Made In China

When we were packing our suitcases to move here, we joked that most of the items we packed were going full circle: most of them were made in China anyway, and here we were taking them back again! Well, now we've lived in China for almost 6 weeks, and we've noticed that a lot of the things we get at home that are "made in China" are a lot cheaper as an export! Those $10 toasters are $30 here... it's kind of crazy. But China also has lots of products that never make it to export. And a lot of American things have been modified for the Chinese market. I'm sure the list of unique things we find here will quadruple by the time we leave, but I've decided to make a post of some of the interesting things we've found for sale here since our arrival:

KFC has a totally localized menu. Aside from the fried chicken and Zinger burgers, everything else is totally unique to China. I'm talking about beef and fish curry with rice and seaweed soup on the side, fish sticks, corn salad, ice cream floats, milk tea, you name it... KFC China is a totally different experience. Even the fries are different: they taste like McDonald's. They've totally ripped them off. And it's cheaper, too! During the noon hour, a Zinger burger with fries and coke is $2 CAN. At home, I'm pretty sure this is pretty close to $8 by now with taxes. Win!

Jackie Chan is a total brandwhore here! His face is on a lot of products, but my favorite is his "anti hair fall" shampoo. So THAT'S how he keeps that shiny black dome on his head so thick.

Kimchi flavored potato chips! Does Korea know about this? They're even made by a Korean company.

Pea popsicles.

McDonald's menu is sort of localized as well, though not as extreme as at KFC. The most unique item I've seen on their menu is the "black and white burger" combo, which I tried a few weekends ago. It was pretty good! Even though the buns look kind of funny- I thought they'd be doughy like rice cakes- they just taste normal. The white burger is beef and the black one is chicken.

Found "sweet potato mud" for sale at a restaurant we went to recently. Wish I could say I tried it, but I just wasn't in the mood for mud that day.

Almost all supermarkets here have an entire aisle dedicated to dried fruit. It's pretty popular here, but usually we have no idea what's in the package because there's no English on the labels. Well, maybe we're not missing out, if this one English package is any indication: candied date- donkey hide gelatin flavor. Mmmmm... my favorite type!

In Korea, Mel and I would get face masks every now and then when we were bored. They usually cost less than a dollar, but in China- where looking good isn't as popular- face masks aren't so common and are kind of expensive. Luckily, at our local RenRenLe department store, we found a stash of these "never to be yellow faced woman- green tea soothing" masks for under a buck. And it was the cheapest chemical burn I'd ever bought.

I'm far too lazy to make breakfast during the week, but on weekends we like to have a decent bacon breakfast. And when you're in China, and you want some bacon, why not pick up a pack of elaborate bacon? Slogan (from the packaging): "peace in heart, fragrance in mouth". That's what she said.

Also in China, oranges are green. Screw you, colors.

Chinese Phone Numbers...

 ...are kind of long. Like, who in the world was texting me this morning? If there were any more digits in that number, my phone would have needed a "to be continued" button to display it properly. And what valuable information was 1067151654178154616543201816512131 trying to send to me?

Square square square square 50% square... I really need a phone that displays Chinese characters! I get the impression that I'm totally missing out on something.

Hong Kong is Annoying, But We'll Be Back

There they are- our two ferry tickets to Hong Kong. When we got to the ferry terminal on Saturday morning, we could see signs posted that the 11:45 crossing had been cancelled, so we felt really pleased with ourselves that we'd gone early to catch the 10:15.

We changed our money, and then waited in this long line to go through customs before loading on the boat. Of course, there were no signs to tell us what the line was for, we just had to guess that we needed to wait in it.

After getting to the front of the line, the ticket guy looked at our tickets and said "No, wait 20 minutes" and directed us to stand against the wall next to him to wait. We'd been waiting in the line for the Hong Kong Airport ferry! Lots of other people had too, so we didn't feel so dumb. So we waited. Then, about 15 minutes later (we'd been waiting an hour total), another guy comes out, looks at our tickets and says "No, get refund. Boat broken." Whaaaaa? "Both the 10:15 AND the 11:45 are broken?", we asked. "Yes," he said, "Go to Shenzhen Bay. I'm sorry."

