassion.

On the flip side, for every little doggie chained up outside the owner's front door, never released, and forced to live in a dark apartment hallway for its lifetime, there is the highly spoiled dog--usually a Little Dog--which is wearing a hand-knit cashmere sweater with ruffles AND sequins, and possibly white go-go boots as well. Some of the local dogs have more extensive, if not better, wardrobes than I do. Their owners take them for long rambling walks--leashless--and usually fall over in laughter if their dog attacks another. I have realized recently that my own pets are a tad on the obnoxious side and have taken back my power as Lead Dog. This does not mean, however, that I am willing to be the poor sucker who takes them to be groomed, which is where they are headed today under Ayi's loving guidance.  (I have to teach.) In a few short hours, they will return, stepping proud and daintily, showing off fresh pedicures and trims and blowouts, and refusing to wear their little coats for fear of ruining the line of their new 'dos.

Oral English

So, I was conducting a few tiny oral exams with students, just trying to get a feel for which students had basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and which might have cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP.) Basically, BICS is when you can mess around with your friends, play games, pay a simple bill at the bank, pick up babes: at the CALP level, you're able to listen to a lecture in the foreign language, take notes on it, and even write coherently on the topic. I asked some basic questions, but ones which are NOT taught at New Oriental or whatever cram school my students attend during the break. Among them, "What's your favorite day of the year?" "What do you like to cook?" "How did you spend last weekend?" and "Do you prefer to communicate with your friends in person, or by email and text messages?"

Responses: "I like the Fist of Oprah because it is very funny and we can do tricks." Translation: I like the First of April, it's fun and we can play tricks on one another. 

"I really like Spoiled Eggs. I am a very good cooker Spoiled Eggs." Translation: I really like boiled eggs. I cook them well."

"I curled up with my thing." Translation: I curled up with a magazine. 
"I like common mouth to mouth." Translation: I like to communicate face-to-face.

My translations are accurate as I had the luxury of stopping the student and asking what they meant. English is a notoriously difficult language to master, and goodness knows when I speak Chinese I too make a ton of funny mistakes, such as the time I was walking down the street with my in laws. It began to sprinkle and I said in amazement, "Xia xue le!" which means, it's snowing.Only I meant to say, "It's raining." But, pronounced as it was by my thick foreign tongue, it meant "My period just started and I'm not pregnant, whew!" My mother-in-law burst into laughter and had to collapse on a park bench to collect herself while my father-in-law marched ahead, stony-faced. Mother-in-law then proceeded to mime to me what I had said, complete with obvious gestures and facial expressions, and I pretty much gave up using Chinese with them at that point. (Plus I divorced their son a week later, so that didn't help the relationship much.)

English Teachers Wanted, Dumb A%$es Need Not Apply

I am, like most of my friends, a professional English teacher. I teach English as a Second Language in the US and Canada, and English as a Foreign Language in other countries, including China. For this I have basic teaching certification, an ESL endorsement, and not one but two Master's degrees in the field. I've worked in many countries in many different situations: universities, cram schools, private tutoring centers, high schools, grade schools, and so on.

However, this is a field filled with imposters, and in China, there are virtually no standards laid down by the government as to who can teach. An 18-year-old recent high school graduate was offered THE SAME JOB I HAVE at the SAME HOURLY SALARY. (Technically, he SHOULD be a college graduate, but someone pulled some strings.) He's perhaps six months older than one or two of the students. He showed up for work yesterday and I thought he was an exchange student at the school--we have a few of those. Our Program Director spoke highly of him: they hired him because he can speak some "very good Chinese" and can therefore "explain what is meaning" to students. I sat in shock. I know the kid they hired. His Chinese is limited to negotiating for cheap beer and smokes, and he can't tell you in English, let alone Chinese, what a verb is. ("I don't know, it's like, grammar, or something?" he responded when my tart-tongue boss asked.)

Who else applied? A fifty-year-old person I know who has two Master's degrees, teaching certification,  a CELTA certificate from Cambridge University, and FLUENT CHINESE. Needless to say, this person isn't as "cute" as the blonde surfer dude, although a point in her favor is that she doesn't have acne. At a Quiz Night a few weeks ago--when I met Surfer Dude--he told me he was planning on taking some "high-paying" teaching job for a month or two to get enough money to "do" South-East Asia because it had, like, culture, and the grass was really cheap. (Hey, there's a winner for you!) Now, I could tell my boss that, or I could just wait for the fall-out... 

Several of my friends who teach are facing a similar problem: a LOT of people quit during the long holiday and schools are scrambling to replace them with any white body they can find, qualified or no. My friend Suzie Q, who will kill me if she reads this, found out last night that they lost half their department. As she said to me on the phone--between sobs and fits of anger--- "If they expect me to whip a decent curriculum OUT OF MY ASS with NO PLANNING TIME and without so much as a full set of textbooks, they are frickin' DREAMING!" And yet--Surfer Boy walked into his classrooms that day completely unprepared, told the students to look up words in a dictionary and write the meaning in Chinese, and his students obeyed, enchanted. Afterwards, they snapped pictures of him with their cell phones. Curriculum? Just play games. Scope and sequence? Just play games. Vocabulary? That's what dictionaries are for, right? He's there for the photo op.

 There's a lesson here: good schools with good management can retain their staff throughout the contract period, no matter how unhappy the staff might be. If a teacher decamps without warning, it's a sign that something seriously wrong is going on. If you are stepping into a position that has been suddenly vacated, don't tap dance through the minefield. Stroll. Quietly. Collect your pay. Don't make eye contact. Get out while you still have a soul. Then send me an email and tell me why and how you quit. Did you make it through the contract period?

UPDATE: Hooray, hooray, Chinese public schools in  major cities now require teachers to have degrees and many require teaching certification! I had a degree in English but no teacher training when I started out and I was AWFUL. Thank God I was only teaching adults conversational English--no damage done to kids.  Teacher training helps the teacher to do the job.  Would you want to go see a doctor who had never gone to medical school? Would you send your kid to one? Bless China for upping the standards. 

Fireworks

Last night was the Lantern Festival, the last night of Spring Festival. I'm getting ready for work--got to teach those fresh young minds, right?-- but I'm so groggy and cranky that I almost pity my students (all 95 or so.) You see, the fireworks lasted until 2 a.m. or thereabouts, with the random string of firecrackers going off intermittently until dawn. The dogs flatly refused to go outside--one peed on the carpet by the front door and I couldn't blame him--and now, cranky and tired and out of sorts, I go to school to find out if my schedule changed, what classes I teach, and oh, yes, incidentally, to pick up brand-new textbooks where I will be expected to fill out a semester's worth of lesson plans before noon while simultaneously teaching 3 or 4 groups of  up to 32 kids.

