The Warlock Imbecile

Nearly two months no “blogging” – shame on me! During that time Chinese New Year passed by, my dad visited me, some friends from Hamburg moved to Shanghai, I finished my fundraising for the “Million Tree Project”, and much more happened.

I could bore with all the details from those events and many more…but I won´t. Why? Because I will tell you something that happened on Tuesday morning on my way to work.

The compound I live in has a shuttle bus to the next subway station. It is really convenient not to be stuffed in one of the public busses with approximately 10.000 other people on their way to work. Anyway, as we drove along the main street to the metro station suddenly some of the people rushed to the windows of the bus to take a look at something that looked like an enormous fire (compared to the smoke we saw). In fact it was “only” a motorcycle so most of the people got back to their seats with a little disappointing look on their faces...it looked like nobody died = BORING!

I myself took a little longer look at the motorbike or what was left of it: completely covered by a big fireball, burned down to its very last…and a guy staring at it.

Seriously: A Chinese man standing right next to the burning remains of what used to be one of these motorbikes that carry either 10 people or 10 gas bottles. The last one might by the reason for the fire. Back to our Chinese “voyeur”: Standing 50 cm far away from the fire must be pretty hot but he didn’t seem to care. Watching straight into the fire with thick black smoke coming straight into your eyes must be pretty hurtful, but our homeboy didn’t seem to care about that as well. So why did he do it?

Two possible answers both of the leading to same conclusion.

First answer: He is some kind of warlock (random input here: Charlie Sheen, you´re the man!!) who can see the future when he looks into fire. Of course the smoke clouds come in different shapes which all indicate a different person’s future.

Second answer: He never saw a fire before. Highly likely in the modern world since everything is only electrical and there are too less fires in buildings right now.

Conclusion: He is an f$%kin imbecile.

Standing there staring at some random fire on the street with the dumbest expression on the face ever seen by mankind…jeez he has to be even more stupid than his face-expression! In the end I have to thank him somehow…he made my day start with a good laugh!

So much so far…hope I gave you another view into my daily life and what happens around me.

Next week I am going to the Inner Mongolia to plant trees there for my organization “Roots&Shoots”. I gotta admit, really looking forward to it :-) It should be fun and pretty breathtaking to see the desert, the planted trees and finally a REAL rural area in China. I will most-def keep you updated how my trip was and maybe surprise you with a spontaneous update this week ;-)

Till then – Take Care

L.

Viva Rosso corsa!

I know I haven’t written anything on my blog for nearly a month. And I sincerely feel sorry for that!

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year’s Eve so on my way from work to one of my favorite spots to chill, write, read or eat, “Wagas” near the Jing’an Temple, I thought about maybe I should write something about the Chinese New Year, why they are celebrating on a different date as we do, how the usual celebration happens and so on. But one thing on my way to the café disturbed me deeply:

A FUCKING PINK FERRARI!!!!!!!

Excuse my language but due to being one-eight Italian I can´t control myself when somebody destroys the most beautiful thing made by Italians since Da Vincis “Mona Lisa”…and NO, I am not exaggerating!

Normally I shoot people who don’t drive a Ferrari in red but because I am open to new things yellow, black or even silver Ferrari drivers shouldn’t be punished with a death sentence. But pink is just too much!

I will tell you how exactly everything happened, the seconds before and after I saw the pink Ferrari (it hurts more every time I write it). I was sitting in my cab driving along a queue of cars waiting to get into a parking garage of a shopping mall. First I just saw something shiny in front of a Toyota and then suddenly the blasphemy on car manufacturing showed itself and I didn’t know what exactly to do. Should I cry? Or scream at the women (no, she must have been a witch)? Throw something at the car? Paint it red? Call Luca di Montezemolo? 

As a consequence to this numerous ideas suddenly my head was filled with this emptiness! Soon anger filled this emptiness! 

