Wo Shi Laowai – Wo Pa Shui

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Archive for July, 2011

MyLaowai Store Sale

Posted by MyLaowai on Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The MyLaowai Webstore – Sale Now On!

Coupon Code: TooHot
Discount: 20% off the base price subtotal, no minimums

Coupon Code: forHoodies
Discount: 35% off the base price subtotal of $50+

Dates: Today, July 26 – Saturday, July 30

Disclaimer: Please enter coupon code TooHot OR forHoodies before completing checkout. Discount is applied to the base price and does not include shipping, taxes, or additional charges. This offer may not be combined with other offers. Orders under this promotion may be delayed beyond normal estimates. Coupons valid from 7/26/2011 to 7/30/2011 11:59 pm Mountain Time (which is in the overseas Chinese territory of the U.S.A.).

Oh, and I really do feel I should point this out – until recently they wouldn’t deliver to addresses in China. Sorry, but that’s just the way it was. I did ask and they said something about how every single order they’ve ever had from China involved the fraudulent use of a stolen credit card, and that Chinese Customs were in the habit of stealing the shipments for their own personal use, or words to that effect. So, sorry. That said, they have made some changes recently, so you could try your luck now. But would you want anything delivered to China that doesn’t arrive on a ballistic arc? I mean, really?

Posted in Buy MyLaowai | 3 Comments »

‘Bullet’ Train Derails. Surprised?

Posted by MyLaowai on Saturday, July 23, 2011

Breaking News: One of China’s much-loved and very development high-speed ‘Harmonious‘ trains has just de-railed, whilst on a bridge. Either the train was copied badly (likely), or the rails were laid badly (probable), or the bridge was built badly (guaranteed). I am a bit worried about this event for two reasons:

1. There might be foreigners on board. That would be Bad.

2. I’ve been asked to do a regular piece for a well-known publication. I was going to call it “When Escalators Attack“, but now I may have to change the name to “When Trains Attack“, which is more topical, if not quite as snappy. I guess I could always call it “Taiwan is still safe“.

I guess someone was telling a porky when he said that Chinese trains are better than Japanese, French or German trains.

Update: Not only was the whole debacle typical of the way things are built here, it now appears that the train was rear-ended by another bullet train as well. So obviously the following driver was as good as any other driver in this poxy Land. Chinese trains: an ignominious failure, and a complete and utter fiasco from start to finish. Serves you right, Chinese people, for stealing technology you aren’t capable of comprehending.

 

 

Posted in Newsflash | 35 Comments »

Flies, and more damned flies.

Posted by MyLaowai on Friday, July 22, 2011

Downstairs, near the entrance to my building, there is a pile of stinking, rotting, filthy garbage. Sometimes it opens the gate but usually it just sits there, sleeping, although it generally stirs thrice a day to eat a bowl of rice. Now, quite honestly I don’t care whether the gate guard is sleeping or not, because I’ve yet to meet any ‘worker’ in China who works at all, and in some cases the more they sleep the less harm they cause. But, now that summer is here, they do start to pong a bit. And this is a problem, because they attract that most accursed of Nature’s creations: the housefly.

Obviously, there are solutions. But with inflation in China running at 15-20% pectin is becoming expensive – my Jamboy is now costing me nearly a dollar a week! Plus I’ve had to make a second one to keep the flies off the Aston. However did they manage in the old days, I wonder?

Bloody flies. I hate them. But the simple fact is that the locals attract them, and there’s nothing to be done about it except pray for nuclear war. Which I do. Every day, in fact. But enough chit-chat about my eternal optimism, today’s essay concerns flies.

It’s a little-known but obviously true fact that the housefly is, in actual fact, a reincarnated Chinese. That’s right, Johnny Wang risen from the dead to plague us foreigners in yet another of his accursed guises. Don’t believe me? Then check out this scientific evidence:

You see what I mean? And it explains the constant buzzing as well as the the risk of disease. Oh, sure, some of you will say that reincarnation is a myth dreamed up by fools and buffoons and that it is merely the by-product of a disturbed religious mind, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s true, does it? I’ve watched those detect-a-ghost shows on the Discovery Channel, you know, and my standards of evidence are far more exacting.

This is why, when I go out, I take a can of anti-local disinfectant with me. It’s my own special recipe, containing a mixture of DDT, lead arsenate, blitz-fog, and Zyklon-B. It’s doesn’t actually affect the locals in any way, shape, or form, because when compared with the air, food and water, it’s really more of a mild nuisance than a cure, but when used in conjunction with the large walking stick I carry it can sometimes be effective in keeping them at a distance. And it does keep the reincarnated ones from getting too comfortable.

