quelquefois

I get a phone call from an unknown number. I answer, “Hello?” And it’s a person I met a few weeks ago. I had stopped picking up his phone calls because he called me too often to talk about inane things. This time, he was using his friend’s phone because he is “too lazy to add more money to his phone.” Right.

Him: ????????????????. Is your American friend still out of town? Your roommate.
Me: ??Yes.
Him: ?????????????????????????????I have friends visiting and staying with me, so it’s a little cramped for space, can I stay at your place tonight? Is that convenient for you?
Me: ????What??
Him: ??????????Is it convenient to spend the night at your place?
Me: ????No, it’s not convenient.

Why do you [Chinese] men think that’s okay? Why do you have to use sneaky tactics like calling me from another phone number? Isn’t it clear that when I don’t pick up your calls, I don’t want to speak to you? Why do you have to be a creeper and ask me if my roommate is home? If your friends are there to see you, why don’t you spend time with them instead of trying to spend the night elsewhere? You brought it onto yourself inviting more friends than your apartment can handle. Deal with it.

There’s this man whom I met two months ago named ?? (the name is so close to ???, or Jay Chou, but he couldn’t be further from it). He insists on calling me “???” or “little fatty,” when I’m not even fat, I just (to put it in the words of Vicky Chao) weigh more than 100 pounds. Apparently, he also thinks I’m an idiot. Here is an excerpt of a conversation we had today:

Man: ?????????. (I had a green floral vegetable.)
Me: ????(Broccoli?)
Man: ?????????????????????????(Wow, yeah! How did you know? I didn’t think you knew how to say it in Chinese.)
Me: ?????(Are you kidding me?)

???, x? lán hu?: n. broccoli

Who doesn’t know how to say “broccoli” in Chinese? Even foreigners learning their first year of Chinese know how to say it. Is this a jab at my intelligence? Should I be making fun of him for not being able to fit into regular pants (he’s a student at an athletic university in Beijing, and I think his legs are too ?, thick, to fit into anything but sweatpants)? Should I make fun of him for his st-st-st-stutter?

No, I won’t reduce myself to his level. I’ll just stop picking up his phone calls. I didn’t come to China to have my intelligence underestimated and to feel bad about my body when there’s nothing wrong.

Please do not lean against and touch pieces of artwork in museums. Seriously? Come on. Do you have any respect? Would you want to spend months/years on a report and then have some person piss all over it? Yeah, that’s what it’s like.

The culprits

Sincerely,
Girl who would kick your ass if you touched her artwork

This past week, Yves St. Laurent’s art collection was auctioned off, including two fountainheads (for $39 million) that were supposedly looted from the “Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 when it was sacked and burnt by French and British armies during the Second Opium War.”  China tried to stop the auction last Thursday, but was rejected by the Paris court.

During this quarrel, St. Laurent’s partner, Pierre Berge, insisted that the artifacts were acquired legally. He is also reported to have said he “would agree to give them back – if Beijing gave Tibet its freedom.”

He is quoted in the Telegraph as saying:

“All they have to do is to declare they are going to apply human rights, give the Tibetans back their freedom and agree to accept the Dalai Lama on their territory.

“If they do that, I would be very happy to go myself and bring these two Chinese heads to put them in the Summer Palace in Beijing. It’s obviously blackmail but I accept that.”

Are you kidding me?! I have to agree with Xinhua here in saying that that is an incredibly stupid thing to say. First, you cannot mix two political messages together like that (even though it is oft practiced), especially with blackmail and by using cultural relics as a bargaining chip. Second, what does this guy know about Tibet? If, in the case that China agreed and it got its freedom, how would it run itself? Is it in a state where it can effectively govern its people?

I’m not going to get into it, but I hate when Westerners blindly tout “Tibetan freedom” when they don’t even know what it entails. I’m not saying that the situation isn’t deserving of attention, it just needs to be approached with caution and awareness.

Edit: ChinaSMACK covers Chinese reactions to the auctioning of the relics.

From a NYTimes article titled China’s Financial Industry Recruits Abroad:

Despite the swelling number of unemployed financial service employees, those qualified to work for Chinese firms is extremely small. Mr. Leggett’s background in Chinese — he studied Mandarin for four years as an undergraduate student at Columbia — made his move feasible. He has shocked many recruiters with his Chinese ability: “They see a tall, white guy and they’ve got low expectations. When they find out I can say a lot more than ‘hello,’ in Chinese, they begin to take me seriously.”

Oh that’s great. But when they see an average-height Asian girl they have different expectations. Every time I speak to a Chinese person, they expect me to be completely fluent.  Here are five different circumstances I find myself in:

1. I tell them I am Chinese (or Chinese-American). Laughter. Okay, seriously, what am I? Proceed to point out certain superficial features that lend then to believe that I am of a different race.
Conclusion:  I speak Chinese, but I look Korean or Japanese. Therefore, I am Korean or Japanese.

2. I tell them I am Chinese-American. Disappointment. Believe that as a descendent of Chinese people, my Chinese should be fluent.
Conclusion: My Chinese is awful. I should be ashamed.  

3. I tell them I am an American. Disbelief. Succumb to the fact that I am American, but think I’m probably lying.
Conclusion: My Chinese is stellar (opinion may change upon finding out I am Chinese-American)

4. I do not tell them what I am, where I’m from. I speak Chinese. They ask what I am, where I’m from. They notice I’m not fluent, but still Asian. Korean? No. Japanese? No. Confusion. 
Conclusion: My Chinese is good…for a Korean.

5. I am completely ignored because I am standing with a non-Asian person. All interest and attention is paid to the amazing white man who speaks impeccable Chinese.

