Daniel's in China

yeah, it's been a while.

2010-11-03T14:31:00.002+08:00

11/2, 11:32 Pm. Been in USA for about a month now, me and my two amazing angels. I've grown so close to them. I miss my wife.

I've come to America with a list of goals. Number one: introduce my offspring to a family that had long given up hope of leaves sprouting from my branch of the Stine tree. A sense of obligation drove me to this as I suspect a return visit will be long in coming. From both sides of the pond. I, having fulfilled my familial obligations on the western side, will focus on familial obligations of the eastern side. They, my western family, having met my progeny, must decide if prejudice and fear can be overcome long enough to suffer the journey red-side. My stories haven't helped, I know.

Number two goal: Immerse, soak even, my girls in my native world. In this goal I have netted the most incredible gains. Anna, Amanda, both girls, dove into my world with no fear. They swam among the various schools of family and friends effortlessly. There were so many cases of daddy standing slack-jawed at their English proficiency that people began to whisper of dementia. It's true. In one crystal clear scene my Annie was having her eyes examined by an optomologist in Goodyear, Arizona. He adjusted his fly-eyed contraption in front of her not-so-Chinese-eyes while advising her soothingly to tell him what she saw. She did so. Easily, in English, absolutely correctly. Food was a slow-going introduction but in the end, they never cried for white rice. I suspect a passerby would never suspect these girls had been US citizens for only 28 days. Proud does not cover my emotions.

Goal number three: Get some old world while I can. I have gained a minimum of ten pounds since my arrival from Hong Kong some 28 days past. I've eaten Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, and American, oh yeah American. I've enjoyed an American BBQ of an entire pig, American beef steaks with baked potatoes, Chicken wings in three distinct flavors, and chili. Turkey chili, canned chili, suicide hot chili and chili-cheese frys. Man I've eaten so many bowls of breakfast cereal with fresh fruit added that my first Chinese noodle breakfast may trigger gastrinological rebellion. I had to wait until today to do any clothes shopping here in the world-wide consumer Mecca. Walmart slapped me hard with easy prices and myriad opportunities but it was a little known Kohl's store that stole my wallets heart. I spent as much as I saved and this fact alone guarantees my spousal satisfaction home-side.

A final, first achieved goal, was the Americanization of my two daughters citizenship status. Life hands us peaches every now and then and when the Family Planning Bureau in ShouGuan, China gave us travel permission for both our daughters I was slow to grasp the sweetness. It took an email session with an elder sister to trigger the implications and once I got it, we got it. Annie and Mandy are now US citizens, visa required for any and all trips to China, their homeland.

It's 12:29 Am 11/3. My belly is full of macaroni salad, chicken wings and baked beans, my mind is engulfed in Canadian whiskey and memories of Halloween highs. It is a trip we will never forget. Thank you, my home land, for being even sweeter than I remembered.

Coconut Glee

2010-02-23T11:43:00.002+08:00

Mama and Baba were walking through a grove of palm trees on Green Leaf Beach, ZhangJiang city in South China. My girls and I were playing in the warm surf nearby. Mama calls out to me "Daniel, guo lai, ni kan yi xia, ("Daniel, come here, have a look," translated into mandarin from cantonese.) She has this look of near rapture on her face, the happiest I've seen her. Annie, Mandy, and I walk over the where she and Baba (papa) are apparently harvesting coconuts with smiles as big as the secluded beach we were on. Baba whips out his pocketknife and cuts the top off a coconut, handing it to mama, who takes a big drink, wipes her mouth and offers it to me with so much glee I cannot help but chuckle.

It gets me to thinking about what makes the people in my life happy, what puts the glee where all can see. For Annie, my eldest, it's Barbie DVD's and Hannah/Babara cartoons. She sings along with Island Barbie, flutters with Mariposa Barbie, and when Tom and Jerry one-up another, she rolls on the couch in laughter. For Mandy, it's daredevil shoulder rides, red lanterns hung from every tree on the boulevard, and jumping. She jumps on everything from Daddy's beer belly to the top bunk of her bunk bed. This has earned her the nickname "Fall down baby" as she tends to forget she's land bound. Angie, get's gleeful over discount shopping and spontaneous humor. I've seen her collapse into a Chinese squat over a simple joke, her shoulders shuddering and her eyes alight as she fights to compose herself enough to stand again.

