Politics

Politics and Culture

To start off, for the first few weeks we got here, we kept hearing the words “tigga” and “nigga” used in every other sentence. To here those words sounds very similar to the “n” word and we kept doing double takes at the person saying it, to figure out what the hell they were talking about. In the states, you become so paranoid about the “N” word being used, it isn’t common to hear it every other sentence. As it is, the word Tigga translates to “This” and Nigga to “That”. They are used mutually to mean “ummmmmmmm” while you are composing your words. So while the Chinese are just pausing and taking time to think what they are saying, here we American’s are thinking they are throwing out racial slurs left and right.

So everyone has been asking me what it is like in China, with all the protests going on against the Olympics. If you haven’t been listening to news going on in China, there have been bomb threats in some cities, and a town square we were working blocks away from. Well let me ease your worries, if the policemen we see daily sleeping in there cars is any indication of escalated security measures, there is nothing to worry about. I will tell you first hand, the Chinese are some of the nicest and kindest people I have ever met. Everyday Chinese folk should not suffer and risk not getting the Olympics, because they have a shitty government. Hmm, maybe the US shouldn’t get the Olympics any time soon either, considering they went against UN rules to invade Iraq! I will say this in regards to the torch getting put out and protests. Maybe the Olympics aren’t doing what they are intended to do. If the Olympics are suppose to bring countries together and all they are doing is invoking protests, it sounds to me there is a bigger problem at hand.

And on another note. Keeping in mind we don’t get any mainstream media, except BBC sometimes. Our news stations get blocked every other day, due to all the Olympic protests. However, we heard that a CNN anchor referred to the Chinese as “thugs” because what they are doing to Tibet. The Chinese are nothing of the sort, as I have said they are very giving and caring. They expect nothing of you, they really do everything out of good nature and will go out of there way to help you. I want to know the last time that dumbass mother-fucking news anchor spent any time in China. Just saying!

Communism… This country is anything but communist. It is more commercial and materialistic than New York and LA combined. One of my friends told me that China will outgrow in population its own communism. And I think that is true.

Dairy Queen found in China

That is all.

Cutting class to buy a washing machine!

During one of our days off, when we don’t have to be at the theatre till 6pm, Jake and I chose to run around with some of the interpreters.

First thing on the agenda was to go to her high school. We learned that once you are accepted into a college, you are no longer required to go to school full time.

The only thing you have to still go to school for is to turn in essay papers. Other than that, you don’t have to go at all. So she said we would only be on campus for about an hour and told us it was fine that we tag along. We got to the campus, which was a series of outdoor school rooms kind of like the type you think of in your 1980’s California style movie. And in the center of them, was a huge area equipped with like 10 basketball courts, tennis courts, track and field, and so on. What I thought was funny was that all the basketball courts were full, yet the 10 ping pong tables were totally empty. I guess favorite sports have changed.

We went up to her homeroom, and 5 min later she was out the door. Turns out the only reason we were even at her high school was because she wanted to give her best friend a birthday present. Must be nice to go to school for social reasons only.

After that, we went DVD shopping. Yes, again. Hey, you can never get to many DVD’s at a dollar a piece.

Then we went to Wal-Mart. It was interesting to go into a Wal-Mart in China, because up till now we have been going to Care-Fore (a huge Wal-Mart like store). As it turns out, the Care-Fore has many more western products than the Wal-Mart and looks more like the Wal-Mart you would find in the states.

We asked our interpreters if there was a backlash against “big-box style stores” like Wal-Mart. She said no, she said they are very popular for getting all your shopping done in one place. In fact, currently everyone is protesting and choosing Wal-Mart over Care-Fore because Care-Fore is supporting a small village separating from mainland China into there own country. They have been having protests at all Care-fore’s and beating people up if you cross the picket line. It is all over China news,

I’m sure you guys haven’t heard about it in the states. China is very “country” oriented and it is odd that a corporation based in China would support villages becoming countries and stay in good graces with the China people. At least they are doing the right thing.

