The TIGER FATHER

TROOPS MOBILISE AS JAPAN TENSION MOUNTS

2012-09-26T21:58:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, somewhere inside the Chinese army ...

"PLATOOON HUUTT!

"RIGHT youuuuuu miserable lot - fall in and listen up! Lately, you may have noticed, there's been a lot of talk about the People's Liberation Army in the press. This is of course because our old friend Japan, imperial hegemonist that it is, has been committing acts of gross pig-headedness in relation to those magnificent pearls in the ocean, the pride and the very essence of China, the jewel in the crown of the People's Republic - I speak of course of the beautiful Diaoyu Islands. If this thing with Japan kicks off, we'd better be prepared, right?

"Now, we're a very big army. Biggest in the world! But a lot of those so-called 'experts' from the 'media' haven't been very flattering about us, have they? Especially after those photos of our intensive training exercise leaked out. Remember this?

"We didn't look all that hard, did we?

"Looks more like a pop video than an
army drill. Bloody Boyz 2 Men
or something.

"OK it was unfortunate we had to do that under a big picture of a teen hearth-throb, swarthy though he was. Sometimes in Beijing you've got to take what space you can find. Ask anyone who goes ballroom dancing on a median strip.

"But today, there's no mucking round, right?"

"NO SIR!"

"We're gonna ramp it up, and have ourselves some proper war games to toughen you blokes up, y'hear?!"

"YES SIR!"

"Then let's go!"

"First, trying our best not to walk on the yellow
bits because they're poison, we'll march to our
new facility...

" ... under escort from our armoured division.

"I want to make it clear we'll stop for nothing,
except in the eventuality that the
little man is red.

"Our new facility will be well appointed, with
places to dry your uniforms ...

"... and satellite TV so we can all watch the Aussie Rules
grand final - live and direct from Melbourne!"

"And then after that, we'll have ourselves a proper exercise. With real guns and everything!

"OK, Private Wang!"
"SIR!"
"You're on a stake-out. You need to keep your
weapon at the ready. You hold it up and look
along the barrel."
"Like this, Sir?"
"Like that Wang."

"Private Li, you go with him."
"Yes Sir!"
"This is the classic way to secure an area.
One man looks one way, his partner looks
the other way."

"Now Wang!"

"Sir?"

"This isn't just any area, is it Wang?"

"It's not, Sir?"

"No, Wang. It's not just any piece of dirt, is it Wang?"

"NO SIR!"

"It's not just some part of China that we're gonna let someone like Japan come in and take over, IS IT WANG?!"

"NO SIR!"

"It's far more than that, Wang! It's ... It's ..."

"It's a car park Sir?"

"Well no it's not just a car park, Wang. This is our car park.
There are other car parks like it, but this one is ours. This car
park is an inexorable part of sovereign China, which brooks
no interference from any outside force."
"Anyone, Sir?"
"Anyone, Wang."
"Well what's that bloke doing, Sir?"
"Which bloke?"
"Him int he pink shirt, Sir."

"Well he's just having a look. Probably out doing his shopping
or something.

"What should our attitude be to people like this, Wang?"

"SHALL I SHOOT HIM, SIR!"
"No, no, no, hang on! You don't have to shoot him, Wang. We
don't just go around shooting our own people on big expanses
of inner-city concrete, man! Just leave him be. He's entitled to
watch. It's a free country."
"Is it, Sir?"
"Well, strictly speaking, no it's not."
"Well what then, Sir?"
"It's just an expression, Wang, OK?"
"Got it, Sir. An expression, Sir."
"But it is his army in a way. He's one of the people
we've liberated."
"He looks pretty free to me, Sir."
"Then we're doing our job, Wang. Now get back to
looking mean."

"HARRR! Like this Sarge?"
"Yes, pretty good. Remember, if the Japanese come, we've
got to scare the life out of them, you hear!?"
"YES SIR!"
"We've got to look mean!"
"YES SIR!"
"And tough!""YES SIR!"
"Like we're taking no prisoners!"
"NO PRISONERS, SIR!"
"THREE MILLION OF THE BADDEST HOMBRES
YOU'VE EVER SEEN, YOU HEAR ME?!"
"YES SIR!"
"We've got to snarl, bare our teeth and ..."
"CAAAAR!""What?"
"Oooh, careful everyone! CAAAAR!"

"Yeah watch out for cars guys."
"Yes Sir."
"Never know what they're gonna do."
"Yes Sir!"
"You pretty much know what the Japanese are gonna do.
Colonise, terrorise, pillage ... that sort of thing. But cars
in Beijing, different kettle of fish."
"Yes Sir."
"Just keep your eyes on ..."
"PEDESTRIAN!"
"Oh for God's sake."
"CIVILIAN PEDESTRIAN INCOMING AT FIVE O'CLOCK!"

"OK, wait til she's gone."
"Almost gone, Sir."
"Safe distance?"
"Think so, Sir."

"Better point your guns away from her just in case."
"Yes Sir."
"You never know when those things are loaded."
"Yes Sir!"
"Now look at her."
"Sir?"
"She's what we're all about."
"She is, Sir?
"A proud Chinese person."

"How can you tell, Sir?"
"She's wearing a shirt that's all about
China, Wang."
"She is, Sir?"
"Yes, Wang. I think she may have wanted
the word Workers' up there before the
Paradise, but it's clear what she means, Wang."
"Yes Sir!"
"And we're doing it for her Wang."
"We are, Sir?"
"For her and her like, Wang. We're standing
on a wall, making sure she's free to do what
she wants."
"Like walking through an army drill, Sir?"
"Yes, Wang."
"In a car park, Sir?"
"Just get back to looking mean, Wang."
"Sir!"

TUNEY LOONS

2012-09-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

The change is complete. I have become “one of them”.

Seven years in China can do this to a person. If you’re not careful, you can go feral, adopting several or one life-changing customs you never expected.

Some expats here start to wear black slippers – outside in the daytime. They are the ones most likely to take up tai chi. Some become serial pamperees, wondering how they ever used to do their own nails or exist without a massage at least twice a week. Some take up calligraphy. Still others have even dabbled in the so-called “dark arts” – Communism and Peking Opera.

Not for me, those strands of Chineseyness. I like good sturdy hiking boots (I even went hiking once. July, 1993). There’s no way you’ll get me out in public acting like a preying mantis. I’d be crap at it anyway. In my previous stint at confounding gender stereotypes – working as a temp secretary while traveling in Canada – I was once allowed into an aerobics class with the other secretaries. I was banished after 15 minutes and told to find some coordination.

I can’t stand massages. Masseurs have a chronic inability to rub me in the exact square millimetre I want, and I leave more agitated than I arrived. And as my wife will attest, I’m horrible company in a foot massage chamber when people start poking the soles of my feet like it’s a good idea. I’m afraid I find calligraphy like watching little strokes of paint dry. Communism has tried and failed. And if I could arch my back and make my hair stand on end, it would happen whenever I heard Peking Opera.

Instead I’ve gone local in one of the most liberating, wonderful ways possible. I’ve become a loony singer.

It’s one of the things you notice about China: people riding by on their bike, singing at the top of their voices for all the world to hear – other cyclists, pedestrians, motorists, alfresco diners. In a strictly controlled country where people mostly shuffle round in an orderly, reserved manner, it’s refreshingly free-range.

I used to see them and wince, embarrassed for their sake. But then I thought how happy they seemed.

They reminded me of “the laughers”. In India once I heard a group of men guffawing outside my hotel. Minutes later I noticed they were still laughing. I looked, and couldn’t see anything obviously funny. I went and watched up close. They weren’t laughing at anything in particular. Noone was struggling to re-describe a situation, or repeat a punchline. They were just laughing. It turned out this is what they did. Every day at the same time. They’d meet up, start laughing, then more laughing begat more laughing, and before they knew it they were in tears and stitches. And then they went off to work, souls renewed.

Here, people will whiz by singing – sometimes melodiously, sometimes malodorously, sometimes trying and failing to hit some outrageously high notes. They don’t care. In our neighbourhood we also have “Pedestrian Opera Man” – a Chinese gent of about 70 who walks the footpaths in the morning belting out European opera. You can hear him a block away. You wish they all sounded like him, but then again, this is not about pitch perfection.

In the west, people have sung in their cars for decades. Usually this is with the window up. Even then it takes some courage to keep singing and grooving when stopped at lights beside other motorists.

Here, until fairly recently, the rank and file didn’t have cars. If people felt like singing on their way to work, they did so on their bike. In such a tightly controlled society, this was a way to loosen the shackles with impunity. Still they might not have freedom of speech or association. But they are free to get down.

It's not what it looks like. It's a choir.

Here's another one. They're probably singing techno.

The bike singing habit has crept into
China's performing arts, such as with the
Wang Family Singers, the so-called
Partridges on Wheels.

As opposed to a sound-proof car, singing out loud on your bike takes a little courage. But once you start, you feel let loose indeed. It’s more therapeutic than meditation.

You’ll always remember your first time. I bought a bike 18 months ago, and had been riding for a few months with earphones in, humming quietly. Then one day, inspired by a passing tenor, I thought I’d give it a go.

I started sheepishly, singing semi-audibly along to Manfred Mann’s Blinded By The Light. Gradually I became more emboldened. The volume got louder, and, with the thrill of it all, so did my velocity.

Before I knew it I was flying, positively belting it out – a Jonathan Livingston Cyclist. And as I passed within earshot of what soon accumulates as hundreds, if not thousands, of Beijingers, I noticed one thing about them: Noone gave a damn. Noone looked at me strangely, nor disapprovingly – not even at the bit that sounds like “Wrapped up like a douche another runner in the night” (It’s Revved up like a Deuce, by the way, as in a Deuce Coupe car).

Now, there’s no stopping me. And I have a lot of time on my bike to work on things, like harmonies. I’ll go for the high bits – such as in my most guilty pleasure, Sugar Baby Love - and still won’t get looks when I fail. Another great thing is that this being China, noone knows you’re not supposed to like songs like that. Plus, most people can’t speak English, so I can ride along singing Anarchy in the UK without being arrested for subversion.

I’ll hit the lows in some Johnny Cash numbers, including some odd-sounding backing vocals. I’m thinking it must sound strange to be out walking and hear a big foreigner riding by yelling “BA DOOBY DO-WOP WOP”, or it’s near-relative “BA BA BA, BA BARBARA-ANN”. But if I do get looks, they’re usually smiles.

Of course singing on a bike in China can pose dangers.
These two sounded like Julie Andrews when they passed
me. They came back a minute later sounding like
Tom Waits.

But generally it's great fun, apart from all the traffic. This
man was presented with this bouquet after a particularly
stirring performance from La Traviata.

Chinese cyclist Gong Jinjie says singing while riding was
a key to her success at the London Olympics. Here, she
powers to victory in the individual pursuit during a
rendition of one of her favourite 70s hits, YMCA.

Mind you, most Chinese athletes are known
for their wonderful sense of rhythm.

This is what's known in China as the rhythm section,
seen here awaiting his lead singer.

This man sang falsetto.

The air drums. Seriously, anything goes.

There is even a bike singers' brotherhood. One young loony was riding along beside me last week giving a quite decent performance of local pop. I felt I had to show him I understood, and gave him the thumbs up.

“You sing very well!” I said in Chinese.

“Oh thank you,” he replied. Alas, duly encouraged, he launched into some Peking Opera, the kind that sounds like a man has his thumb caught in a vice, and rode away with an “Eee eeeee EEEEE!”. At least he looked a lot better than he sounded.

I’ll try opera, country, rock and pop. If it helps the rhythm of your cycling, all the better, such as Kraftwerk’s Tour De France. For an extra boost, riding no hands and singing adds on average 25 per cent more joy.

But I haven’t gone completely mad. There are some things I won’t attempt, like scat jazz. Mind you, that shouldn’t be attempted by anyone anywhere. (Another good thing about China is they can just ban stuff like scat jazz).

And you should never attempt spoken bits of songs, like when Elvis says “I wonder if … you’re lonesome tonight?” Singing out loud is one thing. If you’re riding along talking to yourself then indeed you will be looked upon as a bit mental. And in the Elvis example, you might get slapped.

So now I sing along the streets of Beijing with all the elan of a zealous convert. I heartily recommend all other cyclists to join the singers-on-wheels club, in China or wherever you are. It beats a massage hands down.

ECLECTIC THURSDAY ...

2012-09-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

... a collection of things from the 'Jing, gathered while out riding my bike this week. And what better to start with than this autumn's must-have accessory ...

We husbands have all been there ...
"Honey - does my butt look too small in this?"
Just what do you say? Now, just hand
her these, on sale at all good fake arse
outlets now. They're sexy, comfortable,
invisible AND perfect!

Wonder if he knows why westerners keep
licking him.

There's a message for all us in there! Somewhere.

The Levi's Young Guns aren't as young as
they used be. Maybe she should start
shopping at ...

It's a kids' store: Because big or small, there's
a little bit of the 60-year-old in all of us!

LOAD OF THE WEEK

Under there somewhere is a person.

Another load that came past me.

No pressure on here. For the uninitiated, the lines on the
road don't seem to work as well here as in other places.

As mentioned previously, transport here comes in
all shapes and sizes. Pretty sure he picked this
one up at the circus.

And sometimes transport looks like this - a taxi
for one. These are very common and, ooh, fairly
safe.

And here's another collection: Car,
motor scooter, bicycle and pram.

But don't panic - the pram was empty.
Baby was held up, literally, for
a toilet stop.

Strictly speaking, it's a bike lane. These are
located beside many roads in Beijing. They
are also beside perfectly good footpaths, but
people don't seem to notice those. What
happens next is the wheelchair doesn't
miss the baby's puddle.

Speaking of transport, motor scooters continue to remain one of the strongest sources of quality Chinglish ...

They may have advanced technologr, butt it dosnt inclde
spelchek.

Now that's just throwing words at the problem.

Speedboating? For when you like the thrill of travelling
fast over water but you only own a scooter!

SARD - Get it, and it will just improve you.

Down at the construction site.

As is this. Watch for odd-looking black things terracing
your head.

More workplace guidelines. They say you shouldn't text
on the job, particularly if you're employed as a pianist. To
be fair, he still sounded OK. But maybe he was over it
and needed a nap.

If you're going to take a nap at work,
which is pretty standard here, make
yourself comfortable, like this
alfresco barber.

But for napping at work, nothing beats a job as an
attendant at a bouncy castle.

And finally ...

This proves three things: 1. You can take an
OK and even kinda artsy photo while riding
your bike (provided you touch it up later).
2. Dongzhimenwai Street does indeed
run east-to-west as I said on Monday.
3. The sun is big.

