I dropped my bottle of my favorite perfume, Clinique Happy (which I got addicted to at Katie’s wedding in LA) and it smashed all over my bathroom floor, utterly irretrievable. I’m devastated. It was my everyday scent, and now I have to go back to smelling like deodorant. It wasn’t even half empty.

But at least my apartment smells great, and will for the next few days…

Sorry, I just had to gripe. Feel free to leave sympathetic comments here.

OK, so handsome Erin came over last night to have a guitar lesson. See, he really does look like a young Jackie Chan:

He’s learning so quickly, I really can’t get over it. It’s just as well, cause it would be the pinnacle of frustration if I was trying to teach guitar to an esl person who was not picking it up quickly. I was trying to explain to him that I’m not actually the world’s greatest guitar player. He has this idea that I’m like, the best musician ever, maybe because I’m the best musician he’s ever seen in his life which, for this town, is not saying much at all.

Anyway, I thought the best way of demonstrating the basic level of my guitar prowess would be to play him some Django Rienhardt (not a peep from you, Freesoup!). I have some totally scratchy mp3s that I downloaded literally the day before I left Oz, and I stuck them on and watched Erin’s eyes widen at the things that Django was doing, in spite of missing fingers.

After a few minutes, I asked him what he thought of the music, and he said, and I quote exactly,

“It would be very good for music in a bar,” and at this point, a note of wonder entered his voice, “this music can ask you to remember many things.”

How perfectly spot on is that line, “can ask you to remember many things”? I was so very taken with the phrase, because it’s so obviously not an english cliche. It occured to me, on further discussion with Erin, that this was a direct translation from something that can be said in Chinese.

Translating things exactly from the Chinese can give such beautiful results in English. For example, if you want to say “let me tell you something”, you say “wo gei ni shua”, which literally means “I give you speech” or “I give you talk”. Shua is the all purpose word for “speak”, “talk”, “say” etc.

Then there’s the brilliant saying in Chinese, directly translated into English by King, that goes “happiness can give you and others electricity”, meaning that if you’re happy, you have lots of energy and give energy in turn to others.

I’m beginning to love this language, despite the fact that I can’t really understand more than 5% of every word I hear…

This morning I was awoken rudely by a ring on my doorbell at frikkin 10.45am, on a saturday morn when I have nothing I have to do, and nothing in particular that I have to get up for.

I struggled out of bed, bleary eyed and newly aware of a cold coming on, complete with sore throat, and as the security intercom is not working, I went to stick my head out the window to see who it was. Downstairs, I saw a stack of dirty looking workmen, with tools and big security bars etc.

I have a policy of not letting ANYONE in through the downstairs security door unless I know that person, or they are with someone I know, so I didn’t let them in, half because I didn’t know who they were, and half because they didn’t even acknowledge me when I poked my head through the window – they were staring up at Michael’s apartment, so I assumed they were just ringing ALL the bells. That happens sometimes…

It turns out that, without having consulted us or even informing us, the PTB want to put big cast iron security bars over our windows. I’m so pissed off.

There goes my unimpaired view, my escape route in case of fire, not to mention my nice peaceful Saturday. Now I can’t even have a shower, cause workmen are due to burst in at any moment.

LATER…

I just went downstairs to talk to Dave the Canadian, and it turns out that not only are they putting big cast iron security bars on the windows, but also putting extra security doors on each of our apartments doors. Dave had apparently spoken to someone at the school about his own feelings of lack of safety (I won’t go into them, but they are valid and concern his own experiences in other cities, and are slightly less of a problem out here in the boonies). Then someone at the school had spoken to Kang Laoshi, and Kang Laoshi had taken the Chief of Police here to look around Dave’s apartment, and the CoP had decreed that the apartments were “unsafe for westerners”.

It’s just incredible how westerners are treated with kid gloves in China. At one point, Sunny told me that Robyn told her that she should be nicer to me than Sunny already was, because I was a foreigner. As in, Sunny should stop teasing me and calling me a “bad horse”. I laughed at that, cause it’s precisely the fact that Sunny is comfortable enough with me to NOT treat me like the guest westerner that makes us such good friends.

