vampire

朋友最近回国， 写了一些见闻， 读着觉得有意思， 在这里和大家共同欣赏一下。

I really should have known that China is not a place for a vacation. A
visit to family and the in-laws, yes, but not a place for a vacation.
My feelings for China has always been ambivalent. When I am in Canada,
I dispise those who bash China and the Chinese in front of non-Chinese
people, but I am now a Chinese in China and that gives me the right to
make truthful but negative observations of the country and its great
incredibly resilient people.

I am in China, living in fear. I am fearing breathing the air, for the
smog/air contains undoubtedly vaporised spits and other kind of human
body fluids; I am fearing the washrooms, for the overwhelming foul
smell of human waste and the squatting toilets; I am fearing eating
out, for I know for certain that the vegetables and the meat on the
dirty cutting boards are not washed by those hands, which, by the way,
were not washed after they had held various dirty penises a few
minutes earlier; I am fearing walking in the streets, for losing the
basic dignity when honked and chased around by all kinds of three or
four wheeled motor vehicles.

I will help you understand my fears by disclosing some of my journals
kept while in China.

1. In front of a big busy shopping mall in Beijing:
The picture will contain crowds of people with greasy hairs and sweaty
necks, a sure sign of prolonged lack of bathing and washing. A
fashionable girl in tight jeans is standing casually looking at her
fake Cattier watch. A few feet away sits a pile of two day old vomit
of a drunk, who had shared a half bottle of powerful Chinese spirit
and 7 big bottles of beer with his best buddy, after a lousy screw in
a nearby brothel. 15 feet away from that filthy pile, is a vendor
carrying various sorts of baked foods. Walking pass the baked food
vendor is a man in cheap suits. His head is tilted to the front left,
facing downward to the ground, looking at a spit drop still in mid
air. He looks satisfied with the artful way of spitting that he has
just performed. He walks on. On the shiny metal fence separating the
Mall from the street, leans a peasant looking man in dirty grey
clothing. He is staring at a small pile of cold dog shit. What he is
thinking is unknown.
2. The stink
Beijing really stinks. The foul odour is everywhere. The most
offensive smell is the odour from the sewer at the side of the
streets. The smell is similar to that from a shithole.  If you have
never walked by a shit hole, take a walk on the sidewalk in Beijing.
It smells the same.
Also offensive is the smell from all the restaurants and the food
vendors in the streets. Chinese people love greasy and spicy food.
They love it so much that all restaurants compete on the amount of
grease and spices they put in their foods. The result is the
over-whelming smell of grease and spices.  It's so overwhelming that I
feel as if I were thrown into a pot filled with these greases and
spices.
Furthermore, the body odours from most people in the street are
offensive. Looking at the heads of the crowds in the streets, I'd
categorize Chinese people into 3 groups – those who have washed their
hairs at least in the last couple of days (5%), those who have not
washed their hairs for at least a week (90%) and those who are bald
(5%).  Try riding a bus with them if you like, but I won't recommend
it.
3. Nose picking
Nose picking, even in public, is widely practiced in China. People
casually and smoothly insert their fingers into their noses, then,
after performing a digging motion, take out their fingers and examine
them in a careful but casual manner. The practice this art everywhere
and at all times. I once watched a girl in her mid 30's perform this
art continously while chatting with two friends. Those friends of hers
didn't show any discomfort at the sight.

To be continued..................

vampire

4. Beijing NanYuan airport.

I feel that it's imperative that I offer this word of advice: Do your
best to avoid the Beijing NanYuan airport. I didn't have a kind and
handsome man like myself to warn me, and consequently, I took a
discount airplane flying out of NanYuan airport to Harbin.