* More next Monday readers with who knows what!

THE NEWBIE'S GUIDE TO BEIJING

2012-09-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

It’s September again and that can only mean one thing: A fresh load of westerners has arrived in Beijing and is wandering around the community.

For the newbie, or in Chinese niu bi, Beijing can be a daunting place. Always fascinating, though often really dull, there’s a few things to watch out for in the city. Your humble correspondent has lived here now for nearly seven years in total – a few in the ‘90s, and the past four. I don’t want to sound like some crusty old hack who’s seen it all and knows everything, but I am, and I have, and I do. So here for you newcomers’ benefit, with several insights and only a few gross generalisations, is the only guide to settling in you’ll ever need.

1. ORIENTATION

Beijing is the easiest city in the world to navigate. It’s a grid pattern. Wherever you are, take four left turns or four right ones and you’ll be back where you started. In fact you’ll find this happens a lot if you ever break THE GOLDEN RULE: If you’re lost, never, ever, EVER, ask someone for directions.

This isn’t a man thing, although it is, of course, a soft, soft blancmange of a man who asks for directions. Do you think Nelson ever asked for directions to Trafalgar? No, in this case, it’s a China thing. One thing you’ll find about the Chinese is, to quote the song, they’re just a race who can’t say ‘no’. It counts as a loss of face.

When you’re lost, if you ask a local for directions, they’ll happily nod sagely and quickly point you off somewhere, not having the remotest clue where or what you’re after. It could be explained thus: “I don’t know where that place is, but I know it’s not here, ergo it must be somewhere else, so that’s where I’m sending you.”

The Beijing street map. To make it even easier,
the grid is laid out in alignment with the four
points of the compass. NOW do you get it,
honey?

The great man. He never asked directions.
But he did lose a bit of face - in an
explosion that buggered his eye - and
an arm.

Your search for your destination will usually not be helped by having an address written down. Often, official addresses bear little relation to physical locale. They’re kind of a hint.

My old abode was an apartment compound called Seasons Park (Motto: Home of Tycoons, and I’m not making that up). The official address is 36B Dongzhimenwai St, a major east-west road. But Seasons Park is actually about 250 metres south of Dongzhimenwai St, on a completely different, little, street behind rows of other apartment blocks. It’s as if the person determining these physical addresses, let’s call him The Riddler, is playing a game to guard against monotony: Let’s send the person to the general area, and see if they’re worthy enough to find it from there … character-building life lessons and all that.

It would help more if the official address read: Seasons Park, Get to the Workers’ Stadium, Go West For A Bit, Ask Someone, Turn Right, Keep Going For A While, Ask Someone Else, Look Out For Several Large Sandy-Coloured Buildings, Yeah That Sounds Like It, You’re Pretty Much On It, Beijing, China, 100027.

2. GETTING AROUND

BIKE: Easily the best way. Beijing’s as flat as a biscuit, so it’s easy pedalling. Plus you beat the traffic. And you see far more of the city than in a car. AND you can get your competitive sport thrills from taking on cars, buses, etc, at intersections. You’ll need a bit of nerve, to look drivers in the eye and exercise your right of way. They’ll stop – usually – for if there’s one thing worse than a dead cyclist it’s a scratch on one’s car. But for God’s sake wear a helmet. For some reason expats rarely wear helmets, just because the locals don’t. The roads here are just as hard as back home.

SUBWAY: A good, fast way to get around and beat the traffic. It’s also dirt cheap, at two kwai to get anywhere. But it’s crowded, and prepare for a fight to get off. Western standards of waiting for people to disembark don’t apply. It’s a rule of thumb known as the “Quick quick QUICK GET ON GET ON!!!!” rule. The Chinese don’t have a history of lining up. A “queue” is best known as the old long plait of hair worn by subjects of the Qing Dynasty.

Cycling has long been considered a fun pastime in China.

The Beijing Subway. It's usually more crowded than this.

The Beijing traffic. Utter nonsense.

TAXIS: Taxis can be just marvelous. There’s billions of them, they’re cheap, and unlike the subway they can drop you to your door. Then one day you’ll wake up and they’re all gone. Just gone. It’s like that episode of The Twilight Zone where all the cabs disappeared. Then, when you do find one and ask where all the cabs have gone, the driver will usually stare blankly and say he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. And then kill you.

OK that last bit doesn’t happen often, but there is an eeriness about the whole thing. Usually, by prodding, you might learn some law or other has been passed, in secret, forcing cabs off the road to be fitted with emissions controls or some such.

If and when one does come, you’ll fight with 20 people for it. And if you happen to win, the “FOR HIRE” sign is merely a basis for negotiations. The driver will ask where you want to go, and you’d better hope you get the answer right, or he’ll bypass you for someone with a more convenient address.

Beijing taxis look like this. Inside, they always have seat
belts. But mostly they're tucked away under the seat
because they're an unsightly mess, and people don't
want to be sitting on those hard plastic bits. You can
insist on the driver pulling them out, but then he'll get
annoyed. This is OK because you'll never see him again.
Alas, there's not a lot of space in the boot/trunk. That is
to say, there wasn't a lot to start with, and then what
space there was is usually taken up by a big box containing
all the driver's worldly possessions. If you're going to the
airport, this can suck. TIP: Avoid sitting in the front
seat in winter, for these worldly possessions rarely
include a toothbrush.

Beijing taxis can also look like this ...

... and this. Not very often, unfortunately. (And yes, they're
made by the same people who make London cabs).

3. LANGUAGE

Try to learn Mandarin. It makes the experience far more fun. The trouble is, it’s a bugger of a language to learn, but it can be great for your ego. You’ll say something like “Ba” and the locals will say how great your Chinese is and how you have this other-worldly intelligence.

One day it will all click, and you’ll know you’ve mastered it. The next day you’ll be out and not one person will understand a single bloody word you say and it will, again, be like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

For more on this, see my soon-to-be award-winning post: HOW TO SPEAK CHINESE. (Found under 'Search this Website').

4. BUYING STUFF

You’d better like doing this, for it’s one of the things to do in Beijing. But the accumulation of items can in fact be fun here. Shopping, in particular bargaining, can be a fun game, and even a contact sport. Start ridiculously low. All they can do is say ‘No’ and call you a cheap scoundrel. Then after you leave they’ll call you back.

For produce at your local market, find a vendor and cultivate him/her as a long-term ‘partner’ you can trust will give you good prices. Then don’t get disheartened when you see them the next day and they rip you off blind. The ‘long term’ doesn’t seem to matter much. Just move on.

For more, read my piece which won’t win any awards: SHOPPING CAN BE FUN! NO, REALLY. (Found in Popular Posts).

5. TOILETS

What more can be said about this thorny, stinky issue? I know: It’s not getting any better. But like having a tooth pulled or doing your taxes, using a public toilet in China is just something you’re going to have to do sometimes. TIPS: Use them as a motivator to make children or elderly visiting relatives go before you leave home. And always carry your own toilet paper, because there’s never any there.

Hold your nose, it's a public toilet! Caution: They're not
always this well-appointed.

Please also see ONE TOILET TWO FLIES.

6. ACCOMMODATION

To find a home you’ll need a real estate agent. They will want a detailed list of your requirements, such as size, location, and rental price. Then they will show you whatever they want to show you anyway. (“The owner is waiting inside. Face will be lost if we don’t go!”)

Eventually you’ll find something. Your landlord/lady will say you can keep whatever furniture you want and they’ll remove the rest. Then when you move in you’ll be surprised to see that it’s either all gone or all still there. You may then be asked to store some of it in a bedroom. The landlord/lady will also assure you they will have your place cleaned. When you move in, they’ll usually add a dash of humour by insisting that it has been.

At some stage early on you’ll become aware you need to recharge your electricity card. Usually this will happen when you’re at home minding your own business and are plunged into darkness. Typically this will be 11.30 on a Sunday night. For the rest of your tenancy you will check your electricity meter like a crazed zealot every half hour.

TIP: Always check your oven. If
you're the first western tenant
there'll probably still be some
packaging inside. The Chinese
sometimes use ovens, but only
as a place to store books, shoes,
et cetera.

* More handy hints as they come to mind, newbies. Meantime just enjoy the place, and keep this website on you at all times as a guide.

THE VALLEY OF SILENCE

2012-09-12T22:38:00.001-07:00

*Continuing our look at the Tiger Father & Family's holidays

If there’s one thing I love it’s a western movie. Of course you have to be careful saying that when you live in China. It could mean you prefer films like Die Hard XV and Alvin and the Chipmunks over Raise The Red Lantern and Kung Fu Kindergarten. I mean the horses and gunslingers type.

And if there are two things I love, then the second thing would be native American culture. Tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee and Apache sounded very evocative when I was a lad. I always wanted to make smoke signals and settle down with a good squaw. Sitting Bull and Geronimo were war time leaders just like Patton and Rommel, only they had better names.

These two love interests might seem incompatible, for in most westerns the “Injuns”, after giving a bit of lip early on, usually suffer the mother of all hidings. But they do come together nicely at Monument Valley, an important native American site where many a western was shot. I’m also fond of a good monument, and I like a valley as much as the next man. So during our recent holiday we went to this ancient, awesome, geological wonderland.

They put it in a really inconvenient place. Straddling the border of Utah and Arizona, Monument Valley isn’t on the way to anything. But it had long been on my list and we were all about roughing it. Plus our RV had air-con.

You can’t just go driving through the valley willy nilly. You have to go on a tour. Since the area is in the Navajo nation, our brochure said we could get a tour with a genuine native person. We paid for a private tour, partly to learn more, but mostly to avoid an 8.00am departure.

I was excited to meet our Navajo guide. Would he perform a dance? Inspire the kids with a folk tale? Would he crouch down, strain some sand through his fingers and describe his people’s connection to this mystical place? Would he be wearing something hand-woven, or at least a feather head-dress? And what would he be called? Rearing Horse? Courageous Cat? Eats With A Fist?

“Trevor this is Larry,” our intermediary said. Larry was a stocky man of about 50. He was wearing … well he was wearing Levis and a red button-up shirt. It had long sleeves, if that adds interest.

I wasn’t sure how to approach. Could we even communicate? Larry silently extended his hand. I met his gaze and extended mine. He grabbed it, squeezed it in a way I can only describe as painful, and jerked me closer to him. This was different to the handshakes of my people. Alas I hadn’t expected it and stumbled into him, which was awkward.

And then he spoke.

“Kah,” he said.

I’d thought “Hello” was “How”. Still, I wanted to try. It wouldn’t do to say anything white and stiff like “Yes, quite!” or that old chestnut “Good day to you!”

“Kah,” I replied.

He looked surprised. At my worldliness?

“Kah,” he said again.

“Kah,” I said. Now I really wasn’t sure where this was going. But then Larry raised his index finger and, I guess you could say solemnly, pointed at my top pocket. Poking out was a thick ticket which showed I had paid.

“Ooooooh - card,” I said, handing it over. Larry turned and walked away.

Here is famous director John Ford making a movie
with John Wayne in front of the valley's
triple-pronged outcrop which was of course
dubbed The Three Sisters (because geologists
found the rock to be female).

And here's how the sisters looked to us, complete with
matching clouds.

How Monument Valley is depicted in one
branch of popular culture.

And in another.

Our vehicle was a converted pick-up truck with seats in the back. Larry got into the cabin and off we went. Finally there they were - majestic pillars of stone, aka buttes, rising some 100 metres (300 feet) from the flat earth. I was keen to learn more. In the cabin, Larry picked up his microphone to speak.

“Supermarket,” he said.

Sure enough, we’d just driven past one of those.

“Airstrip”.

Those sights absorbed, we entered the national park. First there was a native dwelling, or hogan. Larry took us in. We milled about, making interested humming noises. I felt Larry was waiting for us to settle so he could begin his talk. I marshaled the kids to attention, whereupon Larry … just stood there. Turns out he wasn’t waiting for anything. So I thought I’d break the ice.

“Mud bri ..”

“No.”

“Not mud bricks?”

“No.”

“Right. No. Not mud bricks …”

I glanced at my wife Stef. I might need to engage a bit more.

“Well … what then?” I asked.

“Mud and grass.”

Oh. I’d missed the grass. But then there were wooden beams.

“What kind of wood?” I asked.

“Strong.”

“Oh stro …"

“And light. Strong and light.”

“Cedar?”

“No.”

“Pine?”

“No.”

I walked past Stef. “I think it’s a guessing game,” I whispered. Problem was I felt like I was in trouble with every incorrect answer.

Six-year-old Lani asked me about the door ‘hole’. I said she could ask Larry. She didn’t want to. I didn’t blame her. I asked if it was usually covered.

“Blanket,” Larry said.

Ah. Now we were getting somewhere.

“A blanket!” I said. “What kind of blanket?”

“Store bought.”

Riiiight …

At last our guide perked up. At last he had another syllable to add.

“Sometimes kangaroo skin,” he said. This didn’t really help.

“Why kangaroo skin?” Stef asked.

“It was imported. From Australia.”

I looked at Stef and exhaled. I’d once got blood from a stone without this much effort. Only this stone was costing us. Whereas in our exchange about the card it appeared Larry had a problem enunciating his words, it was now clear he just didn’t like using them at all. It’s a bit of a handicap if you’re a tour guide.

“So how many people live on the Navajo nation?” I poked again.

Larry stared at me. I thought he was going to punch me in the face, but he was just thinking.

“Many,” he answered, not very mysteriously.

“How many?”

“Many many.”

Usually I want my tour guides to shut up after a while. This was becoming bizarre. I wondered if the Navajo were a notoriously taciturn people, like those verbal minimalists from the ancient Greek region of Laconia (whose capital was Sparta). Maybe we would learn more in the park’s Navajo museum.

Not really. A tiny part of one room gave hints as to how they once lived, using a couple of old robes and pottery. Almost two rooms were devoted to how Navajo radio operators had helped Allied forces in World War II, speaking messages in their native tongue that the Germans couldn’t understand.

It seemed perverse. You wouldn’t say the Navajo have done all that well out of European settlement. It was jarring to learn alcohol can not be sold on the entire Navajo nation, which is a bit smaller than South Korea. Plus, that WWII unit was ultimately treated shamefully by their white commanders. But this episode was presented as the high point in Navajo history. Perhaps they like their real culture so much they’re keeping it to themselves.

The kids in a hogan. Did I mention the Navajo people
are really really tiny?

No, this is the real hogan. The previous shot was of
their steam room out the back, used to treat illness.

This part is called John Ford's Point, because the director
liked shots from this angle. Fortunately this guy had
come by on his horse.