I hope this has been of some small benefit to you. After all, I am here to help. And now, I’m off to beat a coolie and fix myself a Gin & Tonic…

Posted in Ask MyLaowai | 9 Comments »

China Goes Arctic

Posted by MyLaowai on Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Amid the flurry of activity from other countries laying claim to the vast reserves of the Arctic, no-one has noticed China’s claim.

Around the 15th Century, China of course not only circumnavigated the pole, on a daring sea journey led by famous explorer Po La, whose name was later used to name this area, but also settled there. The Eskimos are direct descendants of these Chinese. Have a close look. Flat faces, flat noses, dark yellow skin, black hair and eyes… and adhere to the belief that Budweiser is a great beer.

So, once this claim hits the court, it will be the first time since Mongolia was ceded that China will have territorial disputes to the North, South, East and West. Pesky Ruskies haven’t been pulling their weight in the ancient game of “Let’s see who can slap the sleeping giant the hardest with no retribution”.

More’s the pity.

Posted in Guest Post | 1 Comment »

Feeling Well?

Posted by MyLaowai on Friday, July 15, 2011

Do you feel tired, listless, and depressed?

You must be Jiang Zemin.

(who hasn’t been dead since the middle of last year)

Posted in Fact Friday | 5 Comments »

The Immigrant

Posted by MyLaowai on Friday, July 15, 2011

A Chinese man decides to move to Australia after 50 years of living in Shanghai. He buys a small piece of land near to Mt Isa.

A few days after moving in, the friendly Aussie neighbour decides to go across and welcome the new guy to the region, but on his way up the drive-way he sees the Chinese man running around his front yard chasing about ten hens. Not wanting to interrupt these ‘Chinese customs’, he decides to put the welcome on hold for the day.

The next day, he decides to try again, but just as he is about to knock on the front door, he looks through the window and sees the Chinese man urinate into a glass and then drink it.

Not wanting to interrupt another ‘Chinese custom’, he decides to put the welcome on hold for yet another day. A day later he decides to give it one last go, but on his way next door, he sees the Chinese man lead a bull down the drive-way, pause, and then put his head next to the bull’s bum.

The Aussie bloke can’t handle this, so he goes up to the Chinese man and says “Jeez Mate, what the hell is it with your Chinese customs?

I come over to welcome you to the neighbourhood, and see you running around the yard after hens. The next day you are pissing in a glass, and drinking it, and then today you have your head so close to that bull’s bum, it could just about shit on you.”

The Chinese man is very taken back and says “Solly sir, you no understand, these no Chinese customs I doing, these Australian Customs.”

“What do you mean mate?” says the Aussie, “Those aren’t Australian customs.”

“Yes they are, man at travel agent tell me” replied the Chinese man. “He say to become true Australian, I learn to chase chicks, drink piss, and listen to bull-shit.”

Posted in You're Joking? | 1 Comment »

Thought For The Day

Posted by MyLaowai on Saturday, July 9, 2011

It takes the average human twenty fours hours to turn food into shit.

It takes the average Chinese cook less than twelve minutes to do the same.

Posted in Food | 2 Comments »

China Full of Shit? No, Way Beyond That.

Posted by MyLaowai on Friday, July 8, 2011

Living in China presents unique challenges. For me, one of those challenges is reading China Daily without dying of laughter.

Seriously, reading any media is always an exercise of filter the propaganda, read between the lines etc. But China Daily? OMG. Plagiarism, lies that stink to heaven and back, bald-faced propaganda and… shit that they say that they simply don’t realize us ‘cultured educated folk’ (yes, yes I know you avid xenophobes, we are the barbarians and you are the cultured race – HA!) look at this shit and laugh.

Today, right now, this is too much.

The article starts with “A photo of a good-looking flatbread maker has created a frenzy on China’s twitter-like Weibo service, catapulting the figure – a 22-year-old Xinjiang native – to overnight fame.”

Wow. Food for thought

IT GETS BETTER KIDDIES!!! Let’s read another article:

China’s high-speed rail better than Shinkansen.
A spokesman of the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said Thursday that China’s high-speed rail technologies are much better than those used by Japan’s Shinkansen Line. The remarks by the MOR spokesman, Wang Yongping, came after Japanese company Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. threatened to take action if China files for patents on high-speed trains made using Japanese technologies. “The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway and Japan’s Shinkansen line cannot be mentioned in the same breath, as many of the technological indicators used by China’s high-speed railways are far better than those used in Japan’s Shinkansen,” Wang said, rejecting the Japanese accusation of pirating. “We Chinese will not claim technologies owned by others as our own. And we will never give up our rights to file patent applications for innovations developed through our efforts and wisdom because of others’ irresponsible remarks,” he said.

