Singing and KTV

Singing is really big in China. I often see people just walking around singing a tune, sometimes they will have a cd/mp3 player with a speaker on it that's blaring for all to hear and they sing along. And it's rare to see someone who is shy to sing. I've often asked students in my class to sing a song, and they do it. It's interesting that in this culture where many people seem shy, they are not shy about singing. It's been explained to me that perhaps it's because they are shy that they love to sing: they are shy to express their feelings by saying exactly what they think so instead they sing a song that matches what they feel. And very many of them sing amazingly well.

KTV

Consequently, of course karaoke is very big here. There are numerous karaoke places, generally they are called KTV (I think it's because the very first company that invented the karaoke machine was called that?), but they are way cooler than in the states. Depending on how many people you have with you, you get a small, medium or large room for just your friends which will have one or more couches and tables with a big TV and a karaoke machine and 2-3 microphones. The waiters will drop by occasionally to get you snacks or more drinks. It's a great system b/c even people like me who can't sing at all don't worry about it and do it since you are in your own room among friends. The cost to rent a small room, which is right for about 4-5 people, ranges from 20 yuan an hour ($3) to 200 yuan an hour, depending on whether you want a trashy place in the suburbs or an amazing clean place downtown with strobe lights and lasers and flat panel huge tv and they bring you lots of cool fruit and food and give you your own pretty KTV girl to work the machine for you and who can sing really well also. Though if you go for the nice KTV with a pretty girl route you gotta be nice to her. If the men get too rowdy and grab the girl too much, she will leave and the management will swap her for a KTV boy which is not as cool; it's always embarassing if you see someone's room with a KTV boy cause you know someone's been behaving badly. But all in all KTV is great fun. Everyone seems to love it. Students go to it, businessmen take their clients to it, a boy and a girl will go on a date there and get their little private room, etc. I put up a few stock pictures of some really nice KTV rooms.

ChiWan

So this story didn't even make it to the front page of google news, but I think it will soon have some world-wide impacts. Mainland China and Taiwan have just signed some landmark trade agreements. As of 1 hour ago, people in mainland China can send direct mail to Taiwan and later today the first direct passenger flights will commence and direct sea travel will again be permitted. All of this is the stuff of history since none of this has been permitted since 1949. To transport cargo from the Mainland to Taiwan will now take less than 1/3 of the distance and time because no artificial detour will be necessary. Add this to the trade agreements signed earlier in the fall effectively removing various tariffs and quotas on trade between these 2 entities, and I think the picture is becoming clearer...China and Taiwan will very soon be One again, in practical effect if not officially (there are some who think this won't happen, such as the 0.5 million protesters in Taiwan who opposed Chen Yulin's visit to Taiwan last month). When I was in Macro Economics class back in 2001, our teacher was telling us that at around the year 2020, China's economy is projected to become the largest in the world. I think it will happen much quicker. China has successfully pulled off the Olympics this summer, last month sent men to space, has just effectively normalized relations with Taiwan and the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 is another grand project in the pipeline http://en.expo2010china.com/ expecting 70 Million visitors and the participation of 228 countries. If you consider the GDP alone, China is neck and neck with Germany and behind the US and Japan. If you look at the PPP and consider the perpetuated undervaluation of the RMB (Yuan) b/c it is still being pegged to the dollar (even though a fraction of its valuation is permitted to float), the size of the economy may already be number 2 in the world (even considering the 2007 World Bank PPP revisions). Also if you consider this headline from today about the official 2nd largest economy: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=auPaBwMwwGtg&refer=home (Sentiment among Japan’s largest manufacturers fell the most in 34 years, signaling companies are likely to cancel spending plans and cut more jobs, pushing the economy further into recession.) and any headline from the US, and then note that China appears to be the only large economy not headed into a recession, and it began aggressive spending on massive infrastructure improvements earlier this year, before the bank collapses even began...and then the expected benefits of massively improved trade relations with Taiwan (and perhaps eventual unification)...and I think the U.S. and the World has a big wake up call.