He let us sit on the horse and get our photo taken,
provided we first paid him $5.00. Coincidentally
a lot of other people took him up on his offer.

That's me. Did I mention the Navajo horse
was really really tiny?

We came to an awesome formation called Window Rock. I was hoping against hope our authentic Navajo guide might know some geological history.

“How long have these formations been here?” I asked.

“Since the dawn of time,” Larry said.

“How many years?”

“Four hundred and fifty.”

Wait. The dawn of time happened 450 years ago? Was it covered by the media?

“Sorry,” I pleaded, “who says time began 450 years ago?”

“Everyone.”

I for one had never said that. Finally Larry said it referred to when Navajo people arrived in the area. If you look at the internet, even this sounds like a guess.

There was one more thing to see – the Eye of the Sun. It’s a huge open cave with a hole in the roof through which to see the blue sky. As was his non-interventionist custom, Larry waited by the car while we walked in. There we saw another Navajo guide, sitting and talking to a white family.

“And then Lonely Cloud ran into the hills,” he said. “It was his time to become a man.”

Stef and I were stunned. Look at the tour these people were getting! They were getting a folk tale. We were chagrined enough, but then …

“Lonely Cloud took out his flute and played.” The guide took a recorder out of a hand woven bag. Phweet phweet phwee-eet.

Bloody hell.

Taciturn my foot. If our guide was Larry Laconic, these guys got Harry Haveachat. With music!

We returned to where Larry was not playing a flute. One last try.

“Hey Larry – what caused these rock formations?”

“Natural forces.”

He got back into the vehicle.

“So it wasn’t some bloke with a high pressure hose then?” I wanted to say.

I’d had about enough. And clearly, so had Larry – maybe a hundred tours ago.

Oh well. The scenery was spectacular. And there’s always the internet.

Monument Valley and the kids. Of course taking good
photos of rock buttes is easy. Kids, less so. Behind them
from left to right are the two "mittens" and the Merrick
Butte, which could have been named after Joseph
"The Elephant Man" Merrick for all we know.

Lani at Window Rock.

Did I mention it's really big?

The Eye of the Sun, with people
below. The whole valley was
carved by water in an ancient
sea, which left behind the
Colorado Plateau, aka
natural forces.

An ancient cave painting of some sort of antelope type thing.
Thankfully a picture paints a thousand words, taking
our haul for the day to roughly 1,020.

FASHION FORWARD!

2012-09-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

Now the autumn looks are in the shops, time to look back on what made it big in fashion in the summer of '12.

It was a season of the bold, the new and the beautiful - especially here. As this collection shows, China's trendsetters proved that after 50 years of wearing Mao suits they have taken their rightful places at the banquet of global style. And their seats are located right on the cutting edge!

This saucy, semi-formal off-the-nipple look
was given the big thumbs up! Good for the
home, nightclubs, or for standing on a footpath
staring at a tree. Look closely and you'll see this
trendy gent has matched the look with this
year's must-have accessory - black peach-fuzz
for belly and boobs.

It's called the "belly out" look.
Not only does it look great, it
keeps the wearer cool, like this
outdoor worker who I'm sure was
one of the Village People.

It's good for business meetings ...

... for hanging out with friends, who may be rappers ...

... or for pulling the ladies.

The bonus is it lets you cool down while
not looking anywhere near as vulgar
as taking your shirt off.

Choices to suit your mood:
Today I feel like one nipple!

As this man shows, being asleep is no excuse for
not being fashionable.

"Belly out" is even better when feeling the
breeze on your bike. This man had just
one comment for us: "Weeeeeeee!"

Warning: Only the brave can pull this off ...

... or those with guts. The old fashion rule
says the belly maketh the man. Or, the
larger the stomach, the more prosperous
the fellow. Man boobs come into it, too,
by way of keeping your shirt up longer.

This variation is for more formal
nights, when the dress
code says Fabulous!

My enduring image of China won't be the Forbidden
City, the Great Wall, or glitzy high rise buildings. It
will be something like this. It really should be an
album cover.

This fashion forward gent has gone for the
complete ensemble - stomach and nipples
set off wonderfully by a pink umbrella.
Total cost: (gasp!) $4.99!

The great thing about China is that this girl doesn't at
all feel weirded out.

"Belly out" aficionados are actually proving worthy wearers of the title Fashion Victims. For this is indeed the style the authorities tried to ban! Leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China's government called on locals to not roll their shirts up while the city was on show to the world, fearing for some reason that they might be laughed at and called "unsophisticated yokels" or something. Fans of the look carried on undeterred. Rallies were organised mirroring the "Slutwalks" now common in the west. Protesters insisted wearing such clothing was not a sign that they were asking to be ridiculed, adopting as their anthem The Smiths' 1987 hit Shirtlifters of the World.

What else made waves in 2012?

Did somebody say "Face-kini?"

Oh yes they did.

As Mao Zedong said: "Let a hundred flowers blossom!"
In 2012, a trip to the beach in China was like a trip into a
world of colour. And a bit like a trip into an IRA action.
Or a hospital burns unit.

For yes, it was time for the Face-kini. Want to go to the
beach? Don't want to get a tan? Or not on your head at
least? Simply pull on these sporty balaclavas and -
hey presto - you too can look like a complete
bloody idiot.

His and Hers: A look to warm designers' hearts
everywhere, if not at Victoria's Secret then
at least in Victorian England.

Mums and Bubs - balaclavas and floaties. These photos
were taken at Qingdao No.1 Beach, which proves that
even beaches get names like that in China.

Heaven knows what kind of tan lines will come from this.
But it's good to see that even at what appears to be senior
citizen years, Chinese people will still, with little regard
for other people's opinions, make the peace sign in photos.

Two more women on the beach at Qingdao.

Miss Blue is still able to effect the expression of surprise.

Unless it's just the outer covering that does that,

like actors on botox.

The look soon caught on around the world, such as with this woman in Vigo, Spain ...

... with these two in Moscow ...

... and these guys with matching khakis,
hanging out in Belfast.

The Face-kini also took off in the world of sport, including
rugby ...

... Formula 1, and horse racing.

Here is a photo I found online
advertising a disposable
balaclava. Just why anyone
would want one, I'm not sure.

And here, from Canada, comes the balaclava-pour-deux:
"For the girl who really doesn't want to kiss you".

This was, again, the look the fashion police tried to ban. As the New York Times reported, the beach balaclavas were hatched at the city of Qingdao by an entrepreneur seeking to cash in on the desire of many Chinese people to get to the beach but not get tanned. White skin is highly prized by many here as a sign of good breeding. The alternative, dark skin, implies that you or your ancestors had to toil outside - perhaps even on a farm! "A woman should always have fair skin. Otherwise people will think you're a peasant," said a woman who identified herself as Yao Wenhua, 58. We'll have to take her word for it, as she was wearing a balaclava at the time.

After pictures of the gear triggered much mockery on the internet in China, city officials in Qingdao promptly announced a ban on sales. Some shop owners said they were told this was because of concerns about "quality control". One said he supposed the city didn't want people to buy one and then go rob a bank, which sounds completely feasible. Still, beachgoers are fighting for their right to cover up.

It's funny. This correspondent remembers when people in Australia used to campaign to be allowed to wear less at the beach.

* Tune in again next week fashionistas for our next update on trends in the Middle Kingdom: "Getting Round in your Jammies"!

* And tune in this Thursday for more tales from The Tiger Father Does America.

* And for real website about fashion in Beijing, try http://fearless-in-beijing.com

SOUND OF MUSIC BIT

2012-09-05T23:33:00.002-07:00

As a parent you have to do all sorts of gut-wrenching things, like clean up poop, vomit, saliva and wee, and watch the Sound of Music (although I do admit I quite like the song about the lonely goat turd).

So it was with great pleasure I received this picture on a social media website named "facebook". I don't know who made it, and I don't often pass on other stuff here, but this was far too good not to share around. If you know certain bands, you should get it. If not, bad luck, it won't mean anything, so please forward it to someone who does.

And now, presenting, Julie Andrews singing high on a grassy hillside ...

TIGER FATHER STORMS AMERICA II

2012-09-05T23:19:00.001-07:00

* INSTRUCTIONS: If you haven’t read Part I of this two-part special, I’d suggest you scroll down and do it now before you read this one.

....................................................................................................................................

HAVING planned our holiday like a demonic genius, I swaggered to the ANA check-in counter at Beijing airport. Six-thirty on a Sunday morning isn’t normally good for swaggering, but I was proud of myself. I’d been in a state of organisational overdrive which called to mind D-Day.

“You could have trained a monkey to plan D-Day,” I told my wife. Stef loves details. In fact she demands them. For fun I threw her a bone, mentioning we’d be driving into Bryce Canyon at 8.25pm on July 9, day nine of our scheduled 28, in our 22-foot, six-berth, automatic Ford RV which averaged 18 miles to the gallon.

At these times she smiles and says something encouraging like “Go, organised baby!” This is nice, although I know she has more belief in an imminent calamity than in me.

“Four for San Francisco via Tokyo!” I beamed to the young Japanese woman behind the desk.

“Tickets please,” she said politely, although she didn’t bow, which was disappointing.

I turned to my wife. Her eyebrows creased. “I haven’t got them!” she said.

“I thought you had them,” I said.

“Noooo,” she growled lowly, “you said YOU had them.”

I did have them. I always do this at airports, just for fun. You have to lighten the mood. For I don’t know if it’s just me but something strange has always happened to the women I’m with in airports. Outside on the footpath, they’re normal human beings. Inside, all previous knowledge counts for nought. They’re like werewolves, only werewolves aren’t this crabby and nervous. In fact if ever a relationship got stale in the past, I’d take that girlfriend to an airport, go in and just walk around for an hour, just to feel like I was with a different person.

It’s not so bad on arrival, scene of my other airport joke. When we wheel our trolleys out before the waiting crowds I always start waving and screaming: “There they are THERE THEY ARE! KEN! PAT! WHAAOOY!”

There’s never anyone there for us but none of these people know that, only my wife. But don’t listen to her – this never stops being funny. Granted, though, it might keep our marriage fresher if I changed the names. I could come out screaming my own.

“Trevaaah! TREEEV!”

Who hasn’t wanted to do that?

Or I could go celebrity.

“APPLE!”

“MOON UNIT!”

“BLANKET!”

And I’ve always loved some of the English names people from places like Zimbabwe are given.

“PSYCHOLOGY!”

“FORTUNATE!”

“INNOCENT!”

Terminal decline?
The American Association of Marriage Counselling
says two out of every three marriages will end in
divorce. In an airport.
This belies the ostensibly peaceful scene above
in Beijing's No.3 international terminal.

Things are often not so calm elsewhere, however.
Here, passengers on a Chinese aircraft prepare to
disembark moments before touchdown.

This is an archival photo of a Great Leap Forward-era
"People Powered" aircraft designed by
Mao Zedong himself!

And this is a file photo of locals negotiating an average
Beijing intersection.

Beijing Airport, yesterday.

I handed over our tickets and passports and started humming happily. Like in an airline disaster movies, I told the kids what our holiday would be like.

“In America there’ll be ice-cream, hot dogs and lollies,” I said as their little eyes widened. “And bunny rabbits! And democracy and free speech!”

And then it happened.

“Visas?” the woman asked.

For a split second my heart raced. “Oooh,” I said, relieved, “they’re in the passport.” I showed my China residency permit.

She surveyed it. “No no – your US visa.”

I looked at her for a moment. Then I tilted my head.

“Ooooh no no no,” I smiled. “We’re Australian. We don’t need a visa to visit America, silly!”

“It says here you do.”

I thought for a few seconds.

“Naaaaah.”

“It’s what it says.”

This was also like a movie, only my wife was in it. And she was right next to me, so there was no way of “protecting” her from this news. My pulse started to race. So did my mind, plotting a course of action which began with 1. Find divorce lawyer; 2. Find our travel agent; 3. Harm our travel agent.

Happier times: The author, seen here
relaxing at home last year with his
favourite meal, Leftover Surprise.

The author, at Beijing Airport.

A Lego person, also freaking out
at Beijing Airport.

Another person freaking out at Beijing Airport,
as depicted by a mad old Spanish woman.*

How could we need visas? Weren’t Australia and the US friends? Hadn’t my country spent the past decade sucking up to America like an embarrassing little brother? Had we not handed over enough lunch money?

I opted to phone a friend, another Beijing-based Australian, because he’d been to the US recently and likes getting calls at 6.30am on a Sunday.

“You #%!@ing get it when you %!$&ing land,” he said.

Aah beautiful. Scare over.

I told the woman. She smiled and said: “Not on our airline you don’t.” Their system wouldn’t check us in without a visa. My friend had flown United. They had different rules. It was then I called our travel agent and learned one vital fact: she doesn’t answer her phone at 6.30 on a Sunday.

Our kids were playing happily, in sharp, sharp contrast to my wife. We were now asked to perform the shuffle of shame – moving out of the way of those passengers who weren’t completely losing it.

With time evaporating, the airline said we could get to Tokyo and try again, an idea best described as the “See If That Works” plan.

“What if we still can’t fly from there?” Stef said.

“JAPANESE HOLIDAY!!!” I shouted. This ignored the thousands I’d spent pre-booking things in the US, but it sounded upbeat. “Hey kids – Pokemon!” I said. They were still blissfully unaware of absolutely anything. What a life.

So can someone please tell me what this was all
about??? Australian Prime Minister John Howard
enjoys touching George W. Bush in 2001. A new
book from a former Prime Ministerial aide has
revealed Howard has not washed that hand since.

As the bilateral relationship deepened, Bush
bestowed upon Howard the Man of Steel award.
An emotional Howard then secured Bush's
signature on the BFF Treaty of 2004.

There were slumber parties
and everthing.

"A can of Bud and some fries thanks son."

The PM wore his Man of Steel medal to bed
every night until this tormented day in 2007,
when a disillusioned Bush stripped a weeping
Howard of the honour after realising he
wasn't "the Austrian guy". Australians have
required US visas ever since.

Finally there came an angel of God, dressed as an ANA employee, who said we could apply for visas online. I moved to kiss him on the mouth, but was blocked by my wife and an iPad.

The US Immigration site said visas would cost $14.00 each, which seemed cheap. I’d have paid $1400 at that point. Still there was much work to be done. I had to answer an array of questions which, in my panic, were suddenly baffling.

Was I suffering from the dreaded lymphogranuloma venereum? Perhaps I’d caught some of the granuloma inguinale that had been going round and didn’t know it?

Had I ever done any terrorism? Genocide? And what was I up to between 1933 and 1945? Anything Nazi? Had I ever committed moral turpitude? Surely I had. And what the hell was my middle name?

