it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...everywhere you go

well i went into chengdu this weekend for a bit of last minute christmas shopping, and was greeted by an army of chinese santa clauses. again, this christmas staple is not there to spread the christmas spirit, although that is seriously wanting over here, but to sell products.

near the center of downtown is chunxi lu, the biggest open-air mall in chengdu. walking there from tianfu square you pass by the "street of cell phones," a thruway usually occupied by a thousand people handing out fliers for deals on cell phones and plans. this weekend it was filled with a thousand santas handing out fliers for cell phones and plans.

there's something unsettling about pushing through a crowd of santas--like a holiday version of that scene from being john malkovich. none of them are jolly, or for that matter fat. they scream at you to buy or chase you down and give you candy or maybe a flier. you just can't get away from it.

i'm looking forward to easter, when i'll be confronted with an army of 6 foot bunnies.

close shave

ever since college i have wanted to get a hot shave with a straight razor at a barber shop. today, was my chance. my plan was to get a quick trim of my month and a half beard, and be out in a flash. i told the woman "beard, short." she pointed to the straight razor, and i said bu yao, and figured myself in the clear. then she took out her pair of clippers, sans guard, and took the whole eighth of a year growth off my face.

for the most part, i am happy to part with my beard. but usually i make the decision to rid myself of it. i was pretty upset. but i figured, "now i can get that hot shave i've always wanted!" you always have to look on the bright side.

unfortunately, the side wasn't very bright. they poured hot water in a bowl over a towel, and covered my face with shaving soap. then i got the hot towel treatment, delightful. after the towel, i was treated to another application of shaving soap, and the barber got down to business.

she started with my mustache first, scraping it off bit by bit. by the time she was done with the 'stache, my face was cold, due to the open air nature of all chinese shops. she continued to scrape all the hair off my face. she even took my beloved sideburns, for i didn't know what to say to save them.

when she was finally done, she wiped my face off, and i paid and ran as fast as i could. i walked away, feeling my tender face. there were still patches of hair places, and when i got home, i found my neck was bleeding.

so my first straight razor shave was a disappointment. i hope the next is a bit happier. maybe she wasn't ready for my big, tough, american bristle. whatever the problem, i have not given up on my hot shave. i just need to find the right place.

english corridor

i try not to say no to anything, unless it's illegal, immoral, or hurtful toward others. this explains why patrick and i were at an "english corridor" last night. at cheers patrick had met poly, a business-english dual major at the university near my school. after a few dinners, he invited us to one of his clubs meetings to speak about christmas.

last night, patrick and i met at cheers an hour before the meeting to have dinner, and wet our whistles, to make the english a little smoother. after a delightful dinner of not one but two dishes of pork and mushrooms, we set off for the university. on the way, i decided to pick up 10 oranges. i'm on the verge of getting sick, and i've been eating about 5 a day. i figured by buying 10, i wouldn't have to by more for at least another day.

we met poly in front of the library, and he gave me santa hat. since i am now sporting my semi-annual beard, the obvious santa claus references were made, and we walked towards the dorm where the meeting was being held. when we entered, things became surreal. the club, or audience, was made up of about 100 girls and maybe 30 guys. all of them swarmed us when we entered, beatle mania style. i was surrounded. girls had their cellphones up and were taking videos, another was taking pictures with a camera.

soon one of the organizers came over and asked me to make a speech about christmas, or sing a song. i was a bit overwhelmed, so i thought i might sing jingle bells, get some crowd participation, and move on from there. they got into jingle bells (albeit i only heard my voice on the verse) and by the time we were done, they had given me a bit more space.

at that point it devolved into a question and answer period, which was something i could handle. what do you do for christmas? what music do you listen to? what movies do you like? etc. etc. one girl's question was, "do you have any gifts that you will give us?" i couldn't imagine the sort of miser who would hoard oranges, so i offered my flimsy plastic bag up to the mob. i began to hand them out when the girls began to grab at them. eventually the bag was literally in shreds and the oranges were gone. it was like they had been autographed by jay chou or something.

