“I have a very good education, love cultures from over the world, speak 5 languages and so on, I always combat forms of racism...but since I've lived in HK, I can't help myself feeling this pulsing of hatred towards Chinese when:
- they eat with their mouth open
- belch, burp, fart at any given occasion with an air of satisfaction on their face
- they scurry like little rats for the tiny seat on the metro
- when they try to kill pedestrians while driving cars thru crossings
- celebrate their horrible nationalism at every occasion (Makes me wish Japan won the war!)
- and and and...
Then I discovered Taiwan and I made peace with the "real" Chinese culture.
What I found is that it is the lack of most simple civil manners in HK and on the mainland that make Chinese so revolting. Their lack of humanity as well since they only care about themselves (let's be real the family & children is just an expansion of the self).
I hate Chinese culture simply because in this country focused on material wealth, people have no sense for
- beauty
- love
- or the sacred & spiritual
...and believe that their wealth is the panacea for all their horror.
However, Taiwan shows that there is hope for that Chinese people can become humans again.
This discovery made me understand that I am not racist, moreover it helped point out the flaws in my own character: That I shoulp help people more, that I should create more beauty for all to share.
China is this: It plays a role, the role of the black hole, the anti-humanity, the sum of all human ugliness.
If we recognize this, then China will help us improve ourselves and be ready when we have to help it change
Aug 18, 2010
It's really hard finding a place that Chinese people don't use as a toilet
Ummmmmmm, Chinese people poop on the Great Wall. You heard me. So, picture the Great Wall of China in your head - you know those tower things? Well, inside, in the corners of each of those - poop.
The Wall is one of the seven wonders of the world. There are obviously droves of tourists going there but unfortunately for me, most are Chinese. I’d say that 90-95% of visitors to the wall are Chinese (and no, I’m not mistaking Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese for Chinese - I can tell the difference by the way they dress and the condition of their teeth). So, rather than using the public restrooms (the only ones in this whole country) that are located at the base of all of the wall’s access points, Chinese people think it’s ok to go to the bathroom RIGHT ON THE WALL. You’d think that they’d have respect for something that’s so iconic of their culture and country, but no. What the f’ing f is wrong with them? ANIMALS! I’m still haunted by the site and disgusting smell I accidentally encountered when I walked around a corner inside one of the towers and saw a sequined-covered woman squatting. I screamed and ran. Awesome; the most memorable experience of my visit to The Great Wall of China involved shit.
The Wall is one of the seven wonders of the world. There are obviously droves of tourists going there but unfortunately for me, most are Chinese. I’d say that 90-95% of visitors to the wall are Chinese (and no, I’m not mistaking Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese for Chinese - I can tell the difference by the way they dress and the condition of their teeth). So, rather than using the public restrooms (the only ones in this whole country) that are located at the base of all of the wall’s access points, Chinese people think it’s ok to go to the bathroom RIGHT ON THE WALL. You’d think that they’d have respect for something that’s so iconic of their culture and country, but no. What the f’ing f is wrong with them? ANIMALS! I’m still haunted by the site and disgusting smell I accidentally encountered when I walked around a corner inside one of the towers and saw a sequined-covered woman squatting. I screamed and ran. Awesome; the most memorable experience of my visit to The Great Wall of China involved shit.
It's really hard surviving the HK and China boarder
Every single thing about crossing the boarder between China and Hong Kong makes me want to slit my wrists. Actually, that’s not true: the Hong Kong side of the boarder is mostly civilized (but only by comparison). The Mainland China side…. Oh my god. Ok, where to start….
The bathrooms:
Hong Kong’s side of the boarder: they’re not very clean (because mainland Chinese idiots use them and litterally shit ALLLLL over the place) but at least they have normal, non-squat toilets and are equipped with toilet paper, soap, paper towels and an army of janitors.
China’s side of the boarder: I ONCE made the mistake of going in and I will never do that again. Horrors. Horrors.
The boarder employees:
Hong Kong’s side of the boarder: Quick, efficient, organized, lots of lanes open and all English-speaking staff.
China’s side of the boarder: Retarded. They only ever have one or two lanes open for Foreigners and their employees are shockingly incompetent, rude and slow - even for Chinese people (which is definitely saying something). Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I always choose which line to stand in based on which line has the least number of black people. Oh my god, it takes a boarder/customs official about ten minutes to clear a black person. Why don’t they at least try to hide their racism like America does?
There is one really bad part about the Hong Kong side. When you enter and exit Hong Kong you need to wait in the “Foreigner’s line” which means you’re in the same line as Mainland Chinese “people.” That means that you’re going to be cut in front of CONSTANTLY. Chinese people are uncivilized barbarian animals and have zero concept of waiting in line and will do anything including physically elbowing and shoving to get around you. Brandon and I have gotten ruthless and shameless when it comes to stopping “cutters.” We elbow right back at them even if they’re little grandmas and put our arms straight out in front of them. We yell and cause scenes which is TOTALLY offensive in China because of their “saving face” culture. Once, I kept seeing Chinese people walking straight up to the front of the long-ass line and getting right in front. I grabbed two guys by the backs of their shirts and yelled at them! It was soooooooooo satisfying. HAHAHAHAA! The other god-awful thing about having to wait in line with mainlanders is the fact that Chinese people don’t really understand personal space. They’ll LITERALLY LEAN ON YOU. They touch you, they lean their bag on you or put it on your foot, they get so close that you can feel their toxic cat-eating breath on the back of your neck. GOD!!!!!!! This is all made extra worse by the fact that most mainlanders don’t bathe regularly and most definitely have never heard of deodorant. Ohhhh, and then there’s the human excrement - yeah, Mainlanders let their children potty on the ground right there in line. One time Brandon and I saw a lady making her little boy pee into a plastic baggie. We thought she was the most considerate Chinese person that we’d ever seen!!
As if the boarder couldn’t get any worse, Brandon/Josh/Nelly and I once got stranded there on our way into Hong Kong. So, when we go to HK, we’d take a bus from Shunde (the city we lived in) that’d drive us to the boarder and then wait for us to go through customs then the same bus would take us all the way into the city. Of course, our worst nightmare happened - the bus didn’t wait for us. After being stranded for like two hours, without anyone willing to talk to us or help us, we finally paid for another bus (after we paid upfront for the one that left us) to take us to Hong Kong. Awesome. Of course we tracked down the bus company’s office that f’ed us and demanded our money back. After a lot of almost-yelling, the assholes gave us half of our money back for two tickets - but not four. WTF?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!?!?
The bathrooms:
Hong Kong’s side of the boarder: they’re not very clean (because mainland Chinese idiots use them and litterally shit ALLLLL over the place) but at least they have normal, non-squat toilets and are equipped with toilet paper, soap, paper towels and an army of janitors.
China’s side of the boarder: I ONCE made the mistake of going in and I will never do that again. Horrors. Horrors.
The boarder employees:
Hong Kong’s side of the boarder: Quick, efficient, organized, lots of lanes open and all English-speaking staff.
China’s side of the boarder: Retarded. They only ever have one or two lanes open for Foreigners and their employees are shockingly incompetent, rude and slow - even for Chinese people (which is definitely saying something). Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I always choose which line to stand in based on which line has the least number of black people. Oh my god, it takes a boarder/customs official about ten minutes to clear a black person. Why don’t they at least try to hide their racism like America does?