I opted to tick “no” to everything and answer questions later. I filled out the kids’ bits and my wife’s, then my heart sank again: I had to declare we all had electronic chip passports. In truth, that could have meant Stef staying behind, which may have been what she deserved with her dowdy old passport. Instead I ticked “Yes”. Surely I had now committed moral turpitude. I hit “send”, convinced the US government knew Stef’s passport was not micro-chipped. Worse, the site said our applications would be assessed “within 24 hours”. We had about that many minutes.

I consoled myself that this wasn’t all my fault, that our travel agent would be getting divorced too. It had been a fun ride but surely the game was up now. I lapsed into introspection, identifying how I'd gone wrong and what I would do differently next …

BING!

APPROVED!

Triumph! I’d done it! I’d wriggled out of another debacle. And I’d tricked the all-seeing US government. Now that is heroism.

We raced back to the now deserted check-in. “Ah - we can check you in now,” the angel said. Oh the relief. It was worth going through that just to feel the relief. It was smiles all round as we …

“Oh wait,” the man said.

“WHAT NOW?!?!” I said.

“It’s letting us check all of you in …”

“GOOD!”

“… except one”.

The suspense was unbearable.

“Which one is … Evie?”

“The little one!” I screamed, as Evie looked up at the wrong moment. “We can’t leave her behind! She’s five!”

This was becoming a problem morning. We could all fly to Tokyo and re-apply there. “Would we leave her there by herself if she can’t get one?” her big sister asked. It sounded feasible.

With minutes left I went back online, where my wife noticed I had misspelled my own daughter’s name. Not the main one, just the middle name, which I hadn’t even wanted in the first place. (I do know how to spell it. This was a typo. Honest.)

Send.

Approved.

Checked in!

We raced to immigration, rode the really slow skytrain, raced to the gate and – of all miracles – finally collapsed into our seats.

I wanted to cry. Instead I thought I should say something meaningful to my wife after what I’d put us through. Our eyes met, and it was then the words came to me:

“Well that sucked.”

*Jesus restoration pic from au.ibtimes.com. If you haven't caught up on the saga by now, google "Spanish fresco restoration"; Lego pic from Udronotto. "Beijing runway" image from New York magazine.

THE TIGER FATHER - EFFECTING SOCIAL CHANGE SINCE 2011

2012-09-02T21:36:00.002-07:00

Let’s resume, shall we?

When I started this blog, I had a burning desire to answer two searingly hot questions:

1. What will be in it?

2. What will it be called?

The first answer came surprisingly easily: Words and pictures.

The second was more difficult, but then the inspiration became obvious: What parent doesn’t want to be like Amy Chua, better known to you and I by her universally recognised nickname Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She’s that woman who wrote that book that time. You know? The one espousing a parenting style which, on close inspection, is actually neither Chinese nor American but seems drawn more from somewhere between the region of Draconia and Medieval Spain.

Some people also call Chua The Tiger Mother. This draws on an Asian idea that equates tigers with vitality and energy, at least when they’re not being hunted to near extinction for their bones and penises. That name grabbed my attention. And thus, on a windy autumnal day last October, there came into the world a blog called Bride of Tiger Mother.

Amy Chua, the original Tiger Mother, shares a
lighter moment with daughter Lulu.

Alas that caused confusion, mostly gender-based, and led to great internal conflict and me having artistic differences with myself. In the end I acrimoniously split up, but reformed a few moments later as The Tiger Father.

This was no easy task. First I had to check someone didn’t already own that name. I googled it and nervously awaited the results. After 0.27 seconds, they were in, and the news was bad. “Tiger Father” was everywhere.

Thankfully, when I looked more closely, it appeared all the mentions were about Earl Woods, father of Tiger. In particular they related to Tiger’s penchant for vitally and energetically bedding women. Most were about Earl’s appearance in a Nike TV commercial which tried to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear that was Tiger’s sex life. This was quite a challenge. For one thing, Tiger’s image had been sorely battered. For another, Earl had been dead for four years.

Seriously. There’s a close-up of Tiger, looking like a remorseful fool, while we hear his deceased dad somehow say: “I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are. Did you learn anything?” Wackiest thing I’ve seen since that movie Field of Dreams, about Kevin Costner playing baseball with the undead.

I thought it was pretty obvious what Tiger was thinking. I’m no psychiatrist but I think he was thinking “I want to have sex with all these women”. So I moved on.

There was also a genuine blog called Tiger Father. “Drats,” I thought, “someone’s beaten me to the Amy Chua lampooning punch.” Fortunately it turned out to be another nutjob, from Vietnam this time, who liked collecting photos of tigers and putting them on the web. So with a little cyber-magic, I added the word “The” to my title and thus I was born.

This is him - the original Tiger Father. This
sums up what this blog is all about - Woods
and pictures.

Tiger Woods spots a close friend in the crowd at a
tournament prior to November, 2009.

So far this has been a most enjoyable exercise, documenting the real nitty gritty, the stories that have to be told or, as TV current affairs shows would urgently have it – the stories every parent needs to know – about life in Beijing. Perversely, there’s also stuff no parent needs to know but people without kids do. It’s all happening.

Sorry to all of you who have found yourselves unable to eat, sleep, or function at all while I snatched my two-month holiday. Rest assured this time was spent garnering fresh fodder for a parenting blog, ie, looking after the %&$#y kids while they were on school holidays. But now they're gone, I'm back.

So for more of the same, only fresher and better, strap yourselves into your couch with a cuppa and enjoy Season Two, Back By Popular Demand, The Blog China Doesn’t Want You To See, et cetera … yes, it’s The Tiger Father.

And speaking about China, let’s take on America! How about some writings of our family trip to the US? Hmm? Ok then. We’ll start below. (For anyone who may have moved to China in the summer newbie intake, there’s loads of China stuff in Popular Posts and Blog Archive down the right.)

PS: It really is the blog China doesn’t want you to see. If you’re in China, and you don’t have a VPN, you might not be able to see pictures and other razzle dazzle, leaving you with an estimated 25 per cent less enjoyment than regular users. Or you might not be able to see any of it, in which case you are not, in fact, reading this right now.

TIGER FATHER STORMS AMERICA

2012-09-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

... or ... WHY HOLIDAY PLANNING IS PURE HELL

It’s a well known fact that husbands, by their nature, are useless. People know this now. It’s in the public domain. In particular it’s clear for we husbands, who are told it all the time.

We’re not useless in all things. Just the things that are deemed by some to be useful. It gets annoying. I’m a great help when it comes to clarifying who actually wrote Blinded By The Light (Bruce Springsteen), just how many England defenders Maradona beat in that ’86 World Cup goal (pretty much all of them), or which horse won the 1932 Melbourne Cup (I’ll assume you all know this). But when it comes to something trivial, something not involving any glory, something mundane like organising our children’s education or a holiday, back we go on into the basket labeled “Why did I marry you again?” To quote from the five-year-old I successfully helped produce, it’s just … not … fair!

Someone once said men are all about glories and triumphs, and women simply content themselves with making the world turn. And yes, organisation of some things may not be men’s strong point. For this, I will lean back on my old friend “hardwiring”. We never had to do much organising to leave the cave and kill wildebeest. At least I didn’t when I was a kid.

One image of a cave husband. God they
had it easy: "Spear? Check. OK well
that's about it then."

Another image of a caveman.

And another, seen on a favourite T-shirt.

Among our friends there are several legends of organisational near-glories.

One husband, who runs an event planning company in Beijing, took his family to the Philippines for an island holiday. Forced to overnight in Manila, they were relaxing over their hotel breakfast when the husband prudently checked their tickets to confirm what time they should head to the airport. The answer was “about two hours ago”. After all, it’s easy to confuse 11.00am with 11.00pm. They dashed to the airport and failed. His wife is now talking to him again. What a difference a year makes, eh?

I once phoned a friend in Australia and, as optimistically as I could, wished him a happy family holiday in Ukraine. They were leaving the following day for a wedding there (so no, it was not by choice). I noticed he wasn’t at home packing and whistling a happy tune. In fact he was in his car and swearing a lot. He was driving the 250km to Canberra to visit the Ukrainian Embassy. Who knew you need a visa to visit Ukraine? As I like to remind his wife, he made it in time.

Another friend was planning to take his family home from Beijing to Australia for Christmas when he discovered one of his three children’s passports had expired. He discovered this at the check-in counter. Maintaining passports was his job. Still, he got to get on the plane with the two transportable kids. As his wife screamed and gesticulated her goodbyes, the man suggested she was over-reacting somewhat. She suggested that in such a situation, over-reacting was not possible. She took her forlorn son back into a freezing cold and smoggy Beijing to spend four days awaiting a new passport.

All those examples are my countrymen, so maybe it’s just Australians. Maybe we are just so cool that the nerdy, very organised gene has been bred out of us long ago. Does it not make life with us more interesting? When living in Ottawa, I once made the mistake of asking a Canadian if Britain had formed a penal colony in his country too. “No, silly,” he said scornfully. “They sent all their convicts to Australia. All the boring ones came here.”

Some husbands like to watch sport together, a bit
like these two. Actually, it's nothing like these two.
This picture was found by googling "men watching
sport", but it's so obviously a fake. Note the pressed
shirts and jeans, the perfect-looking beers in
matching glasses, and the presence of far too
much salad on the burgers. On that note, three
burgers each then? On another note, hands up if
you watch football while holding a football.

This is what real husbands look like when they
get together to watch sport.

Other kinds of husbands, who typically don't
like sport, often look like this.

Or this.

Unlike husbands, wives never have to put
up with this.

The Tiger Father, seen helping out at home, yesterday.

However, the worst example of all this husbandry came from a Frenchman. I will not exactly be giving the game away when I tell you his name is Francois. He also fancied a Philippines family holiday, and found a quaint little resort online. It was boutique: 12 small huts on a secluded beach on a tiny island which was a flight and two boat rides from Manila - the kind of remoteness I swore off long ago as way too much trouble.

Off they went - Francois, his wife, their three-year-old boy and six-month-old girl. When they finally arrived, to their horror they found the place didn’t have a room for them. The problem was at least easily explained: Francois hadn’t thought to book something, instead going with the “just turn up” approach. As he watched the boat disappear from the only resort on the island, this appeared a very brave approach. There are no prizes for bravery in the husbanding business. In fact, with a very assertive Italian wife and two kids, Francois looked the worst case since the founding father of foundering fathers, Joseph, forgot to book anything in Bethlehem – at the height of Christmas season and with a heavily pregnant wife in tow.

As Luke 2:1-20 had it:

“And so Joseph did take Mary from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the town of David, whence it was found that there was no room at the inn. And Mary thus spake unto Joseph: ‘What the *#&@ do you mean you didn’t book anything?!?!’ Joseph averted his eyes and answered: ‘Well … Dave said we’d be right’. Mary, who was heavily with child and quite cranky, said: ‘Dave? You’re getting your travel advice from Dave?! He’s more useless than you are!’ And Joseph paused for a moment to think of what he should say next, for he was vexed. ‘Weeeell,’ he said, ‘there’s something to be said for just turning up once in a while, isn’t there? Spirit of adventure and all that?’ And Mary replied: ‘Oh my God. Did you really just say that?! I can’t even believe you’re going to be the father of this child!’ And Joseph replied: ‘Oh, well, do you really want to go there again?’ And thus a long and silence fell over the land. And it was awkward.”

At least Francois and family didn’t have to stay in the stables. The resort gave them a tent. They put it up on the beach and slept there for two nights. Finally a room became available.

"Oh Maaare ... we'll look back and laugh at this you know."

All this considered, it was with great pride that I entered Beijing Airport with my family at 6.30am on a Sunday to begin our month-long holiday in the USA. I’d spent weeks planning it. It was a multi-stop tour of many places, all of which had to be investigated, compared, stewed over and finally, nervously, booked.

As a stay-at-home dad, I do a lot of things stay-at-home mothers usually do. But a lot of mothers I know love planning holidays. It’s one role I loathe. Holiday planners used to scan a handful of brochures at best. Now there’s a million choices to mull over on the cursed internet. A lot of mothers I know love doing this, getting excited as they look at this place or the other. To them it’s all adventure and anticipation. I view it more like ancient mariners used to view the ocean – full of peril, the unknown, and horrible monsters we now know as tourism operators. My mother friends play it like Germany does a World Cup – with a certainty (I call it arrogance) that this will all evolve spectacularly well. I go a bit more like England. My every move is made with a fear it will go horribly wrong, and I will lambasted by the sensationalist tabloid press of my family, ie, my wife in a bad mood.

Still my darling bride, or to use her pet-name the Leader of the Opposition, couldn’t fault my meticulous efforts as we headed to the airline counter that day. “What could go wrong from here?” we both thought, though she not as rhetorically as I.

WELL?? What could? I mean, we’re in the airport, tickets in hand, plenty of time. Cruisin’ like Dave Grusin, right? Tune in breathlessly on Thursday and bloody well find out! Go on. Nothing happens on Thursdays.

WHOPPING BIG PHOTO ALBUM!

2012-06-28T01:05:00.003-07:00

When you're an Australian expat living in China, half the fun is that when it's freezing cold in December, you get to go home where it's warm for Christmas holidays.

The other half is that in July, when the northern hemisphere is closed for business, you get a long summer holiday too. And so it is that I will be off for the next month - on full pay! Which is to say, the same pay as usual. Which is to say, nowt.

So I've decided to go out with a whimper, rather than a bang. To last you, dearly beloved reader, until I emerge from my coma sometime in August, I have slapped together a very large bunch of photos. No, it's actually a carefully selected, hand-edited, twice-baked collection of images I've lovingly collected in Beijing and compiled in this sweet, sweet album. In fact there are so many, those of us who were alive in the '70s might call it a "double album", a-la Peter Frampton or Ted Nugent or one of those old, old guys.

So, for the next month, for me it'll be no more of ...

... things clogging the roads like this,
the Elephant Man of tricycle loads.

Or this summer version. I include this
because it's actually our transportation
to the airport - the double-decker
rickshaw constructed of milk crates
and string.

Planes, trains and bicycles. My wife bought a new bike
last Sunday. Here it is here outside our apartment,
complete with a random Chinese character in the
top left corner to show we really live in China.

But soft! What's that sticker? I know the men
at the shop might have thought my wife
wasn't much of a bike rider by the way she
test-rode this one, but they didn't have to
make her feel stupid ...

I've tried, but it's pretty hard to get it going the
other way.