Anyways, we really had no intent to buy anything at Wal-Mart, and what did we walk out with. A washing machine!! I have to tell you if you are going to stay in China, just pony up the cash to buy a washing machine, because it will save you tons of cash in China in the long term (obviously if you have somewhere to store it).

It was 230 Yuan, which is about 35 bucks. If you are keeping up with my blog, we have been spending 200-300 Yuan every time we do laundry. It is a small one, but you can still wash about 6 or 7 shirts at a time. So excited!!

Did I mention there is meat in China? LOTS!!!

And last (In Walmart), the esculator between floors. Kinda cool way to sell impulse buying, huh? The carts magnetically stuck to the esculator.

(Below- Thought the sign was ironic)

Day Off

So Monday was our day off here in Wuhan. I was a little worried at first, cause of the week we have been here I haven’t seen anything remotely exciting. Our hotel has got to be in the poorest, most ghetto part of the city. So you don’t think I am exaggerating here, we have seen tents and people living in dirt caves. And by the way, Wuhan is 10 million people. It is composed of 3 “small” cities that make up the city limits. One of the cities looks like Las Vegas, in the fact that every sky scraper has flashing fluorescent and neon lights. No reason for this, just pretty to look at.

Anyways, we decided to spend the afternoon with the interpreters. This city they are all high school students and yes they are legal. 5 of them took Jake (asst. carp), Chris (my asst.), and myself to the East Lake of the city. I didn’t know this driving in, but there are a ton of lakes around the area due to the Yangzi River that flows through the city center.

We got to the center part of the lake by driving down miles and miles of 2 lane roads with lines of trees on each side about 10’ from the lake itself on both sides. It was absolutely beautiful getting there. We then climbed 2 of the mountains next to the East Lake and saw a few really pretty temples built during the Ying Dynasty. We climbed almost 300 steps to get to the top of one of the temples, in which looked out over the city. Surprisingly enough we picked the perfect day, because the sun was bright and you could see the skyline pretty well. And when I say the perfect day, I mean the first day in about a month since we have seen the sun. After going through the temples and up the second mountain (not really one, but the locals called it one) there was a slide/loge that you could take to ascend down the side of the mountain. It was awesome, I felt like I was bobsledding.

We walked around a lot and then decided to rent motor boats on the lake. They were only $50 Yuan for an hour and you could get up to 4 people in them at a time. We got in the boats and putted across the lake. The boats were the scariest thing ever. They only had one speed and they came with 2 oars (I guess for just in case.) So here we are sitting in the boats going about 2 miles an hour and we are trying to paddle at the same time. We went out to a few of the islands and drove around an abandon house in the middle of the lake which was cool to take pictures of.

After that we ended up eating at a hot pot. This was the first time I have eaten “hot pot” in China, though it is one of the most traditional food styles. Usually you have one large pot that simmers meat and veggies in a bowl for all to share kinda like fondue. However, we went to a nicer place where you got your own pot, and there was a buffet of raw ingredients to choose from. To be honest I am kind of over trying to eat some meats here, it just isn’t working for me. They brought shaved lamb to the table that looked a lot like ground chuck. And on the buffet were a beautiful/ just lovely assortment of fish heads. I may have a desire to explore new foods, but let me be the first to disappoint and say fish heads are NOT one of them. Did I tell you that I didn’t eat a single fish head? K got that settled. So I did however eat a lot of lotus root, kimchee, rice, lamb, rice pucks, and other things I really didn’t know what I was eating. The sad part when it comes to food is that I pretty much stay away from most seafood. Most of our locals have said that they don’t get a lot of fresh seafood and that is pretty apparent from the smell of it. But I can eat veggies all day long.

Side note: We had a company dinner the other day, and on the menu was duck head. And yet again, I ate no head…

Starving fat kids in China

So Wuhan has not been friendly to me.

To date, i have broken 3 chairs and a toilet seat. The chairs have all broken at work, cause some genius decided he could make chairs out of wicker and aluminum tubes. UHH right.

And the toilet seat. Well i went in the restroom one morning and kinda jumped onto the toilet. And pop it went. Split the plastic seat and cracked it.

No wonder all that China stuff from walmart breaks, it isn't American proof.

