I Can't Even...

I think I'll just sit in a permanent facepalm position. Remember my post from yesterday? Three separate idiotic airplane incidents here in China caused by stupid and/or selfish fucks. Well, add a fourth one to that, won't you?

This time, 2 female passengers got into a brawl over their seating arrangements. You can read the whole story here.

As for me, I fear that when we take our next trip down to Guangzhou for Jeremy's visa interview, which we will be scheduling soon, that some buttwipe will pull some crap like this and cause our flight to turn around. Or when we go to America.

So this is my message to you people of China: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF! SIT IN YOUR FUCKING SEATS! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND EAT YOUR FUCKING SHITTY NOODLES!

Because let me tell you assholes something...if you do some fool shit like these other people did on a plane that I happen to be on, I will take a diaper full of my baby's shit and shove it in your fucking face. I think the other passengers on the plane will be happy to assist with this. So please, chill the fuck out and get your shit together.

For The Love Of...!!!

Dear China, we need to talk. There have been 3 separate incidents in as many days regarding some of your citizens aboard airplanes which leads me to believe that a severe outbreak of stupid is reaching epidemic levels in your country.

First, there was the flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Nanjing where 2 very selfish and moronic people engaged in an argument with a flight attendant and then threw steaming hot instant noodles onto said flight attendant. I believe I recall Xi Jinping imploring you folks to stop eating noodles whilst traveling. Which makes me insane for many reasons, but primarily because I cannot even fathom shelling out money for airfare and hotel in a new destination only to hide in my hotel room and eat some shitty convenience food instead of trying the food from another place. Something is wrong with you. Very wrong. Really.

Then, there was this selfish prick who wanted to get off the airplane faster so he opened the emergency exit, which in turn, deployed the emergency slide and caused the plane to be 2 hours late for take-off for its' next destination. Can I just ask you what kind of a moron do you have to be to not understand the words "EMERGENCY EXIT" printed in big red letters? It's in Chinese too for God's sake! It's just like the idiots who don't lock the doors to the airplane bathrooms on Chinese flights, even though it is in English AND Chinese. Hence, every single time I've had to use the bathroom when flying around China, I've walked in on someone using it because it says "VACANT" because the imbecile inside didn't lock it.

And today, I saw this one of some yokel who had never before been on a plane and of course did not listen to the safety instructions before take-off because he opened the emergency exit to get a breath of fresh air. At least this idiot opened the door over the wing so there was no emergency slide to deploy.

The level of stupid here is seriously astonishing. It deserves to be in the Guiness Book of World Records. "Most Stupid People Assembled in One Place at One Time." Congratulations, China. You're a winner!

Keeping Up With The Konstruction

Remember the other day when I said this? Well, that didn't take long for them to destroy it again, now did it?

This is right in front of my building, which Raelynn and I are walking away from as we head off to school. OF COURSE they are already digging up the sidewalk they just rebuilt. OF COURSE!

Here is a close-up of the hole they've dug into the sidewalk. Lord knows what the reasoning behind this is. Perhaps people here like to dig holes. Whatever the case, there are several more of them down the street. I bet it's for some wiring or plumbing or something like that. Which begs the question: why not do that BEFORE laying down the new sidewalk so you don't have to, you know, dig it up and redo it again?!? That's what always bugs me here - common sense does not exist. At all.

I Do What I Want

Yesterday, when I posted about the people of China blatantly ignoring signage in their native language - such rebels - I totally forgot to include another photo my husband took of more rule-breakers. Forgiveness please.

 So, what did these people do?

I'm not sure you can tell from this photo but the car in front of ours, as well as the ones in the adjacent lane, has the right of way. See, the light is green. It's our turn to go. But we can't. Because the city buses as well as regular people driving their cars have blocked the intersection. Thanks assholes. This is such a common sight over here. In the US, those blocking the intersection would be ticketed. But over here? No one does shit. I always get so nervous when shit like this happens because I fear we'll be stuck in some epic traffic jam. Like that one that lasted 2 weeks in Beijing a few years ago. No, I'm not even joking. Seriously. Click here to read about that (or here to see a bunch of images of that insanity). It terrifies me to think of an emergency vehicle trying to get through.

People here just do what they want and that, coupled with a lack of enforcement of these laws, is what causes this to be, as Jeremy so adorably coined it, "a fall-behind country." He also uses "disorder" to describe things here quite a bit. It's rather fitting.

Fortunately for us, the buses and cars that were blocking the way finally moved up and, to our great relief, the vehicles behind them stayed put at their red light so we could take our turn on the green light. It's stuff like this that I will think about when we move to the US and we're sitting in traffic. I won't complain ever again about traffic in the US, even if it is rush hour in Miami. That is infinitely less atrocious than the chaotic disordered state of being that the roads of Qingdao so often exhibit.

