Cirque de Shanghai

There is a workman standing on our balcony in blue overalls and shiny fake crocodile-skin dress shoes. To be more accurate he is standing on the 3 inch-wide ledge OUTSIDE the windows of the enclosed balcony, and is hanging on to the thin strip of protruding metal at the top of the window sill to keep his balance.
Did I mention we live on the 13th floor?
Obviously Western occupational health and safety standards have not yet reached China.
The workman is here to replace the putty in the windows, as it has completely dried up and started falling out in giant chunks. Without the putty there is nothing holding the window panes in, preventing them from falling 13 floors into the school playground below us. And I'm not even going to start talking about the freezing winds that blow into the apartment through the gaps.
Here I am, I sitting on the couch, trying not to look at him precariously balanced on the window sill. It is like driving past an accident… you know you shouldn’t watch, but, by god, you just can’t look away.
As his toes are scrabbling at the edge of the ledge, trying in vain to get a better grip, the tune of Beethoven's Fur Elise fills the room. His mobile phone is ringing in his pocket. Our eyes lock as he silently panics at the obvious dilemma.
Oh, dude, don’t answer it. Seriously!
But in the history of mobile telephone technology in China, I think there has never been a ringing phone that has gone un-answered. Phones are answered in public toilets, in classrooms, in doctors’ offices, during candle-lit romantic meals, and while riding motorbikes.
So I watch in horror as the workman releases his grip on the window, leans in and tries to grab it with his chin, and answers his phone.
Let me recap: He is balancing in dress shoes on a three inch ledge, 13 floors above the concrete below, phone in one hand, putty and chisel in the other, gripping onto the window with just his chin.
The last time I checked, our chins did not have opposable thumbs.

A Very Aussie Christmas

[I have included some Aussie Slang definitions at the end of this post for those less-informed about the aussie lingo]

Jingle Bells, Aussie style (Traditional/Colin Buchanan © 1992 Rondor Music)

Dashing through the bush,
in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust,
esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side,
singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in
my singlet, shorts and thongs

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut !,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Engine's getting hot;
we dodge the kangaroos,
The swaggie climbs aboard,
he is welcome too.
All the family's there,
sitting by the pool,
Christmas Day the Aussie way,
by the barbecue.

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Come the afternoon,
Grandpa has a doze,
The kids and Uncle Bruce,
are swimming in their clothes.

-------------------------

Slang Definitions:
Lingo: language
ute: a
pick-up truck
esky: ice box perfect for picnics and footy matches. Click here for the perfect aussie esky
singlet: tank-top
thongs: flip-flops
swaggie: old-school back-packer
beaut: shortened form of beautiful

Isn't it Ironic

The definition of Irony: mispronouncing the word 'pronounce' as "pronunciate".

Teaching in the 21st Century

My classroom is completely invaded by technology. The students must complete a certain number of hours looking at the English softwear in the computer lab before they can even book a class, and once they finally get to class, the sound of the electronic dictionaries bleeping away constantly almost drowns out the sound of the ringing mobile phones, and the MP3 players still dangling around their necks. Students will actually answer their phones and talk loudly in the middle of class. I have lost count of the number of times students have whipped out their mobile phone and taken a photo on it of me in mid-sentence. Teachers used to have to worry about paper aeroplanes being thrown at them, but now days the students will probably just email the aeroplanes from their internet-capable mobile phones without even leaving their seats.

And counting...

I just realised I have taught over 300 English classes in the last three months.
That's just plain scary.

"I had a dream..."

Martin Luther King dreamed of equality, justice, liberty and respect.
I on the other hand had a dream last night that I went to an AA meeting for the free coffee, however the cups were so impossibly tiny that I had to get up several times during the meeting for re-fills.
Oh, how awkward.

"Whaddya mean BELOW ZERO??!!"

Today the temperature was a high of 3C and a low of -2C (see MSN Weather). Currently, at 6pm it is 1C, which, according to the weather forecast, with the winds it actually feels like -3C.
This Aussie is freezing her [insert suitable body part/s] off. For the first time in my life I have had to buy a REAL winter coat: an off-white, knee-length, quilted down coat, commonly referred to by Phil as my 'Michelin Man' coat.
Three months ago I had the air conditioner going at full-blast, and I was sitting under it in my underwear.
All I can say is that this city sure doesn't do things by half measures.

