Balls! Balls!

I just had to explain to a coworker why the following conversation may not be appropriate to teach to children, especially little boys. She didn't really get it, but I didn't want to push the issue.

Are these your balls?
Yes, these are my balls.

A friend suggested I ask her to do an image search for 'my balls', but I don't quite have ... the balls ... to do it.

It's slightly better than the training school I used to work for, where they had a fully animated ball who bounced along to a song that said "Balls! Balls!". True story.

In bloggy news, apparently attaching pictures to emails works now, so expect more, even though I can't format them easily yet. Picture care of Everybody Loves Free Stuff. Check out the salad plate!

We're number one!

There's not enough room on the internet to fully discuss the existence of, and reasoning behind, the superiority, patriotism, narrow-mindedness, racial prejudice, and cultural ignorance of the Chinese people [yes, I know this is a generalised blanket statement about a race of people]. There are a lot of reasons for why the majority of Chinese people think the way they do, and I'm not in any way saying they are bad or mean people. I just fail to understand how they can blindly follow what they have been told their whole lives, even when presented with conflicting evidence. The only thing I can compare it with is religious faith.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about (please bear in mind that China has made a ridiculously big deal about the swine flu pandemic, and has somehow convinced most of the locals that there are no threatening cases on the mainland):

1. At dinner with a couple of coworkers (one American, one Chinese), American co-worker (ACW) made a joke that the guy at the table next to us had swine flu, because he coughed. CCW said that it was impossible, because he was Chinese. She backed up her argument by saying that there were no cases of swine flu in Shanghai (totally false statement).
   
   Problems with this: a) We had no proof he was Chinese. b) Even if he were Chinese, and there were no cases in Shanghai, there was no proof that he hadn't been out of the country, or been in contact with anyone who had recently been out of the country. c) It was a ridiculous statement.
   
   
2. A friend's date did not want to go to a restaurant with him after she found out they served Mexican food. She thought she might catch swine flu from the food.
   
   Problems with this: Pretty obvious, even if you didn't know that the disease isn't foodborne. We are in Shanghai, not Mexico! The food did not get shipped from there.
   
   
3. While watching the men's Wimbledon final on TV, CCW said 'chocolate!' every time she saw a black person in the crowd. Apparently Chinese people call black people chocolate, and it's not meant as an insult. I'm not sure if she was joking when she started calling the white people 'milk'.
   
   Problems with this: Fairly obvious in this super-PC world. I call myself a banana, but still. Not the same.
   
   
4. People around here seem to think that the definitions of 'sushi' and 'sandwich' are what you get at Family Mart, Kedi, or any number of other convenience stores. These things are highly processed, and involve far too much mayonnaise and pork fluff, and not much else. When you actually take a local to a place to get decent Japanese food or a high quality sandwich, they get confused and often don't like it. Locals seem to base whole ethnic cuisines on very limited, very low-quality food, and then decide to write off the entire culture. It's quite sad.

I could go on, but I actually just wanted to mention a blog post from Disgrasian. An American study has shown that, apparently, sharing a room with someone of a different ethnic background from you can make you less racist. Unless you are sharing with an Asian, which actually makes people more prejudiced. We're so good at racism!

Oh well, at least we make cute babies.

Heat and hassle

The temperature is sitting around 36 or 37 degrees right now, and it's the least of my problems.

My company had widespread layoffs last week, due to supposed financial reasons. Though I am still comfortably employed, it has made me wonder about what I'm going to do in the future, and whether or not I will be staying in China much longer. We shall see. I don't think this adventure is over yet.

Last but definitely not least is that China blocked Facebook sometime on Tuesday. I know, I know, I shouldn't be so worried about these things, but considering that I've actually begun to get used to the fact that the list of websites I can't access is getting longer and longer*, I think it's telling that I am concerned about this. Of course, there's always the increased productivity flipside, but I did spend a good portion of my day yesterday ensuring (through a combination of proxy servers, ping.fm, and one of my mobile phone browsers) that I would in fact still be able to update my profile. I just won't be able to stalk other people nearly as easily.

*I can't even access this blog easily (I am currently changing settings via a proxy), and have to post my entries by email. I am not sure if the comment moderation settings have stuck, so my apologies if comments haven't been published. Feel free to repost them!

Melting...