There is one really bad part about the Hong Kong side. When you enter and exit Hong Kong you need to wait in the “Foreigner’s line” which means you’re in the same line as Mainland Chinese “people.” That means that you’re going to be cut in front of CONSTANTLY. Chinese people are uncivilized barbarian animals and have zero concept of waiting in line and will do anything including physically elbowing and shoving to get around you. Brandon and I have gotten ruthless and shameless when it comes to stopping “cutters.” We elbow right back at them even if they’re little grandmas and put our arms straight out in front of them. We yell and cause scenes which is TOTALLY offensive in China because of their “saving face” culture. Once, I kept seeing Chinese people walking straight up to the front of the long-ass line and getting right in front. I grabbed two guys by the backs of their shirts and yelled at them! It was soooooooooo satisfying. HAHAHAHAA! The other god-awful thing about having to wait in line with mainlanders is the fact that Chinese people don’t really understand personal space. They’ll LITERALLY LEAN ON YOU. They touch you, they lean their bag on you or put it on your foot, they get so close that you can feel their toxic cat-eating breath on the back of your neck. GOD!!!!!!! This is all made extra worse by the fact that most mainlanders don’t bathe regularly and most definitely have never heard of deodorant. Ohhhh, and then there’s the human excrement - yeah, Mainlanders let their children potty on the ground right there in line. One time Brandon and I saw a lady making her little boy pee into a plastic baggie. We thought she was the most considerate Chinese person that we’d ever seen!!
As if the boarder couldn’t get any worse, Brandon/Josh/Nelly and I once got stranded there on our way into Hong Kong. So, when we go to HK, we’d take a bus from Shunde (the city we lived in) that’d drive us to the boarder and then wait for us to go through customs then the same bus would take us all the way into the city. Of course, our worst nightmare happened - the bus didn’t wait for us. After being stranded for like two hours, without anyone willing to talk to us or help us, we finally paid for another bus (after we paid upfront for the one that left us) to take us to Hong Kong. Awesome. Of course we tracked down the bus company’s office that f’ed us and demanded our money back. After a lot of almost-yelling, the assholes gave us half of our money back for two tickets - but not four. WTF?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!?!?
It's really hard finding decent rice... in China?
Chinese people suck at… everything. Music, Food, Medicine, Porn, Governing, grooming/bathing, being generous - or caring - or being good stewards of the earth. But what’s one thing that you’d think that they’d be good at? Cooking rice, right?? Well, you’d of course be wrong. Yes, Chinese people eat rice with absolutely every meal but that doesn’t mean that they possess the mental aptitude to do it right. I’d say that Brandon and I had satisfactorily cooked rice less than ten times while living in China. Yes, the other 300 times (I spent ten months in china and ate rice at least once a day) the rice has either been overcooked-mush or was crunchy and undercooked. For a long time I thought that Chinese people ment to cook their rice all wrong but my Chinese coworkers repeatedly would complain about how the rice was cooked whenever we went to restaurants together. So there. It’s not just me.
It's really hard to believe, but the kid lived
So, I discovered that there was a huge, industrial-sized staple sticking out of my classroom’s carpet. I discovered it because one of my students was rolling around on the ground and sliced his leg open. Holy shit - he was gushing blood and screaming. I started cleaning him up with my roll of toilet paper (which I use as my whiteboard eraser) and my TA ran out then back into the class room. She brought with her THE RAG. THE RAG is the source of the death/decay smell that’s coming from our school’s balcony where the school’s sink is at and where the school’s Chinese staff prepare their meals everyday. See, they cook meat for every meal and they use THE RAG to clean up all of the bloody meat messes from their chopping block and to wash their dishes. Since there isn’t any soap out there, nothing is ever properly cleaned and that nasty, disgusting, rag has become absolutely putrid but they just keep using it - day after day after day.
That very rag, it was used to clean up my student’s cut. Why didn’t I stop this? I don’t know - it just happened so fast - I was too in shock - too worried about getting The Plague from the kid’s blood - too excited about telling Brandon about this and about writing this all down. So, it happened, THE RAG was pushed into his cut until all of the bleeding stopped. It then got used to scrub the blood out of the carpet (wow- she got a lot out for not having soap or any cleaning sprays) and then it was rinsed out (still no soap) and left right next to the chopping block to be used for lunch the next day.
One last thing - a few days later I noticed that no one had taken care of the giant staple sticking out of the carpet. I told my bitch-boss to have someone take care of it and no one ever did. I had to pry it out with two pairs of scissors because I‘m sure they would have never did it. It’s really, really, really sad that I’M the one that cares the most about the safety of my Chinese students - because let me tell you….
That very rag, it was used to clean up my student’s cut. Why didn’t I stop this? I don’t know - it just happened so fast - I was too in shock - too worried about getting The Plague from the kid’s blood - too excited about telling Brandon about this and about writing this all down. So, it happened, THE RAG was pushed into his cut until all of the bleeding stopped. It then got used to scrub the blood out of the carpet (wow- she got a lot out for not having soap or any cleaning sprays) and then it was rinsed out (still no soap) and left right next to the chopping block to be used for lunch the next day.
One last thing - a few days later I noticed that no one had taken care of the giant staple sticking out of the carpet. I told my bitch-boss to have someone take care of it and no one ever did. I had to pry it out with two pairs of scissors because I‘m sure they would have never did it. It’s really, really, really sad that I’M the one that cares the most about the safety of my Chinese students - because let me tell you….
Jul 19, 2010
It’s really hard not brutally murdering your boss
Our school fucked us over. Big time.
On the last day of our contract, Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I were owed 21,833 RMB each ($3,235. each!!!!) for our last month’s salary, flight reimbursement, bonus (which we fully qualified for according to our contracts) and deposits. Long story short, our boss decided to just pay us for our last month’s salary and screw us over on the rest.
We’re all still in shock about the whole situation. We were promised this money, we have contracts, but our boss didn’t care. I think in total, we spent about 11 hours arguing with our boss over the phone – through his 21 yr old son and our boss’s 25 yr old girlfriend, May (our boss is like 50 and married to a different slut!) – because he was SITTING OUTSIDE the school in his van refusing to face any of us. Yeah, I’m serious, what a FREAK! I’ve never in my life encountered such unprofessional, rude, heartless people in my life. GOD! If that whore May laughed in our faces one more time, Nelly and I were going to shove her 4 inch glittered heel through her skull!! AHHH!!!
God, it was such a mess and SO PAINFUL. The blatant lying from our boss was endless. At one point in the 11-hour negotiations, our Boss was seeming more amiable and told us that if we taught a couple more classes for free (our contracts were over but the semester wasn’t), he’d give us our full bonuses (5,000RMB/$740.USD each). Of course we immediately agreed and our boss’s son shook Brandon’s hand and promised (PROMISED!!) that we’d get that money. Guess what happened. I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WE LET CHINESE PEOPLE PLAY US LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!!
Their reason for not paying us? They had so many excuses but the first that they tried was that we were “bad teachers.” Brandon and I luckily saved ALL of the reviews that each of our students filled out. Averaging all of our scores, Brandon was at 98% and I had a 97% along with hundreds of great comments from the kids. Then, we had ten months worth reviews from our managers which averaged 95%. We showed all of these to our boss’s son (who reported to his Dad who was sitting out in the f’ing van) and he just said that our students/managers were just being polite (mind you, our boss or his son had never seen us teach). So, we asked the boss’s son to sit-in on our classes (teaching students for FREE by the way). Of course, we taught the best classes we’ve EVER taught and did a PERFECT job. Our boss’s son couldn’t deny it, he said we were great teachers so then he moved on to a different reason for not paying us.
“The school gave you free housing for the past ten months – you owe us money!” WTF?! It says in our contracts that we’re to receive free housing and utilities! Since when does ANY teacher in China have to pay for housing? Well, after several other tries, this is the excuse they settled on. We argued and argued but there was nothing we could do. Chinese people don’t respond to logic (or contracts) and they correctly pointed out to us that if we try contacting the police, they’ll just need to pay them off with 200 rmb ($29.00).
Oh my god. The four of us need therapy. Do you know what arguing over money we’ve already earned with lying, manipulating, ass-hole Chinese people will do to a person after 11 hours?! All four of us are still having violent dreams about torturing and murdering our boss, his two sons (one of which is only five) and that whore-girlfriend.
This whole experience has for sure been one of the worst experiences of my life. We told all of our Australian/British friends in China what happened and they all said something close to “duh!!” Apparently it’s rare to not get screwed on your last paycheck from a Chinese school and that most people expect it and even factor it into their budgets. I guess it’s our own faults for not seeing this coming. Fuck you Chinese people. You win. I give up.
