Chengdon't

Hi blogwatchers,

As some of you may know, I’m currently back in Britain on the crash weight-gaining course that some folks call ‘Christmas’, and it’s nice to be home and to see everyone again.  As some of you are also aware (and have vociferously pointed out!), the always sporadic postings on this site completely dried up in December.  This is because some time earlier this month chengdon’t was ‘harmonised’ in mainland China, and despite my best efforts to find a way around the bl0ck it remains in place.  As I’m able to access it here I’ve made a few changes that might help sneak it past, but to be honest I’ve had a look through the whole site and am baffled as to what I could have written that has triggered this in the first place.

So, if everyone could bear with me during this difficult time I’d be very grateful, and if any loyal blogwatchers have any suggestions for the circumnavigation of the GFW that don’t involve my credit card I’d be delighted to hear them!

Until then my friends, have an enjoyable festive season and an unrepentant new year.  Good luck and good tasty, zaijian!

Sorry, my childish nature couldn’t resist posting this story from the China Daily’s Society pages:

“Fish bite man in wrong place during spa treatment

Fish that are supposed to clear people’s skin by eating off the dead layers bit a man’s private parts after he stepped in the water naked at a hot spring club in Dalian, Liaoning province.

The man, who had visited the spa for a “special water treatment”, sat in the water for half an hour without realizing the special fish were nibbling on his special parts instead of the dead skin.

The manager of the club saw the man bleeding as he stepped out of the water and rushed him to a nearby hospital.

The manager however refused to compensate the man, saying it was mandatory to keep pants on during treatments in the club”

My favourite thing about the whole article is the headline, it’s so no-nonsense Chinese – “fish bite man in wrong place”.  That’s exactly what happened!

*inserts mandatory picture of Kenneth Williams*

Zhang Shuping has been talking in rapid-fire Sichuan dialect for an hour and a half without so much as taking a breath. I’m completely exhausted just listening to her story, but she seems relaxed and full of energy, pausing only to take a sip of water.  She continues, recouning the tale of how herself and her husband, otherwise known in China’s southwestern Sichuan Province as simply the ‘Rabbit King and Queen’, started their company back in 1985 with just 2 rabbits, and built it into a business that has become one of the largest distributors of rabbit products in the province.

As the Rabbit King and Queen’s mantra states, “2 rabbits + 1 year (and a little love and attention) = 377 rabbits (on average)”.

Mrs. Zhang’s husband Ren Xuping began raising rabbits when was 13 to try and support his sick father, but it was in 1984, when they were gifted 48 rabbits by American organisation HPI and the Sichuan Provincial Government, that the company really began to take off and flourish. The condition of this gift was that the people given the rabbits must themselves help to lift up others also in need.

To achieve this task, Ren Xuping started “The Rabbit Research Center for Poverty relief” to work alongside his main company.  It’s a training centre where, for a nominal fee, rural farmers can learn how to raise rabbits and market their own rabbit products.  Yuping also provides a startup pair to those who cannot afford to buy them. Both Ren Xuping and Mrs. Zhang were happy with this arrangement that helped local people in and around their home county of Dayi, but all this changed on May the 12^th 2008.

Both Mrs. Zhang and her husband should have been in Yingxiu (the town at the epicenter of Sichuan’s tragic earthquake) on that fateful day, but had received a call the day before to inform them that a delegation from Thailand wanted to visit them, so the couple postponed their trip and stayed in Dayi. Mrs. Zhang remembers when the earthquake hit: “we were all in a meeting and the ground began to move. Everyone was screaming and came running out of the house, and minutes later the building had fallen to the ground”.

On May 13^th when the scale of the devastation became clear they made a decision – the enterprise was to be divided into 3 groups. The first stayed with the company; the second (led by Mrs. Zhang) was to find the whereabouts of all know farmers in the county. The third was lead by Mrs. Zhang’s husband, and went directly to the Dayi quake zone, bringing with them water and food.

Up to mid-June 2008, NGOs and individuals came pouring into the quake zone, but inevitably with a disaster of this scale they found that some aspects of the rescue operation were somewhat muddled, or as Mrs. Zhang puts it “they brought with them a lot of love, but some people did not know the best way to help people practically”. So those within the company who were familiar with the districts affected assisted the NGOs by playing the role of coordinators, helping to collect information about people’s whereabouts and needs and passing this data on to the relief agencies.

