Moments I have thought that they just don't quite get it:
1) In the train station, saw a mother holding her 4ish-year-old son's hand wearing a tight black t-shirt with "TOO DRUNK" emblazoned across the chest in 5-inch bold gold-colored glitter letters. Do you think she has any idea what that means? Or are they just characters to her that look cool, the way any Chinese character a t-shirt looks to us even if we don't know what it means? I wonder if there's an American mom out there somewhere wearing a shirt that says "TOO DRUNK" in Chinese.
2) In the grocery store to top all grocery stores (complete with inclined moving sidewalks to take you and your shopping cart through the multiple levels and enough samples for Richard not only to live off of but have a well-balanced diet to boot), Christmas music was blaring through the speakers. And to think, everywhere else in the world the baby appeared in the manger in December.
3) Hangin in there with the chopsticks... You know they've heard of the fork. You're not moving a bunch of hay with two pool cues. --Jerry Seinfeld
4) This Sat/Sun are work days because the National holiday is next week? Is it actually a holiday if you make the time up?
5) No drinks at meals? How about water? Nothing? Ok. Can you at least give me a spoon to eat my noodle soup? No? Chopsticks again? Ok.
6) My bathroom floor doesn't even slope towards the drain. So I shower, the entire floor under the sink, toilet, everything, floods. Sanitary. Good thing I don't find anything gross. This pushes my limits though.
7) A language where the pronunciation of every word has to be memorized. Does make it look much cooler though. Which leaves me wondering if the visual aesthetics of Chinese poetry are a big part of the beauty of the poem. Seriously, anyone know?
Things they do, however, "get":
1) The electricity in my hotel room shuts off if my key isn't in the holder by the door. Why waste electricity if no one's in the room? Good thinking.
2) Fruit at the 3 o'clock afternoon break (by the way, the shortest corporate break you've ever seen: show up, eat/pick up something, leave. you're done in 45 seconds. astounding.)
3) The spices they've used on my street eggs and street meat are stupendous. Definitely going to have to figure that one out.
4) That my blog is subverting their people and should be blocked.
5) The beauty of neon lights and karaoke.
6 comments:
the too drunk t-shirt is ridiculous but i do believe in your theory that there are americans out there with vulgar chinese writing. remember the bathroom in siena? it drained decently enough. my hotel in dublin had the electricity shut-off convention too. we americans are certainly the most wasteful!
limited amount of oil in the world...we use it driving in circles at NASCAR races....
Emily, can you do a post in haiku?
Brittany would like to add a data point to our "places in the world you have to use your keycard to get electricity": her hotel in Gizo, Solomon Islands had this "feature."
While we're at it, anyone else seen this electricity/cost/power saving measure somewhere? How about the partitionless bathroom? We've got sightings in Beijing, China, and Siena, Italy.
Yup, I just explained to my colleague what her "So Cal Love Kitten" sweatshirt meant. She knew what exactly one of the words meant: love.
partitionless bathroom sightings: Beijing, China; Siena, Italy; Xi'an, China
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