Wo Ai Zhong Guo

Chinglish Strikes Again

It's worth reading this price list through to the end!  Thanks Chas for alerting me to this post on Dan Wei.

Warning: Do NOT drink coffee or any other beverage while reading.  I am not responsible for any damage to your PC or keyboard if you ignore this advice!

Another Great Business Idea

Now here's a business idea I have to say I never imagined would be too successful: pink inflatable pigs.  I mockingly thought to myself that that poor guy must have been out of his mind when he decided that inflatable pig seller was to be his next career move.

And so this lunch time, armed with camera, I decided to search for the guy who was so clearly lacking in business acumen, to make him the latest subject of my blog.

But to my amazement, as I prepared to capture this amusing little image, a steady stream of people walked up to him, handed over some money and then walked off as casually as if they were buying a newspaper.

I'm trying to imagine the scene back at home where mum says to her son "we're out of inflatable pigs" and the son replies "okay mum, I'll just pop out and get a couple more"!

Finger Lickin' Good?

Is it me or does this fast food outlet remind you of an American chicken franchise?

What kind of brown?

It seems so many of my recent posts have focused on bad translations but I just couldn't ignore this story about a (black) woman in Canada buying a new sofa manufactured in China with a label, stating that the sofa's colour was "nigger brown"!

Spitting In The Wind

The New York Times ran an article a few days ago about Beijing's efforts to clean up the vast amount of poorly translated English signs as well as one man's crusade to stop people spitting in the streets.

Times They Are A Changing

Sadly it seems the days of hysterically funny Chinglish signs are coming to the end as the Shanghai Daily reports that the authorities are cleaning up poorly translated English around the city.  And thus, the Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease will be renamed as Proctology Hospital, newly built modern apartment buildings will no longer advertise with catchy slogans such as Myriad stretch golf, ethereally luxury home, and we may no longer be able to find such delicacies as mixed elbow with garlic mud in our local eateries.  And I guess one of my favourite dishes may also disappear from local menus:

Un, deux, trois or yi, er, san?

Just last night at dinner with a couple of friends from London who just arrived in Shanghai to work, we discussed how China is talked about frequently in the media as its significance in the global economy grows.  But I was still surprised to read this article about how Chinese is widely taught in schools in the UK now.

The Other Side

This is one of the most amusing things I've read recently.  A post on Chinadirt which is a blog run by expat women in China having a hard time finding romance because of all the expat men lusting after Chinese girls.  Then, there's the guy's version of the same encounter, posted on HIS own blog.  I have no idea whether it's real or just a witty response to the first post, but either way it's entertaining.  I have cut and pasted both entries because both blogs are on Blogspot which is currently blocked in China, damnit!

By the way, all Blogspot blogs can still be accessed in China using Anonymouse.

From HER:

Yesterday, I met a man. Not in a bar, not in a club, not somewhere sleazy. We met at 798. I'm giving out this detail to indicate why I was more receptive than usual to chatting with this guy since we weren't in a cheapie, hookup joint. He seemed nice so I agreed to meet him that evening for a quick drink at Centro. Ok, not the most creative location but hey, it's down the street from my office and due to the sad lack of chivalry in this town, I considered his willingness to brave traffic down from 798 to CBD as a grand gesture. (Hey, when you're starving, any crumb of bread looks delicious!)

He paid for the first round of martinis. I insisted on covering the second round. "Ah, you Western girls," he said appreciatively in his sexy northern European accent. "Nice to be out with a girl who can treat me." I smiled, pleased.

Two martinis for each of us later, the mood was relaxed and the chat was getting flirtatious. But it was a work night so around midnight, I indicated that I was ready to go home. "Your place or mine?" he asked, patting my bum.

I scooted away from his hand. "I'm going home to sleep."

"Sure you are," he laughed and winked.

"No, really."

He looked shocked. Shaking his head in disbelief he walked off, but not before muttering "Damn hardass Western girls."

Since when did buying a girl one martini entitle a man to public groping and an assumption of sex? Oh yea, in China.

If "western girl" means having enough self-respect not to hop into bed with a man I've known for less than six hours in gratitude for one lousy 60 kuai dry martini, then I'm proud to be a hardass Western girl.

HIS response:

Yesterday, I met a girl. Not in a bar, not in a club, not somewhere sleazy. We met at 798. I'm giving out this detail to indicate why I was more receptive than usual to chatting with this girl since we weren't in a cheapie, hookup joint. She seemed nice so I agreed to meet her that evening for a quick drink at Centro. Ok, not the most creative location but hey, it's a "signal" kind of place. If a girl agrees to meet later at Centro, you know it's a sure thing. If she wants to meet elsewhere, you know you've got a bit more work to do to land that fish. (Hey, when you're horny, any bit of fluff looks beddable!)

I paid for the first round of martinis, of course. Girls may pretend to be modern, but they always seem to wait until the second round to do the "dutch" thing, and sure enough, she insisted on covering the second round. "Ah, you Western girls," I said appreciatively in my northern European accent, hoping to make up for my bad English with sincere compliments. "Nice to be out with a girl who can treat me." She smiled, pleased.

Two martinis for each of us later, the mood was relaxed and the chat was getting flirtatious. But it was a work night so around midnight, I indicated that I was ready to go home. "Your place or mine?" I asked, leaning closer.

She moved away as if she'd been burnt. "I'm going home to sleep."

"Sure you are," I laughed and winked.

"No, really."

I was a bit shocked. Talk about mixed signals! Women want men to read their minds, to not have to ask, there we were at the Centro after some fine conversation and some excellent beverages, and she was going home alone!

She seemed to realise something was wrong. "Now I bet you think I'm one of those 'damn hardass Western girls'" she said, mocking my accent and sentence structure.

Suddenly I snapped back to where we were. Oh yeah, in China. Nowhere else can a sophisticated evening with someone, where you get seven different kinds of come-on, end with basically an accusation of pre-meditated sexual harassment.

If "hardass Western girl" means that you react angrily to a hint of a one-night stand, if you haven't yet learnt the art of polite refusal to a very low-key and no-pressure suggestion, then, yeah, I guess that's what she was.

Mother Fu*ckers

Yes, as widely reported here (Peking Duck, worth reading the comments which quickly disintegrate into an "if you don't like China the get then fuck out" type of discussion!), here (Dan Wei), and here (Shop Girl, blocked in China), the Chinese mother fucker shit for brains censors have blocked Blogger again which means all blogs hosted on Blogger are not accessible in the Chinese mainland (HK and Taiwan are fine of course).

I've already once had to move my blog from Squarespace to Typepad after Squarespace was bizzarely blocked.  Livejournal is now blocked too so I guess it's only a matter of time before Typepad is blocked too - then what!

It also seems my announcement that Wikipedia was no accessible in China was too optimistic.  It's blocked again and I can only guess it was temporarily unblocked while the net police were testing out some new filters.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Although this blog deals mainly with issues relating to life in China, occasionally other stories pop up that I feel strongly enough about to write about.

Sally Clark lost her first baby aged 11 weeks to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or "cot death".  Everyone was very supportive and nobody suspected any wrong doing.  A year later, she lost a second child, aged 8 weeks and this time, Sally was arrested and charged with the murder of BOTH babies.  She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.  However, the major factor contributing to her conviction was so called expert testimony from Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who stated that the chance of two cot deaths occuring in babies from the same mother was 1 in 73 million.  He came to this conclusion by a simple calculation.  The probability of a single cot death is around 1 in 8,500, so he concluded that the probability of this happening twice is 1/8500 squared.  This is a valid calculation only if there is no correlation between the first and second death.  For example, tossing a coin.  The chance of a head is 50% assuming the coin is unbiased.  The chance of 2 consecutive heads is 0.5 squared which is 25%.

However, it is widely accepted that the chance of a second cot death is greatly increased if there has already been a prior cot death in the family, lowering the probability of the second cot death to something like 1 in 60.  This makes a lot of sense even to a layman like myself in the same way that if a mother dies of cancer, her daughter has a greater chance of suffering the same illness.  Even the Royal Statistical Society later wrote to the Lord Chancellor, disagreeing with the 1 in 73 million statistic.

Sadly though, the jury accepted the expert testimony and it was only 3 years later that Sally's conviction was overturned on appeal and she was released.

I don't think many people can imagine the suffering endured by losing two of her children AND being branded as a monster child killer.

I opened this post by saying this is not related to China but in a way it is.  There is so much outrage at human rights abuses by the Chinese authorities from the US and the UK, but there are clearly many outrageous injustices occuring in the west as well.

Sally died two days ago aged 42.