From June to August 2008, they devoted their time and effort on the reconstruction of Dayi. They realized that the victims needed hope to survive, so alongside the Provincial Government they began to help train those who had lost their livelihood, and give them skills that they could use to make a living in the future. Some of the skills taught were about raising rabbits, but others also assisted the farmers to make long term plans in order to ease their worries about the long term future.

Up till the present day the company has given out more than 20,000 rabbits and more than 30,000 technical books to over 17,500 families in Dayi county alone, and while some may criticise their methods and their treatment of the animals, Mrs. Zhang insists that it is a cheap, practical solution to help local people help themselves out of poverty without having to always rely on outside aid to get by, and anyone who believes the old adage that ‘one person alone can’t make a difference’ might want to check out how much of a difference 2 rabbits can make to people’s lives.

BOOM!  KAPOW!  BLAM!  Can’t hear yourself think amidst the noise of the neighbourhood firework display?  Semi-blind from the abundant sparkling red and gold decorations?  Feeling a little queasy after eating your own body weight in dumplings?  It must be that time of year again – Spring Festival is here!

Perfectly normal

Yep, it’s the time of year when the scent of gunpowder fills the air, sausages hang from balconies next to the washing and train tickets become as scarce as unicorn-riding dodos.  It’s a special time for all from the middle kingdom, but how can a slightly confused laowai make the most of the biggest festival in the world’s most populous nation?  Here are a couple of handy hints to help China’s foreign friends usher in the year of the Ox on January the 26^th in style:

• Get yourself down to the local shop and buy a stylish ‘door decoration’. Traditionally, pasting the Chinese character fu (福) – meaning blessing or happiness – on your front door brings good luck for the coming year.

• If you are lucky enough to be invited to spend New Year’s Eve with Chinese friends or family, go!  You can look forward to the tuan nian fan or new year’s eve feast, watch the biggest and brightest stars from the Chinese entertainment world performing on CCTV’s Spring Festival extravaganza, and after midnight bid farewell to the old and usher in the new by eating dumplings, or Chengdu local favourite tang yuan or glutinous rice balls.
• If you’re in China (or live near a ‘Chinatown’), just before midnight get outside onto the street and enjoy the fireworks.  You won’t be able to sleep so you may as well enjoy the show!
• On New Year’s Day itself in China, locals flock to their nearest or best Temple Fair.  Although they were traditionally respectful, solemn affairs, modern temple fairs here are bustling, exciting and very crowded.  In Chengdu Wuhou temple fair is one of the most popular in the city.  Apart from the temple itself where traditionally people go to pray for good luck, there are many other things for visitors to enjoy, including food-stands, dragon dances, fortune-telling, face changing and countless other crazy activities.
• The more sedate Chengdu locals prefer to travel to the small mountain town of Laojunshan (老君山).  After climbing the many steps up the Taoist temple, people burn incense and light candles to remember their ancestors and bring good fortune for the coming year.

So, however you decide to celebrate this year’s Spring Festival, have a great time, and remember that even if you’re not a local, taking part in the festivities is as easy as wishing someone a happy New Year – xin nian kuai le!

Most westerners living in Chinese cities today do so in a bubble, insulated from the outside world and the harsher sides of life that the other 1.3 billion people in this country have to face.  Unless you take extreme measures to remove yourself from this cotton wool like moving to the countryside or stubbornly refusing to interact with anything western, you experience comparatively little of the random red tape and ritual that affects the daily lives of the locals here.

Foreigners have their own schools, hospitals, living areas and business zones, and you sometimes catch yourself wondering why the authorities go to these great lengths to help us.  Obviously foreign investment and technical expertise are important for the development of a country’s economy and the skills of it’s people, but as I mentioned before, the concept of face and the importance of being a good host are also fundamental.

Many efforts are made to ensure that China’s foreign guests are made to feel welcome and are happy with their lives in the middle kingdom, and this can sometimes manifest itself in some pretty bizarre ways.  However, there are very few occasions that you actually catch a glimpse of the man pulling the strings Wizard of Oz style behind the curtain, who makes our lives that little bit easier – but last night just happened to be one of those nights…

...follow, follow, follow, follow...