Now, a lot of stupid stuff happens in China, and this is the first time someone's ever actually said "sorry" for it, so we couldn't really hate on the guy. We hadn't had time to research the Shenzhen Bay crossing, so this kind of threw us for a loop. We got our refund easily, and dodged the beggars ("Hello, how are you Money?") to hail a taxi for Shenzhen Bay

The canceled ferry was annoying, but it had nothing on the hell that was Shenzhen Bay, which is a bridge that connects Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Let me tell you, if the ferry is ever closed again and I have to go to Shenzhen Bay- I'm cancelling my trip. The first thing you do at Shenzhen Bay is wait in line to go through immigration. I have never, EVER seen so many people in my life. I would guess there were minimum 50,000 people ahead of us in line, no joke. We just followed the signs that said "to Hong Kong" and waited in this massive group of people. Then, every 5-10 minutes, some guards would release a barrier, and everyone would push and run forward as far as they could before the next guard closed the next barrier. By the time we cleared the two China and Hong Kong checkpoints, we'd been standing in that line- nowhere to sit, no bathrooms, no water- for two hours. On top of the hour at the ferry terminal, we'd now been standing for three hours straight. And gotten nowhere: our apartment was still only 10 minutes away.

When we finally got out of immigration, we had no idea what to expect, but we pictured a place to buy bus tickets and some other transportation options. We did find a few buses, with a few English descriptions of their routes, but they cost $11HKD per person (exact fare only) and our only denomination smaller than $100 was $20. We were $2HKD short of an easy bus ride into HK. We thought we'd just make change for the $100, but SURPRISE, there was nowhere to make change. No shops, no ticket booth, nothing. We actually found some vending machines and thought our luck had changed, but they only accepted Chinese RMB. It was time to take a taxi. 

So, we checked a sign that listed the estimated prices for a taxi to the area we were traveling to, and it was about $35CAD. Pretty steep, but we were trying desperately to salvage the trip, and we hadn't had to pay for the ferry afterall. So we got in this guy's taxi, he asks us where we want to go and I say "Causeway Bay". He repeats it twice and then confirms I mean the metro station at Causeway. Imagine our surprise, 45 minutes later, when he's driven us to DISNEYWORLD. There's a metro near Disney called "Sunny Bay"! He asked if that was "OK?" and asked for the full fare (which at this point was what we would have paid to get where we actually wanted to go) we basically freaked out on him. I took pictures of his ID, threatened to call the complaints line, and then he started driving again. When we finally got to Causeway Bay, we'd been in his cab for 90 minutes and the fare was up over $70. We refused to pay, but ultimately we knew we were screwed because Mel had tested that complaints phone line while we were still driving and they're closed on the weekends. We negotiated the price down to $50, still a ripoff, and agreed to try to forget about how stupid everything was being.

SO, the next hour was pretty cool. We basically just walked and shopped around the Causeway Bay area and got to see a little of HK for the first time. Definitely, I think the most distinguishing part of Hong Kong's "look" is the signage. It's pretty unique, the way there's just this overabundance of signs that stretch out over and above the highways. I like it!

There were lots of little shops and BIG shops, but we had wasted like close to 5 hours at that point, so it was time for business. Mel wanted to get some grammar books for her class, so we headed to Page One bookstore in Times Square mall. It's a 13 story mall!

You can see the British influence, even in the bookstore: Where's Waldo is Where's Wally in the UK, and in HK too.

Soooooo, the mall didn't really have any educational books (not the kind Mel was looking for) and it also didn't have a food court (we were going somewhere high end for supper so we wanted some cheap eats for lunch) so since we were STARVING and there was nothing else around we went to McDonald's. I'm almost ashamed to post that. But, I can report that the menu is totally different (better) than China's. They sell quarter pounders, and sausage & egg mcmuffins are an all day thing. And my big n' tasty was delicious. After McDicks, we headed to a 6 story Forever 21!! The Men's section was small, as always, and was all hoodies and cardigans (who's looking for sweaters in 40 degree heat?), but Mel got some nice stuff. At this point, our feet were exhausted, so we got on the subway to go to the Peninsula Hotel for high tea.

Last year, Mel and I both read a book called "Gweilo" about a British boy who grew up in Hong Kong in the 40s. His mother used to bring him to the Peninsula for high tea, and he wrote about it in great detail. The Peninsula still serves their tea the same way they did 80 years ago, so even though we aren't tea drinkers at all, we thought it would be fun to experience this high tea and be fancy hos for the afternoon.

