Jan 18, 2013 |
There was a sticker in my urinal yesterday.
I’m not entirely surprised to see random things in a urinal. In fact I usually don’t give it much thought. Cigarette butts are almost a given. Those little pink moth ball smelling discs wrapped in a plastic . . . sure. I’ve even recently seen toilets filled with ice accompanied by a sign that assures me that by using a urinal with ice in it I am saving the equivalent of three rainforests. That one actually makes me feel good. I’m mean, I’m no environmental hero or anything but I like to do what I can.
The sticker just made me laugh.
It said “here”.
It was a target. They put a target in the toilet. That’s funny.
It’s also a little bit brilliant considering that this is a problem that has plagued restrooms across the globe for centuries. Very few little boys have not been called away from their video games back into the bathroom by their slightly more than irritated mother to receive step by step instructions in toilet etiquette and post usage clean up. Let’s be honest. Very few marriages have been spared that same tutorial.
It’s a legitimate and apparently universal problem. So much so that there is an entire industry created around it. Ingenious minds have racked their engineering brains inventing and reinventing the most perfectly contoured porcelain and the most practical splash guard accessories to solve the problem. Even the poets have attacked the issue with poignant works like:
“If you sprinkle when you tinkle,
Be a sweetie, wipe the seatie.”
I think that was Emily Dickinson. Or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Pretty sure it was a woman.
And now. Problem solved.
All it took was a tiny little, brightly colored, liquid proof sticker that says, “here.”
At least that’s what they want you to think. The reality here is much, much darker and I’m onto them.
Follow me here.
It didn’t even occur to me at first that the sticker was in English. English is all around in China so no surprise there but English is generally a translation of Chinese and even though translations are getting progressively better, bathroom translations are notoriously and most often hilariously bad. In fact, in the exact same public restroom on the door to the Western toilet (if you don’t know what a Western toilet is then it’s probably the one you would call normal) was this sign that read, “Squatting Pan.”
“Squatting Pan.”
I want this sign to hang on my bathroom and if I find it I will buy it in bulk to sell it online. Ten bucks and you too can have one for your home.
But the sticker just said, “here.”
No Chinese. No translation. Just, “here.”
If there had been a translation, they surely would have employed the standard bathroom English translators and it would have read something like, “Stream arrive thusly” or “Preventing unfortunate puddle radius.”
But it didn’t. It just said, “here”, in perfectly understandable, non-overstated English and no Chinese.
Do you realize what this means?!!
They think that the foreigners are the ones making all the mess!! Obviously the Chinese men don’t need a target but the English speaking outsiders have a serious problem. There must have been councils formed and city planning meetings to discuss this. Meetings where an actual item of business was what to do about the foreign men in public restrooms.
I’m trying to imagine what might happen if, in my hometown, which is less than 2% Hispanic, the city park put up a sign that said “no littering” but it was only in Spanish. Automatic grounds for a racial profiling suit.
I’m not sure they have racial profiling suits here so I’m choosing to let it slide but you can be sure that I left the restroom more paranoid than I went in. Were they talking about me? Rolling their eyes? Did the maintenance man get on his walkie talkie and say, “yeah we just had a foreigner come out of the East side men’s room. We’re gonna’ need a clean up crew. Over.”
Ok. I didn’t actually think all of those things but it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a toilet all week. Which is why I thought it was worth and blog post . . . and the risk of someone walking in while I was snapping a picture . . . of the urinal.
Jan 14, 2013 |
I’m a do it yourself kind of guy. Call me crazy but I see absolutely no value in paying a trained professional my hard earned money to invade my home for up to an hour while he completes a simple task that I could clearly do myself in seven to ten hours for twice as much money.
However, labor is generally cheap in China so when our kitchen faucet started spraying water on the zippered part of my pants last week I called the fix it guy from the management office of our apartments . . . and I changed my pants. He arrived quickly. He looked at the faucet (which I had taken the liberty to disassemble for him). He laughed a little bit. He left.
Outwardly acting disappointed, my inner manly man simultaneously grunted for joy at the prospect of a DIY experience that might actually involve tools and more grunting.
Doing it yourself is a whole different beast in China though. There are simple considerations that, if left unconsidered, can cause considerable challenges. So I have prepared this step by step guide for my fellow expat menly men in an effort to minimize the stress of what could be a very simple project. Obviously, if you are a fellow Do-It-Yourselfer you don’t NEED to read this but you may want to suggest it to others who don’t understand things like we do.
