Shanghai China Snippets Observations about living in Shanghai and China in general

Chinese love to gamble. The Chinese government is less happy with this so they are clamping down on gambling in the mainland. On the other hand they endorse gambling in Macao. It’s a strange world. Read more in this article from the LA Times . The most intriguing and telling quote about gambling but at the same time about the psyche of the average Chinese is the one made by Hu Xingdou, economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

“Chinese are the biggest gamblers in the world,” said Hu, the economics professor. “Thousands of years under an imperial system that tries to keep people down leads to a mentality of trying to become super-rich overnight, preferably without the hard work.”

The phone rings. I pick it up and say, “Wei”. That’s what you do in
China. It means something like “Anybody there” or “Can you hear me”.
“Wei”, the person on the other side reacts. My Chinese is not that
fluent but I tend to give the conversation a go. Maybe I learn
something. My answer is “Wei”. By now, I guess, it should be
established that we are both here and can hear eachother.

The person on the other side seems to think differently and gets a
little impatient. “WEI”, he shouts. I am no pussy on the phone, so I
reply “WEI”. I mean, is it up to me to start asking him what he
wants….? Should I use my telepathic powers to guess why he is calling
me? Apparently I should. “What do you want”, I offer him. “Ni yao
shenme?” He seems to understand because he reacts with another strong
“WEI” and then feeling more comfortable asks, “Xiao Wang zai”. I take a
moment and realize I am not Little King. “Xiao Wang bu zai”, Little
Wang is not here, I utter. “WEI”, he shouts once more as though he is
not yet convinced. I repeat the last sentence.

Until now the conversation has been rather interesting but I am sure
the caller has better things to do. I help him a bit by telling him he
probably dialed the wrong number. “Ni da cuo le”. There is some silence
and then he hangs up. Not even a last “Wei”.

It’s 21:00 when we arrive in
Chengdu. Chinese New Year’s Eve. A
taxiride of 25 minutes and I enter the house of the parents of my
girlfriend. It’s the first time they will see the white face that has
become part of their daughters life. My Chinese is not non-existent but
Chengdu hua (local slang) is something I haven’t grasped. So, how
to communicate and express politeness. Well, I was instructed to just
utter a lot of xiexie (thank you), hen hao chi (the food is very nice)
, another xiexie and most of all smiling. I did all these things and
actually it was not hard at all. They were a sweet old couple and
smiled back, urged me to eat more and especially eat rice at the end of
the meal. There’s no good start of the New Year without eating rice. I
smile, eat a lot and drink even more as my brother in law keeps on
pouring a pretty good Chinese Cabernet. We watch the CCTV Spring
Festival Show which is the Yearly highlight, at least audience wise,
and then the children, the small ones, I might add, are handed a red
envelope, the so called Hongbao. In it is some money to buy sweets or
something else kids like. Mother in law then goes to the study again
and coming back, she hands me a Hongbao. I am now one of the kids, the
small ones at
least.

Lost on the internet I came across this wonderful forum for Chinese photographers. (Thanks to the Liuzhou Blog which directed me here)

Just go there, sit back, think of the Chinese Characters as poetry, scroll down slowly and let the pictures amaze you. There are 153 pages at the time of writing. It’s better than TV, especially Chinese TV.