Chengdon't

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!

I guess three years is a long time.  By next year I will have spent approximately 13% of my life in the middle Kingdom.  Which leads me to this question; does that make me 13% Chinese?

I feel that small nuggets of Chinese behaviour have started to creep into my unconscious.  If I’m trailing around H&M after Isabel and the dreaded ‘shopping foot ache’ sets in, I get the urge to squat down on my haunches and give my feet a rest.  Of course I’m completely useless at it and usually end up crashing like bambi-on-ice to the floor, but I now find it strangely comfortable for a short while.

It’s sometimes hard to immediately adjust and adapt your behaviour to a change of societal rules.  Last time I was back in Britain I was told off for taking too much of an interest in strangers.  On the bus into Bristol town centre – now a disgraceful £2.50 for a single – a ‘gentleman’ in front of me attracted my attention with his impressive array of tattoos, and I found myself oddly drawn to them.  My friend shook me out of my trance, “what are you doing? Stop staring!”  He hissed.  For a moment I felt somewhat indignant – if something’s interesting why not stare?

Obviously you have to put on different hats and adjust your behaviour for each country, but it’s not usually a disaster if you make a slight cultural boo boo coming from China to the west or vice-versa.  It’s one of the reasons why the Chinese abroad are usually so successful.  Apart from differences in expression – the Chinese tend to be a little more blunt about aspects such as physical appearance – there are no huge religious or ideological barriers to overcome living in a foreign country, and therefore this makes the Chinese more adaptable to whatever society they happen to be living in.

Foreigners coming to China looking for acceptance and integration do often struggle with their identity though.  Da Shan may speak better Mandarin than a lot of Chinese people, but one of the first things Chinese people will tell you is that he is Canadian.  You could be Professor of Chinese at Cambridge, but walking along any street in China to a stranger you’re a waiguoren.

However, I feel that in the next ten or twenty years this gap will narrow significantly as more foreigners flood into the country with yuan signs dazzling their eyes.  At the moment the country’s national identity is very strong – me Chinese you foreign – but if the number of Sino-Western hunxie babies I’m seeing around at the moment is anything to go by, then China’s demographic make-up is in for one of the biggest changes it’s ever seen.

So where does this leave me and my 13% in this great cultural shake-up?  Hopefully with a better understanding of not only China and the way things are done here, but also my own culture and how other people relate to it.  I can’t see too many Brits in the near future carrying round flasks of green tea, putting split trousers on their babies or squatting by the road waiting for the bus, but if they can know about and comprehend this behaviour then that’s a start to understanding the nation who may shape the fortunes of many in the years to come.

That’s the end of this Saturday’s post, apologies for the long-winded nature, and until next time blogwatchers, good luck and good tasty, zaijian!

As the song almost goes, Chengdon’t huan ying ni!  These random ramblings from Sichuan Province in South West China are partly to act as a kind of back up system for my ever-unreliable memory, and partly to keep friends and family back home up to date with events from the middle kingdom. I’ll try to update every Saturday from now on, and if something especially catches my attention it might be more often. Until next time blogwatcher(s), zaijian!