Me Ol' China (week 5)

Hello pals, 

this week has been absolutely fantastic! New Year Celebrations have been the main event. The year of the Rat started on February 7th accompanied by fireworks exploded all over Beijing. A friend told me that he finds rather uncivilized that they fire so close to the buildings. He has never been to Italy, I thought. Actually fireworks are forbidden in China and they are allowed only for New Year's celebrations and at a certain time. This year the Spring Festival has been played down by the weather conditions that still remain critical in some areas but both, government and companies, have decided to extend the vacation for some workers particularly hit by these acts of God.


I have moved this week and my apartment is nice but not as nice as the previous one I was in was. However I had to go to buy things for the place as, in China, apartments are rented just with furniture. So all the other stuff need to be bought. I had the offer of a colleague to accompany me to Wal Mart for shopping. I swear, I have never seen so much food for grab and so many people up for grabbing it! Every kind of meat and veggies available and the prices... Better I don't tell you how much meat and vegetables cost, you will go postal in your closest supermarket. One of the thing that would surprise any Big Nose would be the quantity of dried food they have. The concept of sweets in China is different from ours. In the dried stuff section you find fruits, fish, caterpillars, eggs. veggies and so on... Dried food is a kind of food of its own, regardless of what has been dried. During my hunt for things needed at home I entered the knives and spoons area. My Chinese colleague was really shocked by the things I was buying. When she saw me buying spoons (Big Nose ones) she was horrified by the waste of money in buying something so useless instead of the soup spoons they use over here. This is because they eat only soup with the spoons and they do not see any use of our flat spoons. She was even more shocked, and could not hide her disappointment, when I bought a tin opener. "What is it for?". "To open cans... Tomatoes or beans, you know"... You should have seen her face... "Do you buy tomatoes in tins?". I felt a bit ashamed... But I admitted that I actually did... Funny enough this is one of the idiosyncrasies you see over here. In supermarkets you see very many shelves packed with all sort of dehydrated food, con-gee in tins, soups in powder, caterpillars in their own juice, dried fish and tomatoes, concentrated vegetable soups, packed Peking duck and chicken feet, pork trotters in gel... But she was surprised by canned tomatoes! Amazing!
Every time I was picking something from the shelves I ended up looking at her expression and even when I was buying something that, I thought, she would have bought, I ended up with a scorching glance. Milk? "Why low fat?", Oatmeal? "Why do you eat that stuff for breakfast?", Beef? "This is too expensive!", Bed Sheet? "How could you possibly put those on your bed?", Pots? "They are too heavy, how can you cook with those?", Tea? "That tea doesn't taste nice. How can you like it?", No rice? "You are not normal!", No Sugar? "I wonder how you can live here in China!"... This story went on for a couple of hours... I learned that shopping with a Chinese is rather impossible.. Better with another Big Nose or by yourself.
I had similar experience with another colleague when I went to buy the humidifier ("too expensive, on internet you get it for half the price"), the scale ("why do you need to know how much you weigh, isn't it enough to know that you are losing weight by looking at your trousers falling off?", the thermometer ("too expensive, you know if you got temperature anyway"), antibiotics ("I would try first with something lighter or some traditional Chinese medicine") and I could go on for another few items...
There is a tendency that I can find amongst my fellow citizens of criticizing whatever you do, buy, or say. In some cases I find them rather invasive. Probably as invasive as a Big Nose from Northern Europe will find a Neapolitan or a Sicilian.

I am not sure I mentioned about the spamming via SMS over here. Well, If I haven't mentioned it before, I do it now. Dozens SMS per day that cannot be stopped have now been joined by at least 5 MMS and 5 to 10 telephone calls a day! It is really unbearable. I have stopped picking up phones unless I know the number of the person calling. Unfortunately nothing can be done to stop these people pestering you and they reach levels I never thought before. A caller once was going on and on about something and despite me telling him "No Chinese" he was going on and end up his sentence with "Say Yes" And me "No" and he would have started again, "Say Yes".... amazing! this tells you on how invasive they can be!

Let's go back to New Year's Celebrations...

The great surprise was, however, on New Year's Eve evening... Nobody in the streets... It was really strange! I have taken some pictures but I am experiencing problems in uploading them. It was a ghost town with just a few soldiers around patrolling with policemen the empty 12 lanes Jian Guo Me Nei street...normally is all choc-o-block! It was such a nice feeling. Same passing by Beijing's Main Railway Station... Nobody! 

So, you can imagine that the GREATEST surprise was... no restaurants open! I walked around trying to find one open but no luck! I ended up in a KFC. Actually there are more KFC in Beijing than in the whole of Italy, I am sure... just around the Beijing Station I counted 5 different KFC restaurants!

The fireworks have gone on from 8 pm to 2 am with the maximum intensity between 11 pm and 1 am. And started again on the 7th February at 20:00 until early hours in the morning. However they were still firing yesterday night...



I found out that Chinese are big basketball fans. But not their basketball, the NBA one. One question I was asked was not "do you like sports?" It was "How many Italians play in the NBA?" "Frankly I am not sure but I remember that 2 guys play there" This was my answer... the guy who asked me the question just ignored my answer as if I were a sort of idiot that didn't know what his name was... Anyway, I went to check these two basketball players and I found out that last November, the match between these two Chinese's teams draw the attention of more than 200 million people in this country! Unthinkable!

