Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Shopping - Personal Health Care

So, many people know that my wife, SN, was quite sick when we arrived in Beijing. As part of my duties, I was tasked with finding certain medical and health care products in the city. Not a big deal, really, since I was interested in exploring the city and this gave me an excuse to poke around in every nook and cranny.
One day, SN needed some type of hot-pack for her stomach due to cramping (and other severe pains). Off I went, searching for either a microwaveable hot-pack or a hot water bottle. In my search, I ran across a store with the name: "Personal Health Care."
Perfect! I skated into the store to look around and quickly realized that the products carried by the store are a bit more "personal" than my tastes run and definitely more "personal" than what Stacy needed at the moment. Lesson learned. Not all sex toy shops advertise those words on their storefronts.

Work Talk - Rat Traps

We don't have mouse traps at work. We have Rat Traps! They're huge (the traps, I haven't seen the rats yet).

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Friday, March 24, 2006

Three Detergents

When you move to China, one of the first things you'll need to buy for your kitchen (assuming you use it) is some type of detergent to clean things. A quick trip to the grocery store reveals that there are some _strange_ multi-use detergents used in the average Chinese kitchen. The most prevelant detergents are sold in a triple-use formula that covers: a) cleaning your dishes, b) cleaning your countertops, and c) washing your vegetables. (!)
Why vegetables, you ask? Well, since agriculture in China hasn't been completely industrialized, you might easily end up buying vegetables that were grown on a local farm and then just transported into the city immediately after harvesting. Sounds all good and organic, right? Local produce, no transportation, dirt from the earth still on them. Sounds like a Whole Foods dream situation. Unfortunately, this produce presents a bit of a problem since the use of ... erm ... night soil as a fertilizer is apparently still prevelant.
Since normal washing doesn't take care of the ... erm ... night soil bacteria and viruses, you are required to use anti-bacterial and/or bleach when washing your vegetables. Now, I'm as open-minded as the next guy, but I'll be damned if I'm going to use the same detergent on my countertops, dishes _and_ vegetables! It's just not natural to reach for a bottle while preparing dinner and then grab the same bottle for the cleanup after dinner.
I've settled on a multi-purpose liquid for countertops and dishes while keeping a separate "vegetable wash" for those items I intend to ingest. I think it's a good compromise between my odd kitchen requirements and the bacterial demands placed by Chinese produce. No problems from my own kitchen so far, so I think it's working.
As a parting thought, keep in mind that some people have heard that plant root systems are not able to filter out the bacteria and viruses in human fecal matter. This means that all produce grown in ... erm ... night soil is automatically contaminated no matter how much washing you do. I absolutely refuse to believe this. If this were true, then there is basically nothing I can do. The battle is already lost and all of my work with the detergents would be for naught. Since I don't waste time like that, it can't be true. *It just can't*

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Tales from Behind the Curtain

Okay... Let's see if I can post this message without getting my blog placed on the Ch!n3s3 Great F!r3w@ll list. I'm terribly sorry for how unreadable this post will be but I put a lot of trouble into putting this blog in a place where it's accessible from inside China and I'm not about to risk messing that all up now! I'm sure someone will be able to decipher the reference below.
A few weeks after arriving, I was at the French household watching SeeEnnEnn. At the time, they were playing short 30-second segments of old (decade or more) news stories with summaries and quick information on what's happened with people who were involved in the events. At that time, one piece came on discussing the T^2 incident here in 'eighty-nine. It covered what was going on with a particular person involved with the events. Actually, fairly interesting for a 30-second summary. We were watching and I remarked to AD that it was surprising we were allowed to even see this. Others also expressed surprise and the matter was dropped.
The next morning, as I was getting ready for work with the TV on and the same segment started. I had enough time to think, "Wow, I'm really surprised I'm allowed to see...". Then, of course, the TV blacked out (completely). It was my first experience with controls on television programs so it took me a few seconds to realize what had happened.
In the intervening months, this has happened a bunch more times (usually on SeeEnnEnn and BeeBeeSee, although Discovery has been blacked out as well). I keep thinking I would get used to it but I never do. I keep thinking that there's something wrong with TV/signal before I review what the story was about and realize that it was "edited" out of the broadcast signal.
Sounds like it would be a fun job to sit and watch television all day with your finger on the "cut" button (NOT).

