I Love China

The Internet is a wonderful source of information and Wikipedia is one of my most used sites. How else for example, would I know that Will Smith was born in the same year as me, or that Martin Luther King Jr died a month before I was born and that he was younger than I am now when he died.

But it’s also useful for other things, like the page about Chinese table manners:

• Strong alcohol, called baijiu [pronounced "by joe"], is often served throughout the meal; and it is customary for the host[s]/hostess[es] to insist that guests drink to “show friendship.” If the guests prefers not to drink, they may say, “I’m unable to drink, but thank you.” [in Mandarin: "Wo bu neng he jiu, xie xie." {whoa boo nung huh joe}] The host may continue to insist that the guests drink, and the guests may likewise continue to insist upon being “unable” to drink. The host’s insistance is to show generosity. Therefore, refusal by the guests should be made with utmost politeness. Beware: If a guest drinks alcohol with a subordinate at the table, the guest will be expected [if not forced] to drink a glass of the same alcohol with each superior at that table, and possibly at other tables too—if the guest has not passed out yet.

• When the hostess says her food is not good enough, the guest must disagree and tell her it is one of the finest foods they have ever tasted.

• Belching, smacking, and sipping is allowed. Talking with a full mouth, eating with the elbows on the table and tasting from a table guest’s plate is also allowed.

• When eating food that contains bones, it is customary that the bones be spat out onto the table to the right of the dining plate in a neat pile. Spitting onto the floor is almost never acceptable.

• When people wish to clink drinks together in the form of a cheer, it is important to observe that younger members should clink the rim of their glass below the rim of an elder’s to show respect.

These are all very helpful, but I have a few of my own to add:

• It’s perfectly acceptable to rest your foot on the adjacent chair, or even on your own chair.

• When the bill comes, it’s polite to make at least a weak attempt at fighting to pay the bill, although you should allow the host to eventually win the battle and avoid losing face.

• Playing on your PSP / Nintendo DS, reading magazines or sending texts while ignoring your other dinner guests is perfectly acceptable.
• Screaming at the waitress to bring you more beer while she’s busy taking the order of the table next door is completely okay.

• Bringing your own food and drinks to consume in the restaurant is perfectly fine.
• Finishing every last bit of food is NOT fine as it indicates to your host that he was not generous and did not order sufficiently.

So there you go. You can learn a lot from Wikipedia, but you learn twice as much from WoAi’s blog! And if you attempt to say “whoa boo nung huh joe” I guarantee you nobody will have a clue what you’re talking about.

The title should get me quite a few Google hits, so if you’re new to this blog, welcome and come on in, but please take your shoes off first.

A good friend of mine has just found a new apartment in Shanghai and after she’d finished telling me about the new place, I realised I had not asked her why she was moving in the first place.

“It’s complicated” she replied, which of course aroused my interest and prompted me to ask for the juicy details.

It turns out she has a Chinese room mate who is from Anhui, a neighbouring province. The room mate’s brother came to Shanghai with his girlfriend to look for work and of course had nowhere to stay. Shanghai is an expensive city compared to Anhui which is one of China’s poorest provinces, so it was agreed they could stay at my friend’s apartment “for a few days”.

I know most of you will see where this is going. We’ve all had experiences of guests overstaying their welcome, but there’s a bit more to it in this case. You see, one day my friend was getting ready to go out and happened to pass her room mate’s room. The door was wide open and inside, the room mate’s brother and his girlfriend were having sex.

Surely this was an accidental oversight on their part, forgetting to close the door, but apparently after that, it happened several times more. Sometimes they did it on the sofa (very distracting if you’re trying to enjoy a DVD), sometimes in the room with the door wide open.

Now, I know the Chinese are quite open about going to the toilet in the sense that many times I’ve seen people not even bother to close or lock the cubicle doors when they are going for number two, hell, some toilets don’t even have doors, but I always assumed sex was still something that Chinese were pretty shy about. Maybe it’s an Anhui thing. I think I need to make a trip to Anhui to investigate!

Anyway, it all worked out, my friend has found a great new place and is going to inform her room mate that she’s moving out this weekend. I really do feel bad for her. It’s just so selfish and inconsiderate of them to be having sex all hours of the day …. and not inviting everyone else to join in!

Well I posted last February about Enjoy’s special offer of 50% off at Lawry’s and they’ve repeated the offer all January for 2010. That’s right, show up with your Enjoy card and get 50% off, that’s half, when you order either the 10oz Lawry’s cut or the 20oz Diamond Jim Brady cut which fills the entire plate so the sides have to go on another plate!

The Lawry’s cut is 10oz and normally costs 460 RMB while the Diamond Jim Brady cut is twice the weight for just 100 rmb more, so the smart option is to get that and share. I did expect a bad reaction from the waitress when I told her that’s what we wanted to do, but to my surprise she was more than happy to accommodate and even asked if I needed an extra side salad and mash. If you need help with the maths, that works out at 140 rmb per person, but of course that doesn’t include wine, extra sides and dessert. Still a great bargain, so if you have an Enjoy card and love prime rib, get down to Lawry’s before the offer ends on Sunday!

Every year HSBC charges me 550 dollars (that’s Hongkong dollars) as an “annual fee” for the privilege of having their credit card in my wallet. Every year, I called them and politely ask them to cancel my card if they really feel the need to charge me to use their credit card. Every year, they say they can give me a fee waiver and refund the 550 dollars.

I’m just wondering how many people just accept the fee or can’t be bothered to make the call. It might not seem like much, but I’m going to enjoy a nice dinner and a glass of wine tonight with the money HSBC has just given back to me.