You know that westerners are not allowed to sleep in any building that has not been pre-approved by the Police Department as being “safe” for westerners. We suspect that this not only means “safe”, but also “bugged” if needs be. The downside of this is that legally, I’m not allowed to go and stay with a Chinese friend unless I apply to the Police, and they go and inspect the apartment. Not that it seems to stop any other westerner. They’re just quite about it.

The real irony is that now with the bars on the windows, I will no longer be able to stick my head out to see who it is who is ringing my door bell. And if they end up putting the bars between the double layered windows, that takes away one of Mushuk’s favorite greenhouse sunning spots.

On the subject of which, the sun has not stopped shining for days. Weeks even. It’s near the end of autumn, and I went outside today with one light layer of clothing, and sandals of all things. It’s just lovely.

My Chinese learning is going too slowly, I think, but then i have to remind myself that although I could converse quite well in french after having been there only 2 1/2 months, I’d been learning french at school for 7 years already.

I came to this country with bugger all chinese, so I’m not doing too badly, I suppose, for 2 1/2 months. But I do have to say, learning the language is made all the easier with cuties like Erin (the young Jackie Chan lookalike… mmmmm) and King (the school PE teacher) around to learn from!

There’s been a big power cut tonight, about the longest one since I arrived (repairs to the grid, or something, but it went for about 5 hours longer than anticipated, for a total of more than 12 hours). I’m writing this blog entry by candle light with a real pen and paper, while Mushuk attacks my feet and lets under the bed covers. But despite this, it’s been SUCH a good day.

After lunch today, Sunny and I played Ping Pong on the big stone table outside the school. I didin’t even know it existed until yesterday! Donkey (ie King, who is increasingly being called Donkey) was teaching sport to my favorite class – the grade ones, and sometimes some of the children would come over to watch. Thus began Sunny and my competition for their affection. I would tell them to yell “go Charlotte!”, and sunny would tell them to chant “go Miss Shu!”. So very funny.

Occasionally, Donkey would come over, and I’d flirt gently with him. He really is the cutest thing.

Anyway, later that evening, before the sun went down, Michael and I went for dinner with Kang Laoshi, at the Toluen Hotel, aka big round pink monstrosity. Due to the power cut, they had no “safe” meat (ie no refrigeration), so we had an entirely vegetarian meal, and managed to carry on a half decent convo with Kang Laoshi. he was looking quite dapper in his 3 peice suit, and I managed to tell him so in Chinese. I’m feeling so very smug.

After dinner, when Michael and Kang Laoshi went home, I went to the Primary School to see if I could find some of my friends – my apartment’s deadly boring by myself in a power cut, even with Mushuk to keep me amused. I couldn’t find Sunny or Apple, but I did bump into Donkey, and ended up hanging with him for the evening.

We went to AiLing restaurant, where he and his friends ate, and I guzzled Wusu beer. It’s truly the best beer. I love it! Donkey is friends with the chef at the restaurant, who came between customers to sit with us and drink Baijiou with Donkey (bajiou is rice spirits – ultra strong, and makes me sick even with just one sip. Can’t stand the stuff. Maybe it would be nicer as a mixer, but they insist on drinking it straight). The atmosphere in the Ailing was so lovely; with the power out, they’d lit candles on every table, and the lighting was just lovely, compared to the normal gross flouro overhead lights they normally have. It made the place almost classy! (it’s a total dive, but it’s very cheap and yummy, and I sound like a lucksmiths song.) I told the chef through Donkey (my chinese is still only marginal) that he should turn off the lights more often and have candles. He laughed, and replied that it was inappropriate for any restaurant over 2 stars to not have proper lighting. The PRC has yet to take up on the concept of mood lighting, at least out here in the boonies, where everyone wants to be up with technology, and flouro lighting is technology. I guess it’s also probably cheaper than candles…

Just to be chooky for a moment, I must admit to another reason that I like Ailing restaurant. The Chef there is a hottie and a half, and he knows how to dress so well, I’d think he was gay, were it not for the fact that we are in China, and there ARE no gay people. Not only is it not allowed, but “who would want to be gay anyway?”. The attitude towards homosexuality is interesting here, but that’s the topic for another post. Remind me. Anyway, he was dressed all in black, with a sexy little black leather waist coat, and that cute Manga floppy/spikey hair that Asian men can pull off so well, but that caucasians just can’t seem to do properly. However, given all of this, I feel he may be slightly out of my league…