The Chinese teachers, who teach smaller classes, averaging only 5 classes PER WEEK to the foreign teacher's 26, have known for three weeks what their schedule is, what their texts are, and will have until April to file their lesson plans. Can you understand my grumpiness? I could have a whole new lot of students--new texts (never with the Teacher's Edition or Answer Keys so I have to do every damn page myself to provide a Key for students)--and the stress of an impossible deadline. Oh, I'll give you a semester-long teaching plan all right: just don't expect it to be remotely accurate.

A ton of new China hands quit this Spring Festival--one school I know had four out of five quit--and my email inbox is filled with requests begging me to teach. Funny thing though--desperate as they are to hire, the Chinese schools are offering these replacement teachers only HALF the salary per month as the other foreign teachers! Bit of pocket lining going on, eh? Many people see confusion and disaster as a gold mine for making a bit on the side, both here and in whatever country you come from: Management will be so glad to have those teaching posts filled that they won't question why half the salary is being paid in cash to a Chinese teacher. It's not my business and yet...if you are a new hire, beware.

Lanterns Ho!

It's the Lantern Festival, the last night of the two week Chinese New Year celebration, which means up here in Beijing there will be zero lanterns but several million fireworks, firecrackers, and drunks mistakenly shooting off their thumbs. I am up very early, getting ready to trek across town with two sets of gifts for the Mas, the elderly couple who have been my close friends and surrogate grandparents to Lulu for the past thirteen years. He's crippled and she's battling a serious and fatal disease. It makes me very sad to think that they're in decline, and that the most I can do is show up on an auspicious day with a gift in my hands. At the same time my dear old friend Jane is ill---TB---and while we can't work out the legalities of my taking her son into my home right now, it looks like I've acquired a six-year-old son for the summer. So I guess this holiday period really is my first and last vacation for quite some time...Lulu and her friend will be in town all summer as well (yay, free babysitting) and as I recall there is very little rest with a six-year-old around.

Back to Lantern Festival. It's a bigger deal in other areas and some cities will have parades, where people have beautiful and fanciful lanterns in fantastic shapes, make of bamboo and paper and lighted with real candles. Many Beijingers, not being into the aesthetics so much, will settle for buying a kid a cheap plastic mass-produced toy (usually one which has the "benefit" of an electronic squeaker or siren as well to make it "more fun") which breaks after five minutes. This may take the form of a fat baby in a red diaper atop a fish, or a string of firecrackers, or a drum. In my compound--filled with wannabe Yuppies--the few children who are here are being raised by grandparents who are torn between giving the grandchild--the family God--whatever they want, and not wasting money on foolishness. Most of them did not have lanterns in childhood--too non-PC, not able to afford it, etc---and they'll just stay at home tonight and watch TV (free) and scold their grandkids for not evidencing signs of genius yet. The parents? Just getting back to their corporate-sponsored luxury apartments in downtown Beijing, fresh from that trip to San Ya at the company expense. Did I mention that most kids here--at least half--are raised only by grandparents? And that these grandparents didn't raise their own kids, and are fairly clueless? It makes for an interesting sight.

I've always wanted to attend a Lantern Festival parade but when I'm in a part of China that really celebrates it, something always happens, such as a drop-in guest who thinks it's a waste of time and just wants to practice Oral English ("My ear is wicked!") or rather spectacularly, a wash of vomit from Lulu from the time she had appendicitis. I am content to see pictures for now. I will get to a real Lantern Festival celebration some day, I'm sure--hell, next year I should throw a party and make my own --- but tonight, it's me, the pile of homework I have to whittle down, and two little dogs refusing to come out from under the bed until the damn firecrackers stop. (Good luck with that one.) 

A Backwards Shag is a Just a Hop

I was dining with my older-but-wiser Southern Belle friend. She's not only smart, and tough, and funny, but she's a psychologist too (which can be a pain in the ass sometimes if you're being highly passive aggressive, but think about it--nice to have a good knock to the head when you need it, eh?) Knowing her is like having Her Royal Highness Jill Conner Browne the Boss Sweet Potato Queenin your pocket. For the record, I am a Queen myself but my chapter membership has dwindled down to one, as everyone moved away or got too busy at work to have fun, but I will survive.

Anyhoo, two things came up during our lunch: First, I have never slow-danced. Never. Not even though Chuck Mangione's "Last Dance" put me into a depressive funk when I was 14 from which I have never quite emerged, and not even when I actually had a boyfriend. Come to think of it, only gay boys dance with me --even my husband wouldn't dance with me at our wedding but hie'd himself off to some Titty Pit, still clad in his wedding bib and tucker---and gay boys seldom slow dance with the ladies. I didn't go to any high school dances and I certainly was not invited to the Prom (and yet, I was cute, go figure.) I worked my way through college, so there were no dances there, and none of my friends had dancing at their weddings. Or if they did, they were not the slow-dance numbers. So there--I have never had the experience of slow dancing, with or without a stiffy pressed into my thighs. It was suggested at lunch that while I do indeed have some of what the Sweet Potato Queens label as The Five Men You Must Have In Your Life At All Times, I do not have Someone to Dance With. Even the Someone To Have Great Sex With--who doubles as The Man I Can Talk to--does not dance with me, and I am sure if I asked him to slow dance with me to get me over some developmental hurdle I should have passed at sixteen (but didn't) he'd probably give me the same shocked look he gave me once when I said rather drunkenly I had cramps and could we please cuddle.

Second: I love dancing, and I'm ticked off I don't dance anymore. I've substituted snide comments and lonely posts for joyous movement, and I will start going to Swing Club this month, no matter the potential humiliation (I don't know any steps) or potential damage to my fragile knees. Southern Belle Friend (let's call her SBF) was big into dancing in her hey day--which was the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's, but she's not dancing much these days. While I encouraged her to join one of the Swing Dance Clubs here, she waved her hand in dismissal, then started on a discussion of the regional dances of the American South.

For one thing, she's a Shagger. The Shag is fairly localized to South and North Carolina (according to SBF.) It's not too fast, not too slow. However, SBF related one story about the Shag which I found really interesting. Apparently when she moved to Birmingham, she tried to dance at some of the local clubs. Somehow her steps just didn't mesh: her male partner would be ready to twirl her and she'd be in the middle of some complicated step. She'd be ready to twirl and her partner would be swinging in the opposite direction. Finally someone told her that back in the 50's, some man from Birmingham went to North Carolina, learned to dance The Shag, and brought it back to Birmingham where he taught it widely. However, he got the steps backwards, and taught it in reverse--and the shag, backwards, is really just a Hop.