How can someone possibly choosing pink as the color for your Ferrari. I don’t want to be anyhow some kind of anti-feminist but I think the woman driving got the car, no, the piece of art destroyed from her husband or father or lover, or some poor bastard who really has a bad taste in, let´s face it, probably everything, but at least in women and car-color. Two things pretty essential for a male person in my opinion…just sayin’.

In the end it is not only reflecting the bad taste of one Chinese women and one Chinese men but somehow a general odd thing in China: The taste of people regarding clothes, cars, etc. Sometimes I wonder whether people in China don’t own any mirrors when you see their appereance on the street. That would be an good excuse. But since I live in a Chinese family I definitely know: Chinese people do have mirrors! So, no excuse for the bad taste? Maybe it´s the change from the communist uniform to Karl Lagerfeld Haute Couture and Louis Vuitton “chic”, too much came too fast. That is probably the reason.

Anyway the result of whatever happened to give them that bad taste insulted the idea of Enzo Ferrari. A Ferrari is a race car that accidently came to the streets. What it isn’t? Some kind of doll for a spoiled and bored Shanghainese woman!!!!

Viva La Scuderia Ferrari! Viva Rosso corsa!!!!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to my loyal blog readers!!

I hope everyone had a good New Years Eve and you got to party, enjoyed time with your family or simply got smashed!

My New Year’s celebration was pretty good. First I had a dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant “Simply Thai”. The food is amazing!! It is nearly as good as the food I ate when I was in Thailand. Commonly “Simply Thai” is regarded as the best Thai food east of Thailand. When I try to be critical about the food I simply have to admit that it is too good to bitch about that maybe the service is sometimes a little bit too slow. They actually are really sometimes not of the brightest kind of mankind but anyway they speak pretty good English. And not like the one waitress at “Mr. Pancake House” who starts EVERYTHING with an “Excuuuuuse me” in the worst Chinese accent to use. She is seriously annoying!

Anyway, I was going to talk about my New Years Eve. After the dinner we went to a friend’s apartment and the way to it we wanted to buy tickets for the performance of some German/Austrian DJs and thought that a nice tiny can in our hands would be a nice companion on the way to the club. It wasn’t…it was freezing and holding a can of cold “Tsingtao” beer didn’t really warm me up. Ten or twelve would have. But one cold can in my cold hand with strong wind on 31^st of December didn’t. Spiritually it cheered me up but I am no Shaolin monk who can easily blank out everything around him, including the freezing weather and just focus on the happiness in his mind the beer can brought upon him. As I write this down write I gotta admit that I am kind of jealous. Being a Shaolin monk seems kinda cool. On the other hand I am not sure whether a Shaolin monk is allowed to drink “Tsingtao”.

But actually the way to the club, the “Mao Livehouse, was worth it. The party was a blast with good music, good people and good (Chinese standard) beer. Overall a pretty good way to celebrate the new year coming and even to celebrate a little longer than the big 00:00 ;-)

So know we have 2011. It still feels a little strange to type it. 2 0 1 1. I am not yet sure whether I should announce some good intention. Normally nobody sticks to all intentions announced on the first of January so I guess I will still wait a little bit. To be fair…most of the intentions are announced under the influence of large amounts of alcohol.

Now I will finish work and go to enjoy all-you-can-eat-and-drink Teppanyaki. The all-you-can-drink nothing for me today due to the chore called work tomorrow morning and the with work hand-in-hand going 7 am getting up but anyway the food there is good so I don’t need to get loaded to bear the food there.

Be tensed to hear about my intentions or no-intentions!

Cheers

L.

"Eau de Ascenseur"

Since I live on the 11^th floor of an apartment building I have to take an utterly slow elevator every morning and evening when I go to or come from work. Two facts about this elevator are really remarkable. The first fact is his speed. It is so damn slow that I sometimes think it would be faster to take stairs backwards or to crawl them downstairs. Anyway…the second fact is the smell in the elevator.

The dear elevator can offer two fragrances: Urine or cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoke comes in two sub-fragrances: Fresh and strong or cold and pungent.

Every time I enter the elevator there is some guessing, betting, speculations and so on even international parliament debates about which fragrance will say “Welcome back” or “Goodbye” to me. I normally go with “Eau de Urinal” in the morning and in the evening go “Eau de Cigarette”. Why? Easy to explain:

Chinese people are notorious early wake-ups. Why? Well, lets say it takes approximately 10 hours to get to work and if they don’t want to be late they should get up early enough to be stuck in a traffic jam for 2 hours and still make in time for work. As its common knowledge that Chinese people are NOT a population of zipper-headed supermen (I don’t want to be a racist, I am only quoting Clint Eastwood in “Gran Torino”…and honestly don’t know how to call people with narrow eyes properly without describing them like I do now), so they don’t get along with 2 hours of sleep every night. It is only natural that once in a while they more or less unintentionally fall asleep and what is better than a nap on the long way down to the first floor. Since in all the hurry some of the people forget to use the bathroom in the morning to “pass water” it is hard to control oneself so…lets say sometimes there are accidents about controlling the need to go to the bathroom and its is scientifically proofed that it is even harder to control that need during a slow elevator ride. It sounds really unbelievable, doesn’t it?

But what else could there be as an explanation for this urine note in the elevator? Should someone intentionally urinate in elevator? This guy must have a really boring life to do it over and over again!

Not to the “Eau de Cigarette”: Chinese people are not only notorious early wake-ups but also notorious smokers. Actually it is pretty understandable if you take a look at the price of the cigarettes. The cheapest ones are something like 4 RMB (46 Cents) the pack + lung cancer after two cigs. So after work the occasional “After work-cigarette” light up everywhere and since there is no such thing as “no smoking areas” it is totally common to smoke in such places like restaurants, pubs, supermarkets and of course: elevators. Sleeping in the morning doesn’t leave time to light up a cig in the elevator so in the evening it is even more appreciated. Some people even say it the smell of smoke covers the smell of “passed water”.

No you know why I go with “Eau de Urinal” in the morning and “Eau de Cigarette” in the Evening!

But why am I even writing about this?

Simple! There was a surprise this morning.

Someone actually made the effort to clean the elevator properly and it smelled wonderful like “Eau de Fleur”. I was so shocked that I thought that I HAD to tell you about it.

If I won´t forget it I will start counting today what fragrance will occur and will tell you at the end of the year :-)

Maybe I will forget it but maybe not…be tensed!

Friday is New Years Eve so I think you will also totally be tensed about my experiences of an Chinese Western New Years celebration! Till then

Cheers,

L.

The Christmas Report

Merry Christmas…belated!

Did I feel it coming?

Well, when I was at McDonalds, KFC or Burger King I did. Why? Because they played Christmas songs the whole time and the staff was doomed to wear Christmas hats. They probably still do. Ah, yes, from mid of November also at Starbucks. Why? The staff was also forced to wear Christmas hats and they started selling approximately 239 “X-mas specials”. At least at Starbucks they wore their hats like they would actually know what Christmas is. Now when I think about it…I should probably feel it anywhere because even the crappy hairstylist next to my office who plays “Get Down On It” by “Kool & The Gang” over and over again had Christmas decoration and tried to write something like “Merry Christmas” in cursive (Effort: A Outcome: D-). But I really didn’t feel it like I used to feel it in Germany. Maybe it’s the 16 degree during lunchtime or the fact that I am in China and not in Germany. Christmas = Christian holiday, China = 5 Christians out of 1.3 billion people.

It´s not like this is first time doing this math but I am still wondering why they make such big fuzz about Christmas. If it´s not anyhow emotional, what is all that about?

The answer is pretty easy and frustrating: Money, money and surprisingly some more money. Christmas is the perfect occasion to have some promotions and sales. When I asked my supervisor if she is going to celebrate Christmas she answered: “Yes, it’s a good time to buy some things because of the good sale!”

Isn´t that a good way of celebrating Christmas? Going into a shopping mall, buy a sweater, look at the decoration, take a picture with Santa Claus, go to Starbucks and purchase a “Cinnamon Special Latte”, go back home, sit on the couch and watch the newest season of “China got Talent” and be happy to have celebrated a merry Christmas. Sounds like a fair Christmas to 90% of the Chinese population, maybe even far more!

So as you can see Christmas in China is completely different to the one I celebrate in Germany. In China it is non-emotional at all but 100%-commercial. To be fair I think Christmas is in most of the western countries also big time money and everybody is using some kind of Christmas atmosphere to get some of the big-money-Christmas-cake. But at least the people know why they are celebrating Christmas. And for anyone who didn’t know it is NOT about getting presents from an old, white bearded mate who wears a red costume. It’s the celebration of the birth of Jesus. I don’t expect every Chinese to know but at least then they shouldn’t try to pretend to celebrate it. What would the Chinese people think when they would hear we that there are MASSIVE discounts, decoration, parties and everybody gives money in red bags to each other (Hong bao – Red bags, a tradition mainly given to children during the Chinese New Year) at the 2^nd of February in Europe (the date of the Chinese New Year 2011) only because they know they do so in China and not even know why they have a different calendar then we do and what-so-ever. They wouldn’t be happy so why should I be happy to see random Chinese people running around in Santa costumes and scream “Merry Christmas” in any nearly-western shop/restaurant at you.

Anyway, it pissed me off but isn’t Christmas the feast of love…shouldn’t I tolerate they Chinese effort of celebrating Christmas, yet even honor it?

Nah, I am not sure about that.

My Christmas Eve was all about the Chinese Christmas. On the 23^rd I flew to Beijing to stay at a Chinese family my family is friends with. They really took good care of me and on Christmas Eve I even attended some kind of Christmas show. But before that I got the privilege to attend a service in German at the German Embassy School. It was very, very nice and it made me feeling like I am home but you know afterwards there was the show…The show looked like this: First there was a massive buffet with more or less eatable European food (Theme of the evening was: “Fantastic European Palace”). Second we sat on round tables all over the ball room and on the one end there was a stage. As I started eating suddenly music made me nearly deaf!!! Another of Chinas specialties: Suddenly turning on the music without testing the volume and they obviously don’t care if half of the audience is really troubled not to scream out of pain and run straight of the room. The other half is already deaf by the way…Two hosts were leading us trough the nights program. It started with Russian dancers who were smiling like they were threatened to be shot if they wouldn’t do so and with an expression in their eyes like their already have been shot. Belly dancing, Chinese pop-songs, a singing and traditional dancing drag queen, a magician, comedians, a lottery…everything possible was given to us on stage! Fabulous, trashy, shitty, surprisingly good, funny, classy…”roller-coaster of emotions” was my personal theme for the night. Anyway I kind of enjoyed it ‘cause I could laugh fuckin’ lots!

It was a totally different Christmas but it was not only negative to be far away from home and nearly everything that was related to a, in my eyes, “real” Christmas. It was an experience to be made and I enjoyed it in a weird way though I would have loved to spend the Christmas time with my family and friends.

In the end I am kind of happy that Christmas is over now. This half-Christmas half-WTF feeling is going away and looking back it was pretty funny.

Christmas is dead, long live Christmas!

Cheers,

L.

Henan?...He...what?

Me: “Do you think Henan is a nice place?”

W.: “No!”

Good thing to know before going to Henan for my midstay. First of all I will explain what a midstay is. As I was sent by the exchange organization “AFS” this midstay was also an activity by them. The midstay is a time for the participants of “cross-cultural exchange” programs to reflect their current situation and hear about what is going to happen next and of course time to complain about the situations in order to think about how the problem can be solved. To get an environment where everybody can talk with some distance of their daily life the midstay is often also combined with some travelling and sightseeing. In our case the actual midstay wasn’t really planned as it supposed to be. I don’t want to complain but talk about my overall experience…but let´s say it is not thaaaat good to reflect if the whole attention of a city is drawn upon on you being an attraction or if you have to stay in a host family. In those cases it was kind of fun but not how a midstay is supposed to be.

Anyway, the trip started last Friday afternoon with entering the train to Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province in the north-east-centre of China. We had beds to sleep in for the over-night, 15 hours train ride. In one wagon were probably 20 “stacks” of each three beds with two building one cabin, of course no doors. At exactly 10 pm the light is switched of and it stays this way till 6 am. At this time you are forced to sleep because any kind of too loud communication will have a harsh demand to lower the voice by the train staff or banging on the partition walls involved.

As we arrived, stinky, tired and starving (wait…not me: I prepared sandwiches with wholegrain bread, salami and cheese. It is seriously hard to get all those ingredients in China) we were separated into host families, with standing in group surrounded by the future host families and we were picked by them like we were some kind of goods on a market. Luckily as it turns out I had big luck with my host family. They had a quite big apartment and surprisingly it was warm!!! Yes, it was of the heating they are allowed to have since they are north of the Yangtze River. All cities south of the Yangtze are not allowed to have heaters in their houses! That is the main reason why it´s outside 0 degree and inside as well in SH.

My host brother turned out to be pretty cool and his friends seemed so much more mature than Shanghainese children in their age, 15 to 16. In the group of German volunteers with discussed this matter and we came to the conclusion that the more loose school system is the reason. Different than in Shanghai the school doesn’t seem to be so important. Of course they still start their lesson at 7 am and have school till late but it seems not to be that serious as it is back here in Shanghai. They even have girl- or boyfriends and are flirting in public…….in SH this is probably comparable with the pope committing one of the seven deadly sins. During the day we often played Basketball or pool. They were a pretty cool crowd and it was fun. When we played basketball I thought that I OF COURSE would be superior due to my height…no, I wasn´t and it is still not easy for me to talk about how my ass got kicked by these 1.50 meter “tall” fast and skillful mates. Anyway I had a lot of fun with them and even though their English was really shit communicating was easy. We even went into some kind of Turkish bath where my host bro, his best friend and went and I really enjoyed the sauna, the hot bath and the Pingpong game afterwards in one of the many relax-areas: NOW I kicked their ass…Chinese people are sooo overrated regarding table tennis ;-)

 Altogether all were very open and completely friendly. The reason for that may be explained when you regard me the first foreigner they have ever seen in their life (ATTENTION: exaggeration). Anyway my host mum was probably the most caring person ever! In a good way though, not too much annoying and a terrific cook. She really made great dumplings, great spicy noodles (Henan is famous for their thick noodles) and her good choice for restaurants was also remarkable. But one thing will stick in my head, ok let´s say tongue: Hunan food is the m***erf***ing spiciest food ever!!! I really like spicy food but this…I can´t even describe. It totally killed me and I had to drink much beer to have the pain reduced!

Anyway after my time in the host family all Germans moved into a “Family Inn” hotel. One really remarkable thing about the hotel was that the 5^th floor was pretty much the “home/office” to several prostitutes and even the security guard praised them several times. Of course we also got an offer, 200 RMB and we even could first look at the hooker. Isn´t that called good service? In the end nobody actually got with a hooker because the price seemed too high ;-)

I don’t want to bore any of you with the details of our actual mid-stay meetings. Lets say they were successful and we had a good time. On the last day of our travel the big sight-seeing began: First the famous Shaolin temple and then some ancient Buddha grottoes’. Both places where pretty remarkable and even though it was freeeeezing (down to -7 degree) I pretty much enjoyed the sights. Especially the Kongfu School next to the Shaolin temple was impressive. Hundreds of students had their training session on a bid plain field and a lot of them even had some kind of test where they had to present choreography of Kongfu moves. I wondered what these guys will do for a living after their school education since there are not 1000 open places to be filled as the next Bruce Lee, Jet Li or Jackie Chan. Actually they all WILL go into the movie business, as stuntmen for the enormously big movie industry in Hong Kong! So maybe some of those guys will actually be punched in the face by one of the listed Kongfu movie-stars, you never know.