for the most part, everyone was very nice. there were a few faux pas, like when one girl told me my chinese accent was "awful", and the other girl who suggested that I "work out more." aside from that, it was nice to have people take an interest in me.

now as for the question of going again next week, that's still up in the air. like, way up.

white models

white people are often used for models in chinese advertising. of course, there is the regular clothes modelling, which is done by young men and women. where the modeling becomes interesting is when we move away from clothing and look at other sorts of advertising.

one of my favorites is on the site of a new apartment complex that is going up. victor city, or vc. successful living for successful people. one picture shows a handsome chinese man drinking scotch, the other an attractive white woman wearing pearls and long gloves. successful living indeed.

the only roles for white men outside of modeling clothes, are those that call for a "distinguished gentleman." a new hotel that is being built has a billboard with an old white guy reading the newspaper in a beautiful room that has been illustrated around him.

for white women, any bath fixture being advertised uses a naked white woman. she might be in a bathtub, holding a shower head, or behind opaque glass. main thing is, she has to be naked. it's interesting where the white faces are used. very interesting.

christmas in chengdu

there are christmas decorations everywhere, but unless everyone is saying merry christmas to each other in chinese, i'm not feeling the christmas spirit. it's like the chinese skipped the step in american culture where christmas meant something, and instead went straight to the pure commercialization. this can easily be seen by noticing where these decorations are. i've only seen them inside classrooms and inside stores and restaurants.

it's interesting to me that in spite of the many decorations i feel nothing of christmas. perhaps it is the lack of music. i'll be honest--i like christmas music. holly and the ivy, o holy night, the bell carol, good king wencelas. without them, i feel like i'm in another country.

that isn't to say christmas music isn't played. while i ate lunch in a downtown chengdu restaurant, jingle bell rock was on repeat. it played about five times during the meal. every time there was a slight pause between the last and the next i hoped. my hope never came through. i couldn't stop thinking of macaulay (i had to look up how to spell that name) culkin fooling those crazy crooks by setting up a fake christmas party. what a caper!

but i am in posession of some pine incense my folks sent me and the internet to scare up some good christmas music. i may not be able to have a white christmas, but i can have an enjoyable one.

i'm a liar

i am infamous for lying about food. (well, perhaps not infamous, but a little exaggerated self-deprecatism never hurt anyone.) this includes, "i'm done," "i can't eat anymore," "last one," "this isn't that spicy," "no i in't urn y ongue." the latest was posted monday night on this very blog, promising an expose on the market, and the food therein.

instead, i was kidnapped and made to watch senior i english plays.

and when i say kidnapped, i mean i walked in to watch a few plays, and was forced to judge all thirteen, which put me back home way past my bedtime (9 pm).

the program was as follows:

american dreamz
harry potter
beauty and beast
the fire of hope
princess diary
the little prince
peter pan
swan lake
tulips
the emperor's new clothes
new journey to the west
pride and prejudice
it's a wonderful life

as you might gather from the titles, the judges were not scoring for creativity. most plays were taken directly from scripts found on the internet, and then edited down to be less than eight minutes. (i was told, as a judge, to subtract points if a play went over 8 minutes. when i asked how i should know that the play was too long, i was told to guess.)

but the show was impressive. the seniors (sophomores) had been practicing for the last month, and they had clearly spent a long time on costumes and makeup. for the little prince, one of my students dressed up as a fox--complete with head and all. many of the plays featured dancing, singing, and at least three of them had a violin (one play had two).

before each play, there were four students who would stand up and introduce each play. clearing chosen for their english prowess, the joked their way through 2 and half hours. i realize now my experience was much like the oscars. my favorite part was when of my students quoted brokeback mountain ("love is a force of nature") to introduce a play. in all my classes, the movie is notorious as a joke, and i am still wondering if she was joking or not.


after all the plays were over, i was pushed out on stage to "comment" about them. in actuality, i was burning time as they calculated the winners. i'm pretty sure i was picked because i'm the only one who could extemporize in english. for my first time on live tv (it was filmed and broadcast to the rest of the school), i don't think i did half bad. i did use the word excited four times in about a minute speech, but otherwise i thought it was okay.