THERE WAS ANOTHER LINE. There was probably 50 people ahead of us. We'd read that there can be a 30-45 minute wait on the weekends, so we were prepared for this. We waited. And we waited. For 90 minutes we just stood there. Nowhere to sit or anything, just standing there, wasting our 5th and 6th hours in Hong Kong, respectively. By the time we gave up, not a single person had been seated in 45 minutes straight. The whole time we could see everybody eating and enjoying their fancy teas and scones. All of their conversations looked extremely annoying and nobody was eating nearly fast enough. We were disappointed :(

Walking to our next destination, we noticed that some workers were using some bamboo and rope as scaffolding. Maybe my dad should try this for his next house?

Our next stop was the Temple Street night market, which I was excited to see, but at the same time I kept waiting for when it would start to suck. We definitely had storm clouds over our heads by this point. Here we are walking through one of many sexy tents on our way to the market. Hong Kongers must need a lot of sex toys, because there were A LOT of people selling toys.

Here's the entrance to the market.

And here's what the market looked like. It was really cool, probably my favorite part of the day. It was small, crowded, and full of neat things. The stalls repeat quite a bit though: beats by dre knockoff stall (got some!), sunglasses knockoffs, paintings, bags, novelty USBs and flashlights, and repeat.

At this point our feet were on fire. Literally in so much pain. Between the ferry, immigration, and the Peninsula we'd been standing in lines for 4.5 hours, not to mention all the walking we'd done. We decided to get foot massages. Never mind that this was the third day in a row for me that I'd gotten a massage- this was a medical emergency. We would have needed to have our feet amputated if we didn't get massages!

The first place we went had a rat bait warning in the stairwell, so we walked back out and went into another place instead.

Our massages were great! We each had old Chinese grandmas working our toes for a full hour and it felt amazing. Plus, they had a cat so the place was basically perfect.

After the massages we felt a lot better, but we needed to find some quick food since we hadn't been able to eat at the Peninsula. We got some middle eastern food at the night market, and it was good, especially the hummus, but a little small.

I guess we could have eaten at this place instead.

NOM.

On our way back to the subway station, we passed Obama Language Center, where I'm assuming they teach you some Muslim languages.

In Hong Kong, Astroboy is the spokesman for electrical safety. (ad from the subway station)

We went to the Avenue of the Stars, near where we'd been for the Peninsula. The skyline is AMAZING.

Pictures can't do it justice, but it looked so cool. At 8pm, there was a music and light show on the buildings, where the lights moved around and lazers projected in the sky. I'd heard a lot about this, but neither of us thought it was very impressive. The movement and flashing of the lights is just too subtle and unnoticeable to make it worth watching again.

We'd been dreading going back through immigration again. If it was anything like this morning was, it would have killed us. We'd definitely have freaked out on someone and gotten ourselves stuck in Chinese prison. Luckily, our friends Stephen and Kayla gave us an amazing tip which we will always use from now on. We went to the nearby Elements Mall, and bought a ticket for a mainland bus. It was so easy! We bought 9:15 tickets so we could look around the mall a bit (totally bought a bunch of chips and Mars bars at the 360 grocery store) before loading onto our comfortable, 1/3 full bus.Within 45 minutes, we'd been let off at Shenzhen Bay, breezed through immigration, and we were back!

Back for one final insult. The picture above? That was the line for a taxi!!!!!!! It took about 35 minutes for us to get our taxi, which was probably better than I would have guessed when we reluctantly joined the line.

All in all, we're pretty disappointed with the trip. I expected to waste time on some newbie mistakes, but this shit wasn't our fault. Broken boats and taxis to Disney really did us in for the day, and we felt like we hardly got to see much of Hong Kong. We're not writing it off, though. What we saw was cool. And I don't think this was a typical experience. We'll go back to stay for a few days when my brother visits the weekend after next, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Plus, we're going to Disneyland. So if a taxi takes us there, we'll be alright with it!

Becoming Legal

As of tomorrow we have been living in China for a month. It's gone by really fast, but at the same time it also seems like we've been here forever. Weird, huh? For this last month we've also pretty much been prisoners in China- because we were still applying for residency we haven't had our passports. We couldn't leave no matter what happened. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I can see Hong Kong from my bedroom... do you know how hard it's been to see that every day but not be allowed to travel there because we don't have our passports?!!