To be honest, I’ve almost completely stopped using the card as I now have a few Chinese credit cards, so I half expected them to call my bluff and cancel my card, but no, they were very quick to “help apply for the fee waiver”.

My number one absolute pet peeve is when stubborn taxi drivers refuse to listen to my instructions and either go the route they think is best (then we end up stuck in traffic for an extra 20 minutes) or in the case of the other night, refuses to stop where I asked and insisted on driving past where I wanted to stop and turning the next corner before stopping. His excuse was that stopping is not permitted on that street, although I have stopped at the same spot about 300 times without any problems.

So, I get out and haven’t decided yet whether I am going to pay him or not. He’s obviously had this problem before because quick as lightening he’s out of the car too, worried I am going to do a runner. I say I’m not paying unless he gets back in the car and stops where I asked him to stop. He insists he can’t stop there. I point out that there were other taxis stopping there as we passed and his response was “so if other people step in shit should I do that too?”

Well that’s a valid response if there were people pouring petrol over themselves and then setting themselves on fire, but I think in this case it was a bit irrelevant.

But what really got me was another guy who was just passing buy and had no connection to our little dispute. And yet he started to point his finger at me and sided with the driver who was insisting I could complain and report him but I still had to pay first.

As I was with a UK colleague who was a little shocked to see these events unfold, I didn’t want it to escalate further so I paid and left, but not before exchanging insults and pointing out with gestures his severe case of halitosis which almost made the whole thing kick off all over again.

Well actually, no, it has not been banned, but that is how the western media seem to be reporting this news. It appears that the 2D version is being withdrawn, but the 3D version is still going strong. Now riddle me this : if the Chinese were really concerned about the movie’s impact on the Chinese population, why would the only “ban” the 2D version? I haven’t seen it but I am 99% sure the 3D version has the same plotline as the 2D version.

I’m personally not concerned in the least if they are withdrawing the 2D version to make way for some Chinese blockbusters in time for the imminent Chinese New Year festive season. It soulds like common sense to me. But of course, the western press wants its readers to think China is a very restricted country and people have no freedoms whatsoever. And I suppose “Avatar 2D withdrawn due to lack of interest, as everyone prefers to go for the 3D version” doesn’t make for exciting news headlines. Ironic really because it’s the western population that is getting distorted information rather than independent and impartial news. On this occasion anyway.

The bottom two layers of scones and cakes

If you get up too late for brunch or, as in my case last Sunday, get up early but spend too long mincing around on the Internet, there are a few places offering afternoon tea with very reasonable prices. M On The Bund offer 3 plates of finger sandwiches and pastries for 138 rmb per person including a pot of your favourite tea blend.

Egg and cress finger sandwiches – yummy.

I have to admit, I much preferred the top plate which was full of savoury sandwiches as well as a few other snacks.

It seems most people go earlier for the brunch so even without a booking you won’t have any problems getting a seat with a view.

7/F, 5 on the Bund,
20 Guangdong Lu,
near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu
Telephone : 6350 9988

Chas and Pete (not Dave), two of my English friends living in Beijing are performing a second gig this Friday, 22nd January as part of Muse tribute band Bemused.

So if you find yourself in Beijing this Friday night and are wondering where to go, get yourself down to the Tiny Salt Coffee Bar, have a few beers and enjoy an evening of entertaining alternative rock.

WoAi and Chas at Swing Bar, Sanlitun in Beijing a couple of years ago where the manager kindly allowed us on stage to sing our version of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (I think it was closing time and he wanted a way to empty the bar as quickly as possible!)

Download the flyer here to get a discount on entry.

TINY SALT COFFEE BAR // 2308 SHANGDU SOHO // DONGDAQIAO LU // BEIJING
FRIDAY 22nd JANUARY 2010 // 21:00 // 40RMB (30 WITH FLYER)

If you’ve been to any club in Shanghai in the last few months, it’s impossible not to have heard this tune being played at least once during the evening. But if you don’t have Shazam on your iPhone, you might still not know what the song is called or who it’s by, so I thought I’d help out and post the details here.

It’s called Nobody by South Korean pop sensation girl group (I won’t use the word “band”) Wonder Girls. Apparently they are huge in South Korea and recently opened for The Jonas Brothers in the US as part of their bid to break in to the American market. If you like “manufactured” bands with catchy tunes that are easy on the eyes, this might be for you.

As an aside, we all know YouTube has been blocked in China which is why I’ve linked to Chinese website Youku, but I have just noticed that Youku seems to be blocked outside of China. So now I am in the ludicrous situation of having to link to a Chinese site for Chinese readers AND link to YouTube for those of you outside of China. Arrrghhhh!

So anyway, if you are outside of China, you can find the video clip here on Youtube.

Right, that’s quite enough on the Wonder Girls. For serious music lovers (especially if you’re a fan of Muse – the British band, NOT the club), watch this space for an announcement about the biggest music event of 2010 so far in Beijing next Friday night!

It seems China has gone mad for James Cameron’s latest movie, Avatar. I passed the IMAX in Raffles City on Thursday at around 1am and there were people camped out to buy tickets (the above photo wasn’t taken by me though). I should mention there are quite a few other theatres where you can watch in 3D and I think it’s only here the queues are crazy because it’s IMAX.

It’s interesting because most Chinese people do not pay to go to the movie theatre but instead prefer to watch movies on DVD as discs can be bought for a very modest amount of money. I do wonder if 3D will be a catalyst to change cinema-going culture here, or if it will only capture interest for 3D movies.

China only allows 20 foreign movies a year to be shown here, but 3D movies aren’t included in this quota, presumably because China doesn’t make 3D movies so doesn’t feel threatened by the competition. So I’m looking forward to the day when every movie is made in 3D!