The Beggar Master

You see beggars in China as you do everywhere. The beggars in China, however, are always either really old and/or handicapped. This is certainly different from the US where they are almost exclusively able bodied grown men. So I do give a kuai (1 yuan) to these beggars when I see them, which is not all that often. They don't hang out in the suburbs/village area where my college is located, but there are quite a few in the downtown area. A friend of mine, who I will call Dundee, gave me more information about the beggar scene and I have verified this with some Chinese friends. Apparently, the beggar scene is quite competitive and is largely controlled by organized crime. In the big cities, there is a usually a quite powerful mafia boss--the Beggar Master--that controls the beggar population and approved begging locations. His minions go to the villages and find severely handicapped people. They will give a sum of money to their relatives to be allowed to take the handicapped people away. The handicapped will be provided a bed and rice to eat, and in return they must of course go beg all day. Most of the money they successfully earn through their beggary must go to the Beggar Master and his minions. This arrangement is not quite the land of milk and honey as it may seem, b/c apparently there is a quota of how much each beggar must earn depending on the quality of the real estate he is provided and if he does not reach the quota he will be severely beaten. Apparently the same system exists in India, except the Beggar Master there has even more power since India has such a huge population of beggars. If a shopkeeper pisses off the Beggar Master, the BM will bring hundreds of his beggars and have them sit around in front of the shop and hang out inside, basically scaring off all the customers. So don't mess with the Beggar Master!

The G-friend

So I got a girlfriend now, officially. Here's a few pics. Things are a little different over here. For one thing, if you hold a girl's hand that means you are asking her to be her boyfriend, so I didn't quite realize that I was getting a girlfriend when I did, but it's cool, b/c I think it would have happened anyway soon. She's a student at a nearby university and her short name is Fei Fei, which means "fly" or actually "fly fly". She's 20 or 21 years old (no she's not in elementary school even though she's on a swing set in one pic) I am not sure b/c in China you never know how old someone is since some people use the standard method of measuring age but others consider you to be 1 year old when you are born, yet others consider you 1 year old at the time of the Chinese New Year, so depending on the date of the year you are born your age again would be different, so I still gotta figure this out. We've been seeing each other about 6 weeks now and I was thinking of visiting her family in January for the Spring Festival/Chinese New Year; however, she let me know that her family is very traditional which means that if a boy visits a girl's family it's only to plan the wedding. So of course that quickly changed my plans for Spring Festival. Instead, we are probably going to go for a few days to Hungzhou, probably the most romantic-beautiful city in China before she goes visits her family. She's a nice girl who I find very attractive so we will see where it goes. She's extremely tiny too, 39 kilograms (86 pounds) so that's pretty cool.

The Pros and the Cons

So I decided to make a list of things I like and dislike about China.

***Things I like***
1. The freedom to drink anywhere you want and as much as you want.
2. The niceness and reasonableness of the police.
3. The beautiful girls.
4. The fact that the beautiful girls find me very handsome.
5. People are very friendly.
6. People are not fat.
7. Everyone loves children. In some countries they are often seen as an annoyance. Here, a baby may cry like crazy on a train and everyone is just happy that the baby is alive.
8. There is no promotion of manly-macho insecurity, i.e. there are no "rules" about what a real man should or should not do.
9. The families are very close. A few examples. Grandparents, since they are retired, view it as their duty to take care of the grandchildren as a help to their children who have jobs to do. A father may have to work two thousand kilometers away and only see his family 3-4 times a year but this will not make his children bitch and moan later about how dad didn't spend enough time with them.
10. No tipping-anywhere, not in restaurants, not for cab drivers, not doormen. Well except the guys that massage your back in nightclubs when you take a piss at the urinal, you're supposed to tip them but if you don't that's ok too. I, for one, no longer use the urinals in night clubs and go for the closed door stall b/c I don't enjoy a back rub while taking a piss, but to each his own.
11. No racial tension.
12. The food. (though I am not a fan of dog meat, silk worm, skorpion, tiger penis, bird puke soup, live monkey brains, bear bile wine, rotten poisonous snake wine, endangered bird dishes, aborted baby soup-no I am not joking, I will discuss this one in another post)
13. The communal eating style in the homes and restaurants. Everything that is ordered is for everyone at the table, so if you have 4 people will probably order about 6 dishes and everyone pulls what they like from each plate into your personal bowl to put on top of the rice. Also, everyone gets as loud as they want and it's all good.
14. The street food vendors--stinky tofu or one of 8 kinds of noodles or corn on the cob or sweet potato or various steamed/boiled/fried dumplings or various pancakes or sugar cane or barbeque of your choice of 15 kinds of meat and seafood--it's all super cheap, anywhere from 17-34 cents an order. There are also meat options but that's not for me.
15. The trains. It's a great train system and really cheap. They are also putting in new lines of fast trains that cost a bit more but are 2-3 times faster. You can get anywhere by train and a sleeper ticket is cheap, you get a (relatively) clean bed and the train is smooth and quiet.
16. No political correctness. This may be the best one. Just say what you want and what you mean. You think someone is fat, tell 'em.
17. It's much easier to talk to people even with the language barrier. There seems to be much less second guessing of what someone means. This is certainly an overgeneralization, but here if someone gives you a compliment, they mean it, if they criticize you, then they just criticize you, they don't need to be sarcastic or beat around the bush about it and secretly harbor resentment.
18. The shops. There are small shops everywhere. It seems that they are approximately 2 small shops for every person in this city. Every street is lined with tiny shops and they all have friendly people with something random for sale. You can pick any street in the city and just walk and look around.