After we arrived in China, our first step towards residency was our trip to the hospital to have physicals done. I blogged about that business HERE. The next thing we had to do, a few weeks later, was travel to a police station about 45 minutes from Shekou for interviews.

Our school hired a bus to drive us to the interview. I was really surprised when they gave me back my passport to present at the interview and there was also another document with it that looked like a Chinese passport! I didn't remember applying for one of those! (it is actually my "foreign expert certificate- that's right, y'all, I'm an EXPERT)

There were about 18 of us new teachers at the interview and they called us in one by one. There were two interviewers- Mel got the nice one and I got the one who looked like she wanted to punch me in the face. She asked me about my practicum experience (where I taught first grade) and she asked "what is first grade?" When I said that meant the students were 6 years old, she clarified her question with a roll of her eyes: "yes, but *sarcastic, superior laugh* what is first grade?". I repeated that it means the students are 6, she stamped something on a piece of paper, and I was free to go. Beeotch.  

The next day, we had to get on the same bus to submit all of our documents at the immigration office in person. This time, the package my school handed me had even more passporty looking books. It was getting to be quite a collection.

The first round of new teachers to ask China, "Can we pretty pleaaaaase live in your country?"

The only questions I had to answer at immigration were "What's your full name?" and "Where were you born?" and I totally aced those, you guys! Also, I forgot to mention that these 2 minute interactions at the police station and immigration wound up taking like 3 hours because there was so many of us, but mostly because everything at these places is so     s   l  o  w.  Because of this, we had nothing to do but chit chat with each other, and the group of us- all grown adults- were shushed. Multiple times. At both places. How rude. 

But then, guess what happened today? We got our passports back! Woo hoo! We are officially free to come and go as we please. And if we decide to stay a second year, the renewal process is much easier and we don't have to go through all of this again. So guess where we're going tomorrow morning?

Oh yeahhhh! Hong Kong or bust! 

A Foot Massage Massage

Today, the 6-year old teachers at my school went to a nearby massage place that is actually called "Foot Massage Massage" for, you guessed it, foot massages.

I've read that Shenzhen is known as "Hong Kong's spa" because of the number of people from Hong Kong that take day trips just to get pampered at one of the many cheap spas in town. Mel and I had pretty painful massage experiences in Korea, so I probably wouldn't have tried another Asian massage if it weren't for my co-workers assurance that this place was good. And it so was!!

After entering we went to the second floor.

We rushed to get there before 5pm, because the massages are cheaper if you go in the afternoon. There was a whole menu of different massages your could request- some for brain nervousness, "anti-acnes", and one that treats depression. Next time, though, I'm getting the kung-fu massage. Hiiiiiii YA!

We were sat in a room full of lazyboy chairs and our feet were placed in basins of warm brownish water. The foot massage actually started with a full back, neck, head, arm and shoulder massage that lasted about half an hour. Then, my feet were dried off, sprayed with essential oils, and massaged for another 40 minutes.

Kerry and Shelley with their lubed up legs.

Kristi, Amanda and I. My face looks a little red, so this might have been taken right after my masseuse told me I have "face like apple".

Amanda got an extended foot scraping treatment, which required the masseuse to wear my mom's favorite headgear: the forehead light (if you know my mom you've probably seen her wearing one of these, it happens surprisingly often). Mel is VERY interested in this treatment and I have been told that we have to go back tomorrow. The whole thing- a 70 minute massage- cost $8. $8!! And this is higher than other places around! So yeah, we're going back tomorrow. For the full kung-fu.

Then, to top off an already rough day, check out the meal I came home to! With each passing day, I treasure our maid a little bit more. Yesterday we came home to our laundry washed and ironed, the dishes were done, there was a surprise stirfry in the fridge, and my sock drawer had been relocated to a much better location. Today we came home to salad, rice and tomatoes and zucchini stuffed with pork. It's a hard knock life, 'yo!

Xiaomeisha Beach

 

The only thing surprising about the fact that we went to the beach today is that it took us this long to go to the beach. I mean, really, it's HOT. It's been over 40 degrees with the humidity every day since we landed. We pretty much expected the heat after our experience in Taiwan, and I'm happy to say that- although it is damn hot- it's not quite as bad as Taiwan was.

