bighairylaowai.com

So, OK, I came back to the UK, and NO-ONE was squatting in the streets and shitting, or klacking and sweeping Mah Jong tiles, and bicycles didn’t out number cars, and cars weren’t snarling and cutting unpredictably across adjacent lanes (disputable -ed), NO-ONE was carrying bundles of chickens bound around their feet, or monotone whistling while they held pissing babies above cracks in the pavement, hunched slurping over noodles, dolloping large clenches of phlegm thereabouts, or staring at me like I was an escapee from the orang-utan house, or a walking amalgamation of passport, dollar and giant phallus. And not one fucker said Hellloooo! and then scampered away giggling. And there were all these round-eyes absolutely EVERYWHERE! Thus goes the template for the Reverse Culture Shock blog that the returnee laowai is obligated to write. It’s a bigger spin says the stubbly receding Canadian with the rigidly shelved forehead, his dinky Leshan girlfriend rubbing the hairs on his fore-arm and staring into the smug face of a syphilitic gorilla. You expect yourself for the bicycles and the spitting and all the Chinese. But going back is different. You don’t get ready for going home, do you? You’ll find out. Write about it. Put it on your blog.

[I’ve given up on the blog as it goes, but the architect, Santai laowai-in-a-million Olen threatened to pull the plug on it due to inactivity, and I may be back China-side to bring it up to date.]

Aside from a sweat soaked spell of shotgun breathing when I was surrounded by Turkey-tanned Brits at my Singapore stopover, there was no reverse culture shock – I was only there 9 months (cue hur-hur jokes, you got out of there in time then, no whatever do you mean, well the average human gestation period is around 9 months etc) after all. But it was a reluctant exit, as only at the last did I feel like I was breaking out of the laowai hedonism bubble and having some cultural insight / understanding, although the cynical old Chinese hands will infer that means groping a local. Sergio, the Spaniard that left Chengdu just before me, is working in a bar in Soho, which as a digression is absolutely no way to rid yourself of the bisexual Eurotrash tag my friend, the only way it could possibly sound worse is if you pronounced yourself the quality control inspector of the male toilets at Kings Cross. Night shift. Now I know why you use to brush your teeth so much. Anyway, he thinks and talks about China the whole day, grating on his colleague’s patience which has long since tired of the guy who lived in China for a bit. He seeks out the overseas Chinese, trying to approach them and speak Mandarin, with the same unabashed inquisitiveness as the China Chinese seek out the roundeye to speak English. Oftentimes they’re part of the Guangdong Diaspora (layman’s = work in a Chinese takeaway) so can only speak Cantonese, but more frequently I will stop someone who I judge to be ethnically Han as opposed to the Phillipino / Thai mail order brides, and get back a fully naturalised Sorry mate, don’t speak Chinese. I’ve given up on this game of ethnic presupposition now, as I appear to have fully regained my firm Westerner’s sense of personal space.

I’ve come into contact with one mainlander since I’ve got back, who likes the familiarity of speaking Chinese, while I can practice. Turns out she’s from Chengdu, a sizeable coincidence in such a populous country. She asked:

‘Where did you live in Chengdu?’
‘Opposite the Chengdu Fandian. Do you know that?’
‘Oh yes, on - - - - - - [road name I never remembered]. How strange. I stay there when I visit home.’
‘Where is that?’
‘Oh, you know, Tiantai Dajiudian?’
‘Yes….’
‘Next to.’
‘Near the children’s playground and the DVD store?’
‘Yes, you know this place?’

Evan and Richard, followed by Mark and Richard (this is a bit of an old school tie blog at the minute, apologies. Or just fuck off) used to live in this small apartment complex, and it was the central point for our brand of filthy laowai decadence. Though it sounds dishwater-dull in writing, it seems barely credible that the only ex-pat I have since met back home, a former resident of a billion and a half strong nation, should have parents who live in apartment grounds where I spent the majority of my time. From the scale of those odds, I would almost expect that it was her father banging on the door about the excessive volume of OK Computer. As she aptly and contrarily to Disney put it, Its such a big world..

