Best way to be late

I have crappy visa. I knew it will be crappy the moment I submitted my documents to the Chinese consulate, but it was crappy visa or no visa at all, so...

Anyway, I have to cross the border every 30 days and the easiest way to do it is go to Hong Kong. You can fly there from Ningbo for a ridiculous price or you can fly to Guangzhou and take the train from there, which would be much cheaper.

Now airplanes are immune to traffic jams, aren't they? Not in China, obviously. Not anymore. Every time I get to the airport I find out that my flight is delayed "due to the traffic congestion" whether it be in Ningbo or Guangzhou. Far as I know it's the same all over China. I witnessed one big ugly scandal break out after yet another delay announcement, and somebody was taking a video of it with their mobile, so we can expect another "Bus Uncle" clip on YouTube soon.

Oh, and just now they announced that flight to Beijing was canceled due to "aircraft relocation" whatever that means.

You know, I've been laughing at stupid Americans with their routinely overbooked flights.. but not anymore. Airlines really do hate us, it seems, and will do anything to keep us from flying. Next time I go to Hong Kong I 'm considering taking the train from Shanghai. It's 20 hours, but at least you can sleep there without fearing that it's suddenly canceled.

And now they announce that my flight will be delayed again due to aircraft relocation. 3 hours' delay, that is. Next time I'm taking the train!

Things they turn into celebrations!

Sometimes I can't help but admire the human race. Sometimes it deserves admiration. And sometimes it's more like "What the?.." kind of admiration. Like humans being one of three species in which males may fail to realize what to do with the female (the other two being giant pandas and chihuahuas). Or human race constantly inventing new commemorative days to promote something.

This Wednesday it was Women's Equality Day. I've never heard of it and I do not believe in gender equality, I believe ladies to be different sort of human (and beautiful at that). I guess if you've ever heard of it you're either a feminist (yuk!), a commemorative-day-crazy weirdo or work at the UN Division of Obscure Dates. Or, as it turned out this week, a Chinese person.

What would you think walking in the park late evening when you see people launching hot air balloons into the air? In China the first thought is "Hey, that fun!" and the second: "Gotta be some ancestor worship ritual!" The truth is, they decided to celebrate that stupid equality day. So they launched hundreds of these balloons into the night and gave flowers to their wives and girlfriends. I don't know how can it promote gender equality but I sure like the whole idea. Just have fun and be with your loved one(s), gender equality or no!

New life for old words

Chinese are positively fond of the word "romantic". They use it everywhere. My favorite examples are "Romantic Club" karaoke club and 'romantic' roadside sauna.

It looks like somebody told them that the whole idea of something being 'romantic' revolves around human sexuality. While technically quite correct this notion was taken a bit too far. I fail to find anything even remotely romantic in any of the above.

Take for instance the karaoke establishment. It's a place where people pay to sing (quite often badly) and drink ridiculously overpriced drinks with hired and really bored girls who double as prostitutes (for additional fee). What's romantic about paying for company because you suck so much you can't get yourself a girlfriend?

Now sauna would be... just the same, actually. Only difference would be bathing instead of singing, the drinks still would be overpriced and girls bored. That ain't romantic either... not in my book anyway.

... And that reminds me of that fad when people would tattoo some Chinese or Japanese characters on their body without understanding of their meaning. Now this is what I call asking for screw-up!

Weekend? What weekend?

Today's Sunday. You know, the day most people (except firefighter, police and telemarketers) take a break from work. Now I'm one of those unlucky bastards who are not fighting fire, crime or common sense of fellow humans and still have to lay aside all that weekend stuff. The reason is simple: There's work to do and there's no way in Hell I let that shipment go without checking it. That's part of the job description (which actually boils down to: Do everything that needs to be done, no limits on work time, no extra payments. Only it says so on three pages of fine print.)

Now this makes me glad that I have only six factories under my supervision. I'm out of weekends already, no need to throw away weekdays as well!

Running around Ningbo

Most of my work requires me to go to the towns surrounding Ningbo. While it tends to get boring, there's one thing that never fails to cheer me up. It is scenery.

