Are Chinese men whipped?

"It's so heavy.. and you don't mind, do you?"

Oh yes, they so are!!

Spotted, on a windy day in Shanghai city: A trendy looking woman in high heals strutting about.
Behind her: her boyfriend/husband carrying three shopping bags, one large, pink, fake Gucci purse and pushing on a large armchair. At one point the woman turned around and yelled something quite nasty to him. His face barely moved.

Another time, in Century Park in Shanghai, I took this picture.. sort of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?!

"And while you're at it Honey.. can u also remove the dog poo that I accidently stepped on?"

But really, what is the handbag fuss all about? Everywhere you go in China or Korea you see men carrying their girlfriend's/wive's handbags. Not only does it looks funny, but also quite inconvenient seeing that the men are normally carrying their own man bag on one shoulder, and then their girlfriends' bag on the other.

Asian men –speak now, or we will forever think that you’re whipped!

Mandarin Level 3 -here we go!

Oh the memories.. back at level 1 my class looked like this...

Yey yey yey!

I’m glad to tell you that A. I’ve found a great tutor, and B. I made it into Mandarin Level 3 at my new university! Fair enough, I mean, I have already done level 2 at old uni, however, u never know if the universities have the same level. And you do need to take a placement test (consisting of one reading&writing part and one speaking part) if you're a new student.

Even though I was a complete mess at the written test, I managed to convince the two Chinese women who interviewed me as part of the speaking test that I can manage the level 3 standard. (I’m the same in every language I suppose: bad at spelling but good at speaking).

The first thing I did when I got my new level 3 books was to see how hard the texts were, meaning: how many characters I didn’t know. And it wasn’t too bad. Sure, about 50% are new ones but it feels soooooooooo nice that I at least now read a little bit better. When I started doing level 2 (I had then had an 11 months break since I did level 1) I was a complete mess.

I suppose one reason why my Chinese has improved is because I (during level 2) was in a class that consisted of only Korean and Japanese students. Seeing that most of them already know a lot of characters, they were almost fluent in reading and writing and that triggered me to study like a mad woman in order to keep up. A good tip for anyone who wants to learn Chinese is to study together with other Asians. It'll definitely speed up your learning!

Karaoke -Chinese stress release?

During my first visit to China I couldn’t help expressing my curiosity towards karaoke.
-Why do you guys love it so much? I asked my Chinese translator/guide/life saviour (at that point I spoke 0.0 Chinese)
-It releases stress, she said with a straight face.

Releases stress?

I thought about what I do when I want to release stress. I go for a run. I sweat. I suffer. I think to myself that “damn it, I HATE running” but then afterwards, when I’m back home again, exhausted and worn out, I feel kind of good. Or actually, very good.

I tried to imagine myself singing karaoke and feeling the same way afterwards.

-I see, I said.
-It’s not that strange you know, she said, as if she could read my mind.
-You know, in Japan, people go to special clubs where they get a private room, a pen, and a handful of porcelain plates. They go into their private room, write their bosses name on the plate, and throw the plate against the wall so that it shatters!! That’s their way of releasing stress!
-Oh, I see, I said again.
-So do you think Swedish people would prefer the Chinese or the Japanese method?
-I'm not sure...

Do I look de-stressed?

(Side note: “surprisingly” none of my Japanese friends have been able to confirm the ‘write-your-boss-name-on-a-plate-and-throw-it-on-the-wall-stress-release-method).

Am I a cheap bastard?

Last night a young, sweet, Chinese girl came over to our place to give me a trial private Mandarin lesson. Yeah, for those of you who do not know; I am (desperately) trying to speed up my process of learning Chinese. After 7 months of university language studies, I feel I sill make too many primal mistakes (like saying “I am a size 25” instead of “I am 25 years old” and telling the taxi driver “it doesn’t matter!!” when he asks me “should I take left or right at the crossing?” Yup. Quite inconvenient, I know!) and now I want to get better, fast!

With HSC level 6 as my current, far-fetched dream (yeah right) I was deeply motivated for yesterday’s lesson, which unfortunately didn’t work out quite the way I thought it would.

I had already specified how much I was willing to pay (50 kuai/hour), so imagine my surprise when the tutor (who had no previous teaching experience. I suppose I shouldn’t even call her a tutor) suddenly expressed her wish for me to pay her 150 kuai/hour.

“Ehum, but… well… I sort of already said I would pay 50!” I tried.

Useless.

I had to quickly shove her to my door so that her time wouldn’t add up to an outrageous quota.
But in the end I still paid her 50 kuai. Don’t call me ruthless! Even my ‘Chinese-tutor-wanted’-add said that price! I have no idea where she got 150 from?

Anyways. So now I’m at the lookout again. I know that 50 kuai/hour isn’t considered to be a too low rate. I’ve already asked around and all my Chinese friends believe it is a decent time pay, especially for someone who doesn’t have any previous teaching experience. A friend of mine is paying her tutor 30 kuai/hour, and that’s also considered to be a totally okay price.

But then again. Why do I get this feeling that when the tutor sees my blonde hair, 50 kuai suddenly becomes ‘waaaaaaaaay toooooo loooooooooow’ and I turn into this stingy bastard in front of her yes? Should Westeners have to pay more because they are Westeners? Like, really?

Fat bums and big noses

In China, the term ’honesty’ has a whole different meaning than back home.

In China, you don’t sugar coat your comments. You don’t try and hide the truth. In China, you say as you think and if you happen to hurt the other person, well, then that’s just the truth that hurts, rather than your words.

Therefore, I cannot utter any personal defend to the following thing that happened to a friend of mine.

She was in a small, Chinese clothing shop when she decided to try on a dress. The mirror was outside the fitting room, so when she went out to have a look, she overheard the Chinese shop assistants offering their point of view:

-Look at that girl. Incredible how big asses those westerners have!
-I know! Big asses, and big hips. Looks stupid.
-Yeah, hehe!

Now all this was said in Chinese so what can you do? Well, if it would have been me I probably would have yelled something nasty back (in Chinese) but my friend was quite shell-shocked and simply left the shop without saying a word (and no, she didn’t buy the dress).

Some weeks later, I was in another clothing shop and just about to pay for a dress when the two smiling shop assistants behind the counter started talking to each other in Chinese:

Girl 1: -Do you think she’s beautiful?
Girl 2: -Beautiful?
Girl 1: -Yeah, the Western girl.
Girl 2: -I don’t know, her nose is quite big…

Instantly, the memory of my humiliated friend’s sob story sprung to my mind. No way I was going to have this happen to me too?!

Me (in Chinese): -Why are you asking her if she thinks I am beautiful, how would you feel if I talked about you like that?!

Ahhhhh… I wish you would have seen the faces of Girl 1 & Girl 2. Priceless!!!

Well, they didn’t say anything else while I was standing there, but when I walked away I heard them burst into a hysterical laughter. Well, I suppose we all need our dose of daily fun?

And well, I guess compared to their tiny-non-existent-hips-and-bums and their pert little noses, us Westerners do look rather big. But that’s not something we need to be told, is it??

Yup, I guess my nose is the bigger kind.

There won't be any "language exchange" lunch today

Turns out I was right about Mr Chinese guy. Around 9pm last night, I received the following text message (all in Chinese characters, so it took me quite a while to read it…)

“Dear Jonna, I was very happy to meet you today at Starbucks. You are beautiful and lovely. Are you living here alone? I am here alone. I work at a golf club. I can’t wait to meet you tomorrow.”

Okeeeeeeeeey, and that was the end of that ‘language exchange’. I replied everything I could think of to make it obvious that this was not going to happen (in Chi characters, quite proud of myself!) and that was it. Over and out!

Why does this always happen to me?!

There I was, innocently studying characters at a Starbucks café when a mid-aged Chinese man approached me and asked if I was an English teacher.
‘No!’ I said and pointed on my endless notes of characters.
‘Oh, because I want to learn English!’
And then, with both of us not being very good at communicating at the other ones language (his English was as poor as my Chinese… actually, I should give myself some credit, maybe it was even poorer than mine) we ended up in some sort of linguistic haze where he expressed his wish to become my 朋友‘peng you’= friend.

Yes, my friend.

But friends don’t call you 15 min after you’ve said goodbye and ask if they can take you out for dinner.

Yes, I am very naïve and stupid who gave him my number but my phone was sort of at the table and he wanted me to put his number in, and call him, so that he could get mine. And yes, of course I could have said no, or even better, I could have refused, but once again… It’s not that nice to make a Chinese man ‘lose face’ at a public place, so I thought I’d let him down gently. When he suggested dinner (during our phone call) I replied ‘how about lunch at Starbucks’. I’m thinking that if Starbucks could get me into this sticky situation, then Starbucks better take me out of it too!!

Now, if he really, truly wants us to be ‘friends’ and friends only, I will have to take all this back. But if he thinks ‘friends’ or ‘study buddies’ means wining and dining, and not focussing on language exchange, I guess I’ll have to do some painful explaining to him. Oh lord. Why does this always happens to me?

But anyways, I am meeting him tomo already... To be continued!!