Sometimes I think Chinese citizens are absolutely oblivious to the world.  I mean, media and speech are so tightly controlled, what else can you expect?  I was hearing stories about how Chinese people actually think some fast food chains McDonald’s and KFC are native to China.  My friends have been asked if we have them in America.  I met some students from Hanhzhou in the Zhejiang province, and we had lunch.  It was family style, so there’s always tea, coke, and sprite sitting on the table.  One of the Chinese students was being a good host and was pouring drinks.  I was the only non-Chinese there, so when she picked up the Sprite, she looked at me and asked, “Do you know what this is?”  I was like o___O.  Sprite…  It’s made by Americans… 

It’s just mind-boggling how ignorant they are really.  (Ignorant not meant to be harsh by any means.)  The Great Leap Forward killed hundreds of thousands of people.  Chinese students are taught (and believe) that these deaths were caused by a natural disaster.  I have a couple local Chinese students in my program, and when they learned of this, they were so amazed. 

The Chinese government even told its citizens that the war in Libya was over Stargate for godssake…

When I first embarked to college, I questioned myself on Facebook etiquette.  Basically what this phrase entails is when it is appropriate to add someone on Facebook.  See in high school, everyone basically knew each other and interacted on a daily basis, so that question never really came to mind.  But I came to college and met quite a few individuals, who I wasn’t sure if I’d see again, or if they’d even remember my name (not like that).  So, that left me wondering, when should I add them?  How many times should I have associated with them?  How close should we have gotten?  Should I have their number?  When is it not creepy?  And when is it alright to ask for their last name?

Then I decided, fuck it.  I’ll let them add me.  I’ll just add the cute ones.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t make friends so easily.

There is a special way to successfully accomplish that.  The ignoring approach just has been tried and quite frankly proven tired, so there must be some other tactic to defend ourselves from annoyances.  And simply, it is to the same to the other person. 

Make said person feel as awkward as possible.  Think about it.  In awkward situations, have you EVER wanted to talk?  You just wanted to somehow slip out of the situation unnoticed and never look back.  But when you do, you think, “Oh man that was awkward.”  You then associate the situation with the people who made it awkward and avoid them for dear life, because everyone knows how godawful awkward moments are.  If you read my blog, then you know my ex has tried to pry himself into my life.  I have made it my mission to make him feel awkward anytime he tries to talk to me.  The easy, but sellout option is to mention how in love with my boyfriend I am.  I mean, if your ex brought that up with you, what can you really say to that?  The situation just becomes extremely awkward.  But I’ve been trying to venture into better territories.  He was trying to tell me a joke, and simply I thought it wasn’t funny, and I told him, “You know, I never understood your humor.”  That made him feel so embarrassed that all he could say was “lol.” with the period and all.  Everyone knows what the period means.  I mean, I pretty much told him I faked it every time.  I mean that both contextually speaking and symbolically speaking.  If you don’t understand what I meant by that, I meant that I faked every orgasm. 

Trust me.  It works.  Have a nice day!  :]

You know I was going to do this cute this is what I learned in Chinese class lately, but I’ve been in a pretty terrible mood this week.  I had a midterm in my Infotech class, and I absolutely HATE this class.  The professor is absolutely retarded.  (see previous post)  This weekend was super fail in going out, and early this week, I got pickpocketed.  Worst experience of my life.  Honestly, canceling credit cards is just a hassle, I had minimal money in that wallet, but that wallet was such a treasure to me.  I’ve never had such a useful and convenient wallet that was so beautiful.  It had a change purse, three bill pockets, and plenty of card holders.  It was all italian leather, on the outside a glossy black and on the inside pink.  My mom got it for me as a gift for my birthday, and it had a lot of meaning for me.  I’m so depressed about it.  T___T

But I guess here’s my cute here’s what I learned in Chinese class.

Wo bu xiang chi zhong guo cai.  Wo xiang mei guo cai.  Wo xiang Chipotle.  Wo zhou mo xi huan qu tiao wu.   Tiao wu hen hao!  Wo you fake LV bag.  Wo have to bie fake Prada wallet now.  You zhe ge gougou.  Zhe ge gougou ke ai!  Wo zhao gou gou tian tian. 