I sat open mouthed during this recitation--oh, linguistic minefield! The two Brits at the next table glared at me as I chortled, "You mean a backwards Shag is just a Hop?" Of course you can read more into this--how Western courtship rituals don't mesh with Beijing ones, how out of step we are, etc, but what I took away more than anything from this conversation, as well as my disastrous Karaoke Date Night (where friends rescued me, thank GOD) is that you have to dance with a crowd whose steps fit your own, if you really want to swing.

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's...

So, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and as you are all aware, I do not have a boyfriend. This being the case, a co-worker at Mysterious Job Number Two questioned why I was happy about it being St. V's day, and why this would prompt me to bake peppermint brownies. (Recipe to follow.)

First of all, he's not getting any (brownies, that is.) Don't question my traditions. I like to bake, I have to work, it's a holiday, and I have to use up the Hershey Candy Cane Christmas Kisses  soon, before I remember they're in the house and start devouring them. Second of all, what is more soothing to the soul than the smell of baking chocolate? I don't actually enjoy eating brownies as much as I enjoy smelling and making them. Right now my neighbors are pea-green with envy from the delectable smells arising from my microwave. They've been poos, and I won't give them any, either. One I will cut and wrap up for my pregnant friend Coco (it's for her little Cocoa Bean, as I have dubbed the unborn one) and the rest go to work, where I will fling them on a table prior to sitting down to my Mysterious Job Number Two. With luck, they will be eaten quickly without any asshole comments (such as, "I didn't know they'd be sweet" or "What mix is this?" or "Do these have, like, chocolate in them? Because I'm like totally allergic.") but I'm not holding my breath.

I dined on deep-fried bits of meat done by Ayi, left thoughtfully on  plate covered by a bowl in the kitchen, just for me. I wasn't really hungry, but if I don't eat up what Ayi leaves for me the day she leaves it, she will feed it to the dogs for breakfast. (Revenge, thy name is  Passive Agressive Women .) BTW, if you make breaded pork cutlets, you completely change the experince by throwing in some toasted cumin seed into the breading. Really changes things up. I like nice plain food on occasion---potato pancakes with sour cream and applesauce, for example, and lately I've been craving Ranch Dressing. The pork cutlets with cumin, however, sort of jolted me out of this and into a different palate of taste.

Brownies: These microwave BEAUTIFULLY. Melt 9 tablespoons of butter (half-cup plus one tablespoon). You can nuke it or do in on the stove top, but whatever you do, you must let it get back to room temperature before you mix in other ingredients. Otherwise, as wiser women than I have noted, your brownies will be very heavy and kind of dry. Since you're nuking these, and it's awfully easy to dry out anything being nuked, err on the side of caution and leave the stuff strictly alone for at least ten minutes. Go do your nails or something while it's cooling off. (This also gives any toast crumbs that may have accidentally been scooped into the pan a chance to settle, so you can fish them out.) Don't use bacon grease or olive oil. Bacon, which is actually delightful with chocolate, does not enliven baked goods (although it's a marvel on a Maple Bar.) Olive oil and chocolate--not a good combo either. If you have to go cholesterol-free, just don't bother with this recipe and make yourself some hot fudge (zero fat, if you use skim milk) and pour it on some fat-free ice milk and be happy.

When you return, stir in a cup and a half of white sugar, three eggs, a generous dollop of vanilla (at least a teaspoon, but not a tablespoon) and a pinch of salt. If you have the time and patience, you can then beat the shit out of this until it's light and fluffy and glossy and pours like a ribbon, which will ensure brownies with a lovely  meringue-like top. If you're me, you say the hell with it as you don't even have a proper wooden spoon anymore (thank you, Blessed Herbs Colon Cleanse) or some big-ass fancy mixer and so you just mix it up until it's fairly smooth and no yucky yellow lumps are showing. Now add 9 tablespoons of cocoa (that's a half-cup plus one tablespoon)   and stir in 12 tablespoons of flour, which is 3/4 of a cup or a half-cup plus a quarter cup or a half-cup plus four tablespoons (I spell this out as some of the women in my family are not really good at maths.) Gentle fold this in--do not beat--and as soon as it's more-or-less incorporated, pour it into a greased  and floured ( or cocoa'd) microwaveable pan--8 by 8 inches is good, but a round pie pan made of Pyrex is even better, as you can slice it into pie wedges when finished. Regardless, spread it in the pan, then sprinkle a bunch of cut-up Hershey Candy Cane Christmas Kisses  on top: sort of squish them in a bit so they're not all at the very top. Nuke on high power for six minutes, then check: done? Still squishy? Try another minute. Then another. Keep going until it's more or less set in the middle. There will indeed be some slightly wet places when you pull it out but these will dry up a few minutes out of the oven, because it's still cooking a bit. If you have used Pyrex (and I HEART THE STUFF!) the glass will retain quite a bit of heat and give your brownies a more finished appearance. Truthfully, you should let the stuff cool before attacking it. I mentioned earlier that I don't really like to eat brownies--I get a sugar rush, then I get cranky, and then I need a nap which is filled with my recurring dream of speeding along back country roads in search of a house I can call my own...I've had this dream so often that I know which road to take to go to which house and yet I somehow never get inside any of the houses...

These brownies are plain, simple, good, and can be dolled up a number of ways, such as using brown sugar and rum (instead of the vanilla), adding nuts, adding dollops of peanut butter, using a different liquor in place of the vanilla, using crushed-up peppermint sticks, adding a tablespoon of espresso powder, mint chocolate chips, plain semi-sweet chips, peanut butter chips, ad nauseum. They're the sub to a dominatrix dessert menu: they seem sweet and submissive but when all is said and done, they're really just there to make you their bitch. (That's probably why I don't eat them: I may empower someone, but I don't like to relinquish it.) (And that probably explains why I don't have a boyfriend on Valentine's Day.)

Happy Saint Valentine's Day to all of you: may you remember with gratitude and not a small amount of surprise how many people truly love you, warts and all.

Beijing and Cars

More than 30,000 new cars hit the road here every month in this city, each a dangerous weapon in the hand of a newly-licensed driver.  A friend's girlfriend gave me a lift home the other night and he and I screamed in terror about six times on the way home: the girlfriend shrugged off each near-accident and sped on, seeming unable to learn that accelerating and forcing someone off the road in a game of what amounted to "Chicken" was perhaps not the best way to stay accident-free (let alone alive.) This was BEFORE the snow hit: I can only imagine the little vixen gunning her engine and trying to stop on a kuai in the slush.