It'll be goodbye for a while to silly little signs like this.
These are everywhere in Beijing, along with others
signifying that there's a pregnant woman in the car, or
even one that just says "Mamma in car". These things
always give me pause for thought. Usually that thought
is: "It's a good thing you warned me because I had been
planning to careen straight into you, killing us both.
But I won't now." See, it's seemingly innocuous things
like this that make grumpy old men grumpy.

Now there's something you don't see every day - kids
in a car.

OK now we've got a real problem.

And does this woman need to advertise her negligence
so blatantly?

It's goodbye for a while to things like this ...

Frist things frist: If you're a school photo company telling
people to watch their spelling, just be a bit careful.

It's my favourite clothing brand. Indeed, it is the only one.
Their capabilities don't include spelling, however.

Farewell, too, to otherwise fine-looking
products with screwed-up labeling, such
as this magnificent set of golf clubs from
the good people at Biemlfdlkk.

And it's bye bye to Chinese restaurants like this one ...

Here is a lobster and a crab under Glad Wrap.
I include this because they were still alive.
Hence the "WTF" expression on the crab's face.

And it's catch-you-later to cliched juxtapositions of
new and old Beijing, such as the Bird's Nest stadium
behind this temple, which was constructed in 2008 to
make it look like there was something new next to
something old.

Or how about a five-year-old in World War I flying gear?

I include these because ... they're cute.

To be honest it might be a good time to get out of town for a while. I fear that after nine months of chronicling modern Beijing, I've become a "person of interest" to the local authorities. The other day I noticed them through the window of my 11th floor hidey-hole ...

I thought: "Hey ..."

And then I thought: "What the ...?"

It took them a while but they finally trained their beady
little listening devices in on me. A bit of monitoring of
fearless internet types is to be expected in Communist
China. But what happened next was beyond the pale ...

The operative moved over for a better look, before
I drew the curtains.

The People's Liberation Army does take
its job seriously. They can never forget
Big Brother is watching. And he's
brooding. And devilishly handsome.

It turned out my paranoia was, as always,
misplaced. The man at the window was
one of these guys. They dangle from a
bit of rope on a piece of wood to paint the
town pink.

"Occupational Health and Safety" are our
middle names.

In another workplace matter, I was stunned to
come across this scene when out walking last
week. Collapsed hoardings, bodies strewn across
the footpath ...

With the area roped off, it was as good a place as any to
take a nap, these workers obviously reasoned.

This job too came with sleeping quarters for the
afternoon break. Little wonder they call China
"the Spain of the east".

Speaking of footpaths, I'll miss scenes
like watching masseuses try to learn
roller-blading in their work clothes ...

... watched by a slightly less awkward looking
Dog-in-Boots.

And it's farewell for a while to dodgy DVD

boxed sets, which usually end up on sale in

the markets here for tuppence owing to some

minor flaw in the packaging. Here's a copy of

the excellent HBO series The Wire, which

came across my desk the other day.

See, I wasn't lying. This is the nerve centre right here.

It took me a while to figure out why this show about cops in the gritty drug scene of hard-knocks Baltimore didn't make it to the export markets.

"Yo Bunk! Where we at?"

"Well that's the mo'fo'ing Sydney Opera House right here."

"And the Sydney Harbour Bridge."

"Sheeeeyuht!"

Nice photo though. I can see what they were thinking.

And finally ...

It's worth repeating my favourite people-falling-asleep-in-
restaurants shot again. Just to recap, it's mid-burger,
mid-text aaaand zonk!

RECIPE CORNER

2012-06-25T00:55:00.001-07:00

Hi Readers!

I've spent six years in this wondrous, enchanting country, an ancient land whose cuisine has deservedly become one of the most famous in the world. Among other things it's been an amazing culinary journey as I've learned some of the art and craft of Chinese food.

Some of this getting of wisdom has come as I've wandered the dusty, history-steeped alleys, nooks and crannies of Beijing, from the street vendors who help give this dirty ol' town it's flavours and aromas. Other parts have come from reading news reports and police charge sheets, which touch on some more recent innovations in Chinese food production.

Today I want to share with you some of these experiences with a collection of some noteworthy recipes gleaned in China. Try them at home and hopefully you too will feel the splendour and joy of gastronomy from the often inspiring, sometimes baffling, sometimes spine-tingling Middle Kingdom.

Happy cooking!

1. Lamb sticks

Ingredients: pork, beef, dog, cat, rat, lamb (optional).

Method: take little bits of things and put them on skewers, cook over a barbeque whilst sprinkling herbs, fanning coals and trying to stop some drunken idiot from knocking the whole thing over.

Lamb sticks barbecued on the street at night provide some of the most characteristic sights, sounds, smells and tastes of after-dark Beijing. You might not be aware of it now, but If you've ever staggered out of a nightclub here at four in the morning, then you've eaten lamb sticks. This is an innovative little number, as you can make them using any number of animals. As Deng Xiaoping famously said "Black cat, white cat, it doesn't matter as long as you cover in with cumin." Then again, one investigation showed vendors had taken cat meat and made it taste more lamby by soaking it in sheep’s urine. As for what happens with the sticks, where they come from and whether or not they’re recycled, the folklore is littered with tales.

2. Melamine milk

Ingredients: milk, melamine.

Method: blend, package, distribute, go to jail.

Don't you hate going to a neighbour's house for tea only to discover that her milk has more protein than yours? Or perhaps you’re a large-scale milk producer looking to list more nutrients on the side of your carton than your rivals? This little short-cut emerged from southern China five years ago, when someone had an epiphany upon discovering that there was protein in melamine. Sure it was a chemical agent used in plastics, but should that mean we can’t use it in food and drink? Well, the courts said it should, actually. A lot of people went to jail.

3. Fish-flavoured pork

Yu Xiang Ruo Si is one of the most popular Chinese dishes around. Take some pork, shred it, add some fish-tasting flavouring, onions and fungus, and cook in a hot wok. Some restaurants use chicken instead of pork as it is cheaper. Serve with rice.

4. Beef-flavoured pork

Beef-flavoured pork is a dish which took off about six years ago but has now become less trendy for reasons which aren’t immediately obvious, but which may involve a frightened public and efficacious police force. The idea is that you take a quantity of pork, which is very common here, and make it seem more like beef by simply adding borax. Most of you will have some borax lying around the home. Unfortunately it’s usually lying around in boxes of washing detergent. And it causes cancer.

5. Glow-in-the-dark pork

Chinese menus abound with dishes with quirky names that tell a story, like “Explode the stomach dumplings” and “Government abuse chicken”. Glow-in-the-dark pork is, however, just pork that glows in the dark. Simply take some pork and blend thoroughly with a phosphorescent bacterial additive which makes it glow blue on the plate, for God’s sake. This was pioneered in some restaurants in China in 2011. It made the papers, government officials insisted we had nothing to worry about, so we all said “fair enough, then!” and went right on eating. This dish is from the same culinary family as “Radiant popcorn and mushrooms”, except the magic ingredient there is fluorescent bleach.

The lamb stick stand - where
"mmmm" meets "hmmm?"

Some Chinese milk industry innovators as the country
remembers them best - facing charges in a court of law.

This photo from Chinasmack.com shows some of that good
old phosphorescent pork, and what happens to your fingers
if you touch it.

6. Illusion eggs

Eggs are eggs, aren’t they? No they aren’t! In this land of unending food surprises, they’re sometimes little egg-shaped things that are made out of chemicals, gelatin and paraffin. Not related to the equally-scary sounding “Hundred-year-old eggs”, their discovery in China in 2009 stunned the food world – mostly because after you go to all this trouble to take the chicken and health concerns out of the equation, you still end up with an egg that’s about two US cents cheaper to produce than a real one. Still, they don’t go off. They also assuage fears that eggs are a bit yucky because they come out of a chicken’s butt.

7. Twice-cooked buns

Again, not a rough translation, but buns which are made by taking a bunch of stale old buns which are past their use-by date, throwing them into a vat with water and flour, and making a batch of new buns with them. It’s a technique pioneered by a Shanghai Shenglu Food Company in 2011. Or at least that’s when it became public knowledge. It might have been going on for years.

8. A-hundred-times-cooked oil

Perhaps you’re not content to have your cooking oil imbued with merely one flavour? Perhaps you just don’t like spending money? Well, after you’ve cooked with oil, simply gather it up and use it again. Sometimes this may involve a bit of work, say, going to the drains behind or underneath restaurants to scavenge the used oil and re-bottle it. Like many a good recipe, this method appears to be a zealously guarded secret, as few people admit to using it. However, an undercover investigation by a university team in the city of Wuhan in 2010 estimated one in 10 of all meals in China were cooked with such recycled oil. The State Food and Drug Administration then issued a nationwide emergency ordering an investigation into this so-called ‘sewer’ oil scandal. Meanwhile a group of around 100 food industry representatives in the city of Zhejiang last month emerged into the public eye for taking a strong stand in opposition to this sewer method. Instead they were found to be making cooking oil by squeezing it out of rotten, maggot-infested meat offcuts thrown away by abattoirs. Then they got arrested.

9. Off-the-top-of-your-head sauce

Add a twist to the world’s most popular flavouring – soy sauce – by making it from human hair! Ingenuitive, frugal sauciers from a factory in Hubei province were found to have pioneered this technique in 2005, using hair clippings swept up from barber’s floors to distill an amino acid to put into soy sauce. We all wince together.

10. Aromatic, cheeky pigs’ ears

Want to eat something resembling pigs’ ears but can’t get the real thing? Really? Well OK, you might try this: Take some gelatin and some common household sodium oleate and hand-craft them out of that. You’ll have sodium oleate if you have soap. This is what some canny retailers in the eastern province of Jiangxi were found to be up to last month when a shopper complained that the ears she bought smelled funny when she cooked them. Pigs’ ear experts pointed out these substitute ears were easily identifiable because the real ones usually come with blood vessels and hair, which sounds a lot more appetising.

11. Shiny radiance cabbage

Take cabbage and combine with an ingredient widely consumed by people in China, formaldehyde. Apply the latter liberally to your cabbage, thus keeping it looking fresh and shiny for the market. Influences for this dish include Mao Zedong, who had several bottles of formaldehyde poured down his throat to preserve him just after he died in 1976. Not to be confused with other shiny vegetable standards such as “Pesticide Bean Sprouts” and “6-benzyladenine beans”.

A still shot from the undercover sting which uncovered
the so-called "Recycled bun calamity". China is the
acknowledged world leader in food scandals, but has
announced a five-year-plan to reduce them to no more
than 500 a month by 2017.

Police invited the media to witness the contraband seized
when they busted a major sewer oil operation on Beijing's
shady east side. Under traditional methods, the oil is
scooped up from drains around restaurants by artisans
known as "unscrupulous criminals", then filtered, bottled
and sold at a budget price. At least they filter it!

Police in Jiangxi confiscate an amount of artificial pigs'
ears. Police estimate mobsters from Hong Kong now control
more than 90 per cent of the counterfeit pig ear market.

* We have to put warnings on everything these days, so here goes: Please don’t really try any of this at home, even if you’re a certified lunatic.

I WANT YOUR SPECS

2012-06-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

Two things about shopping in China:

1. Call them myopic, but a lot of Chinese vendors don’t seem to see the big picture. For example, given the choice of ripping off the buyer to get a good price right there and then, or trying to build a relationship with someone who could give them custom for years to come, they’ll take the instant gratification nine times out of nine. And instead of working with a buyer to find what might make them really happy - what retailers know as the building-a-relationship-with-the-client strategy - they tend to believe more in the THAT-THING-THERE-RIGHT-NEXT-TO-YOU-THE-FIRST-THING-YOU-CAME-PAST-IN-MY-SHOP-AND-SO-NOW-BUY- IT-GIVE-ME-MONEY-GET-OUT-OF-MY-SHOP theory.

2. The Chinese people don’t want you to feel foolish. This could mean a loss of face. So whatever you try on, if you imply that you like it, they’ll gush and ooh and aah about how good it looks on you in a bid to snap shut the deal. This could involve you wearing anything from a baseball cap to a feather boa last seen on Elton John. The vendors are not sure if we really like things or not. For, like that old warning about snakes being more frightened of you than you of them, the Chinese feel it is we, Johnny Foreigner and Wilma Whitewoman, who are inscrutable.*

As is often the case in journalism, only one thing is clear. And that is that these two things combined can only add up to one thing: There is a real danger of shoppers walking out of a market looking ridiculous, particularly if you’re a man who doesn’t care much about how he dresses any more, or, put another way, who is married. You know how bars can be charged for sending people away extremely drunk? Alas there seem no such laws stopping retailers sending people out of their shops looking like complete idiots.

Occasionally I like to put all this to the test, particularly if – and this can really happen sometimes – I’m out shopping with my wife and I start to show symptoms that I’m really, really bored.

Just such a thing happened when I accompanied the said Leader of the Opposition on an expedition to buy glasses. While she was trying on what seemed 1000 pairs of glasses, but was probably only in the low hundreds, I intrepidly launched a proper journalistic investigation dubbed the HOW STUPID DO I HAVE TO LOOK IN GLASSES BEFORE SOMEONE SAYS ANYTHING sting.

Warning: The results are shocking and some readers might be disturbed by them. But we present them here as a warning to wives everywhere behind the Bamboo Curtain.

It's a funny thing with glasses. Of all the world's
people, you'd think the Chinese would be the
unquestionable experts in the field. Yet I was
told by one white-coated eyewear technician
that I looked "very handsome" in these, and
that they "matched the shape of my face" very
well. My wife conceded they at least met my
forehead well since I have an eyebrow ridge
that "really sticks out", and knuckles that
"really drag on the ground", etc.

"Very handsome!" I was told. I then began to sing
Crocodile Rock and was told I sounded "very handsome".

"These suit your face very well", I was told.
I asked the assistant if she was sure, and
was told "very much so".

I decided it was time to up the ante ...

By God they sell some out-there specs here.
I guess with so many people wearing so many
glasses, they have to cater for all tastes. But
seriously. The shop assistant seriously said
she could see me in these. Indeed, if anyone
could pull it off, it was me. Also, if I was the
type of man-about-town who enjoyed
welding ...

Finally, we had a winner. I put these on and
while she ummed and ah'ed at first, the
assistant eventually suggested these might not
be the soundest purchase I could make.
My quest was at an end.

Finally, I returned home with the pair I was allowed to buy.

They might have been from the men's or
women's section. Again, with the vendors
here it doesn't really matter. At least I was
convinced I looked like a habitual winner.

What's more, with these you don't have any problems
with lenses. This is part of a big trend in China of young
people wearing glasses without the glass bit. Again it
might just be me, but if I was living in a country of this many
glasses-wearers, and I happened to not need glasses, I'm not
sure I'd opt for frames. But I may just be a fuddy-duddy.

