Parents are all the same...

So my Chinese friends, Candance and her boyfriend, Luke, had me over for a a goodbye dinner a few weeks ago. As we ate chicken feet, bamboo shoots and river snail, the conversation turned to wasting food. I related to them that as children, many Americans are told to eat all of their food because, "There are starving children in China who would like to eat that food that you are about to throw away." My friends started to laugh. I asked them what was funny. Luke told me, "In China, most children are told that they have to finish their food because there are starving children in AMERICA that could eat the food." I was dumbfounded by this revelation - but Candance verified that she was also told the same thing by her parents. So I guess this proves one things conclusively - parents in any culture will say whatever it takes to get their kids to clean their plates!

Zhuliugan

That title of this blog could also be considered a new "magic" word for Western visitors to China. What does it mean? Zhu is the Chinese word for "pig", and liugan means "flu". I was first introduced to this word on the streets of my local community around the beginning of May as an intrepid young man, upon seeing me walking down the sidewalk, came up and asked me "You mei you zhuliugan." This is a Chinese way of asking a question and it literally means "Have not have swine flu" but is the common(and might I say simple) way of asking a question in Chinese. The man wanted to know if I had swine flu. At the time I didn't know what zhuliugan was, so I replied "Meiyou" (meaning I don't have whatever it was) and continued walking. It wasn't until the next day that I found out what zhuliugan meant, and as the week went on I found out how serious the Chinese government is taking the task of preventing its spread. All visitors from America are subject to a health check at the airport and can be quarantined at a local hotel for up to a week if they are suspected of having zhuliugan. This has actually changed my travel plans, as my girlfriend and I are leaving a week earlier to head back to China in case we get quarantined. Yikes!
Zhuliugan has had one positive aspect in my life. As a white guy walking down busy streets in China, it sometimes feels like walking along a boardwalk at a beach, where the workers try to reel you in like a fish. Salesmen and women are constantly approaching you and in broken English asking if you "Want buy watchie?" or "Want massagie?" It can be annoying, and often the hawker will follow you down the street, even if the look on your face makes it clear that you aren't interested in either his product or his company. Well - I finally found an effective way to rid myself quickly of these enthusiastic, but bothersome touts. For the last month, whenever one would approach me, I would cough, rub my stomach as if in pain, and as they begin their pitch I would say, "Wo you zhuliugan." translated as "I have swine flu." I know its not politcally correct, and at times felt guilt for using it, but it really worked. As soon as I said zhuliugan, they would peel off their oncoming path, with a look of discomfort on their face, almost as if repelled by a magnet or invisible force field. I could then continue my walk, without unwanted company, a smile on my face, and the thought "Adam - 1, China - 0"

The Joys of Censorship

This is my first blog in over a month. Lest you think me a blogospheric slacker, let me tell you it is simply not true. I am a slacker in some areas of my life, but my blogs month long silence was not self imposed, but rather a matter of censorship. Beginning around May 15th, several sites(Twitter, Blogspot, and others) were no longer accessible in China. If you typed in the website, you received the familiar error message "Website cannot be found." The truth is that the Chinese goverenment, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Tianmen Square(June 4th was the most famous day, the day of the tank, but Tianmen Square and the protests in 1989 actually lasted for 6 weeks starting at the end of April), launched a prempitive strike against any possible organized protest attempts. So....that meant any websites that could be used to organize a large group of people, such as Twitter, were not accessible from China. Even using a proxy, a website that allows you to sneak around such internet blockades, I was unsuccessful in updating my blog. How is it then that I am updating my blog today, you might be asking? Last night I arrived back in America for a few weeks! Home sweet home - it will be a short stay, but my baby sister is getting married, so I will be heading to Pittsburgh for all the festivities surrounding the wedding, before flying back to Shanghai for year number 2.