STEP ONE: Put it off until later.
This is important. Do not let your ambition cloud your understanding of what you know to be true. This is going to take a while. That urgent, “I need to do this now” feeling that you are experiencing is simply the surge of extra testosterone that your body produces when you hear of a DIY project. It’s perfectly normal but you must fight it.
Symptoms are:
- Forgetfulness (non-capacity to remember what happened last time)
- Internal Bargaining (How hard can it be? How long could it take?)
- Delusions of Grandeur (It is not uncommon for men in this state to believe they can fly, fight crime wearing spandex or fix a leaky faucet)
Be strong. Even if you were in your home country this would take seven times as long as your hormone-disabled brain is allowing you to think at the moment. You are in China which automatically adds an extra multiple of seven. That’s 49 times as long. Think you can do it in an hour? See you in two days.
Here are some suggestions to get you through STEP ONE:
- Go to ESPN.com: Important – Even if you have television in China do not go to there! It’s probably ping pong or soccer. Find a sport that involves hitting, crashing or punching. DO NOT, under any circumstances, go to any site or channel that even remotely promotes the fixing, assembling, remodeling or demolition of ANYTHING. There are password protected safeguards that you can place on your computer to protect you from a vulnerable moment. Use them.
- Eat Something Spicy: Really spicy. The kind that you would get to write your name on the wall of some restaurants just for eating. Sharing it with a friend is even better especially if that friend cannot eat the spicy food. Even if your face turns purple and your tongue catches fire pretend you feel nothing and say, “What? You think that’s spicy?”
- Pretend to be Spiderman
The sense of urgency will soon subside. In two to three days your wife will point out that every dish in the house is now dirty and it may be time for you to begin the project. You should begin the project two to three days after that.
STEP TWO: Disassemble the Old Faucet
Tools needed: Any wrench you have, hammer (if you have one), Drill (which you probably don’t have), Fork or chopsticks, Old shoe, Duct tape.
No instruction necessary.
STEP THREE (optional): Learn the Chinese words for “Kitchen Faucet”
Note: If you forget this step it’s ok. You can use sign language and your taxi driver or the hardware store owner will teach you the correct words. Even if you know the correct words it is wise to use sign language for context since you will probably pronounce it incorrectly and say something like “The dragon has wet hair.” This will make no sense unless you are pretending to turn a faucet on and off while saying, “Pshhhht Pshhht”.
“Shui long tou” (shway long toe) – That’s how you say faucet in Chinese but however you said it in your head . . . it was wrong.
STEP FOUR: Go to the Hardware Store
This is actually a complex step due to the various styles of hardware store in China. Most larger cities are now equipped with three options for fixing your sink:
The Tiny Store: A one room, streetside shop owned and operated by one Chinese manly man, his wife and their two year old daughter. The shop will be cram packed from floor to ceiling, wall to wall with every conceivable hardware product . . . except kitchen faucets.
The Kitchen Sink Street: This is an entire city block of nothing but wholesale kitchen sink faucets and related hardware. This is your best option.
The DIY Megastore: Popping up around China are a number of DIY monster retail superstores. In our city it is B&Q which looks and smells like a Home Depot. I have heard other cities have actual Home Depot’s but they look and smell like Lowe’s. DO NOT GO HERE – the prices are generally outrageous and there is much less hunting and gathering required which defeats your manly man purposes.
Follow these directions exactly:
1. Go to the tiny store and say, “The dragon has wet hair.” The shop-owners wife will look at you like (or maybe because) you are stupid and say, “huh?” Lean forward and repeat louder, “THE DRAGON HAS WET HAIR!” She will call her husband from the back, not because he knows more about the shop but because she is concerned for her safety. When he arrives, tell him about the dragon but include miming a faucet and say, “Pshhht, Pshhhht.”
He will say, “OOHHHH, A kitchen faucet. Yeah, we don’t have any.”
Ask him where Kitchen Sink Street is. He will tell you. Practice saying it a couple of times with him. Apologize for being a foreigner.
2. Get in a taxi and tell him what the shop owner told you to say. He will look at you “like” you are stupid. Repeat it louder. Pause while he gives you a blank stare. Tell him, “The dragon has wet hair pshhht, pshhht” with sign language. He will say, “OOHHH” and drive you to the DIY Megastore.