On the last day of our contract, Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I were owed 21,833 RMB each ($3,235. each!!!!) for our last month’s salary, flight reimbursement, bonus (which we fully qualified for according to our contracts) and deposits. Long story short, our boss decided to just pay us for our last month’s salary and screw us over on the rest.
We’re all still in shock about the whole situation. We were promised this money, we have contracts, but our boss didn’t care. I think in total, we spent about 11 hours arguing with our boss over the phone – through his 21 yr old son and our boss’s 25 yr old girlfriend, May (our boss is like 50 and married to a different slut!) – because he was SITTING OUTSIDE the school in his van refusing to face any of us. Yeah, I’m serious, what a FREAK! I’ve never in my life encountered such unprofessional, rude, heartless people in my life. GOD! If that whore May laughed in our faces one more time, Nelly and I were going to shove her 4 inch glittered heel through her skull!! AHHH!!!
God, it was such a mess and SO PAINFUL. The blatant lying from our boss was endless. At one point in the 11-hour negotiations, our Boss was seeming more amiable and told us that if we taught a couple more classes for free (our contracts were over but the semester wasn’t), he’d give us our full bonuses (5,000RMB/$740.USD each). Of course we immediately agreed and our boss’s son shook Brandon’s hand and promised (PROMISED!!) that we’d get that money. Guess what happened. I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WE LET CHINESE PEOPLE PLAY US LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!!
Their reason for not paying us? They had so many excuses but the first that they tried was that we were “bad teachers.” Brandon and I luckily saved ALL of the reviews that each of our students filled out. Averaging all of our scores, Brandon was at 98% and I had a 97% along with hundreds of great comments from the kids. Then, we had ten months worth reviews from our managers which averaged 95%. We showed all of these to our boss’s son (who reported to his Dad who was sitting out in the f’ing van) and he just said that our students/managers were just being polite (mind you, our boss or his son had never seen us teach). So, we asked the boss’s son to sit-in on our classes (teaching students for FREE by the way). Of course, we taught the best classes we’ve EVER taught and did a PERFECT job. Our boss’s son couldn’t deny it, he said we were great teachers so then he moved on to a different reason for not paying us.
“The school gave you free housing for the past ten months – you owe us money!” WTF?! It says in our contracts that we’re to receive free housing and utilities! Since when does ANY teacher in China have to pay for housing? Well, after several other tries, this is the excuse they settled on. We argued and argued but there was nothing we could do. Chinese people don’t respond to logic (or contracts) and they correctly pointed out to us that if we try contacting the police, they’ll just need to pay them off with 200 rmb ($29.00).
Oh my god. The four of us need therapy. Do you know what arguing over money we’ve already earned with lying, manipulating, ass-hole Chinese people will do to a person after 11 hours?! All four of us are still having violent dreams about torturing and murdering our boss, his two sons (one of which is only five) and that whore-girlfriend.
This whole experience has for sure been one of the worst experiences of my life. We told all of our Australian/British friends in China what happened and they all said something close to “duh!!” Apparently it’s rare to not get screwed on your last paycheck from a Chinese school and that most people expect it and even factor it into their budgets. I guess it’s our own faults for not seeing this coming. Fuck you Chinese people. You win. I give up.
It's really hard not being home!
AMURICAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
Dear America, I need to apologize. I had no idea how f’ing awesome you were.
In less than a week after moving to China, I had a total epiphany – America is the best country everrrrrrr!!
See, I didn’t know it before. When I thought of America, I thought of Bill O’Riley, Ann Coulter, Lynndie England, Cheney and Palin. I thought of fundamentalist evangelical Christians, Proposition 8, capital punishment, anti-stem cell research protesters, uneducated morons teaching Intelligent Design and abstinence-only, gun violence and pedophile catholic priests. I pretty much hated America. In fact, the original title of this blog was “Escape from the US.”
So all those people and things I just listed, they’re awful. But I learned that it can be worse, like waaaay worse. China. I can’t even explain to you how fucked this country is. I mean, come on, they block facebook!
Living in China was worse than what I imagine American prison to be. Our prisons at least have soft beds, great gyms, decent food, muscley men and English-speaking TV stations. God, China, fuck you! You ruined my life for ten f’ing months and I don’t even have a pile of cash to show for all that suffering – I think I was getting paid in rice.
I CAN’T WAIT TO BE BACK IN AMERICA!! I’m even going to totally LOVE stuff that I used to hate! For example, I’m SUPER EXCITED to see hundreds of HUGE, overly jacked-up, gas-guzzling, mud-covered Ford and Chevy trucks with “I bleed red, white & blue” and Dale Earnhart bumper stickers and full gun-racks driven by obese, red necks with eagle, “Jesus is Lord” and swastika tattoos in my home town – Battle Ground, Washington. YES!!! God bless America!!
You think I’m joking don’t you? I’m definitely not!! I now love everything American and hate everything Chinese. F’ing china. They don’t even have FORTUNE COOKIES here! I’ve eaten in a Chinese restaurant everyday for ten months - China, you owe me A LOT of fucking fortune cookies.
Dear America, I need to apologize. I had no idea how f’ing awesome you were.
In less than a week after moving to China, I had a total epiphany – America is the best country everrrrrrr!!
See, I didn’t know it before. When I thought of America, I thought of Bill O’Riley, Ann Coulter, Lynndie England, Cheney and Palin. I thought of fundamentalist evangelical Christians, Proposition 8, capital punishment, anti-stem cell research protesters, uneducated morons teaching Intelligent Design and abstinence-only, gun violence and pedophile catholic priests. I pretty much hated America. In fact, the original title of this blog was “Escape from the US.”
So all those people and things I just listed, they’re awful. But I learned that it can be worse, like waaaay worse. China. I can’t even explain to you how fucked this country is. I mean, come on, they block facebook!
Living in China was worse than what I imagine American prison to be. Our prisons at least have soft beds, great gyms, decent food, muscley men and English-speaking TV stations. God, China, fuck you! You ruined my life for ten f’ing months and I don’t even have a pile of cash to show for all that suffering – I think I was getting paid in rice.
I CAN’T WAIT TO BE BACK IN AMERICA!! I’m even going to totally LOVE stuff that I used to hate! For example, I’m SUPER EXCITED to see hundreds of HUGE, overly jacked-up, gas-guzzling, mud-covered Ford and Chevy trucks with “I bleed red, white & blue” and Dale Earnhart bumper stickers and full gun-racks driven by obese, red necks with eagle, “Jesus is Lord” and swastika tattoos in my home town – Battle Ground, Washington. YES!!! God bless America!!
You think I’m joking don’t you? I’m definitely not!! I now love everything American and hate everything Chinese. F’ing china. They don’t even have FORTUNE COOKIES here! I’ve eaten in a Chinese restaurant everyday for ten months - China, you owe me A LOT of fucking fortune cookies.
It's really hard breathing when you know it's killing you
China prolly gave me cancer. Our city (Shunde) has the highest cancer rate in the country – 45%. Yeah, 45% of people living in Shunde get cancer. Since people are too stupid to MOVE THE FUCK OUT OF THIS CITY, they’re also too stupid to figure out what’s causing the high cancer rate. The water? The pollution? The pesticides? When we ask about it, everyone always says “no one knows.” This includes two of Brandon’s students who are Doctors.
It's really hard knowing that China's air drifts over to the rest of the world
FUCK YOU NATURE!!!!!!!!!!!
Have you seen that episode of South Park where the Japanese people travel around the world killing dolphins and whales and yelling “FUCK YOU DOLPHIN AND WHALE!!!!!?” Ok, well if the Chinese were in this episode, they’d be yelling “FUCK YOU NATURE!!!!!!!!”
The littering here – you wouldn’t believe it!!! The amount of trash on the ground is shocking. Chinese people litter CONSTANTLY. They just drop whatever is in their little, dirty, yellow hands (HAHAHAHAAA) or just chuck it out of their car or bus window. One time I bought all of my students ice cream (it was chocolate/jellied aloe flavor) from a 7-11 type store. They all just pulled the wrappers off and dropped them. I yelled at them to pick them up (there was a trash can like 5 feet away) but they wouldn’t!!! I had to do it!
