China is strange. Really, really strange. I regularly wonder what on earth I am doing here. I often feel like I'm in an upside down dream. Sometimes it's a nice feeling, sometimes not. The last 24 hours have just been ridiculous.
I've been thinking of, next term, not going back to study at the university. The teaching is so bad, but more importantly they've raised the tuition fee. For a very simple reason, I should be paying the lower fee from before, but they don't agree. Trying to sort this out is almost impossible. I agreed to meet someone from the office to talk about it, and he just didn't turn up. I phoned him and he said he went out. Hiding from problems rather than dealing with them is really common, and it drives me nuts. What I also find strange, is that when I go in there to ask about this problem, they always pretend this is the first time they've heard it, even though I've spoken to them a few times about it. It's so strange.
So I go to a Chinese language school nearby, where I've been looking to study instead. I wanted to make sure that I could change study places without his affecting my visa. So it's a simple question - Can I legally study in this school? Did I get a simple answer - of course not. Eventually, I get to speak to the boss. She first says, yeh, no problem. But when I pressed her for written proof of this, she started changing tack. It turns out she has no idea about this. She also said it would be better not to tell the university I won't be going back, and suggested I tell them I'm sick, or going travelling with my mother for 4 months. It's so strange - does she really think this is an acceptable solution? Two minutes before, she had said to me, 'I never lie, I'm very honest, bla bla bla'. And then right after she suggests I tell the university a ridiculous lie.
I find this often happens when I talk to people. To start with, everything seems so straight forward. But the more simple questions asked, the more it turns out they are either lying, or don't have the foggiest idea what they are talking about. Also, a lot of people are terrible liars - you can normally rumble them after 5 minutes, and a lot of the people who have lied to me have this habit of laughing and smiling as they lie, so they give themselves away. I'm sure this sounds all rather rude, but I'm just describing my experiences.
So now I have this potentially big problem. I have to go to the Public Security Bureau on Monday to ask them if I can change study places. With the university so far continuing to act without a shred of decency and a huge amount of greed, laziness and stupidity, and this new school seemingly not a whole lot better in terms of how they deal with things, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
So after talking to all these idiots, it was 5 o'clock. Not being in the mood for study, I dropped in to a local bar where I know the bartender. I have a couple of beers, spend most of the time feeling Mao ZeDong's shirt collar on 100 yuan notes to see if they are fake, then head home. Then my German flatmate - Clemens - gives me a call. He says he's had a strange afternoon, and is currently on his way to a club with several random people, they're paying, and do I want to come. I say sure, why not.
Afterwards, I realise why not. I've been to clubs once or twice before in China. It's mostly people sitting around eating watermelon, but still with exceptionally loud music. So before I go I think it would be a good idea to buy a small bottle of baijiu - Chinese vodka - and polish it off on the bus into town. Mistake number One. Baijiu, it turns out, is much stronger than I thought, and my alcohol tolerance has evidently plummeted recently.
So I'm walking to the spot where Clemens was waiting for me. And standing next to him is probably the most attractive girl I've ever seen. According to what Clemens said this morning, my jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw her. Also, wearing board shorts and flip flops probably wasn't the cleverest - mistake number 2.
We go into the club, which seemed to be full of young woman, moneyed middle aged men and the occassional foreigner. Clemens' friends and their friends - mostly fat men - were sitting round a table, where one of some had bought a huge bottle of whiskey or something like that. Seeing as I wasn't paying for it, I had a glass or two (or three) - mistake number 3.
From here on, my recollection is hazy and I was informed of it this morning. This guy wearing fur trousers and a small fur waistcoat came along, and was playing a varient of 'rock-paper-scissors' with these friends for some of the evening. It was quite a good evening, I think. After some time, me, Clemens, and some other people leave and are outside. Apparently, some guy comes out and I started doing my 'Robert DeNiro-in-the-film-Casino' impression, which involves a lot of finger pointing and liberal use of the F word. Mistake number 4. I don't know why he warranted such a talking to, Clemens said he didn't do anything. And as it was his expensive drink we had been drinking and everyone probably now thinks I'm Joe Pesci, I currently feel particularly stupid.