3. Swallow your pride and forget about finding Kitchen Sink Street. Enter the DIY Megastore.
STEP FIVE: Purchase a Faucet
There will be more than 7000 faucets installed onto a shining faucet wall. Remind yourself that you came to buy the cheapest possible option and locate it on the wall. Point it out to the assistant and tell her you want to buy it. She will say, “No you don’t. You want to buy this one. It’s more expensive.” Politely decline and look at all of the faucets again.
Repeat this process several times and then buy a more expensive one.
I personally chose the single handle option with the retractable head but not because she showed it to me – and out of the single handle retractable’s I chose the cheapest one.
So there.
STEP SIX: Return Home and Begin Installation
Sidenote: There is no need to clear the dirty dishes from the sink at this point. You can work around those. There is also no need to read the directions which is good since they are probably not included in the box and if they were they would be in Chinese.
Installation is self-explanatory but follow these simple steps if you have trouble:
- Screw stuff together: Most hoses, handles, washers, bolts and rubber things only fit in one spot so you can’t possibly go wrong.
- Poke stuff through the hole in your sink: Rule of thumb – If it is shiny, it probably goes on top of the sink. If it is ugly, stuff it through the hole.
- Realize there is a hose missing: You can do this by visualizing what will happen if you turn the water on. If you can foresee yourself getting soaked there may be a problem.
- Say to yourself, “That’s strange, I wonder why it’s not included.”
STEP SEVEN: Return to the DIY Megastore
Follow these directions exactly:
1. Explain to the front desk that the hose is missing. If you don’t have the vocabulary for this you may pull the pieces out of the box and assemble the entire faucet in front of them. Then it will be obvious that a hose is missing when you say, “Pshhht, pshhht” and pretend to spray water all over them. They will call in a specialist from the faucet section. She will tell you to go to aisle 18 (plumbing) to buy the extra hose and you will question why it is not included. This is pointless.
2. Go to aisle 18 and ask for help. The plumbing specialist will tell you they do not carry that hose. You can tell her that you purchased the faucet at their store. She will say, “That’s strange, I wonder why it’s not included.” Then she will say they don’t carry it again.
3. Return to the section where you originally found your faucet and explain the situation (using words or sign language as needed/able). Show them the faucet you purchased and find another box with an identical faucet. Open the box and locate the hose that you need so you can show them. They will say, “OOHHH, just take that one.”
Note: At this point it will become clear why the hose was missing from your original box.
4. Return to the front desk where they will try to charge you for the missing hose. Explain that it should have been in the box and they will say, “OOHHH, that’s strange, I wonder why it wasn’t included.”
5. Smile. Nod. Say, “Yeah . . . strange.”
6. Return home.
STEP EIGHT: Learn some Chinese Cursewords
This will be important in Step Nine.
STEP NINE: Install the Faucet
Tools needed: Same as Step Two plus a hacksaw, a file, a blow torch and/or a small amount of C4 explosive
Follow these directions exactly:
- Screw stuff together
- Try to poke it through the hole in the sink
- Realize the hole in the sink was made for a smaller faucet
- Make the hole bigger (see tools needed)
- Try again
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times as needed
- Attach all hoses to water supply
- Make it tight
- Turn the faucet on
- Shake it up and down
- Hit it a few times
- Curse in Chinese
- Realize you didn’t turn the water on under the sink
- Do that
- Turn the faucet on again
- Grunt with rejoicing when the water comes out
- Curse in Chinese when you see that it leaks
STEP TEN: Call the Fix-It-Guy
And that’s it.
Let me know if this is helpful and I’ll think about writing a “How To in China” book.
Next up: How to Break Into Your Own Apartment in China.
Jan 7, 2013 |
I am a fully confessed language faker. I’ve owned it. Embraced it. Even written about it in front of the whole internet and everybody.
Rarely does a day go by that I don’t find myself in a Chinese taxi or convenience store nodding like I understood what I just heard or taking a 50-50 stab in the dark that my answer might be right. No secrets here. I’m a language faker.
But this story isn’t about me . . . I have this friend . . .
My friend, like all of us who routinely bumble the Chinese language, went through the phase of learning that I refer to as the “Confident Moron Phase.” It comes very early on in the learning process and is marked by a blatant overestimation of actual ability partnered with an unfounded willingness to keep trying despite public perception or personal embarrassment. It’s two phases before the “Broken Quitter Phase” and ironically people who can remain Confident Moron’s for extended periods ultimately become the most fluent.
The rest of us secretly despise them.
My friend . . . we’ll call him Moonbeam just for fun . . . was a teacher. Like many young, handsome teachers he naturally caught the eye of several of his Chinese students of the female persuasion. In actuality, handsomeness is often only a minor variable since frankly . . . we all look alike, and we all look like movie stars. For example, I personally have been told I look a lot like George Cluney by some of my most perceptive and intelligent Chinese friends. The same friends, however, tempered my swollen ego by also telling me I look a lot like Mr. Bean.
Moonbeam (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Brad Pitt . . . and the Grinch who stole Christmas) was invited to join one of his young female students and her parents for dinner at their home. Feeling confident that her intentions were simply in the interest of fostering an authentic cultural exchange and excited to try out his newly learned Chinese, he accepted her generous offer.
It was at that dinner that he made the best language faker mistake I have heard of to date.
She prepared a traditional Chinese favorite, best translated into English as “spare ribs”. Prepared just right they are small pieces braised pork that are fall off the bone tender and downright delicious. Prepared wrong they can still be the most palatable dish of an awkward cultural exchange dinner, outweighing pancreas, frog ovaries or any kind of intestines by a ton.
It’s worth knowing how to order so here is your Chinese lesson for the day . . .
Spare Ribs = “Paigu”
If, you’re not accustomed to Chinese phonetics (pinyin) try pronouncing it “pie goo”, as in the best part of an apple pie. That should get you close enough as long as you’re sitting in a restaurant that specializes in “pie goo” (the spare ribs not the pie), however I should warn you that used out of context and in the wrong tone the sounds “pie goo” may also sound something like “expose your sister-in-law”. So . . . you know . . . be careful. Especially if you’re traveling with your sister-in-law.
Moonbeam had recently learned to say “paigu” and like any rookie language faker with an arsenal of new vocab words he was eager to test it out. In an effort to raise the stakes he learned the best way to say “delicious” as well. Everyone knows how to say “hao chi” (tastes good). That’s what they teach you as soon as you land in China. He needed a better way. More expressive. Less cliche. An impressive word that captures more of the senses and more importantly a word that most newby foreigners wouldn’t use. He found it.
“Hao Xiang”
Broadly translated it means something like “fragrant and delectable, not only delicious but a treat to partake of” (try pronouncing it “how shong” but again understand that you may actually be saying “nice elephant”)
As they ate, Moonbeam knew his moment had come. Turning to his student’s father he complimented his daughter’s dinner.
“Your daughter’s spare ribs are fragrant and delectable.”
Let’s pause right there for a moment to explore the dynamics of the awkward cultural exchange. A sweet, young student anxious to show off her relationship with the handsome foreign teacher to her family. She is both excited yet nervous that her traditional Chinese parents will behave embarrassingly in front of her teacher or that her teacher will do the same in front of her parents. Two parents raised during the Cultural Revolution at which time America was enemy number one have now raised a daughter who has invited her Imperialist teacher into their home. An enthusiastic young teacher trying to make small talk with a very limited number of words.
This one monumental sentence could serve as such a bridge across the cultural gap. Complimentary, encouraging, disarming and potentially even charming. It was absolutely the best thing he could say.
Which is why he was so confused by the reaction of his student and her father. His eyes were instantly as wide as the dishes they were eating from and her face went pale. You see in a hero’s effort to break the barriers, ease the tension and instill good faith between the Communists and Imperialists, my friend missed a single syllable.
“Your daughter’s ‘pigu’ is hao xiang”
He said “pigu” instead of “paigu”. If you’re having trouble try pronouncing it “pee goo” and know that no matter how horrible your accent is it is almost guaranteed that nearly every Chinese listener will hear the same word . . . and laugh . . . unless that listener is the father of the young female student who has invited you into their home.
“Pie goo” means “spare ribs”. “Pee goo” means “bottom.” Not the “opposite of top” kind of bottom. The “body part you sit on” kind of bottom. My friend looked squarely into the eyes of a suspicious Chinese father and with far greater confidence than the situation merited said,
“Your daughter’s hindquarters are fragrant and delectable.”
I love that story because it reminds me to keep making mistakes.
And just in case you’re wondering if my “friend” is actually me, here is the dead giveaway that he is, in fact, not. Today, more than 15 years later, Moonbeam speaks more fluently in Chinese than any foreigner I have ever met.
I secretly despise him . . . and respect him greatly.
For more on the Adventures of a Language Faker . . . go here
Oct 26, 2012 |
I nearly wrote a blog post this week but I didn’t. It would have been a good one too. Funny. Witty. The “makes you think while you’re laughing” kind. Too bad you’ll never get to read it . . . because I didn’t write it.
I started to. I’ve even got the notes I made about it written down on paper. I wrote it on paper because I was on an airplane and they wouldn’t let me turn my computer on because it would interfere with the pilot’s radar and bump us off course from Shanghai to Moscow and I heard that it’s already getting cold in Moscow. It’s still nice in Shanghai so I wrote it on paper.
It was a post about the absolutely diabolical engineering genius of airplane seats. If you’ve ever flown you see the potential for a good post right? I was making notes about how the designers of those seats had achieved the impossible. Like in that movie Apollo 13 when they had to figure out how to recreate a life size rocket ship, Times Square and a summer home for three Martians by using only eight cotton balls a rubber hose and a dirty shoe in a space the size of a coffee can or all the astronauts would burn up on re-entry or float through space until they ran out of dehydrated ice cream . . . and Tang.
And they did.
They figured it out. Which is pretty amazing but still nothing compared to the unparalleled brilliance of airplane seat designers. They must have pooled the intellects of the greatest minds from Harvard, MIT and the Third Reich to craft such an unfathomably complex and subtly torturous device. How can it be possible that no matter what position I contort my body into I am perfectly comfortable for exactly 30 seconds, no more, no less? How is it that if I move my knees one centimeter to the left my neck will spasm and if I adjust my neck one centimeter to the right my lower back will cramp and if I scoot forward one centimeter my knees will press just firmly enough on the seat in front of me to remind that passenger that he has forgotten to tilt his seat back and fall asleep in my lap . . .
. . . which forces me to adjust my knees . . .
. . . which spasms my neck . . .
. . . which cramps my back . . .
. . . which makes it really hard to keep writing notes for my blog post and ensures that the world will never know of their evil plan.
Genius.
I was going to write that post . . . but I didn’t.
Know why? Because while I was jotting notes (with my left hand because my right hand had gone completely numb under the weight of my left thigh) I realized something. Know what I realized? I realized I was flying. Me. Jerry Jones. Not Superman or Mighty Mouse or even a duck. Not even the real Jerry Jones who owns the Dallas Cowboys and can afford his own jetpack. Just me. I was flying . . . in a giant Pringle can . . . five miles above the earth . . . at speeds that would pull my face off if I stuck my head out the window and in less than an hour I would be in Shanghai which would have taken me 7 hours by train, 10 hours by car (96 hours if traffic is normal), and 8 weeks by camel if I even had a camel . . . or a car . . . or a train (who has a train?). How utterly amazing is it that human beings have discovered it possible to bend and shape steel in such a way that you can pour large amounts of combustible liquid into it . . . AND IT FLYS!
Then they put seats in it.
And what do I notice?
The seats.
The horribly uncomfortable seats.
Interesting that I have become so unaware of the amazingness (not a word according to spell check) surrounding me that the discomfort I’m sitting in is what gets my attention.
I spent the rest of the flight counting things that I had forgotten are wonderful . . . on my toes . . . because they were right next to my head.
When I got off the plane in Shanghai I caught some of the U.S. Presidential Debate on the airport TV . . . and I thought “hmm . . .
. . . that’s another post I probably won’t write.”
Sep 17, 2012 |
Wait — Click here if you haven’t read part one (of step 4) yet.
I had two hours and thirteen minutes to study 1500 possible questions that I hadn’t seen in 4 years for a 100 question test that I must answer 9 out of 10 correctly or I would completely waste 3500 RMB and 48 full hours of my life. My blood pressure was about 450 over 225 and my chances of success were slightly above zero.
However, chances of success if I didn’t try were exactly zero so I determined that if I was to fail I would fail in a blaze of glory. I mentally recalled every inspirational, underdog, 4th quarter, give me all you’ve got speech from every great sports movie I had ever seen. Hoosiers . . . Rudy . . . Rocky . . . The Bad News Bears . . . that hockey one with Kurt Russell. I can do this! I am a champion! When this day is over I will hold my head high, stare the system square in the eye and say, “nana nana boo boo!”
I ran like Forrest Gump to the nearest taxi and said, “Dead Chicken! take me to the closest net bar” (pretty common for foreigners to mispronounce “taxi driver” and say “dead chicken”). After some confusing deliberation we drove until we saw a roadside Wang Ba (internet cafe). Internet Cafe actually sounds so . . . how do you say it . . . not filthy. This one was the opposite of not filthy. It was a long, dingy, smoke filled room with about 50 PC’s lined up side by side on tables that stretched to the end of the room and back. There was one computer that was not occupied by a twenty three year old gamer. “I took it.”
The quest began. In my mind it would be a quick Google search to find all 1500 questions and start cramming information into my brain’s temporary file (which I hadn’t used since college). Not the case. After 38 precious minutes the only articles I had found were funny blogs about how ridiculous the test questions are. I already knew that but I was getting some great blog ideas. Not so much helpful.
1000 kilometers away Flight was searching too. She sent me the Chinese test which I copied and pasted into Google Translator. Just a quick word about translation. It is an art, not a science. Translated individual words all stuck together do NOT always equal translated sentences. No disrespect. Google Translator is a tremendously powerful, incredibly helpful tool but in my adrenaline fueled frenzy there was little time for English translations that still needed translating into better English.
For example – Here is one of the Chinese test questions, digitally Englishized . . .
“With fog horn can cause other attention; hear the other vehicles honking should be honking responded.”
To or Wrong?
Here’s another one . . .
“Driving at night, to avoid overtaking, where overtaking transform the car to indicate the distance light forward.”
To or Wrong?
With less than a hour left I finally found an English practice test. I was getting about 60% wrong. And then it was time to go.
Doomed.
There were at least 200 people in line to take the test ahead of me. The line came from the second floor, down an outdoor stairwell and wrapped around the parking lot. Thankfully it was only raining a little bit. I stood for about 45 minutes and finally made it to the bottom of the stairs when the guard at the top of the stairs noticed me and waved for me to come on up.
“You want the English test.”
“Uh. Yes.”
“You don’t have to wait in line. Go on in.”
Feeling like a complete idiot for standing needlessly in the rain for nearly an hour I went in and sat down among another 200 people. Turns out the outside line was just people waiting to come inside and wait some more. A lady turned around and said, “You want the English test?”
“Uh. Yes.”
“Go on up. You don’t have to wait.”
Now feeling like a complete jerk who gets to move to the front while all of these other poor, soaking wet souls wait for what could be days I spoke to the other guard.
“Um. I want the English test.”
“You want the English test?”
“Uh. Yes. I want the English test.”
“Ohhhh. You don’t have to wait. Go to that desk.”
I went to that desk and pushed my way through the crowd.
“You want the English test?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“Give me your papers.”
So I did.
Pause . . . and I kid you not . . . this happened.
“We don’t have an English test.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“We don’t have an English test.”
There was a brief silent moment. Like the moment when Rocky gets blasted and falls face first to the floor. You know the moment I’m talking about don’t you? The crowd is jumping, the referee begins counting and you see Adrian screaming “GET UP! GET UP!” But it’s still silent. It’s the decision moment. Go against all of the odds and pull yourself up with your last remaining strength or stay down and give up. No one would blame you . . . but no one would make a movie about you either.
I got up.
“I’m sorry. What?”
He started speaking slower, louder and using sign language. “WEEE (pointing at himself and the other people at the desk) . . . DO NOOOT (waving both hands back and forth) . . . HAAAAVE (receiving motion) . . . AN EEEEENGLISH (pointing at my mouth and nodding condescendingly) . . . TEST.”
“Yes. Yes you do have an English test. I have taken the English test. Right here in this room four years ago! I took the English test! I KNOW YOU HAVE AN ENGLISH TEST! Seventeen people just asked me if I wanted to take the English test! YOU! YOU yourself asked me, ‘Do you want to take the ENGLISH TEST?! To which I replied, ‘YES!! YES PLEASE MAY I TAKE THE ENGLISH TEST?!!’ And NOW?!! NOW you tell me you don’t have an ENGLISH TEST?!! WHERE IS THE ENGLISH TEST?!!”
“We don’t have one.”
I called Flight. She spoke with them and explained to me that the English test is only for the first timers but since I was recovering a lost license there is no English test. My test would only be 50 questions which should have been wonderful news but evidently it was not common for English speakers to lose their licenses and so no provisions had been made for that.
“Can I just take the hundred question test?!”
“No. You must take the 50 question test. In Chinese.”
With absolutely no hope of success I planted myself (politely) and decided I wasn’t leaving until closing time. My reasoning was maybe they’ll get so frustrated they would buckle and just give me my license. Miniscule chance but still higher than me passing the Chinese test.
Several of the guards and other employees gathered together to discuss the problem of the foreigner who wouldn’t leave. They finally came to the agreement that if I had a translator they could take the test with me. I didn’t have a translator and even if I could find one there was no way for them to get there in time. Still no hope.
A young lady who had just finished her test asked me (in English) if everything was ok. The guard saw it as a golden opportunity.
He excitedly asked her, “You speak English?”
She said “yes.”
“Please, please help us get rid of this guy?” I’m paraphrasing
She agreed to translate the test for me.
We sat down at the computer with a webcam pointed at my nose . She translated the first question . . .
“Ok. This one says, um, ‘All drivers must obey all of the traffic rules.'”
Seriously? I started to click “Right.”
“NO NO NO NO!” She stopped me.
I looked at her.
“Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me! Look at the camera!”
I snapped back to attention afraid to move.
She scolded me. “It’s wrong . . . Policemen, firemen and ambulance drivers don’t have to obey.”
I was trying not to look at her but as my nose flared in disbelief I chose to take her word for it. She was right.
Like I said, translation is an art, not a science and even though her English far exceeded my Chinese it was quickly obvious that she was neither an artist nor a scientist. However, together, we missed two questions and that’s all I have to say about that.
I got my license back.
Every great triumph embodies an inspiring moral. Something that looks good on a poster like, “Believe in yourself and anything is possible” or “When you get pummeled to the ground always get back up.” However as I walked away from the DMV that day, too shell-shocked and humbled for “nana nana boo boo,” I felt there was a deeper, far more meaningful lesson that I had learned and learned well . . .
Never.
Ever.
No matter what.
Should you ever . . . ever . . .
. . . lose your license in China.
——-
If you missed the rest of the epic adventure click below to catch up:
Driving in China Step One: Insanity
Step Two
Step Three
Step Four – Part One
Sep 5, 2012 |
There are few moments more petrifying in a teenage boys life than those spent attempting to pass the driving test. Not the written one. Those moments are painful as well but they are nothing compared to the heart thumping horror of buckling up (or heaven forbid . . . forgetting to) next to the the beady-eyed, frozen-hearted, expressionless, clipboard wielding examiner. Every move is cautiously calculated and every word is fearfully over evaluated.
For example, he says, “Ok. Ready to begin?”
Obviously a loaded question and most likely some kind of psychological warfare tactic strategically designed to break your will and crush your spirit but, even though you see right through his dirty little scheme, your mind races uncontrollably. “What do you mean by ‘ready to begin?’ Of course I’m ready. Why would I not be ready? I’m forgetting something aren’t I? What am I forgetting? Seat belt? On. Radio? Off. Seat? Adjusted. Mirrors? Perfect. WHAT ARE YOU SEEING THAT I’M NOT?!! If I say ‘yes’ and I’m wrong you’ll flunk me but if I say ‘no’ you’re going to expect a reason and I DON”T HAVE A REASON!! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?!! PLEASE, PLEEAAASSE DON’T FAIL ME”
Smiling like a used car salesman you try to outfox him . “Oh, I think I’m just about ready. Are you ready?”
He squints and stares through your soul for a split second and then glances down to his clip board. “I’m not the one taking the test.”
He makes a mark.
It’s twenty minutes of absolute terror that culminates in the five most blood curdling words in a 16 year old’s vocabulary . . . “Ok, parallel park right here.”
You can understand why I was overjoyed when my friends told me that a road test was not required to get a Chinese driver’s license. Especially considering that I had never actually driven in the chaos that is Chinese traffic. Consequently my overjoy was matched with overtrembling when I discovered that because my license in America allowed me to drive a fifteen passenger van, my Chinese license would (by declaration of Chinese law and possibly Chairman Mao himself) have to be the same. The bigger problem was that there is no license classification for a 15 passenger van in China. The closest equivalent is a 21 passenger mini-bus which I would, in fact, be required to drive, for the first time in my life, through China traffic, in the presence of the Chinese version of my most dreaded arch enemy from the most traumatic 20 minutes of my teenage life. I felt fears that I had not felt in 20 years as I envisioned the examiner (now a Communist) asking me to parallel park a manual transmission bus between two BMW’s on a steep incline.