The Parent Trap

Phil and I have only been living together for four months, and I never imagined we would become parents this quickly.
Mum, sit back down, and take your hand off the phone while you wipe up the tea you have just spayed all over the computer monitor.
I'm sorry I should have phrased that better. But it occured to me last night when Phil and I were crouched concernedly over Pablo's cage that we had unwittingly become parents.
Allow me to present the evidence, Your Honour:

• We call each other just to talk about Pablo.
• We pepper every other sentence when we are away on holiday with "I miss Pablo".
• We talk about Pablo at parties until our fellow guests' eyes glaze over.
• I go shopping just to buy supplies for Pablo, and forget to buy food for the adults.
• We have spent a ridiculous amount of money on Pablo, without even a second thought to the expence.
• We (only jokingly... so far..) manipulate Pablo when talking to each other: "Pablo, I know YOU wanted to cook dinner while I was out slaving over the grocery shopping, but unfortunately PAPA was too busy playing PS2 games..."
• We spend far too much time worrying over Pablo, and devising ridiculous plans for him: "Perhaps we should put in a doggy door to the balcony so he can come and go as he pleases"; "Perhaps we should give him a doona to cope with the cold this winter"; "Perhaps we should start a college fund and enroll him now in all the best Prep-schools, it's very competitive these days"...
• When Pablo has been cute, I call him 'our' rabbit. When he has left several hundred "messages" on the couch and chewed all the books within rabbit reach, I tell Phil he is 'your' rabbit.
• We have had to baby-proofed the entire apartment, wrapping all exposed electrical cords in plastic covering and moving all chewable items above jumping height.
• I get all warm and fuzzy when I walk in on Phil cuddling Pablo and whispering sweet nothings (or plots to take over the world, what do I know) into his lop-sided ears.
  

The Prosecution rests, Your Honour.

I know he is only a rabbit, but our behaviour says Parents.

" Rabbit's clever,"said Pooh thoughtfully.

" Yes,"said Piglet, " Rabbit's clever."

" And he has a Brain."

" Yes,"said Piglet, " Rabbit has a brain."

There was a long silence.

" I suppose,"said Pooh, " that that's why he never understands anything."

--A. A. Milne

What goes up...

I know I know, what goes up must come down. I just didn't realise that applied to my self esteem as well.

Three weeks ago I straightened my normally insanely curly hair with hot straightening tongs. As long as I keep it dry, it will stay straight for about 4 or 5 days. I do this every few months as a change, and a way to appreciate (or at least learn to live with) my unruly curls.
The Chinese, with predominantly straight hair, are mad on getting their hair permed. They always assume that my hair is also permed, no matter how many times I tell them otherwise.
The day I showed up to work with staight hair, I had to endure an onslaught of comments such as:

"Wow! So beautiful!"
"Oh your straight hair looks more beautiful!"
"Beautiful straight hair is better than your curls!"
and even...
"Now you don't look like a sheep!"

Baaaa.

This was a great ego boost (aside from the sheep comment), and I proudly flicked my straightened locks out behind me as I swaggered around the halls of my school.
But then of course after five days of not washing my hair I realised that I could rival the middle east in oil production, and so I had to wash it back into it's usual mass of curls.
The first look of dismay when I walked through the door at work was priceless. The second was humourous. The third, fourth and fifth were annoying, and everything in the two weeks since then has been downright depressing.
My students still feel the need to tell me that they think my straight hair is more beautiful, regardless of the number of times I tell them that the curls are natural and I cannot keep it straight all the time.

Yes what goes up must come down, and right now my self esteem is sinking faster than a lead balloon.

Phil Quote of the Day

As I muttered maniacally into my poorly cooked meal, Phil looked at me with fearful wonder: "Seriously Lou, sometimes you are like Goldilocks on acid!"

Whining and Dining

All the ingredients were there for a romantic dinner: We were away from Shanghai, finally relaxing after a hellish work week, there was a good bottle of wine, great food, an almost in-key jazz vocalist, and of course a candle.
Oh, and a guy sitting behind Phil's shoulder hoiking up phlegm chunks the size of small meteors, complete with extended palatal vocalisation, and spitting them from a height into the ashtray on his table.
Nothing says romance more than the public sharing of respiratory fluids.

Lost in (Cyber) Space

I pity the poor american fools who have lately been stumbling on to my blog from an MSN search for "Aussie Babes". The site meter I have on this site allows me to see how people have found the blog, and I find it highly amusing to see this one come up time and time again. What did the poor blokes think when my site opened?! More amusing is that my blog is listed at 35th of 128,310 results! Those are some good odds!
Other lost cyber travelers have found me my searching: "anonymous proxy servers to get past college firewalls", "japanese porn", "big breasts", and disconcertingly "what to do with my babys placenta".
What the...???