Kekeke.  Wo de zhong wen bu cuo! 

When I was younger, I used to look up to teachers as all-knowing and perfectly just.  I mean, that’s what we were conditioned to learn.  They were the arbitrary force that taught us the wonders of the world and was always right in everything they did, be it teaching or mediating or punishing.  But as I grew out of that disillusionment, I realized that teachers are actually really fucking dumb and biased as hell.  They have their mood swings, blow up at students for no reason, and for a large majority of the time are wrong.  They really don’t know much more about life than we do.  They spread a lot misconceptions that they’ve learned through television just as we did.  And for us to look up to them is bullshit, because they’re idiots just like us. 

Professors though, I have entirely a different amount of respect for them.  Other than my dumbass Infotech professor.  Stupidest motherfucker of all time.  I have a problem with believing people who buy into conspiracy theories, don’t use proper grammar when sending out important emails, aren’t clear in what they expect, and all-in-all just dumb as a motherfucker. 

The longer I’m here, the more I’m buying into Tiger Mom.  There is truly a completely different mindset in Asian culture, but even Tiger Mom takes it too far.  I have yet to see any scolding or reprimanding.  Everything is jsut so well managed, that not a thing needs to be worried about.  (Other than the customer at 85 yelling at the cashier,  I wish I knew why. D:)

I have not heard a crying baby or child since I’ve been here, well Asian ones at least.  I’ve seen a bunch of babies.  I know because I always gawk at how cute Asian babies can be, but I have yet to see one crying.  The only crying I’ve seen were of white tourists in international restaurants, and damn that baby could scream.  Kids are super duper cute here, and they’re still playful.  AND they’re all single children.  You’d think they’d all be spoiled little shits.  I’ve always hated children in America, but China, China gives me hope.

Dogs don’t even have leashes here.  At first I just thought there were a bunch of stray dogs, but actually all the dogs have owners.  It’s just they let them run around as they wish, but the dogs always stay close by their owners side.  They never have to call their dogs, their dogs don’t just poop everywhere, and they’re the CUTEST DOGS I’VE EVER SEEN.  You’d imagine my lament when I saw cute dogs and thought they were all strays with rabies.  I swear people only have cute dogs here.  Only because the ugly ones are eaten. 

And most notably, every man holds his girlfriend’s hand in one hand and his girlfriend’s purse in the other.  Good kids, good pets, good boyfriend.  What more could a Chinese girl ask for?

A Louis purse, duh.

are better than American things in America.  Granted they are relatively expensive, but they cost the same monetary value in USD as in RMB, but a Like It at Coldstone costs just about the same as an entree at a sit down restaurant. 

But who cares?  It’s SOO much better here in Shanghai.  Take for example Coldstone Creamery.  Coldstone has sakura flavor, green tea flavor, and other flavors not available in the US that replace all the flavors that suck.  It still keeps the classic cake batter and sweet cream flavor here in China though.  It has the best of the United States and super tasty Asian flavors.  And on top of that, they have soo many more toppings than the United States locations do.  There are strawberry bits!  That’s all I can remember because I got sakura ice cream with strawberry bits and white chocolate syrup.  By far the best Coldstone I’ve ever had. 

Also, Pizza Hut is a respectable restaurant here.  And oh my god, it is so good.  The pizzas are all “exotic.”  They have all sorts of seafood on their pizzas, and all sorts of stuffed crusts.   Also they have delicious pastas, salads, drinks, what have you.  It’s all tasty tasty. 

I did in fact take that picture above.

KFC and McDonald’s are both food staples here in China, and they also have more delectable options than the United States.  I have yet to venture into MCD’s but KFC is pretty noms.  Their normal American sides like mashed potatoes sort of suck though. 

I figure I’m probably going to end up taking a shit ton of pictures of food, so I created a Flickr, mostly so I can share pictures with my family without the means of Facebook.  If you’d like to follow along my journey, flickr.com/photos/marypham.

