10/7/2006 China Day 12: Urumqi, Xinjiang - Chinese Short Stories
This morning I finished up the 23-hour train ride from Kashgar back to Urumqi with the 15-person Chinese group. In the afternoon, I simply rested. I washed my clothes (5 RMB), took a shower, transferred photos from my memory cards to CD (10 RMB / CD), and bought some food for my upcoming trip to Kanas Lake.
I wasn't sure until 6 PM whether I'd be leaving for Kanas Lake the same night at 8 PM or the next evening because Tian Fang and her friend Yu Chi wanted to come with, but Yu Chi wasn't sure she'd be able to get the time off of work. At 6:15 PM, I called Tian Fang, and after some playful kidding, she said that she and Yu Chi were coming with me! That meant that we would wait until the next evennig and catch the overnight bus together to Bu'erjin.
The Dining Car Is for Eating
On the train ride back from Kashgar to Urumqi, Tian Fang and I had brunch in the train dining car. As we were finishing up the meal, we were enjoying the view out the wndow, my arm around her shoulders, my cheek pressed against hers. We were interrupted by a male voice asking gruffly, "Are you done eatng?" Startled, I looked up to see the voce's owner, a uniformed train policeman. Not knowing what was to come, I answered yes. This apparently gave the policeman the license he was waiting for to launch into his tirade about how this was a public dining car for eating, and look at all the people around. Well, I didn't understand everything he said or all the public decency standards I was apparently violating, but judging from his tone, it was a lot of them!
My initial thought after the surprise of being interrupted by the policeman wore off was of a French expression that Max had recently explained to me and another friend or two, "être mal baisé" - or in English, "to be badly fucked". The meaning is that someone is in a bad mood because they are not having good sex. My thought was that for a policeman to make an issue out of so little (by American standards), he must be really mal baisé. I didn't bother trying to convey that to him in Chinese, though. Instead, we just paid for our meal and left (giggling a bit too).
Crossdrives
I could have written this on almost any other day in China, but since today is a collection of short stories, it seemed like an appropriate time. In China, there are street markings that bear a striking resemblance to crosswalks; however, they are actually crossdrives. There are no crosswalks in China.
A crossdrive is a street marking to indicate that while as a pedestrian you may be able to cross when there are no vehicles passing, you must always pay attention and yield to all passing vehicles. If you do not, they will surely honk at you for your callous disregard for their right of way. It stands to reason then, that if heaven forbid you actually hit a car while on foot in a crossdrive, you or your survivors wll more than likely be responsible for any damages to the vehicle.
I've been in some countries where drivers have a callous disregard for pedestrians. France comes to mind, but they won't actually honk at you if you have the right of way - they'll just begrudgingly cede it to you if you force their hand. Peru is actually pretty bad. They will honk at you if you're crossing the street and there is no crosswalk. However, they won't ignore a red light, make a left turn into a 2-way street, and honk at you if you happen to be in the crossdrive at the right time. In China, they will. I don't know where such disregard for both pedestrians and any rules of the road come from, or why all traffic violations are completely ignored by police officers, even if they occur right in front of them!
Chinese Customer Service
Throughout the entire world, the Chinese are known for their superb lack of customer service. Some of you gentle Fluid Readers may attribute their cultural lack of customer service skills to a language barrier in a foreign language, but I'm here to tell you that it just ain't so. This evening, Tian Fang took Yu Chi and me to one of her favorite Uighur restaurants. As is the case in some resaturants in China, we had to prepay for our meal. That was OK, and the food was OK too.
After we finished the main course, we decided to order some homemade ice cream for me. This, it turns out, was one of the main reasons that Tian Fang had selected this restaurant - she had remembered me saying on a couple occasions on our trip to Kashgar together how much I loved ice cream. Apparently, this craving is just as odd in China as it is in France and surely many other countries. You can't just go to any restaurant in China and expect them to have (even bad) ice cream on the menu for dessert.
We asked the server which flavor was the best, and she indicated the plain (also the cheapest) was the best. And it really was good when it came! My only beef was when we ordered the ice cream (4 RMB), the server said, "Xian fu," whch more literally translated means, "Pay first." But I believe that a translation that more accurately conveys the curtness of her statement would be "Money first." In either case, all 3 of us (native and non-native speakers) were equally shocked at the server's lack of tact, and we laughed it off as we paid.
One extenuating circumstance may have been that the server was Uighur, and her Chinese may not have been that good. I tend to dismiss this possibility, however, because she was not that old and should have learned Chinese in school.