Last night Iz and I attended the 2009 Sichuan Provincial G0v$rnm$nt Foreign Investor Friendship New Years Eve Party (try saying that after a few glasses of baijiu!).  It was a lavish networking event held at the 5 star Crown Plaza Hotel, where all guests received a free goodie bag containing (among other things) a large and rather ornate teapot.  Over the course of the evening we were treated to a full-on Chinese banquet, lion-dancing, lute playing, singing, face-changing and of course plenty of long speeches about harmonious living.

Then the time came for the prize draw, and the mainly Chinese crowd were buzzing with excitement.  All attendees had put their name cards in box and Iz – with her British Chamber of Commerce hat on – was asked to draw out the cards.

Given that around 90% of the four hundred or so guests were Chinese, the three third prizes (hospital VIP cards) all rather curiously went to foreign managers of foreign-owned enterprises.  Two Chinese won the two second prizes (mobile phones) and then, most bizarrely, the first prize went to one of the most important foreign dignitaries in the room, the Chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce.  It just so happened that the first prize was life insurance specifically for foreigners allegedly worth 6 million RMB!!! He stood on the stage looking rather sheepish with his oversized insurance certificate, while photographers hired by the company snapped away.

If this strange set of events seemed to be too strange to be a coincidence, that’s because it wasn’t… It transpired that inside the big box of name cards from where the lucky winners cards were drawn was a smaller compartment, from where the drawer (Iz) should pick the pre-determined winners. In the eyes of the officials this made the result of the draw ‘fair’ and meant that ensured that everyone went home happy in the knowledge that the right result had been achieved.

Although fixing the prize draw was I’m sure meant as a token of respect and a very generous gesture to the foreign guests, at the same time it seemed to make the foreign winners involved extremely uncomfortable for being singled out from everyone else just for being foreign – in my opinion having precisely the opposite effect to that which was intended.  Ah cultural differences…

My apologies for missing photo of the week, I promise it’ll be back with a bang on Wednesday, so be sure to tune in for that.  Until then blogwatchers, good luck and good tasty – zaijian!

(First of all many apologies, computer  problems delayed the posting of this entry yesterday)

Grrr....

Anyway, on with the show!

“We have to do a what?”

“A performance.  In front of 300 people.  With British characteristics…”

Having signed up to help run the UK’s stand at East China Normal University’s 1^st annual cultural festival, I was expecting a reasonably relaxing afternoon.  Handing out leaflets, answering questions about the nation’s “foggy capital” and pretending not to notice as hundreds of curious Chinese people took pictures of my pasty white face at very close range.

However, this illusion was shattered when the event organiser contacted my long-suffering fellow-countryman who was running the stand to inform us that all countries had to put on a short performance fitting of their nation’s heritage and traditions.

Performances are a big part of Chinese society, and most Chinese have at least one party piece that they can trot out on demand; be it a song, a poem or a hidden talent that you never knew existed – and they are mostly not afraid to show it off!

Unless we’re especially gifted in one field or another, I think it’s fair to say that most Brits are not great performers.  I for one am particularly hamstrung by self-consciousness, a pinch of false modesty, and more to the point not having much aptitude or desire for performance.

When I first came to China as a teacher in Beijing, I was often caught unawares at staff dinners or other school events by senior management asking me to sing a song or show them a time-honoured British dance.  The trouble is I’m almost completely tone-deaf – my version of the Tight Fit classic ‘In the Jungle’ was so bad that the staff at Blackpool’s ‘Kareoke Klub’ actually turned off the speakers – and my dancing resembles the first stumblings of a baby giraffe.

Chinese face

However, it’s useful to know that according the Chinese rules of giving and showing ‘face’, disrespecting your superiors by refusing to perform is much worse than looking a pillock for a couple of seconds in front of your workmates.  In order to get by, you have to try and strip away the ingrained social programming and become a performing monkey, or at least develop a coping strategy to help you get through it!

Going back to the festival for a second, what on earth do the Brits actually ‘perform’ that represents our culture?  It was a tough question.  Due to the time of year we thought about singing Christmas carols, but as none of us could sing this was quickly ruled out.  An executive meeting over a few bottles of Qingdao followed, during which the idea of Morris dancing was suggested, laughed at and quickly dismissed.  Then – as no one could think of a better idea – it was decided that actually Morris dancing was the way to go.  What could possibly go wrong?