After we were done at Ailing, all the beer and Baijiou drunk, all the food eaten, and the candles half gone, Donkey and I walked home, slightly tipsy, but oh so happy. There’s something about a power cut that makes the atmosphere on the street a bit magical – everyone is out walking because noone wants to be in a dark apartment at 8 at night, so the streets are alive with talking and laughing. We bumped into many friends, and I into a few of my college students. Donkey was such a gentleman, he insisted on carried my 2 litres of apple juice that I’d bought earlier all the way home, and walking me to my door. What a cutie.

Not only that though, but after I had got home and began to write this entry, he called me on the phone just to make sure that all was well. I think that he was a little worried that he’d made me drink too much beer (he kept topping up my glass, and after he tried to teach me more chinese and I was getting a brain freeze, I had to tell him that I’d had too much beer to learn anymore chinese then and there). Anyway, I laughed at him and told him that he shouldn’t worry about me unless I’d had anymore than 4 bottles… He hung up with the parting wish of “making good dreams”, and that just totally made me melt….

WHAT A CUTIE!!!

love, charlotte

I’m sitting here with a kitty in my lap who’s feeling very sorry for himself. We took a little trip over to Kuytun today, to the vet, and Mushuk underwent his “once-in-a-lifetime”. Thanks go to Robin for looking into it for me, and for coming along so that I didn’t get lost.

The vet’s clinic was… interesting. Think about everything you know about Western vets – and forget it. This vets clinic was more like a pharmacy, with a “while you wait” policy to surgery. Inside, the lino floor looked like it had not been washed in weeks, and the walls behind the front counter were lined with shelves of animal drugs in bottles. Inside the front door was the only sink in the place, which looked like it hadn’t been washed since it was installed before the Cultural Revolution.

I was told to put Mushuk on this ancient set of counter-weight scales (the lady at the front was full on using an abacus!), and then to set him on the front counter on a piece of newspaper and hold onto him while the lady vet gave him the anaesthetic injection. Let us be thankful for small wonders, that they didn’t just slit his scrotum open on the footpath without knocking him out first. We were then told to bugger off, and come back in 20 minutes to pick him up. TWENTY MINUTES!?!? Joisus!

Anyhow, we came back after the requisite time had passed, and were handed a limp lump of black kitty, concious barely, and obviously not a happy chappy. We took a taxi back to Dushanzi, and he was WAAAY quieter on the way home than on the way up. Poor darling. He’s been staggering groggily around the apartment for the past two hours, attempting to jump up to places that he normally can, which has resulted in me having to follow him wherever he goes so that I can lift him instead of him attempting the jump, falling, and causing a painful infection in his… um… nether regions. I’m already a tad worried about infection, having seen the state of the vet clinic.

To my blog readers who are vets (you know who you are, I know you’re out there!), do you have any words of wisdom for home remedies to ward off infection, above and beyond perhaps a salt water bath? The Chinese vet said not to bath him for a week, but does that include swabbing with salt water?

I’m now doubly grateful that I opted for a boy cat and not a girl – can you imagine the anguish of having to take a girl cat in to be speyed at a filthy place like that? At least it’s practically an external operation for boys. For females it’s bloody intrusive.

But hey, the one good aspect to the whole thing: wanna know how much the whole thing cost me? 30 yuan. That’s a whopping AU$6, or US$3.75. Not bad, ay? Of course, ask me again how I feel about the price if Mushuk gets sick with infection…

Warning: here follows an entry rife with generalizations. Also are some mild sexual references that may offend some viewers. Parental guidance is recommended for children under the age of 15. Here endeth the disclaimer.

I was walking with Sunny the other day, and the subject turn to men, and our attitudes towards them. It all started with a discussion about why a mutual friend had just dumped her boyfriend – the reason being that he was “too young” and thusly would not be able to “look after her”.

