DVD Chinglish #1

So, I've already got a small library of bootleg DVDs here in China. Compared to Korea, they're both a) much cheaper and b) of a higher quality, so how could I resist?

But even the comedies tend to be amusing before I've opened them because of this persistent habit Chinese bootleggers have of putting non-sensical Chinglish on the backs of the packages.

For an example, let me quote from the recent Seinfeld seasons 1-9 package I bought (for 25 yuan/~$3.50). On the back, where there's supposed to be some sort of explanation of the show and/or praise for its success, it reads:

"Kramer's wardrobe of mostly 1960s and 1970s clothing was not intended to make him into retro fashions, so much as to suggest that he hadn't bought clothes in several years.

"The pants in particular were alway about an inch too short in order to stress this. In later seasons, appropriate clothing became increasingly difficult for producers to find, due to the combination of it getting older as well as the extreme popularity of Kramer as a character."

And on and on it goes, filling the entire page with a history of Kramer's wardrobe choices. Me gusta.

Socialism! Yikes!

Socialism is a dirty word in America. I would say the general idea, the broad equation, would be something like this:

socialism = communism = Stalin raping the Statue of Liberty

The truth is, more and more, America is a socialist country, you know, just like every other developed nation. We have huge gaps, sure, especially socialized medicine, but we'll get there someday.

Which is part of why I enjoyed this article so much. You've got your typical Republican intellectual heavyweights, you know baby-faced Mitch McConnell and my own state's brilliant Senator, Liddy Dole, bitching and moaning about the government intervening to save all of these banks that're going over the cliff like a bunch of lemmings. Of course, it's our Republican president who came up with the bailout plan. There're Republicans staffing the Federal Reserve and Department of Commerce. And I dare say, those CEOs and financial wizards at AIG and whereever else, well, my guess is a lot of them are Republicans too. Bill Clinton said about 15 years ago, "the era of big government is over." Back up the turnip truck, bubba, and take another look.

The Pits

So, I was doing a class the other day, and I asked a general question. Something along the lines of "raise your hand if you know such and such," that's usually how it goes. Naturally, no one raises their hands, so I dumb it down and get a few arms thrust upwards.

I take a glance around the room, and BANG it hits me like a sack of potatoes. That sweet, innocent looking petite brainiac girl with her arm raised has either been hiding a tiny ferret in her armpit or, and let's face it, this is much more likely: she's neglected to shave. For quite some time.

And then I started to notice she ain't the only one. Wrinkly bus-waiting grandmothers, shop clerks with glassy smiles, suspicious eyed passers-by, all women, and all not fully groomed, have recently made my acquaintance, or, at least, been noticed by yours truly.

I spent the better part of a week in Paris with the full expectation that I'd encounter this phenomenon, to no avail, and I come to hairless China to find out a good chunk of the women round here are sporting more turf than they should. Strange world.

Adaptation

I never thought I'd say it after two years in Korea, but I'm getting sick of the stares here in China. When I walk down the street it's as if I look like the d00d to the left here.

At first I just tried to ignore it, like I would in Korea when it occasionally happened. Then, after getting a little pissy, I started staring right back until they look away. Sometimes it works, but there are some real first class gawkers in this city, let me tell you.

And of course none of them are beautiful women. They're all wrinkled up country folk or ill-behaved children or rakishly thin security guards or hirsute street people or slack jawed bus drivers or sarcastic prone schoolkids...or any other sort of demographic that holds no interest for me.

Is it wrong to be tired of a place so soon?

On Becoming Anthony

So, as previously mentioned, I'm in a new country. No one knows me here. A stranger in a strange land. I'm like Marco Polo, or Columbus, or Martin Lawrence in Black Knight.

One of the resolutions I made before coming to China, and the one which has (not coincidentally) proven to be the easiest to keep up as well as the easiest to abide, was that I'd introduce myself by and use my first name here: Anthony.

I've never liked "Wayne," the name. For every accomplished, famous, or wealthy Wayne history gives us there are three or four Anthonys to match him. You say Wayne Brady, I say (An)Tony Blair, Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Soprano. You counter with Wayne LaPierre, I say Tony Shaloub, Tony Gwynn, and Tony Danza. You say John Wayne. I say John Wayne Gacy. Check-mate.

That's another of my problems with "Wayne," especially as a middle-name. How many perverts, scoundrels, and domestic terrorists do you know of associated with this appellation? None, you might answer, you don't keep track of such people in your head. Well, we Waynes do, and do you know why? It's because we hear our name on the nightly news half of the time one of these deviants is shown, shackled, being escorted out of his subterranean lair, bleary eyed in full view of the unforgiving light of the news cameras.

So, enough is enough. I'm not saying this is a permanent thing. I'm not saying I could change my name, or change what those who've known me longest call me, without the kind of unceasing and persistent corrective effort two years as a language instructor have taught me to avoid. But, here, in this outpost in the wilderness, for a while at least, I can try being someone new.

Wuxi and You Can Too

Well, I'm in China. In Wuxi, to be more precise which is west of Shanghai and near the north side of the blue blob of a lake featured on the map to the left.

I'm teaching at the "Jiangsu Institute of Technology," I think (I'm honestly not sure of the name), a learning institution which, for lack of a better term, we'll call a "college." I don't mean to be oblique, it's just that apparently in China universites and colleges are tiered and I'm not yet sure where my employer lies on that totem pole.

I finished my contract in Korea mid-June, flew to London and met up with Joey and Dave, and eventually Dave's friend (and now mine as well) James, and the four of us had a merry time traveling 'round Europe for the following month. Good times were had by all mas o menos, and I returned home to Raleigh a much richer person, at least metaphorically speaking; should we descend to the level of the literal then "rich" is not a word that would have applied to yours truly upon landing at RDU Int'l.

But I found a job and here I am.

China is what it is, having lived in Korea for two years and having visited China twice before I was more or less prepared. My pidgin Korean, pathetic as it was, is sorely missed as I now realize how much easier it was for me to get around the land of the morning calm than here. Korean was also a lot easier to read, because like most civilizations they divined the practicality of a set system of symbols representing sounds which could be combined to form words, an "alphabet" to those of you in the red states, whereas scripted Chinese looks to my untrained eye like a Rorschach test drawn by an epileptic and, of course, does not have an alphabet.

But I'll adapt. I've met some interesting people already, one of my co-teachers claims to be the former Mauritian ambassador to Australia (I say "claims" simply because it's such a fantastic claim that it must either be immediately doubted or accepted as gospel, and among the Disciples Thomas was always my favorite), another is a former German paratrooper. If you'd told me a month ago I'd be sharing drinks with a Mauritian ambassador and a German paratrooper, well, I'd believe you (after all, why would you lie?) but I would also think it sounded interesting. It is. Which is why I do this sort of thing in the first place.