Our role models...

Well, apart from the fact that none of us had ever seen a live Morris dance before, let alone danced in one, we only had 3 Brits at the university willing to partake in our project.  What happened next could only be described as a ‘Morris Miracle’.  Firstly, we needed to complete the Morris Square, and our Belgian friend Dennis was recruited on the promise of a great adventure.

A further executive meeting followed where we drank more Qingdao and ‘borrowed’ some moves from youtube for our routine.  One more rehearsal and we were ready to Morris.  I assembled the costumes – complete with Morris sticks made from old broom handles – and here is how good we looked:

Morris 4 life

On the day most of the Chinese thought we were German, most of the Germans thought we were taking the mickey, and others who came along to watch were worried we were trying to imitate the characters from ‘Clockwork Orange’.

Apart from this – and a few howling mistakes from me – our dance was extremely well received, and we even feature on the poster for this year’s 2^nd annual cultural festival – although we weren’t invited back to recreate our masterpiece!  You can also catch video evidence of our mind-blowing routine here.

Well, old father time seems to have fallen asleep in his rocking chair for another week.  Thanks for tuning in blogwatchers, and until next time good luck and good tasty – zaijian!

Office work in China is rarely dull.  There are French lessons, films and football highlights blaring out at top volume from colleague’s computers, roars of approval or indignation when the box meal man comes with lunch (at 11:30am), and of course the shouting, singing and exercising that seem to be part of the working culture here.

However, Monday raised the bar on office-based entertainment in my short career here.  Around 3 o’clock in the afternoon two fresh-faced young chaps came marching into the office unannounced and demanded an interview.  As the company is currently looking for sales staff we decided to give them a crack, and three of us (one English, one Spanish and one Chinese) trouped into the meeting room to pose our questions.

First up was a nervous young man dressed in an all-beige suit and trainers, who kept digging his little finger into his ear and squinting.

The heat is on...

I’ve had to abbreviate the conversation a little, but I think you’ll get the general idea:

Q. “So, [looks at application form], Himalaya… er… why did you choose that as your English name?”
A. “I choose it today.  It is a very tall name”.
Q. “Ok… If I asked your friends to describe you, what do you think they would say?”
A.  “Frank”.
Q.  “Er… you mean you’re honest?”
A.  “Yes.  A very good man”.
Q.  “And how about one weakness you feel you have in your personality?”
A.  [Himalaya turns to our Chinese colleague, and in Chinese says something along the lines of]… “I don’t like obeying company rules, like coming to work on time”.
Q.  “Right… moving on, what experience do you have in sales?”
A.  “I sell women’s clothes on internet”.
Q.  [long, long silence] “Could you expand on that?”
A.  “On tao bao” [Chinese internet auction site similar to ebay].  “E-commerce”.

We wrapped it up with Mr. Himalaya shortly after that bombshell and moved on to his friend, who was also a sight to behold, dressed in an all white shell-suit with the longest, dirtiest fingernails I’d ever seen:

Q.  “Good afternoon um…”
A.  [shouting] “Mike Dale!”
Q.  “That’s two names – your surname is Dale?”
A.  “Yes, like Dale computers”.
Q.  “Ah.  I think you mean Dell.  D-E-L-L”
A.  “Yes-yes-yes”.

Q.  “Uh-huh.  Onto some slightly more tricky questions, if I asked your friends to describe your personality, what do you think they would say?”
A.  [At this point Mike Dale begins to unzip his jacket and look inside his t-shirt].  “white shirt, white pants…” [Chinese colleague cracks, puts her head between her knees and begins to laugh hysterically.  Spanish colleague ejects her from the room]
Q.  “I’m really sorry about that.  Do you think you could describe your perfect manager for me?”
A.  “A boss who loves his assistant – a lot”
[Spanish colleague loses it, and begins to silently sob on the desk]
Q.  “Ahh… your role would be in sales, so for your final answer I need you to convince me that you are the right person for this job – sell yourself”
A.  “Frankly speaking, there is no reason why you should hire me, because my oral English is very poor, but if you wait three months then it will be better.  I like computers”.