Most people drive as if this is the first day of Driver's Ed. I often see new drivers backing over fences, hitting small shrubs or trees, or racing through red lights. The attitude seems to be "I am invincible because I can afford a car." Most cannot back up, a fact the small fences in my compound attest to plainly. Children remain unrestrained: there are no car seats, and most don't even wear seat belts. I saw this on a morning walk: Dad drove, cigarette in mouth, while toddler son sat on his lap, hands on steering wheel. Older child--perhaps five--hung out the window with a glass bottle of Coke (hard to find here) and a stick lollipop in his mouth. Dad let toddler steer, which meant an impact with a delivery man's bicycle. It is his livelihood, I might add. Dad inspects the damage to his car, swears a blue streak at the delivery man for putting a dent in his car,  then gets back with toddler hanging off the back of his neck now--and drives off. Delivery man tries not to cry as he inspects his ruined bike. Crowd rumbles disapprovingly but the car apparently had some special license plate and no one wants to get involved. Older child vomits out the window, perhaps a result of the Coke bottle and lollipop working in tandem,  a move which garners much interest from the crowd. Suddenly Britney doesn't look so bad.

I Hate Jiaozi

You call them wontons: I call them jiaozi, and I don't care if they're boiled, frozen, freshly made or stir-fried (aka "potstickers") I hate them.

When I was a newbie here, I was invited to people's homes for dinner a lot. It was incredibly sweet, especially as nobody had a whole lot of anything back then. It's harder then hell to cook a lot when all you have is a single gas-burner, and I do deeply appreciate the effort people put into the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and supervision of dumb white guests. However, and this is a big however, sometime around 1995, someone decided the proper food for dumb white guests was jiaozi, and the entertainment for the evening should be making jiaozi.

So picture this: you're invited to dinner, and you get there, and you find everyone grinning like apes. Why? Because you have to help make dinner. They wheel out a barrel of flour. For the first time ever, you notice flat uncluttered surfaces in  a Chinese house. And then the hideous process begins: someone begins to mix flour with warm water and the stretching, pounding, roping and strippling begins. That's just to make the dough. The protein in the flour has to be developed into ropey gluten so the dough can be stretched. Ugh. This is a long long process and if you offer to help---being a hell of a great strudel maker--everyone will laugh at you and tell you how YOU don't know ANYTHING about jiaozi.

This is pretty much the crux of the matter. Even if you shoot pasta out your ass without trying, everone will assure you that you don't know squat. So you sit through the tedious process of beating the tar out of the dough. Then you sit through the resting period. Someone brings you a cup of tea. You're famished, and consider eating the cup. While this is happening, you hope for snacks: alas, none, as no one wants to take the edge off that first bite of jiaozi goodness. You'd think someone would take this opportunity to mix up the filling and let the flavors blend a bit but no, everyone sits around and stares at you, the pet foreigner. Pictures may be taken. Someone whom you have never seen before may come over for their promised English lesson. Oh, didn't the host tell you? He's studying for an important exam and you are going to teach him what he needs to know for the test. You've never heard of the test and in your coversation with the student you discover that if he passes this test, he's going to the UK as a lecturer in economics, and yet his English is on the "I am happy meet you Dear Friend" level. If that. At one point he refers to Milton as a "bourgeous proletariat revolutionary" and you try not to bean him with your empty cup. Very empty cup. So now you're hungry AND thirsty. Can it get worse?

But wait, it does. They are now pinching out bits of dough, then rolling them with little rolling pins that look like fat cigars. The rolling pins are dandy and might do well for that pie you were thinking of baking--mmmm, pie---but then you discover, as they roll on, and on, and on, that they intend to make over 2,000 jiaozi that very night, so they have PLENTY to give to visitors during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and that every last one will be filled, stuffed, folded, and sealed shut that very evening before the first go into the pot to be cooked.

You wait, drooling, while 2,000 tiny wonton wrappers are rolled out before your eyes. Then the host comments on how he needs to put on his coat and buy the meat for the filling. "It's better fresh," he tells you as he heads out the door. So now you wait while the host tries to find an open butcher shop---it's now about a quarter past eight--and you wait, and wait, and wait, until he returns, triumphant, a sack of ground meat in his hand. Oh god, it's pork, and you are about to have pork-and-ginger jiaozi. The pork is dumped into a big wooden bowl. Ingredients--chopped ginger, and a LOT of salt--are tipped in. Now the humiliation begins. Before you can say "trichinosis" someone hands you a circle of dough, a teaspoon with raw pork, and instructs you to fold the dumpling up exactly the way they did. Having grown up with Czech great-aunts who taught you a thing or two about noodles, you make a respectable little dumpling. Everyone stares at you as if you just took dump in the jiaozi mix then bursts into laughter. Your dumpling is passed around so they can see HOW STUPID you are, you can't even fold a jiaozi! You notice, however, that EVERYONE'S jiaozi are folded in different ways but you keep silent as you think at this point if you talk you'll kill someone. Your feeble attempts at making jiaozi are put to the side, as they wouldn't want to hurt a real guest's feelings by serving them defective jiaozi. Someone seeing your disconsolate face (really, it's just hunger) tells you to cheer up because "Your bad jiaozi will open up and spill the content so no good for guests, you know we will cook them just for you and you eat and you will know what is good jiaozi." You want to say screw you all but can't, because it's not good manners and these people DID invite you over, even if they wrested a damn English lesson out of you, not to mention a photo op...You look up and notice with dismay that several of the family members are taking pictures of themselves wearing your discarded coat: they are showing how slim they are, and how they can wrap the coat around themselves with room to spare. My, so now they're mocking your clothes, your tastes, and the size of your ass. Fortunately, you are too weak with hunger to pick up a stool and brain Lao Tai Tai, the grandmother of the group who is showing that she can wrap your coat around herself twice, so you stay where you are and fold, fold, fold, even though each dumpling--lovely to your eye, firm, even, well-packed--gives rise to much merriment at your expense. But it's ok, as foreigners don't have feelings and don't mind being mocked as they are too stupid to know what is subtle.

Finally, someone thinks to put the pots on to boil, and two batches go in: theirs, the supposedly "pefect" jiaozi, and yours, the defects. They rise to the surface and the smell is, well, awful, as you loathe pork and ginger but know you can't leave until the meal is over, at which time everyone will charge to the door en masse. You'd also like to pee, but it's your first time in this home and it's kind of bad manners to use the toilet the first time in...it's warm, which is nice, but only from the steam and the amount of people packed in a tiny space. The smell of unwashed bits, damp wool, and Chinese herbal remedies is almost, but not quite, obscured by the smell of ripe boiled pork.

