The sweet smell of ...

Why does the toilet smell of shit? asks the venerable sibling.

Because there's shit there, I reply.

Really? he says. But it's all flushed. Don't tell me it's stuck somewhere ...

It's actually a phenomenon that tends to occur in the late night. No, not the inane exchanges (those happen throughout the day), but the smell.

If you've ever taken time to observe the ceiling of your bathroom or even under your sink, you'd've noticed a U-shaped pipe that's part of the drainage system. That's actually a water trap that's supposed to block noxious sewer gases from rising into the bathroom.

It works with a grid and/or strainer (also known as the holey drainage cover) to block stuff that will cause clogs, and a vent pipe, which supplies air (for pressure) into the system to stop water in the trap from being sucked out. If you don't understand how that works, well, ask a Primary 6er. They might know. I was pretty horrified at how much a kid sitting for the PSLE is expected to know these days.

But back to the oh-so-sweet smell of sewage - it reminds me of the oh-so-cute flat I used to live in in Beijing. At first, I thought air fresheners would help. Nope. How about closing the bathroom door to stop the smell from pervading the entire flat? But the bathroom door couldn't actually be closed, so that didn't actually have the desired effect either. In any case, I didn't want to be hit in the face by sewage fumes everytime I entered the bathroom. Inhaling hydrogen sulfide is bad for health.

So the only thing to do was to cover up all the drainage holes. Thanks to the shoddy construction, the drainage pipe for the sink isn't exactly connected to the drainage system - it's just a shorn-off pipe ending just above one of the strainers in the floor, so that saved me from having to block up the sink too.

I suspect it's got something to do with the rise in air temperature when people take hot showers. Or all the sewer air that's heated up during the day having to go somewhere when the night cools. Hot air rises - I remember that much from science classes. They should teach more useful things in school. Plumbing, for instance, instead of hot air in balloons.

The moral of the story? One doesn't appreciate life's little conveniences until shit (or the smell of it) happens. I appreciate good drainage! Why is it not bestowed upon me, then?

Nudity

It appears to be a potentially scintillating, titillating topic of conversation.

Especially with a member of the opposite sex (or whoever rocks your boat) and a relatively dishy one, at that.

But even more so if it's not carried out face-to-face, where even if you become a red-faced stuttering fool, no one knows.

I found myself in such an on-screen conversation one day, with a person of interest from a part-time job back in China.

We were simply extolling the joys of not having flat-mates, until it was revealed that he liked to walk around his apartment in the buff.

Then came the question, 'Don't you?'

Did I take two years of sewing classes because I enjoy lounging around unclothed? I think not.

I didn't phrase my answer quite in that conversation-killing way, but it was still somehow doomed. I tried, I really did. I talked about a friend who also liked lounge with not a stitch of clothing on around the flat she shared with her partner. I talked about nude colonies. I talked about how nudity must be difficult in winter, peeping neighbours, all to no avail -- it's not even funny how bland the conversation was.

Disappointingly, pretty much all conversations with this person of interest turned out to be bland, inadvertently proving that looks aren't everything after all.

But in all fairness, nudity isn't all it's cracked up to be. Having lived and travelled in East Asia, I've seen, and been seen by more naked people than I can remember or count. And they come in all ages, shapes and sizes.

It's mundane. You take off your clothes, take a shower, put them back on. You take off your clothes, get into the sauna, get a massage, put them back on. You take off your clothes, shower, jump into the hot pool, jump into the cold pool, rinse, put them back on.

The naked people chat as they shower. Naked children swim and splash in the hot spring water. In the sauna, there's nothing much to see beyond the condensation in the air; and vision is limited during a massage.

Except at a certain spa chain in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

I'd been recommended the well-known local spa centre by a middle-aged cleaning lady at the youth hostel. It turned out to be one of those bath house kind of places people go to to lounge around in identical t-shirt-and-shorts ensembles. Like those you see in Korean dramas sometimes.

That was the general impression, until I found myself in a robe inside a red room. It contained a double bed, covered with red silk sheets and pillows, facing a mirror wall. There was also a large television and other furniture. Only one word to call this -- parlour.

Then the masseuse arrived clad in a brocade cheongsam micro-mini dress.

I began to suspect the massages are a service used predominantly by men. It was, in any case, the oddest massage I've ever encountered.