Link...

Of course I am biased, but check out Phil's great post about riding a bicycle in China.
Very well done.

Happy Birthday Me!!

My Birthday arrived yesterday, and for the first time in many years I felt like an excited child. I don't know if it was because it was the first birthday Phil and I have managed to share in the same country, or if it was because it was my first birthday in Shanghai. Whatever the reason, I felt happiness rather than my usual complete ambivalence.
Phil surprised me with a gorgeous jacket... something I was desperately lacking in the onset of the Shanghai cold winter. It looks to me like an Aussie standard winter coat, but he assures me it is only an autumn jacket, and that I'll have to get a warmer one by January. God help me come winter.
The birthday happiness was increased to ecstatic joy upon the arrival of a new member of the family:


My great friends John and Miriam delivered this little bundle of joy. Pablo is named after Pablo Picasso of course, though the only masterpieces he has created so far have been several "nuggets of goodness" on the floor. I am going to attempt to toilet train him... don't laugh yet, it is possible... but so far he is more interested in eating the magazines under the coffee table than pooping in his litter tray. Understandable. I am considering pasting some articles to wall beside his tray to amuse him when he's there.
Big thanks to Miriam and John for giving Pablo to me, and even bigger thanks to Papa Phil for letting him stay!
Off now to Bunny-proof the apartment!

When the Ayi Strikes Back

Before I arrived in Shanghai Phil had a great cleaning lady. The day I arrived her body was taken over by sulking, clumsy aliens.
Or so it seems.
The cleaner, or 'Ayi', resented me being here for any one of the following reasons:

• She did not like the social status of being a cleaner, and so before I arrived she could pretend that she was more of a mother figure to Phil, looking after him. After I arrived it was obvious that he didn't need her like that, and that, yes, she was just a cleaner.
• She was madly in love with Phil, though she is married with a child, and was hoping for the Cinderella happy ending that lies in the hearts of almost every Shanghai girl: marrying a foreigner and being richer than they could imagine. (Of course being a foreigner equates with being rich, regardless of the reality).
• By me being here she thought that her workload had doubled, in spite of the fact that I did a lot of the cleaning myself. It may just be me, but I think if you are paying someone to come twice a week to clean your one bedroom apartment, you shouldn’t find yourself standing in the shower scrubbing black mould off the tiles with a toothbrush.

Whatever the reason, upon my arrival she started sulking like a child. When that had no affect she began breaking things. First she broke the doorbell. Then she cracked the wardrobe mirror clean in half, and dented the plaster in the wall in the process. Next she snapped the flush handle from the toilet right off. Finally she chipped the glass shelf above the bathroom sink. Previous to all of this she had been extremely diligent with the clothes washing, separating colours and hand-washing anything suspect. But in the campaign of destruction she began throwing dark sweaters in the wash with white woolen socks, shrinking the sweaters and covering them with fluff in the process. She also coloured many a white shirt blue.
When we tried to change the time she came from Wednesday and Saturday mornings to Tuesday and Fridays, she point blank refused. Then turned up at 5.30am Friday morning. Noisily.
I came to Shanghai excited about the prospect of having a cleaner for the first time in my life. I was expecting something like this:



I was not expecting this:



A friend who has been in China for a while pointed out that she was probably trying to get fired. She would lose less face if she could blame the whole thing on us (and by "us" I mean me).
In any case, the woman was a liability, and so we fired her (and by "we" I mean Phil).
And although we'll probably not get back the bond/deposit on this apartment because of everything she has broken, she had the nerve to ask for 3 months severance pay.
Oh, how we laughed.
So if you know a good Ayi, we are in the market.

I Surrender!

Living in Asia is one giant process of surrender. I have come to realise that we need to surrender as soon as possible in order to move on past the agony of futile resistance.

We surrender our anonymity.
We surrender our privacy.
We surrender our ideas of socially acceptable behaviour regarding spit, snot, and phlegm.
We surrender our personal space.
We surrender our sleep, when the cleaning lady arrives at 5.30am and starts banging about in the kitchen.
We surrender our concepts of safe driving, and our traffic rules.
We surrender our notions of what is an edible part of an animal.
We surrender the belief that you don't eat a pet for dinner.
We surrender our health.
We surrender certain manners about not pushing into lines.
We surrender the idea that lamb's placenta shouldn't come in a tablet form.
We surrender the hope that there will be at least one meal on the menu not containing meat.
We surrender our budgets when we want to buy some western food.
We surrender the ability to move our limbs on the subway in peak hour.
We surrender the expectation that a cheap meal should not end in hours spent on the toilet.
We surrender the skill to converse intelligently, or even at all.
We surrender the dream of a Sunday morning sleep-in.