Finally, FINALLY, with much fanfare, the dumplings are fished out and ladled into bowls. Different types of vinegar are offered, black Chunking vinegar which you love but makes you vomit, millet vinegar from Shaanxi, which is your personal favorite, rice vinegar from the South. There are other condiments--a dish of picked peppers, for example, but you douse your dumplings in millet vinegar and then you notice something. Your dumplings are perfect: each one has held together perfectly, while the others--well, hee hee hee, most have split open and vomited their contents into the boiling broth. The dumpling which had a little coin inserted into it---like a Three Kings Cake only largely inedible--has split as well and the coin is nowhere to be found. Hee hee hee. The guests mutter among themselves as they fish through the broth trying to find the meat and ginger filling: without it, they're mostly sucking down limp noodle casing. It is a dim triumph, because you, sadly, now have stuffed dumplings, plump and proud, each filled with a mixture of chopped ginger, ground pork, and a not insignificant amount of chopped bone, gristle, and tendon. What can I say--the quality of meat back then was suspect at best, and hungry people eat what they can get. You are gagging each one down, partly out of hunger, and partly out of manners. You offer some of your plump beauties to other guests who shudder at their ugliness. Why? Why are they considered so ugly? They are symmetrical, nicely folded and crimped, and they didn't fucking fall apart while boiled. Why are they considered so horrible?

The answer is clear: because you,  a foreigner, made them.

When the meal is over, the guests charge out the door. By the time you get back to your building, the front gate is locked. You manage to alert the sleeping security guard and he lets you in, but the elevator is locked, as the person who is allowed to run it has gone to bed at 11. You walk up 12 flights of stairs and fling yourself down on your bed, noticing as you do so that it's almost two a.m. and worse, you're still hungry. The next day in Chinese class you will yawn, a lot, and your stupid foreigner advisor will scold you for not having done your homework and tell you that you should, for the sake of your Chinese, hang out with the locals more often.

If The Chinese Practice Gender-Based Infanticide, Why Are There Still So Many People at Carrefour's?

I just realized it's probably not a good idea to put "kill" and "girl babies" in the same sentence, particularly on what my mother calls "that internet thingy,"  so I just amended the title. Here's the deal: I keep meeting up with ignorant people who say things like, "Oh, here in China they just kill all the girl babies," oblivious of the fact that their hamburger at Hard Rock Cafe has been delivered by a female waitperson (Chinese.) So, if all the girl babies are killed, how come there are still people of all ages living in the nation? Why isn't it a nation of sad and largely gay men, then, huh? If there is zero population growth--indeed, negative growth rate--and all the girl babies are always getting clubbed like baby seals in a Greenpeace video, who is giving birth to all the new babies?

I just wish people would shut up sometimes and open their eyes always. I am seriously offended by posts from people alleging to be Christians who write things like, "Been here ten days and finally found evidence that Jesus lives! Yes, Jesus is here in Beijing but it took us more than a week to find Him." Uh--isn't He in your heart? What do you mean, you found Him? Was He missing? You found a picture of Him? What, you just noticed that there was a church across the street from your hotel? Or you noticed your cab driver had a cross around his neck and that is why he (and I quote) "treated us real good."  There's an expression here which I like a lot, which is "People come to China either to lose themselves or save someone else." That pretty well sums up the experience--a trip to reckless hedonism where any man, no matter how reprehensible, can get a fairly normal-looking woman (hint: it's a combination of beer, cash, and a place called Maggie's) or here to "save" people by making them "Chrustun" or worse, "teaching" them English.

I have been here lo, many many years, most of my adult life, and I will continue to be here where I earn sufficient cash to keep my daughter in her expensive private university. I came here because I was safer here from my crazy abusive ex than I was in the US, where the law had a peculiar "let it roll" attitude where child safety was concerned.  (As my attorney said, "I can't do anything until he actually dips her in boiling oil, and even then, after he served his sentence, he'd still get to see her." ) I figured that being under constant surveillance I'd be safer, and I was right, plus the added bonus of Ex having to put in a lot more effort to mess with me, ensured minimal contact. Safe, but not particularly lolling about enjoying the sweet life. I don't envy those people who come here and find what they're looking for, whether it's double-jointed loose women or fame on local TV stations. Good on them: I find I like the hedonists far more than I like the missionaries, with the attitude of  "I'm gonna learn 'em ta be Amurrican and love Jesus!"

While the hedonists aren't necessarily learning a lot of Chinese, at least they are receptive to some new experiences, whether they're threesomes or jelly fish on a stick. The missionaries, however...well, to be fair, two of my closest friends are missionaries but they are the more laid-back variety, as respectful and willing to see the Divine in everyone and in every belief, as I could wish for. The others...well, suffice to say, come Christmas I have witnessed breakdowns by big white ladies in Jenny Lou's who began screaming hysterically because they couldn't make a birthday cake for Jesus if the fucking Betty Crocker was sold out. Whoever heard of a birthday cake for Jesus made from the crappy Australian Green cake mix? (I didn't realize that loving the Lord meant never serving Him organic produce.) Yeah, as I noted before, we all have the occasional freak out, and this could have been one of them, but I do notice a tendency in the missionary crowd--particularly the missionary Embassy crowd-- to be very "let's pretend we're still in the US."

True: I knew a missionary family that had Astro-turf covering their patio so they could pretend it was grass. Mom had grown up in Taiwan but did not know a single word of Chinese. The boys, born and raised in China, did not know any Chinese. Dad had a Ph. D, spoke fluent Chinese, but was content to be the translator/mouthpiece for the family as he was, after all, the spiritual head of the home. I showed Mom Jenny Lou's and she fell to her knees praising Jesus for the stock of Cream of Mushroom soup. (I wish I were kidding.) It was sweet to see someone so openly thankful--yes, I do say Grace in public myself on occasion--but somehow seeing this woman nigh-on genuflect to Campbell soup made me a tad uncomfortable. Thou shalt have no false gods before me...not even if they're Mmm mmm good!

I think when you leave your home land, what you're really doing  (if you're at all open and in tune to the possibility that some of your assumptions might actually be incorrect) is discovering yourself. If you come over to impose yourself, your standards, your thinking, on someone else, you're not learning. This is my argument with the missionaries. I love the ones who are here to learn, to help, to seek true communion and brotherhood, and it's been a real privilege to know and love them. (How I love it when I have LDS neighbors! I can also point out two Baptist missionaries who are extraordinarily fine people.) The rest, however...bless 'em and their cans of soup and with luck someday it will dawn on them that if ALL the girl babies are exterminated, how come it's so damn crowded at Carrefour?

Almost a Post-Script. There's another saying: When the footprints on the toilet seat are yours, it's time to go home. Amen to that one!

Mani Pedi Foot Massagee

I broke my self-imposed exile (five days at home not doing bupkis) and called a friend for a Day Out. One of the best parts of being here--affordable spa services. We went to Lily's Nails for mani-pedis and I threw in a head and neck massage as well as a foot massage. What bliss to be touched, kneaded and fondled--all at about 1 kuai per minute for each service. I have nasty little nails and equally nasty little feet but somehow with the aid of clippers, files, and what I suspect was a blow torch, my digits are looking quite presentable, even if OPI didn't carry that taupe nail polish I wanted to try.