Let’s take a deep breath, well, everyone except the KTV girls servicing the government officials: it’s difficult to draw a breath when you… let’s leave that thought alone huh? Toothpicks tickling your throat are always annoying.

High speed rail? Where DID that come from China? Oh yes. That’s right. Other countries (let’s not mention any names like GERMANY shall we) offered to build you an example, and in return you would consider taking on their engineering services. What did you do China? R&D, yes. Ripoff And Duplicate.

Nuclear reactors? Oh shit guys. Canada. Remember them? They built your first reactors for you on the premise you would buy Canadian uranium. What did you do? “3q wery much. We now copy them and buy Australian Uranium.”

Should I go on? Like how Baidu is the biggest infringer of IP in the world, and is an SOE?

No, let’s return to that original article. To quote again: “…on China’s Twitter-like Weibo service”

Why is it that Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps etc are under attack (and blocked by the Great Firewall) in China? Here is a simplified version of the government dialogs: “Shit, these pricks make money. Hey, let’s ban such things unless they a) have a license they have paid a crapload for and have agreed to the next point; b) cede total censorism to us; c) are owned by Chinese”

This wouldn’t be a good rant unless I circularly returned to the original statement:

“The case of a John Doe coming under the spotlight occurs on an irregular basis in China, as netizens develop an interest in hyping up the ordinary”

Oh dear. Someone please book me a hernia repair operation. Irregular? Yeah, only a few times every year. Brother Sharp. Lotus Little Sister. Etc. Why? Well, if you study the word gossip, you will find that people with no lives take extraordinary interest in people with unusual lives.

China. A country of people with no life, no creativity, and an atavistic love of fucking everyone else over at any cost. Welcome! Come here! NOT

Posted in Guest Post | 18 Comments »

There is Still Hope

Posted by MyLaowai on Friday, July 1, 2011

How does one go about describing doing business in China? I mean, really? Sure, there are all the obvious adjectives like “dishonest”, “shitty”, “dirty”, “filthy”, “corrupt”, “primitive”, “festering” and so on and so on. But whilst all those adjectives are certainly spot on and absolutely correct, they don’t really give people in the civilised world much of an idea as to what it’s like here in The Land That Time Forgot.

A good friend of mine describes doing business in China as asking someone to paint the fence white, and suddenly two dozen people are running around in circles looking for black paint (the fence, or what’s left of it after they’ve ‘fixed’ it a few times, is eventually painted red and then falls over).

And that’s a pretty accurate description in my experience.

Take an actual example: Two days ago I asked one of my employees to call the courier and arrange for him to pick up a small parcel the following day. Just that, nothing else. Within half an hour there were discussions regarding which courier to use, which country it was going to, how heavy it was, what rate was applicable, the whole nine yards. At this point I intervened and politely pointed out that I wanted the same fucking courier we have always used and that the weight, destination, colour, shape, and any other variable were nobody’s fucking business except mine, and could the person I had originally asked simply call the fucking courier and would everyone else mind awfully going back to work and doing 60% of the job they were actually hired to do?

The next morning I asked what exact time the courier was expected, because I had plenty to do and couldn’t afford to be sat on my thumb all day waiting for him. I was told “before 12pm”, which is about as much use as a chocolate fireman when it comes to accuracy, but is nevertheless the best one ever gets in China. Naturally, the courier arrived at 1pm. He picked up the parcel, and departed. You might think that’s the end of the story, but that’s only because you haven’t been paying attention these last few years.

I received a call on my phone today from the employee who arranged for the courier to come and pick up the parcel. It seems there are now many problems and matters of intense confusion, with the inevitable result that the parcel will cost twice as much to send, it will be sent on the wrong waybill, it might not get there at all because someone decided to re-write the address and now it’s not readable, there is no longer a destination city, the commercial invoice is missing in action, and what colour did I want the fence painted? Please keep in mind that this employee is one of the better ones.

This happens every single time I send anything by courier. And I do mean every. single. time.

And that, to me, is what doing business in China is like.

Have a happy weekend, my little croissants. I’m off to elbow an old woman in the back of the neck.

Posted in Ask MyLaowai, Fact Friday, Motivational! | 48 Comments »