The temperatures are going up, and even though we're maxing out at about 33 Celsius right now, the humidity makes walking home like walking through a hot, low-hanging cloud.  It's disgusting.  I finally gave in and started using the AC at home last week.  I put it off for as long as possible, because I knew I would do it all the time after I got used to it.  And even though I walk for short periods between air-conditioned buildings and vehicles, I still feel fairly gross, and extra showers are a necessity.

Today I saw a couple of men get off the bus carrying foldable fans, which made me happy (I own two and like to carry at least one around with me).

I also saw a man walking around trying to sell binoculars.   I'm sure he does a roaring trade.

20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre

Today marks 20 years since a peaceful protest turned into a slaughter
in Beijing.

Recently, China has blocked more sites from being accessed from within
the mainland, including a lot of MSN sites, Twitter, and the stuff
I've complained about before.

Yesterday, I arrived to work to find no internet available in the
office. I'd also left my phone at home, so was feeling weirdly cut off
from the world. Under the pretense of making sure my mum could call me
(she and my aunt are in town this week, which is great), I went home
to pick up my mobile. Not being able to check my email is scary.

The lack of internet continues today. I wonder if they've cut off
business service, or if I'm just being paranoid.

As I type this out on my phone so I can email it in to auto-post, I'd
just like for us to dwell on how much has changed in China in 20
years, and how much has sadly stayed the same.

Xiao Long Bao, tofu, and other important matters

I went out for dinner with some friends the other night, to a restaurant that specialises in xiao long bao, traditional Shanghai steamed soup dumplings. They were fairly delicious, as were the other dishes we had alongside. The first plate of vegetarian noodles we ordered had beef hiding in it, but that was just a kitchen mix-up. In any case, I'm not a vegetarian. The sheer number of delicious forms of pork I would miss out on counted me out of the vege population years ago. I think it was the influence of Chinese food from a very young age.

One of the people at dinner had grown up in Hong Kong enjoying chou doufu (臭豆腐), which translates to 'stinky tofu' in English. It's a fermented tofu that has a particularly pungent…aroma, even though it looks like regular fried tofu. I'm familiar with the smell (I lived in Hong Kong for a while, where it's a popular street snack), but I never really wanted to try it. However, since it appeared on our table, I thought I'd give it a go. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be, and I suppose the effect can be compared to the taste of the very strong-smelling cheeses. Not everyone likes those, either (although I do).

Not long after, I sent my dad a text message to tell him that not only did I buy a mahjong set and matching table (more on that later), but that I'd tried the good old stinky tofu. His reply? Even he hasn't tried chou doufu, and I am 'more Chinese than Dad now'. It makes me giggle, but at the time I had that sinking feeling you get when, fully-costumed, you realise that no, it's not actually a fancy-dress party.

On the topic of tofu, the son of a friend of a contact of my mother (one of those multi-step relationships that seems to occur quite often through my mother) has started writing Tofu Watch, a blog dedicated entirely (well, mostly) to the wonder that is bean curd. It has a catchy name, interesting subject matter, and the website design pleases me too. I can even look at it from China. Nice work so far, Brad.

An unsanctioned love letter to China

Dear China,

Whilst I love you (I know this is never a good way to start a missive), I am getting quite tired of seeing great big blanks all over the internet. You may think that people don't notice that there are an awful lot of white spaces, response timeouts, and no network errors. Maybe you think Chinese people think the internet breaks down all the time, and with the speed that mine works at sometimes, I wouldn't blame you for making this assumption.

Sure, a lot of people think that what they're being shielded from is probably hidden from them for some reason, but I really don't think there's anything anti-establishment about wrecky cakes or lowercase L's. I can't well read these blogs without seeing the pictures that they're talking about. Now not only can I not see WordPress blogs, I can't see Blogger ones, either. I can't even read my own blog, or write in it from the main site. It makes me sad, China.

I was okay with not seeing YouTube, for the most part. A lot of the links I get I wouldn't want to watch anyway. But, in the midst of the swiney swiney pig flu, shouldn't people be able to see things like this? It would cheer them up, and really make them believe that there was no porcine danger.

When the weather starts to get hotter, do you think you could let us have some fluffy, harmless internet entertainment while the AC is running? I might even look at something educational.

I know that maybe we don't know each other well enough yet for me to use the c-word, but ... do you think you could ease up on the censorship a little bit? It was even kind of fun when it was sporadic. I never knew whether things would work or not. Now I've just given up trying. Just a little hope, is all I'm asking for.

Thanks, China.
Your adopted resident,
Starla