Cow In A China Shop

The jokes about a Nanny State in the UK have been around for a while, and grumbles about having to take too much time legislating things that should fall under personal responsibility are gaining speed in the United States as well. But I’m not even sure the term “lawsuit waiting to happen” would translate here.

You know you’ve finally adjusted to life here when you are walking down the sidewalk and a car honks and you just effortlessly step to the side. And when you know better than to step on anything like a sewer grate cover in case it isn’t actually affixed. And when you know that snot rockets can freeze and create little patches of death ice. But every time you think you are prepared for all the things that might break, mutilate or dismember you, you find a new one.

Like the use of decorative, slick marble on sidewalks. Yes, it looks lovely, but I can’t see under the snow to figure out when I’m about to step onto a surface of oiled Buckyballs in a vacuum.

Or when you are walking in a mall area and you hear a crunching sound. And you realize the tiles beneath you are cracking. And then you see the pile of broken tiles. I wasn’t able to determine if this was deconstruction by daily use or unintentional.

But it really doesn’t help when the environment is ACTIVELY trying to get you killed. Like when you have a GREEN WALK sign when the traffic that needs to cross your path has a GREEN ARROW. I’ve learned to not trust the signs. But I also have just learned to walk whenever so I’m probably going to die when I get back to the states.

So far, I can’t really claim myself as a Great American Emissary. Mostly I’ve tried to explain holidays, poorly, introduce new foods, poorly, and been dumbfounded by language questions, thoroughly.

But I did bring one great American tradition to China. Pillow fighting.

Of course this wasn’t done at a slumber party. Or even my house. Or even anyone’s house.

But IKEA has A LOT of pillows.

Our driver still insists on following me in somewhere if I am alone shopping. This may be more for the ability to know if the Bull should come post bail somewhere for me, but I’m going to pretend it’s out of general politeness. I just needed a few pillows so I intended to zip in, grab em and zip out. But he was standing right behind me when I picked them up. And…I was overcome. So I whacked him with a pillow. I imagine he is well past discovering I’m semi-retarded, so I don’t think there was TOO much shock at his boss’ wife smacking him with housewares in public, but I did get a raised eyebrow. So I whacked him again, but this time made sure to also yell “PILLOW FIGHT!” Clearly, I was speaking a universal language as he now armed himself with a pillow. Or he had no clue and thought I had finally lost my damned mind and had picked the world’s least effective weapon.

But with a third whack, he struck back. The game was afoot! I began dodging around the bin of pillows and spied a kid about 8 grab a pillow and whack his mom with it. I don’t know what tiny furies he had pent up whereby the merest hint that violence was allowed he joined it, but he cast his lot in with me and learned quickly. His mom was in utter shock, but what I assume was his grandmother tried to defend her honor with smaller throw pillows lobbed over her at the moving, leg whacking child. I bopped the kid with my pillow, still eluding either capture or a retributive pillow thwack from our driver and continued around another bin. I spent a few minutes dodging and when I looked up…it was semi pandemonium. Gawking yellow shirted IKEA staff stood on the sidelines of over 15 people staging an all out pillow war mid store. I. Cracked. Up.

And finally got thumped upside the head by our driver. I mocked outrage, which gave me the moment of hesitation and advantage needed to get in a good solid hit and dash…over to an adult Chinese man, who had picked up and was whacking his wife with a MEMORY FOAM PILLOW. Have you used one of these? They are like, 30 pounds of pillow! I immediately declared “You’re out!” and took away his weapon. He seemed about to protest, but I cannot imagine his confusion at some random white women blathering about ‘out’ and ‘red card!’ and taking away his, possibly, merchandise. So he conceded and hung his head in defeat.

I scampered away during the continuing chaos but never have I felt so culturally close and then, bonding through spontaneous violence. This, this is the way of my people and I shall share it with everyone!

Dalian is host to a massive beer festival each year. Since there are no accurate words to convey how utterly batshit crazy this event is, I shall just share some photos.

You learn the phrase for ‘don’t want’ pretty quickly here. In fact, we picked it up before arriving! Here’s a short series of things I have not wanted recently…

Incense mixed with duck gizzards…

Ham intestines. First, I was unaware ham had intestines. Second, intestines. Although I was torn and kinda wanted to order a ’small bear’.

If the first menu choice is not wanted, the second one is RIGHT OUT.

This was ominously outside a salon…advertising a hairstyle cook. Nope.

I was waffling on the peanut flavored items, knowing I’ve been burned in the past by thinking peanut butter flavor and getting something that would make Jimmy Carter flashback, but the coffee jelly in my coffee is a no.

And I don’t want to be on the allied forces anymore I think. I really hope this is just a prepositional translation error.

And perhaps this is reverse psychology?

But every now and then, you find the thing you absolutely want. I very much want to live in this store, clearly run by the most OCD afflicted of people.