We surrender. Full stop.

Just what this Vegetarian needed!

Whilst browsing in the Chinese traditional medicine shop in search of some good old multi-vitamins, I was amused when the sales woman looked me up and down and then decided what I needed:
Lamb's Placenta, in a convenient capsule form.
Yummy...

Sailing the Censor Ship

In general censorship in China has been well documented, but few people outside of China are as aware of the degree of internet censorship. Known as the Great Firewall of China, internet censorship here is far-reaching, but at times rather ad-hoc. For example the BBC news sites are banned, yet other news sites are freely viewed. Not only are the BBC news sites banned, but other less ‘radical’ BBC sites, such as the ‘What Not To Wear’ BBC tv program web-site. Curiously some sites seem to be blocked for no reason at all. For example, why would the Australian Idol official website be blocked? It consists of a bunch of superstar wanna-bes, strutting around a stage performing covers of other superstars’ material, all competing to be the one least-hated by the audience. Yes, blocking it shows a rare display of good taste on behalf of the government, but it was hardly a national security threat to begin with.

Look here for ‘China Censoship For Dummies’ for a brief overview.

According to Human Rights Watch

China’s latest clampdown came on September 25, when the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Council, China’s cabinet, introduced “Rules on the Administration of Internet News Information Services to ensure that news reports are “serving socialism,” “upholding the interests of the state,” and “correctly guiding public opinion.” As Xinhua, China’s official news agency, stated, only “healthy and civilized news and information that is beneficial to the improvement of the quality of the nation, beneficial to economic development and conducive to social progress” will be allowed.

Official Chinese sources explain away the new regulations by invoking “national security,” the “public interest,” “state secrets,” and “social order,” ever-shifting terms left purposefully undefined in the interests of putting an end to words or activities that might challenge one-Party control.

The new regulations, an update of those in effect since 2000, hit at both websites and e-mail. They aim to prevent distribution of any uncensored version of a news event or commentary. Restrictions include all news related to “politics, economics, military affairs, foreign affairs, and social and public affairs, as well as…fast-breaking social events,” such as a coal mine disaster, an official demotion, a strike, or an organized protest against environmental degradation.

“The new regulations make the government and the Chinese Communist Party the only arbiter of what is ‘healthy and civilized,’” said Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch. “The Chinese authorities apparently think that keeping more than 100 million Internet users in the dark is better than allowing the peaceful exchange of opinions or expressions of grievances. This is Big Brother at its worst, and out of step with the direction of the rest of the world in the 21st century.”

As it stands, this blog, and all others hosted by blogspot, are blocked in China. I can only see my own blog by surfing through an anonymous proxy server (such as Anonymouse). So, considering I am not a threat to the innocent Chinese web surfer, studiously downloading Japanese porn in his spare time, I could probably write whatever I wanted here.

Assuming of course that I don’t mind being deported in the middle of the night at gun-point.

More than 60 Chinese are serving time in prison for the peaceful expression of their views over the Internet. Zheng Yichun, a freelance writer and poet, was sentenced on September 22, three days before the new regulations were issued, to serve seven years for essays on the Internet advocating political reform; on July 28, a Bengbu (Anhui province) court sentenced Zhang Lin to a five-year term for posting Internet articles and essays that were “contrary to the bases of the constitution” and “endangered national security”; and, on April 27, in a case in which Yahoo! provided his name to the authorities, Shi Tao received a ten-year term for sending information through a Yahoo! email account about a Communist Party decision to a New York-based website.

-Click here for full Human Rights Watch article

Ok, I take it all back. China is wonderful, not like Big Brother at all!

Down to Earth

My classrooms have been buzzing with this story all week. China has sent two astronauts into orbit for five days (click here for full story from Sydney Morning Herald).
According to China's 2IC, Wu Bangguo, the mission was a success. "This will further improve the country's international status and national strength, and will help to mobilise its people to rally around the Communist Party and work harder for the future of the country," Wu said.

And here I was thinking the purpose of the mission was to see if you really could see the Great Wall from space.

The real Chinese epidemic?

An older cartoon, but following on from the bird flu theme: