胡说

(this post is actually going to turn into 3 different posts that i've been meaning to write lately).

In Beijing, you pass red banners everywhere. If you can't read Chinese then you probably just shrug, having no idea what the characters on the banners are saying. When you slowly learn the characters that are printed on the banners, you are amazed at the variety of aspects of daily life that they comment upon: the environment, traffic, safety on construction sights, the Olympics, etc. The fun part about the banners is that they always use propaganda-ish words. Hu Jintao's recent favorites are: construction a harmonious society (建设和谐社会）and being civilized (文明). Especially recently, some have advocated people's contributions to the Olympics, a la: 我参加，我奉献， 我快乐。 Anyway, there's a good recent article on Yahoo news on slogans in Chinese society and their importance: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070907/lf_nm/china_party_slogans_dc

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Jen's stupid moments

It's easy to stand out in China. As a foreigner who doesn't look at all Chinese, I have grown accustomed to the stares. However, I do try to minimize unnecessary attention, and having a decent level of Chinese usually does that. But sometimes my Chinese just doesn't work. On the bus the other day, the next stop was broadcast over the PA system, and I thought I might have read the schedule wrong and missed my stop. So I tried to ask the bus lady (there's a lady on most buses who takes tickets and makes sure people swipe their cards) what the stop following the next stop was. But I could not come up with how to phrase this question. Even if I don't know the exact words, usually I can get my message across. But this time, all she kept doing was repeating what the loud speaker said, and she even said it in English. Meanwhile, every person on that bus was staring at me, while my face turned bright red. Finally I got my point across, and thankfully, the next, next stop was the right one, and I quickly ran off the bus.

My other "stupid moment" was when I went to the gym the other day. I stood on the treadmill for a minute, trying to figure out how to use it, since this was the first time I was using this gym. After about 20 seconds of staring at it, the woman next to me points to the button I'm supposed to press. The stupid part is that all of the instructions on the treadmill were in English.

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Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy sucks in every country, but I think it's particularly bad in China. I went to the bank today to open account, and knowing I would have to wait a long time, I took my Chinese book with me. After taking my number and seeing that, yes indeed I had about 80 numbers in front of me, I decided to run to the post office. Even at the post office, the line was out the door, but I sighed and joined it. However, once we actually got into the building, I realized that there were two windows with no lines. I couldn't read the Chinese above the 4 windows, but I had an inkling that I could go to one of the open windows to buy my postage and mail the postcards. I asked a lady next to me, and she said that yes, I could. I noticed that everyone in the long lines had a slip of paper in their hands, but I had no idea what they could be waiting for. I kind of wanted to ask, but my eagerness to get out of line trumped my curiosity.

Back at the bank, I studied Chinese while waiting, and thankfully many with numbers before mine left. While I was sitting at the counter opening the account (which I did in Chinese without any problems!), a guy came up to the counter and said to the teller, "Why don't you open more windows? Everyone's waiting so long, and I'm wasting my time here." Almost every time I have been to a bank in China there has been a long wait, so I've learned to plan on it. Still, almost every time I have been to a bank in China, there has been someone complaining or making a big fuss over the wait. One time I took a few kids to cash travelers checks during EPGY; the wait was somewhere around 15 minutes, which is like a gift from God. But there were still two people behind us arguing with a bank employee. While I'm amazed that so many people have not grown accustomed to/begun to plan around waiting at the banks here, there arguments also provide me with an opportunity for Chinese listening practice as well as general amusement.