Spitting is Not Rude

Everybody spits in China. I notice this most on my walk to and from work. It's one of the reasons that having my music playing too loud is dangerous. When the music is blaring, I can't hear the 8-year-old in front of me scraping all the goo in his throat and sinuses, preparing to unleash. Nobody checks behind them before they let it all go either -- its apparently your job as a vigilant pedestrian to dance when a spitter sends one flying for your shoes. Pedestrians have a hard job in this country between the cars, motorcycles, and loogies.

Its not just little kids though. Everybody spits. Old, young, men, women. And I'm serious, its not just a little saliva -- they're weighty, snotty, big-boy projectiles. Kind of gross, really.

Buying Things Online is An Incredible Pain In The Ass

Holy flying fuck why is this so hard. All I want to do is buy a flight. Please, charge my credit card. Oh, you must have misunderstood me. I said "buy a flight," but you heard, "email me 2 forms to print, fill out, sign, re-write my credit card number 4 different times, scan, and send back to you, then talk on the phone for an hour while you process it."

Yes, I give you permission to charge my credit card. Oh, your manager also needs to hear me say that I authorize it? Yes, manager man, you can charge my credit card. Whats that? You'll have the authorization department call me in an hour to confirm that I want the charge to go though? How wonderfully helpful!

What do you mean where do I want my goods delivered? Its an e-ticket, right? Oh, I need a receipt of my e-ticket to pick up my e-ticket? Ok, how do I get that? I need to arrange to meet you at my apartment? How easy! Terrific, when do we meet?

2 train tickets, 1 plane ticket, and 1 hotel reservation. Same horribly cumbersome process each time. It has to be some pretty severe law that says purchasing things online should be harder than re-financing your home. Or maybe somebody high up in the government is heavily invested in scanners and fax machines.

In summation: Fuck. This.

Girls Are Aggressive Part 2: They're Not Afraid To Approach You

I worked late a few weeks ago and left the office around 10pm. After taking the subway to my stop, I was cruising towards my apartment at a really brisk pace. I always like walking through crowds with my iPod blasting. I'm good at navigating the masses. I dodge old people and squirt through groups of slower walkers like a slow-mo Barry Sanders - with my own soundtrack. I'm sort of psycho about it (surprise). Nobody around me knows that I'm always racing them to wherever I'm going. Well, Staci knows, as she is constantly forced to deal with my compulsive galloping on San Francisco sidewalks; "Slow DOWN idiot!" Anyway, T.I. was rocking the fuck out of my ear drums and I must have been damn near jogging down Huangpi Nan Lu when I caught a glimpse of somebody gaining on my in the corner of my eye. The road is well-lit and always populated, so I didn't immediately fear for my life or anything, but I could tell somebody was keeping pace with me, and it weirded me out.

My breath got shallow when I could tell she was shouting at me from behind. I assumed I was about to be in trouble for something. Not knowing whether or not to stop or actually start running (haha), I turned around just as she was tapping me on the shoulder. She was a little out of breath, and I could now tell that she had been jogging to catch me. I stopped in front of Ark, pulled out my earbuds and glanced around for signs that I was about to be kidnapped, but she just smiled unabashedly back at me and said "Hello?" I tried to be nice, but I undoubtedly looked confused, because she quickly stammered in barely-understandable English that her teacher told her to stop me. I looked around again. No teacher. She then motioned in the direction I was going, and I gathered that she wanted to walk with me. I tried to remain polite, but I was immediately suspicious that I was being tricked.

Friends at work have told me that they've been approached by women that appear interested in you, and suggest sitting down for coffee or tea. However, the ladies are paid a commission by the establishment they bring you to, which is why they tend to have very specific tastes for local coffeehouses.

As we walked towards my apartment, she told me her name was Vicky, and that she had been attending English classes for the last several weeks nearby. She said that her teacher encouraged the students to converse with English-speakers they saw in the city as a means of improving her conversational skills. She told me she worked as a waitress at an Australian restaurant nearby, but was learning English as a means to a job as a businesswoman. By the end of our conversation, I was convinced that she really just wanted to talk with me in my language, but it still struck me as rather bold. No matter her intentions, I can't imagine being approached by somebody in that manner even in cities as 'friendly' as Seattle or San Francisco.

After we parted, I realized that the English class she claimed to have just left was across the street from my office. I entered my apartment with the uneasy feeling that she may have quietly followed me for several miles on foot, through the subway, and up to the driveway of my apartment. Point: Vicky.

The Difference Is More Than Just Perspective

I can't get enough of him! Another eloquent post about the teetering nature of this big crazy place:

"I think if more Americans came to China right now and saw how hard so many of its people are struggling just to survive, they too might ask: What are we thinking, in considering China an overall threat? Yes, its factories are formidable, and its weight in the world is huge. But this is still a big, poor, developing nation trying to solve the emergency of the moment. Susan Shirk, of the University of California at San Diego, recently published a very insightful book that calls China a “fragile superpower.” 'When I discuss it in America,' she told me, 'people always ask, "What do you mean, fragile?”' When she discusses it here in China, 'they always ask, "What do you mean, superpower?”'"

Just Because I Hate the Internet Here Doesn't Mean Everybody Does

This article (by the wife of, my man, James Fallows) addresses an interesting question about internet content in China. Namely, do the Chinese people want a completely open internet, or do they think its the responsibility of the government to filter objectionable content. I'm not sure what the government requires in terms of divulging participants answers, or if the participants fear their answers might be turned over, but the article does say:

"As required of all public-opinion polling in China, either the survey or the surveyors must be approved by the government, and some topics that Westerners might have liked to see addressed directly, such as censorship, were not."

This question seems a lot like the "is race still an issue in America?" question. Everybody says "I don't have racist feelings, but all my friends do." I could imagine people saying the same thing to a (government sanctioned) survey of this kind, where a person's answer is along the lines of "well, I don't think the government needs to filter my internet, but it should filter theirs, so I'm fine with a filtered internet."

Nevertheless, its interesting to read things like this:

"Alongside outside criticism and internal pressure for liberalization, other evidence suggests that many Chinese citizens do not share Western views of the internet. The survey findings discussed here, drawn from a broad-based sample of urban Chinese internet users and non-users alike, indicate a degree of comfort and even approval of the notion that the government authorities should control and manage the content available on the internet."

My first reaction was 'of course they're fine with the censoring, because they don't know what they've been missing for the past 30 years'; a view which I expect is shared by a lot of western people. But to think this is to assume I know whats best for everybody. I don't want to sound like a sympathizer to a stifling or oppressive government, but on the other hand, I've realized since being over here is that the picture thats been painted of China in the west (especially in regards to the monstrous, evil government and its control over people) isn't very accurate.

The article goes on to say that many people fear the negative aspects of the internet (online fraud, pornography, addiction, exposing children to filth, etc), and want such aspects censored. Those negative aspects have been perpetuated by media reports, growing in numbers over the years, often reporting the dramatic details of personal tragedies which involve internet usage. (She also subtly reminds us that all media outlets are either directly or indirectly state-influenced.)

As crazy as I tend to think the government is for exerting this kind of control, it feels almost like a logical slope to be descending when you think about where this place was 35 years ago. We're lucky that our freedoms in America have been intact for hundreds of years, but we can't expect that nations with a more volatile recent history are going to embrace this scary new technology as openly and wholeheartedly as we have. Depending on the reports you read, there are now (as of last month, some say) more Chinese internet users than American internet users. The fact that people here want to dip their toes before diving head first isn't as strange as you might be led to believe. Its happening... just be patient.