I get gleeful over glee itself. Glee is rare in this world of rapidly evolving cynicism, of seen everything now so nothing can touch me. It's easy to forget the simple joys in life. With the world's grief, mistakes, bad deeds, and bad examples of humanity paraded before our eyes non-stop; every newscast, web cast, podcast, or broadcast peppered with reasons to look away, it's easy to say "Maybe we can't." It takes simple glee, the experience of seeing another being in it's optimal state; smiling completely, eyes and mouths in tandem with a happy heart, to fill a person with a sense of "Maybe we can." For those of you out there who feel the world has become a darker place, take a look around you; find your glee. It could be in a coconut, a cartoon, a cartwheel or in a lovers smile. It's there, you've just stopped looking.

Salt Shaker

2010-01-25T01:04:00.000+08:00

I swear I did a little dance right there in the Yi Jia Yi supermarket. Eureka, I have found it! After a week of dedicated search missions to every major and minor shopping venue in the city I found the object of my hunt in my own back yard; a salt shaker. It was a glass and plastic number with your average twisting cap that alternated between sprinkle and pour. Yeah the sprinkle holes were too big but what the hell, right? It's a salt shaker in a land where salt shakers are rare and pepper shakers fail the existence test altogether.

Angie met Mandy and I outside the store. I presented my find to her noncommittal shrug while visions of culinary possibilities danced around in my head. When we arrived at our new house, the catalyst for the original journey, I gleefully retrieved the small container from my wife's purse and proudly showed it to my village-raised Mother-in-Law. She said something in Hakka, I've got no idea what it is, nor do I care. I am filling the vessel with salt and with great satisfaction, I place it next to the frying pan where it rightfully belongs. I consider banning the old salt bowl and spoon number but decide instead to let mama have hers while I have mine.

The next day the salt shaker is somehow clogged with lumps of salt. It's like mama used it to season the bottom of the soup. After I wound down my normal cleanliness tirade, I thought to ask what it was mama had said when I first showed her the shaker. Angie said in an even tone

"She said it looked like a toothpick holder,"

And it struck me true. It WAS a toothpick holder. How could I have been so blinded to it's purpose? Did I want a salt shaker so badly that I projected it's image on something else entirely? Heat intensified as I recalled my cocky presentation of this western wonder to my Chinese family. I'm an idiot. They know it, I know it, the people at Yi Jia Yi know it. It occurs to me that it really does not matter that this glass and plastic amalgam was born a toothpick holder. It has been reborn. A salt shaker has risen and I shall see to it that it's quest for greatness is fulfilled.

My eggs this morning were decidedly not over salted. My converted toothpick holder, now salt shaker, was placed up on the high shelves. It sits now in an exalted place, next to my snack stash and ground espresso coffee, up high where only I possess the legs to reach. And when my culinary cravings come caroming my way it will not be a toothpick holder that I bring down, but a salt shaker in it's sprinkle setting.

And now the new year...

2009-12-31T16:08:00.002+08:00

New Years Eve and I'm teaching until 9PM again. I can't hook up with my foreign friends for best boy boozing because our new house is across town and the police have bribe stations spread out across all the major highways and byways. Angie got caught in one last night, she was saved by the rain that fell. Cops here hate the rain, they'll abandon a line of sure-thing payments to get out of it. They told her to wait right where she was, and then they all motored away. Imagine how many people stayed where they were.

I think I'll grab a bottle of fifty-plus percent and hide away in my new second story office with a DVD and a blanket. Yeah, it's cold right now. Most houses don't have central air, much less heat. Our two space heaters will crank out 3 feet of heat for our babies and parent-in-laws. Strangers reading this blog might air a criticism, something like "why don't you spend it with your family, you schmuck!" and I'll be forced to explain the sad fact that this day, this New Years Eve at the end of the first decade of the second millennium is just another Thursday to them. The babes will be in bed by nine, the folks by nine-thirty, the wife by ten.

Chinese New Year is sometime in February, the fourteenth I think. You can bet your ass there will be a party then. It'll be the Year of the Tiger, fireworks will fly from every balcony and droves of people will converge upon the open air market seeking treasures and plum blossoms. I'll be there, among them, celebrating who knows what for as long as they let me. You learn to take a party when you can get one in this country.