Another sport they like is volleyball! And while you think that they might know the names of the Italian football players, they were telling me some names of Italian women playing in our national team. I didn’t know any of them but they knew all of them and every time a name was made the others were miming ether the bottoms or the boobs of the players. They told me that they don’t really care about the game itself but they love watching the sexy “uniforms” the girls wear, especially the Italians.



You know the shy Oriental girl stereotype? Well think twice from now on. Chinese ladies can be very very straight in their thoughts and their ways. The one of the “big nose” reported last week was only one of the things that happened. Read on for this other ones. I got asked by a lady in the supermarket if I stink when I am in the toilet. I thought I misunderstood but the lady made herself clearly understood miming the act of … well… you know what I mean, I don’t want to talk crap. The reason she asked me is because I stopped in front of a pot pourri shelf.

Another day was while I was queuing at the supermarket till (where all condoms are placed in an unbelievably massive shelf). I was looking at the boxes, while I was waiting to pay, and they were all colourful and many, very many. The lady approached me and asked if she could help. I made her understand that I was just waiting for my turn to pay and go and she started showing me all sort of different condoms. I firmly told her I didn’t need them and she insisted trying to sell me some. I decided to be a bit more forward and tease her and I made her understand that I was very well endowed and that Asian condoms were too small for me. She starter showing with her hands the measure. I could not believe it, she was asking me how big my penis was! I thought of going forward with the “game” and I mimed a 25 to 30 cm. She was shocked and she start laughing! But not smiling, she was really laughing and went to talk to the other girls… They all started laughing and she disappeared. But now I got serious problems, every time I got to that drugstore they all laugh... Oh well, one day I will be speaking Chinese and I will ask them if they laugh because is too small, too big or because they didn’t believe me… ahahha



I was asked by a local guy why western girls moan the way they moan when having sex. Well… I didn’t know what to reply as I thought that the question was rather silly. But the guy explained that Asian girls do not moan the same way. Back home I decided to find a clip or something showing Asian girls having sex and I found some Japanese ones and, I was really surprised to hear that they sound different! Unbelievable. Next time I will hear a cat in love during the night I will have doubts whether is an Asian lady or a baby crying.



Another thing I found is that eating can be rather messy. In restaurants seems like the tissues are counted. All the times you go to a restaurant you have to ask for tissues as they don’t normally put them on the table. Eating noodles from a soup bowl with chopsticks can be a very hard job, pretty messy for yourself and those sitting close to you. But what really surprised me was the noise Chinese make when they slurp their drinks with a straw. I think that I will have to explain my child that she can do it here but not in Europe.



I got some odd observations by some acquaintances here. One was concerning the role that Mafia has in Italy’s every day's life and the link between Mafia and the Catholic Church. Another one is concerning Italian way of life, family values and Italian weather.

 Concerning the first point, it seems, over here, that Italy's Mafia is the only supplier to the Church needs concerning all religious items. In fact, apparently, it’s very difficult for Chinese factories to export items to the Vatican.

 Even their geographical concepts about Italy are a bit mixed up. A guy asked me weather the Vatican was bigger or smaller than Beijing. Another asked me if we need a passport to go to the Vatican and if there is any airport. I was asked about the Italian island that has been seized by France (Corsica) and about the rivalry between Corsica and neighbouring Sicily. Venice and Tuscany and the Tower of Pizza are other main well knowing attraction of Italy and, of course the famous Pizza comes from the Tuscany city of Pizza.

 Another misconception is about the weather. The feeling is that it’s always hot in Italy and the climate in Southern Italy is a tropical one so this is the reason why I got ill this week with a terrible sore throat and ear ache. “All people coming from tropical countries get sick in Beijing. And you still haven’t seen the sandstorm in Spring!” 

Of course, sex-wise European girls are very easy and Czech girls are the best prostitutes in Europe. Russians are after money and Italian girls are the best in bed, and that normally people tend to get married to people of the same age! I remarked that, here, the impression I gather is that many young girls go out with older European men and I thought that this was a matter of convenience. I was told that in the Asian culture there is a strong respect for older people and young girls love the idea of marrying an older man. So my European way of seeing the thing was completely wrong.



In last week publication I mentioned a few things I learned about China and the Chinese. Let me try to go through some of them in more details.

 What I called MGS last week is MSG, Mono-sodium Glutamate, a food enhancer used in both Chinese and Japanese cuisine. A substance that hits the taste spots on your tongue enhancing the flavours. Well, it is still very controversial whether they are good or bad for your health but for sure there are clear evidences that to some individuals it can create some health problems amongst which dizziness, chest pain, headaches and, of course, skin rash. When I tried to explain to the chemists about the issue they wouldn’t know what I was talking about and only thanks to Internet I was able to buy some vitamins (B6) that can help. In the meantime I am off some kind of food where I know the MSG is part of the ingredients. In only two days I am getting better already and the rash has nearly faded. But still my Chinese acquaintances do not understand what this MSG can do to you. 

Concerning the pesticides in the Chinese dumplings exported to Japan, news these days are that no pesticides have been discovered in the dumplings. However I heard on the international news about the first announcement but I have not heard about the denial…

Anyway guys, catch you next week! Have fun! Time to go to the gym! Oh, they think I am crazy because I go to the gym every single day! "You are too fat to go to the gym" that translates to "you don't need to go to the gym because you are not small". Over here most short Chinese guys are muscular, the tall one do not go to the gym as if being tall it's already a sign of being athletic. It reminds me the old Neapolitan say "Height makes half the total beauties" meaning that being tall it's already a good step towards being handsome or beautiful.

Have a nice week guys!