“We have good rooms, and the price is very cheap, Have three human lives and have four human lives, many human lives”.

(click image below to enlarge)

What is the first thing you notice about the Chinese word “dim sum”? If you speak even just a bit of Mandarin Chinese, it would probably be: the word is not in Mandarin. The word “dim sum” is in Cantonese, as is the food itself; specific to the Cantonese cuisine and usually found only in Guangdong (AKA “Canton”) province.

Contrary to common belief, dim sum is not a dish but rather a type of meal, comprised of many different dishes. In the west we sometimes mistakenly attribute the word dimsum to other Chinese foods such as “jiaozi” (饺子), “baozi“(包子), or any other sort of dumplings. In fact, dim sum can be steamed or fried, solid or liquid, sweet or sour or spicy, and so on: [click here to read the rest of this post...]

I was seated on a sofa, in a private booth. In front of me eight pretty girls were arrayed. The Big Boss, seated next to me, gestured toward the girls and said: “choose”.
I had just emerged from the toilet (private booth, private toilet) and a human meat market was not exactly what I had expected to find. The drinks were absurd
ly overpriced, and the minimum order for our considerably large booth was high. As there were only three of us (me, friend, Big Boss) I had been wondering why our KTV booth was so large; finally it made sense. Friend and I were not interested but Big Boss insisted (bringing in two additional sets of girls in an attempt to whet our appetite). Finally we gave up and let him pick for the three of us.
So what is KTV? When I had just arrived to China, I thought it was a TV station. As it turned out, I was quite off the mark. KTV is the common name in china for what we call “karaoke”, and it’s the number one pasttime in china. It is always done in private rooms, special for this purpose. Each room typically contains a television set, microphones and a computer system for picking songs and building playlists. Many places offer food and drink (most Chinese seem to believe singing is best done drunk) and some, as I discovered, also offer “companions”. These will chat with you, play drinking games with you, fawn over you and - if you cooperate - eventually go “all the way”. It’s hard to bring across just how big a part of the Chinese culture KTV is. A great amount of business deals are cemented in this manner, singing loudly over a bottle of whisky (and possibly a girl or two).
As KTV is so popular, it comes in all quality levels. The cheap ones will consist of spartan rooms and run-down equipment. The fancy ones will be expensively furnished and boast private bathrooms and personal attendants to care for you needs. Whatever you social class or income level is, there is a KTV for you: the phenomena crosses all social boundries in china.

When I was preparing to come to China for the 2nd time, I chatted on the internet with a girl I had a met during my first trip here, and asked if she wanted me to bring her anything from Israel. Her response was: “please bring me a dog”.

Chinese are often quite surprised that in many countries out of China, dogs can be obtained for free (or for a token fee to cover vaccinations). As it appears, some also do not realize the troubles of getting one through customs, not to mention backpacking with it for several months. A dog in China will typically cost several thousand RMB. In the past a special license was needed as well, which might go towards explaining why almost all dogs found in the cities are very small.

Coming at such a price, dogs tend to get much more attention than their countepart western mongrels. One of the ways this attention is expressed by is providing them with clothes. The motive is to protect the poor doggies from the cold; it is interesting to note, however, that this habit is most popular in the major cities of Guangdong province, where temperatures rarely reach below 10 degrees Celsius:

While many Chinese do eat dogs (dog meat is considered very good for your health), eating these city-dwellers is usually scorned upon. The reason for this is that dogs eaten in China are specific breeds which are bred and raised for these purposes in special “dog farms”. Some may consider this hypocrisy, but to me it makes some sense: I guess it is similar to how an American might watch the movie “Babe” jugar a la ruleta rusadownload casinocasinos espana portales webganancias casinos pagina webjugar seguro portales webpremio portalesslots comjuego instantaneo internetjugar seguro pagina internetganar dinero portales internettragaperra internetjuego interactivo portal internettragaperra paginas internetjuego interactivo internetcasinos la­neajuego casino pagina web,juegos casino paginas web,juego casinojuegos seguros pagina webpromocion casino portalcasinos paginas internetapostar jugar portaljugar paginas internetonline gamesapuesta dinero pagina internetjugar video pokerplay video pokercasino online ruletajuegos instantaneos paginas webslot machines spielenroulette online spielenslotmaschine spielenonline kasinoscasino video pokerroulette gratis spielenwww roulette detop online kasinosslots gamecasino net pokervideo poker spielecasino spiele downloadkasino gamesjack black online spielenonline casino roulettekasinospiele,casino spiele,kostenlose casino spielegambling onlinegratis casino spieleonline casino forumbest online casinokostenloses kasinosfreeware spiele casinokasino on net and then go have a ham sandwich…

On Chinese New Year’s eve, I was invited to a Chinese colleague’s home for dinner. Not wanting to come empty-handed, I brought with me a bottle of good Cabernet Sauvignon. My hosts gladly accepted the wine, poured it and… added a good measure of Sprite to all the glasses.

This anecdote is not an isolated incident, but rather represents a country-wide phenomena in China. As part of the fast changes in China for the past few years, Chinese were quick to adopt western habits: among them culinary habits, such as wine and coffee. These habits, however, were adopted mostly because they were hip and stylish - indeed, most Chinese are completely unused to the flavors of these beverages, which are an acquired taste. [click here to read the rest of this post...]