Happy New Years to those of you about to stay out late tonight, blow a party horn for me will ya!

Red Christmas

2009-12-15T12:58:00.004+08:00

Haze paints Zhongshan with a soft brush as I drive Annie to her Kindergarten. I’m trying to figure out how I can ignite the magic of Christmas within her four-year-old heart. In the past three Christmas’s I put up a tree, placed presents underneath and lights around it. I’ve played Christmas music and tried to stoke the Santa surprise, but you know what? It’s never caught on.

It could be the isolation factor. None of her classmates understand or properly observe the holiday. Even within our nuclear family there is a great deal of nonchalance and “ Let’s humor Daddy” as I struggle to implant warm fuzzies in our future generation. Yesterday while on the cell with my wife I asked her if she’d pick up some wrapping paper for the gifts I bought. We finally gave up the conversation as she just could not determine what the hell I was talking about. It’s a language thing and it’s a cultural thing. The Chinese cannot fathom the purpose for wrapping gifts. “Why not simply put it in a bag or just put it under the tree as it is,” She’d asked. How can I explain the anticipation? How can I successfully transplant my culture on this very special holiday?

Around town and in our community blinking Christmas lights are going up in window fronts and store displays. The businesses would love to see the consumer frenzy the Western world is so familiar with. However, ask anyone if they have a tree, or if they have been naughty or nice, and you get a blank look. Every year after Christmas I’d ask my students the same question; what did Santa bring you? Apparently, Santa passes China up because if I ever do get an answer, it's about a red envelope with x amount of cash inside.

Now please don’t misunderstand me, I am not supporting the shopping madness with all its pressures and repercussions as we see so frequently in the West, I only suggest the warmth and glow that comes from giving and not expecting in return. The gifts matter very little. What matters is the joy, the twinkle, not of Christmas lights but of a child's delight. The exciting, breathless moment when a colorful box is placed in your lap and it’s all yours, and you got it just for being a good girl and daddy and mommy are watching and so is little sister and oh the sound of paper tearing and the building of anticipation as paper flies out and something new flies in. This is Christmas, this is a memory that builds confidence and the ability to share and love and be loved.

And this is what I am trying to create this morning as I drop off Annie and head off to find colorful wrapping paper. My wife tells me not to worry about buying her a gift, her parents haven’t a clue as to the holiday, but I know better. I will buy my wife a gift, her parents too. Come Christmas morning, they will, for an instant at least, feel some of the magic when that something special is placed in their lap. I will play Christmas music. I will light up our living room in reds and greens. I will put the girls to bed early on Christmas Eve, and I will wake them early on Christmas morning. We will sit around the tree, wiping sleep from our eyes and looking in wonder at the magic tree that the night before held only a few present but now is completely surrounded by boxes and packages and baskets and are those socks on the wall? No I’ll explain, they are stockings, have a look girls. And they will hop up and run to the stockings and pour out candy and fruit and tiny toys and there will be shrieks of joy from both and my heart will know again the feeling of completed circles.

It’s Christmas time in China and in my house, it will catch on.

Guilo's in the House of Ma.

2009-11-11T13:30:00.000+08:00

Alabama was drunk when I got there, his head giving evidence of the struggle against sleep. Paul and American Dave were drinking Harbin Draft beer and chatting about chicken. I had my eldest with me, she’d cried her way into boys night out. Ma, the head waitress/girl-next-door beauty stood at the ready, amused smile and bright eyes. Time skipped into fast forward and in a blur, I watched the night progress; Annie leaving with her grandma, Alabama’s miraculously slow descent into drunken slumber, Pauls Scottish accent becoming more and more pronounced before he and his buddy, the man from Alabama, stumbled off to who knows where, and Dave, the rock, drinking glass for glass with me and half the patrons of Ma’s restaurant. My watch tells me the sun will arrive soon yet my head begs another beer; Ma’s gone home and so must I, but first I manage to swipe half the dishes and a toothpick holder from the table. Dave’s got his 175cc “chopper” and I’ve got my mini-Mazda, time stopped skipping, exhausted from the night, and I awake amid twisted sheets in the bright sun streaming though cast open curtains.