Just sayin'

(Pictures are curtesy of the catered dinner that the theatre had for us. On the menu was lots of fish and duck)

Wuhan

We loaded out of Chongqing last night and the process is getting a little better. There was still a little wait time between tasks and the crew was even worse than Chengdu. The best part is that we worked with a bunch of guys that are apparently union. I never would have thought that in a communist country they would have carpenter and truck loading unions. Sure enough, about an hour into the load out all 50 of the loaders stopped working and started fighting with the promoter. Apparently the promoter didn’t pay them, and thus they walked off our call. Normally we have 100 locals loading us in, and this load out we had 50 guys. All problems aside, we had a 6 hour load out.

While sitting in the airport to fly from Chongqing to Wuhan (20 or so hours by car, only 2 hours by plane) I caught on to another culture difference. Kids clothing here have slits down the ass end of there pants so that kids can just shit anywhere. Yep, it is about a 6” opening in there pants that allow them to let the whole world see there genitals. So instead of just your mom and dad saying that they saw your “penis” when you were a baby, the entire world can declare that they have seen it. I have explained about how they have squatters here, instead of regular toilets. But when it comes to little kids, instead of taking them into a bathroom or using diapers, they just resort to floors and trash cans. If I was joking about this, it wouldn’t even be funny. Just sayin’.

We are now in Wuhan for 2 weeks and it is awesome to be in one place for so long. However we have yet to find much of anything in the way of food or entertainment. There is a famous “crane tower” here, but I have yet to go and explore that. We are heading out tonight to explore a steak house that my friends on 42nd street ranted and raved about and then off to the “bar street”. Since tomorrow will be a day off, it should be a fun night.

On another note, we have gotten a new and more finalized schedule for the next few months. Some cities In China pulled out, some were added. The other countries that are being looked into are Singapore/ Taiwan/ Russia/ Thailand/ Korea/ Dubai/ India. Cross your fingers cause I am really looking forward to those countries.

Call me Broccoli Boy

SO as you can understand, i have been adjusting to the food. And i don't think it is the fact that food here is different, or that getting a body organ on your plate as dinner is anything out of the norm. But i really think it is just the fact that i dont get anything like what i would in the states.

Set me up with a big bowl of veggies or salad or mashed potatoes and i am all set. Well most of what they serve here is meat. I went out for a walk last night at 1am, when the bars were in full swing, and you can't walk 20ft without running into a boiling pot of water or fire, where they are serving 50 types of meat. What type you ask, just use your imagination.

So i have a new system, I got my translator to write down "steamed garlic broccoli" in Chinesse and so far it has worked. I will probably be eating broccoli at every meal for the next 6 months. And you will get no complaints out of me, if i can get that at every meal!!!!

Road Rage

Just traveling to and from the theatre proves to be an adventure. Last night our bus drive pulls up behind a motorcycle and starts blowing his horn. He was inches from running him off the road and honks for almost 30 seconds. The motorcyclist refuses to move, so our driver gets on his external intercom and starts cussing him out to move. I swear to god we were going to run him over.

And here we have a safety chain in China. My friend and I pulled on it just a little bit and it popped. And to think they use it to hold up 20 lb lights. GREAT!!

Everybody Dim Sum Tonight

So there is this great restaurant here in Chongqing that I have now been to twice. Kit and Kat brought us to it, saying that it was different from any other Chinese restaurant that we had had yet. Since I hadn’t really had an amazing Chinese food experience, I was game. It was wonderful. Dim sum is known more as a southern style of food. There were pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, veggie dumplings, and even carrot cake dumplings.
It was so nice that I invited some of the cast to return to it 2 nights later. We had gotten kit to write out all the dumplings we had the night before. And I was able to look at the menu to order a few other dishes for everyone. Except I kind of ordered one dish by accident. Wait for it. Cow stomach linings and intestines. Having now gotten over most of my shyness with Chinese food, I was game to try. And by shyness I mean lots of fat, bone, and cartilage in your food. The stomach lining was surprisingly the better of the two. It was very rubbery and honeycombed like a bee hive. Once you chewed on it enough, it really wasn’t horrible. The intestines on the other hand were flavorless. They were rubbery as well and had pointy things on them. 2 hours after eating I noticed I had some intestine still in my teeth. Good times.