Breaking All The Rules

As Christmas quickly approaches, Jeremy and I took the kids and headed to the mall this weekend. In America, I'd just say fuck it and order everything online because there is no way in hell I will set foot in a mall there after Thanksgiving all the way through around January 10th. But here, it's quite different at this time of year. Sure, there's Christmas crap everywhere. And Christmas music, much to my joy (and before you think I'm insane for that, please come join me for Chinese New Year and you will understand what annoying music being piped through a sound system truly is). But Christmas shoppers? Not really.

On a Sunday at around lunch time, the Marina City mall, which is usually busy even when it is not the holiday season, was very placid. I was thrilled. I'd wanted to go there because there's an H&M. I had no idea what to get Jeremy for Christmas except this shirt I'd seen him looking at the last time we were there a few weeks ago.

Can I just tell you how much I love H&M? It's true. I can always find something I like in there. Always. This time, as soon as we walked in, a sweater called to me. It did. It was so me, it wasn't even funny. I rush up to it and adore it some more. It's black and has a fluffy pink heart in the center. Oh I have to have it. HAVE TO. It's 149 rmb which isn't too bad. And they have it in my size. Oh please fit me. Please look nice on me. You have to! Jeremy loves it. He wants me to try it on. On the way to the fitting room, I find another gem. A Tiffany-blue sweatshirt with a horse silhouette on it. It's so soft and comfy. I dash off with one of those too. I hand the baby to Jeremy and try on clothes faster than Superman. Lucky for me, both items look awesome so I've just gained 2 very fab Christmas gifts. Sure, there's no surprise but at least my husband knows they fit and they are liked.

Now for him. We head to the men's section. There's a huge sale going on but the shirt he liked is not where it was before. I finally find it and discover it's 249 rmb. Jeremy doesn't want me to spend that kind of money on him for a shirt. But it's Christmas, I'd protested. I want him to have something he really likes. So he says he'll look at the sale items instead. And for about 300 rmb, we found him 2 dashing sweaters.

We were high on a shopping buzz. And to top it off, Raelynn had been such a good girl. We decided to buy her an ice cream from McDonald's to reward her. After that, as we were walking around, we saw some weird displays. I thought they were dinosaurs and wanted a closer look.

 Well, it's not a dinosaur but it is some sort of life-size creature from some movie. Which movie, I've no clue but there's some poster to the left that seems to be advertising it. Unfortunately, it's in Chinese. And my Chinese just happens to suck.

But you know what? Despite my sub-par Chinese skills, I will tell you this: I understand the sign posted with the creature there. That coupled with the roping tells me that you do not want me to get close to this display or touch it. So I don't. But the Chinese people around us? Oh, China...

 This little girl's mom told her to get inside with the creature. Great parenting. Let's ignore the sign that's posted which, Jeremy says, essentially translates to "do not touch or climb." Why is it that I suck at Chinese but yet I totally understand and obey the sign that I can't really read? Oh, and the man with the baby in the first picture? Just before Jeremy snapped that photo, he was putting his baby on top of the creature. We just didn't snap a photo quickly enough.

Yes, go ahead. Touch the display even though it says not to. Get inside the roping even though it is obvious you are not wanted within its' confines. Brilliant.

And On It Goes

It absolutely amazes me the way they conduct construction projects around here. I swear these people do the same things over and over and over again in the same places to ensure everyone has a job. That is the only logical explanation for their piecemeal, haphazard way of constructing anything. Like our street, which I posted about recently.

And on and on and on it goes, though I think it has finally come to an end. Here are the latest photos of our third world street:

They had done this overnight and my husband had forgotten about it when he'd parked elsewhere. When Raelynn and I came downstairs to find our driver, this is what we saw. We had to walk all the way to the end of the street and try to find Hao Shufu there. Jeremy (who, incidentally, took these photos before he went to work) called him to help me explain where we'd be but of all days Hao Shufu forgot his phone, it was of course on this day. His wife had answered and she was standing outside the gas station near our home, waiting for her husband so she could give him his phone. Jeremy told me to walk to the gas station and that's where we found her. Several moments later, Hao Shufu found us. He had apparently gone to the other side of the barricades you see in that last photo and was trying to yell to us. I never thought he would be on that side of the barricades because a couple days prior, there was a gigantic hole the size of a crater in the center of the street. Lord only knows what they were doing with that one. It rendered the street impossible to drive on and damn near made it impossible for pedestrians to pass through as well.

Anyway, they smoothed the road out from what you see above and it looks normal once more, or as normal as things look around here at least. The cars are parked on the sides again and now we wait and wonder when they will tear this shit up for another round of bullshit construction. Hopefully, they will wait until after we move away.

I Can't Believe It

You're not going to believe this. I can't believe it myself. And I cannot even believe I'm about to say this but I must rescind what I said about MIL being the worst cook ever. She's not. She's now officially the 2nd worst cook.