It was really easy to get to Xiaomeisha. We just got on the subway at nearby Shuiwan Station and rode it to the end of the line. Then we hailed a cab and drove another 25 minutes ($10) to the beach. Our school gave us a bunch of guide books in our welcome basket, so we were able to show our driver where we wanted to go in Mandarin. It helps. 

We were hungry when we got there, so our first stop was a little restaurant along the strip. The pictures of the food on their signs looked pretty decent, and when we went in we were shocked to be given English menus to order from. Awesome!! Also, when we first got there, the waitress directed us to a table that was covered in leftover food from the last guests. Ooh la la, but then we figured out how the process works: the tables were covered in dozens of thin layers of plastic tablecloth, so she just lifted everything up off the table at once with the top piece of plastic, threw away the plastic, and sat us down. We were then given our cutlery: bowls, mugs, chopsticks and a saucer, all wrapped in vac-packed plastic. This was a very hygienic restaurant.

Wish I could say the same for the bathroom. I ran to the public toilet across the road before we ate, and someone had actually TAKEN A POO in one of the urinals. In my 31 years, I'd never seen that before.

Our fine meal of beef(?) stir fry, rice and a noodle soup.

After we ate, we passed this guy sweeping the sidewalk on our way down to the water. I love the brooms they use here.

We paid our $5 per person admission and entered the beachy area. There were a lot of little shops and beer tents set up. It was landscaped really nicely too... there were lots of little bridges and statues where A LOT of Chinese photo shoots were taking place. There was a booth where you could rent umbrellas and chairs, and they had an English price list as well. It was 100 yuan ($17) to rent 2 chairs and an umbrella for 4 hours. If you think that's steep, get this- you also have to pay another 200 yuan deposit. For an umbrella and chairs that are screwed into the ground and can't be moved anyway! We actually didn't have 300 yuan on us, so I asked if a 100 yuan deposit would be okay. The cashier didn't have a f*** to give and said yes. Sweet! We marched down to our new umbrella.

It was time to put on our Tom & Jerry sunscreen.

The beach was really busy- we were there on a Sunday after all- but it was still a pleasant swim. The water was awesome! It literally felt like bathwater, it was so warm. Most of the people swimming (we were the only foreigners) had innertubes, and they kept floating by greeting us with "hello"s. One guy said, "hello. I can't swim." and then floated away.

After our swim, we read on the beach for a long time, and then I fell asleep. It was so nice and relaxing! We'd noticed a trail that went along the edge of the beach and ended at some cool looking rocks that kind of went out into the water facing the beach, so we decided to take a stroll over there. But first, Mel had to pee. *insert sound of doom here*

Most of us are aware that the most common type of public toilet found in Asia is the squat toilet. Well, Xiaomeisha has taken it one step further and introduced us to an even worse type of toilet: the trough. Mel came out of the washroom almost as quickly as she'd gone in, and the look on her face told me I needed to send her back in with a camera. The entire room was open- no doors, no stalls, no walls. There were just open troughs, surrounded by women just openly peeing away. Imagine that.

After deciding to just hold it, Mel and I carried on along the path. We passed by this cool shrine, with it's unmistakable aroma of incense burning away. We used to see temples and shrines like this everywhere in Taiwan, but they don't seem as common in China. This is the first one I've seen in our 3 weeks here.

This is a shot of the beach from the end of the trail we'd walked.

It's not only the toilets that are interesting at Xiaomeisha- the fashion deserves a mention, too. Swimsuits ranged from naked toddlers, to jeans and a cardigan, to the most common for the ladies: the swimsuits seen in the above picture. Mel felt like a ho in her two piece. The guys all wore speedos and the girls wore these frilly, gaudy, outfits.I've noticed a questionable taste level in China's fashion and I can now report that it extends to swimwear as well. 

One notable exception is this PYT, who chose gogo boots, a t-shirt with a Jacob's ladder sewn on the back, and an innertube for the occasion.

We were thinking we were just about ready to leave, when my plastic beach chair suddenly collapsed into pieces, so we decided the timing was right to get our deposit back and head home. It was easy to get another taxi back to the metro and ride that the whole way home, where we finally peed in a non-trough-like, non-poo filled receptacle. It was a good day.