I arrived at the airport two and half hours early. The airport
reminded me of a railway station in the 70's. I walked in. The inside
of the airport was filled with "dark grey" passengers. I said "dark
grey" because these people were all clothed in dark grey colour, as if
they had all obeyed colectively to a powerful and effective dress
code. These people, moving around in their grey, casted dark and
depressing shadows.
I would have to find a place to stand or sit to wait for my flight.
Having failed to find a safe and quiet spot for myself, I managed to
push my way toward a woman in a light coloured wind breaker and
secured my place behind her. The light colour of her wind breaker
provided me with a safer and less depressing harbour, which relaxed me
a little. The relaxation lasted only 3 minutes and 21 seconds, till
she turned around and showed her stained yellow teeth.

My bladder started to inform me that it's time to pee and so I pushed
myself into the washroom and instantly was knocked a couple of steps
backwards by the all-mighty powerful foul smell of a urine and shit
blend. I was terribly discouraged by the smell, but my bladder had
been so excited with the up-coming relief that it had already
channelled the pee to the door step of my little brother. I held my
breath and entered the washroom. Like most of the washrooms in China,
this one gave me a "wet" feeling. It had a wet floor. It was hard to
say what wetted the floor. Was it water? Was it urine?  Or had someone
just mopped the floor? I always had these questions when I go to a
washroom in China. Like most washrooms in China, this one was not
equipped with toilet paper. I was lucky I only needed to pee. What
would I have done if I had to shit? I would most likely have had to
walk out of the washroom without my underwear. Like most washrooms in
China, this one was not equipped with soap. Like most washrooms in
China, this one was not equiped with hot water. Like most washrooms in
China, this one was not equipped with paper towel.  I walked out the
washroom shaking my cold wet hands.

I found a seat and sat down. Three men were seated in the row facing
me. They were talking about their shoes. The man in black was studying
the shoes of the man in grey. He said that those shoes must be made
from real cow leather and that those shoes had not a single Chinese
Character on them. The third man, in a dark colour unknown to my
vocabulary said the man in grey was a Da Kuan (rich).

Two uniformed men with military police style hard hats came out
shouting to hand-held loudspeaker at everyone. From the reaction of
the crowds, I realized that my plane started check-in. I could tell
that people badly wanted to get on the airplane by how hard they
pushed their way to the entrance. What's the fucking hurry for these
grey people?

vampire

5. In an airplane

How lucky I was! I was given an aisle seat.  This really was
significant to me, because the man sitting beside me found good use of
the waste bag provided for air sickness. The aisle seat permitted me
to leave as soon as he started to transfer nasal and bronchial mucus
from his mouth to the waste bag. I simply could not stand seeing or
hearing him doing the deed. I would stand up and leave my seat and
return to my seat when my calculation assured me that he was done with
his deeds.

The man did two things once every 20 minutes or so. He cleared his
throat, with a "Hah" sound, and then he would take out the waste bag
from the seatback pocket in front of him and spitted into the bag with
a "Pooh" sound. He then put the bag back in the seatback pocket. The
second thing he did was to suck the mucus in his nostrils (nose) into
his mouth with a snoring sound and then he spitted what he had in his
mouth in the waste bag with a "Pooh".  He then put the bag back in the
seatback pocket.  He repeated these rituals in 20 minute intervals.
These rituals caused damages to my mind and stomach but they were
generally beneficial to my knees and legs. I didn't have sore knees
during that flight. I am sure the walking back and forth in the aisle
did my knees a great deal of good.

I feel fortunate that I live in a world in which people show respect
for others by practising reasonable standard of personal hygiene. I
admit that I have not shown any sympathy and compassion toward the
less fortunate. I feel sorry for them, but I am certain they, whom I
consider less fortunate, do not see a problem with their personal
hygiene and do not agree that they are the less fortunate, and for
that, I applaud them, because if they agreed with me, they would have
an additional hurdle to clear in order to move on with life every day.
I feel sorry for them, but I still chose to avoid them and return to
Canada as soon as possible. No, Sir. Thank you but no ,thank you. I
had to get back home. It's so nice to be home. For one thing, it's
clean at home.