Language

I avoided learning Mandarin for a year, because, first of all, I was told that I wouldn't need to know it. That advice turned out to be second only to Lord Chamberlain's "don't worry about Hitler. It's not like he's going to kill anybody" in flat-out wrong. Second, I didn't have time and my work schedule was all over the place. But after about 18 months, the level of frustration with trying to learn on my own and being misunderstood at literally every turn became too much.

So I decided to take private language lessons. My biggest fear now is that I will need Chinese anger management therapy, because once I can speak Mandarin fluently, I'm just going to go-off on cranky taxi drivers, nosy store clerks, nasty spitters and public poopers. Once I know Mandarin, I'll see something every day that will make me so angry, I'll just Hulk-out and start tossing cars and bicycles, and destroy property all over Beijing. I'll be so bad that the Chinese will ask Japan to send over Godzilla to put me in check.

JAPAN (answers hot line from Beijing): "Moshi-moshi."

CHINA: "We need Godzilla!"

JAPAN: "What you say?"

CHINA: "Godzilla! This is urgent! We have (an) angry foreigner who is trashing our 5000-year civilization, disrupting our goal of social harmony, and threating our promise of 21st century world economic domination!"

JAPAN: "Ah, so sorry, but Godzilla (is) not available for rent."

CHINA: "We own (70 percent of) your national debt. Everyone knows this."

JAPAN: "He is on his way."

The toughest thing about learning Mandarin in Beijing is finding a good Chinese teacher who knows something about languages. People here who have known nothing but Mandarin their entire lives simply cannot teach the language to someone from another culture. Until Beijing instructors can get an idea of what the language is like from the perspective of the student's original culture, they can forget about teaching Mandarin.

Some teachers here also fail to understand that language is learned gradually. They seem to think that students merely need to repeat what they've heard, at normal speed, and they will automatically pick up the language. Finally, they quickly run out of patience. "Why can't you GET this?" I wonder if this is a characteristic of learning in the Chinese culture.

Plus, I have a suspicion that if you speak Mandarin slowly, folks identify you as mentally disabled. So everyone refrains from speaking deliberately. They even criticize politicians for speaking slowly during their speeches. In a relatively un-diversified society, you apparently need some sophisticated means to separate those who are smart from those who are stupid, and language is one way Beijingers manage to do this. I think this means that I should be able to get anger management training and learn Mandarin at the same time. It would be just like in America where you can rent violent videos, buy guns and ammo, and purchase hard liquor, all in the same place.

Fashion

You know summertime is coming to Beijing when young people begin wearing t-shirts with nonsensical or utterly-inappropriate English phrases written on them. You realize quickly that they have no idea what the words mean, just like rappers in the U. S. don't know what the Chinese lettering on their tattoos mean.

My favorite T-shirt message last year was worn by a young lady in a shopping mall, and it read, "What The Woman Wants, She Gets." Her husband/boyfriend/whomever accompanying her should have just given her his cash and waited outside. Instead, he was carrying her purse.

Teens here are like teens anywhere else. They follow trends and want to look cool. The kids in Beijing are not at the extreme edge, as in Tokyo's Harajuku district, for example, but they're making their best effort. They're making colorful choices and prefer radical -- but not too radical -- artistic design. The words on the shirt are just extras, slogans that don't mean anything. Not that anyone aside from the few English-speaking foreigners in Beijing like me would be able to read them, anyway.

So far this spring, I've already seen a girl's shirt with the message "Let's Make Out." And a guy nearby was sporting a baseball cap reading, "I Don't Give A F***." Charming. I think those two were made for each other.

Evil Landlord

I recently traded one hulking high-rise Beijing apartment building for another. A different compound catering to foreigners, a different group of uniformed security guards, a different community convenience store cleverly referred to as a "supermarket." But the real plus is losing an evil landlord, and gaining one who chooses to do business with honesty and integrity. The former landlord chose greed and avarice, in classic ancient Chinese style, threatening at one point to kick me out the apartment I'd rented after only 2 weeks.

I discovered that to understand the landlord-tenant relationship in China, you must, as usual, know a bit of Chinese history. "Landlord" has a completely different meaning here than in the West. The landlord is, literally, lord over the land he owns. In the old days, that meant he allowed poor people to live on his land just because he was a nice guy. And then, he would kick them off his land because, on that particular day, he decided to be a bad guy. That feudal-era tradition continues in China to this very day, with some nice 21st century touches.