Next thing I know I wake up this morning, still rather drunk. In the flat is XiaoMing - Chinese flatmate - talking to some random guy in the balcony with the door closed, two random girls (XiaoMings classmates) who have been living in our flat for a couple of days sitting on the sofa eating what looked like gruel, and some other random guy in the other Chinese flatmates's room. As usual, I have no idea what's going on. This feeling is normally quite interesting, but with a hangover, it isn't, particularly when you can't for the life of you get hold of a cheese and bacon toastie.
Saturday, 25 August 2007
Saturday, 18 August 2007
More on economics...
An excellent article explaining how trade between China and America (and therefore England) really works, and how reporting of this issue in the mainstream press is worse than dreadful.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18201.htm
Its by the same person as before, a former Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Treasury under Reagan, so he's hardly a radical. It's just nice to hear a little bit of intelligence and common sense on an issue otherwise so shrouded in ideological fanaticism and stupidity.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18201.htm
Its by the same person as before, a former Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Treasury under Reagan, so he's hardly a radical. It's just nice to hear a little bit of intelligence and common sense on an issue otherwise so shrouded in ideological fanaticism and stupidity.
Monday, 13 August 2007
A slow, hot summer
The last two weeks have been pretty slow. After a reasonably cool phase, it's getting hotter and hotter again. Last week, I thought I had contracted a fever but it turned I was just incredibly hot. I did, however, contract 'laduzi' ('lose bowels') again, and have had it ever since. It's just inconvenient more than anything, having to carry a loo roll everywhere, and timing activities so that every 3-5 hours I am within sprinting distance of a suitable place. I think by year's end I will be able to go to a fancy dress party in what looks like one of those skeleton outfits, but in fact is really just me.
I've been doing some intensive study recently. I haven't spoken a lot of Chinese this month, but have been revising characters and reading a lot. I've discovered I can now more or less read simple newspaper articles. This is enormously satisfying. When I glance across the paper, it just looks less daunting and more familiar than a while ago.
I thought I would read one thoroughly, a rather amusing piece about how an Australian tourist in Beijing collapsed to the ground after being harrassed by a very perserving beggar. On first glance, I could get most of it. Then I went through it with a red pen, underlining all the characters and bits that I didn't fully understand. When I finished, it looked like it had suffered death by firing squad, such was the amount of red ink smattered all over it.
Obviously, Chinese is monstrously difficult. One of the multitude of reasons is that many characters have more than meaning. Used on their own, or with other characters, or in different contexts, their meaning changes, often completely. Another thing is that it's very difficult to tell proper nouns from ordinary words. In English, capital letters give the reader a big clue, but there is no equivalent here, so sometimes you just don't have the foggiest idea. Reading headlines is nearly impossible, I need a picture to give me a headstart.
Yesterday I was practising writing characters. My tutor said that all foreigners write characters very big and like 5 year olds, and I'm no exception. It's quite easy for Chinese people to write English normally, but foreigners writing characters is quite hard. I'm also told that being left-handed makes writing properly impossible, which is really great news.
So I'm at my desk, writing away. And while I like doing this, it is pretty boring. It was really hot, and I was pretty tired anyway, so I just thought I would rest my head on the desk for a bit. 3 hours later, I wake up and for a fraction of a second I thought I was blind, but it turns out it was just the paper stuck to my forehead. If only I could get vocabulary to stick in my head as firmly as that paper was stuck to my forehead, I would be sorted.
Besides this, I have been tutoring a kid English. Unfortunately, he has gone back to Shanghai this weekend, so my income has disappeared. Although I can't say I enjoyed it hugely, it was pretty easy and he was a really nice kid. Last week, he said 'After playing basketball, I am hot, so I like to drink a glass of beard'. He got mixed up with 'beer', but it's still quite funny even if he had said beer, he's 10 years old. It does at least mean I don't have to take taxis to his house anymore. I am getting less and less used to the driving here, and more specifically the pedestrians. Some of them just do not look when crossing the road. It is something I really don't get, walking around like they're in a deserted field, seemingly not noticing the hordes of buses, taxis, cars, mopeds, scooters, bikes, rickshaws heading their way.