I’m learning a bit of written Chinese right now too. I’m worried that I’ll turn into one of those smug laowai that throws the occasional 汉字 in there and expects everyone to understand, even if they’ve never been to 中国 before, and then start trailing off and 只写在汉语.

I’ve just seen an episode of Casualty, which for the international community is the British version of ER, slower, plodding and more domestic, more akin to daytime soap than hectic drama. Ever topical, they reacted to the drowning of 18 illegal immigrant Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay a mere 2 ½ years ago by presenting their take on it. A naturalised British-Chinese man was attempting to match his daughter with the son of a well to do businessman by giving him an exhibition of his fine little factory, all interrupted by a huge explosion, from which a penniless young Chinese man selflessly suffered severe burns in the act of rescuing incapacitated workers, some of which it transpires in the Accident & Emergency Room were illegal immigrants from the mainland, and this young severely burned hero admitted his undying love to the boss’s daughter before passing out, which resulted in an emotional confrontation between father and daughter in which father relented to his daughter’s one true love.

So we had:
1. Extravagant displays of guanxi – they clinked and said ganbei, after all
2. Arranged marriage forced upon a beautiful girl stuck in a Cheongsam the whole time
3. A mighty showing of the Chinese economic miracle – dozens of Chinese in hairnets industriously manufacturing what looked like Wontons, and so facilitating the eventual collapse of numerous western economies, I assume
4. Fireworks – Someone tipped over a barrel of what looked like flour, which created an immense explosion and ravaged the factory with fire. They did invent gunpowder after all – but fancy mixing it up with flour! Tsk.
5. Illegal immigration – regarding a badly burned female illegal alien, the boss exclaimed We were giving her opportunity! to which the straight talking daughter replied But look at her now! She was once beautiful! What has she got now? Now to be honest, I found this a bit tasteless, it is claimed that Chinese women can be rather competitive in terms of looks, but she’s kicking her when she’s down, really.
6. The noble art of ESL teaching - aforementioned burns victim also jabbered in Mandarin the whole time. Very good. Verisimilitude is just what I’m looking for in a drama. Oh! She just said the word passport interspersed in all that Asian talk… can’t say hell, but can say passport? Dodgy ESL teacher then. Bad laowai! Bad laowai with the Yellow Fever! Or maybe it was a superficial device for the furthering of the plot rather than a critique of English teachers abroad.
7. Self-development – the girl spurned her father’s suitor and opted for her badly scarred penniless hero. He objected, then relented. Thus the humane influence of the West can successfully undermine the cruel patriarchal godlessness of the east.
8. The noble art of Chinese (Soap) Opera – by nature of its very setting (i.e. it being very unlikely that the same people will revisit an emergency room every week – unless they are into adventurous self-harming) the quality of the acting on Casualty is, euphemistically, a hotch-potch of fledgling Brit talent. Of course, there are permanent members of staff, but they have the resigned eyes of actors stuck in showbiz hell, angling for a spot in Eastenders but aware they’ll never ever get it because now everyone recognizes them as ‘that doctor off Casualty – what’s he doing in the Queen Vic? The Chinese actors in this episode however, have clearly been taking notes from CCTV 4, and are emoting to a 0.5 emoting point of their fully realized emoting capacity.

And I thought it was just Saturday night light-entertainment that only my Mum watched.

The perception of China from the west is intriguing. No longer a messy red bloc in the east, China is throwing up scores of disparate images. The nascent economic power encroaching upon western spheres of influence is the prime one, though there a few counteracting voices of reason. The very height of intellectual pretension, meanwhile, is to speak Mandarin, be it just ni hao. Or, referring back to the episode of Casualty, Hu Zhao (passport).