Monday, March 20, 2006

30 Stories

We live on the 30th floor of our building. There are two elevators with 4 apartments per floor. All of these numbers mean that the delivery of our house shipment wasn't that big a deal. The movers were able to commandeer one elevator exclusively for delivery of our 80+ boxes into the apartment. Long story short, everything went well until the very last item was due to come up.
We had been quickly unpacking the boxes as they were delivered. Actually, we fell behind and then movers told us that that they were also there to help unpack and store the contents of the boxes *wow*. The only item missing was the couch that had become the subject of dreams. We simply couldn't wait for it to be delivered and here I was, having checked off 79+ boxes as delivered and still no couch.
The head mover pulled me aside and told me that they were having a problem with the couch. It was in front of the elevator in Basement Level 2 and ... it wouldn't fit into the elevator (did I mention that we live on the 30th floor?). I gently asked him the standard set of stupid questions like, "Did you stand it on end, did you try pushing it in diagonally, how close is it?" He had tried everything but he said it was still 4 inches too tall for the elevator. Knowing Stacy, I understood that if I didn't get a couch delivered that day, I probably shouldn't bother sleeping in the apartment.
I accompanied him down to B2 to assess the situation for myself. We got down there, ripped off all the covers, legs and other items from the couch and confirmed that our actions did not, in fact, make the couch four inches shorter. We were left staring at the couch, our backs to the elevator, me and the head mover:
Me: *There's no way this is going up in the elevator. Maybe I can exchange it for one of the couches in the lobby?*
HeadMover: "I don't know how we're going to get this up to your apartment."
Me: "Isn't there any other option?" *He's going to make me say it, isn't he? He won't suggest it on his own. He's going to make me ask!*
HM: "I don't think so. No cargo elevator, too high for going through the window. You might have to leave it."
Me: *If I were a better negotiator, I'd be able to make him make the suggestion. Damn!* "Well...could we rip out the stuffing to make it smaller and then try?"
HM: "Frame's too big. Won't change anything."
Me: *I'm going to have to say it. I hate this.* "There are other ways to get to the apartment..."
HM: "What do you mean?"
Me: *I'm a complete ass for sugesting this and I've totally turned into a corporate goon for even thinking it.* "There are the stairs..." *Thirty flights of stairs. What's the tip for that kind of behavior?*
HM: (Smiling) "Yeah, I guess we could try that."
Anway, they made short work of it and carried it up the thirty flights of stairs. To boot, they didn't put up too much of a fight and wouldn't accept a tip at the end (I honestly tried). The couch looks great!
Other horror stories of this type emerged later. One person mentioned that a friend of theirs had the movers actually cut the frame of their couch so that it would fold in half and fit into the elevator. Back in the apartment, they put the frame back together and the couch is probably stronger than it was before. Anyway, this story indicates that I probably let the movers off easy with their exercise up the stairs.

They All Look the Same To Me...

So, it finally happened. A few months after getting to China, Essen and I finally started watching the first season of Veronica Mars on DVD (thanks PG!). It's a great show and I'd recommend anyone that likes good TV to watch it. If you don't like good TV, then you probably wouldn't like it.
After the first three or four episodes, I realized something that gave me pause and was quite troubling. I turned to Essen and said, "I can't tell the different among all the white guys. Do they all look the same to you?" She paused for a second, and then admitted that she couldn't tell who all the male characters were either.
What was worse, we couldn't even agree on _how many_ white male characters were on the show, much less tell them apart. I think I was only able to recognize Logan, the bad boy. It wasn't that I knew his face, he just always had a very distinctive necklace that he wore.
Of course, we did finally figure out who all the white guys were and we were even able to recognize them using their faces in the later episodes! Maybe this is a sign that we'd been in China too long. I think it's more an indication that the pretty boys they use on these types of TV shows are pretty much inter-changeable. If you've seen one pretty boy, you've seen them all.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Expectoration Nation - The Effect of Winter

There is so much spitting in Beijing that you can slip on the ice in the winter even though there's been no precipitation and there's no moisture in the air. *disgusting*