***Things I don't like***
1. The weather in Nanchang. Always hot or cold and often all in one day. But this con doesn't necessarily apply to all of China.
2. The air pollution--at night you can usually only see a few stars, sometimes none. When the pollution is really bad, you can't see any stars during the night or day--and that's really bad, b/c you really hope to see at least 1 star in a 24 hour period--the big one that's in our solar system.
That's all.

Viagra Saved the Tiger

So the title is actually true. In some areas of China when men had erectal disfunction issues, the standard remedy-for those who could afford it-was to eat tiger penis or crushed tiger paws. Tigers have become increasingly harder to find and for a long time it has been illegal to kill tigers but this did not stop the poachers. Something else did-Viagra. You can still sometimes find tiger paws for sale but the bottom has fallen out of the market because of Viagra. People found that the little blue pill seems to do the trick better than eating a whole tiger penis or tiger paw and now we can truly say that Viagra saved the tiger!

Here's a link: Chinese Men Swapping Tiger Penis for Viagra: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=13664

And the pic above is advertising Tiger Penis wine.

Fireworks

So I almost forgot about this aspect of living in China until last night when a neighbor set off fireworks right outside my window that were so loud I was sure someone was shooting off fully automatic weapons outside. They also gave off a ridiculous amount of smoke. In China, you hear fireworks go off about every 2-3 hours-seriously. Fireworks are set off to celebrate moving in somewhere, moving out of somewhere, getting a new job, having a baby, being happy, the night beginning, the day beginning, it being 9 o'clock, etc. My college sets off fireworks at 9pm every night just for fun. The college next door sets off fireworks at 11pm every night. The college across the street sets off fireworks every morning at 6 am!!! And this doesn't include all the students and residents that set off their personal fireworks. I almost don't notice it anymore but apparently when Spring Festival takes place-that's part of the Chinese New Year in late January and February, for the entire ~30 days of Spring Festival, everyone will set off fireworks many times per day and night. Oh and fireworks are illegal here because they could start fires, but of course "illegal" is a flexible term which in this case means completely legal.

