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Cindy Crawford approves of Tiffany's toilet-seat purchase.

Lousy Photoshopping from Dictatorships

This Salon article, North Korea, most of Asia terrible at Photoshop, is super amusing to me! If you haven't seen them already, it's worth looking at all the article's links to other examples.

Here's one from China:

Move = No Internet Connection

I moved across town last week, and I don't have quality internet access yet. Even the neighbors' unsecured networks are weak. But after several days of labor during my short, short breaks, I've gotten my work computer into a state where I can blog from here, so that's good :) .

The apartment is waaay nicer than my previous one, but the location kind of blows.

Here's my new address for those who don't have it already. You can adjust the size as need be.

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Adventures in Chinglish: Refuse-Receptacle Edition

In case you didn't already believe that everything interests me, here is more proof:

After taking this photo, I thought, 'Which do I put trash in?'

 This one is especially weird to me because, if you take a look at the next photo...

 The exact same trash cans have a different style of labels, with the same concept mistranslated/misspelled. And these alternate on any given street: if you walk by an Unreducible can, the next one you see will probably be a Onredeemable can.

I took several shots of this, and never did get a great one. If you enlarge it, it is somewhat better.

It reads "Protect CircumStance begin with me."

Modern Chinese Architecture

no forethought + no common sense = no drainage

Ah China, you never cease to amuse :) .

A million melons, and they're all honeydew-esque!

Not that I don't love honeydew melon, of course. It's just disappointing when you buy this,

 and get this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or, finally, this:

 

On the bright side, this one was pretty fun:

Yellow watermelon!

(it tastes just like pink watermelon)

Book Reviews

I'm adding a page for books about China. Getting the spacing to behave on it was wretched, so please forgive me if it occasionally looks a little wonky.

Adventures in Chinglish: Do not drink allowed

The rules are as follows: 

This shop decline play cards = "If you're thinking you and your bum friends can camp out in here and play cards all day, you've got another thing coming. Go back to your own shop and do it."

Do not drink allowed = "Don't bring your own drinks into this beverage establishment." 

Bringing his own food please secretly edible = "If you're going to bring food, hide it from the other customers, okay?"

Holy carp- check out the size of these grapes!

Ginormous and delicious!

ps: internet spell-check did not put a line under "ginormous." It's officially a word!

Beeswax Not Yours, Inc.

It is not uncommon for Chinese people to be all up in other people's business. They ask impolite questions, they presume to judge, and they give unwanted advice. Of course, this occurs in the States too, but it's noticeably more frequent here. People might comment on your acne, and recommend you do something about it. Others may comment on your size, and ask if you've ever considered losing weight. I have more than one Chinese friend who will back me up on how unpleasant a cultural norm it is.

Anita took me to get our nails done today. Here is another photo of her, because she doesn't like that first one:

So happy!

While we were waiting for the polish to dry, one of the nail technicians [seriously, that's what the interwebs says the job title is] came over and started talking to Anita in... not an aggressive manner exactly, but she was being pretty intense and her demeanor was not at all positive. I asked what was up, and Anita explained that the girl was lecturing her for wearing nail polish while breastfeeding. Then girl asked if Anita was living with her husband's parents. Anita told her it was none of her business, to which the girl responded by completely ignoring Anita's put-off, and asking if 'Anita's mother-in-law was going to be okay with Anita breastfeeding with nail polish on her fingers?'

[sigh]

Happy Declaration of Independence Day!

To celebrate, here is a president, holding a ham:

Ulysses S. Grant

by bijijoo

China will never be able to take over the world if they keep this up!

Bureaucracy sucks. Bureaucracy sucks everywhere- it sucks in the US, it sucks in the UK, and if there were bureaucracy in Antarctica, it would suck, too. But the bureaucracy in China S!U!C!K!S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is inefficient, unreasonable, and obtuse! Chinese bureaucracy is it's own level in Hell.


Today I present two tales of bureaucratic idiocy. I tried to make them more quirk, and less rant, but I'm not sure I succeeded.


#1


Tiffany and I needed to transfer money back home, so we went to the bank with Tarina, a receptionist with a bank account at one of the major banks just for the foreign teachers to transfer money.


The proper paperwork was in a back office. First they brought out only one copy, even though both Tarina and Tiffany requested two. So they fetched me a second, and while I was filling it out, a clerk went off in search of another because Tiffany's writing was "not comprehensible." (I put that in quotes because it was patently untrue, but we'll get to that.) Between the two of us, we went through six forms, and it took until the fourth copy for someone to bring out extras. You know, just in case.


Up at the counter, computer and calculator right there in front of her, the teller made Tiffany calculate how much USD her Chinese money would exchange into.

After a good twenty-minutes to a half-hour Tiffany was finally able to return to work, and it was my turn.


First it was the paperwork. Here is an excerpt from the copy I filled out:

Take note of the 6s. Can you tell what number they are?

They made me fill out a new sheet because of the cross-out. I was annoyed, but not surprised.


On the second copy, Tarina offered to fill it in, but I declined. 'No no no, I have nice handwriting, Tiffany checked it.' I got as far as the very first line. Let's see!

Yes, I saved these until I could take photos of them. I wanted proof.

Do you see that little line within the loop of the 6? That's my original 6. Tarina stopped me, and showed it to the teller, who couldn't tell that it was a 6!!! They use Western/Arabic numerals here. More often than they use Chinese numerals! So then, Tarina redrew the 6 "properly," and they told her that 'no, that wasn't going to work.' We had to fill out an entirely new sheet!!


This time I just let Tarina do it.

'If we're going to talk about writing things incorrectly then I feel obligated to inform you that that is not an "E"!'

Are you kidding me?!?!?! This is where failing to teach your populace independent, creative problem-solving thought processes gets you: a bank teller who is so incompetent she can't reason that my 6 is a 6.


Arg, just thinking about it makes me frustrated all over again. I need a break.

Aw, cute!

Oookay, we got the paperwork filled out, so the next step was the money. Even though they had done it for Tiffany who also has a different bank, they refused to withdraw the money from my bank account because I use a different bank than Tarina. So we spent another thirty minutes going down the street to a branch of my bank, withdrawing money (the only positive in this entire adventure was that they let me fully empty the account), and returning to freakin' finally complete the process.


Two things of note:
 A. The branch I withdrew my money from uses a dot matrix printer :) .
 B. Also, my bank charges me every time I withdraw money, which is waaay uncool, so I had Tarina ask what the deal was. It turns out, the card came from a branch in Nanjing, a different city, so they charge me for withdrawing money from another jurisdiction or whatever. What. the. hell?!

#2



We weren't the only ones dealing with bank business either. Tino, who is from Switzerland, came in with Meirong (his girlfriend) while we were waiting. Tino had loaned 30,000RMB to the local rugby club, because one of the requirements for official government certification is that they have that much in a bank account. The bank transferred the money, the rugby club took the statement of proof to the government, and the government rejected their application. Because the money had been transferred, instead of deposited. Bureaucracy!
So everyone had to go back to the bank and 
 1. the rugby head transferred the money back into Tino's account
 2. Tino withdrew the money
 3. Tino handed the money to the rugby head
 4. the rugby head then deposited it back into his account

Happy Canada Day! Wait, what? 90th Anniversary of the CCP? Really?

Today is apparently the 90th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. I say apparently, because it's an absolute non-event around here. I only found out when Tiffany told me her VPN was, and I quote, "poisoned". Mine -- obviously -- is fine, thank goodness.

Whatevs. Here's one for Canada! Horray!

Yeah, that Custer.