There are no true mountains on my way, but they have plenty of beautiful hils here. The car emerges from the tunnel and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by fields. There would be a small village somewhere between the hills, green and picturesque from the distance. Half the houses there would be covered with crudely painted advertisements.

Another turn and there are factories on both sides... then abruptly there are fields and orchards, and some lost seabird is trying to get back to the sea. Heavy trucks are overtaking farmers on three-wheeled motorcycles loaded with some indeterminamble stuff...

And then it's small factory surrounded by fields and small village... and it's only fields again. All of a sudden some twenty-storey building is standing surrounded by fields. two more turns and you finally arive to the town of Cixi, not quite beleiving it, half-expecting it to vanish. It's hard to get tired of this road...

Now what did they mean?

Going to the factory today, just outside the main gate of my apartment complex there are several little shops selling fruits and liquor and whatnots, as well as several so-called spas. Never paid much attention to these (high prices for cheap things ain't my bag, baby), but today one of the shops made me wonder. It's called "Double-profession massage". Makes one wonder what's their second profession is besides massaging your back. And if you remember these "massage parlors"...

Well, as it turned out their second profession as acupuncture and moxibustion therapy. A case of false double entendree (maybe done deliberately?). I just love this country, y'know...

China in the eye of beholder

Sometimes I get distracted by things (Oh... Shiny!) Sometimes I get bored. And when I'm bored I tend to do a random search on the Net. You can find all sort of thing this way (I first found Schlock Mercenary via such random search). Of course, there's famous Rule #34, which usually leads to me finding things of one particular sort... but let's not get too deep into that.

Last random search was done for the word 'laowai' - which means 'foreigner' in Chinese. Between others it turned up two sites which I see as opposites: One called MyLaowai (which is blocked in China... and for a good reason) and another called LaowaiChinese.

First of these sites is basically a collection of rants on negative sides of life in China and Chinese people. Sure, most of the foreigners who lived in China would agree with many of his opinions, but that's not the point. The point is, owner of the site is trying to make his readers believe that Chinese are inferior when compared to foreigners (and maybe that China is inferior when compared to the West?). Now that would be just crap. Oh, I think most of us living in China have had such moments. It's not that easy to stay calm when some guy with rotting teeth is leaning too close to you. It's even harder when you wake up 7:00 Sunday morning because your neighbour decided to change these floor tiles (5th time this year) and the workers are happily removing it using sledgehammer. When you try to talk to that neighbour he's genuinely surprised that you can hear that "tiniest of sounds"... and hammering continues. Or when another neighbour decided to make love to his wife this night (which is perfectly OK by me and none of my goddamn business anyway) and, being naturally shy, popped some Canto-pop CD into CD player and cranked the volume of wretched contraption all the way up (which is definitely not OK). After midnight. When you have to go to the factory 8:00 in the morning. The point is, you can get just the same sort of thing elsewhere in the world just as easily. It's not a Chinese thing. It's human thing. And you can't change them with your angry site. Last time I checked there were more than one billion of people in China - why would they care about one foreigner... or ten thousand of them. They've got better things to do, you know, then to notice some stupid lone crusader against "Yellow Peril"... Actually, I should have better things to do than even mentioning the loser.

Now, LaowaiChinese is different. These people, I suppose, have realised the futility of trying to change the Chinese and stupidity of cursing at them. This site aims to help foreigners learn Chinese. There are a lot of examples of cultural difference between Laowai and Chinese, quite a bit of critique... but nobody is trying to make Chinese look inferior or stupid. If we get back to my neighbours... That guy changing the tiles really didn't think that this noise in the morning would affect anyone's sleep. He was sure that nobody will hear it (and looks like me and my wife were the only ones who did - people in Guangdong province do have peculiar hearing). And that guy with the CD... they both were really shy, but still managed to find the volume setting that won't affect our sleep and still would be comfortably loud for them. So they were just being human. Somewhat different from us (well, there are considerable cultural and racial differences!) but just as human. Not inferior nor superior beings when compared to others.