Nanjing Foreigners

So I visited Nanjing with another FT (foreign teacher) last weekend. That's him next to me in one pic. We took a 12 hour overnight train and were able to get a sleeper so that was great. You go to bed on the train, wake up in the morning and you've arrived. Nanjing (literally: "southern capital") is the capital city of Jiansu province and is the former capital of China. It has many historic places though we only had 2 days to spend there so did not get too see many places. We did go to the Japanese Invasion museum, a huge free museum which focuses on the Japanese invasion of Nanjing in 1937, known as the Nanjing Massacre. One pic with a cross shows the front of the museum. Over a period of 6 weeks the Japanese invaders killed about 300,000 Nanjing residents, burned down many parts of Nanjing, raped over 20,000 women, etc. This museum was rough, it's entirely black in color, has the most forboding music and lighting possible and has absolutely grotesque exhibits. There are pictures people being cut up and shot, women being raped and there are some mass graves that have been opened and the decomposed bodies are now on display. All in all, I am not sure I would recommend going to this museum. There are many beautiful places in Nanjing though. There's a huge lake in the middle of the city with many very old buildings and to the east part of town there is a large scenic mountain to climb. The thing I did not like about Nanjing is how many foreigners there are. It's very similar to Beijing, everywhere you go you see at least 1-2 foreigners. There are many foreign stores and restaurants, we went to an Irish pub and there were at least 50 Europeans, Australians and Americans there--I felt like I was not in China. It was cool being able to drink Guiness which was as good as it was in London (better than in the US) and cost about as much as it did in London. We also went to a 50% foreign nightclub and that was pretty cool (see pic), but overall I wasn't digging it. I have gotten used to being the only foreigner everywhere I go, so this was all a little strange. It also seems that when you are around foreigners in China who are large enough in number to have their own community they are more likely to be complaining. That seems to be the main topic of conversation--bitching about China in one way or another: "the Chinese spit on the floor...the Chinese are stupid...the air is bad...the weather is bad...blah blah blah". It's really rather annoying, you gotta wonder why they left their homeland to begin with. I like China so much I definitely couldn't get into the complaining spirit. But overall it was an interesting and fun short trip, and I successfully was able to find the cga card for my computer that I had a tough time finding in Nanchang :-)

Cruisin' China

So this is a pic of my current pimpin' ride, a Junlu mountain bike. It looks cool and was only 300 Yuan (~$45). It has the special shock absorber which is nice, but of course it's made in China so in the 5 weeks I've had it, it has seen the repair shop 6 times. The pedals both broke off within 2 weeks and had to be replaced, it is now only a 1 speed bike instead of the original 18 speeds because it just won't change gears, the seat had to be replaced, one tire started doing such bad figure 8's that it would no longer spin through the mud catcher thingie, the squeaking got extremely annoying, the chain is now completely rusted, etc. But anyway, I went today looking for scooters and am considering either buying a gas powered scooter or a motorcycle. The prices are rather reasonable--scooters are between 2000-3000 yuan and very nice motorcycles are 4000 (~$550). Some issues I have run into, to drive gas powered vehicles you must get a license plate and have a driver's license. As for the license plate, the way that China is trying to help the environment is by putting in effect a law 3 months ago which states that no one can get any new license plates for an indefinite period of time. The only way to get a license plate is to buy a very old scooter/motorcycle that has a plate and you can use that one. However, I asked the scooter salesman if there is another way and he said of course, the store 2 doors down sells fake license plates for only 10 yuan and I can have any number I like. Problem solved! Regarding the driver's license, a foreigner can only get a driver's license after being in China for at least 1 year. To deal with this annoyance, there are 2 methods. The shop across town sells nice looking fake driver's licenses for 100 yuan but that's not a good idea because fake government identifications can get you in trouble, so he recommends I take the second method. If I see a policeman, either act calm and drive normally and he probably won't notice me in a sea of other scooters (80% of which also have no driver's license and a fake license plate) or try to get away from him which is not hard to do because the police never go very fast because they don't want to endanger the public by chasing someone very fast (an eminently reasonable idea that perhaps should be exported to the U.S.) so I can definitely outrun him. If somehow neither of these ideas works out, then it's still not a problem because then I can just speak English to the cop and he will realize I don't understand anything and just let me go. At absolute worst, there is a 300 yuan fine for having a fake or no license plate and a 300 yuan fine for no driver's license, but usually you can just give the cop 100 yuan cash on the spot to avoid these troubles, but foreigners are almost always let go for free for any violation because the paperwork is very annoying for the police to deal with, plus the foreigner will usually not pay the fine since for some reason (hmm) foreigners never figure out the right place to pay it, and moreover the policeman will lose face for having made China look unfriendly to foreigners.