Chongqing

Having just loaded out 4 hours earlier, I didn’t get any sleep the night before we left for Chongqing. I slept most of the way from Chengdu, which was only 4 hours. I woke up from time to time, only to notice bits of China country side. Most of the rocks are covered in moss and the grass is so lush. It is beautiful. It makes you think how beautiful all of China use to be.

We arrived in Chongqing, the largest city in China. I think it is something like 30 million people. It is surprising how small it feels. It is very hilly and the 3 major rivers in China that make up the “3 gorges” largest dam in the world surround it. It feels like San Francisco when you are driving around and walking up hills.

We went straight to the theatre to investigate the theatre. We had been told that it was a brand new theatre; however, it was more like a brand new government hall. There was a fly system, but it can only travel at one speed. SLOW!!! The flooring in the theatre is the most beautiful I have ever seen, to bad they had to lay down carpet for us to load in on. Yep, all my cases that have wheels on them were loaded in on carpet. There is no loading dock, so you have to ramp up 6 steps to get into the theatre. We asked for work lights and they turned on every light in there rig. We then asked them just to turn all the lights off, because there really isn’t any room for middle ground when you are dealing with Chinese...

I don’t get it, but asking for a simple thing such as, “take out the house lights” seems to take 2 hours. And the best part was that anytime we needed into a door, it would be locked. So it was an ongoing process to keep doors unlocked. And when the guy came back, he had 100 keys on a piece of wood, so it took 10 mins to find the right key. When I say everything in China takes 10 times longer than in the states I mean it. So we took 6am- midnight on Tues, 9am-11pm on Wed, and 9am-1pm on Thurs. to finish load in. If we had been in the states it would have taken half that time. Another great highlight was when we found out the power they were running was 139/245 volts. The response we got was that they used so much power in the building they ran all there power HOT. If you don’t know regular power it is 110/208Volts. So they had to call the electric company and come out to shut us down for a half hour to fix that little problem. And it is still 132/230. When in China, don’t expect perfection. Or if you do, expect a 20 min discussion to make it happen.

Picture (Hotel lobby- Mariott Chongqing)

Picture(The "key guy" at our venue. And yes, he had to go thru every key to find the right one to let us in every day)

Picture(The cutiest kid ever)

Picture(How you carry things in China. Hey, the guy just bought his home stereo system, how else do you get it home?)

Last day in Chengdu

Sunday was our last day in Chengdu. We had 2 shows and our first load out. In between shows I opted to go with one of our locals “Mao” and my translator “Preston” to the electronic plaza. We jump in a taxi and head off out of downtown Chengdu to pull up to a huge building with banners of stereo and camera advertisements. Inside is a flea market of nothing but electronic equipment. Anything and everything you could want from computer and cameras to transformers and fuses. I noticed a few recognizable names like canon, Nintendo, and Sony. Each company had there own booth set up and we perused the cases. I was excited to get some bootleg cds and DVDs. So up we climb through the building to the 5th floor and into the back room, where I was overwhelmed with Chinese woman trying to get me to buy there DVDs. After that stop Mao said he knew of another place to check out. So we head down the street past all the outside street vendors that had like printer ink and video games. We go into a back alley, through a private yard, into an apartment building, up 4 floors, into this guy’s living room, and I swear there must have been 10000 cds in his house. I looked through them and found 10 cds and all it ended up costing was 120 Yuan.

Load out in Chengdu was as expect. We started at 11 pm and finished at 630 in the morning. Not the most exciting way to end your stay in Chengdu but at least the first load out is over. We have 6 sea containers and it just took a long time to sort out everything from 3 weeks worth of a sit-down.

Upon parting ways with our translators of three weeks, Preston gave me a cool origami peacock made out of playing cards. I just hope it makes it back to the states safe. Work and the bullshit of dealing with guys that know nothing about theatre, Chengdu was a good place to spend 3 weeks.