The hard part is... for many Chinese foreigners are more of a circus animal than a person. By bollocks, mothers have been pointing fingers at me shouting to their kids: "Look! The foreigner! Look before it runs away!". Just like this. And sometimes I do agree with that MyLaowai guy... but it passes. I met too many good people here, both Chinese and foreigners.

Shopping woes

You know what I hate about Ningbo? It's supermarkets. Or complete lack of such establishments. There are 2 TrustMarts, 2 Auchans, 1 Metro and 1 TESCO... and that's about it. Oh, and 1 Carrefour. Most of them are quite far from the place I live, and only two are somewhat reachable by public transport from here. One of these is Auchan (expensive and nothing good in there anyway), and another is TESCO (40 minutes by bus to the city center, but good and cheap). So I usually stock up on microwave food and veggies once a week (that's quite a feat, I tell you, as my fridge is good for keeping a six-pack in it and nothing more)...

Looks like even dream jobs have their drawbacks, huh?..

Garden Factory... or factory garden?

As I have repeated ad nauseam, I often visit various factories around Ningbo, but my favourite is one particular factory that always make me wonder how serious they are about all that "factory" stuff. They have a literal garden and even raise chickens and goats there!

That's what you see halfway between warehouse and administrative building. Yes, these are fruit trees, complete with fruit. Pomegranates, actually.

And these are grapes they grow near their office building. Neat, huh?

That's how their warehouse looks from the outside. Now you see why I like visiting them, no? And there are so little problems there - just routine quality check and confirmation of shipment. Guess that working in the garden helps... or is it fresh eggs from these chickens?

Declawing Cthulhu

First, I must confess... I like Cthulhu Mythos. What's worse, sometimes I find myself with nothing to work on and that's when things start getting weird...

You know what is "declawing"? It's that simple operation they like in the US. You do it to your cat. The vet will surgically remove poor critters claws, along with the tip of it's fingers so your hands will not be scratched. Ever. Surely you can try reasoning with cat, train it... but then you'll have to really give a damn. Declawing is just so much easier... And who cares if it makes poor cat's life a nightmare?.. But I digress. Let's get back to the matter.

Today, mindlessly browsing through the Net this night I've found this picture. And seeing the Great Old One with Apple laptop and iPod... well, it pretty much sums all the attitudes of today. You see, Cthulhu is a Great Old One. He's supposed to be (and was?) terrifying, mind-warping monster, dead yet dreaming. And now he's turned into some... yuppy... hipster... wossname. Quite cute wossname, actually. And that made me wonder... Looks for me like a trend of our days: Taking something serious and terrifying, or twisted, or just plain sick and then just downplaying it. Making it into some joke. And I'm not talking about the site mentioned above (which is jolly good!). I'm talking about serious issues here.

Novadays just about everything seems to be primarily an internet fodder. Every disaster (be it tortured prisoners or hurricane aftermath) will end up on Youtube, will be photoshopped to death and then forgotten in, like, two days. Oh, there will be voices - and angry voices at that - demanding that something be done, but you know what? It will be more like these old women sitting on the bench and discussing their neighbours. Oh, do they know who's wrong, and what everyone should do instead of doing... wel, what they've been doing! But when everything was said, these old ladies will just quietly go home doing absolutely nothing about all the horrible things they've just condemned. Looks like our society is turning into perfect image of these old ladies...

So what we've done successfully is - declawing Cthulhu. Big scary monster he was, but we declawed him and - to pretend that we care - we give him that iPod. Pat ourselves on the back, go back to watching TV. That's the way to deal with big ugly issues!

Sometimes I despise humanity, you know...

Some more on mobile blogging

Last month I have reported on my forage i9nto mobile blogging. If you remember, I came to the conclusion that TBlogger was not up to the task due to it being insanely slow. Now I must correct myself. It works just fine for me. Better, in fact, then moBlog ever did.

Why is it better? Well, first of all it fully syncs with your Wordpress blog. And when I say "fully" I mean it. Well, it does not download images and other mediaf rom the blog to your PocketPC... but do you really need it on your handheld? And you still can put photos and stuff in the posts you send from the device (admittedly I haven't try it yet, but I will).