There are no emission laws in this country. Cars/tucks/buses just spew pollution like you’ve never seen before. And no one cares!! The pollution is crazy-thick here. We’ve seen patches of blue sky less than ten times in the past nine months in China and we’ve only seen stars once. The air is so thick. And the black pollution covers everything. We have to line-dry ALL of our clothes (there are no dryers in china) inside of our apartment because if we leave them outside to dry, they’ll be super dirty after just a few hours in that air. Oh, and my boogers are always black too! (Kai, do you love that?!)
Our apartment complex used to have over 300 trees surrounding it. How do I know how many? Because I went to the 23rd floor, looked down, and counted 300+ holes in the ground. They ripped them all out about five months ago. Why? Because: FUCK YOU NATURE!!!!!
"It's really hard" description of every bed in this country!
My back and shoulders are killing me!! Do you know how hard Chinese beds are?! It’s a joke! They look like regular, mattress but they don’t feel like it at all. On the top where you sleep, the mattresses have a sheet of wood with a 1/8” thick layer of felt stapled to that and covered in the mattresses’ floral-print fabric. Chinese mattresses are ALL THE SAME and they’re the DEVIL. And why do Chinese people sleep on devil beds? ...because Chinese doctors tell people that sleeping on a completely hard, flat bed will make you live longer. Morons. I want my memory foam!
Jun 25, 2010
In China, driving down the wrong side of the road is more popular than eating rice.
China accounts for just three percent of the world's cars, yet has 21 percent of the world's traffic fatalities. “Research shows that every day in China at least 300 people are killed in traffic accidents, ranking the country top in the world for both the death toll and the death rate. And the figure is accelerating by 10 per cent every year."
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST – I hate Chinese drivers! Seriously, the government should outlaw cars. These people are 100% incapable of any component of driving. Turn signals, mirrors, seatbelts and children's car seats are never, ever ever used. Drivers don't stop at stop signs or lights, they never stay between the lines, they make U turns in the middle of the road (not really a u-turn – more like a six-point turn), they swerve like you've never seen before, they're always texting/talking on the phone while driving, they stop (in the middle of two lanes) on the highways, they drive drunk CONSTANTLY and they're pretty much always driving waaaaaaaay under the the speed limit. Chinese roads, parking lots and even sidewalks (why do they think it's ok to drive a car on a fucking sidewalk?!?!?!) are like war zones.
Watching people try to park their cars is one of Brandon's and my favorite hobbies in china. We've seen people park their cars in the center of a lane of traffic. We've seen people park on sidewalks. We've seen one car literally park diagonal and take up three parking spaces. And then there's parallel parking. Before I leave, I NEED to make a video of a Chinese person trying to parallel park. Usually, it involves the driver smashing into the cars in front and behind about 30 times and ends 10 minutes later with the driver pulling out of the spot and just parking with their car's ass hanging straight out into the street. It's awesome!!!
Crossing a street in China is SUPER hazardous. You never know where a car could be coming from (they're always driving on the wrong side of the road or hauling ass out of parking spots) and you better believe that NO ONE is going to slow down or swerve to avoid hitting you. I've probably spent a total of 15 hours in the past nine months waiting to cross streets in China. FUCK!!!!
Every foreigner has crazy driving stories. My favorite is when one of Brandon's business English students drove us to go play badminton. The gym that we were going to was about six miles away. It took us 25 minutes to get there. People on bikes were passing us! No, there wasn't any traffic, or construction and we didn't get lost. She was just a retarded Chinese driver.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST – I hate Chinese drivers! Seriously, the government should outlaw cars. These people are 100% incapable of any component of driving. Turn signals, mirrors, seatbelts and children's car seats are never, ever ever used. Drivers don't stop at stop signs or lights, they never stay between the lines, they make U turns in the middle of the road (not really a u-turn – more like a six-point turn), they swerve like you've never seen before, they're always texting/talking on the phone while driving, they stop (in the middle of two lanes) on the highways, they drive drunk CONSTANTLY and they're pretty much always driving waaaaaaaay under the the speed limit. Chinese roads, parking lots and even sidewalks (why do they think it's ok to drive a car on a fucking sidewalk?!?!?!) are like war zones.
Watching people try to park their cars is one of Brandon's and my favorite hobbies in china. We've seen people park their cars in the center of a lane of traffic. We've seen people park on sidewalks. We've seen one car literally park diagonal and take up three parking spaces. And then there's parallel parking. Before I leave, I NEED to make a video of a Chinese person trying to parallel park. Usually, it involves the driver smashing into the cars in front and behind about 30 times and ends 10 minutes later with the driver pulling out of the spot and just parking with their car's ass hanging straight out into the street. It's awesome!!!
Crossing a street in China is SUPER hazardous. You never know where a car could be coming from (they're always driving on the wrong side of the road or hauling ass out of parking spots) and you better believe that NO ONE is going to slow down or swerve to avoid hitting you. I've probably spent a total of 15 hours in the past nine months waiting to cross streets in China. FUCK!!!!
Every foreigner has crazy driving stories. My favorite is when one of Brandon's business English students drove us to go play badminton. The gym that we were going to was about six miles away. It took us 25 minutes to get there. People on bikes were passing us! No, there wasn't any traffic, or construction and we didn't get lost. She was just a retarded Chinese driver.
I just couldn't possibly say it better myself!
I borrowed this from a China expat forum:
“I live in china right now and I can honestly say that from my experience, most of the people are obsessed with becoming rich and will claw and cheat their way to the top. It’s a dirty, overcrowded, rude atmosphere. The people are kind to me because I’m a foreigner but I see them treat one another like crap on a daily basis. I find myself saying hello to maintenance staff rather than acknowledging the existence of businessmen because I find those who have attained some sort of power in this country to be wretched human beings. The regular people are great, albeit uneducated and all the frustrations that brings, but it is the richest of the Chinese that are cruel, abusive human beings. Such is communism, I suppose.”
“I live in china right now and I can honestly say that from my experience, most of the people are obsessed with becoming rich and will claw and cheat their way to the top. It’s a dirty, overcrowded, rude atmosphere. The people are kind to me because I’m a foreigner but I see them treat one another like crap on a daily basis. I find myself saying hello to maintenance staff rather than acknowledging the existence of businessmen because I find those who have attained some sort of power in this country to be wretched human beings. The regular people are great, albeit uneducated and all the frustrations that brings, but it is the richest of the Chinese that are cruel, abusive human beings. Such is communism, I suppose.”
After going into a gross, nasty, very-chinese bathroom:
Mariel: Don't worry, I brought soap!!
Nelly: Thank god!
Eveny: You carry soap with you?!
Mariel: of course, because there’s no soap in Chinese bathrooms. Do you want some?
Eveny: (laughing) No, thank you (Nelly and I exchange grossed-out glances)
I'm not kidding, this is what eveny says: Why are you washing your hands with soap?
Mariel: Nelly and I rate bathrooms on an A, B, C scale in SE Asia. An “A bathroom” means that you'll only get Hepatitus A from using it. A “B” bathroom means that you'll get Hep A and B from using it. A “C bathroom” means that you'll get all three. This was definitely a “C bathroom.”
Eveny: hahahaahahaaa!!
Mariel: You know, in America, all bathrooms have soap and toilet paper
Eveny: WOW!!
Mariel: and EVERYONE washes their hands. In fact, if you work in a restaurant and you're seen not washing your hands in a bathroom before returning to work, you'll get fired.
Eveny: WHAT??? That's terrible! Why?
Mariel/Nelly: Because it’s DISGUSTING!
Eveny: What if you work in a restaurant and you eat and drink too much and you have to go to the bathroom 10 times. Do you have to wash your hands ten times?
Mariel/Nelly: ABSOLUTELY!
Eveny: WOW! So strange!
