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:

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?

Nighttime, Lok Ma Chau border crossing. Mere minutes before this border crossing from Hong Kong to Shenzhen closes, the immigration officers already behind me, and lying ahead one last escalator to take me down to the main lobby of the border-crossing building. In front of me I can see a few other stragglers, also crossing the border into Mainland China at the last moment. Thirty meters from the escalator I can hear a noise, still faint but growing stronger with every pace, putting in mind of a flock of geese during mating season. In a few moments I reach the top of the long escalator, where I gaze upon the expected sight: a crowd of touts at the bottom, trying to get incoming passengers to take a taxi.

Normally these women stand right outside the front doors of the building, but it appears that near closing time the guards have grown lax and the touts have gotten inside and were crowding at the bottom of the one-way escalator. A quick, appraising glance, I count nine of them - not including several more wandering some distance behind. Most of them are announcing “taxi taxi” at the top of their voices in either Mandarin or Cantonese. Others are relentlessly asking in Chinese “where are you heading to?”, and one particularly crafty tout simply cries out “Shenzhen Shenzhen”. They do not seem to be the least perturbed by the fact that, by now, potential passengers are already arriving at a rate of only one person every ten seconds and do not pause their continuous gaggling as long as there is at least someone within line of sight.

~~~

When buying in the supermarket, especially in departments such as haircare products or cleaning products, the supermarket workers were always keen to assist me. Too keen. Merely pausing for a moment in front of the shelves would immediately result in a lady asking me what kind of product am I looking for. Upon telling her, she would immediately try to shove some product into my hands, usually some large “value pack”. She would adamantly praise the product and pressure me to buy it. If I did not want it, she would offer another product - which on careful inspection would reveal to be either the same brand or another brand belonging to the same company. Asking for a different category of product would result, too, in a product line from the same manufacturer.

~~~

Often, in restaurants in China, I would notice “special” waitresses. These waitresses would wear clothes completely different from the other waiters, usually a “sporty” outfit in a combination of two colors (e.g. black and green). These waitresses would invariably approach and would ask us if we would like to order some beer. The beer waitresses provide only one brand of beer, of course, the same brand as the brand colors they are wearing.

~~~

In my eyes, all the above are symptoms of the same thing: China is a rat-race. Whether it’s a tout trying to be heard over the voice of the other touts, a deteragent manufacturer handing out commissions to supermarket personnel, or a beer distributor placing his own serving staff - in all these cases people are trying very, very hard to get one step ahead of their competitors and “make it”. True, it happens all the time all over the world, but never before have I witnessed it in the same scale as it is here. Because of the sheer size of the country, when someone actually does manage to make it, he makes it big - and it seems these role models are enough to push all the others forward in a never-ending race.

While strolling through a park in Hainan (a tropical island off the south coast of China), I suddenly found myself facing the following sign:

I was, of course, very excited and immediately proceeded to take a picture of it. When I proudly showed the sign to Moon, though, she did not share my enthusiasm. “What’s the big deal”, she asked. “Mind your crotch!!!”, I bounced up and down, “they meant to write head, but they wrote crotch! It’s funny!”. “But crotch means head”, was her reply.

Sometimes it seems as if China’s entire English teaching system is some kind of perverse prank performed by the first foreigner to come to China. It’s not that they are taught completely wrong words (although I can’t understand how “crotch” managed to get this meaning), but rather they are taught words that while are technically correct, have new meanings which totally overshadow the old meanings.

Examples? In primary school the children are taught that “pussy” means cat and that “rubber” is an eraser. All Chinese know that the correct word for a male chicken is, of course “cock”. When speaking English with Chinese, every once in a while you will bump into a word which will surprise you.

I’ve already given up on trying to correct them; often the reply will be a thinly-disguised version of “that’s what I was taught in school, and obviously my English teachers know better English than you do”. They will just have to learn the hard way; I merely hope it won’t be too painful…

I had always suffered from a ugly signature. Where other people would sign their name in a fancy, pleasing to the eye squiggle, I would simply write mine down in my usual, bland handwriting. Later on, in a conscious effort, I managed to make my signature slightly different than my regular writing style, but did not get very far. Your signature is, after all, an expression of your personal style - and it appears that my personal style did not leave much room to maneuver.

The Chinese, it appears, challenge this notion by introducing the concept of “signature artists”. These so-called artists are usually street peddlers who, for a modest fee, will help you get the signature you always wanted. You give them some money (typically two yuan - equivalent to 1 shekel or 25 cents) and they sign your name for you several times, in several different “styles”. You can then pick the signature most pleasing to the eye, and start forging it - i.e. using it from now on as your own signature.

A few days ago, walking down the street, I saw people crowding. I joined the crowd to see what’s up, and saw that they were crowding around a signature artist. This artist had dropped her price to one yuan and was drawing in lots of customers. She worked as if on a production line, with a stack of papers in front of her. Every paper had a name written on top, and underneath it six empty boxes - she would fill those six empty boxes with six signatures (in six different styles). The the page’s “owner” would collect his page, give her one yuan, and she would proceed to the next page on the stack. Meanwhile other people would take blank pages from another pile, write their name on top and submit the pages to the bottom of her pile. She was extremely quick - completing an entire page took her 20-30 seconds - and new submissions were streaming in so quickly that she never ran out of papers in her queue. Even charging one yuan per signature set, she seemed to have made a decent amount of money that day:

I decided to have a go, and gave her my Chinese name (欧亮). This is the result: