Monday Miscellany

My weekly roundup of pictures that don't necessarily have a story to go with them.


One of the many security guards on the school campus. With straight backs, military clothes, and white gloves, they take their job very seriously. I am sure that here, they feel they have landed a good job, while back in the U.S., this would be seen as a "crap job", and they would make sure they looked like they hated it.


A school assembly. The kid in the foreground is a really nice Korean boy who goes by Danny. I can't even remember his real name.


The weekend light, fountain, and fire show on Rainbow Walk at Jinji Lake. It is bigger than the show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Cheesier too, but in a good way. The shows usually happen weekly, but they have been sporadic lately because of tunnel excavation under the lake at this exact spot for the new Suzhou subway, scheduled to open in 2010.




Two views of old Suzhou. The second photo is the back door of someone's kitchen, with ancient steps going right down to the canal. It is a very evocative scene for anyone who doesn't have to live in this kind of poverty. I'm sure that, whoever they are, the get tired of tourists photographing them.

Defies my attempts at coming up with a title.

An incident from last night has left me really upset, and I don't know how to describe it other than just to tell the story.

Lee and I were out at a store. As we were checking out, an altercation began at the next aisle. That isn't quite the right word. A man, around 40 to 50 years old, began yelling at the cashier. She was a young girl probably around 20 years old, and about 5 foot nothing tall. He kept getting louder and louder, and then became more belligerent. He pounded the counter forcefully, waved his hands aggressively, and continued to sound more and more angry.

He was surrounded by a group of four or five friends. I'm not sure how many were with him, because there were other people around as well, including employees and other customers. The employees just seemed to stare at the floor, and some of the bystanders seemed to think that this was very funny. I only later realized that some of those must have been his friends, because when he finally did leave, they left with him. Everyone else just looked on passively, including the employees, and even the two security guards in the area.

The girl became more and more distraught. She was not arguing back, and she looked like she just wanted to crawl under the counter and hide. Finally, she crumpled onto the floor sobbing. Then, and only then, did a couple co-workers come to her and comfort her. At that point, finally, the angry man left, continuing to yell at her all the way to the door.

This is an argumentative culture. I'd heard that before, and I've already seen it for myself. Old men stand in the park and have recreational disputes. So far, that doesn't describe anything I haven't seen in France or Italy, but here, it goes farther. For example, for the last two weeks, the police have been out in force at the nearest intersection trying to establish some traffic order (see Lee's latest post about traffic at http://resolutelee.blogspot.com/2008/09/amazing-race-to-church.html). This police effort is being met with serious resistance. More than once, I have seen people, especially women, get in the faces of the officers and scream at them. It goes to an extreme that would get a person arrested in the U.S., but here the officers just stand there and take it. Sometimes they even seem to cower, and spectators stand around and enjoy the sport. Obviously there is a deeply rooted cultural aspect to this. As a side note, over the years I have known several cops back in the States. More than once I have heard stories from them about having Asian women screaming in their faces, tearing up tickets, etc.

The problem with last night's incident is that it wasn't an argument. The man was aggressive and threatening, the woman was tiny and looked terrified and humiliated. This scene would not have happened in the U.S., and for more than one reason. First of all, a manager would have been on it, and someone would have called 911. But also, it would not have been socially accepted. Americans are sometimes said to be rude, but we are mostly only rude in the talk too loud in public places and wear inappropriate clothes kind of ways. We are less rude than we are boorish. Rudeness of the type I am describing is very rare, back home the man would have been surrounded by a disapproving crowd, and he would have felt that condemnation even if they said nothing. Add to it the factor that the poor girl was clearly so outmatched and traumatized, and Americans, with our "root for the underdog" ethic, wouldn't have stood for it. Sane people can't take that kind of peer disapproval, which is why you almost only see things like that in the U.S. if someone is genuinely crazy (you can't include road rage situations in this, because the entire dynamic there is that people aren't thinking of others as people, but as de-personified cars).

Finally, the reason I am so upset about this incident is that I didn't know what to do about it. I have, in my life, on rare occasions stepped in and intervened in such situations. If you count all the times I've had to do it with teenagers at school, I've done it a lot. But here, I couldn't do anything for the poor little girl. I can't talk to anyone, I'm a fish out of water culturally, and all I could do was stand by and watch.

I decided part of the way through that I did have a limit. If he put his hands on her, I was going to take care of business. I had him well sized-up and measured, and if he touched her, he was either going to the door or the floor.

Whether or not that would have committed me to fighting his friends was a risk I decided to take. I'm not entertaining any macho cowboy illusions about my capacity to beat up five men, although I can at least say they wouldn't have had any illusions about how they felt in the morning. I don't know if taking action would have landed me in a Chinese jail. I have not been in a physical fight for 25 years or more, and I'm not enjoying the fact that my own words sound like a teenage boy's chest-thumping bravado. I would be sheepishly embarrassed, except that this was all real. He was obviously humilating her, seemed poised to attack her, and no one was doing anything about it. If he had attacked her, would it really have fallen on me, the bystanding foreigner, to stop it?

I talked to some friends for perspective today. All have lived here for a while, speak Chinese, or are Chinese (Taiwanese). They all told me not to worry so much about it, that people here "just like to argue", and that it never was going to turn into a physical attack because "they just don't do that".

I know, I get it. Maybe I'm just another American too far out of his own culture. But then, they didn't see him pounding his fist, they didn't see her whimpering on the floor, and they didn't see everyone just standing around watching.

Maybe we Americans do mind everyone's business too much. Perhaps we don't respect other cultures enough. But there are a lot of things in the world worse than American cowboy chivalry. This was one of them.

New Concepty English for Education of Weekend

This is the first of another weekly feature I'm going to start. It is dedicated in name to New Concepty Cuisine, a local restaurant that is, sad to say, no more. The kids had wanted to eat there just because the name was funny, but we never got the chance. One day the sign was there, and the next day it wasn't. Two days after that, a big new sign went up for the 369 restaurant. One day after that, the 9 fell off the sign and landed in the parking lot. I don't know if anyone was hurt.

In any case, this weekly post will not be about shoddy construction, but about all of the weird garbled English we see around here. As I said once before, English is often used for decorative purposes only, and verification and proofreading of that English is irrelevant. I'm not mocking the Chinese too harshly for that, because it does go both ways. For example, I've been wearing a tie to work that has Chinese characters on it, and the Taiwanese kids tell me they don't make any sense. Fair enough. Nevertheless, even when the English here is supposed to be saying something real, it still often makes no sense.

For this feature, the ground rules are that I am only going to use photos that I or the family have taken. If you wan't to see a lot more of this sort of thing, I recommend http://www.engrish.com/. It is primarily centered on Japan, but it's got good laughs.

This is the ATM closest to our house. The machines work the same here, although sometimes the number pads are reversed. They always have an option to choose English, although sometimes they don't tell you in English how to chose English. A variation on that are the ones that require you to choose English before you put your card in. If you fail to do that, you are going to have to figure out in Chinese how to get your card back. Lee got caught by that one a few days ago, but she limped her way through the Chinese menus and successfully made the withdrawal. An additional quirk is that the button labeled "Correct" means go back and correct your request, not that you are correct and now you can move on. I can't get used to that, and I'm always cancelling my transactions halfway through.

However, when you finally figure out all the steps, you do get the sweet victory of having your Transaction Comleted.

The Secret Ingredient

Thanks to everyone who gave me a guess (both in comments and directly by email), as to the identity of the missing food product I haven't found. I'll eliminate the suspense... it is chocolate chips.

I don't know what is so hard about chocolate chips. Why haven't they gone worldwide? They are little pieces of chocolate in a bag... what could be more obvious than that?

I have seen them in one place; as one of the available mix-ins in the local outlet of Cold Stone Creamery. Yes, we do have that. It is mostly the same as the ones back home. The Americans here are obsessed with Cold Stone. Quite ironic that we find it here, considering that the original store is literally in our old neighborhood in Tempe, Arizona.

Anticipating this potential disaster, we brought a couple dozen bags of chocolate chips. Several of our suitcases were a few pounds light, and chocolate chips come in convientent one pound bags. They got added as ballast, as it were.

Tomorrow Lee and a friend are going to the other side of town to a store called Metro. It is sort of a Costco, I guess. It is members only, and to be a member you have to be part of a corporate account under your employer. Apparently it has a lot of high quality western goods, and around here the expats, starved for familiar comfort foods, speak of it in almost reverent tones. It is like it is Shangri-La or something. I have a Dutch girl in one of my classes who, when she realized I hadn't been there yet, acted like I lived in Orlando and hadn't ever been to Disney World. She has asked me literally every day since then, "have you been to Metro yet?

Maybe Lee will spot the rare and elusive chocolate chip there.

My kingdom for a threaded doohickey!

I noticed the other day that basically all I have posted about is hunting for food. I don't want to make it sound like I have some obsession but, well it has been an obsession. The sad part is it hasn't been looking for good food so much as looking for any food. We've really been struggling to get a normalized pattern of groceries and meals based on locally available stuff. I've written about western foods mostly for the entertainment value, but we are trying to "go native" to a certain degree, and most of our food has come from regular stores and our local "wet market" (produce).

Of course, it hasn't been just food that we have needed to search for. All the little odds and ends that make up a household have to get found, from school supplies to outlet splitters to laundry soap. Now, finally, our basic routines are starting to feel established. I've been joking that we are moving out of our "hunter-gatherer stage".

On the issue of tools, however, I'm still feeling very Stone Age. China these days is an advanced society, but labor is very specialized. Not a job gets done that you don't have to pay someone else to do, and that is really annoying me when it comes to minor household repairs and such. There is absolutely no do-it-yourself culture of any kind, and therefore, the tools and supplies are completely unavailable. The big grocery stores have a tool section about like what you find at an American grocery store. We went to a store called B&Q, which is a Home Depot-ish type store. It had fixtures and materials (like laminated flooring, stoves, sinks, etc.) but very limited offerings of parts, hardware, or building materials, or tools. Literally, what it has to offer is not much more than one would find in a Walgreens grocery store in the U.S.! No one I have asked so far knows where to buy real tools, either... it really is bizarre.

I'm not just saying any of this on my own authority either. We have met a friend who works for Black and Decker here. He says there is virtually no consumer market for tools in China. Only the professionals have them. I use the term "professional" very loosely. I'm thinking of starting a special blog series titled "Really, Really Bad Caulking Jobs". Several pictures could come from our apartment.

I have a pretty good selection of real tools coming in the stuff we shipped, but they won't do me much good, because I can't find any of the little bits and pieces that you need to ever fix anything. All the screws, brackets, and little hardware doodads, they don't exist! Based on available supplies, I can't even fix basic things like cracked outlet covers or the water stream that runs over the edge of the tub and puddles the bathroom floor. I really, really miss having a standard American hardware store. Not only did it hold lots of useful stuff, but the hardware store was always my sure-fire-no-questions-asked errand. It could always get me out of the house! (Where you going honey? Oh I just need some stuff at the hardware store....) A guy can always find something useful in a hardware store, even he didn't know it existed, and even if it fixes a problem he didn't, until that moment, even know he had.

I will get back to my quest for food later, right now, I wan't you to just go to a regular old ACE hardware store for me, wander up and down the aisles, and take it all in. When any of you come to visit, I'm going to give you a list of things to bring me.

The Quest for the Holy Grail

Okay, so I really like Cheerios, and I'm man enough to admit it (at least it isn't Cap'n Crunch). Authentic General Mills Cheerios were one of the last American products that I couldn't find. I love cold cereals generally, excepting the over-sugared ones; they are not just for breakfast. I've had people mock me for that, but I know I'm not totally alone on this one either (Missy C., if you are reading, please give me your vote for the joys of a late night "cereal snack"). I have nothing against generic brands of my other favorites, like raisin bran and miniwheats. For some reason however, the non-Cheerios toasted oat rings never get it right. Elizabeth, we've exchanged emails on this one, so back me up. Of course, this box cost $10, but they aren't cheap back home these days either.

I found the Cheerios in one of the several small "Western" markets that dot the area. This time, I had to go into one of the fancy apartment complexes. This particular place seems almost exclusively populated by wealthier Westerners, so apparently there is class discrimination when it comes to breakfast cereals. The Horizon II Resort Apartments are quite posh, and they have none of the slapdash look that characterizes many of the residential buildings here (no deteriorating plaster, no crusty surfaces, no tacked on air-conditioners, no random wires strung between windows). Actually the place looks almost like an expensive French or Italian neighborhood. The two restaurants I saw looked very exclusive.

Speaking of looking French, I had to laugh to myself when I walked past one of the bars and heard the music from within. Greg C., if you are reading, confirm for me the one single song that we heard over and over and over in France back in the old days? It could only be.... Hotel California!

Back to the Cheerios. At this point, here is my scorecard of American products that were difficult to find:

1. Baking powder and baking soda - found at the Summit Market near Singa Plaza
2. Crisco - so smooth, so white, so creamy.
3. refried beans - too expensive, but we have some coming in our shipping.
4. tortillas - lame, but edible. I will be making my own.
5. proper potato chips -although I haven't actually purchased any yet.
6. vanilla extract - once again, too expensive, but again we have some coming in our shipping.
7. Mozzarella cheese - haven't bought it, but it doesn't look so good. None of the cheeses we have bought have been good.
8. Dr. Pepper - haven't bothered to buy any, but it is strangely comforting to know it is there.