As a single Mom who held down two jobs AND put herself through graduate school, twice, on her own dime, the opportunity for services like hair cuts, let alone pedicures, was rare, even in a place like China where these services have become big business. I don't have an expat life style: I'm not married to the bread winner and I have nothing in common with some of my acquaintances who go so far as to hire a masseur to come in daily and give them a massage before they even get out of bed. (I always want to ask, don't you get up and pee first, or brush your teeth? but it seems a bit rude). Frankly, I still need a haircut, and I pine for a trip to the spa where they have a big pool filled with tiny fish who live to nibble off your dead skin. I'd be like a AYCE buffet for those little darlings. You know you're middle aged when you see something pornographic and you're not marveling at how or why anyone would do that, bur rather on the quality of their skin. Look at that girl's ass! Not a clogged pore in sight! I wonder how often she exfoliates...

My bestie, The Rose, is so modest that I have never even seen his bare feet. I intend to force him to check into a real spa with me one day for the works--massages, flesh-nibbling fish, pedicures, all the manscaping he wants--and to see if this can turn his whiskey-soaked Irish heart towards hedonism. I kind of doubt it, but it would be fun to try. I have the sense of well-being that usually strikes only after a visit with Love Monkey (I won't dignify the relationship by calling him my boyfriend) and I hope that it lasts. Otherwise, gosh, I just might have to get on the train and hie myself away to Lily's for another trip to bliss. Ah, the wonders of being touched....I wonder if it's physically possible to be hooked on massage: I am actually craving it more than chocolate...

I Love All Twelve Of You

I have an average of 12 readers for each post. I can name some of them: Sissy, Lulu, Virginia, and Suzie Q. However, I'm not sure about the others. An anonymous contingent of eight might not sound like a lot to you but it tickles me no end. I'm sure it's not Mom and Dad as we are having round 2,347 of "Just type in the address if you want to read the damn blog" and I can assure you I know no one in Romania. (Yeah, I check the stats.) If you feel like posting a comment and letting me know you who are, I'm thrilled. In fact--since Valentine's Day is coming up, why not be sweet and drop me a line? I make the following promises: unlike any contestant ever on American Idol, I will not refer to you as "my fans." Unlike my usual behavior after three Dirty Mothers at Quiz Night, I will not comment upon your wit and then ask if your Dad is seeing anyone. Finally, just as I remain semi-anonymous so I don't get sued/still get invited to places like Elvis One's Superbowl Party, I promise not to blow your cover.

You can refer to me as Zanne, let's just say it's short for Alexandra, a name which suits many but somehow is as pretentious on me as the other moniker my mother saddled me with. Ok? Ok. And yeah, I could spell it "Xanne" but it leads to too many comments about Xanadu and Xanax and was I a Buffy fan perchance? (Yes on that one.) Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus. The asshat nation I live in is setting off fireworks  right outside my big picture window and something flew by which looked suspiciously like a severed thumb. There's a little screaming and a  LOT of laughter. It's only eight-thirty in the morning. Pray for me.

PS: Fortunately, it's not a comment. Who else had 12 friends? Huh? HUH? Who's on a high horse NOW?

"Oh Yeah, I had Culture Shock For Like a Week and Then I Got Over It!"

The above title is the deathless sentence I heard uttered far, far too many times, usually by Rich White Kids Who Have Been in Asia for a Whole Semester. Culture shock isn't a case of diarrhea which you get over in a few days' time: it is an ongoing process of adjustment-and readjustment--that cycles throughout your lifetime. People here have what's referred to as a Bad China Day, which is often the result of a tangle with the local foreign visa office as well as with the electricity panel. Quite often the effects are compounded by culture shock: for example, as you're standing in line at the Foreign Visa Office, and simultaneous fighting to keep your place while negotiating on the phone with the guard at your apartment building to open up the locked panel that hides your electric meter so your friend can put the pre-paid card into the meter thus restoring your electricity --but the guard doesn't want to let your friend in to the panel because he's not registered to live there and by God you CANNOT leave the line to run home and take care of this because if you do you won't get your new visa paperwork filed in time which means you'll be kicked out or fined but the only guard allowed to open up the panel is about to leave for his wedding in his hometown and no one else will be allowed to hold the key which means a week or more of no electricity unless you solve this now...and you then bang your head on the marble floor of the Visa office and scream I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE thus reducing your chances of being allowed another six month stay nil...well, yes, that's a Bad China Day compounded by the frustration of culture shock. Had you grown up in a developing country where such things are the norm you'd be a little more able to handle the less-than-straightforward methods of getting anything done around here. But no, you grew up in a time and place where electricity was billed monthly and regularly, where you had some grace days to pay a bill, where your meter was not kept under lock and key (unless you held the lock and key) and where you spoke and read the language.

The phrase, "Had culture shock for a week and then got over it" is often used by tourists as well: what they're really describing is jet lag. I don't know how sheltered you'd have to be for the usual tourist experience of "get on a bus, go to a hotel, eat a meal picked out for you" to be a total shock but there you go--it sure would be for me, regardless of what country I was passing through at the time.

 I do know that even the long-timers like me (about 20 years) still cycle and have very very bad moments that are attributable to culture shock rather than just a lack of breeding. The other day I got onto an elevator: instead of taking me downstairs to the exit it shot up to a higher floor, where some tall asshat with a cigarette in his hand got on. I saw the cigarette and snapped, and started screaming, "Get the hell off the elevator!" while pushing him off.  He was in such shock that he let me physically push him OUT of the elevator without protest while I rambled on in Chinese about the stink and danger of second hand smoke. I finished with "CHILDREN RIDE THIS ELEVATOR!" just as the doors closed. Since this happened in the compound where I live, it was an especially stupid thing to do, but so far, no one's come to complain about it. My friends Di and Suzie Q have reported similar incidents--just snapping at what is considered acceptable behavior here and plunging straight into Crazy without so much as a detour to "Let's Discuss This First." Di grabbed a cigarette out of a speaker's mouth and crushed it under his shoe: sadly, she was at a job interview at the time. Suzie Q also went berserk on an elevator, screaming at someone who lighted up in her presence. (She also grabbed a man and threw  a punch at him when he was beating his dog, but that's another story and yes, she lost her job over it.)