I know. I KNOW. And just so we're clear, I'm not saying MIL is suddenly some 5-star chef. I'm simply saying that there is someone who is a much worse cook than her. Now that is truly tough to beat, isn't it?

So how did we find a worse cook than MIL? Gather around, my children and I will tell you the tale...

It all went down this weekend. Some friends of Jeremy's invited us to their home for lunch. They're a nice married couple with a new baby boy that's about 2 or 3 months older than Seoul (and incidentally, their baby is gigantic). The wife told us she wanted to make us dumplings and asked if we could come on Saturday, but we had plans to attend the big ISQ Christmas Fair that day so we told her we'd love to if it could happen on Sunday. So Sunday lunch it was.

But when we got there, there was an old Chinese woman just like MIL cooking away. It turned out to be her mom. The mom was cooking for us, not her. Regretfully, I did not take any photos. I was busy with Seoul who was fussy from not napping sufficiently enough prior to our arrival, but let me just tell you that they almost made MIL's bowl of barf look like a culinary masterpiece.

The dumplings looked even worse than MIL's. The casing was thick and floury like MIL's but what made them by and large far worse was that there wasn't much filling inside them. And the filling was gross on top of that. She made some other thing that looked like rubbery pig feet, something I wouldn't even eat on a good day. And she also made some cabbage salad, which honestly was the only slightly palatable option. The husband had picked up 2 dishes from a restaurant - sweet and sour pork, and some eggplant with squid dish. Clearly, the restaurant he chose these items from was sub-par. But the worst thing of all on the table was a large, whole fish. MIL makes one and I have mentioned in other posts that it is one of the few things she does rather well (click on this post and scroll down until you see the fish if you want a gander). This woman did not do this well. It looked dry, like someone had put it on to cook and somehow set it to cremate. It looked so dry that it might shatter with the touch of your chopsticks.

I thought maybe I was just being picky so I politely ate some of the food (but slowly so it looked like I was eating more than I was). Except for that fish. No way was I eating that thing. When some space opened on my plate after forcing myself to eat 5 dumplings, the mom piled more of them on my plate. Nooooooooooooo!

When we had sat down to eat, the wife had brought this weird sugary yogurty drink that Chinese and Korean people alike love to give to kids. As a teacher here, I've been given them before too. They are SO nasty. I'm not a fan of them. Raelynn likes them enough but never begs for them. If they're offered, she'll accept. Jeremy told this woman not to give it to Raelynn, but she insisted. Raelynn drank it and then ate a few dumplings. She picked at her food which is unlike her when dumplings are around.

I should have known something was wrong when the wife offered Raelynn a piece of cheesecake from a nearby bakery. Raelynn refused it. Raelynn loves cake, especially cheesecake. She went and sat on their floor to play and then she threw up all over the play mat and herself. The good news was she felt much better after vomiting. The bad news was that it was everywhere. I began cleaning it up and the wife helped me, which was really nice of her. I hoped she didn't hear Raelynn tell me that she threw up because she didn't like the food.

If I didn't have much of an appetite before the barfing, I surely had none after. I just drank my beer politely and prayed we would go home soon before I was made to eat more of this truly vile food. I noticed Jeremy wasn't eating very much either. I would later learn that he too felt the food was gross. So at least MIL doesn't cook as badly as this woman does. Though their house was cleaner. The mom of this woman lives there with them and the baby. You know I would have run away and never come back if I had to live under the same roof as MIL, right?

Honestly, their house was nicer than ours. From the stairwell to the flooring to the layout and decor. We did the best we could with what we were given though and if you have seen my earlier posts, you know what we had to deal with. What I don't understand is how their house is cleaner but as Jeremy pointed out, they knew we were coming. He said the wife probably made sure everything was cleaned up first and that the mom probably makes as much a mess as his own mother does. 

By the way, let me tell you about their giant baby. Jeremy and I were stunned that this baby is as fat as he is. And she's breastfeeding him! But apparently, not exclusively. That sugary yogurty drink? She gives that to her son. And she feeds him food too. Not in a beginning solids kind of way either. She asked me a ton of questions about breastfeeding and foods and such and I told her everything I know. How did I learn all of this? By researching it. But people here don't do stuff like that. This girl, and the hoards of others like her, just do what they are told. Don't question anything. I'm seriously amazed this culture has endured for over 5,000 years. How is that even possible? She seemed to be very interested in the process of properly introducing solids, yet a short while later, she brought out watermelon slices and tried to feed that to the mammoth baby. Then her mother was giving him apple which she was scraping off onto a spoon. Oy.

In any event, fat babies and terrible food aside, it wasn't a completely awful experience. But the next time we meet up, I pray we will be at our house or a good restaurant instead.