Thanks for tuning in readers. Next week we'll continue our Shopping in China series with a special report: How to spot a conterfeit Bentley. See you then!

* The Chinese also think we Caucasians all look the same as well. Seriously. But since this is Photo Phun Phursday, I'll save that for Sweeping Generalisation Saturday.

THE ONLY GLOSSARY OF TERMS YOU'LL EVER NEED IN CHINA, PART III

2012-06-19T02:17:00.000-07:00

Time to brush up on our slang, idioms and other parts of the world’s most used language – Mandarin. First, the important bits.

ER NAI – Second Milk. Well that’s pretty straightforward I guess. You have one cup, then you go back for seconds and … Oh no, not quite. What it means is one’s mistress, as in, a really lovely way of saying your wife is the first or No.1 supply/tank/urn/vessel of milk, and your mistress is the auxiliary canister. Look, it’s a charming language that goes way back, OK?

XIAO SAN – Little Third. Just say a man happens to have two mistresses, this is the second one. We’re not saying this is a common occurrence or anything, but they have felt the need to come up with a name for it.

XIAO BAI LIAN – Little White Face. The boot’s on the other foot here, gender-wise. If an older woman takes a young toy boy, this is him. The white face part doesn’t imply he’s kept indoors out of the sun for m’lady’s pleasure, but that he’s an innocent. Of course these mature women had better watch themselves, for fear of being called a …

LAO HUANGGUA TU LU QI – It’s mutton dressed as lamb or, an old cucumber painted green.

DAN’R TIAO’R – (pronounced da’are tee-ow). Another from the relationships family. It’s what you call the two men who have married two sisters. My Canadian brother-in-law and I use it together with glee, when our Chinese wives aren’t present. You know those cliched pictures of a Chinese man with a bamboo stick across his shoulders and two buckets dangling from the ends? The stick-and-buckets ensemble is a dan’r. To tiao’r it is to support it. Thus dan’r tiao’r is the term for we two men, bearing the burden of the sisters, or “deadweights” on either end of the stick. As a stay-at-home husband, I always think of this when I go out and blow my wife’s paycheck.

FAN TONG – Food bucket. You could use this to describe a bucket that holds food. But it’s also what you call someone who’s completely useless – they don’t contribute much but still have a mouth which needs feeding. Read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Mr Darcy: Oh Elizabeth - be mine! Say you will! Elizabeth: To be honest I’m torn between you and Mr Collins. I could go either way. Mr Darcy: What?! What could you possibly see in him? The man’s a complete food bucket!

WANG BA DAN – This is perhaps the worst insult you can hurl at someone. Worse even than a food bucket. You’re calling the person a turtle’s egg. Shocking, I know. As with a lot of Chinese, though, the meaning is between the lines. Turtles tend to have lots of eggs. The message here is yo mamma is a bit on the licentious side. A lot, actually. Right - enough of the smut. Let’s clean it up. Oh OK one more.

DA FEIJI – I swear I only include this not to peddle more filth and grime but because it shows linguistic imagination, even if it’s a touch bizarre. It means shoot at (da) aeroplanes (feiji). It refers to the act of male self-help, a one-in-a-bed sex romp, a menage-a-un. And it assumes the performer is lying down. It may be a touch boastful about the man’s powers, but not to worry.

YU HE XIONGJIAO BU KEYI JIAN DE – A fish and a bear’s paw can’t meet. Got it? Good.

My brother-in-law Paul, relaxing in
his backyard in Beijing, yesterday.

Hmmm ... Yes well we know what you've
been up to young lady! No wonder you
didn't want to show your face.

JUST KIDDING – That fish and bear paw thing? It’s the equivalent of “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”. You can’t have it all, expressed as “you can’t get these two things in the same place, this fish and this bear’s paw”. It’s often used in short-form. Say someone is telling a man he can’t have his wife and mistress too, they might just say “fish and bear paw” and not be looked at strangely. OK, the inventors of this phrase have never watched Discovery Channel shows about grizzlies scooping up those sex-crazed salmon in Canada, but we get what they mean. Sort of.

BU MING FEI XING WU – It flies but it’s not an aeroplane. In fact, it’s not clear (bu ming) what it is. So it’s a “not clear flying moving thing”, or as we’d say, a UFO.

WAI XING REN – The little green people in the bu ming fei xing wu. We people from a country (guo) outside (wai) of China are called wai guo ren. Beings from further afield are called wai xing ren, or “outside star people”.

ER BAI WU – Two hundred and fifty. This can be just a number. But it’s also a very common insult for someone who’s a bit strange, who seems like they’ve got a bit missing, particularly those prone to saying inappropriate things as if they’ve suffered frontal lobe damage. But why 250? Numbers feature in a lot of Chinese slang. Still, I asked many Chinese people who know the expression, but none could tell me the origin of this quirky little one. Finally an explanation arrived from my dan’r tiao’r. In the old days, Chinese copper coins were strung together through the square holes in the centre. Originally, 1000-worth was called a diao. Half this much was a ban diao zi, which also became slang for someone with inadequate skills. Now, if you’re even less sharp, or a bit loopy, you might only be worth half as much again. So bad is the connotation, superstitious vendors hate selling goods for 250 yuan in markets. It's always fun to bargain up against yourself, from 240 to 250, just to see what they'll do. They'll usually take 240.

This National Geographic photo of an
American black bear catching fish shows
the Chinese might be right. The old proverb
says nothing about beer, however.

An old Chinese coin, a long time ago.
Put 250 of these together and you'd
be mental.

CONGMINGDE NAODAI BU ZHANG MAO – This one’s a personal favourite. A clever head can’t grow hair. Note the term for head here is “the old brain bag” – nao being “brain”, and dai referring to “bag”.

ZOU YUE ZI – Sitting for the month. This could be used to describe what I do when the World Cup is on. But it in fact refers to the period after giving birth in which a woman, according to old but still widely-practiced Chinese beliefs, is meant to stay inside and refrain from bathing, washing her hair, brushing her teeth, reading, watching TV, and in general practise a form of austerity that makes the Jesuits look like the Rolling Stones. It’s all supposed to protect the body, ravaged as it is by childbirth. Welcome to the joys of motherhood.

CHENG YU

Chinese has a lot of four-word sayings known as cheng yu, such as:

DUI NIU TAN QIN – To play the harp for a cow. You’re playing to the wrong audience. It’s like putting pearls before swine.

JIU NIU YI MAO – Nine cows, one hair. If you have one hair among nine cows – God knows why nine, and not 10 or 100 – it’s the same as a drop in the ocean. They’re obsessed with cows, these people. Seriously, you’d swear they were Indian.

NIU – Cow. We know that already. But the meaning here is ‘good’. In a previous glossary, we brought you niu bi, meaning “the cow’s vagina”, which is slang for something that’s very good. In other parts of the world you might say “the cat’s pyjamas” or “the duck’s guts”. What also happens is people now simply use “cow” for “good”. So if your child paints a painting and you think it’s great, you might say “Very cow, junior!” or “Hen niu, junior!”

I found this photo which appears to confound centuries
of Chinese wisdom.

LUAN QI BA ZAO – Chaotic sevens, rotten eights. Numbers again. Closely related to qi shang ba xia, which means the same as our “I was at sixes and sevens”, but literally translates as “I went up sevens and came down eights”. If it’s not your mental state you’re talking about but your belongings, use luan (chaotic) qi (seven) ba (eight) zao (rotten). As in “You’ll have to excuse me. My house is a bit chaotic sevens and rotten eights at the moment”.

QI LU ZHAO MA – Riding a donkey while looking for a horse. You’re with someone, a lover or a spouse, who tends to remind you of a donkey. This will get you around for now, but you’re keeping an eye out for something better to upgrade to at the soonest opportunity. Again, they’ve come up with a saying for this.

* Pssst: The pic of the bear really comes from the website of williswoodencreations.com, your one-stop shop for all weird wooden bear carvings, located perversely in Granite City, Illinois.

GRADUATION DAY

2012-06-14T00:15:00.000-07:00

"Right, shall we get this thing started? OK ... Hey! Don't wave
that flag til I tell you, right? We don't want any mistakes.
We've been planning this for ages.

Alright everyone listen up! Today is your graduation.
Congratulations - you're now all qualified chefs.
Because of this, you've been given red mortar boards.
Those white chefs' hats are so last year.

Plus yours go with our lanterns a lot better.

Your graduation ceremony is of course a very special
occasion. That's why we wanted to have it in a very
special place. Unfortunately it was booked out.
So, we've had to have it here at our restaurant. I'm sure
you'll agree this is still an excellent, meaningful
venue for your graduation.

Even so, this being a footpath, some people might walk
straight through the middle of it.

And this being a footpath in China, others might ride
their motor scooters.

Or their pushbikes. Anyway, If there's
nothing else we can get ... Oh for heaven's
sake ...

Okaaay ... When you're ready ...

OK. He's gone. Now, when you're a chef, one thing you'll
find is ... Oh no, hang on - he's coming back.
Oh for the love of Mao, we haven't got all day you know!
Front row mind your toes!

Actually, you know what? This isn't bad.
This is some pretty good reversing right
here people. Come on - you don't see
this too often. I think we should give a
little credit where it's due, don't you?

Yeah. Give it up!

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout. For real. Pssst! Wave the
flag now!

OK. Let's move on.
All those who had to do their exam twice, and anyone from
Anhui, assume the position!

Here's what I like to call a character-builder. Every morning
for the next month, you can lick the footpath clean with
your tongue. Now go!

Yeah that's it. Good and proper.
And finally, to see what you're really made of, all 11
of you are going ...

... to be jumped over by Mr Wong here on his motorcycle!
Now lie still.

What the hell is going to happen next?! Will Daredevil Wong pull it off? Or will it all end in tears? And if it doesn't and these chefs can get to work, will they wash their hands first? Find out when Graduation Day concludes next week!

WHAT ARE THE CHINESE UP TO NOW????

2012-06-11T01:45:00.000-07:00

I don’t mean in a way that evokes old Bond-style schemers sitting in hollowed-out mountains stroking cats beside a pointy rocket marked “USA”. No, no. That’s North Korea you’re thinking of.

What I mean is what’s up in Chinese day-to-day-lives-ville?

Two things you might know about the Chinese: 1. There are lots of them. 2. They’re getting richer.

But when they look in the mirror it seems many still aren’t happy with themselves. That’s not ‘themselves’ in an internal, spiritual sense. They’re not going to renewal weekends surrounded by crystals and rebirthers. It’s more about what the casing looks like. So, more and more are opting for change.

That’s where a loosely regulated health care sector and a wide array of, let’s say, ludicrously cavalier medical practitioners comes in handy.

Last time we checked in on the Chinese we revealed, in a worldwide exclusive, that many were going in for one sort of cosmetic change – that of having a couple of digits altered on their birth certificate. It takes years off your life. (See Popular Posts, No.1, at right). This seems astounding, until you consider some of the cosmetic surgery that’s becoming increasingly popular here.

1. WITHER YOUR JAW MUSCLES?

Not happy with your face? Imagine it without those pesky muscles.

People get botox all over the world, but it’s particularly cheap here. And popular. This is intriguing. Of all the races who might need a damn good unwrinkling, you wouldn’t think Asians were one of them. Here’s an interesting fact from my doctor wife, who is of Chinese heritage and who I married purely for her lack of wrinkles: Asian people have more collagen occurring naturally in their bodies than Caucasians. Top of the list come Indians. That’s why white folks go wrinkly earlier than Asians. Of course old Asian people can go very wrinkly indeed, but until they’re about 60 it’s just not a fair contest. Have you ever seen a Miss Cambodia with wrinkles? The prosecution rests.

Still, hordes of Chinese women – perhaps with a little too much time on their hands with all their increased middle-classness – are convincing themselves they have wrinkles that are simply beyond the pale. (Many have skin like that too, which often comes from a tube of whitener, and descends from an old status-driven belief that darker skin proves you or your ancestors were guilty of working on a farm).

There’s ‘normal’ botox, as favoured by all those Hollywood actors who in their later years have based whole new careers on looking startled.

Then there’s this kind of botox. According to the website of the Beijing Xiehu Hospital’s plastic surgery department, you can have botox injected into your jaw muscles in a way that makes them soft. They are essentially atrophied. Rendered useless. It’s a bespoke stroke. Your face does look thinner, however.

It’s all so simple. No longer will you have that chubby face. No longer will you chew properly, either. The website concedes this, saying you can say goodbye to crunching on hard things. Granted, the typical Chinese diet doesn’t call for gnawing on a steak. Noodles, rice, sweet potato - they’re all as soft as sea slugs. But, among other things, you won’t be able to crunch nuts or chew preserved animal tendons - a popular snack food here. Still, not being able to masticate properly is surely a small price to pay for having a thinner face, no?

After six months the muscles build up again, resulting of course in an unsightly face, so you’ll need to repeat the process.

To their credit, the hospital website offers potential clients a list of things to consider. My favourite is: "9. Maybe the two sides of your face will not be symmetrical".

A promotional before-and-after shot of a woman who's had
her jaw muscles done. That's the improved face on the
right.

This is a recent photo of Hong Kong
born actor Zhao Ya Zhi, aka Angie
Chiu. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing
she might have had a little bit of
touch-up work done to the dial.
She's 57. Seriously.

Perhaps Zhao went to the western clinic
that runs this photo on its advertisements.
Maybe the two sides of your face will
not be symmetrical.

2. BEING THIS PRETTY IS A TOUGH GRIND

“Doctor! Doctor! I don’t think I’m ready to disengage my jaw muscles just yet,” you might hear yourself saying. “I might just settle for you taking the angle grinder to my cheekbones instead”.

If you thought suffering for beauty meant crampy shoes, then you’re just not trying. As that sign outside my favourite clothes shop says, there are no ugly women, only lazy women. So you might want to try this increasingly popular option called xiu quan gu, or ‘bone sculpting of the cheeks’. There’s also xia he jiao mo gu, or ‘jaw angle bone grinding’.

No hidden meanings here. For the right price a facial carpenter, or surgeon, makes an incision, exposes the cheek or jaw bones, and goes at them with an angle grinder. We assume it’s a more dainty piece of machinery than those you see on construction sites, but they work the same way. Just imagine that unmistakable “biieeeaairnt” sound you hear around worksites. Now imagine it on your face.

“Yes, doctor, but are there risks?”

“Ooooh shit yeah!”

You can imagine – lifting the skin off the face, with all those nerve endings, glands and things. And that’s just in the immediate area.

