The security at my school has increased this year. There are a lot more locked doors nowadays, and getting them opened can sometimes be a trial. There is nothing more obdurate than bureaucracy, nothing more intractable as people who accept senseless orders, and nothing more frustrating to someone who does not.
I teach a computer class, and one day I was told that we couldn't use the computer lab because the teacher who had the key was sick in bed at home. My Chinese assistant kept saying this to me, and didn't see the insanity of the statement that because one man was sick, everyone else had to suffer. So I had to go to the head teacher to arrange for the computer lab to be opened. It just seemed to me that somebody must have an extra key somewhere.
And so they did.
And so we had access to the lab for our class, as usual.
Sometimes I roll my eyes.
The dorms, where the students and some teachers have rooms, are also locked up, even more than they were last year. The doors are padlocked with chains around the handles, which makes me wonder what would happen if some students were trying to get out because of an emergency. I shudder to think.
Anyway, I need to get into the room I was given in order to put medicine on my bad skin. I'm seeing a doctor who has prescribed some traditional herbal ointment to rub on my eczema. It's doing the job slowly but surely. I usually put the stuff on after lunch, when the students have to take a nap. The doors are open, and access is freely granted.
Except on Friday, the day the students go home. They take their suitcases out and store them in the departmental office in the morning, so someone decided there's no need to open the dorms after lunch.
I have to get one of the Chinese teachers to call the attendant in order to get the door opened. And then I have to get another call put in when I want to be let out.
The guards at the school are a friendly crew, and they're always helpful when called upon. I always felt safe when I was living at the school, and I know they'll always take care of me and the rest of the students and staff. Also, no one dances or drinks more whenever we have a staff party. Their table is always the one with the most empty bottles on it at the end of the evening.
But I digress.
As you know, I'm an absent-minded fellow. One of the things that I'm afraid I will forget is to take my key when I leave my apartment. Well, I was locked out the other day, but it wasn't because I had forgotten my key. There's an extra little security device on the door lock, which is a cover that denies access to the keyhole. Someone had closed it while I was out, and I couldn't for the life of me get it to open. I had to call someone from the school to call a locksmith, who was able to pry it open and then replace it with a new one. It cost me 280 RMB, which is about $56.00.
If I ever find out who did it...
Fucking mooks.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Politesse
A little while ago, a Facebook friend posted an article from the Straits Times regarding a Thai temple that was building separate toilet facilities for non-Chinese tourists. Apparently, the Chinese tourists' bathroom etiquette was so bad, and the state the bathrooms were left in was so nauseating, that they were relegated to separate facilities in order to protect people who were more familiar with things like indoor plumbing.
There was a related link to a story about why Chinese tourists are so rude. The writer suggests that education (or the lack thereof) plays a role in why they behave the way they do, as well as a general lack of understanding of culture wherever they go.
The writer says:
It seems that thousands of years after Confucius admonished his students not to
"impose on others what you don't desire," the Chinese now act in quite the opposite way.
Sounds like Confucius had a handle on the Golden Rule, something I try to live by myself, though I don't always succeed.
The writer goes on to point out:
Living in China, where the rule of law doesn't exist, means that everyone has to look out for their own interest. It also means that people have little or no respect for laws.
This is bound to happen when ordinary folk are forced to watch their laws being violated
every day by their leaders,... citing the Chinese idiom shang xing xia xiao, meaning
"people in lower class follow what their leaders in the upper class do."
I see this lack of respect for the law every day. One example is the way drivers ignore "the rules of the road."It's every man for himself out there. I usually sit shotgun, so I have the best seat in the house to observe this behaviour. People merge into traffic with out looking to see if anyone is coming, and if anyone is coming, they continue on anyway. Their attitude seems to be, "Fuck you, I'm coming in."
If anyone is ahead of your car, and you go to pass them, they automatically drift into your lane without signalling and cut you off.
I see fender benders every time I go out into traffic, and there've been the odd time I've seen pedestrians that've been knocked down while crossing the road.
Pedestrians take their lives in their hands every time they go out into the street, and I keep my head on a swivel. You just never know which way they're going to come at you. But pedestrians ignore the rules, too, and they're kind of putting a target on their backs the way they jaywalk and wander around out on the road.
To get back to toilets, it does seem to me that people think anywhere is as good a place to relieve yourself of quite a variety of bodily fluids.