Grandma

2009-11-10T11:23:00.000+08:00

Her face, lined with every hardship ever endured, brightened when the kids exploded into the house. “Grandma!” were their excited shrieks as they hurled themselves upon her emaciated frame. A small bag appeared in gnarled, spotted hands and with a rustle and little fanfare, sweets materialized, as if by magic.

Their faces, creased with frustration and anger, darkened when the sweets showed in tiny hands. “Grandma!” was their barked cry as they rushed to snatch away the children from her emancipated frame. A small bag disappeared as if by magic and gnarled hands curled in bleak despair as her face, etched ever deeper, grew dim.

Dog gone meal

2009-11-08T15:21:00.003+08:00

Lunch was at the new "countryside" style restaurant in my neighborhood. Their specialty was deer meat, which is fine.

Like many other restaurants of this style, they keep the doomed creatures in a pen for you to select from, or to let the kiddies have a look before the butchering. Halfway through the meal Annie wanted to go see the deer, so I took her.

In the pen with the fly ravaged mangy deer was a collie as sweet as Lassie. Annie asks me" Daddy, are we going to eat the doggy too?" Changing the subject, I hustled her back to the table, asking myself the same question over and over.

Mother of Exiles

2009-11-04T19:11:00.001+08:00

Mother of Exiles

(written upon the Stutue of Liberty)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
with conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I respond:

Oh Mother of Exiles raise up thy flame,

Glow world-wide welcome just the same.

I wish to hear your silent cry once more,

“Give me your tired, give me your poor”.

Oh Mother of Exiles hear my pleas,

Thy imprisoned lightning o’er seas.

Command again against storied pomp,

Thy tempest-tost Uncle Sam did tromp.

Oh Mother of Exiles guarding golden door,

We yearn to breathe free upon your teeming shore.

Standing there at those sea-washed, sunset gates,

I implore you to intervene in this our wretched fate.

Oh mighty woman with your flaming torch,

A grave injustice your beacon must now scorch.

Behind you lies a brazen giant of American fame,

He huddles behind the masses, refusing in your name.

Calling my wife wretched refuse and much too poor,

She wanted only to visit upon your golden shore,

To bring our children and beautiful mixed race smiles

To my homeland. My wife is the new Mother of Exiles.

Writers block - now of all times

2009-11-02T10:40:00.004+08:00

NaNoWriMo has stolen my time. Blogs, twitters, six sentences and random poetry written on napkins and cocktail coasters will be on hiatus until December. I think. I suspect I will enter a realm of insanity where my every breath is punctuated by internal dialog fighting to reach the cursor that is my weapon of wordage. My wife, my life will be rife with strife as I seek that which eludes me now.

Save me oh muse de mio, infuse me, amuse me, please don't refuse me.

I wanna write but writings hard.
someone send me a sympathy card.
What can I say, What can I do
to make this story run through?

I want to write but writings hard.
Someone send me a traveling Bard.
Where should it go, how do I know
is it the high road or the low?

OK, so enough cry baby blues
I gotta go pay my writing dues
I trust you my mighty muse
with you I cannot lose.

Fowl, oh so fowl...

2009-10-30T21:30:00.004+08:00

Lunch was pretty fowl today.

We had vegetable chicken soup,

goose egg and “quasi” ham bits,

roast duck with green onion,

and a plate of the ever yummy chicken feet (claws actually).

And rice, of course…

Happy Birthday Annie!

2009-10-30T11:42:00.004+08:00

Today my eldest daughter is four years old. Here is a poem I wrote for her third birthday:

Anna Danai Stine

Baby girl oh so fine

Some Times It’s Not Easy.

Zhang Liang

Stability you long

Even your name is uneasy.

Anna Liang Stine

Uncle Sam drew a line

So many names make me dizzy.

Zhang Wen Yu

Wo ai ni

Shi ni zhongwen Ming zi.

Four names and you’re just now three.

I’ve been here 47 and only have three.

Danny, Dan, Daniel oh wait there’s more

The most important name, Daddy, makes four.

On the day that you were born the angels got together

I didn’t write that but it’s true you’re birds of a feather

Now that you’ve reached the age of three

The devils dance you’ll surely see

Beware my Anna, Annie, Zhang Wen Yu.

I try so hard to be a good daddy

But it’s like golf with no caddy

I can’t always follow the ball.

Please forgive me any innocent mistake

Our future lives coals do not rake

I will always find that ball.