Nelly: Thank god!
Eveny: You carry soap with you?!
Mariel: of course, because there’s no soap in Chinese bathrooms. Do you want some?
Eveny: (laughing) No, thank you (Nelly and I exchange grossed-out glances)
I'm not kidding, this is what eveny says: Why are you washing your hands with soap?
Mariel: Nelly and I rate bathrooms on an A, B, C scale in SE Asia. An “A bathroom” means that you'll only get Hepatitus A from using it. A “B” bathroom means that you'll get Hep A and B from using it. A “C bathroom” means that you'll get all three. This was definitely a “C bathroom.”
Eveny: hahahaahahaaa!!
Mariel: You know, in America, all bathrooms have soap and toilet paper
Eveny: WOW!!
Mariel: and EVERYONE washes their hands. In fact, if you work in a restaurant and you're seen not washing your hands in a bathroom before returning to work, you'll get fired.
Eveny: WHAT??? That's terrible! Why?
Mariel/Nelly: Because it’s DISGUSTING!
Eveny: What if you work in a restaurant and you eat and drink too much and you have to go to the bathroom 10 times. Do you have to wash your hands ten times?
Mariel/Nelly: ABSOLUTELY!
Eveny: WOW! So strange!
Here's the best conversation I've ever heard:
Nelly: I have something that's going to change your world (giving Icy a Tampon)
Icy: What is it?
Nelly: A tampon, you use it rather than a pad
Icy: Screaming: It's SO BIG!!
-icy is crazy because it’s one of those tiny OB tampons that's thinner than your pinky finger and only 1.5 inches long
Nelly: you have to try it. You'll never want to use a pad ever again!
Icy: Never, never, never!!!!!!
Nelly: Pleasseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! You'll love it!! Do it for me! PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Icy: only if you'll try a pad
Nelly and Mariel: EWWWWWWWW!!!!!! Grossssssssssssssssssssss!!!
Nelly: FINE, I’ll try a pad if you'll try a tampon
Icy: but wait, when you use a tampon, how do you go pee?
Nelly: What? Why would you not be able to pee?
Icy: because the tampon blocks it
Icy: What is it?
Nelly: A tampon, you use it rather than a pad
Icy: Screaming: It's SO BIG!!
-icy is crazy because it’s one of those tiny OB tampons that's thinner than your pinky finger and only 1.5 inches long
Nelly: you have to try it. You'll never want to use a pad ever again!
Icy: Never, never, never!!!!!!
Nelly: Pleasseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! You'll love it!! Do it for me! PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Icy: only if you'll try a pad
Nelly and Mariel: EWWWWWWWW!!!!!! Grossssssssssssssssssssss!!!
Nelly: FINE, I’ll try a pad if you'll try a tampon
Icy: but wait, when you use a tampon, how do you go pee?
Nelly: What? Why would you not be able to pee?
Icy: because the tampon blocks it
It's really hard teaching English in China. So, what's it like?
Brandon, Nelly, Josh and I have been in Foshan China working for a Chinese-owned English training center for both children and adults for nine months now. Here's the dealio:
Getting the job was super easy. Schools in Mainland China don't care about your lack of teaching qualifications. They don't care about your criminal background as a convicted rapist or pedophile. They don't care that you never graduated from high school. It doesn't matter if you're an alcoholic. And they don't care if your first language isn't English. There's only one thing that matters: that you're white. They want blonde teachers with blue or green eyes. That's the ideal. They'll settle for brunettes but if you have black hair – good luck. If you're Black or Asian, it's going to be nearly impossible for you to find a teaching job making a fair amount of money even if you're a legitimate, certified teacher.
Once you have the job, you almost always have to sign a contract. This is because the Chinese company (schools are companies here) wants to be able to treat you like absolute crap without having to worry about you quitting. See, the contract allows the school to hold a percentage of your paycheck every month and then at the end of the contract (most contracts are for ten or twelve months), they're supposed to return it to you as a reward for staying until the end. Nice bonus: they pay you your own money that you've already earned. Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I are all in a ten-month contract from September until June 30th. Its been the longest ten months of my life.
The arguing and fighing is constant. Our company HATES us: they're used to idiot teachers that just bend over and take it but we've been fighting back with almost everything. We're not asking for anything other than for them to follow the contract!! We just want to be paid for overtime hours, paid on time, given our housing/gym allowance, given our cell phones as promised, given access to showers that have at least warm water in the freezing winter, and paid on the last day of our contracts rather than a month later like they're proposing.
As for the students, I bet you're imagining adorable, big-cheeked, disciplined, respectful kids because that's what I pictured before I came to China. So, picture this: super dirty, loud, rude, violent, spitting/coughing, BRATS that won't listen to a thing you say. That's what we have. Yes, most of the girls are super sweet (although still crazy dirty) but it's hard to focus on them when the rest of the class is so evil.
And we don't even make good money here!!! Our pay has increased from 7,000 rmb to 9,500rmb over the past nine months. I know, pathetic. I used to make double working at a non-profit! But the good thing is that the cost of living is next to nothing. Our school provides free housing and utilities so our only real expense is food (which is between $1.-$3./meal) and traveling.
“This sounds terrible?! Why do you stay?” I knowwww, and the worst part is… you have to live in China too!! So why have I stayed? One reason: Brandon. Yes, he's miserable here too but he has wanted to stay because of the money. I know, it's dogshit money but because of the low cost of living (and the lack of anything worth buying), he has been able to save more money than he ever has before. At least he knows that he owes me (BIGTIME) for staying here with him!
PS- I know this is a terribly-written post. I'm Drunk!!!
Getting the job was super easy. Schools in Mainland China don't care about your lack of teaching qualifications. They don't care about your criminal background as a convicted rapist or pedophile. They don't care that you never graduated from high school. It doesn't matter if you're an alcoholic. And they don't care if your first language isn't English. There's only one thing that matters: that you're white. They want blonde teachers with blue or green eyes. That's the ideal. They'll settle for brunettes but if you have black hair – good luck. If you're Black or Asian, it's going to be nearly impossible for you to find a teaching job making a fair amount of money even if you're a legitimate, certified teacher.
Once you have the job, you almost always have to sign a contract. This is because the Chinese company (schools are companies here) wants to be able to treat you like absolute crap without having to worry about you quitting. See, the contract allows the school to hold a percentage of your paycheck every month and then at the end of the contract (most contracts are for ten or twelve months), they're supposed to return it to you as a reward for staying until the end. Nice bonus: they pay you your own money that you've already earned. Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I are all in a ten-month contract from September until June 30th. Its been the longest ten months of my life.
The arguing and fighing is constant. Our company HATES us: they're used to idiot teachers that just bend over and take it but we've been fighting back with almost everything. We're not asking for anything other than for them to follow the contract!! We just want to be paid for overtime hours, paid on time, given our housing/gym allowance, given our cell phones as promised, given access to showers that have at least warm water in the freezing winter, and paid on the last day of our contracts rather than a month later like they're proposing.
As for the students, I bet you're imagining adorable, big-cheeked, disciplined, respectful kids because that's what I pictured before I came to China. So, picture this: super dirty, loud, rude, violent, spitting/coughing, BRATS that won't listen to a thing you say. That's what we have. Yes, most of the girls are super sweet (although still crazy dirty) but it's hard to focus on them when the rest of the class is so evil.
And we don't even make good money here!!! Our pay has increased from 7,000 rmb to 9,500rmb over the past nine months. I know, pathetic. I used to make double working at a non-profit! But the good thing is that the cost of living is next to nothing. Our school provides free housing and utilities so our only real expense is food (which is between $1.-$3./meal) and traveling.
“This sounds terrible?! Why do you stay?” I knowwww, and the worst part is… you have to live in China too!! So why have I stayed? One reason: Brandon. Yes, he's miserable here too but he has wanted to stay because of the money. I know, it's dogshit money but because of the low cost of living (and the lack of anything worth buying), he has been able to save more money than he ever has before. At least he knows that he owes me (BIGTIME) for staying here with him!