Of course, there's a lot of spitting going on. The first thing any Chinese person does as soon as they get outdoors is to hhhhhhhhooooooooocccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh up as much phlegm as they possibly can and let fly with the loogies. And its amazing the number of times they seem to need to do that. I was walking from the gate to my complex to the door of my building, about a minute's walk, and I passed a mook going in the same general direction who had to hhhhhhhhooooooooocccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh and spit 7 times. The aural assault is sometimes a bit hard to take, and just how much phlegm can you hhhhhhhhooooooooocccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh up that often anyway?
Another way that mooks get rid of phlegm is to blow their noses onto the sidewalk. I remember trying that once, and the phlegm just sprayed all over my face. I guess you have to get the knack, but how many times do you have to clean your face off before that happens? And why don't you just use whatever you're cleaning your face off with to catch the snot anyway?
Why do I always have to think of everything?
The public urination is even more prevalent than it was in Korea. It's not uncommon to see a mook, or a group of mooks, pulled over and peeing at the side of the road. As in Korea, I can usually shift my gaze from the urinator to a restaurant or other public place that must have facilities the mook could use instead.
But as the article mentioned, public toilets are not well used by their patrons. I've been in enough over here to know that they should be avoided like the plague. People just do not believe in leaving the toilet the way they found it, so the next user is not inconvenienced. I remember going into a stall just after an old man. He had not flushed, and the paper he used to wipe his ass was left on the floor in front of the bowl.
Fucking mook.
Besides peeing everywhere, mooks also poop everywhere. I've posted pictures about the pedestrian underpasses near my first apartment before. Every once in a while, I would see that someone had left a turd there. I've never seen anyone actually doing it, like I've seen people peeing, but the evidence is there for all to see.
I don't think the people doing this really need to. There are places close by that have toilets, and taking a piss or a dump just anywhere you please shows ignorance of basic manners, in my opinion. But maybe the condition the toilets are left in puts them off as much as it does me.
I have an agreement with my bladder and my bowels. They do not put too much pressure on me, and I will get them home where it's safe. I'm like the character in "American Pie," who doesn't poop anywhere but at home.
One of the greatest inconveniences is that most of the stalls have slits in the floor that you have to squat over rather than the "throne" that I'm used to. I only use the slits to urinate in. Having to squat and take a shit is just beyond my capabilities now. And the Chinese agree. I was in the Shenzen airport, coming back from Hong Kong, and the facilitis had only one stall with a throne. The sign on the door said, "For The Weak Only."
Heh.
There was a related link to a story about why Chinese tourists are so rude. The writer suggests that education (or the lack thereof) plays a role in why they behave the way they do, as well as a general lack of understanding of culture wherever they go.
The writer says:
It seems that thousands of years after Confucius admonished his students not to
"impose on others what you don't desire," the Chinese now act in quite the opposite way.
Sounds like Confucius had a handle on the Golden Rule, something I try to live by myself, though I don't always succeed.
The writer goes on to point out:
Living in China, where the rule of law doesn't exist, means that everyone has to look out for their own interest. It also means that people have little or no respect for laws.
This is bound to happen when ordinary folk are forced to watch their laws being violated
every day by their leaders,... citing the Chinese idiom shang xing xia xiao, meaning
"people in lower class follow what their leaders in the upper class do."
I see this lack of respect for the law every day. One example is the way drivers ignore "the rules of the road."It's every man for himself out there. I usually sit shotgun, so I have the best seat in the house to observe this behaviour. People merge into traffic with out looking to see if anyone is coming, and if anyone is coming, they continue on anyway. Their attitude seems to be, "Fuck you, I'm coming in."
If anyone is ahead of your car, and you go to pass them, they automatically drift into your lane without signalling and cut you off.
I see fender benders every time I go out into traffic, and there've been the odd time I've seen pedestrians that've been knocked down while crossing the road.
Pedestrians take their lives in their hands every time they go out into the street, and I keep my head on a swivel. You just never know which way they're going to come at you. But pedestrians ignore the rules, too, and they're kind of putting a target on their backs the way they jaywalk and wander around out on the road.
To get back to toilets, it does seem to me that people think anywhere is as good a place to relieve yourself of quite a variety of bodily fluids.