Disclaimer:  I know very very very little Chinese.

Ni hao!  Wo jiao Mary.  Wo bu shi xiaojie.  Wo shi mei guo ren.  Wo lai zhong guo xue.  Wo hen e!  Wo xi huan chi xiao long bao.  Wo ye xi huan he ne cha.  Ni shi hao peng you!

Han yu hen nan.  Wo yao qu Beijing, Taiwan, Xi’An, Hong Kong!  Tai gui le! 

Tongue Twister:
Si shi si.
Shi shi shi.
Shisi shi shisi.
Sishi shi sishi.
Sishisi shi sishisi.

Qing zai shuo.

All of a sudden, I received a chat from an ex.  Now this ex, I haven’t talked to for over a year, and the last time we talked I cursed him out for being a shady, disappointing asshole.  To say the least, we had a really messy break-up.  And at that point, I was done with him.  I didn’t think we’d talk again, nor did I want to. 

But when I received the chat, I stared puzzlingly at it.  I was webcamming with my current boyfriend when I got it, and he asked me what was with the face.  I told him that my ex just hit me up.  I’m sure my boyfriend was/is bothered by it (even though he said he wasn’t), but I assured him nothing was to come of this.  My ex and I had casual conversation.  He completely disregarded our past and at the same time subtley showed fond feelings for me.  I did, however, make it very clear I had a boyfriend and that I was very happy with him.  When I had to go, he asked me to talk to him again.  I responded with a maybe.

This situation is a delicate one for me.  Firstly, I’m a person of appearances.  I have a huge pride, and I hate to show any compromising feelings.  I didn’t want to seem bitter (and for that fact, I am not bitter) so I continued conversation with him.  And since then, he’s tried to talk to me twice, and I’ve responded but had to go quickly.  But the thing is, he’s very manipulative.  When we were talking, before we dated, we had this on and off relationship, meaning at random times he’d disappear from my life completely, then pop up again via chat.  He’s always had this way of getting me to miss him, and he does it all purposefully.  He’s also pretty selfish.  So when he said he missed me, he had to talk to me, without any regard to my life and what was going on. 

I’m happy as I am right now.  I love my boyfriend, and he loves me, and my life has only gotten better since my ex left.  I don’t want to get caught up with his mind games anymore, but at the same time, I don’t want it to seem that I still have unrequited feelings for him or that I’m bitter.  As it stands now, I’ll probably tell him exactly how I feel, that I only talk to him because I’m friendly, but he really isn’t someone I want in my life.

I arrived in Shanghai about a week and a half ago.  I’ve been out and about, and I’ve finally started class yeterday.  This city (or country) is quite interesting and very different than the States.  Here are a couple things I’ve observed:

You can smoke anywhere.  And seriously, anywhere.  Inside a restaurant, inside the mall, inside the club, inside an elevator.  I went clubbing a couple times, and the clubs are always filllllllled with smoke, to the point where my eyes water, and it’s hard to breathe.  I’ve even been burnt by a cigarette on the dance floor.  In the morning, my entire chest feels tight, and I have trouble breathing. 

Clubbing is a power trip.  In Shanghai, the locals don’t do much dancing.  Rather, they just buy out tables with loads and loads of alcohol, and they play dice.  It’s just a status symbol.  But the gays don’t have a need to impress ladies, so they’re like free entertainment. 

Pedestrians never have the right of way.  Crossing the street is a game of Frogger, and no one ever slows down because you’re in front of them.

(Soft) Drinks are just as expensive as meals.  In decent sit down restaurants, an entree will come out to be about 25-40 rmb.  Drinks can be the same.

BAO ZI, BAO ZI, BAO ZI.  They’re everywhere!

The language barrier is harder than I expected.  I’m having a hard time doing things on my own, which is a huge problem for me since I’m highly independent.  But so far, I’ve learned how to push off solicitors, count, thank people, order ”the eight dollar one,” and say “I love money.”