By the way: In the Shaolin Temple I bought a knife for 80 RMB (about 8 €). His name is “Jungle King 1” and it looks pretty much like the one Rambo uses. Just to let you know, “JK1” and me together will get the power over the world latest till June 2016. And yes I am REALLY confident about it. Just google “Rambo+Knife” and you will know why ;-)

After we visited the sights we went to Luoyang to catch our train back to Shanghai where we arrived on Thursday midday. The train ride was the usual, only with the exception that we started our trip at about 9:11 pm and we had 49 minutes till we were forced to shut up, both by the “friendly” demand of the staff and some banging on the partition wall by our dear neighbors who thought that 10 pm is too late for grownups to be awake!

As for now that’s it! Shanghai is turning Christmas. Is it? Maybe…so be tensed :-)

Cheers

L.

Me? A Teacher???

While I am managing my future career, being a teacher is number 38 in my list of future professions, right after being a tightrope artist but still in front of being a human minesweeper. I don’t want to insult any teacher while I´m writing this but I just don’t think being a teacher is a profession I would see myself in 10 or something years. But maybe being a teacher is not so bad after all!

To this conclusion I came nearly one week ago. Last Friday I gave my first lesson in “Environmental-Water Education”. Ok let´s say I got a part of lesson. I shared the time with my dear “Green Oasis” colleague Xiao Du.

We are teaching at a primary school in the Xu Hui District (it is actually pretty close to my old high school Wei Yu) and this school is regarded as the best primary school in Shanghai. So you see I just roll with da best ;-) Our class contains 24 students age about 7. Our class is about everything related to their newly build “Eco-pond”. So of course a lot of things are related (surprise) to water.

And that is exactly what our first lessons contained: Information about German and Italian water. The first one who tells me which one was Xiao Dus part will get some candy…

I don’t want to bore you with the details about my no-questionable great PPT but just want to tell you how the presentation went down. When I stood in front of the “audience” and start talking I felt that these children were really focused and were listening to what I said. I really enjoyed it and I felt like I could teach them something and they were giving something back to me. This kind of communication was pretty exciting and it was fun talking to them and seeing how much they liked to participate, especially in my experiment: Which kind of water they would like more, German sparkling water “Appolinaris” or Chinese flat water “Nongfu Spring”. Appolinaris won 2:1of votes.

So in the end I felt some kind of happiness to see those children having fun or I hope they had! The laughing face of one of the girls who asked her teacher for permission to shake hands with me after the lesson or the young boy who said “Thank You” after he received “Rocher” for participating in the experiment (and damn, Rocher is frickin expensive here) in his nice Chinese accent that this time didn’t annoy me like it does when someone is praising his “cheap/original” Gucci bags on the streets. This time it filled me with some kinda joy!

There is always the possibility that the students didn’t like me at all and I am just to self obsessed to admit it but I´m pretty sure it was real :-)

Being a teacher just popped one place in my personal career ranking and is now No. 37. Since I will have the lesson regularly on Friday it may be even possible that being a teacher will outrun No. 36: human cannonball. We will see…

From tomorrow on I will be on my midstay in Henan! It is a trip where I and my fellow German volunteers will reflect our time so far and think about what is happening next or what kind of wishes we have. We will go to Henan, a province in the middle of China. It´s cold over there and I am very curious what is going to happen there…who knows! As far as I know we will be visiting a Shoalin temple. Sounds nice but we are in China…there is always a little surprise somewhere ;-)

Till than take care and a nice third Advent!

L.