PS- I know this is a terribly-written post. I'm Drunk!!!
It's really hard living with SAVAGES!!
“A 2003 study reported by CNN revealed that bank notes from China had 178,000 different types of bacteria and were home to 9,500 organisms from the e-coli family (Brown, 2003)."
We've all heard those crazy stats that 99.9% of all American money has fecal matter on it, right? I used to doubt that this was really true – I mean, who the hell gets shit on their hands?! Well now I know and I'll tell you who: the Chinese!!!!!!!!!!! That's right! There are tons of Chinese in America and I'm blaming them for getting poop on our money!!!!!
Yeah, let me tell you how this works. As I've talked about ENDLESSLY for the past ten months, All the Chinese people that I know have absolutely no personal hygiene so it shouldn't surprise you that they don't see toilet paper as a necessity. Lots of them use it but more of them don't. “Don't you need to wipe?” I ask my friends, they say “if we forget to bring toilet paper, we just use our hand to wipe.” YEAH. Why are they not embarrassed to tell me this? Because they don’t think it's gross – AT ALL. When they see my distressed reaction (I'm counting the times they’ve touched my laptop) they add “but we always wash our hands!!!” Here's the thing about Chinese people washing their hands, they don’t use soap, EVER. Public restrooms in restaurants, shopping malls, movie theaters, schools, grocery stores and even hospitals never ever ever have soap dispensers. I've been in plenty of Chinese homes too and people never have soap next to their bathroom sink either. While I’ve been fishing my “soap baggie” out of my purse after using a public bathroom I’ve watched Chinese people “wash their hands” a million times. What they do is turn the water on, put their hands under the tap for two seconds then turn the water off and leave. They don’t carry their own soap like I do, and they don’t even rub their hands together for a second. UNCIVILIZED SAVAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We've all heard those crazy stats that 99.9% of all American money has fecal matter on it, right? I used to doubt that this was really true – I mean, who the hell gets shit on their hands?! Well now I know and I'll tell you who: the Chinese!!!!!!!!!!! That's right! There are tons of Chinese in America and I'm blaming them for getting poop on our money!!!!!
Yeah, let me tell you how this works. As I've talked about ENDLESSLY for the past ten months, All the Chinese people that I know have absolutely no personal hygiene so it shouldn't surprise you that they don't see toilet paper as a necessity. Lots of them use it but more of them don't. “Don't you need to wipe?” I ask my friends, they say “if we forget to bring toilet paper, we just use our hand to wipe.” YEAH. Why are they not embarrassed to tell me this? Because they don’t think it's gross – AT ALL. When they see my distressed reaction (I'm counting the times they’ve touched my laptop) they add “but we always wash our hands!!!” Here's the thing about Chinese people washing their hands, they don’t use soap, EVER. Public restrooms in restaurants, shopping malls, movie theaters, schools, grocery stores and even hospitals never ever ever have soap dispensers. I've been in plenty of Chinese homes too and people never have soap next to their bathroom sink either. While I’ve been fishing my “soap baggie” out of my purse after using a public bathroom I’ve watched Chinese people “wash their hands” a million times. What they do is turn the water on, put their hands under the tap for two seconds then turn the water off and leave. They don’t carry their own soap like I do, and they don’t even rub their hands together for a second. UNCIVILIZED SAVAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's really hard being the fattest girl in all of China.
Chinese girl are really, really skinny. Most of our friends are about 5'2” and 90 lbs. I'd estimate that this is the average in Southern China from what I've seen. Do you know this make me feel?! I'm surrounded by literally half a billion stick figures!!! I'm a giant!!!!!!!!!
And I don't get it either. How are all these Chinese girls so skinny?!
Chinese food doesn’t seem healthy to me. Do you know what I think the most popular Chinese food is? McDonald’s and KFC. Seriously, Chinese people eat it like every day. If you ask any of my students what their favorite food is: “Mydonaah's Hanboaboa” or “Mydonaah's French frieahhhs. Yeah, by the way, they don't say “McDonald's” they say “Mydonaah's” because that's the name that McDonald's uses in their commercials to make it easier for Chinese people to say. ANYWAYS, so what else to Chinese people eat? Fried rice, fried noodles, fried vegetables, fried meat, fried dough – they use insane amounts of oil. And it's not like Chinese people don’t eat junk food. They go crazy for these little plastic cups/tubes of fruit –flavored jelly (PUKE!!!!!) and they LOVE potato chips, cookies (which they call biscuits – weird) and chocolate. And, Chinese people LOVE ice cream. A Chinese grocery store has a significantly bigger ice cream section than an American grocery store. Their flavors are fucked – like corn flavor or chocolate/green tea or jellied aloe vera/strawberry – but they LOVE the stuff and definitely eat it every day.
So, as you can see, I don't understand how they're all so thin. And it's not like they exercise either. All of our friends think its SO WEIRD that Brandon and I work out. Literally none of our friends have done any exercising since high school when they were required to do badminton, ping pong, ballroom dancing and basketball in gym class. None of them have ever in their lives used a treadmill or lifted weights. Never, ever. They think that Brandon and I are the weird ones!!
Brandon and I use our apartment complexes’ “gym” (two tredmills, some free weights and a 100% broken bowflex machine). I call it “our gym” because for the past six months, we have literally been the only two people that have bought “membership cards.” Our complex has 644 apartments and like I said, Brandon and I are the only ones that set foot in there.
I think that being around skinny people all day, everyday for the past nine months has really gotten to Brandon and me. We feel like total cows!! Its been making me want to work out way more than usual. I've been spending gazillions of hours climbing the stairs in our apartment building and even running (which I HATE) for 25 minutes a day and doing more and more weights too. Having 90 pound friends is really good motivation!! But, I haven't lost ANY WEIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! Brandon, on the other hand, has been eating at McDonalds five meals a week and has lost tons of weight. 60 pounds actually. He does work out super hard but it's so not fair!! He's so skinny now! Every time we go to the grocery store, we weigh ourselves and every time he weighs one or two pounds less than the time before and I'm always the same. It's so heartbreaking for me!! So, I asked my friend Lindy if Chinese girls had a trick to losing weight. She said that I should start exercising for three minutes a day, five days a week. Yeah, that's what she told me.
And I don't get it either. How are all these Chinese girls so skinny?!
Chinese food doesn’t seem healthy to me. Do you know what I think the most popular Chinese food is? McDonald’s and KFC. Seriously, Chinese people eat it like every day. If you ask any of my students what their favorite food is: “Mydonaah's Hanboaboa” or “Mydonaah's French frieahhhs. Yeah, by the way, they don't say “McDonald's” they say “Mydonaah's” because that's the name that McDonald's uses in their commercials to make it easier for Chinese people to say. ANYWAYS, so what else to Chinese people eat? Fried rice, fried noodles, fried vegetables, fried meat, fried dough – they use insane amounts of oil. And it's not like Chinese people don’t eat junk food. They go crazy for these little plastic cups/tubes of fruit –flavored jelly (PUKE!!!!!) and they LOVE potato chips, cookies (which they call biscuits – weird) and chocolate. And, Chinese people LOVE ice cream. A Chinese grocery store has a significantly bigger ice cream section than an American grocery store. Their flavors are fucked – like corn flavor or chocolate/green tea or jellied aloe vera/strawberry – but they LOVE the stuff and definitely eat it every day.
So, as you can see, I don't understand how they're all so thin. And it's not like they exercise either. All of our friends think its SO WEIRD that Brandon and I work out. Literally none of our friends have done any exercising since high school when they were required to do badminton, ping pong, ballroom dancing and basketball in gym class. None of them have ever in their lives used a treadmill or lifted weights. Never, ever. They think that Brandon and I are the weird ones!!
Brandon and I use our apartment complexes’ “gym” (two tredmills, some free weights and a 100% broken bowflex machine). I call it “our gym” because for the past six months, we have literally been the only two people that have bought “membership cards.” Our complex has 644 apartments and like I said, Brandon and I are the only ones that set foot in there.
