Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Bonus post
Along the way I took some photos of signs.
This was at a Chinese restaurant in Beijing. Do they have unlevened bad fish for Passover?
You thought I was kidding. They do sell insurance at the Great Wall.
We needed a sign to point the way because the Great Wall is so inconspicuous.
An NBA store in Shanghai. They're big Brooklyn Net fans there.
After praying to the Jade Buddha stop by for some java.
Last call everybody.
Typical China. It begs the question: If not the toilet then where?
That's good advice anywhere.
There's always a KISS-FM. Miley Cyrus must be heard!
Not Frogs diner.
No, it's not a sex shop.
I think that's pronounced "La-VINED" Bad Fish...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteSo far, the unsexiest slide show since my father's Door County vacation evening. Does anyone in Asia have cleavage?
ReplyDeletePart of Ken’s loyal Beijing fan base here
ReplyDeleteBecause the plumbing in many parts of China is so fragile, you throw your paper (that you probably provided yourself) in a little bin in the stall or just chuck it on the floor - anywhere but the commode. However, it’s China and they conquer everything with human-power (going to raise a ski mountain for the 2022 Winter Olympics!) so every bathroom usually comes with a dedicated attendant responsible for continuously emptying out the paper and swishing around the floor. There you go.
The signs at the Great Wall sites provided some of the very best and hilarious in modern Chinglish but someone cracked the whip before APEC 2014 and around Beijing they were magically replaced by shiny new informative, grammatically correct yet far less entertaining signage. It feels wrong to say it, but I was a little disappointed.
Living here is gritty, exasperating, dirty and probably hazardous, but never dull.
LCP,
ReplyDeleteI'm just amazed you can access my blog. I couldn't when I was in China.
Hi Ken,
ReplyDeleteYou think I would let something as stupid as the Great Firewall keep me from my Friday Questions?
Seriously, there are very easy ways to leap the Great Firewall using a VPN although the Chinese government is cracking down harder these days. Easy or not, most locals can’t get access, are afraid to because it will certainly be detected and may impact their government job, or don’t see the need to (aka shifting baseline syndrome). Lots of big hitter sites are blocked, but worst of all has got to be Google and its huge suite of products including your blog. This speaks as much to the ubiquity of Google though, doesn’t it?
See this NY Times article on the recent crackdown of the Chinese internet (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/world/asia/china-clamps-down-still-harder-on-internet-access.html) which ironically no one in China can read b/c the NYT is blocked, and this discussion on the Chinese internet fast becoming an intranet (http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/chinas-internet-becoming-intranet) .
These are certainly interesting times in the Middle Kingdom. If you come back, I suggest you get a VPN if you don’t want to be cut off.
PS - (Confession) Several years ago, when I was feeling particularly cut off, I went into a local pirate DVD store that has everything under the sun, looking for MASH DVDs. I didn’t see it but I was desperate so idiotically I tried describing the show to the semi-shady looking clerk saying stuff like, “It’s a tv comedy set in the Korean War probably in a green box…” He looked at me as if I had 5 heads and said, “Korean War???” as if he had never heard of such a thing. Suffice it to say, I left empty-handed.
Apologies for the length of this comment
Holy Cats! Do they save the toilet paper for the next person?
ReplyDeleteEwwww!
In China they have "Ripley's Believe It Or Else" Museum...
ReplyDeleteI believe "leavened bad fish" is more normally known as "fermented fish".
ReplyDeletewg
My favorite Chinglish from my trips to China:
ReplyDeleteOn a menu - "Glass of iced cock"
Street sign - "Take care to put the fire in the important place"
Over airport bathroom sink - "Unnecessary touching" (automatic faucet)
Yeah, Beijing plumbing is no fun.
Two more Chinglish moments:
ReplyDeleteEnglish subtitles on hotel video of patriotic women singing songs in front of great monuments: "We have survived many hardshits together."
Woman following me around park kept trying to sell me "ass cream" (ice cream). If anyone is offended that I find her accent funny, remember that I entertained/annoyed many Chinese with my attempts to order food or buy train tickets. I'm sure I got called an idiot many times.