Besides the usual kneading, she folded and stretched my limbs into yoga-like poses. And thanks to the floor-to-ceiling mirror, I am able to report that some of these look like really bizarre sex acts.

So I can now safely say that I'll be sticking to the conventional spas involving soothing new age music, aromatic oils and a massage bed that limits the vision, thankyouverymuch.

More string pulling

Further to the previous post, I have solicited opinions from various parties to help unravel the mystery, because I obviously have tons of free time to obssess over puzzles.

Some were perhaps not interested enough to invest any real thought, but most reactions were along the lines of not being able to understand or explain such behaviour. Could he be a chronic liar, a sociopath, a manipulator?

A couple of respondents suspected romantic feelings were involved. Unfortunately, there were none on my part. I tend not to be interested in married men, and he identified himself as one from the very beginning. Could he be romantically interested in me? Seeing as he was already seeing someone, I'd hope not. And even if he was, surely anyone could see that continuing with the 'I'm married' charade wasn't going to make him more endearing or wrench things off the purely platonic track.

Could he have thought I was romantically interested in him and thus pretended to be married to nip the interest in the bud? That sounds reasonable, except I'm certain I didn't express any unnecessary interest, especially not at that juncture when I hardly knew him at all and he introduced himself as being married.

Then I got a bright idea. I polled a mutual acquaintance. He thought the story was 'strangely amusing', then proceeded to defend the person with 'he was prob'ly just having a giggle and didn't mean any harm' and 'he's just naive'. Apparently a bunch of 21-year-old Chinese students possess social awareness, understanding and maturity equivalent to a bunch of 16-year-old British students. 

Quite enlightening, but a person in his late twenties who is soon to be married still stuck at that stage? Scary.

Embarrassingly, the debacle has exposed me as a person who would form preconceived notions about a person based on assumptions based on personal information such as age and marital status. I sought his opinion and advice on things like housing, interaction with Chinese people, Chinese law, Chinese food, travelling in China, because I thought being older, he would have more experience and knowledge and thus give better advice. Even when he proved not to be as knowledgeable or experienced as I thought, I just put it down to different spheres of interest between a local and a Foreigner.

Even when he kept harping on how the supervisor praises me, followed by "what's so good about you?", criticism "you're always late!", "you're so stupid!" when I would ask a work-related question, while I thought it was odd, I took them as jokes or just ribbing, always safe in the belief that he is older and have been at the job longer than I have and was thus entitled.

Yes, it appears you can get away with a lot of things if you just convince me you are somehow entitled. Woe is me.

Pulling the Foreigner's strings

When I decided to leave Beijing more than three months ago, I thought I would miss it, somehow. Afterall, a place should grow on you after you've lived there for a better part of two years, right?

But yet ... but yet. I don't. I mostly don't.

Perhaps because I left in a haze of fear and mistrust. Perhaps it was anger and misery caused by recent events. 

As one can imagine, life in China for the Foreigner is at once liberating and confining. Liberating, because your dollar now has a purchasing power five times more. Time to live it up. Confining, because of ... let's just use the blanket term 'security'. 

Getting a visa is the easy part, since one can pretty much be 'purchased'. Many Foreigners get by by forking out for three-monthly visas.

The next part involves getting a temporary residence permit within 3 days of moving into your apartment (sorry, having a valid visa doesn't mean you have permission to live there). You'll need this document for a variety of purposes, such as opening a local bank account, getting a job, buying your new visa, random police checks and so forth. 

This task can be easy or difficult depending on the level of cooperation you receive from your landlord or housing agent. Combined with a tax-evading landlord, this regulation is the pits, since it requires the Foreigner to show up at the nearest police station with identification, valid visa and the landlord's identification. Now, which idiotic and dishonest landlord would want to be registered as a rent collector? (The clever and dishonest ones will just find a way around it without inconveniencing the money tree.)

To clear the obstacle, you can offer to pay higher rent, pay the tax your landlord doesn't want to pay, look for another apartment, or do without the permit. I went with the last option in my second year in China. It worked fine since I already had a bank account, a job, a valid visa and I blended in with the locals. 

It worked fine, at least until the Olympics security frenzy kicked in. Residents were required to register with the neighbourhood council, especially those who were renting apartments. People came knocking every couple of days, leaving notices when the door went unanswered. Since I didn't have a permit for living in that apartment, I began to live in fear and misery, creeping in and out of the house like a burglar, and refraining from making any noises inside the house lest I was discovered. I tried to deflect the pressure by demanding, through the housing agent, that my landlord registers his name since he didn't cooperate before, but of course that just fell on deaf and dishonest ears.