the plays that got first (there were no losers, only third place) were harry potter and the emperor's new clothes. i think harry potter won because it was harry potter, but the emperor's new clothes was a good play. it was clean, well blocked, and there was some good slapstick in there, too. i mean, sure they had a great foreign english teacher, but i'm positive they won are their own accord.

the fair

at the university village there is a fair. now in fact, it's just a bunch of street food carts grouped in one location, but there still is a festive atmosphere that pervades. there, of course, are the guo kui people, who also sell french fries. the fries are made by taking a metal basket, and weaving julienned potatoes inside of it, so it makes a basket inside the basket. that is then deep fried. the basket is then dumped out, sprinkled with chopped onions, parsely, dried pepper flakes, and of course, msg. haven't yet tried it, but i plan to. i'm making my way slowly around the fair, trying to sample all the types of food. to be honest, this marketplace is one of the most diverse places to get food here in chengdu. and it's in my backyard. hooray!

as the week goes on, i'll be posting on a different food from each of the carts. tomorrow, cabbage tacos!

traffic and banks

friday was the day i decided to finally open a bank account. i researched how to say, "i want to open a bank account," and set off for the nearest branch to the school on my bike. leaving on a friday can be frustrating. cars are parked everywhere, mostly by parents picking up their children at one of the the three schools in the same vicinity. i estimate that means 6 or 7 thousand students leaving at once.

there are cars, pedicabs, and taxis parked everywhere, including the middle of the street. figuring i'd be okay on two wheels, i headed towards the gridlock of cars. soon i was in traffic. not car traffic, but bike traffic. i was behind a scooter as we followed a line of two-wheeled vehicles through a narrow channel of cars. a pedicab passed me on my left and then cut me off, so i angrily rang my bell at him. i was contemplating the bird, but that's bad karma, and i'm not sure he would have known what that meant.

soon though, i was out, and cruising toward the bank of my choice, "the chinese construction bank." they have a bunch of atms, and they're affiliated with my bank at home. i locked my bike out front, and realized that the lobby had about 20 people waiting for 3 tellers. i cursed myself for not bringing my book. i approached a complicated touch-screen machine to get a number for the tellers. as i was about to press the button for a non-vip number, a security guard stopped me. he already had a stack of numbers printed from the machine in his hand, and he gave me one. chinese culture will never cease to make me wonder. i took my number and got ready for my wait.

watching the led panels above the teller windows, i was excited to see that i only had 13 more people to go, and it seemed not everyone was showing up. after waiting maybe two minutes, i was approached by a bank employee. she said something in chinese, and i told her the sentence i had been practicing in my head for the entire afternoon. "wo yao li yin hang zhang hu." she quickly brushed this off and repeated herself. so much for my practicing. i gave her my passport, and she asked me to sit down in a different chair.

oh, my bearded white face. always getting me special treatment. i don't like having an unfair advantage, but when something like this is forced on me, i'm not going to argue. i'm thinking it's retribution for getting hello yelled at me all the time.

the woman had me fill out an account opening form, and when the next teller was available, she ushered me to a seat in front of the window. i answered their questions, and tried to help them out when they had trouble figuring out my last name from my passport. (james bickley mc swiney gives them many choices.) the whole time, this other bank employee was standing over me, doing nothing. whenever they needed something from me, the teller would ask me, then the woman on my side of the glass would ask me. i would start to put whatever they needed into the space under the window, and before i could, the woman on my side would take it from me, and do it herself. talk about service.

after many stamps--a red stamp makes anything official--and a new impersonal atm card, i was good to go. i thanked them, and left. now i don't have a ton of yuan underneath my mattress anymore. sweet.

well, well, well

ahhhh...the whims of the chinese government. for a time now, it is impossible to say how long, blogger has been accessible to me. last night, i finally realized it. it's nice to have complete control over my posts again. i will savor this open time, as long as it lasts. thanks again, china.