TexiChinaMexican

So as a result of having spent about 3 weeks here, you start to become accustomed to the pros and con’s of being in a country that does things a little different than your own would. My company and I have begun to refer to things in China as “china-good” or “China-clean”. We aren’t trying to say that it is bad, but just different.

We use the term “China-good” to refer to food and restaurants. You expect to get a noodle or rice dish, so it is exciting to get Italian food or a steak. If it isn’t quite what you were hoping for, then it is China good. I was at a restaurant the other day, and ordered a “baked potato” and it came back as one of those fried hash brown things McDonald’s serves. Speaking of which… McDonald’s is “China-good”. I never liked McDonald’s to begin with, so when I leave this country I hope I never have to eat it again. But for now, it is about the only way you can expect to get a hamburger or something remotely that tastes like it should. And they serve cups of corn here, instead of fries (if you ask for it), why don’t they do this in the states?

So laundry over here is quite expensive, because the only way to get it done is per piece. You would think you could do laundry by the load, but nope. So our hotel has a laundry service that is 8yuan for a pair of jeans, shirts for 6 Yuan, and socks for 6 Yuan. After 3 weeks of clothes that is almost 50 or 60 bucks!!! Maybe some of you are saying, “Suck it up, and pay the money”. Well I think it is ridicules. So I talked to our local crew and found a place that will do it for about 15 bucks. Still steep if you compare it to getting it done in the states, but I don’t think I have any other options. And as for my socks, I have defiantly done the smell test on them (China-Clean), as to not have to pay a buck every time I want a pair of socks washed. A lot of people have resorted to doing there own laundry, and I am not far behind. In fact my good friend/translator Preston told me I was lazy for NOT doing my own laundry. He said it was rude to have someone else wash your underwear and that I shouldn’t allow anyone to see my underwear. I, on the other hand think that is retarded.

So Thursday I had my first half day off since I have been over here in China. A lot of people decided to drive 2 and a half hour to see the largest Buddha in China. I opted not to spend 5 hours on a bus and decided to enjoy my afternoon. I got a chance to sleep in which was awesome. And then I headed out to drop off my laundry. I was told exactly where it was located, but didn’t bother writing anything down in Chinese. Yea, BIG mistake. Let me tell you that I have learned my lesson at this point. If I get lost or expect to ask anyone how to find something like the laundry mat, you have to write it down in Chinese. I walked around for about 30 minutes trying to find where to drop off my laundry and guess what? Every store looks the same, and reading Chinese letters on them doesn’t help either. So I was totally “that” tourist who walked up to a local and pointed at my laundry bag/ made the hand signal for washing clothes/ tried to ask where/ and was promptly laughed at.

After I gave up finding the laundry place, I then took a cab to a Mexican place I have heard the cast rave about. Mexican food is very rare in China, but Chengdu happens to have one or 2 places. So I took a taxi about 20 minutes away, which was about 14 Yuan, and it was a nice scenic trip of the city. I have got to start taking more taxi trips outside of town, because they are really cheap and it gives you a chance to take in the whole city. Unlike the laundry, I have learned that if you want to go somewhere in a taxi, you need a business card, and that eliminates the communication barrier. The restaurant called Peter’s Tex-Mex was wonderful and I met the owner. He filled me in on how long it was taking for Mexican food to catch on in China. He said that only about 40 percent of his business was from the Chinese, but that the Chinese consulate of the US was a regular customer. He told me that he and 2 friends saw all the Mexican recipes for there dishes online and just started making them. I asked if any of them had ever had traditional Mexican food or been to Mexico or the US. And he said no. I was so impressed at how good the food tasted and very happy to have something other than Chinese food. He wanted to know all about what I did, if I was associated with Hollywood, and lots of other things.
After that I went shopping for some cds and DVDs. I came across Showtime’s series of “Weeds”. Great, if you haven’t seen it. I found a copy of Season 1, 2, and 3 together, and bought it for 80 Yuan. (That is 12 bucks!!!!!!!!!!) And the funny thing is that Season 3 isn’t even coming out on DVD until June 10th in the states. Got to love piracy in China!!