I'm sure if I were in a nation with a culture slightly more similar to the US I'd still have my moments, and I'm sure if I had never left the US I'd have moments where I flipped out due to frustration (or bad manners) but trust me when I say this; no one adjusts totally and perfectly to a new life situation, whether it's marrying up, or changing your socio-economic status, or picking up and moving to a new country. Once in a while, your past and your past expectations just catch up with you and you may or may not flip out. If you do flip out, take a deep breath, apologize, and remember: no one here is going to remember you in ten weeks' time, so get over it, and next time, don't punch anyone. (Especially since you are no doubt being filmed on someone's  iphone.)

Lu Decorated My Life

I actually have a few days off and I am celebrating by cleaning out boxes o' shite that have accumulated from 27 moves in 19 years, 11 of them in the past six years alone. I have boxes full of power cords for cell phones long since lost or broken, plastic sacks full of unwashed and unmatched sox, and several cute Ikea fabric boxes full of uniforms from expensive private high schools my daughter no longer attends. (She's in college where,  judging from the photos she sends,  she wears nothing but miniskirts.) The washing machine is straining under a load of knee-highs which have followed me from move to move, growing skankier by the month, and the big carpet from the living room spent 24 hours in the shower being gently massaged free of a year's worth of dog hair trapped in its stinky polyester blend fibers. In short,  I'm spring cleaning, and while my house currently looks like hell it will be lovely and clean and ORGANIZED when I am done.

Several boxes yielded real treasures, such as the tea set my daughter bought me, and some little heart-shaped porcelain candy dishes which I like to have out on Valentine's Day. In fact, as I look around the apartment, my favorite and most expensive things were all gifts from my daughter. In addition to the two things I mentioned there is my beautiful floor lamp, Chinese style, with two different shades: a mah jong set: a red satin pillow with a hand-painted cover, and finally an oversize cup and saucer which has like-minded guests begging for me to fill with hot cocoa (it would be too big to lift if filled--I can barely manage to lift it when empty, that's how big it is.) There are other things too, but these are ones I love and look at daily. I also have other small things, such as my grandmother's gingerbread boy cookie cutter, which is out on display all year.  Art? Some paintings and art work, again done by Lulu, such as the Auntie Mame painting I requested, and the abstract art done from magazine clippings. I look around and see the result of her handicraft and her thoughtful attention and her love and I'm again bowled over by how lucky I was to have such a wonderful daughter. I sleep every night on the pillow case she embroidered for me with a free hand design: it says Mom, and it took her a month of working on it in secret.  Granted, I often wondered what she was doing in her room with the door firmly shut, or why she snarled at me when I threatened to clean her room, but it's my complete surprise when I opened her gift  that I recall. She, of course, may have a different version of that story to tell: what I remember is the love, and her drive, and her need to make me something special that showed she loved me, even though we were snippy with each other a lot at that time.

Do I resent having to cart around boxes of her stuff while she's on the other side of the planet? No, although I can't see a reason to hold on to old uniforms, but guess what, that's her decision to make. I can't imagine what my life would have been like without her, and as I open up yet another box, and plunge inside, I can't quite get that old Kenny Rogers song out of my head, "You Decorated My Life." I'm not crying--I am somehow accustomed to her being gone--and while I'd like more emails and phone calls I'm ok with the amount I receive. It's all good: she has been launched successfully into adulthood and whether she makes it or not is now up to her. She has baggage too, emotional stuff from the times I failed as a parent and a human being. Hopefully she learns to sort through it and throw away the bad and keep the good, as I'm doing with box after box after box of Important Papers I've forgotten I had, old school uniforms, and half-used tubes of Hello Kitty lip gloss.

Small Town Girl at Heart

Sissy just emailed me to say that Dave died. I had to send an email in reply, which read in part, "Which Dave? Dave the Chubby Chaser Who Killed His Mother with an Axe, or Dave Who Fathered Rainbow?" You see, we grew up in a small city--hardly the country, as my Brooklyn-bred friends decry--and while we knew just about everybody, eventually, there was usually more than one Dave, and many many Debbies. Last names would have helped but in the 70's and early 80's, when Sissy and I were fairly young and still had social lives, people seldom used them, and those of us who did were instantly branded snobs.  Back then, loser men who were super afraid to commit would introduce their dates as "This is my lady." Ugh. As for fathering Rainbow, a lot of uptight attorneys in town had wanted to be hippies back in the 60's but never had the balls to cut loose and wear a dashiki: many of them became attorneys for the State and made up for their lack of freedom by giving their kids names like Orion, Rainbow, Harvest Fairchild (actually born in a van at the Country Fair) or Buckminster Fuller Quinoa.  Let us not forget Freedom, whom I met when she was a two-year-old running around naked in the front yard.  For the record her parents were very nice and she grew up to be a delightful human being.

People do ridiculous things and my family delights in the odd, so we created the nicknames--Jerry the Crazy Pervert, Dave the Chubby Chaser--as a way of keeping order. Obviously, you don't want to openly pine after someone who has a moniker that hints of a darker side (Dave Who Axed His Mother, for example) while other names--Mr. Honey--suggest sweetness and purity and a green light for lustful fantasies.  I  write "fantasies" as I never have actually dated anyone from my home town, really, other than a few abortive attempts at dates which were usually ruined by the ill-timed arrival of someone I knew crying and/or throwing up (once or twice,  it was me). The nicknames changed as we knew more about the person--Mr. Honey had a penchant for marrying women who went crazy, so his nickname changed to Ted the Crazy Maker--and all of them reflect the very small-town sort of stunning insight into the worst of human behavior, boiled down to a simple name,  that says it all to us.  Never work for someone Sissy refers to as "Elizabitch" and for God's sake keep away from Grandma Debbie because at 49 she's a great-grandmother several times over and still fertile to boot.   

I miss these nicknames, and the revelation into character that come from having grown up with a fairly limited cast of characters. Here in Beijing, the expatriate community comes and goes. A long-time friend might be here for three years, tops, then one of you goes. I find myself having Thanksgiving dinner with people I met only three months before. Now that my daughter has grown up and established herself in the US  I am more rootless than ever, and as glad as I am for the chance to reinvent myself if necessary with a larger cast of characters, I am also aware that my personality is pretty well set. I have no idea what my nickname might be--it's probably Old Bitch from my refusal to cook green beans at yesterday's saturnalia-- and I understand why our rituals have become so important to us, like walking into Quiz Night at the local pub and having some idea that you will see roughly the same faces, even if you don't know the names. We're wanderers, here for a short time, and yet we come from people who tended to stay put and raise gardens and plant trees. Sissy has done precisely that, although she lives in a larger city than our home town. She still has many of the same friends she had 35 years ago but thank God newer ones too: and yet, when we reference the past, it is the nickname that sums up what we knew of other people and sets the tone for conversation. I am sorry to hear of Dave's passing--whatever Dave it was--not only out of compassion for his family and friends, and perhaps for Dave himself--but also I know that he takes with him his memory of me, and this diminishes whatever impact I made.