Two weeks later, I moved out of the apartment. It still had a month's lease left on it. Half the furniture and appliances I'd hoped to sell or leave to the less fortunate were left to the mercy of the owners of deaf and dishonest ears. I hated the Olympics.

At about the same time, something was festering at work.

I'd turned in my resignation recently without informing any of the colleagues. But of course word got around without any help from me.

Among the six on the team, I got to know one of them well enough to call a friend. As part of a team that operates round the clock, we were thrown together for the night shift. Over two months, I discovered he is in his 30s and married with a son. He lives with his wife in the city while his young son remains in his hometown, in the care of his parents. 

Over the Lunar New Year week, we were again thrown together for the holiday shift. I asked him if he missed his son since he is unable to return home for the festivities. He responded that he could see his son often by using a web camera.

He had a taste for traditional ethnic songs, and didn't like the fluffy sounds of the modern day pop royals, nor crashing rocker riffs. He exhibited rigid dislike for groups of Foreigners, particularly South Koreans and Taiwanese. I assumed both had something to do with age and nationalistic tendencies.

As it turned out, it had nothing to do with age.

Two weeks into my month-long notice, we had a conversation about my travel plans.

- You're going to Xinjiang by yourself? I remember we discussed going there together.

+ Yes, well. You could ask the boss to let you go on leave so you can come along.

- Oh, I can't go on leave. I need those for my wedding at the end of the year.

+ (Thinks it's a joke, therefore laughs.) Your wedding? Aren't you married?

- I'll explain it to you when we meet for dinner.

+ (Whiffs rat manure) Sooo ... you're not married?

Revelations (had girlfriend, not married, no kids, in his 20s) were followed by accusations (You lied?!) were followed by denials (I didn't mean it, it was just a joke!) were followed by rants (A joke that lasted an entire year?! You didn't mean to make up stories about your fictional family, on separate occasions?!) were followed by further denials (I didn't lie! I didn't lie!). I wanted a reason for the "joke" but he had none, or wouldn't say. He couldn't seem to understand why I am upset.

Of course, did I really care how old he is or his marital status? It felt like a betrayal, nonetheless. I shed tears, lost sleep, ranted to anyone who would listen, but no one could explain why the joke was funny. I wondered if he was sharing his little joke with other colleagues over lunch. 

If I felt sad to be leaving, I didn't after this episode. I felt embarrassed and stupid to have blindly believed and even considered the person to be a friend, so it was a relief to leave. Perhaps if I hadn't left, I'd still be the butt of that little joke. Horrors.

Ah, the Chinese. What a delightful people!

It's Quaking Rants

School children death toll sparks tough questions in China
AFP - Thursday, May 15

JUYUAN, China (AFP) -- As more children were pulled Wednesday from the rubble of their schools, questions emerged over whether corruption and shoddy construction were to blame for taking such a heavy toll of young lives.

Not to sound callous, but I had to snicker when I got to "corruption and shoddy construction". It's just not something that escapes notice, even if the earthquake didn't topple all those buildings.

I live in an old building. Perhaps it really isn't that old, just dismally maintained. Same difference? In any case, a new notice board was recently installed at the lift landing. Not a great notice board, but functional, with a single-coloured frame and a glass panel. Maybe not so much a notice board as a poster frame. Well, this thing, whatever it's meant to be, would be pretty decent if the glass panel wasn't broken. Let's see, we've got a brand new poster frame, which we carelessly broke in the process of delivery / installation, but whatever. Someone removed the broken glass several weeks later. Now it's just a sad empty frame in a dark and dank lift landing. Already forgotten, and never been used. No, wait. Someone came along and rubber-stamped on its cardboard backing (in red ink, no less) an advertisment for ... something. Served its purpose, then.

Meanwhile, upstairs in a little flat on level 14, the occupant heard something that sounded suspiciously like dishes smashing into a million bits. Uh-oh, I don't remember placing any dishes in precarious positions. But nothing was amiss in the kitchen.

The bathroom, then. Two tiles have free-fallen off the bathroom wall. One landed unharmed in a bucket, delivering 2 mortal holes. The other, not as clever, perished, leaving its broken body scattered across the bathroom floor.