From the ultra right wing Sunday Mail which advocates the burning of darkies and wops under the suspicion of littering, and demands immediate military action against anything that could threaten Little Hobbiton, ie things conceieved that postdate the Spinning Jenny or Jethro Tull’s seed drill, comes the headline regarding a UK TV presenter who flashed rather too much cleavage at an awards ceremony: Yes, Emily’s got breasts… she also speaks Mandarin [translation - we’re allowed to be oozy fleshy beasts who swing our tits out in front of the cameras, you demeaning media bastards (= men), and its perfectly validated as we can speak (to an indeterminate level) what is regarded as the most difficult and therefore the most pretentious language there is, see its not even in the Indo-European tree, Russians got funny letters but its on of the outlying branches, but this is lots of little pictures and funny tones] Another great line, after praising her witty, incisive interviewing technique is she speaks Mandarin, for God’s sake. Can you imagine your solicitor bringing that defense to a murder trial? Well, I can’t deny that he wrote of the events in his diary, took pictures of himself stabbing the deceased and admitted his guilt 5 minutes ago in court… but he speaks Mandarin for God’s sake, and by a simple act of syllogism must be immediately be deemed far too clever and stuff for the humble members of the jury to pass verdict upon. To attempt a poor imitation of her skill with taglines : Yes, Emily can speak Mandarin …. so also can 1.3 billion Chinese people and the raft of middle aged perverts who hang out in western bars and fuck their teenage students.

Aside from the growing fears of Chinese political, economic and sporting domination, there are also lots of freak stories coming out of China, obviously following on the Yao Ming precedent, including the world’s largest cake / woman / shoe. To sound like a smug political court-fool, let me add that it’s the world’s largest trade surplus that is causing the most problems.

I’ve let the blog gather dust, as there’s little to hear about the office 9 to 5 followed by the gym and a bit of telly. I’ve picked up some interesting comment spam in that time. First of all is the people who are casual and chatty and pretending to be my friend but are really just using me, like this person called All Event Seats Theater Tickets who tells me Enjoyed your fabulous site!, and help quit smoking who dropped me the rather informative compliment Nice post! Funny I landed here looking up info on lung cancer and the relation to cigarettes. Love the template. Keep up the good content. I found that one a bit confusing, as I don’t really talk a whole bunch about the medically proven relationships between cigarettes and lung cancer on this site. Guess he was just trying to be thorough, and for that I really commend him! And admire him! Go team! I also particularly thought that a guy called Alaska Joes Fishing Trips was particularly supportive when he told me Great Site! I didn’t however, know what to say to a girl called Ana Lucia, when she gave me this helpful tidbit:

Just saw this crazy date website that is just for sexoholics!

Sounds good? Well that’s not all, it’s free to join

I’ve also received some anthropomorphic animal slut comments, which should be presented in their full glory:

Fanny Peacock
I’M LOOKING FOR TITS, Not a red breast , also no timewasters
Titty deer
I’m free!!!!!
Anal Bear
A good bumming never did anyone any harm
I miss your love beads, Bear boy
Willy toad
love the website, not enough animal love though
Fanny Peacock Says:
show me your gibbon
Gibbon Gonads Says:
Get out your bunny
Bunny Balls Says:
Batter my Advacados
Lobster love machine Says:
mr jon… love you long time. Sucky sucky. Please boil me in my sleep and cover me in provencial sauce. Yummy yummy toot toot.
Bake an banana for dessert

I would just about bet my house on it, I don’t have one, maybe my A-Team DVD box-set instead, that it is the buggers from my local rugby club. Someone altogether more angry with me is Mr.R, who has inundated my comments as of late with various sub-Marquis De Sade perversions, inclusive of

shít píss fúk cráp wílly nób mítens cránberysauce

(.Y.) BOOBIES
8— NÓB
(|) Pússy

So everso thanks for those nuggets of wisdom, and I hope your Mum doesn’t catch you when you’re wanking like a monkey in front of the (muted) ten minute freeview satellite channel late at night when you think she’s gone to bed.

And finally, after checking out the various key-phrase searches that brought people to my website in the first place, can I just say to the folk that searched for women hocking and spitting and hairy australian girls, well I hope you found your niche porn website eventually.