I morn the loss of your first baby journal

Those words I wrote were meant to be eternal

You should know I wrote them.

Your daddy’s a poor poet and he sure does know it

But the heart speaks and these words do show it

You should know I wrote them.

Annie has four names. Her first name, Anna Danai Stine, was my creation. In chinese there is a word for peace, An, and I identify with this character. My name in D'AN'iel, my wife is "AN" gie so our first baby's name is Anna. Peace both ways meeting in the middle. Since Annie was the culmination of two beings "Dan"iel and Zhang "Ai" (my wife's Chinese name) we made her middle name Danai.

The hospital where Annie was born would not allow an English name to be printed on her birth certificate so we had to scramble for another name, a Chinese name. We chose Zhang (my wifes family name) Liang (beauty) for there was no disputing she was a beautiful baby.

The time comes when I need to register Annie as an American Born Abroad so that she can enjoy American citizenship should we ever leave China. The Us Consulate would not accept the name I gave her (Anna Danai) because it was not part of her birth certificate. They settled for Anna Liang Stine.

It was not long after when my wife, after countless numerology calculations and consultations with her village voodoo uncle decided to change Annies official Chinese name to Zhang Wen Yu. The meaning is not important, the calculated score, 88, is. This score insures Annie a life of luck and love. So Annie has four names by her fourth birthday.

A snapshot of Annies every day life: Annie is in her second year of kindergarten. She is a proud member of the Zhong Ban (middle grade) class number one at Tong Fan Yi He Kindergarten. We chose this school carefully. I actually worked there for two years as their foreign English teacher, I know the owners are doctors and well respected. I know their teachers are fair and hard working, and most important I know they value play as much as study, a critical point for me. Annie has two special classes that she attends, one is Beijing Opera studies, the other is piano. I know, I know, she's only four. But it's common here and we do not push her to study, study, study. It's more about exposure at this point. After school, on the weekends Annie learns the GuZhen, a Chinese string instrument like a harp laying down, and she gets lessons from a Beijing class piano teacher. We are trading lessons in this case, we teach the teacher English, she teaches Annie the piano. When Annie is not in school she is playing with mei mei, her little sister, helping mom and dad at the Language and Culture Center, and reading (well, looking at) books. Annie can speak, in order of skill, Cantonese, Hakka, Mandarin, and English. It's hard not having her first tongue as English, But we still communicate just fine.

So this is my tribute to my eldest, sweet baby girl Anna Danai Liang Zhang Stine. Annie baby, I love you! Happy Birthday!

Love/Hate relationship

2009-10-28T14:46:00.004+08:00

An oldie but goodie. I wrote this my second year in China. Some of the observations have been tempered with experience now, but I left every as I wrote it. Sort of like a time capsule.

First a confession, I've never been happier. I have everything I always asked for. Yes I am paying a steep price for this happiness by effectively being exiled from my family, but hey, if it were cheap everyone would have it. Now that is in the clear lets move on to the love/hate relationship every westerner, including my self, feels when on extended stay in the Orient.

Love: Guys, your ideal mate is in the Orient.
Hate: So is her whole family, they'll be moving in once you've married.

Love: There is real opportunity in the Red land.
Hate: Just not for foriegners. You'll need a local partner.

Love: The cheap labor and high desire to do business.
Hate: Trying to do business on a Chinese schedule. You thought mexican siestas were bad?

Love: Everything you could want is manufactured in China.
Hate: It's all earmarked for export.

Love: There is 10,000 years of recorded history here.
Hate: Every successive dynasty, and now Republic has re-written it.

Love: Art, poetry, philosophy, caligraphy all have enriched the culture for centuries.
Hate: A farmer rose to power and for ten years exterminated all literati, artists, and their works.

Love: There is an absolute freedom to be had here if you don't cross any political lines.
Hate: No idea where these lines are, if I've crossed them, or what will happen if I do.

Love: The bazzar is full of interesting and cool trinkets to buy for your family.
Hate: You have to send a local in to make the purchase as foriegners get ripped on prices.
Hate: Buy it, great. Ship it? A CD disk will cost 20RMB to send with a 50/50 chance of passing customs.

Love: The food. Simplicity, fresh, healthy.
Hate: The food. Innards and extremities such as heads and feet.

Love: Buddism, Taoism, the art of Zen.
Hate: The compete lack thereof in modern day China.