Last week, I went out and about and discovered a nice park not far from my flat. It was only half finished, so had plenty of trees and grass, had quite a nice 'garden' feel about it. Because it hasn't been properly opened, and not yet completely covered in fake marble paving stones and bathroom tiles, there was no-one there. I still think I need to get out of Xi'an - my German flatmate has been on holiday 4 times in less than 6 months, I haven't been further than an hour outside of town. First, however, I need some bowel stablisation before I can consider such a move.
I've been doing some intensive study recently. I haven't spoken a lot of Chinese this month, but have been revising characters and reading a lot. I've discovered I can now more or less read simple newspaper articles. This is enormously satisfying. When I glance across the paper, it just looks less daunting and more familiar than a while ago.
I thought I would read one thoroughly, a rather amusing piece about how an Australian tourist in Beijing collapsed to the ground after being harrassed by a very perserving beggar. On first glance, I could get most of it. Then I went through it with a red pen, underlining all the characters and bits that I didn't fully understand. When I finished, it looked like it had suffered death by firing squad, such was the amount of red ink smattered all over it.
Obviously, Chinese is monstrously difficult. One of the multitude of reasons is that many characters have more than meaning. Used on their own, or with other characters, or in different contexts, their meaning changes, often completely. Another thing is that it's very difficult to tell proper nouns from ordinary words. In English, capital letters give the reader a big clue, but there is no equivalent here, so sometimes you just don't have the foggiest idea. Reading headlines is nearly impossible, I need a picture to give me a headstart.
Yesterday I was practising writing characters. My tutor said that all foreigners write characters very big and like 5 year olds, and I'm no exception. It's quite easy for Chinese people to write English normally, but foreigners writing characters is quite hard. I'm also told that being left-handed makes writing properly impossible, which is really great news.
So I'm at my desk, writing away. And while I like doing this, it is pretty boring. It was really hot, and I was pretty tired anyway, so I just thought I would rest my head on the desk for a bit. 3 hours later, I wake up and for a fraction of a second I thought I was blind, but it turns out it was just the paper stuck to my forehead. If only I could get vocabulary to stick in my head as firmly as that paper was stuck to my forehead, I would be sorted.
Besides this, I have been tutoring a kid English. Unfortunately, he has gone back to Shanghai this weekend, so my income has disappeared. Although I can't say I enjoyed it hugely, it was pretty easy and he was a really nice kid. Last week, he said 'After playing basketball, I am hot, so I like to drink a glass of beard'. He got mixed up with 'beer', but it's still quite funny even if he had said beer, he's 10 years old. It does at least mean I don't have to take taxis to his house anymore. I am getting less and less used to the driving here, and more specifically the pedestrians. Some of them just do not look when crossing the road. It is something I really don't get, walking around like they're in a deserted field, seemingly not noticing the hordes of buses, taxis, cars, mopeds, scooters, bikes, rickshaws heading their way.
Last week, I went out and about and discovered a nice park not far from my flat. It was only half finished, so had plenty of trees and grass, had quite a nice 'garden' feel about it. Because it hasn't been properly opened, and not yet completely covered in fake marble paving stones and bathroom tiles, there was no-one there. I still think I need to get out of Xi'an - my German flatmate has been on holiday 4 times in less than 6 months, I haven't been further than an hour outside of town. First, however, I need some bowel stablisation before I can consider such a move.
China's economic hold on America?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18154.htm
This is something written by a former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department about how China's huge reserves of dollars give it potential power over US policy making.
A sentence in the final paragraph is quite interesting. "It is paradoxical that Washington is putting pressure on China to raise US consumer prices [by wanting China to revalue the yuan], while blaming China for harming Americans [jobs offshored to China]." Of course it's paradoxical and makes no sense, but it doesn't stop people in the media from continuing to write such rubbish. The yuan, being valued as it is, does make for a huge trade deficit for America and the UK, but if it was revalued down, the deficit would fall, but all the products made in China and consumed in USA/UK would become more expensive. You can't have it both ways! And while moving manufacturing jobs to China does harm ordinary people, it works great for the business elite.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that China is unlikely to do anything to upset world markets, i.e., upset America. There are a lot of people making huge amounts of money on both sides of the Pacific at the moment, and I don't see any reason why they themselves would want to jeopardise that.