Of course, there's a lot of spitting going on. The first thing any Chinese person does as soon as they get outdoors is to hhhhhhhhooooooooocccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh up as much phlegm as they possibly can and let fly with the loogies. And its amazing the number of times they seem to need to do that. I was walking from the gate to my complex to the door of my building, about a minute's walk, and I passed a mook going in the same general direction who had to hhhhhhhhooooooooocccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh and spit 7 times. The aural assault is sometimes a bit hard to take, and just how much phlegm can you hhhhhhhhooooooooocccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhh up that often anyway?
Another way that mooks get rid of phlegm is to blow their noses onto the sidewalk. I remember trying that once, and the phlegm just sprayed all over my face. I guess you have to get the knack, but how many times do you have to clean your face off before that happens? And why don't you just use whatever you're cleaning your face off with to catch the snot anyway?
Why do I always have to think of everything?
The public urination is even more prevalent than it was in Korea. It's not uncommon to see a mook, or a group of mooks, pulled over and peeing at the side of the road. As in Korea, I can usually shift my gaze from the urinator to a restaurant or other public place that must have facilities the mook could use instead.
But as the article mentioned, public toilets are not well used by their patrons. I've been in enough over here to know that they should be avoided like the plague. People just do not believe in leaving the toilet the way they found it, so the next user is not inconvenienced. I remember going into a stall just after an old man. He had not flushed, and the paper he used to wipe his ass was left on the floor in front of the bowl.
Fucking mook.
Besides peeing everywhere, mooks also poop everywhere. I've posted pictures about the pedestrian underpasses near my first apartment before. Every once in a while, I would see that someone had left a turd there. I've never seen anyone actually doing it, like I've seen people peeing, but the evidence is there for all to see.
I don't think the people doing this really need to. There are places close by that have toilets, and taking a piss or a dump just anywhere you please shows ignorance of basic manners, in my opinion. But maybe the condition the toilets are left in puts them off as much as it does me.
I have an agreement with my bladder and my bowels. They do not put too much pressure on me, and I will get them home where it's safe. I'm like the character in "American Pie," who doesn't poop anywhere but at home.
One of the greatest inconveniences is that most of the stalls have slits in the floor that you have to squat over rather than the "throne" that I'm used to. I only use the slits to urinate in. Having to squat and take a shit is just beyond my capabilities now. And the Chinese agree. I was in the Shenzen airport, coming back from Hong Kong, and the facilitis had only one stall with a throne. The sign on the door said, "For The Weak Only."
Heh.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Standing In Line
One of my favourite comedians is John Pinette. He was a heavy guy like me, and so a lot of his humour was about eating, buffets, and the trials and tribulations he had to go through. One of the things that irritated him the most was idiots in front of him in lines at restaurants, dithering about what to eat while he was starving to death.
"Get out of the line!" he would say.
In line at McDonald's, he would wonder why these people were looking at the menu and deciding what to have. "It's McDonald's! I knew what I wanted before I parked the car!
"Get out of the line!"
Or at KFC, "You know what they serve? Chicken! You know what else they got? Chicken!
"Get out of the line!"
I have been similarly afflicted in line by mooks dithering about. Given the chance, I would treat them like the Soup Nazi.
"No soup for you!"
And then ban them for life.
I remember one time when I was waiting in line at the university cafe. It was early in the morning, and I needed to get coffee and get breakfast and get to class. But between me and my goal was that most dreaded of obstacles, a group of females.
The thing about some people is that when they're at the head of the line you would never know it, because they stand 3-4 feet away from the counter, not looking directly at the menu or the cook, and chatting away about this or that instead of taking care of business.
And then it's a lot of, "I don't know what I what I want. What do you want?"
"I don't know. What do you want?"
I approach standing in line like I approach shopping. I want to get in, get my stuff, and get out. I can't stand it when I get stuck behind mooks with no morning agenda other than to mook about like they've all the time in the world.
Get out of the line!
When I was in Korea, I got used to the rudeness of the average ajumma, and learned to keep my elbows up and ready whenever my Spider-sense started to tingle.
Here in China, there's a funny kind of schizophrenia about queuing for things. Sometimes, when I'm approaching a door with a group of colleagues, everyone becomes like Chip 'n Dale.
"After you."
"No, no, no, after you."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly, after you."
Oh boy.