Remember, back in art class, when you used to just squeeze two dabs of glue instead of spreading the glue evenly across the surface? The construction worker must've attended the same art class. Sat right beside you, in fact.

Oh, and you also used cheap water-based glue that dissolves away when your masterpiece got wet, didn't you? Must've shared it with that construction fellow.

Gravity is a funny thing. Gives things weight. Then some clever chap invented sliding doors. That glass door may be heavy, but it just slides. So smooth a child could move it. Well, maybe not that particular sliding door in the place I previously lived. It was a pleasant compound comprising several low apartment buildings, even has a proper car park, clean stairwells and a 24-hour ... er, fellow (before that incident involving the adjacent dark alley and a psycho, I might've called it "security"). Adjacent to my big airy room was a nice balcony. Hard to get in there, though, with that ill-tempered glass door. I s'pose I'd be ill-tempered too, if I had to spend my life upside-down, being dragged to and fro on my head. Imagine the migrains.

Perhaps "shoddy" just means "not very knowledgable". Even the best materials will crumble if there is a lack of knowledge and appreciation. And what does "corruption" mean?

It means the "local officials are very XXX", to quote a friend living in Guangzhou. He wants to "adopt a kid", any kid who had been left homeless and parentless after the quake, I assume. He would provide the child with monetary assistance, while a friend of his would take care of the child in terms of housing and daily needs. Impossible, it seems. "If you have been to Sichuan, you will know what I mean", he said in reference to the XXX-ness of the local officials.

They stand around waiting for help, instead of thinking of how they can rebuild homes, he elaborated. His suspicions (shared by not just a few, I suspect) are that they might actually be happier post-quake then pre-quake because of the large amounts of money pouring in to assist the region (and perhaps line their pockets).

I rarely make monetary donations. Pre-China, Test Subject 1 (under coercion) and I used to make annual donations to The Boys' Brigade Sharity Gift Box, which seeks to "bring cheer to the less fortunate by collecting food items and fulfilling Christmas wishes of the beneficiaries". The project encourages donors "to go beyond purely financial giving and are instead challenged to make the extra effort to buy gifts for the less privileged in our society". I remember buying school supplies and/or food supplies and depositing them at the Sharity booth downtown. On hindsight, I s'pose it was because it felt better knowing what your hard-earned money was being spent on.

And then! And then you read something like this:

Myanmar cyclone victims getting low-quality supplies
AFP - Thursday, May 13

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Many cyclone victims are getting spoiled or poor-quality food from Myanmar's junta instead of the enriched supplies being delivered by foreign governments and charities, victims and aid workers said Tuesday.

A longtime foreign resident of Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, told The Associated Press in Bangkok by telephone that angry government officials complained to him about the military misappropriating aid.

He said the officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed in on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse. They were exchanged for what the officials described as "tasteless and low-quality" biscuits produced by the Industry Ministry to be handed out to cyclone victims, he said.

Misappropriating biscuits. One of those things that makes you want to either laugh or cry. Although here in China, they'd rather you cry. You need to suffer collectively when something tragic happens, nothing too entertaining now!

China takes playoff games off air

Reuters, Wednesday May 28 2008 (adds NBA China statement in paras 9-10, byline)

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING, May 28 (Reuters) - NBA playoff games have been taken off air by China's state television network because they are considered too entertaining for a nation still recovering from the Sichuan earthquake.

All entertainment in China was stopped last week for three days of national mourning for the victims of the 7.9 magnitude quake that struck the western province on May 12.State TV sports channel CCTV 5, like most other stations, returned to normal programming last Thursday and showed the Western Conference finals game between the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs on May 22.

But subsequent clashes in that series and the Eastern Conference playoff finals between Detroit and Boston were not shown."These games are not in accordance with the atmosphere of the nation after the devastation of the earthquake. They are too entertaining" Jiang Heping, director of the state TV sports channel, told Reuters.

Methinks it's time to air those Korean melodramas. No better way than playing a Winter Sonata to incite collective weeping (although some may argue that it's more entertaining than watching the NBA playoffs). It beats imposing a nation-wide three-minute-long silence. I mention this only because I was at the supermarket when it occurred and while the supermarket staff stopped what they were doing, it's quite obvious they were not being mournful. Neither were the many Chinese shoppers, who continued pushing their carts, picking their vegetables and poking their meat.

Granted, I followed suit, but then I'm just a cynical, hypocritical, critical foreigner doing as the Romans do, innit.