I arrived at the DMZ . . . wait, no . . . DMV with Mr. Wang who would serve as my translator and his 8 year old son Andy who came along for the ride. We sat in a big room with 50 other people waiting to take the driving test and watched horrible videos of actual car crashes with real people being thrown and dragged and as far as I could tell, killed. They were similar to the videos that we saw in high school when the county coroner came and tried to scare us into driving responsibly. We loved those videos. At least the boys did. The girls all screamed and hid their faces which, truth be told, was the only reason we boys loved it. The whole gory event was proof positive that any attempt to publicly manipulate 16 year old boys into doing anything responsible was a hopeless endeavor. Twenty years later on the other hand, it seemed to be working. I was feeling more responsible (and more nauseous) by the moment.
We waited for about two hours until myself, Mr. Wang, Andy and one other man were last in the room. This man and I were the only ones being tested for the mass transit vehicle which I was now calling “Gargantua” in my head. At last our names were called. We all boarded the vehicle and, in answer to my prayers, the other man was chosen to drive first.
What happened next was both frightening and glorious.
I do not believe this man had ever driven a manual transmission vehicle (stick shift) in his life. In fact, it is entirely feasible that he had never driven any vehicle in his life. Have you ever been in a car when the driver both releases the clutch and stomps on the accelerator all in one immediate motion? You know how the entire car bounces up and down, jerks forward in several quick bursts tossing the passengers around like they were dice in a Yahtzee cup and makes a horrible sound like — KACHUM KACHUM KACHUM CHUM CHUM CHUM? And then it dies?
Yeah. We did that. Only it was a bus.
I had no idea you could make a bus bounce like that. My eyes were wide and glued to the examiner who made a mark on his clipboard. Then we did it again . . . KACHUM CHUM CHUM CHUM . . . dead. And again KACHUM CHUM CHUM CHUMM MMMM . . . finally he achieved forward motion and proceeded out of the parking lot into oncoming traffic . . . where he stopped. I kid you not, he stopped the bus in the middle of the lane blocking oncoming traffic. He began to look around and I recognized that he had forgotten to put his seat belt on.
“Ahhhh, nice catch my friend. You might lose some points for, you know, stopping a BUS in the middle of the road but at least you’re remembering to buckle up which everyone knows is the unforgivable driving test sin and an automatic fail.
Turns out he was just a little cramped, so he moved his seat back and then KACHUM CHUM CHUM CHUM . . . killed it . . . KACHUM CHUM CHUM CHUMM MMMM and we were off again . . . without a seatbelt. We drove down the correct side (mostly) of the road for about 20 seconds and the examiner had seen enough. He asked him to stop on the side of the road and told us to trade places while he marked his clipboard. As I remember it I was in a slight state of shock. My mouth was wide open, my head was tilted slightly to the left and I was grasping to make even a tiny bit of sense out of what had just happened. Before I crawled into the driver’s seat I looked to Mr. Wang.
“Mr. Wang” I said, “did he pass?”
Mr. Wang looked at me as if I was a complete moron. “Pfft . . . yeah, of course.”
From that second forward I felt great. I leapt to the driver’s seat and in a single motion, buckled my safety belt, adjusted my mirror and looked the examiner square in the eye and said with tremendous confidence, “I’m ready.”
I drove in a straight line for about 15 seconds and he asked me to pull over. He turned to Mr. Wang and said, “Wah, he’s good.” That was it. Test over. No trick questions. No BMW’s or inclines and absolutely zero parallel parking.
I passed.
It was a golden moment for both me and Mr. Wang and the perfect ending to a needlessly stressful event.
It didn’t even occur to me at first that the sticker was in English. English is all around in China so no surprise there but English is generally a translation of Chinese and even though translations are getting progressively better, bathroom translations are notoriously and most often hilariously bad. In fact, in the exact same public restroom on the door to the Western toilet (if you don’t know what a Western toilet is then it’s probably the one you would call normal) was this sign that read, “Squatting Pan.”