What made me switch to it was the simple yet efficient interface. You get to the blog accounts list - multiple accounts with Wordpress and MetaWeblog API are supported - and after creating new account or selecting existing one you get the list of posts and pages. You can create new posts and pages, edit existing ones, even add categories. Several posts can be written on the device and then you can go online and sync all of them to the blog in one go.

Now to the annoying part. I don't know why, but it keeps setting draft status on the new posts, no matter what I try. Maybe that's done to prevent drunk blogging, but having some way to turn it on or off will be nice. None of the attempts to set it right have been successful, but I still have hope. Also, there is no way known to me to use this software with Russian language blogs... but as I blog much less in Russian this issue is not as pressing.

Garden Factory... or factory garden?

As I have repeated ad nauseam, I often visit various factories around Ningbo, but my favourite is one particular factory that always make me wonder how serious they are about all that "factory" stuff. They have a literal garden and even raise chickens and goats there!

That's what you see halfway between warehouse and administrative building. Yes, these are fruit trees, complete with fruit. Pomegranates, actually.



And these are grapes they grow near their office building. Neat, huh?



That's how their warehouse looks from the outside. Now you see why I like visiting them, no? And there are so little problems there - just routine quality check and confirmation of shipment. Guess that working in the garden helps... or is it fresh eggs from these chickens?

Invasion of cartoons

Today I went to TESCO on my weekly quest to buy food for the coming week. Little did I know that Coca-Cola started some new promotion... Now imagine walking down the aisle, minding my own business and suddenly finding in front of myself some characters from Japanese video game or anime or whatever! Now I need a drink, just to calm my nerves. Even though I noticed after a couple of seconds a great big biilboard proclaiming that it is some "Coca-Cola cosplay event", that's not something you want to suddenly jump upon you.

Moving woes

There's an old Rusian saying that goes like this: Moving is like having your house set ot fire. Twice.

Two days ago I got most of our things delivered from Guangzhou. Delivery was pretty easy (just give them your address and tell where to pile them things up once they are delivered). The hard part is finding where to put all this stuff...

Exotic food in China

Chinese love exotic food. Heck, it must be the inborn trait of humanity - that irresistible urge to try some exotic dish and brag about it. Shuddering on the inside as you remember these 7 hours you spent throwing up after that. Men are especially prone to eat everything that they find.

Anyway, in China it's Western food that is considered exotic (Eating steak instead of nice deep-fried intestines?! Eew!). There are two types of eateries you are likely to encounter: Restaurants which are just that and cafes, where you also get to drink that strange stuff them foreign devils call 'coffee'. Now cafes are much more fun. Usually you get to order a set meal there (steak, soup, maybe some salad with plastic-tasting mayo in it). The soup will be inevitably of canned Campbell's variety, diluted to the point that to know what it is supposed to be you have to check the menu. Steak is usually good, and the salad better be just left untouched.

But the funniest thing I got was that Cordon Bleu pork steak I got today. Imagine a good, solid, well-done pork chop... stuffed with SPAM. Makes you wonder what's wrong with humanity... When Chinese are being creative, you'd better be careful!

By the way, the pork chop still was good. And there even was a pretty girl playing piano!

Fun with them factories

Yesterday I went to the factory. That would be nothing special in itself as I spend most of my time at the factories, but this time it was special. I had to check whether they made some changes to the production line according to our requirements. They did, which was to be expected (they are really good partners, after all), but they did it... well, creatively.

First there was request for one of the workers to wear protective gloves. A sensible thing when you are operating high-voltage tester, isn't it'? Now she sorta does it... wearing only one glove.

The idea of protective (read: rubber) footwear was taken really creatively as well. Who needs that boreign safe ugly rubber boots when you can get all these surplus army training shoes which are cheaper and will make you feet smell just as awful?

And then I saw how they complied to the third requirement - block the conveyor line so that nothing will escape testing. You do it by adding some bar or piece of wood or whatever just over the conveyor belt. They chose the "whatever" option and installed a poker (the kind you poke in the fireplace) across the conveyor...

Now you understand why I'm afraid of Chinese creativity, don't you?