There are a lot of other miscellaneous things that I have been fascinated to see in the western markets, even if I won't be buying them anytime soon. For example, there are graham cracker pie crusts and brownie mix (which we may want some time), and “hot pockets” and marshmallow cream (which we never will).

But in all that, there is one great American product that is conspicuously missing, and maybe you can figure out what it is. I'm going to leave you all in suspense on that one... please give me some comments.....

Here Comes the Sun

Two days ago I saw something I hadn't seen in a while... blue sky. Its absence hasn't yet bothered me as much I as I thought it would, although maybe it will get to me. I think I've been okay with it because there is almost always good daylight, except that the view to the horizon is almost always white. There must be some ratio of fog to smog, but it seems to be mostly the former. Suzhou has not seemed especially polluted, compared to other Chinese cities. I can't say that by personal experience, as I haven't been to other Chinese cities yet. Beijing, of course, is said to be terribly polluted, as was much publicized during the run up to the Olympics (side note: I doubt that people outside of China have any idea what a big deal these Games were to the Chinese. Even now, nearly three weeks after they ended, Olympic imagery still dominates television and print advertising, and retrospectives on the events are still a regular feature on television. The national obsession has clearly not yet run its course).

Back to the pollution issue. So far it doesn't seem so bad here, and I'm going with mostly fog as an explanation for our white skies. To draw on Lee's experience, the pollution in Beijing was only moderate on the two days she was there two years ago. Based on friends' experiences with terrible Beijing pollution, she figures it must have just been a fluke. For her, it didn't even approach the benchmark set by her visit to Budapest in the 1980s; she says she can still remember the taste in her mouth.

We are discussing going to Beijing during our week break in October. Then we can all see for ourselves. Until then, it was ever so briefly Blue Skies over Suzhou.

A society of illiterates

One of the main features of life so far in Chinese is what it feels like to live in a place in which you can't read anything. Humiliating doesn't even begin to describe it, although it would doubtless be more so if all of us Westerners were not all in the same boat around here. We live and work among dozens of college educated professionals who cannot read street signs and package labels. Actually, street names are not so bad, because they are almost always written both in Chinese characters and in pinyin (the Romanized version, but few Chinese can read it, so it doesn't really help all that much with taxis, directions, etc). When it comes to stores, at least we can look in windows and see what they are selling. A lot of product advertising has English as well, although often it is more for decorative purposes than for actual useful information. Verifying and proofreading English is irrelevant to the Chinese. The following is one example, from an ersatz "Western" restaurant. We have seen plenty of others.




I'm not exactly sure what Boston Butt is, but it looks tasty.

My real point here is what it does to your life and your way of thinking to live in an environment in which you cannot read and write. I've spent time in Europe. Not being able to talk to anyone is a pain, but you can always read enough to get by. If you know a bit of Latin, or one of the Latin languages, you can at least read signs in Europe. In China, all bets are off. We can't talk, we can't read, we can't write. We all are reduced to hoarding package labels so that we can buy the same thing in the store next time. We all carry around stacks of "Idiot Cards" listing place names and addresses in Chinese to show to taxi drivers so that we get where we are going, and then have some hope of getting home again.

One of our sets of Idiot Cards, note that one says Pizza Hut. We haven't tried it.

A few days ago, Lee went on our first evening date in China, leaving the kids home alone. I had a recommendation from another teacher on a good place to eat. It was a Chinese Muslim restaurant in downtown Suzhou. His directions on how to find it are a classic illustration of the predicament I am describing: "Go down to Bar Street, find the Shamrock (bar). The restaurant is across the street, look for the ladies wearing the little hats."

There you have it. College educated professionals, and the best we can do is tell each other to look for the ladies with the little hats. Actually, we couldn't even really tell the taxi driver where to take us. First, we had to ask around to even find someone who knew the Chinese name for "Bar Street", which is, of course, only what the Westerners call it for not knowing the real name of that one street that has a lot of bars on it. Then, we found an idiot card for another joint on Bar Street, and got the taxi driver to take us there. We had to walk nearly half a mile after that, looking for the Shamrock. And then for the ladies with the little hats. (Muslim headcoverings, by the way).

Incidentally, the food was excellent. Truly phenomenal. A lamb stew in a deep plate lined with bread. At least the menu was partly in English, although garbled. We are going to go back, but we have no idea what the name of the restaurant was, as it was written in Chinese (there was also something on the sign in Arabic). We took a business card from the register... it is our only hope.