An English-speaking realtor helped me arrange the deal with my first landlord, who only spoke Chinese. I was told I would need to sign the lease at the apartment, at 10 o'clock at night, in the presence of the landlord and her assistant. I would bring a security deposit equivalent to two months' rent, in addition to the first month's rent, all in cash. I would place the cash in an 8 x 11 inch envelope, and place the envelope on the table at which we would be seated. Then, I would slide the envelope, with both hands, slowly across the table, with my head bowed as a sign of respect to the landlord.

WHAT?

No big deal, I figured. This is China, and a neat learning experience about another culture. Except it became unnerving the way it all went down.

The realtor and I rode silently up to the 15th floor of the high rise building, and walked down a very dark hallway. I'd viewed the apartment in the daytime; I had no idea that none of the hallway lights worked. When we walked in the door, we encountered the unsmiling landlord-lady and her equally sinister-looking assistant. We sat at the table, and I followed all of the instructions regarding the lease-signing, money-transfering ritual. Nobody said a word. The landlord and her Mini-Me lackey slowly opened the envelope and counted the cash. They counted every 100 RMB bill. Twice.

I thought I was living an episode of Miami Vice. The only things missing were the guns, the drugs, and the metal briefcase.

The landlord spoke to the realtor; apparently all was in order. There was no handshake, nor any eye contact. I got the keys and everyone walked out of the apartment, which was quite a bit more empty and cold than I'd ever remembered before.

The 12 months I spent at the place were highlighted by a rent dispute, three power failures that killed the elevators, and a handful of moments in which police officers knocked on my door to see my identification. On the other hand, the compound threw a heck of a Chinese New Year party.

My experience there turned out to be less than typical. I moved to my new place with none of the drama. The new landlord speaks English, and the supermarket is actually a nice 7-11. The security guards at my new apartment building wear military-style uniforms, but they're young women who look like supermodels, and that learning experience is probably the neatest of all.

Bargaining and the DVD Man

The Silk Market, along Jianguomen Street near Beijing's old Embassy District, is the city's best-known buying, selling and tourist-fleecing location. Foreigners are encouraged to step inside this multi-level landmark building, where they are immediately set upon by aggressive merchants selling goods of dubious quality, and pushed into buying something they don't remotely want or need.


It is said that purchasing something at the ticketed price is relatively new for China, where negotiating for products has been the norm for thousands of years. People will bargain for everything from a pair of athletic shoes to a single cigarette. But for me, the basic fact of bargaining is this: At its core, the simple truth is someone wants to cheat you. Someone is trying to get you to pay more than what the item you want to buy is worth. Why would you ever want to deal with someone like that? Especially in a foreign country?


The biggest proponent of bargaining in Beijing is a guy who stands outside the Silk Market, whom I call DVD Man. He can target a foreigner in Beijing from a hundred yards away, twice that distance if you're obviously non-Asian like me. So, DVD Man recognizes me every time I walk along Jianguomenwai, and comes up with the same pitch, in English:


"DVDs here for you!"


"Dui bu qi. Bu yao", I reply, meaning, sorry, but I don't want any pirated DVD movies. And that should be the end of it. But noooo! If DVD Man was not persistent, he would not be a successful street merchant.


"DVDs here for you! Cheap DVDs! New DVDs!" He pulled out a handful of titles from a knapsack.


"Nicolas Cage! Bruce Willis! Will Smith!"


All of the "sorrys" and "don't wants" in China won't put this guy off. So one day, I decided to extend the game and make him try to sell me all of the DVDs he had in his bag. One...by...one.


D-MAN: "Look, you see! 'National Treasure'!"


ME: "No, sorry. What else you got?"


D: "Shrek 3!"


ME: "Watched it on the plane here. Anything else?"


D: "James Bond! New!"


ME: "Saw it. Next."


D: "Blue's Clues!"


ME: "Don't have kids."


He pulled out a copy of the Oliver Stone biopic, "W": "I got Boosh!"


ME: "Don't want any."


D: "Look! USA! 'Rambo' !"


ME: "No."


I figured he'd get fatigued or run out of selection after maybe about 10-to-15 titles. Instead, he pulled out 48...forty-eight...DVDs, one at a time, and I patiently rejected each one. DVD Man sighed, finally realizing that I was in no mood to buy a movie today.