Don't Touch Me
After dinner, Tian Fang, Yu Chi, and I were talking about cars, and Tian Fang told me about a satirical expansion the Chinese have for the BMW abbreviation: "Buyao Mou Wo", which translated means "Don't Touch Me". I found it humorous and appropriate.
I wasn't sure until 6 PM whether I'd be leaving for Kanas Lake the same night at 8 PM or the next evening because Tian Fang and her friend Yu Chi wanted to come with, but Yu Chi wasn't sure she'd be able to get the time off of work. At 6:15 PM, I called Tian Fang, and after some playful kidding, she said that she and Yu Chi were coming with me! That meant that we would wait until the next evennig and catch the overnight bus together to Bu'erjin.
The Dining Car Is for Eating
On the train ride back from Kashgar to Urumqi, Tian Fang and I had brunch in the train dining car. As we were finishing up the meal, we were enjoying the view out the wndow, my arm around her shoulders, my cheek pressed against hers. We were interrupted by a male voice asking gruffly, "Are you done eatng?" Startled, I looked up to see the voce's owner, a uniformed train policeman. Not knowing what was to come, I answered yes. This apparently gave the policeman the license he was waiting for to launch into his tirade about how this was a public dining car for eating, and look at all the people around. Well, I didn't understand everything he said or all the public decency standards I was apparently violating, but judging from his tone, it was a lot of them!
My initial thought after the surprise of being interrupted by the policeman wore off was of a French expression that Max had recently explained to me and another friend or two, "être mal baisé" - or in English, "to be badly fucked". The meaning is that someone is in a bad mood because they are not having good sex. My thought was that for a policeman to make an issue out of so little (by American standards), he must be really mal baisé. I didn't bother trying to convey that to him in Chinese, though. Instead, we just paid for our meal and left (giggling a bit too).
Crossdrives
I could have written this on almost any other day in China, but since today is a collection of short stories, it seemed like an appropriate time. In China, there are street markings that bear a striking resemblance to crosswalks; however, they are actually crossdrives. There are no crosswalks in China.
A crossdrive is a street marking to indicate that while as a pedestrian you may be able to cross when there are no vehicles passing, you must always pay attention and yield to all passing vehicles. If you do not, they will surely honk at you for your callous disregard for their right of way. It stands to reason then, that if heaven forbid you actually hit a car while on foot in a crossdrive, you or your survivors wll more than likely be responsible for any damages to the vehicle.
I've been in some countries where drivers have a callous disregard for pedestrians. France comes to mind, but they won't actually honk at you if you have the right of way - they'll just begrudgingly cede it to you if you force their hand. Peru is actually pretty bad. They will honk at you if you're crossing the street and there is no crosswalk. However, they won't ignore a red light, make a left turn into a 2-way street, and honk at you if you happen to be in the crossdrive at the right time. In China, they will. I don't know where such disregard for both pedestrians and any rules of the road come from, or why all traffic violations are completely ignored by police officers, even if they occur right in front of them!
Chinese Customer Service
Throughout the entire world, the Chinese are known for their superb lack of customer service. Some of you gentle Fluid Readers may attribute their cultural lack of customer service skills to a language barrier in a foreign language, but I'm here to tell you that it just ain't so. This evening, Tian Fang took Yu Chi and me to one of her favorite Uighur restaurants. As is the case in some resaturants in China, we had to prepay for our meal. That was OK, and the food was OK too.
After we finished the main course, we decided to order some homemade ice cream for me. This, it turns out, was one of the main reasons that Tian Fang had selected this restaurant - she had remembered me saying on a couple occasions on our trip to Kashgar together how much I loved ice cream. Apparently, this craving is just as odd in China as it is in France and surely many other countries. You can't just go to any restaurant in China and expect them to have (even bad) ice cream on the menu for dessert.
We asked the server which flavor was the best, and she indicated the plain (also the cheapest) was the best. And it really was good when it came! My only beef was when we ordered the ice cream (4 RMB), the server said, "Xian fu," whch more literally translated means, "Pay first." But I believe that a translation that more accurately conveys the curtness of her statement would be "Money first." In either case, all 3 of us (native and non-native speakers) were equally shocked at the server's lack of tact, and we laughed it off as we paid.
One extenuating circumstance may have been that the server was Uighur, and her Chinese may not have been that good. I tend to dismiss this possibility, however, because she was not that old and should have learned Chinese in school.
Don't Touch Me
After dinner, Tian Fang, Yu Chi, and I were talking about cars, and Tian Fang told me about a satirical expansion the Chinese have for the BMW abbreviation: "Buyao Mou Wo", which translated means "Don't Touch Me". I found it humorous and appropriate.
posted by Coquin at 4:47 AM
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