Here’s the serious bit. In 2010 a woman named Wang Bei went in for this surgery in the city of Wuhan. You could question whether she really needed it, along with some other work she'd already had done to widen her eyes and lengthen her chin (this one is done with an insert). She wasn’t some saggy old thing. She was 24 at the time and, by most standards, attractive. She had the world at her feet, having won China’s version of the Idol talent shows, Super Girl, with her singing. Still, she became convinced her cheeks needed re-doing. She and her mother decided to have the procedure done together. During surgery, complications arose. A lot of blood got into Wang Bei’s windpipe and she died on the table. If there has been a more pointless loss of a life outside of war, I’d like to hear it. (PS: Her mother’s surgery went smoothly).

The late Wang Bei.

Another magazine shot of her showing
her cosmetic surgery.

3. EXTENSIONS

Not of the hair but the legs. This goes on in other countries but became very popular here several years ago.

Height comes into things often in China, where, save for former basketball Yao Ming, the average person is quite short by western standards. Quite often, jobs demand minimum heights. Lonely hearts classifieds are sprinkled with demands for that certain special someone to be of a certain height. One spotted recently in the Shanghai Morning Post had a 36-year-old, 176 centimetre (5’9”) man calling for a woman who was 30 and 163 centimetres (5’4”), not to be too picky or anything.

Shortness was considered incurable until the advent of a leg-lengthening technique pioneered by Russian surgeon Gavril Ilizarov, which took off in China in the late 1990s.

The procedure requires that the patient’s leg bones be sawn through, usually below the knee, before an adjustable metal frame is applied to the outside. Patients, lying down for a few months, then turn knobs on the frames to increase the gaps where the bones were cut, which get filled in by new bone growth. Eventually, they can have their legs lengthened by up to 15cm (six inches), though the average is around nine centimetres (3.5 inches).

The pitfalls can range from patients looking a bit funny, somewhat out of proportion, to cases where the operation has gone disastrously wrong. Twisted legs, feet pointing off at odd angles, and re-breakages caused by patients trying to walk again too soon are among the many hazards.

The problems grew sufficiently worrying for the government to ban the procedure in 2006. However, with a large amount of illegal clinics in operation, it would be no stretch to say the operation would still be possible if desired badly enough.

Yao Ming, an exception to the
rule who, at 2.29m (7' 6"), skewed
the stats on Chinese height. His
height is said to be no fluke,
however. His parents were also
tall basketballers (2.01m and
1.90m) and are said to have been
encouraged by China's state-run
sports commission to get
together to produce an
uber-basketballer.

And this is Bao Xishun, who's 2.36m (7' 9") height
was indeed a fluke. Formerly recognised by the
Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest
man Bao, 61, is seen here with his wife Xia Shujian,
who married up.

And here Bao is seen with He Pingping, who was the world's
shortest man at 74cm (2' 5") before his death in 2010,
aged 21. Not only were both record holders from China,
they were from the same northern province of Inner
Mongolia. What's going on up there?

A newspaper photo of Thomas
Keeper, a Canadian who 'grew' from
1.67m (5' 6") to 1.77m (5'10")
after a leg lengthening operation,
and who is starting to resemble
a Japanese cartoon figure. He
said he was sick of being
ridiculed for shortness, like
Tom Cruise, although
of all the things Cruise is
ridiculed for, it is believed
shortness is way down the list.

THE STATS:

China now performs more plastic surgery than any other country except the USA and Brazil. According to the Economist, there were 1.3 million licensed procedures carried out in China in 2010. Factor in the unlicensed ones and China probably leads the world. One problem is that doctors are poorly paid at public hospitals and so will often moonlight at unlicensed clinics. At People’s Ninth Hospital in Shanghai, the city’s busiest plastic surgery centre, there were 50,000 cosmetic operations in 2011 – a 50 per cent increase in five years.

That there are so many unlicensed clinics also means cosmetic surgery is available to the rich and the not-so-rich. So there are also many people, particularly women, who hope plastic surgery can help them leave the lower classes by “marrying-up”. Whatever the reasons, it’s a huge growth industry.

MASSAGE IN A BOTTLE

2012-06-06T22:53:00.002-07:00

A sign outside one of Beijing's million or so massage
places. I know some massages are tough, but option
two looks especially punitive. Still, I'd take it
over option four below ...

For those unfamiliar with British slang, the act of botting
is what's known in some places as buggering or, if you'll
refer to your Bible, sodomy.

WHERE ART WE?

2012-06-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

This week's road trip took in Beijing's well-known art precinct, 798. The area was formerly a collection of state-run factories, including one named Factory 798, which has been turned into a fascinating collection of art galleries housing the latest in cutting edge, brave and often bizarre artworks. many larger pieces also litter the grounds outside.

We wanted to buy this iron installation, as it represents
my parenting style, but it wasn't for sale.

We passed on this cat skeleton, despite the fact
it has lightbulbs in the eye sockets which look
like they light up ...

... but we did purchase this. I'd always
promised they kids they could have a
rabbit.

With the bunny in our loungeroom,
we unfortunately had no room for
these guys.

Is it industrial machinery, or is it art?
Turns out it's industrial machinery.
Those in charge have left many remnants
of the old factories around. A sign said
this one was a joint-making machine.
Biggest one I've seen.

Hmmm ... when I grow up I want to
have blue hair and lots of spots.

No bids taken here. She's real!

My favourite thing at 798 was this road
sign for directing traffic. I've shown a
handful of Chinese friends, and none
can understand what it's for. But whatever
it is, it's really close, although judging by
the handwritten sign underneath, there's
some dispute over exactly how close.

QUEENS FOR A DAY

2012-06-04T02:16:00.001-07:00

When you're the parent of two little girls you often have to deal in the realm of the royal.

Story after story describes the life of some princess or other. Usually they're getting themselves into trouble. It’s not the sort of trouble which involves hanging out with a known love rat, sucking the toes of a Texan oil millionaire, or other misadventures that will be screamed about in the tabloid press (which only screams and never utters).

They don’t develop eating disorders but a lot do have a drinking problem, insofar as they can’t seem to stay off the secret potions for very long, sometimes before lunch.

They're often wandering away from where they should be and becoming hopelessly lost. Whoever Disney put in charge of palace security must be on thin ice. In a typical storyline that could have come straight from the desk of Germaine Greer, they like sitting around doing precious little whilst waiting for a good looking prince to turn up. Sometimes they’re even unconscious. In short, they’re a bit useless.

So it was refreshing to be able to deal in some real royalty recently as our house has gone ga-ga for Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee.

Of course we've had to explain what a jubilee is, and why it's different to a plain old anniversary like taxpayers have. It sounds great to kids, a jubilee, and our daughters Lani, 6, and Evie, 5, would have been happy just going around saying the word over and over. But it was also a good excuse to explain and question a few things.

WHO IS THE QUEEN?

Lani: Queen Elizabeth.

TF: Right, Queen Elizabeth.

Lani: Daddy, why did she chop off her cousin's head?

TF: Did she?!

Lani: Yeah.

TF: Wow - you've got that story to yourself. You should sell it to a newspaper.

Lani: Ye-e-ah. you remember? Mary. And the head fell off and went rolling away.

I realise Her Majesty didn't behead anyone, that it was a case of mistaken identity.

TF: No, you mean Elizabeth the first. We're talking about Elizabeth the second.

Evie: Who's the second Elizabeth?

TF: The Queen of England. And Australia. And a few other places. She's the one having the jubilee.

Evie: What's a jubilee? Can you eat it?

TF: No, it's not a lolly. A jubilee is an anniversary for a king or queen.

Evie: What's an anniversary?

TF: It's when someone's been doing something for a long time, like 10 or 20 years or so. The Queen has been queen for 60 years, so she gets a jubilee. Because it's 60 years it's called a Diamond Jubilee.

Evie: Does she get a diamond?

TF: No.

Evie: Oooooh!

TF: It’s ok. She’s got plenty.

HOW DID THE QUEEN BECOME THE QUEEN?

Evie: Because she chopped the other queen's head off!

TF: No.

If it’s not obvious by now, our kids are obsessed by the story of Mary Queen of Scots and her lost head, particularly the gory details about how it took a few blows for the thing to come off, and how, once it did, it went bouncing across the execution yard. I felt it only fair on the Virgin Queen, insanely jealous though she was, to point out that the phrase “had her killed” doesn’t mean Good Queen Bess actually swung the axe herself. Likewise Henry VIII didn’t physically do his wives in.

It was at this point I felt the need to explain the royal succession, to show how Elizabeth I was Henry’s daughter and so on down to the modern crop. This would have been easy a few years ago when on the wall of my home office I had the English royal family tree. It was right next to another must-have, a large poster of the world at night, showing the bright lights of the Earth’s urban areas. Both pieces had been expertly unfolded from the magazines they came in and magnificently mounted on blue tac to decorate my workspace. However, my wife, shall we say, tore them down in revulsion one night in one of those things women sometimes do when they move in with a man and become pregnant and stop thinking straight. So these days when we need a quick reference to the English royal family tree, like some backwoods caveman we have to go online. As for the Earth at night, we’re all at sea.

TF: So how did the Queen become queen?

Lani: Because her father died.

TF: That’s right. She was next in line.

Evie: It’s good to wait in line.

TF: That’s right. So she became Queen 60 years ago, in 1952.

The utterance of this year, as with most years, is followed by an obvious question.

Evie: Were there dinosaurs around then?

TF: Aaaah, no.

I’m not sure how long my kids think 65 million years is, but this question keeps coming up. I guess it’s no slight on the Queen. The other day I was asked if there were dinosaurs around in the year I was born, 1967. Perhaps they meant the Rolling Stones.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK THE QUEEN DOES EVERY DAY?

Evie: She’s on the throne all day.

Lani: She what? She’s on the phone all day?

TF: Yes. She’s just one the phone yabbering away to her mates all day that Queen. She’s a shocker.

Evie: No, she’s on the throne all day.

Lani: Oh, yes. That’s what she does.

TF: Is that it? Just sits there?

Lani/Evie: Yeah.

TF: All day??

Lani: Well, OK, probably not the whole entire day.

TF: Thank God for that. It’d be a pretty boring life otherwise.

Lani: She’d have to get off to do important stuff.

TF: Like what?

Lani: Like go and buy the groceries.

TF: Oh right.

I don’t deny this but make a mental note. Next time these kids complain about going to the supermarket, remind them that even the Queen has to do it.

Lani: But apart from that she doesn’t leave the throne.

TF: What about going to the toilet?

Lani: Well, OK and maybe going to the toilet.

Evie: She must have a special toilet.

TF: Well, I’d suppose it’s very clean.

Evie: Is there someone who wipes her …

TF: No I don’t think so.

WHAT LAWS WOULD YOU MAKE IF YOU WERE QUEEN:

Lani: Rule 1: No riding about in shopping trolleys.

TF: What? That’s the first thing you’d think of?

Lani: Yes. No careering across the road while riding in a shopping trolley.

TF: OK.

Lani: It’s dangerous.

TF: OK.

Lani: I saw it in a book. This woman went across a road in a shopping trolley.

TF: Alright, well, yes we’d better jump on that.

Evie: I know! Everyone can eat ice-cream anytime.

TF: OK.

Evie: And no putting holes in things.

TF: What?

Evie: Kevin put a hole in my painting at school.

TF: OK. No putting holes in things.

Evie: No littering and no running in the house.

TF: OK.

Evie: And no chopping people’s heads off.

WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE QUEEN?

Evie: I know! I’d get someone to make me a special throne.

TF: I think you’d already have one. They come with the palace.

Evie: No, a special throne that was also a toilet.

TF: Ah. A combination throne/toilet.

Evie: Yeah.

Lani: So then you wouldn’t have to leave the throne to go to the toilet?

Evie: Yeah!

TF: Just do your business right there, in front of everyone, while tending to matters of state!

Evie: Yeah!

AND FINALLY, WHO WOULD YOU KNIGHT IF YOU WERE QUEEN?

Lani: Willy Wonka.

Evie: Mummy.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

In the past, story princesses were solitary beasts, free to
roam around by themselves. However, following the
global financial crisis the six strongest ones announced
a merger in which they formed a power-and-beauty bloc
known as the Disney Princesses, or the so-called P6.
They still indulge in traditional princessy activities
such as preening, dancing at balls and waiting to be
swept off their feet by a handsome prince, such as this ...

Or this.

Here is another famous princess. However,
those in my daughter's DVDs and story
books hardly ever look like this.

Her Majesty the Queen, snapped
recently at the proverbial opening
of an envelope.

And here's another recent photo of the
monarch, full name Elizabeth Alexandra
Mary Windsor, 86, of London. She is also
known as "Elizabeth the Second, by the
Grace of God of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Island and of
Her other Realms and Territories Queen,
Head of the Commonwealth, Defender
of the Faith". However, since this is
something of a mouthful, all monarchs
also have a nickname by which they're
known around the stables, in this
case "Reg".

And here she is again bobbing up on the
one dollar coin of tiny, ocean-locked
Tuvalu. It is rumoured she had to
sit for an extremely long time while the
Tuvalu mint's engraver did her portrait,
which is why she looks decidedly
pissed off.

DRIVING IN CHINA - THE CLASSICS

2012-05-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

Today, time to pay homage to a trailblazer of the Beijing blog world. This is a piece by Henry Breimhurst from 2007 on his blog So I'm Going To China. The topic he examines is one known and feared by all in Beijing - the seemingly simple yet usually infuriating thing we like to call "the left turn".

It's a wonderful representation of a manoeuvre which says much about why Beijing's traffic operates as it does. The humble left turn is truly a telling example of how a society of 1.3 billion people can function like a well-oiled machine, governed by a principle of selflessness for the greater good. Or something.

For the record I sat and passed my Chinese driving test last year (OK, I sat and failed it too, so I've seen both sides). Thus I am one of the few keepers of the knowledge that, strange as it seems, cars turning left across oncoming traffic DO NOT have right of way. I have actually had several Chinese people insist otherwise. It's easy to see how you might think this if you spend long enough here - say about three minutes. But armed with my rule book I can now happily disabuse them of this notion, not that anything is about to change anytime soon.

Enjoy.

The basics of Driving in China…

Here is the explanation of a simple concept: the left turn.
For the ones who live in China: an overview of what we live everyday For the ones who are out of China: happy memories of the traffic here!