I think that being around skinny people all day, everyday for the past nine months has really gotten to Brandon and me. We feel like total cows!! Its been making me want to work out way more than usual. I've been spending gazillions of hours climbing the stairs in our apartment building and even running (which I HATE) for 25 minutes a day and doing more and more weights too. Having 90 pound friends is really good motivation!! But, I haven't lost ANY WEIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! Brandon, on the other hand, has been eating at McDonalds five meals a week and has lost tons of weight. 60 pounds actually. He does work out super hard but it's so not fair!! He's so skinny now! Every time we go to the grocery store, we weigh ourselves and every time he weighs one or two pounds less than the time before and I'm always the same. It's so heartbreaking for me!! So, I asked my friend Lindy if Chinese girls had a trick to losing weight. She said that I should start exercising for three minutes a day, five days a week. Yeah, that's what she told me.
Jun 16, 2010
It's really hard having nothing but Chinese junk
I sooooo have the rage virus right now. The second computer charger that we've bought in five weeks just blew up - FUCK!!!! And is the store going to give us a replacement?! No - they're going to laugh in our faces and charge us for a new one. Dollar store junk - I HATE dollar store junk and that's all there is in China. What the fuck is wrong with chinese people?! Why don't they demand quality products?!
Everything is shit!! Our school's computer, fax machine and printer are broken more often than not, almost all of the students' desks are broken, my classroom fan just broke, the schools rice cooker is busted and the keyboard that I'm using right now doesn't have 's' or 'w' keys so everytime I want to type those letters I have to copy/paste from a word document!!!
Everything we've ever bought in China has fallen apart!! The hems on my chinese clothes have unraveled, the designs on my t-shirts have peeled off, two pairs of headphones stopped working, brandon's i-pod only stays charged for 30 minutes, our heater randomly turns on/off, the bristles fell out of my new toothbrush, and my shoes collapsed after getting wet because it turned out that they were made of pleather-lined cardboard.
When we moved into our first apartment in China, everything was broken: the air conditioner, the washing machine, the TV, the shower head, most of the doors knobs, the window latches, the hot water heater, the microwave (which happened to be the only microwave in this whole country), the front door's lock and you could only flush the toilet by taking the top off and pulling the chain thing inside. Even though we just moved in, the landlord (who is one of our school's managers) told us that we had to pay for all of the repairs ourselves. AWESOME. Oh, and my other favorite part - all of the door frames are cut too big so there's 1-2 centemeter gaps on everydoor that we've had to fill with layers and layers and layers of tape.
God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to go hoommmmmmmmeeeeee!!!!!
Everything is shit!! Our school's computer, fax machine and printer are broken more often than not, almost all of the students' desks are broken, my classroom fan just broke, the schools rice cooker is busted and the keyboard that I'm using right now doesn't have 's' or 'w' keys so everytime I want to type those letters I have to copy/paste from a word document!!!
Everything we've ever bought in China has fallen apart!! The hems on my chinese clothes have unraveled, the designs on my t-shirts have peeled off, two pairs of headphones stopped working, brandon's i-pod only stays charged for 30 minutes, our heater randomly turns on/off, the bristles fell out of my new toothbrush, and my shoes collapsed after getting wet because it turned out that they were made of pleather-lined cardboard.
When we moved into our first apartment in China, everything was broken: the air conditioner, the washing machine, the TV, the shower head, most of the doors knobs, the window latches, the hot water heater, the microwave (which happened to be the only microwave in this whole country), the front door's lock and you could only flush the toilet by taking the top off and pulling the chain thing inside. Even though we just moved in, the landlord (who is one of our school's managers) told us that we had to pay for all of the repairs ourselves. AWESOME. Oh, and my other favorite part - all of the door frames are cut too big so there's 1-2 centemeter gaps on everydoor that we've had to fill with layers and layers and layers of tape.
God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to go hoommmmmmmmeeeeee!!!!!
A story from one of my TAs
You know how China has the "one-child policy?"
Yvonne's high school was located right next to a govmt-run abortion clinic. She told us that every couple of days (and sometimes multiple times in one day) she and the rest of the students could see and hear pregnant women being literally dragged out of police cars and into the clinic. When the cries of these women would interrupt a teacher's lesson, the teachers would always tell them not to feel sympathy for the women because they're criminals and deserve what is happening. Just as awful, they could see the womens’ husbands and family members crying and screaming for her outside of the clinic's gate. After I calmed down from my subsequent culturally-insensitive freak out, I asked her: you mean to tell me that day after day for three years of high school you watched this happen? HOW could you stand it? She said that sometimes when she could hear a woman crying for help and begging for the life of her baby, she’d feel pity for her, but she knew that “it's true, the women are criminals.”
Yvonne's high school was located right next to a govmt-run abortion clinic. She told us that every couple of days (and sometimes multiple times in one day) she and the rest of the students could see and hear pregnant women being literally dragged out of police cars and into the clinic. When the cries of these women would interrupt a teacher's lesson, the teachers would always tell them not to feel sympathy for the women because they're criminals and deserve what is happening. Just as awful, they could see the womens’ husbands and family members crying and screaming for her outside of the clinic's gate. After I calmed down from my subsequent culturally-insensitive freak out, I asked her: you mean to tell me that day after day for three years of high school you watched this happen? HOW could you stand it? She said that sometimes when she could hear a woman crying for help and begging for the life of her baby, she’d feel pity for her, but she knew that “it's true, the women are criminals.”
So happy I'm not a chinese girl
My school doesn't hire guys: only girls that are age 24 or younger. Their ideal age is 20. Why? Because of looks and because the younger they are, the more easy it is to exploit and manipulate them. The owner of the school obviously knows that you can treat a young, sweet, innocent Chinese girl like absolute shit for a ridiculously long period of time before she'll even consider quitting.
I think my dear friend Lindy has had the worst experience. I had to rip this story out of her but she eventually told me everything.
Lindy was originally a student at my school and has been trying to get a job here for two years. Her dream was to have a job where she'd work with real western foreigners so that her English would improve and be good enough so she could eventually get a high paying job as an interpreter abroad. To get the job at our school, she had to go through the worst interview process I've ever heard of.
- She's 24 years old which is almost too old for my school. The other girls at the school convinced her that she'd never get the job unless she said she was 21.
- Her interview (with the school’s evil owner: Brian and his succubus assistant, Selina) was two hours long!! During this interview, they didn't ask her a single question about her English skills or her education. Not one. ALL the questions (sparing a few about her last job) were personal. They started off by asking her if she had a boyfriend. In China, this is a very rude question even between teenage girls let alone in a f'ing job interview! They wanted to know everything about her boyfriend, how long they'd been together, if her parents approved of the relationship and if they were living together. SO RUDE! They asked her over and over again if she wanted to work at the school so that she could get an American husband. Apparently Brandon and Josh are available?
- At one point in the interview, Brian made her put her hair into a ponytail and pull her bangs back so that he could “see her face.” Then they made her stand up and walk back and forth in the room. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'd scream!!! She was applying for a Teacher’s Assistant job!!!
- So, at the end of the interview, they told her that they usually don’t hire girls that look like her but they’d give her a chance. They told her that if she cut her hair and went to a hospital (no doctor’s offices in our city) to get some skin creams to improve her complexion, they'd hire her. For some crazy reason, she had 6 inches of her beautiful hair cut off and she took the job.
I think my dear friend Lindy has had the worst experience. I had to rip this story out of her but she eventually told me everything.
Lindy was originally a student at my school and has been trying to get a job here for two years. Her dream was to have a job where she'd work with real western foreigners so that her English would improve and be good enough so she could eventually get a high paying job as an interpreter abroad. To get the job at our school, she had to go through the worst interview process I've ever heard of.
- She's 24 years old which is almost too old for my school. The other girls at the school convinced her that she'd never get the job unless she said she was 21.