D: "See, cheap DVDs, 5 kuai."


ME: "Sorry."


D: "1 kuai."


ME: "How about free?"


D: "Free? No, no! I make money!"


That should have been it. Bargaining is just not my thing. But just as I was about to walk away, DVD Man reached into his pocket and pulled out a knock-off wristwatch.


D: "Look! Rolex! Cheap!"


If I wasn't going to buy a DVD off the street, why would I want to buy a watch? I, again politely and patiently in both languages, said I wasn't interested. But as I walked away, I felt bad about wasting DVD Man's valuable time. I started to worry about him, and wondered how much success he really has selling to foreign dupes. Someone must be buying his stuff, or he would have given up long ago. Is it the Russians? The French? How did this nonsense get started?


FRENCH TOURIST 1: "Sac-re bleu! I have juzt arrived in Beijing, and ze first thing I want to do is buy a bunch of dirt cheap movies off ze street!"


FRENCH TOURIST 2: "Oui oui, Monseur! I have ze same fee-ling! But how many movies?"


FRENCH TOURIST 1: "As many as we can carry, of course!"


DVD MAN: "Look! I have cheap DVDs for you!"


FRENCH TOURIST 2: "Magnifique! We will buy zem all!"


FRENCH TOURIST 1: "And by ze way, we do not know what time it is in your fab-ulous country. Do you have ze cheap, piece-of-crap Rolex watch for us, too?"


RUSSIAN TOURIST: "Nyet! I have already purchased his entire supply, comrade. Go find Rolex Man. He is in Wangfujing."

Motorola C118 Cell Phone

How and when did purchasing a cell phone turn into buying a new car? In China, as you might expect, cell phones are a necessity and wildly popular. So, you will find cell phone dealerships...yes, DEALERSHIPS...all over Beijing. And the people who work there will turn your simple cell phone purchase into an ordeal every bit as taxing and tiring as buying the latest set of wheels.

One of the first things I had to do when I arrived in Beijing was buy a new cellular phone. My old phone, a nice Motorola Q PDA, was rendered all but useless due to the telecommunications differences between China and everyone else. What was once an internet-surfing, information-gathering, phone-calling, spreadsheet-accounting, stock market-monitoring wonder of technology turned into an expensive hand-held alarm clock. So I went to a hole-in-the-wall phone store in the Gongzhufen neighborhood, accompanied by a Chinese-speaking co-worker, to make a purchase that should have taken all of 5 minutes...including waiting in line at the checkout counter. We walked into what was basically a cell phone showroom packed with hyper-aggressive salespeople. Dozens of varieties of phones were on display.

"Just pick one" said the co-worker.

"But I was hoping to buy a dozen," I replied. "That's a joke."

Nothing.

Seriously, though, at least I knew exactly what I wanted -- a phone that had all of the basics and none of the extras, just to get me started: texting in English, local and international calling, and a clock.

The co-worker told the salesperson about my choice, and then the fun began. "How about a cameraphone?" Not now, maybe later. "Video function?" I had no plans to shoot a movie, thank you. "Gaming applications?" Only if it can transport me, Star Trek-style, straight to a craps table in Vegas. Then, a dozen more questions. In each case, my "no" response was not taken to mean "no, I don't want that," but instead, "no, not for that price. Let's make a deal." The salesperson, and my co-worker as well, thought I was negotiating for a bargain. I was not. The salesperson even walked away from the counter, as if it was time for her to try to sell a scalped NFL ticket to some other Giants fan across the Meadowlands parking lot.

Apparently, this was my cue to consider the "final offer." So I considered how many steps it would take to walk out the door and into another store. All I needed was a simple cell phone, no bells or whistles, no flashing LED lights. No ringtone that played Michael Jackson's "Thriller." My co-worker explained that the routine would be the same, regardless of which shop we went to. So we called the salesperson back over, and I suggested, "OK, I'll take the phone plus the charger and the 3 dozen ringtone options (but not "Thriller") and THAT'S IT." Thirty minutes and tons of paperwork later, we were done, and I finally had my phone.

I suppose, upon further review, I should have asked if the Motorola C118 included a taser application to use against cell phone salesworkers. But in the end, this phone does everything I want it to do. Except beam me to Ceasar's Palace for a night at the tables.