Musak

Normally, when wandering around shopping malls, the musak that is playing softly in the background is almost instinctively ignored, as if the human brain has the capability to discern "music" from "musak" and is able, when confronted with the latter, to selectively tune it out. China is no different - the shopping malls here have musak, and quite often it is Western music, especially Britney Spears and the ilk. This past weekend, however, I got quite a different taste of the musak. While doing a little grocery shopping, the local department store had some rap musak going over its speakers. It was very loud,  and while I'm not sure who the artist was, maybe Akon, maybe not, I definitely noticed it. It wasn't the quality of the musak that stood out to my ears, but the lyrics. As the rapper was doing his thing, he continually dropped F-Bombs, and used very "colorful" language to describe certain parts of the male and female anatomy. As I stood there in the middle of the noodle aisle with a stunned look on my face, I looked to my fellow Chinese shoppers for some confirmation. I mean, if this was playing over the loudspeakers in an American store, people would be either laughing or getting angry. My fellow Chinese shoppers were more interested in looking at the packages of noodles, and had no noticeable response to this situation. My first reaction was to wonder how they could be so unaffected by this, and then I realized, they have NO idea what this guy was singing about. Ha! I laughed at myself and pictured the Chinese worker, who at the beginning of the day was assigned the task of picking out the musak for the day, and he stumbled across the Akon album, realized it was English music, and happily stuck in the CD player on repeat. It made me think of the classic tree falling in the woods paradox - that is, if someone says a swear word but no one understands it, is it still a swear word?

XLIII

After last week, I have come to the conclusion that the Super Bowl is best consumed while on American soil. Not that I have much to complain about, mind you. My team won its NFL record 6th Super Bowl, and the game was incredible, but...

For one thing - I had to watch the game at 7 am on Monday morning. Since it was a work day, I had to take a personal day from work, which kind of stinks, but I couldn't miss THIS game. Also, since the bar I was at had an international feed, they didn't show the commercials. I was kind of bummed, sometimes they are better than the game. 

The place I watched the game was a large sports bar in Shanghai, one of several such Western style bars that cater to foreigners like myself. There were quite a few people watching the game, I assumed they were all missing work like me. I met and/or counted about 20 Steelers fans and 3 Cardinals fans, so I felt like I was watching it at a bar in Pittsburgh. I even had the chance to teach a small Chinese boy that was there with his father how to wave a Terrible Towel. 

I have to say that hearing the American national anthem sung , while in a foreign country, was a special experience for me. Its something that I took for granted living in America for 31 years, but hearing that song caused patriotic emotion to come bubbling up that I haven't felt in quite a while.

By the way, the Chinese refer to football as mei shi gan lan qiu, which translates to "American style olive shaped ball". Ha! Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

Mmmm...Sounds Tasty

There is a local restaurant near my house that is known as one of the nicest restaurants in my section of Shanghai. It has a great decor, tasty food and even has a full color menu. I've eaten there several times, and am impressed by its overall quality. Restaurants of this pedigree in China will often have their menus translated into English, which shows that Westerners are expected to eat there, providing more proof of the quality of the restaurant. Well - judge for yourself if they've done a good job on the translations of their food...

1) Wonderful Gentleman Smoke Smokes Duck the Dried Meat meat     

2) Pulls out the freshwater mussel to puncture the body likely

 

3) Daily family activity yellow cooks in a covered vessel the fries eel                             

4) Sheet iron rabbit meat string

5) Loving mother fragrant crisp stomach  

6) One hangs the roast chicken