The Princess of Belgium and the short one from Hale and Pace

Firstly, hats off to the England rugby team on a sterling victory over Australia. I should also personally thank David Campese (Australian idiot) for his expert pre-game analysis - 'England have no idea and will lose'. Good call, Dave. Also hats off to the New Zealanders, who have choked yet again. To cock it up that many times is an achievement in itself.

For the last few weeks, I've spent a fair amount of time on the Internet, following the rugby. I really should be using this time to read Chinese, but reading Chinese is painfully slow and lacking in rugby-orientated content. My task for next week is to find a place to watch the semi-finals. I found a German bar the other day with excellent imported German beer, so there must be somewhere in this 6 million person city with satelitte TV.

As to the title of this blog, these are two people I saw in my new job, which I started last week. I work 3 evenings a week in a hotel, supposedly as 'General Service Manager', but really just talking to the foreigners, a little translating, a little sorting out foreigner-related problems, etc. I wear an outfit that makes me look like Alan Partridge - blue, white and yellow striped club tie, etc. It's pretty simple work, and I get a free Western buffet dinner every shift. Taking full use of this offer, last time I had, amongst numerous other things, 8 mini steaks.

(Incidentally, last week I arrived for work too early, so went to have a quick look at a nearby park, adjacent to the city wall. Everyone stared at me when I went in, but it's fairly normal in China, I thought nothing of it. Then this guy comes up to me, chats a bit, asks if I want to take a walk with him. I say no. Then another guy comes up, we have an identical conversation. Thinking something is a little fishy, I turn round and there's lots of people standing behind me, staring at me. Then I realise everyone here is male, and that I had found Xi'an's Clapham Common. A hasty retreat followed).

This last week, the World F1 Powerboat Championships came to Xi'an, and for some strange reason they all stayed at our hotel. I say strange, because this is at most a 3 star hotel, yet they call themselves 'pre -5 star', whatever that means. Throughout the week, there were a number of problems, mostly stemming from the Chinese staff being hopeless at English. It's good for me, because I can practise Chinese with them, but it's amazing how bad it is, given how long they study it for. Typical conversation is as follows:

Guest: Can you speak English?

Hotel staff: Yes.

Guest: What time is breakfast?

Hotel staff: Yes.

Guest: No, I said what time is breakfast?

Hotel staff: No.

(Guest angrily exits).



One of the receptionists is actually scared of foreigners. When a foreigner came to the front desk, she would glance up at him, the foreigner would open his mouth to speak, then she would just turn away, hoping this ogre will go away.

I also love the way they deal with things. You ask someone for something, they will ask someone else, they will ask someone else, they will ask someone else, and a long time later you will get the opposite of what you originally asked for. It's like Chinese whispers without the whispering.

The F1 people mostly consisted of Italians, a few other Europeans and some Arab princes. The main thing I noticed was how physically big Europeans are. It was pretty obvious that the Europeans were the ones driving the boat, fixing the boat, etc, and the Arab playboy princes were providing the funding. I saw the Princess of Belgium, but she didn't look very pretty to me. Also, one of the Finns looked just like the short one from Hale and Pace. Maybe it was him, who knows. I've seen a lot of lookalikes recently, actually - last week, I saw a French guy who looked just like Dr Mengele.

Speaking of Germans (good link, huh), with this new found income I can afford to go to the German owned supermarket near my flat to buy some decent stuff and start doing my own food, particularly breakfasts. I just love the garden furniture display outside, and the fact that not one single person in China has a garden. Genius. But inside they have a good array of breakfast materials, so I bought some Chinese yoghurts, French cereal bars and German cornflakes - 'Der knusperfrische Start in der Tag'!! Ja, tasten ist gut. The controversy about Chinese made products has some truth - a lot of things made here are poor quality. But that's why they are so cheap - pay peanuts, get monkeys. If you pay a labour force nothing and ensure that safety standards are not enforced in the effort to keep costs down and profits up for non-producing managers and directors, it should be unsurprising that quality is an issue.

Recently I've been in the local bar a lot, ostensibly to practice Chinese. There was a guy there last week, I guess he could be considered 'cool', he had a friend and some attractive girls sitting around him. He wore dog slippers that looked like the car in Dumb and Dumber, and when he sat on the desk, he sat with his knees up like a kid. These are the cool guys. Another time, a group of middle-aged men, bored with their wives, came in because they heard that this bar had a lot of 'mei nu' (beautiful girls). When the bartender said they had gone home for the holiday, they left because the only decent way for moneyed, married, middle-aged men to drink in China is to pay young, bored-looking girls to sit and drink with you. These are the cool guys.


A couple of weeks ago, I met a person who lives on the floor above me. A couple of times a week we get together, speak Chinese, English, etc. But she wants to watch Friends, which is good for me (nice to see some TV that I can understand). She pauses it in places she doesn't understand, and I explain. Incidentally, she is a Christian (I've met more Christians in Xi'an than in England), and being Chinese as well, incredibly conservative. Yet she has a tremendous ability to pause the DVD on all references to sex and amusing body parts. Recently I've had to explain the meaning of the following: 'diaphragm', 'wood' (the other meaning), 'skidmark', 'burning loins', 'topless babes', 'taking me roughly in the barn', and so on.

And finally, a word on the weather. 4 weeks ago it was extremely hot, sweaty and horrible, now it is freezing cold, wet and horrible. Autumn lasted an entire 3 weeks. Hats, gloves, scarfs, the whole kaboodle has been dusted off and all is being worn. And to cap it all off, everytime it rains my building has no hot water, so ice cold showers all round. Still, I'm not fussed - the main thing is we beat the Aussies.