STEP 1:

We see here a typical intersection. The light has just turned green for the east-west streets, and car [A], an enormous black Audi with pitch black windows, wants to make a left turn into the southbound lanes. Pedestrians wait on each corner. (For purposes of this demonstration, we’ll assume no one is running the north-south red light, and no one is jaywalking – a rather large assumption.)
STEP 2:

To make a left turn, it is VITAL that [A] cut off all eastbound traffic as soon as possible. The first few brave or foolish legitimate pedestrians step off the curb; this is of no concern. [A] makes his move.
STEP 3:

NO! Too slow! [A] has managed to partially block [B], a brand new purple and yellow Hyundai taxi, but [A] has only achieved whatBeijing drivers would consider a ‘weak’ blocking position.
STEP 4:

In this detail, we can see why: [A] has only inserted his left bumper and cannot move forward without contact. [B], on the other hand, is in the dominant position – by putting his wheel hard to the right and flooring it, he can fully block [A].
STEP 5:

[B] proceeds to swerve right, cutting off [C], a tiny red Peugeot with a gold plastic dragon hood ornament, spoiler and assorted knobs glued on. Since [B] is just accelerating, and [C] is now decelerating, this has created a low-density ‘dead space’ in the intersection. [D], a strange blue tricycle dumptruck carrying what appear to be 40 of the world’s oldest propane tanks, sees this and makes a move.

STEP 6:

DENIED! [E], an old red taxi with its name sloppily stenciled in white on its doors, has boldly cut across two lanes of traffic, behind [D], and then swerved right, driving [D] into an extremely weak position behind [A]. Meanwhile, [B] and [C] are still fighting for position, with [C] muscling his way into the crosswalk. The only thing between [E] and a successful left turn is a few lawful pedestrians. [E] steps on the gas…

STEP 7:

…and is cut off by [F], an elderly man pedaling his tricycle verrrryyy slooooowwwly with a 15-foot-diameter sphere of empty plastic cooking oil bottles bungee-corded haphazardly to the cargo area. He was part of the lawful pedestrians, but seeing the stalled traffic, decided to cut diagonally across the intersection. Not only has [F] blocked [E], he is headed straight at [B], giving [C] the edge he needs.

STEP 8:

[B] concedes to [C], who drives in the crosswalk behind [F] and blocks [E]. Meanwhile, [G], a herd of about 20 bicycles, mopeds, pedestrians and wheelbarrows, sensing weakness in the eastbound lane and seeing that much of the westbound traffic is blocked behind [D], breaks north against the light. [F] pedals doggedly onward at about 2 miles per hour, his face like chiseled marble.

STEP 9:

Now things get interesting. [C] has broken free and, as the first vehicle to get where he was going, wins. [E] makes a move to block [B] but, like [A] at the start of the left turn, only gains a ‘weak’ block. [A] has cleverly let [F] pass and guns into a crowd of [G], which both moves [A] forward and drives some [G] stragglers into the path of [D], clearing [A]’s flanks. Little now stands between [A] and a strong second-place finish.

STEP 10:

Except for public bus [H], one of those double buses with the accordion-thing connector. [H] has been screaming unnoticed along the eastbound sidewalk and now careens dangerously into a U-turn. This doesn’t appear to concern the 112 people packed inside and pressed against the windows (although that could be due to a lack of oxygen.) [H] completely blocks both [A] and [D]. On the other side of the intersection, [B] has swerved into the lawful pedestrians (who aren’t important enough to warrant a letter) and has gained position on [E]. [E] has forgotten the face of his father: He was so focused on his battle with [B] that he lost sight of the ultimate goal and is now hopelessly out of position. This clears the path for dark horse [I], a blue Buick Lacrosse, to cut all the way across behind [H] and become the second vehicle to get where he was going (and the first to complete a left turn), since [F] has changed his mind again and is now gradually drifting north into the southbound lanes. But everyone better hurry, because the light is about to change…

STEP 12:

And we’re ready to start over…

ONE TOILET, TWO FLIES

2012-05-28T01:20:00.002-07:00

China has announced its most ambitious nation-building project to date, a plan which, if successful, would dwarf the accomplishments of the Three Gorges Dam and the country’s space program put together.

It plans to restrict every public toilet in Beijing to harbouring no more than two flies each.

It's the latest, and possibly most amusing, of countless bids to arrest a problem which has plagued this nation for decades. The Chinese invented the compass, paper, printing press and gunpowder. They're clearly no slouches in the cleverness stakes. Just look at how many of them wear glasses. So why oh why, we ask ourselves as we run teary-eyed from yet another rancid public convenience, have they not managed to come up with a passable toilet system?

In the 1990s when I first lived here, there simply weren't many public bathrooms to be had. This was around the time I was introduced to a phenomenon social scientists like to call 'people taking a dump outside on the ground in full view of other people'.

The president of the time, Jiang Zemin, was aware of the problem. As Beijing bid to host the 2008 Olympics , Jiang became famous for two reasons. The first was that he made toilets his thing, commanding his minions to come up with better public facilities. The second was that news agency Reuters once put out a story about him for which a sub-editor failed to notice what the spell check had done to the president’s name. Thus news organisations around the world received a story which began with "Chinese president Jingo Semen said today ... "

OK the second thing might be famous among wire service journalists only, but it's true, and funnier than a president who made toilets one of his core issues. Slightly.

A Chinese public toilet, yesterday. Believe me, the lack of
privacy is the least of your concerns.

A commonplace scene in Beijing: Two people find
themselves walking past a public toilet yesterday and
begin vomiting into their hands.

The great man Jiang Zemin. Like myself on
many a Sunday morning in China in the
'90s, he embraced the toilet and made it
his own. His passion for public conveniences
may have earned him some less than
flattering nicknames at APEC meetings,
such as the one where this photo was taken.
But at least all his counterparts were wearing
their pyjamas too.

Now at least Beijing has many public bathrooms, but a visit is not to be entered into lightly, as in, without comprehensive medical insurance. To be kind, they don't work all that well, the pipes seem to be always backing up, or they don't flush properly. There are attendants whose job is to clean them, but, being kind again, perhaps they're just overwhelmed by the size of the task.

The result, to quote the superb Australian sewage treatment feature film Kenny, is that when it comes to roughly 99 per cent of public toilets here, you could say there is “a smell in here that will outlast religion."

More doors would be nice, too, so people could do their serious business in private, but first things first.

The daring “two-fly zone” initiative was announced by the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment in a raft of new regulations snappily dubbed “Beijing city standards for the major profession of public toilet management and service regulations.”

It calls to mind the famously innovative “Four Pests Campaign” conceived by Mao Zedong as part of the Great Leap Forward in 1958. Mao, who was good at guerrilla warfare but bad at ecology, ordered China’s greatest resource – it’s vast populace – to kill flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows. And they did, by the million. The sparrows had been eating the people’s grain, you see. But now the insects started eating it instead, unfettered by natural predators. And then millions of people starved. And Mao went back to politics.

This time it’s slightly different. The Beijing government said that as a means of gauging improved cleanliness, there should never be more than two flies per toilet. At least then a series of old jokes about a pair of flies holding a discussion in a bathroom will not be affected. And if two Australian men find themselves in there together, they can at least gamble (an old saying suggests we would bet on two flies crawling up a wall).

The city government’s move marks a new crackdown on flies. In 1998 Beijing took a similar step, but said it was OK for up to five flies to congregate in a toilet. Recently, the southern city of Nanchang set a three-fly limit on its public conveniences. Clearly the capital had to go one better. You can't help but feel, however, that government officials have set an impossible task, and left themselves open to more of the ridicule which has followed similarly odd public statements in the past.

A Beijing government official indulging
in a favourite pastime, yesterday.

Previously we had no public toilets in Beijing. Now we
have them and they look like this. Here we see a woman
preparing for the happy task of going in to do her
business on a squat toilet while dressed in a bridal
gown (and non-matching jacket).

A Beijing fly, yesterday, said to be
up in arms over the new edict.

Here is another Beijing toilet which has backed up with
dire consquences.
No, only joking, it's nothing so gross. This is just the one
were a woman accidentally gave birth and lost her baby
down the pipe in Beijing's Zhaoyang district last
month. Squat toilets are said to be a good thing in the
field of childbirth, for they help women develop
strong pelvic muscles. However, they're not so good
in instances like this. In an incident which made the news
in many countries, emergency workers had to take
the toilet apart and retrieve the newborn, who was stuck
down there for some 15 minutes. Charles Dickens
couldn't have conceived a more pitiful start to a life.

This is performance artist and confirmed
weirdo Zhang Huan, carrying out his
1994 work 12 Square Metres. To
highlight the state of China's public
lavatories, and of course for the sake
of art, Zhang coated himself in fish
juice and honey, then sat naked in
one such God-forsaken place for an
hour, letting flies coat his body.
He died moments later, aged 23.
No, he survived. But noone has had
sex with him since.

A propaganda poster which was part of the "Four Pests"
campaign. It says "Q: What do flies and capitalists have in
common? A: They should all be squashed to death with
a big swatter."

Rats, sparrows and mosquitoes
were also hunted down by some
very angry-looking Chinese.

Loosely based on the "one country - two systems" approach to China's governance of Hong Kong, the "one toilet - two flies" system has come into effect immediately. Just how it will be enacted, however, was not fully explained. If an attendant finds, say, 21 flies, how will she first choose which 19 to evict, and then how will she do it? How then will she convince them to not come back? And where will all these homeless flies go? At least the toilets keep them off the streets. At least if they're in the toilets they're not at the open-air meat markets.

The new regulations also said a public lavatory may contain only two “discarded items” at a time, and that neither may sit there unflushed for more than half an hour.

One female bathroom attendant went out on a limb by suggesting there may be flaws in the plan.

“That’ll take a lot of work to narrow it down to two flies for many public toilets in the park or at some tourist sites,” Xu Xiutang told the Global Times newspaper. “They are actually putting a number on this? Are they going to come down to the toilets and count?”

Aware that they might be made to look silly, the city government added a concession that the two-fly rule was a guiding principle only. Thankfully this bit was ignored by a gleeful international media assumedly tired the standard announcement fare about things like non-ferrous metal production, strengthened diplomatic ties with the likes of Togo and Tonga, and other countries’ hegemony.

The announcement was classically Chinese in terms of the country’s love of numbers, statistics and the black and white.

Of the hundreds of stories I wrote here in the 1990s, one that sticks out the most concerned an announcement by the Arts Ministry. Worried that the art sector was not pulling its weight amid China’s era of opening up and reform, the Ministry plainly announced one day that the country had set itself a non-negotiable target of producing 10,000 “quality” artworks in the following 12 months. The tone made it clear that anything like 9,639 good pieces and 361 that were only average would simply not be good enough. I wondered what the parameters of “quality” were, and who would judge what passed muster.

Then there was a review of the contentious film Seven Years In Tibet, which inflamed Chinese sensitivities over perceived western busy-bodies sticking their noses in over the mountainous, monk-strewn region. Nothing irks the Chinese more than foreigners calling for Tibet to split from China. In a wonderful bit of language, Chinese government spokesmen used to say such interference “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”. Their rancour was shown in one editorial in the English-language China Daily newspaper in the 1990s under the memorably zippy headline “Tibetan splittist chicanery slated”. And then along came Brad Pitt.

The official government-run Xinhua news agency ran a review of the film which simply started with: “Contrary to the opinion of some so-called western ‘experts’, the film Seven Years In Tibet, starring Brad Pitt, is not a good film, Chinese experts confirmed today.”

You’ve got to love such stark assuredness, an attitude that allows for no grey areas. It’s the thing that leads to statements like the one which will always be remembered as The Two-Fly Edict.

FASHION AND THE WRITTEN WORD

2012-05-28T01:20:00.001-07:00

For you know what they say ... Heed no do permited
to going THE PERSON temmby woroing terrislylastly.
It started out so well, but then I'd say the designer
just got tired.

A personal trainer seen in Beijing, yesterday.

PARK OF THE MONTH

2012-05-28T01:19:00.001-07:00

Double parked on a corner, with half-pike and twist.
Nine and one half.

And let's look at this magnificent effort again from another
angle. Just to prove it wasn't merely a car rounding a corner,
here we see the driver returning to the vehicle. The fact the
light is red also shows the car can't have been moving, for
noone would run a red light in Beijing. Half a point to the
silver Mercedes for merely single-parking on a corner.

BIKE TROUBLE PT 2

2012-05-28T01:17:00.001-07:00

A day after my last post on the branding of bikes, I saw another fine example. I hesitated over adding it here five days later, but then the bike's motto itself inspired me to believe.

MOTORCYCLE MARKETING MADNESS

2012-05-23T19:41:00.001-07:00

Time to visit the subject of motorcycle design, a big go-ahead industry here in Beijing as traffic becomes more and more congested. Every day manufacturers strive to gain an edge over their rivals.

Now, if you're going to get ahead in the competitive market of scooter sales, you've got to have a snappy name. Something zippy. Something versatile ...

Got it, boss! The 'Anycycle'. It's like this bike can be
whatever you want it to be.

Hey that's not bad! Got any other ideas?

This one OK?

Hmmm ... it's OK. But let's think of something specific,
something cool. What's cool?

Smoking!

Right! Smoking! Why don't we link up with a major
tobacco company?

Great idea boss! People are gonna love it.
It's like: "Ride around and have a fag!"

Exactly. But better still, let's not link with a major
company officially. It gets too messy. Paperwork, money
et cetera. Let's just use their name and not tell them.
Get some stickers made!

I'm on it!

Here you go boss.

Clown! How many of those did we make?

Yeah, quite a few.

Forget it. Learn how to spell and do it again later.
Hey the other thing you need on a bike is
a style pattern. Can you at least manage that?

Something like this?

That's more like it. Well done.

Hey boss, while I've got you, I had a thought
for the name of our new line of bicycles.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. How does the
"Potlrklsooprk Lkfei Ge Potlrkl" sound?

Aah OK I guess. Is it English?

Not sure.

What's it mean?

Don't know.

Anything dirty?

Don't think so.

OK well go with it for now. You never know what's
going to catch on.

Also I thought we could suggest that a bike will
be the owner's best friend for life!

The BFF Bike?
Yes!

This bicycle will be the best friend this person will ever
have in their life?

Yes!

Great. That won't make them feel like a loser at all.
And how's that cigarette thing going?
Yes. All fixed. here it is ...

Oh for God's sake!

What now?

FIX IT! We're gonna be a laughing stock. Yamaha are
gonna think we're amateurs!

See what I mean? Now that's a slick-looking job!

It is. You're right, boss. But I think I've got what
we need.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. It's an image. A feeling. A vibe. It's' more
than just a bike.

What is it?

So they're buying our bike as a means of maintaining
their youth vigour for life?

Well ... yeah.

It's just a bike, mate. Let's not get too carried
away, shall we?

OK. I'll scrap it.

Well it's too late now isn't it? Look, just concentrate
on the smoking thing? Got that done yet?

Yep. Got it this time. Sorry about before.
Tadaaa!