Sometimes I want to study harder and harder and become fluent, so that I can show them I  can be taken seriously. But at the same time I want to be happy with my own fluency, because in reality, my Chinese is much better than many Chinese-as-a-second-language learners. Sometimes their accusations are so piercing and offensive that I begin to question my own identity. I have neither found a way to cope with it, nor have I found the best way to avoid such questions/accusations.

Then, the same NYT article points out bilingual Chinese people who transition more easily into a Chinese lifestyle:

The transition is easier for bilingual overseas Chinese like Kenneth Chen, 29, who is studying for his M.B.A. at the New York University Stern School of Business. Mr. Chen said that if he was offered a job, the decision to move to China would be a no-brainer: “In this environment, I don’t need anyone to persuade me to go to Shanghai. I want to go.”

But I have a strong belief that that notion only applies to men. Women in Chinese society, especially in the business world, have a very low glass ceiling, despite the supposed ???? (equality between the sexes). There are many, many unachievable standards and prejudices that keep women down, I guess you can call it a fusion of vestiges of Confucian society and Western misogyny. 

And that’s why it sucks to be a Chinese-American [woman] in China.

Today I wanted to make sandwiches for dinner, and since it’s not convenient to purchased sliced meat nearby, I went to a few places that sell ??? (rou jia mo, meat sandwiched between steamed bread) to buy some meat. I asked them if they sold their meat separately.

Me: Do you sell your meat separately?
Supermarket woman: This meat is expensive and hard to cook.
Me: Okay, can I buy some? How much would 10RMB buy?
SW: 3 pieces
Me: 3 pieces? You put more than that in one ???, and those only cost 3 RMB.
SW: This meat is tasty! It is hard to cook! I spent a lot of time making it!
Me: Fuck you. (walks away)

I try another place that sells the meat outside the supermarket.

Me: Do you sell your meat separately?
Meat man: No, this meat is expensive.
Me: Why can’t you just cut some off like you were making a ??? and just give me the meat equivalent and I will pay for it like it was a regular ????
MM: Why do you just want the meat?
Me: I want to make a sandwich:
MM: Then you can bring your bread slices here and I will cut the meat for you.
Me: Why can’t you just give me the meat?
MM: I just can’t do that.
Meat Man’s Friend: Are you Korean?
Me: No, I’m not fucking Korean! (walks away) Fuck you!

If anything, wouldn’t benefit more financially by just selling some of your meat and keeping all the extras that come with it? Also, I approached them towards the end of the day–are you going to keep the meat and use it tomorrow (knowing China, though, probably)? I don’t understand the lack of entrepreneurial spirit and inability to think outside the box. Chinese people have so many of these rigid rules and criteria that often make no sense or contradict each other. For example, I cannot bring a backpack into the supermarket, but I can bring a huge tote bag. Are these rules made up because there are too many Chinese people, and thus, too much hassle, to make exceptions?

I just wanted some meat for my sandwich…

Mr. West Shutter Shades (No UVA or UVB Protection)

Thank you, caption, for bringing it to consumers’ attention that Kanye West “sunglasses” offer no UV protection. Let’s not even get started on how these damned glasses make a mockery of your face when you wear them. They should change the caption to: Mr. West Shutter Shades (No UVA or UVB protection, no protection from sucker punches).

(via amazon)

Okay. I hid all of my chocolate bars and my fancy tea, but last week, I left my Lemon-Lime Orbit out on the desk. I know I gave it a scathing review last week, but if I paid $1.50 for these 14 pieces, I am going to chew every nauseating 10.7¢ piece. So, when I come back from a weekend (much like two weeks ago), I didn’t expect 6 pieces to be gone. What the fuck? When did you need to eat 500 pieces of gum? Usually you take one, and you leave.

Thanks, fuckhead. But guess what? There won’t be any more freeloading off me–I’m peacing out of this office on Thursday.

Sincerely,
Going to cut your balls off Jesse-Jackson-style

4. Crossing the street in Manhattan after the red hand stops blinking.

I finally made it to Manhattan. I had to drop a friend who was traveling with me off on the Upper West Side before I could move in. After dropping her off, I careened down Henry Hudson Parkway slash West End Highway slash 500 million other names Highway to Canal Street. I know that Canal Street hits East Broadway, which is one block away from where I want to be. But there’s this thing called the Manhattan Bridge that intersects the street. Not wanting to get honked at for turning out of the wrong lane to avoid getting on the bridge, I decided to see if maybe, just maybe, I could get to the other side of Canal Street by going straight………………….straight onto the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn.

It wasn’t fear of getting lost that gave me cold chills down my back. Rather, I thought, “Oh god, please don’t have a humongous toll charge at the end of this bridge. Please don’t take any more of my money, New York, I am already so poor.” Repeat this thought exactly 79 times.

Luckily, there was no toll, but the question now was, “How the fuck do I get back to Manhattan?” After about 20 minutes of driving in perpetual circles, I found my way back Manhattan. When I found my block, I circled around (circles should be the theme of this story) and–oh my god, did I just find a parking spot in Manhattan that’s actually close to my intended location?

I parked and immediately started moving boxes and bags of my things into the apartment. After a while, I came back to get the last of my stuff, when I noticed a bright orange envelope on the windshield. Ahhh shit. I parked within 6 feet of a fire hydrant, and now I have to pay $115 for it. Oh, New York, you always find some way to get me back and make me poorer.

I took that as a sign that it was time to return the car that I had paid over $200 to rent. Even though I paid for the entire tank of gas, I didn’t even use half of the tank. I had thought of doing donuts in Times Square to use up some more gas, but decided against it to, you know, conserve energy.

Now I’m sitting in a café, writing in my blog, and drinking iced coffee. How metropolitan of me.