Chinese people seem preoccupied with the notion of marriage. The idea of a woman being able to look after herself seems to scare many here, men and women alike. People do not get married until the husband has a “good job”, or has “more money”. But women here also seem to prefer to marry young. This results in young women, my age or so (i’m nearly 25, for those of you who don’t know) getting married to preferably an older man who is more established career wise.

Anyhow, I started to gently tease Sunny, asking what was wrong with the woman “looking after” the man? She said “no, I think the man should look after the woman, and I think that a young man of our age is too young to do that”. I then decided it was time to push the envelope and tease her a little more. I said “well, yes, at the very least, older men are better in bed” (to all the “younger men” out there, please do not take offense, I was merely stirring!).

The moment I said that, Sunny seemed to freeze, as if she was not quite sure what she was hearing. Me being the bull in the china shop (so to speak!) that I am, I ploughed on, thinking that she was either too shocked to say anything, or that she just didn’t understand what I had said. I went on to make SURE that she understood what I was talking about, cause it’s no fun to be naughty if the person you’re gossiping naughtily with doesn’t understand.

Talking about sex in China, even amongst close friends it seems, uncovers the trait that many chinese seem to possess – sexual repression. I get the impression that in this respect, China is about 50 years behind the West in terms of social mores of this nature.

For example, Robin seems to have the idea that she should be looking first and formost for a marriage partner, and THEN can think about other things. I doubt that she’s even THOUGHT much about the sex aspect. And you know that when even Sunny, who seems to be considerably less inhibited than most chinese I know, has a problem talking about sex, then it points to a more general trait.

I miss being able to talk about it in a totally innocent way (if such a thing exists), where one can make a vaguely dirty joke, something that may raise the odd eyebrow at my dad’s Rotary club, but still get a laugh. I don’t think that such things are funny here.

Perhaps this is where Westerners get the reputation for being “perverted”…

On the subject of sexual perversions, I’m taking Mushuk to the vet tomorrow to try and convince them to give him the ol’ once in a life time snip snip. I gather that it’s totally NOT the done thing here – they don’t seem to understand that unless it gets done soon, the little terror is going to start expressing his LACK of sexual repression by marking my entire apartment as his own in the only way he knows how – his manly, musky scent, ie urine.

They seem to think that I just want him toilet trained. But the dear was toilet trained the minute I dumped him in the litter box.

I JUST WANT HIS NADS SNIPPED!!!

*evil laughter*

So. Matt gave me the stats the other day of how the traffic on my site is going. We’ve had 5,000 hits this month. Count em. FIVE THOUSAND.

Out of that five thousand, there are over 100 unique individuals out there, reading lil ol me’s blog. And here I was thinking that it was only my mum and dad, Matt, and a small handful of browncoats.

So here’s to all you lurkers out there! As Matt pointed out when I went into a sulk about none of you posting comments (hint hint – am I a pathetic loser or what?) I lurk on a few blogs and don’t often post comments…

Love to you all, Charlotte

I got my official Foriegn Resident’s Permit today. It goes in my passport, instead of my visa, but alas, I cannot keep it, I must give it to customs on the way out. I guess it’s all for the best, cause the photo is too bad for words.

So add to that my Foriegn Expert’s ID card, I’m all decked out in Chinese bureaucratic legitimacy. Huzzah!

Freesoup, the Lawyerly Scourge of Canada, has requested a photo of the not-so-little Mushuk. He’s turning into a thumping big kitty…

Here he is, his best Zoolander pose. It’s not quite BlueSteel, but it’s a new look that he’s working on.

This one is also in his modelling portfolio, but he’s afraid that it makes him look like too much of a pussy, sniffing the leaf like that. I tell him that he looks great, but all he says is “meh”.

I’ve had a couple of Browncoats ask me, how’s the motion of a camel? I answered on the Firefly forum, but the entry was mysteriously truncated, with no “view full message” option, so I shall answer Soup and Makerofpaths here.

I can distill the motion of a camel into one word: Chaffage. Although I think that’s partly my fault. Maybe I didn’t have the right sort of pelvic movement, cause Robin was rock solid on her camel. Or maybe mine was a non smooth camel, cause I was jerking all over the place. Not that I’m complaining. I had a great time. It was awesome fun.

And to answer Makerofpaths’ other question: No, I didn’t see too many people who were overtly doped up…