- Her interview (with the school’s evil owner: Brian and his succubus assistant, Selina) was two hours long!! During this interview, they didn't ask her a single question about her English skills or her education. Not one. ALL the questions (sparing a few about her last job) were personal. They started off by asking her if she had a boyfriend. In China, this is a very rude question even between teenage girls let alone in a f'ing job interview! They wanted to know everything about her boyfriend, how long they'd been together, if her parents approved of the relationship and if they were living together. SO RUDE! They asked her over and over again if she wanted to work at the school so that she could get an American husband. Apparently Brandon and Josh are available?
- At one point in the interview, Brian made her put her hair into a ponytail and pull her bangs back so that he could “see her face.” Then they made her stand up and walk back and forth in the room. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'd scream!!! She was applying for a Teacher’s Assistant job!!!
- So, at the end of the interview, they told her that they usually don’t hire girls that look like her but they’d give her a chance. They told her that if she cut her hair and went to a hospital (no doctor’s offices in our city) to get some skin creams to improve her complexion, they'd hire her. For some crazy reason, she had 6 inches of her beautiful hair cut off and she took the job.
It's really hard watching Chinese people eat.
I told brandon that I'm drawing the line: no more eating with chinese people. That's it - I can't handle it anymore. I mean, come on, my weiner dog has better table manners!!
So, first of all, they chew and talk with their mouths open - always. it's not considered rude in China. You've never seen anything like this. The smacking sound is SO LOUD and food falls and falls and falls out of their mouths. They're worse than a two year old: I'm not exagerating!! And when they talk to you, little pieces fly out - SO GROSS!!!!!!!!! It's extra bad too because of the shit they eat too. They don't eat normal things like salads or pasta or even fried rice - it's always weird chinky shit like eels or fried fish-head or jellied chicken feet. And what the fuck? - how do they somehow get food all over their faces?!?!? Their lips and entire mouth area always, always, always get covered in whatever they're eating - GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ohhhh, and then there's the amount of time it takes!!! Ummm, do you have three hours free for lunch?? No? Then don't invite your chinese friends. Ok, so one time our four chinese TAs invited themselves to go to lunch with Brandon, Josh and me to a "fancy western restauarnt." Here's how this went down:
12:00 Arrive at the restaurant - the TAs FREAK OUT because of how fancy this restarant looks (it's similar to a "Sherrie's" which is super nice for China) and they start taking pictures of EVERYTHING with their three cameras (you know how Asians are). They pose for pictures with the salt/pepper shakers, then with the "pretty water glasses," the "non-smoking table" sign (they'd never seen one before), the silverware, the menus, the FREE napkins (free!! - holy cow!!!!) the flowers on the table and of course with the toothpick holder. This takes about 20 minutes. FML.
12:20 Choosing what to order from the menu: aparently the most difficult task they've ever completed in their LIVES. I think the TAs asked the servers over 100 questions EACH. By the time they ordered their food, we had been at the restaurant for AN HOUR.
1:10 Our food arrives - now the TAs have to spend 20 minutes holding up their plates of food and posing for photos.
1:25 Brandon, Josh and Mariel are done with our food and we've paid our bill - Chinese TAs are still taking pictures
-for the next HOUR we had to turn our heads away from the girls so we didn't have to see them eat. How do they take so f'ing long?!?!?! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I can't keep going - remembering this is probably giving me high blood pressure! This isn't an isolated insident either, we've gone out to eat with different chinese people TONS of times and it always takes tripple the amount of time that it should and always makes me want to puke. But, at least I don't have to do it ANYMORE!
So, first of all, they chew and talk with their mouths open - always. it's not considered rude in China. You've never seen anything like this. The smacking sound is SO LOUD and food falls and falls and falls out of their mouths. They're worse than a two year old: I'm not exagerating!! And when they talk to you, little pieces fly out - SO GROSS!!!!!!!!! It's extra bad too because of the shit they eat too. They don't eat normal things like salads or pasta or even fried rice - it's always weird chinky shit like eels or fried fish-head or jellied chicken feet. And what the fuck? - how do they somehow get food all over their faces?!?!? Their lips and entire mouth area always, always, always get covered in whatever they're eating - GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ohhhh, and then there's the amount of time it takes!!! Ummm, do you have three hours free for lunch?? No? Then don't invite your chinese friends. Ok, so one time our four chinese TAs invited themselves to go to lunch with Brandon, Josh and me to a "fancy western restauarnt." Here's how this went down:
12:00 Arrive at the restaurant - the TAs FREAK OUT because of how fancy this restarant looks (it's similar to a "Sherrie's" which is super nice for China) and they start taking pictures of EVERYTHING with their three cameras (you know how Asians are). They pose for pictures with the salt/pepper shakers, then with the "pretty water glasses," the "non-smoking table" sign (they'd never seen one before), the silverware, the menus, the FREE napkins (free!! - holy cow!!!!) the flowers on the table and of course with the toothpick holder. This takes about 20 minutes. FML.
12:20 Choosing what to order from the menu: aparently the most difficult task they've ever completed in their LIVES. I think the TAs asked the servers over 100 questions EACH. By the time they ordered their food, we had been at the restaurant for AN HOUR.
1:10 Our food arrives - now the TAs have to spend 20 minutes holding up their plates of food and posing for photos.
1:25 Brandon, Josh and Mariel are done with our food and we've paid our bill - Chinese TAs are still taking pictures
-for the next HOUR we had to turn our heads away from the girls so we didn't have to see them eat. How do they take so f'ing long?!?!?! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I can't keep going - remembering this is probably giving me high blood pressure! This isn't an isolated insident either, we've gone out to eat with different chinese people TONS of times and it always takes tripple the amount of time that it should and always makes me want to puke. But, at least I don't have to do it ANYMORE!
It's really hard not laughing in their faces
Here are a few of my fav “English Names” that my students have had:
Sugar baby
Rainmund
Christ
Whitey
Apple (I'd say that 5% of all Chinese girls have this as their “engish name”)
Pizza
Nana
DoDo (this one is SUPER common)
Mimi
Bobo (yeah, I know. It's super common too)
Gigi
Kiki
Teddy
Jackie (probably 15% of boys have this name)
Sugar baby
Rainmund
Christ
Whitey
Apple (I'd say that 5% of all Chinese girls have this as their “engish name”)
Pizza
Nana
DoDo (this one is SUPER common)
Mimi
Bobo (yeah, I know. It's super common too)
Gigi
Kiki
Teddy
Jackie (probably 15% of boys have this name)
Super annoying Placebo effect
Before Brandon, Josh, Nelly and I started at our school, our Chinese TAs had never drank alcohol in their lives. After months of peer pressuring, the pussies finally gave in and we got 22-year old Melon and 23 year old Memory (this is what happens when Chinese girls choose their own “engish names") to drink with us. We got some red wine and gave them each a shot glass-full of it (Chinese people drink EVERYTHING out of shot glasses). After drinking two little sips, they started acting SUPER DRUNK – swaying, giggling, slurring and then falling. I knew they were full of shit so I made them keep drinking. Melon took one more little girl sip and PUKED. She didn't even finish the f'ing shot glass!!
Jun 2, 2010
I don't know why we even bother going to see movies! Prince of Persia in a chinese movie theater...
There is only one thing that can distract me away from staring at Jake Gyllenhaal's amazing arms – screaming Chinese children with LED flashlights.
Come on! Seriously, COME ON! Why would you bring your four year old and six year old into a movie theater and equip them with freakishly bright LED flashlights and tell them that they can go play, run and SCREAM right IN FRONT OF THE MOVIE SCREEN FOR TWO HOURS?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!? And why are Brandon and I the only ones that noticed?! Oh yeah – because EVERYONE else was too busy yelling into their cell phones.
Come on! Seriously, COME ON! Why would you bring your four year old and six year old into a movie theater and equip them with freakishly bright LED flashlights and tell them that they can go play, run and SCREAM right IN FRONT OF THE MOVIE SCREEN FOR TWO HOURS?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!? And why are Brandon and I the only ones that noticed?! Oh yeah – because EVERYONE else was too busy yelling into their cell phones.
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