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Get in the Kitchen and Cook Them Beans, Woman!

Phrases you don't expect to hear from enlightened people, much less enlightened people living in Beijing:

Phrase Number One:  "I knew it was fucked up, but I just let you go ahead and FAIL because THESE PEOPLE have GOT TO LEARN somehow!" (Speaker: American Boss. Situation: Missing IT equipment before large, large presentation. Result: Egg on my face. Boss's assessment: Well, since you ended up looking so bad, it only reflects badly on the Chinese people who can't organize anything! They need to learn from this! Real result: I look like an ass. No one learned but me, and what I learned was largely that I couldn't trust my boss.)

Phrase Number Two: "Our driver can't speak a WORD of English! I send him to English class every week and if he still can't say how long it will take to get to Betty's Nails then I say we get a new driver!"  (Speaker: Wife of someone who works in a major firm in the US who was sent to China while that nasty Sexual Harassment suit against him is working its way through the legal system. Situation: She's been here for six years but still can't speak a single word of Chinese, hence she has handed me, a total stranger sitting one table away from her in a restaurant,  her cell phone to call her driver to get him out of that English lesson to take her three blocks away to the nail salon. Result: Her pedicure looks great, I'm sure, but the only English the driver learns that day is from me, the useful catch-phrase, "Crazy Bitch!")

Phrase Number Three: "The problem with the French is that they're Catholics, and the Catholics have forgotten to look at Jesus. They're all wrapped up in that Mary person." (Speaker: Wife of Leader of Study Tour I was on in Graduate School. Comment:   Apropos of nothing--and made on a long bus trek to Kanding, back in the day when a single lane road connected Kanding to the rest of the world. Traffic flowed East one day, and West the next. Looking back, I realize now that she just wanted to remind us that she had studied French which therefore somehow made her "classy" and that for the same reason--"class"--she wanted us to know she had been Born Again. (Hey, there's a certain governor in US what would just love her right now.)

Phrase Number Four: This situation is oddly related to Number Two.  I'm at someone's house for dinner: the phone rings. The host, who speaks fluent Chinese, reaches into his pocket, answers it, says a few phrases in Chinese which I don't quite understand--or worse I think I understand but which are so foul I don't want to--then hangs up. "That was Rock," he says with a chuckle. "Been here 16 years and he still can't tell the house madame what kind of hookers he likes."  Dear God, it has been proven to me that I do indeed know how to say "rimming" in putonghua.And worse: I went out with Rock once--just once--and my face burns with shame as I recall how bad I felt when he didn't call me for a second date. (For the record I did NOT put out--which probably explains it.)

Phrase Number Five: This one deserves a longer explanation. I went to someone's house for dinner. I arrive, meatloaf in hand, and find a couple of young stoners playing a video game, while the host and his very young, very thin girlfriend (not to be confused with his wife, mind you) sit in glassy-eyed silence. Rock music pours out of the speakers. (At least it was a band I like). The Host finally looks at me and utters these deathless words: "I'm hungry. Get in the kitchen and cook them beans, woman!"

The kicker: He was serious. The beans were those six-inch-long green beans. There were perhaps twelve of them. Dinner was to consist of my meatloaf, one orange sliced into quarters, two eggs scrambled with about eight cherry tomatoes, and half of those beans, sliced and cooked with one-quarter of an onion. For five people. The host (who ended up cooking the damn beans himself) realized part way through the meal that perhaps it was a bit on the scanty side, so he went to the kitchen, and came back with a single-sized serving bag  of potato chips, which he ripped open with his teeth. He dumped the contents on top of the quartered orange and said "There! Eat!" And we did, the conversation as scanty as the meal. Dessert: host flossed his teeth at the table. I did not regret not bringing a carrot cake.

I realize that I am being a horrible guest, a really rotten human being, by commenting upon a meal where I was a guest. Guests are supposed to put up and shut up and help with the washing up, not post mean comments about someone of whom they are really quite fond. (And yet I still write about my sainted mother...) However, it's just that it was all so unexpected: how often is a guest commanded in the most offensive and sexist of language to get in the kitchen and cook a meal AFTER SHE HAS ALREADY BROUGHT THE MAIN COURSE? I do love those meals when we get together in kitchen and cook and laugh together but to pull this off you need a little communication before hand and a lot less ganja. For the record I had never cooked for this person in his kitchen before--nor he in mine--so it was all very unexpected and unprecedented and just plain bizarre.  I am remarkably cranky when hungry and hardly a sweetheart when I'm not: I felt like someone had handed me a pair of tap shoes and said, "Go, Little Darky, Dance!"  I was older than everyone there--even older than the host--and three of the people there were younger than my own daughter. Just because I pushed one human being out my nether bits does not entitle everyone to my services as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Solution? I washed the dishes (except the greasy pots and pans, yeech) then got the hell out. I vowed never to cook there again, not so much for the weird attitude of "You are old and you are a mother therefore you will feed us" but for the fact that he cooked the beans in margarine. An eater of margarine will never be a friend of mine. Butter, olive oil, or bacon fat: these are acceptable. Expensive fake spread that doesn't even have the grace of being cholesterol-free: never. I may be a bitch but I have my standards. And that's  Phrase Number Six of today's countdown.

Chun Jie Downer

It's Spring Festival, aka "Chinese New Year" or "Chun Jie." Now that I have down time I found that I am down indeed: I have the time to play, but everyone is out of town. Most foreign people scamper off to their home countries, or at least to Thailand (if not the uber cool Cambodia/Vietnam trek) or if they're married to Chinese people, to their spouse's home town. Me? Here in Beijing. Alone with dogs. Fretting. There's lots to do, such as going through all those damn boxes and finding the cord so I can use my camera, or going through all those damn boxes and finding the cord so I can use the scanner, or going through all those damn boxes so I can find...you get the picture. I could even go crazy and wash the dishes, or brush the dogs. What I really want to do is eat huge dripping steaks and mashed potatoes and oh, junk food! While sitting in front of a telly and laughing my ass off with a couple of friends--or shagging my ass off with just one of my friends--but neither one is likely to happen. I was invited to an orgy but I declined: I will go over to Elvis One's house, but I am bringing a towel to sit on and will decamp should any of his puppets make gestures in my direction. I can't believe how dull I am right now: I have time to laugh and have fun and there's no one to play with. It's too late to book a ticket anywhere (plus what would I do with the dogs?) and I will have to Make My Own Fun. Damn. Is THIS what it's like to be retired? Remind me to never quit working. As my grandfather told me once, "I have all this leisure time but my friends are all dead. What the hell am I supposed do now?" His solution: Tom Clancy novels. Mine: I'll probably whine and post. May God have pity on us all.