“No pain, no gain”, or so the saying goes. And one of the pains you will have to endure for your health, at least according to traditional Chinese medicine, will be in your feet.

The basic idea behind acupuncture and pressure points is that stimulating specific locations in your body will, in turn, cause positive effects in other areas. One of the best areas for such stimulation is the foot. It is believed that different areas of the feet correspond with different parts of the body, and that together they map out the entire human body (check out this chart for an example). This is probably one of the reasons why foot massage (briefly described in this old post) is so popular in China. The better foot masseurs have actual knowledge in traditional Chinese medicine and know how to do a “proper” foot massage by stimulating appropriate parts of the foot. The lesser masseurs probably make it up as they go along, and rely on “foot lore” which is loosely based on the same principles; for example if you yelp in pain when they apply pressure on a certain point on your foot, they will say “this means there is a problem in your kidney”. I doubt that actual traditional Chinese medicine is as clear-cut as that, but the basic idea is similar.

All was well for a while, until some Chinese woke up in the middle of the night with a flash of inspiration: why pay someone money to massage your feet, when you can have gravity do it for you for free? And thus the pebble walkways were born: outdoor walkways made out of jutting, round pebbles:

These can be found in most parks, and are almost exclusively used by old people. They are walked back and forth, barefoot or wearing only socks. I tried walking one of them once, and it really hurt - I guess those masseurs would say my entire body is one big health problem…

And finally, some Chinese wise guy took the thing one step further: why go all the way to the pebble walkways, when you can carry them with you? Which resulted in this contraption:

(keep reading for first-hand photos - press the “more” button)

Uncharacteristically cold weather has hit China at a fatal timing - just before Spring Festival and Chinese New Year. This time of year involves a mass migration, as countless Chinese head home to visit their families, and in normal conditions cause a very heavy load on the mass transit system. Recent weather in Southern China, reported as coldest in the last 50 years, resulted in a total systems collapse as railways were blocked by snow and trains were halted on the tracks.

The result - countless people stuck in railway stations, unable to board trains. The problem was most severe in Guangzhou, which serves as a transport hub for southern China: hundreds of thousands have been stranded there for the last week, waiting for trains. Massive amounts of police and army units are currently stationed there trying to maintain order, supplemented by conscripted civil-service workers and volunteers. Last Saturday I visited Guangzhou and decided to go and take a personal peek at this “sea of humanity”:

[click here to read the rest of this post...]

When visiting parks and outdoor teahouses of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, you may often encounter people walking among the patrons offering their services. Each carries a toolset: various small metallic instruments, some pointed, others soft-edged：

These people are ear-cleaners, an occupation which is perhaps unique to China. Their tools are designed to rid your ear canal from its surplus earwax. One interesting tool among these is a thin, flexible metallic rod with a miniature feather-duster at its edge. When the rod is tapped it starts vibrating very quickly and emitting a faint noise, just like a tuning fork. After being tapped, the vibrating rod is inserted into the ear canal, carefully as not to let it touch the sides. The delicate duster at the tip will gently bzzzzzzt against your inner ear, cleaning it. The feeling is supposed to be “weird at first, but you get used to it”.

I had considered trying it when I was in Chengdu, but refrained; one of the main reasons being that I hadn’t noticed the cleaners replacing or sanitizing their tools after cleaning other people’s ears…

A typical headrest of a taxi in Shenzhen:

Can you guess what it says?  You might be surprised to find out that the text simply means “Monday”.  This method guarantees that the headrest cover has been replaced the same day (or exactly a week before…). Of course, nothing prevents the driver from simply putting back on the same dirty cover that he took off last week (without washing it), but at least there are seven dirty covers instead of just one… lets them get a whiff of fresh air on their week off!

One of the things which frustrate me in China is my inability to tell jokes. In the past I had believed that to be able to tell a joke properly, the most important thing is that both joke teller and listener are fluent in the language which is used to tell the joke. As such, I believed that once I reach a certain fluency of language I could start to tell jokes in China as well. I never expected to be able to tell them with the same flourish as when I am using my native language (Hebrew), but I figured I ought to at least be able to handle the simpler ones.

I was wrong. What I had underestimated is the extent to which jokes rely on cultural background. It’s not that the Chinese humor is vastly different from mine - in many ways I think it can be quite similar. The problem, as I came to realize it, was the way the vast majority of the jokes I know are rooted in myths/conceptions etc from our culture. A few examples off the top of my mind-

• Black men being “well endowed”
• Blonds being promiscuous and dull-witted
• Some ethnic group being tight-fisted with money
• Some ethnic group being stupid

I’ve even had one joke in which, only when I reached its end, I realized nobody in China will understand its punchline simply because policemen in China don’t wear blue uniforms… all this is of course in addition to all the jokes which are somehow based on puns or words games and are nearly impossible to translate. In some cases (in particular - ethnic groups) my guess is that in theory I should be able to find proper “replacements”, but at the moment I don’t know them - anyone care to enlighten me?