Guide to Drinking in China

So I think I finally figured out the drinking traditions in China. The alcohol situation in China is rather different from the States. There is no minimum drinking age. A popular drink is homemade fermented rice wine which can be anywhere from 5%-30% alcohol content and tastes extremely sweet. Families often let their children drink it, but usually they must be at least 6 or 7 years old. Beer usually tastes bad here, there is never draft beer unless you go to Beijing/Shanghai and the local brands of bottled beer only make light beer that tastes kind of like Natty Light, Beast, or Old Pile, but it's still ok. You can really splurge and find some Pabst Blue Ribbon in a few stores though. The real man's drink though is Baijou--see the pic on the left. It's usually at least 50% alcohol and tastes like some kind of odd mix between kerosene, butane and Everclear. There is a couple of FTs here that like it, but most of us kringe at the mere sight of Baijou. There is no way to mix it b/c it will at once overtake the flavor of any mixer and even half a shot will give you a terrible hangover.
Drinking is an important resume builder here. One of my students is allergic to alcohol (he gets red rashes on his body the next day after drinking) and his parents are very worried about his employability and are trying to teach him to drink. Many people routinely inquire as to how many bottles of beer someone can drink. If you say more than 10, you get major respect. If you can't drink, you can't really make it in business here, people will think you have something to hide. The more you drink at a business gathering, and the more loud and obnoxious you get, the better. If you try to get a girl to drink more than one bottle of beer she may say that unfortunately she is not experienced in drinking a lot of beer, she has not had enough training.
Drinking in bars or restaurants is certainly encouraged, as is getting as plastered as possible. Restaurants will not close until you are ready to leave. A place that usually closes at 10pm stayed open for us until 4am one day just b/c we were still enjoying their facilities. If people get rowdy, that's cool too. Some students next to our table had a few too many bottles of beer and started breaking the bottles against the wall. The restaurant owners would come and clean up the mess with a smile.
Drinking and driving is certainly a lot looser here. The general rule is that so long as you don't hit anyone, no one is looking to catch you for drinking and driving, unlike America where the pigs look for trouble/look to create trouble by setting up road blocks and taking similar kinds of measures. If you do get caught drinking and driving here, usually being nice to the cop or giving him a cigarette will settle the matter. If he's a hard ass, you probably gotta give him 100 Yuan, but he will probably give you a ride home as well, so it's like a taxi service.

Fujian Province

Here are various pictures from my trip to Fujian Province. In one pic you can see me and my student who was my guide for this trip. Most of these pics are from sites I visited in and out of Fuzhou-the capital city. We climbed up a mountain on the Warrior Trail-called that b/c it's 2500 meters up stairs and definitely wears you out so you can see down to the city below from the pics. The first few temple pictures are from a Buddhist temple at the top of the mountain and the others are from a different temple in Fuzhou. Take a look at the blurred picture of the Indian Buddha. You will see the ancient symbol of protection, aka Swastika, which was later used by Hitler.

There is also a pic of a not-so-clean toilet on the train.


These are some pictures from Xiamen, the beachfront city in Fujian. One pic where I am next to a big bullet is from the island off the coast of Xiamen where the PRC began its ill-fated attack on Taiwan. There is also a pic of me sitting in front of the monument to Chairman Mao Tse Dong in Xiamen City.

National Day Holiday

Everyone in China is on vacation for the National Day Holiday-a celebration of the founding of the PRC. Everyone is off from work for a full week. I will be heading to Fujian province later today for 6 days to visit with a Chinese friend of mine. Here is a map of China and its 23 provinces (click to enlarge). You can also see the 2 Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau. National Day is celebrated by everyone except the 23rd province...that rebellious child Taiwan. I live in Jiangxi (pronounced Jiangshi) province in the capital city of Nanchang which is for some reason not on the map and I will be heading to Fujian province later today for 6 days to visit with a Chinese friend of mine. We will go to Fuzhou (pronounced Fudzjou), the capital city of Fujian, also not on the map, and we will go to Xiamen (pronounced Shiamen) which is on the map and purportedly has beautiful beaches--though most Chinese do not know how to swim and think it's very dangerous to swim and as you may recall my earlier post, they aren't too fond of the sun either, so the beaches may be empty. I also plan to climb the famous Wuyi mountain range in Fujian. If any of you have seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and remember the last scene in the movie where the girl jumps off the top of a mountain where there is a temple, apparently I will get to see several Buddhist temples just like it on these mountains. In honor of National Day, here are a few pictures from the Bayi Square in the center of Nanchang-my city and the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army. There is a big flag monument you can see in 2 pictures, some red flags, a big red star, and a big Wal-Mart...all appropriate symbols of China.