This is something written by a former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department about how China's huge reserves of dollars give it potential power over US policy making.
A sentence in the final paragraph is quite interesting. "It is paradoxical that Washington is putting pressure on China to raise US consumer prices [by wanting China to revalue the yuan], while blaming China for harming Americans [jobs offshored to China]." Of course it's paradoxical and makes no sense, but it doesn't stop people in the media from continuing to write such rubbish. The yuan, being valued as it is, does make for a huge trade deficit for America and the UK, but if it was revalued down, the deficit would fall, but all the products made in China and consumed in USA/UK would become more expensive. You can't have it both ways! And while moving manufacturing jobs to China does harm ordinary people, it works great for the business elite.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that China is unlikely to do anything to upset world markets, i.e., upset America. There are a lot of people making huge amounts of money on both sides of the Pacific at the moment, and I don't see any reason why they themselves would want to jeopardise that.
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
My TV big break
So this weekend I made my break into Chinese television, starring in Shaanxi TV's production 'Jie Hun Yang Nu Shu' (I still don't know what this means). It was at times pretty frustrating but mostly extremely interesting and a very well spent weekend.
The other actors were as follows: 'my fiancee', the director's daughter; 'her brother', a cool guy who was actually a really good actor; 'her mother', an extremely Chinese looking middle-old aged woman - short, dignified, poised; 'my teacher', played by the director; and my favourite one, 'her dad'. This guy had smoked so many cigarettes in his life that he had one of those splendid smokers' coughs that make you wonder how they are still alive. The inside of his face must have be lined with an inch of tar, because he was just incapable of changing his expression, which is something of a setback when you are trying to act. For the whole two days, the director was shouting at him to express at least some emotion. This guy is a cop in real life, and suitably corrupt, so he got us some donkey meat (illegal in China) to eat on Sunday. It's actually really good, but apparently if you eat too much it makes your nose bleed.
Both days got off to cracking starts. I'm told the director will call me at 7am both days to say when to meet up. Both days he calls around 8, and says we'll meet at around 9.30. So that 6.30 weekend wake-up was really worth it. And on Sunday morning, we were driving in one of those Rascal mini-vans looking for a cake shop to film a scene with me happily walking out of it with 'my fiancee'. It took for ever to find it, and sitting in the front of a car with an increasingly irate Chinese driver is not a pleasant experience, I just do not know how he did not kill at least several pedestrians.
On Saturday morning we drove out to a smaller town about an hour away to film a scene at a bus station. After eventually finding one in the early afternoon, I dusted off my actor's hat. It turns out I didn't dust it off very well, because when I saw a recording of the scene on the camera, I was reminded why I sat out a Lower Sixth Form History production of Martin Luther and the Reformation. Do I really look like that? Do I really sound like that? My voice is very un-microphone friendly anyway, and with a Chinese local language coming out of it, it's even more offensive to the ear. I saw myself on the camera for a few seconds, and no more for the rest of the weekend.
Then we went back to Xi'an to a show flat to film most of the scenes. It was meant to be mine and 'my fiancee's', but the garish purple and orange furniture made me feel very uncomfortable. As for the acting, it was getting increasingly difficult. Due to the fannying around that seems so much a part of life here, it was already late afternoon when we started, and it was clear time was short with so much to film. It was very difficult for me even to remember my lines, because it was in a language I don't understand. A lot of my stuff was filmed one line at a time. One scene I was reading a newspaper and had the cunning idea of holding the script inside the newspaper, but apparently it was poking out the top.
It's also quite difficult because the director and the camera guys refused to inform me about anything. So they'd be talking to each other, then stop, there's a silence, and it turns out that I'm meant to speak. The thought of them letting me in on this rather uesful information forever escaped them, so I had to increasingly impolitely ask them to let me know what was happening. They also never said 'action' or anything like that, we were somehow meant to guess when to start.
The last scene was horrible, I just could not understand anything of what I was saying, could hardly say it, and the some of the people were obviously looking at their watches, so I switched to using a language that I know and they (hopefully) don't and told them where a good place to put that watch might be.
As for my acting, I'm reminded of someone's comment about John Nettles, the main guy in Midsummer Murders - 'he looks like he's auditioning for the part of a comatose patient'. The director kept asking me to look more happy. I felt like Mr Burns, I was smiling my arse off and he's still asking for me to crank up the happiness. My face was sore afterwards. Tom Martyn does not do happy, he does brooding and wronged. I ended Day One in a mini-actors' huff.
Day Two
After the aforementioned cake incident, we went to the directors' hometown, a tiny village in the middle of the countryside. The countryside is the poor, unwanted half of China that is completely forgotten about by those in the cities and outside of China. I loved it. Lots of corn fields with tall green stalks, trees all around, fresh air, less noise, laid back. When I wasn't filming I just wandered round, watching an old man feeding his goat along a path, talking to old people sitting outside their front doors doing nothing in particular. The kids there had never seen a 'waiguoren' (foreigner) before, so they were genuinely excited to see me, there were loads of them crowding round and watching when we were filming.
We filmed a scene of me walking merrily along the side of a field with 'my fiancee' when some kids come along and give me flowers and I play with them and point to my funny big nose and we sing songs together and jump and dance and, oh my, everything is so gosh darn happy! Of course I felt like a complete idiot and was mighty relieved when that was over. After, we went for lunch in the director's mother's home. Being invited into these guys' houses with people who live there was a high quality experience.
We filmed a scene in the courtyard of a traditional Chinese countryside house. During this scene, the 'dad' was even worse than normal thanks to his sporting consumption of 'baijiu' (Chinese vodka-like drink) over lunch. All the people crowding round were laughing at him and by Chinese accent.
Eventually we had to leave the countryside, but we still had to film a scene inside a flat. So we went back to film to some random flat. On entering this flat, I very nearly vomited up my donkey meat. There were several huge photos of the young couple who lived there in those 'his-and-hers' type photos, with them gazing into the middle distance against a blue background, holding teddy bears and wearing white and pink. There was a HUGE one above their bed, it really was the most foul thing ever conceived. I didn't know I would be filming this scene, and accordingly didn't appropriate clothing. So me and 'my fiancee' and I are lying on the bed, having a chat before lights out, and I'm wearing a pair of very short shorts borrowed from some guy and the same white shirt I had been wearing all day. It's going to look dreadful on TV, me having the same shirt on, on supposedly different days of the week.
After a further slightly fraught piece of filming on Monday night, we had finally finished. It was a really cool experience, incredibly interesting, good Chinese practice, but mainly it had given me a great opportunity to go to the countryside with people who knew it. All I have to do now is wait for those Hollywood offers to roll in...
The other actors were as follows: 'my fiancee', the director's daughter; 'her brother', a cool guy who was actually a really good actor; 'her mother', an extremely Chinese looking middle-old aged woman - short, dignified, poised; 'my teacher', played by the director; and my favourite one, 'her dad'. This guy had smoked so many cigarettes in his life that he had one of those splendid smokers' coughs that make you wonder how they are still alive. The inside of his face must have be lined with an inch of tar, because he was just incapable of changing his expression, which is something of a setback when you are trying to act. For the whole two days, the director was shouting at him to express at least some emotion. This guy is a cop in real life, and suitably corrupt, so he got us some donkey meat (illegal in China) to eat on Sunday. It's actually really good, but apparently if you eat too much it makes your nose bleed.
Both days got off to cracking starts. I'm told the director will call me at 7am both days to say when to meet up. Both days he calls around 8, and says we'll meet at around 9.30. So that 6.30 weekend wake-up was really worth it. And on Sunday morning, we were driving in one of those Rascal mini-vans looking for a cake shop to film a scene with me happily walking out of it with 'my fiancee'. It took for ever to find it, and sitting in the front of a car with an increasingly irate Chinese driver is not a pleasant experience, I just do not know how he did not kill at least several pedestrians.
On Saturday morning we drove out to a smaller town about an hour away to film a scene at a bus station. After eventually finding one in the early afternoon, I dusted off my actor's hat. It turns out I didn't dust it off very well, because when I saw a recording of the scene on the camera, I was reminded why I sat out a Lower Sixth Form History production of Martin Luther and the Reformation. Do I really look like that? Do I really sound like that? My voice is very un-microphone friendly anyway, and with a Chinese local language coming out of it, it's even more offensive to the ear. I saw myself on the camera for a few seconds, and no more for the rest of the weekend.
Then we went back to Xi'an to a show flat to film most of the scenes. It was meant to be mine and 'my fiancee's', but the garish purple and orange furniture made me feel very uncomfortable. As for the acting, it was getting increasingly difficult. Due to the fannying around that seems so much a part of life here, it was already late afternoon when we started, and it was clear time was short with so much to film. It was very difficult for me even to remember my lines, because it was in a language I don't understand. A lot of my stuff was filmed one line at a time. One scene I was reading a newspaper and had the cunning idea of holding the script inside the newspaper, but apparently it was poking out the top.
It's also quite difficult because the director and the camera guys refused to inform me about anything. So they'd be talking to each other, then stop, there's a silence, and it turns out that I'm meant to speak. The thought of them letting me in on this rather uesful information forever escaped them, so I had to increasingly impolitely ask them to let me know what was happening. They also never said 'action' or anything like that, we were somehow meant to guess when to start.
The last scene was horrible, I just could not understand anything of what I was saying, could hardly say it, and the some of the people were obviously looking at their watches, so I switched to using a language that I know and they (hopefully) don't and told them where a good place to put that watch might be.
As for my acting, I'm reminded of someone's comment about John Nettles, the main guy in Midsummer Murders - 'he looks like he's auditioning for the part of a comatose patient'. The director kept asking me to look more happy. I felt like Mr Burns, I was smiling my arse off and he's still asking for me to crank up the happiness. My face was sore afterwards. Tom Martyn does not do happy, he does brooding and wronged. I ended Day One in a mini-actors' huff.
Day Two
After the aforementioned cake incident, we went to the directors' hometown, a tiny village in the middle of the countryside. The countryside is the poor, unwanted half of China that is completely forgotten about by those in the cities and outside of China. I loved it. Lots of corn fields with tall green stalks, trees all around, fresh air, less noise, laid back. When I wasn't filming I just wandered round, watching an old man feeding his goat along a path, talking to old people sitting outside their front doors doing nothing in particular. The kids there had never seen a 'waiguoren' (foreigner) before, so they were genuinely excited to see me, there were loads of them crowding round and watching when we were filming.
We filmed a scene of me walking merrily along the side of a field with 'my fiancee' when some kids come along and give me flowers and I play with them and point to my funny big nose and we sing songs together and jump and dance and, oh my, everything is so gosh darn happy! Of course I felt like a complete idiot and was mighty relieved when that was over. After, we went for lunch in the director's mother's home. Being invited into these guys' houses with people who live there was a high quality experience.
We filmed a scene in the courtyard of a traditional Chinese countryside house. During this scene, the 'dad' was even worse than normal thanks to his sporting consumption of 'baijiu' (Chinese vodka-like drink) over lunch. All the people crowding round were laughing at him and by Chinese accent.
Eventually we had to leave the countryside, but we still had to film a scene inside a flat. So we went back to film to some random flat. On entering this flat, I very nearly vomited up my donkey meat. There were several huge photos of the young couple who lived there in those 'his-and-hers' type photos, with them gazing into the middle distance against a blue background, holding teddy bears and wearing white and pink. There was a HUGE one above their bed, it really was the most foul thing ever conceived. I didn't know I would be filming this scene, and accordingly didn't appropriate clothing. So me and 'my fiancee' and I are lying on the bed, having a chat before lights out, and I'm wearing a pair of very short shorts borrowed from some guy and the same white shirt I had been wearing all day. It's going to look dreadful on TV, me having the same shirt on, on supposedly different days of the week.
After a further slightly fraught piece of filming on Monday night, we had finally finished. It was a really cool experience, incredibly interesting, good Chinese practice, but mainly it had given me a great opportunity to go to the countryside with people who knew it. All I have to do now is wait for those Hollywood offers to roll in...
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