Being (considered) a fatty

Back from a 3 weeks holiday in Europe, my boyfriend received the following compliments from his work mates:

“Welcome back! Wow, your holiday must have been good, you look so fat!”
”I can see you ate a lot on your holiday!”
“Nice to have you back. You look a bit round”.

And once his tan had faded another work mate offered some comfort:

“Oh good to see that your skin is doing better. When you first came back you looked so dirty in your face but now you look good again; white and pale!”

I’ve also received a few gibes about my weight.

“Jonna! Good to have you back! You look well; fat and round!”
(Coming back to work after being on a 3 weeks sick leave due to a broken foot)

"Well I bet that in your country you are not considered to be fat!"
(A Chinese friend trying to comfort me about my weight issue in China)

And then this one... (when making clothes at the tailor’s market together with a Chinese friend)

Me: “Why do I have to pay 150 kuai for my dress when my friend is paying 100?”
Honest tailor: “You are more fat. For you we need more fabric”.

The truth hurts.

Using the window as a trash can

Chinese people have, just like all of us, a lot of good AND bad habits…

Some good ones are:
Their friendliness, their eagerness to always offer you a meal (I love people that start a sentence with: “have you eaten yet?” I mean, can someone GET any more thoughtful?!), their openness and their closeness to smile and laughter. My Chinese friends are all great people that I am really happy I’ve had a chance to get to know!

But then there are, of course, those Chinese that have some rather bad characteristics. Some old habits. Some things that I find it very hard to get use to, like:
• The constant spitting
• The pushing (in shops, when getting on and off the metro/bus)
• Cutting lines (makes me FURIOUS! Wroooaw! *should be read as a lion roar*)

But worse of all the worse habits are, undeniably, THROWING GARBAGE BAGS OUT OF THE WINDOWS!!!

This is something I simply cannot excuse with being an ‘old habit that is hard to get rid off’. How hard can it be to collect your garbage in a neat little bin bag, and then carry it down to the public trash can? Well, apparently VERY hard, because a lot of my neighbours can not be bothered with it. Instead they throw their trash out of their window… and yes, both from the 7th and the 17th floor…

So what does this mean in real life then?
Well, for starters, it means that our yard is not a safe place for staying dry. Once, me and a friend where standing on the yard, chatting, when a large bin bag suddenly landed 2 cm next to my friend, splashing all sorts of juices on him. NICE ONE!

Another time, we where hanging our white sheets to dry on the bars outside our window (due to lack of space people hang their laundry to dry on bars outside their windows, there are no shared laundry washstands on the yard) when a bag full of old food hit the sheet. Obviously that was the first and the last time we tried to use the window bar for drying laundry.

I should mention that this is obviously not a habit that is common amongst the younger generation. But I don’t see why the older ones cannot learn how to carry their trash bags down. After all, they’re not prisoners in their flats.

(Thinking about what I would do if a garbage bag would hit my head when I was walking on the yard makes me scared)

Let's talk about sex

Yesterday I learned a new Chinese word: ‘qinre,’ which means ‘intimacy.’

When our teacher (Xi Laoshi again!) explained the word he mentioned an example of two young people being intimate. He said that the other day, he’d spotted two young 14-year olds on the bus that had been “completely qinre and oblivious to everyone and everything around them!!” You could tell this subject mattered for Xi Laoshi. While he told us, his face turned slightly pink and his voice got a bit squeaky. He was quite upset with the fact that people at that young age dared to show affection so openly.

“They should study, they should focus on school!” he said “When they are older than 18 they can get themselves a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but not before, it should be banned!”

Banned? Teenage love?!

Xi Laoshi blamed the teenage movies for “putting ideas into the minds of the young” and said there should be an age limit for when you can start watching two people being intimate on the TV screen (now, we are not talking hard core movies. More like ‘Mean Girls’ and other chick flicks).

“They are too young for all that…..” (He turned pink again). “They should not watch it! And they should not do it! The parents should be stricter!”

Few of us engaged in the discussion. Most of my classmates are Koreans and I don’t know how open they are about sex or affection over there. But one thing is for sure. Our dear teacher Xi laoshi is just another conservative Chinese man who is afraid of taking the word ‘sex’ in his mouth. Because believe me, he’s not unique in his way of thinking…

Two years ago I interviewed a quite famous sexologist in Beijing. She told me that the conservative view and the embarrassment about sex are huge obstacle for the sexual education in school.

“So many teachers are embarrassed about sex” she said. “It’s quite common that those teachers tear out the sex educational pages in the biology books because they don’t want to teach or talk about it.”

Yeah, that’s a great idea… NOT! Tear out the pages and there will neither be any discussion, nor anyone having sex. Or hang on a minute… could it be that it doesn’t work that way anymore? Actually, has it ever?

Sometimes I feel that a lot of Chinese ‘grown ups’ really need to grow up.

Nap time –whenever you want, wherever you want!

I’ve always been impressed with people who can fall asleep in two seconds. I’m personally that sort of sleeper that needs at least 10 minutes of tossing and turning before my eyelids can fully relax. Sleeping in public places, like air planes, trains, park benches (?!) and buses, however, are totally out of my league. For Chinese people, however, it seems like the more public the place, the easier to fall asleep.

My Chinese friends have explained the term ‘wu shui’ for me, meaning something like ‘lunch nap’… They said that the nap doesn’t meet that you are fully asleep, but that you are ‘snoozing’. ‘Sure’, I replied, nodded and (almost) believed them.

Because no matter what they tell me, I have to say that these sleepy captures (from Shanghai and Kunming) really speaks for themselves. Snoozing? My a**! I swear I could hear those people SNORE when I photographed them!

Eat bread –grow tall!

I’m about to finish my first year of Chinese studies and I have to say that my last five months at Shanghai Jiaotong University have been quite…interesting! Much due to my teacher “Xi Laoshi” (Xi is his surname and Laoshi means teacher… but we call him by “X Laoshi”, that’s the polite way in China). He’s a man in his mid 20-ties and he’s completely fascinated with my height.

Although I’m not considered to be particularly tall in my native Sweden (175 cm is quite average over there for girls!), a lot of Chinese people see me as a UFO: I’m at least two heads taller and probably 10 shades blonder than them. And I am a girl. So yes, to them I’m a very obvious UFO.

In my Chinese class, I’ve been an outcast from the moment we all had to introduce ourselves (we are 18 students: 14 Koreans, 3 Japanese and me!). This is mainly due to not being petite and Asian. But being an outcast isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially not if your teacher has got a good eye to you. And for Xi Laoshi, I’m wonder woman.

Everyone knows that Xi Laoshi is obsessed with my tall legs and my height. In the beginning of the semester, he often asked me to come forward and write on the board how tall I am meanwhile him and my (short) classmates did the compulsory ‘ohhhs’ and ‘ahhhs’. Several times I also had to stand next to him meanwhile he made up sentences in Chinese about "how tall I am, how all Swedish people are tall, and how all Chinese people are short".

As our Chinese level has become better the discussions has also become deeper.
“WHY are you so tall YouNa? (“YouNa” is my Chinese name: “You” mean friendly and “Na” means girl).
I have explained several times that I am not considered to be very tall in Sweden and that both my parents are well over 170 cm. But that has never been enough for Xi Laoshi. He has always continued to dig, desperately seeking for a more specific answer.

Some of the things he’s asked me about includes: what sports I did as a kid, where I studied, and what friends I played with.

Then one day Xi Laoshi cracked the nut. We were discussing Chinese breakfasts when he asked me:
-What do you eat for breakfast?
-Hm.. Nothing special. I drink coffee. And eat bread.
-Bread!?
-Yes, bread!
-Have you always eaten bread for breakfast?
-Yeah, I suppose so…
-Do Swedish people eat a lot of bread?
-I guess they do…
-Did you guys hear that! Bread! Swedish people eat bread! Guys, if you want to grow tall you should eat bread! You should feed your babies bread! You must eat more bread!

By this time, the whole class was quite tired of his length obsession, so most of the girls just giggled while the boys rolled their eyes. I suppose they were all secretly wishing that this ‘new discovery’ would put and end to it all. For good.

But Xi Laoshi refuses to let it go. I once mentioned I like long distance running, something he obviously took note of. Recently he told one of my class mates (who’s wife just had a baby) that they should feed the baby bread and make him do long distance running so that the baby will grow tall (!)

-Because that’s what they do in Sweden! He said, and smiled to me.
All I could do was to smile back.

And yeah, if someone wonders… That’s exactly what we do in Sweden: We give birth to our babies on the treadmill and then quickly stick a loaf of bread into their mouth.
-Chew this! We yell, and the baby starts chewing. And starts growing. :)

All you need is chilli

At a Chinese restaurant, two western guys are studying the menu and discussing what to order.

Guy 1: How about some spicy Sichuan chicken?
Guy 2: Sounds good.
Guy 1: And maybe some of that stir fried beef with chillies and green peppers?
Guy 2: Okay.
Guy 1: Let’s get those chilli marinated ribs too!
Guy 2: Hey don’t you think we have enough meat? How about some veggies?
Guy 1: Veggies? Dude, who needs fibres when you’ve got chilli oil?

I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop but come on, it’s just too much fun!! (And I know you love it too!)

The art of picking up

It’s not a secret that not-so-good-looking Western guys can (and often do) pick up Chinese super babes. And why? Well, because for Chinese girls, dating a westerner does not only give you high status; it may also be your ticket out of China.

So while a lot of not-so-hot-guys come to places as Shanghai as more or less virgins, they soon get into the vibe, not to mention the bedroom stuff, and as a result, Shanghais is full of over-confident and superficial losers!

Here’s an example…

Some months ago I was shaking it at the nightclub Attica, near the Bund in Shanghai, when a western, short dude with curly hair approached me together with his friend. They didn’t even bother to introduce themselves, instead the curly guy yelled into my ear:

-You live here?
-Yes!
-Cool! So do I! Shanghai is aweeeesome! (I could hear that he was American). This is my friend! He pointed at slightly taller, western guy that was standing a bit behind him.
-He is an actor visiting from the US, he continued. He is here shooting ‘the Mummy 3!’
(THE MUMMY 3!?!?)
-I didn’t know there was a ‘Mummy 2’ was all I could think of to say.

I think that the guy sensed that the actor approach wasn’t really doing its magic on me, because suddenly he said:
-You know, you’re quite pretty! And I really like your hair and your innocent look (“my what??!”) But there are many pretty girls in this room. Can you give me three reasons why I should continue talking to you and not go to someone else?!

I just stared at him, mouth wide open. What the hell?! Can I what?

-You know baby, give me your three best qualities!

I continued to just stare at him. But he ignored me and went on.

-I can help you our and tell you what I am looking for. You see, with ladies, I look for three things. One is sexiness, one is confidence and one is body! And guess what? You have TWO out of these THREE!!

With that, him and his friend did a ‘high five’, gave me two superficial, yet encouraging smiles, before they continued on to the next girl.

While I starred after them, all I could think of is that how sad it is that those two losers will probably not sleep alone tonight.

End of story.

PS. Any girl who has slept with this Mummy 3 actor: I am very disappointed of you!