Girls and Boys

I got a chance to discuss some interesting things about family relations in China. Some things you probably already know, most Chinese parents work long hours so they are raised by the grandparents. Many if not most Chinese fathers and mothers do not live in the same province b/c it's very difficult to find jobs in general, so the husbands and wives only see each other 2-3 times a year (perhaps this explains the proliferation of pink houses...). B/c of the extreme level of competitiveness in the job market, children starting at age 12 are often sent off to a different province (i.e. state) for middle and high school-boarding schools. But even with all this, the level of family respect is very interesting. I asked what would happen if a girl became pregnant and she was not married. The girl's and boy's parents would discuss together on whether they agree that the girl and boy should get married. Most importantly, the boy's parents would decide whether they think the girl is good enough for their boy. If they don't think so, they will tell her to get lost. At this point, the girl's parents would usually try to pressure her to get an abortion unless they want her to keep the baby. If she does not want an abortion, they will kick her out and never talk to her again. If the boy and girl do not agree to all this, and instead want to get married--this is unheard of, the idea of not agreeing with your parents but I had to inquire for sake of full disclosure and understanding--then they would be cut off from both families who would never speak to them again. If a girl has the baby, the next decision comes, whether to keep the baby. A certain Houdini may find this interesting. Very often, the girl would be against an abortion but would not want to keep the baby so they will often just drop off the baby at the train station or hospital or bus station or police station or in the middle of the street. This is very convenient b/c then people that want to have a child but cannot can just pick it up, fill out some forms that take 30 minutes to do, and it's their baby. I asked if there is any legal concerns for the new mother, and was faced with blank expressions and finally explanations that no, of course not, this is normal. You gotta love the efficiency, in America, if someone wants to abandon their baby, they gotta give it to DCFS which will stick it into a foster home for probably 3 years while they process paperwork or whatever it is they do and then they will spend a long time hassling prospective adoptive parents with interviews and home visits b4 they can adopt the baby...

Scarier Food

Well I don't have a pic of this one but it sounds very fnucked up. So apparently at the most high end restaurants you can get a true delicacy. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?--the scene where they are served monkey brains? Well apparently, that's not good enough for China, b/c monkey brains are not tasty when they are not fresh...You can go into a restaurant, they have round tables with several holes in the table. They stick live (!) monkeys under the table, they are tied up and they affix their heads through the holes and cut off the top of the skull (now we are talking more Hannibal Lecter style) so you can take a knife and your chop sticks and start munching away at the live monkey brain. When I commented that perhaps this is a little inhumane to the monkey, I was informed that it's very humane b/c the way they cut off the top of the skull makes it to where the monkey does not feel any pain and it's basically paralyzed, it just looks at you, so it's ok. I did not get a chance to get any comments from the monkeys...

Eating in China

Eating in China is very interesting. It's a communal affair. Many dishes are ordered and are brought to the table and placed in the middle and everyone reaches with their chopsticks and gets all they want and either puts it in their mouth or puts some on top of the rice that's in the little bowl in front of everyone. So you do get your own little bowl of rice. Since you lick the chopstics, this may be a bit unsanitary, but I've not gotten sick yet. The food is amazingly good and bears very little resemblance to Chinese food in the US. I don't know if I could even eat at Chinese restaurants again in the States. I don't eat meat, but those that do run into one unfortunate practice of Chinese cooking. When an animal is cut into pieces, it is literally cut into pieces--meaning that a big knife is used to chop a chicken into whatever size pieces are desired, with no care as to the location of the bones. So if you order any meat dish, you will find randomly assorted pieces of bone throughout your food. And yes, some foods are a little exotic, at least for those eating meat. I've been in one restaurant which for various reasons which will become clear, was hidden from view and you had to knock on the door to be let in. Once inside, you may order a number of unusual meat dishes, such as dog, donkey, scorpion, silk worm and various endangered birds. The endangered birds are illegal to kill and hence the restaurant is hidden from view, but the other members of my party apparently liked the bald eagle or whatever it is that they ate. Another popular delicacy are "Century Eggs". See the picture below of century egg and cow stomach soup. These are normal chicken eggs that--while still raw--are buried into the ground for 100 days. At that point they are nice and black as you can see and then they are finally cooked. Apparently the flavor is rather foul and sulphuric but is very delicious?!