Love: Chinese comedy, you must see Kung Fu Hustle. The stereotypes are spot on!
Hate: Chinese TV, the stereotypes are boring and unreal. "Everyone is kung fu fighting, huh!"

Love: Some of the worlds most amazing geographical features can be seen in China. Rivers, mountains, gorges...
Hate: Each one is choked with agressive souvenier vendors, obnoxious tour buses, urban sprawl, and too many people.

Love: The concept of "face" and "honor" that is inextricably woven into the very genes of the Chinese.
Hate: Trying to figure whose face they are trying to save, much less which face is currently on display.

Love: Children go to kindergarten for three years. The schools are healthy, relaxed, fun, educational, and interesting.
Hate: From primary school on it becomes tragic as pressure for the highest marks increases exponentially.

Love: English is a national obsession and any native speaker can easily make new friends.
Hate: "do they love me or my English...?"

Love: Diet and active (no car, no elevator)lifestyle will slow, even reduce your appearances of aging.
Hate: Air/water/noise pollution, acid rain, insecticides and desease outbreaks will lower your life expectancy.

and on and on.

This was all brought on by an event in my house tonight. As free-lance teachers we have students passing through our house to our back bedroom/classroom all the time. We expect the kids to be dis-respectful of our belongings and to touch or mess with things they shouldn't, they are kids. We plan accordingly and hide all things of concern. We are irked but not excessively so when they violate our private areas by going into our bedrooms and what not, they are after all, just kids. But tonight my wife had a class of adults that ended at 9:30PM and they, in my mind, crossed a line. Our baby, who I had put to sleep with great satisfaction of a job well done, was sleeping on my bed in my bedroom when a woman came in after class ended and picked her up. The woman/student brought my baby out into the bright lights of the living room and showed her to all the other admiring students. They all cooed and clucked at baby's sleepy face and they melted at her tears as she slowly woke to a room full of strangers. I sat on the sofa nearby dumbfounded, watching as the two hours of building up to bedtime with baby unraveled in this (moronic) womans arms. Who would have guessed the West would beat time-worn East in the respect game? Even I know you dont pick up another persons sleeping baby, especially from a private bedroom at 9:30PM at night.

Love: The people. Family oriented, nice, friendly, humble, hardworking, intelligent.
Hate: The people. Self-absorbed, oblivious, rude, superstitious, and hard to trust.

Rant - House series - Bathrooms

2009-10-26T17:08:00.003+08:00

I stood transfixed in the hall way of my new house-in-progress, staring maybe a little slack jawed at the light green vanity sitting there awaiting installation in my decidedly un-green-friendly bathroom.

Pointing like we do at everything here in China, I stammer.

“it’s green!”

My wife can only nod her head as she gives me a sideways look, knowing whats coming next, “I’ll call the lady,” and she’s on the phone, translating for me;

“the lady say’s it’s not green, it’s elephant tooth color.”

“No,” I say from experience “This is not ivory, this is a light, pastel green.”

“ The lady says it's what we picked from the catalogue.”

“The catalogue showed a white cabinet, that’s why we picked it.”

Now I am a light shade of pastel green as I realize this is what we will get. There will be no replacement, apology, discount or explanation.
Ordinarily, I’d be a much brighter shade of red, the color of fury, But I am at the tail end of “decorating” the interior of my house. It’s possible I have burned that light bulb out. Nowadays, the best I can do is point and maybe snort derisively as the workers do not one iota more than they were instructed to do at birth.

Snort “So, if I need to take a crap I should open the shower doors to give me enough room for my knees?”

Snort “Maybe the towel rack will fit if they put it on sideways. Hey’ I was just kidding!”

Come time to settle the bill and the lady is on the phone to my wife, “you’d better pay us in cash,” My wife turns her own favorite shade and exclaims “ Meiya?” ( this means “what”, forcibly) and then a stream of presumed curses followed by a “hmmpf” and a hang up.

SO now we are standing in line at the ATM plotting never-gonna-happen revenge on yet another vendor in a long line of vendors all bearing the immense karmic weight of our curses and of course, our cash.

2009-10-07T18:43:00.001+08:00

Life in China as an Ex-Pat American. I will write poems, flash, stories, etc. to share the experience of life for foreigners in this, a very foreign land.