Words of Wisdom

Jan 22 was my birthday so I took a day off.

So now I'm back with a new attitude, a new age (don't go there), and...SUNSHINE in Shanghai! It's actually bright, and almost clear outside. The sun is valiantly fighting its way through a week's worth of dingy cloudscape. It's not an easy gig, let me tell you. The fog/smog clings to buildings and parks and rivers...to everything. It really is stubborn. But today I woke up and had the odd, almost forgotten sensation of actually turning over in my bed to face away from the intruding sunlight. But then I realised what I was doing and slowly looked back in the direction of my little sun room, and there it was - the sun. My plants were sighing and singing, and trying to stand up straight after more than a week of sleeping and slouching. Ah yes, life is good, the sun is out, and who cares about the cold?
Lately I have started entering little 'chinglish' phrases into my phone whenever I see or hear them. I should have done this ages ago, as I have missed many of the best ones, but as it's a daily occurance I don't think I'll ever have to wait long. Trust me, there's no shortage of fodder for this cannon. I was thinking of starting a seperate blog for these little pearls of language gone wrong, but perhaps it would be gluttonous to have them all in one place. In any event, here's a few of my favorites...
As I was walking along Fuxing Lu one day I noticed a small boutique selling bags, blouses, and other girly accessories. The name of the store: TELL YOU STEALTHILY. Hey, everyone loves a good secret, right?
One of my favorite restaurant names (and there are many) is on Nanjing Lu, near Gao An Highway. I believe it's a Hunan Restaurant, and it's called WISH DOING. As in I wish I was doing something better with my time? But I'm not. I'm doing this. Speaking of great restaurant names (why are they always Chinese?) one of my all-time favorites is in India, in the the lovely Bombay suburb of Bandra where I used to live. Yes, it's a Chinese place, and it's not bad, but alas, quite unappetizingly named STOMACH. Well that's where the food goes, right? The sign is even in that horrible 'Chinese Take Away Carton' font, making it even more...horrible.
By now I'm regular down at the old C-Store (not sure if the C is for convenience or China, or both...or niether) below my building. It's actually a great little shop, and has lots of edible things in it, unlike the omnipresent 7-11's of Bangkok. I have it on good authority, by the way, that there are more 7-11's in Bangkok than there are in all of America. Useless information? Possibly. Anyway, besides the nice pulpy grapefruit juice, shelled honey walnuts (amazing, delicious), and milk that I buy almost daily, they also have many useful items like CDR's and decent face soap (Nivea). One thing that always intrigues me about China is the way they are about sex. I could just as easily have said the way they are about everything, but for the purposes of this story we'll keep it to sex. Maybe I should say I'm amazed at the way Americans are about sex. Where we might have a special condom section somewhere apologetically tucked away in aisle 5, the Chinese (and the Thais for that matter, but that's a whole other ball game) have a huge display right at the point of sale. That is, right in front of the counter where you couldn't miss it if you wanted to. And it's not just condoms on offer: there are also lubricants, aphrodesiacs, and some other happy looking boxes that could quite possibly be morning after pills, but I'm not sure. Don't quote me. Anyway, it's a pretty impressive display, and I like its honesty, never mind outright commerce. People like sex and are having it (obviously, there are over 1.3 billion Chinese), so that means the little C-Store is selling a lot of rubbers. And that brings me to my favorite little aphrodesiac drink packets, Wonder Life. Their box says 'ENCHANTING DRINK FLAVOUR - FOR HAPPY HOURS BY TWO' The enchanting flavour on the box I picked up was green tea by the way. "Honey, how 'bout some more of that green tea, it's really got a kick!" (And I've got a kick stand).
This next tidbit comes from the world of health and fitness. My partner Richard Lofthouse (gotta credit him, he gave me the gag) decided he would do a bit of home exercise one day and bought one of those hard rubber stretch things that were popular in the States in the 80's - 'The Stretchesizer' or some such name. Remember? Well, it must've been 'dictionaries at dawn!' at the marketing department of this Chinese company when they came up with this description:
'The new type of pulling force named Lichao is made of the high-tech material (rubber, no less) of environmented protection'. Yessss! Lichao - the pulling force. But Environmented (sic) protection? Now that is a stretch.
I think that's all for today. I have a lot more of these little gems, but as I said, it would be greedy. It would also seem like I'm taking the piss, which of course I am, but in a really non-piss taking way. Really. I love this kind of stuff. It's why I travel and live in 'other' places. It's why I'll never be bored in Shanghai.