I think the RIAA should be fully humbled by the internet response to their epic stupid ad against piracy, but in case they weren’t humiliated enough, let me present:

Things China Would Download

Every movie. Ever.

Every licensed character.

Every brand name item.

Hell, forget every brand name item. LET’S DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE BRAND!

I have heard there are knock off cars here as well, so yes, people would download a car.

So just driving around the other day, in a quiet part of town and we spy a donkey cart. Not an unusual sight. Well, in a place where a donkey head detached from its body isn’t an unusual sight, you can imagine a donkey cart is actually quite mundane.

The donkey was pleasantly strolling along as we passed. And noticed….the cart lacked any sort of human.

I think the donkeys here are rising up and escaping.

This seems perfectly appropriate for children’s wear.

We all love Beijing!

Well, this product does pretty much everything. Guess my shopping is done with one stop.

Although it does not ‘eliminate worms’ which is a shame because I am evidently now a host to some new friends. Some new 8 inch long friends that make me a touch twitchy. The Bull said I could not keep one as a pet. I don’t think he really loves me.

Story that only happens in China (or the Godfather movies.)

One afternoon, the Bull and I were shopping and on the street a man was selling freshly butchered meat. As in, freshly butchered right there. It appears that the man used his donkey to pull the cart to the sidewalk and then killed and butchered the donkey (which, by the by, donkey meat is really tasty and pretty common here and very amusing when you order something labelled “Ass Dumplings”) and used the cart as a makeshift stall. This was less remarkable than you might suppose, but the fun part was the donkey head was just sitting next to the cart.

I really, really wanted to buy the donkey head.

The Bull firmly denied this purchase before I could even ask. Even when i said it was sure to be reasonably priced, as this is China, I could not sway him from his ass head stance. So I sadly trudged home, giving occasional forlorn glances over my shoulder at the donkey head, which seemed equally sad. But I began plotting.

I decided if the Bull would not willingly allow me to purchase the head, I merely needed to convince him by purchasing it and showing him the versatile uses for a really big dead animal head. Of course the first use would be to put it on the bed in the morning to be a classic movie recreation. But then I realize the scene has an entirely different impact when what wakes up the Bull is three cats dragging wet, chewed donkey head pieces across him. So I nixed that plan. Then I thought of all the people I know who would love to have scraped insects off the body, but I know the grey cat would rat me out if I had a rotting head in the garage. So I decided I would simply keep it in the backyard the first night and hide it in the shower in the morning, so when the Bull opened the shower curtain, my new friend would greet him.

Having decided that part, I picked up my phone to call my driver….and paused. Not only would I be incapable, in English or Mandarin, of explaining to him WHY I needed a giant, bleeding donkey head, but I’m pretty sure his loyalties lie with the Bull and the bastard would rat me out to Bull as soon as he picked him up for work. Although that would have been an AWESOME conversation, as Bull speaks very minimal Chinese and out driver speaks no English. So it would have been the electronic translator passed back and forth as Zheng tried to explain without sounding insulting “WIFE ASS HEAD- NO GO HOME!” Instead, I decided I would go stealth mode and take a backpack up to purchase the head.

I meandered back to the area and saw this was not going to work. I had greatly underestimated the donkey head size. I scampered back home and gathered some larger shoulder bags and back to the cart. I started a pricing conversation with the gentleman at the cart and tried to hoist the head by the ears.

Do you know how big donkey heads are? I did not. It turns out these fuckers are carrying hefty skulls. Hell, those ears must be a couple pounds alone. I pictured myself dragging the head back in a plastic bag over a few blocks and knew that although this would undoubtedly become a Chinese urban legend (“No, really, some fat white chick was cackling and dragging a damned donkey skull down the street on some sort of plastic sled!”) I would not be able to sneak past the guards or our driver.

So I again said goodbye to the donkey head, and although briefly chased by the seller, who evidently thought I was insulted by his head pricing and followed me to bargain, I knew I couldn’t turn back.

So I was going to make a joke about not being able to tell a party in China from a concentration camp shower room, but then some tiny part of me that has not fully converted to the ability to say anything, run with any stereotype or stare at anyone different screamed in agony and lodged itself in my throat to prevent me from saying it.

BUT IT CAN’T STOP ME FROM PUTTING THE PICTURE UP AND MAKING THE JOKE ON MY BLOG!

Side note: I really, really love the idea of taking my shoes off at the door. I had slowly been instituting this before the move here, but now the Bull will be forever stuck with the shoes off zone inside.

For my next totally inappropriate endeavor, I am going to try and get in to the Dalian plasticine factory. This is where they turn dead people into plastic dead people to be put on display for things like the BODY Exhibit. At least they are working with donated bodies now instead of death sentenced Chinese prisoners. But I doubt anyone will put bets on me being able to refrain from doing something sophmoric if I get in to the factory.