That about concluded the interviews.  I guess in a way it was quite refreshing to have people speak their mind in an interview situation.  I’ve conducted interviews in Britain where people have been so coached that they have absolutely nothing of interest to say.  However, I do feel for Himalaya, Mike Dale and the hundreds of thousands of recent graduates in China who are trying their luck with Western companies, and haven’t got the first clue about how to conduct themselves in the pressure-cooker environment of an interview.
I do wish Himalaya and Mike Dale the very best of luck with their job hunt, and to the rest of you blogwatchers out there, good luck and also good tasty.  Zaijian!

Will I ever learn (part 234)

The numbers from last night’s all you can eat and drink ‘Oktoberfest’ buffet at the Kempinski:

• 7 – German sausages
• 3 – honey glazed chicken steaks
• 2 – fish in beer batters
• 1 – round of pork spare ribs
• 2 – helpings of mashed potatoes
• 2 – helpings of roast potatoes
• 2 – buttered pretzels
• 1 – slice of bread
• 1 – chocolate muffin
• 5 – glasses of beer
• 1 – glass of beer downed in one
• 1 – huge attack of stomach cramp
• 35 – minutes spent lying very still in the toilets
• 2 – times talking to god on the porcelain telephone
• 1 – very silly boy

The only thing I can say in my defence is that I think the sight of all that western food made me slightly insane…

In a rather disturbing turn of events, the last few days we’ve found ourselves being stalked by a small white dog… FROM HELL!!! (sorry, put that bit in to make it sound more exciting).  It started last week: I returned home from the gym, and  – not wishing to burn any more precious calories – decided to take the lift up to the flat.  The lift doors opened, and to my surprise out came the beast – diminutive, dishevelled and unaccompanied.

Not being an expert on all things canine I have no idea of the breed, but it looks a lot like the dog on the packet of the shortbread biscuits my great-aunt Katey used to give me on our trips to Tunbridge Wells (Scotty dogs I think she called them).

Its a dogs life

The second meeting came when Isabel and I returned home to find it waiting for us by the lift.  I explained the story of the lift-riding dog to Iz, and right on cue it proceeded to get in with us, making small yelping noises and trying to bite my trouser leg as the lift ascended.  It was quite an awkward situation – we didn’t want to leave it in the lift, but certainly didn’t want it following us home.

After several unsuccessful attempts to shake it off that included a kind of bizarre ‘lift hokey-cokey’ dance, with us (and the dog) going up and down and in and out of the lift, we hatched a plan.  Iz would go up in the lift with the dog, press the ground floor button and jump out leaving the dog inside.  The lift doors would then open on the ground floor, I’d lure the dog out and then peg it up the stairs (the logic being that it was obviously quite a lazy dog as it took the lift everywhere, so it wouldn’t bother to follow me).

The plan worked beautifully until the final stage when the doors slid open on the ground floor and the dog exited the lift.  On seeing me disappearing up the stairs, and obviously furious at being hoodwinked, it let out a loud bark of annoyance and set off like the clappers after me.  I just made it in through the front door before it rounded the corner and ran slap-bang into the closed door.  I wish I could say it took the lift down, but sadly it sat outside our front door and howled for 45 minutes before departing.

Things came to a head yesterday when Iz was going into work.  She got out of the lift and was greeted by her new canine companion.  Despite her protestations, it then followed her to the main road.  Fortunately Iz managed to  flag down a taxi and make her getaway.  The dog – not knowing quite how to respond to it’s new best friend doing a runner – ran back across the road and was promptly run over by a moped.  Iz called me, traumatised at the fact that she’d almost certainly witnessed our furry friend meeting a rather nasty end.

I agreed it wasn’t nice – however annoying the little fellow was, I certainly didn’t wish any harm to it, and so I agreed to go out and report on the scene.  I took the lift downstairs, and when the doors opened there it was waiting for me without a mark on it. THE DOG FROM HELL!!!

I have no idea how to proceed with this, as we haven’t encouraged it with food or attention, but it just seems to have adopted us. Perhaps the mere fact that we both don’t boot it 6 feet up in the air means we treat it better than the majority of people in our block?!

Right, time to end this edition. Will keep you all updated on the dog situation, and until next time blogwatchers, good luck and good tasty, zaijian!