College Life

Some things that are similar and some things that are different about the college life here...the dorms are very similar except that students must get in before 11pm every night when they lock the outside doors. Also guys are never allowed in the girls' rooms unless it's "you brother or he only stays for 20 minutes to get something done". When I said that should be enough time to "get something done", they didn't really understand...There is no drinking age so everyone can drink, but all the students seem to be too focused on studying to get hammered all the time like they do in the U.S. Parties are pretty rare. Many boys don't want a girlfriend b/c it costs too much to have one and takes too much time away from studying...Some other things...I played basketball today with several guys I met at a nearby college. There are about 20 outdoor courts there and no one ever keeps score, and I am actually a very good player here! I am almost always the tallest one and can drive through everyone since I always have at least 50 pounds on anyone. Things that are different about basketball here: no one keeps score, if a cell phone rings, all play stops and you must check who called, a break may randomly be called b/c someone gets tired, when a water break happens, several guys will smoke a cigarette. It seems about 30-40% of the guys smoke and no girls ever smoke, that would be very unattractive and terrible. Girls generally don't like to drink beer but if they do drink they try to drink very little b/c of a very important reason: they are afraid their cheeks will turn red!?

Environmental To-Go

Who says China is not super environmentally friendly? For one thing, you can't get a plastic-or any other kind-of bag at any supermarket or Walmart without paying 10 jiao for each one. For another, take a look at this to-go method. Chinese restaurants don't waste cardboard or styrofoam boxes and instead just shove everything you ordered into one little plastic bag (that you hope has no hole in it)...

DVDs

Well my trip to the DVD store was rather interesting. An American I met here showed me the DVD store downtown. At first it looks like a normal store, just extremely small with only about 30-40 movies for sale and they all seem rather expensive (about 40 yuan each or $6, so perhaps that's not all that expensive). No one seems to be interested in any of these movies. But for some reason one wall of the store has no movies on it, but instead has a very large hanging painting. The American pulls back the cloth painting and we see a much larger back room with many more movies and many people perusing. Here the movies are only 8 yuan or $1.25 each and many new releases are available, including Dark Knight and others that are still in theaters in the States. All are very professionally wrapped and sealed as you can see on the pictures below. And all are available in English with Chinese subtitles. One thing is different though...click on the Evan Almighty picture below and you will note that the movie description must have been translated from Chinese. I wonder why they keep all their newest releases that cost so little in a hidden back room? I am sure there's no reason besides keeping away the thieves or perhaps pirates.

To Squat or not to Squat

So this is the (in)famous Chinese squat toilet. Almost all the toilets in China are like this. Only a few places, such as the Beijing international airport and foreign teachers' (like mine) apartments have western-style toilets. It is of course very good for your elimination to use such a toilet since it forces you into the "primitive man" pose whereby the fecal matter can excrete much more efficiently; this pose is physiologically correct way to move the bowels and is of course much cleaner since your ass does not actually touch anything. You almost need not use any toilet paper when defecating in such a position (ever wonder why dogs and cats don't need to wipe their butts?); perhaps this is why I never see toilet paper in Chinese bathrooms? However, I don't think this toilet would be a big hit in the US of A for several reasons: (a) Americans are used to having copious reading material by their toilets at home and this precious reading time would be gone, (b) the American diet often leads to constipation and this toilet definitely works your leg muscles and one would get very tired if the shitting took too long, and (c) many Americans are very fat and would fall in the hole after a few seconds of squatting.