But when we're in the cafeteria, it's every man for himself, and you'll get mooks elbowing you out of the way to get to the food. And God help you if you're caught going late, after the students are lined up. I've seen more order in a shark feeding frenzy.
I guess the fact that there's a billion people all trying to get the same thing as you means that for some people, there is no time for manners. I'm usually polite and wait my turn, but I'm always on the watch for that one mook who doesn't know that his place is behind me.
Get out of the line.
"Get out of the line!" he would say.
In line at McDonald's, he would wonder why these people were looking at the menu and deciding what to have. "It's McDonald's! I knew what I wanted before I parked the car!
"Get out of the line!"
Or at KFC, "You know what they serve? Chicken! You know what else they got? Chicken!
"Get out of the line!"
I have been similarly afflicted in line by mooks dithering about. Given the chance, I would treat them like the Soup Nazi.
"No soup for you!"
And then ban them for life.
I remember one time when I was waiting in line at the university cafe. It was early in the morning, and I needed to get coffee and get breakfast and get to class. But between me and my goal was that most dreaded of obstacles, a group of females.
The thing about some people is that when they're at the head of the line you would never know it, because they stand 3-4 feet away from the counter, not looking directly at the menu or the cook, and chatting away about this or that instead of taking care of business.
And then it's a lot of, "I don't know what I what I want. What do you want?"
"I don't know. What do you want?"
I approach standing in line like I approach shopping. I want to get in, get my stuff, and get out. I can't stand it when I get stuck behind mooks with no morning agenda other than to mook about like they've all the time in the world.
Get out of the line!
When I was in Korea, I got used to the rudeness of the average ajumma, and learned to keep my elbows up and ready whenever my Spider-sense started to tingle.
Here in China, there's a funny kind of schizophrenia about queuing for things. Sometimes, when I'm approaching a door with a group of colleagues, everyone becomes like Chip 'n Dale.
"After you."
"No, no, no, after you."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly, after you."
Oh boy.
But when we're in the cafeteria, it's every man for himself, and you'll get mooks elbowing you out of the way to get to the food. And God help you if you're caught going late, after the students are lined up. I've seen more order in a shark feeding frenzy.
I guess the fact that there's a billion people all trying to get the same thing as you means that for some people, there is no time for manners. I'm usually polite and wait my turn, but I'm always on the watch for that one mook who doesn't know that his place is behind me.
Get out of the line.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
A Clumsy Oaf
I am a bit of a clumsy oaf sometimes. I have good days and bad days, and the bad days are really bad. I channel my inner Kramer, and things go smash.
But sometimes, my clumsiness gets a pass, and I dodge a real bullet.
This is my computer setup, featuring a look at where all the wires go. My monitor is at the back on the right, and just in front of it, on the corner of my desk, is a 2 terrabyte storage device, That's the tower down on the floor, with the wireless router next to it. All of the plugs go in a power bar just underneath the corner of the desk.
I think you can see where this is going.
There was a glass of water on my desk just about where the Canadian flag is, and as I was reaching for the on/off switch on the monitor, I knocked it over. The water went under the storage device and down on to the floor where the power bar rests.
And nothing happened.
Not one device was affected by the water.
I switched everything off and pulled out all the plugs before going in there and wiping off all the water. When I plugged everything back in and switched everything back on again, it all worked just as well as before. I thought, when that glass went over, that things were going to short out, blow up, and never work again in a million years.
But I dodged a bullet.
God looks after fools, drunkards and small children.
But sometimes, my clumsiness gets a pass, and I dodge a real bullet.
This is my computer setup, featuring a look at where all the wires go. My monitor is at the back on the right, and just in front of it, on the corner of my desk, is a 2 terrabyte storage device, That's the tower down on the floor, with the wireless router next to it. All of the plugs go in a power bar just underneath the corner of the desk.
I think you can see where this is going.
There was a glass of water on my desk just about where the Canadian flag is, and as I was reaching for the on/off switch on the monitor, I knocked it over. The water went under the storage device and down on to the floor where the power bar rests.
And nothing happened.
Not one device was affected by the water.
I switched everything off and pulled out all the plugs before going in there and wiping off all the water. When I plugged everything back in and switched everything back on again, it all worked just as well as before. I thought, when that glass went over, that things were going to short out, blow up, and never work again in a million years.
But I dodged a bullet.
God looks after fools, drunkards and small children.
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