Forklifts in the Night, Exchanging Autos

During the period of my life when I was studying abroad in Taipei, Taiwan, I was an inveterate walker. Whenever I visited a new place, I would buy a map and set out on a peripatetic exploration at the first opportunity. And while in Taipei, I routinely spent long stretches of time walking around the city by myself at all hours, familiarizing myself with its geography and making serendipitous discoveries.

One of those discoveries occurred late one night when I was walking down a narrow sidestreet. I came upon a forklift that was unceremoniously picking up cars parked on one side of the street and depositing them on the other, proceeding car by car down the block. The scene was so surreal, and yet the manner in which the driver was going about his work was so casual, that I could only stare for a moment, chide my lying eyes, and keep walking. In the years since, I’ve sometimes wondered whether that strange sight was actually just a product of my febrile, sleep-deprived brain, which was on constant stimulus overload back in those heady days abroad—especially since it was the dead of night, and I had quite possibly been drinking beforehand. Now, however, after a quick search online, I have video evidence that such things do happen (in Taiwan, at least):

For all I know, this sort of thing is a routine occurrence that the locals don’t even bat an eyelash at. At the time, it felt as if I had wandered off into some kind of Bizarro World where people with forklifts can do whatever the hell they want, where Dude, Where’s My Car? has a radically different plot, and where street cleaners have a better option than punishing hapless residents with $40 parking tickets. (I make this comment as a former San Francisco resident who, like many others, unwittingly helped fill the city’s coffers by occasionally forgetting to move my car.)

But just as one person’s geeky is another person’s cool, what seems absurd in one society is completely normal in another—a fact I’ve often been reminded of during my adventures in China (and probably just as often living in the United States, which I’m well aware is by international standards a profoundly strange country). In any case, it’s nice to know that this, at least, was not something I merely hallucinated.

A little bonus anecdote: Thinking about different standards across societies, I'm reminded of the radically different idea people in China have of what constitutes appropriate driving behavior. After a Shanghainese friend of ours violated one too many traffic regulations (which presumably are more than just rumors in Shanghai, even if they’re not actually enforced), I asked her ironically if she even knew what a stop sign was. “You know, the octagonal red sign with a big ‘停’ (tíng, the character for ‘stop’) on it?” To my eternal astonishment, she literally did not know what I was talking about. I had to explain the existence and function of stop signs to a woman who had been driving—accident-free, mind you—for many years. And no, she wasn’t joking; although there are stop signs in Shanghai, there aren’t many of them, and the fact is that they just aren’t much of a factor in the decisions that Shanghai’s eminently practical drivers make. As I contemplate the traffic ticket my mother once got in a U.S. suburb for a “rolling stop” at a stop sign, even though the intersection was completely free of any pedestrians or other vehicles and she had a perfect driving record, I can only shake my head. Two different extremes, indeed.

If you don't recognize this, you're probably a
driver in a major Chinese city.

May 2011 Random Discovery Photo of the Month

Update – September 22, 2011: This post has now been integrated into this post about our Random Discovery Photos on our new website.

This month’s photo is one of innumerable jaw-droppingly (or at least double-takingly) random sights I’ve come across while exploring the vast human particle accelerator known as Shanghai. As you can imagine, in a city with that many options for shoppers, to be successful you have to find a way to stand out. This shop certainly got my attention with its mannequins, which are not only cutely cartoonish or disturbingly psychotic, depending on your point of view, but also used in an inventive way: ostensibly, the sole purpose of mannequins is to be an inconspicuous display device for items of clothing, but clearly the primary function of these particular mannequins is akin to that of the wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men used at American car dealerships. Otherwise, why would some of them be naked? Well, here’s some free advertising and attention for you, whoever you are—too bad I can’t remember exactly where I took this, or what exactly you’re selling, or what the name of your store is. (It does appear to be across the street from “Jun,” though.)

How could anyone get "overstocked" on something so awesome?

Adventures in Chinese Slang

One fascinating effect of China's continuing growth and modernization on its popular culture is the explosion in slang expressions that has occurred in recent years, in large part because of the use of the Internet by ever-larger numbers of Chinese citizens. As in the United States, wildly creative, funny, and vulgar new slang expressions can become popular overnight as a result of mass exposure online. The New York Times recently ran an article that quoted this People's Daily article about the most popular new Internet expressions of 2010.

If you're interested in learning some Chinese slang, either as part of a serious course of study or just for the hell of it, I highly recommend Eveline Chao's recently published book Niubi! The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School, which I've been enjoying lately. Many expressions I've heard my Chinese friends and in-laws use quite frequently (not the dirty ones!) but didn't fully understand are given a clear and thorough explanation in the book. If you want to really speak like a native and have fun with the dynamic, living language that is contemporary Mandarin, this book is a great resource. Here is a selection of some widely used expressions, along with some of my personal favorites that I've come across so far, in both my own daily life and her book. Click on the pronunciation key for each expression to hear an MP3 recording of it. (Warning: Keep in mind that although I’m always told that my pronunciation is good, I am not a native speaker of Chinese.)

加油 (jiāyóu)

literal meaning: “add fuel” (add + fuel)

colloquial usage: “Go!” or “Let’s go!” (a way of offering encouragement, e.g. to players in a sporting event)

酷 (kù)

literal meaning: ruthless, strong (e.g. wine)

colloquial usage: “cool” (a loanword from English slang)

给力 (gěilì)

literal meaning: “give power” (give + power)

colloquial usage: “cool,” “awesome,” “exciting” (northern slang)

无聊 (wúliáo)

literal meaning: “nothing to chat (about)” (nothing/lacking + chat)

colloquial usage: “boring” or “bored”; also used to playfully scold someone who’s making a joke of questionable taste

郁闷 (yùmèn)

literal meaning: “melancholy,” “depressed” (melancholy + depressed)

colloquial usage: “boring”/“bored,” “depressing”/“depressed,” “(I’m) bored/depressed!”

白吃 (báichī)

literal meaning: “blank imbecile” (white/blank + stupid/imbecile)

colloquial usage: “idiot,” “dumbass”

笨蛋 (bèndàn)

literal meaning: “stupid egg” (stupid + egg)

colloquial usage: “dummy” (not necessarily harsh; often affectionate)

滚蛋 (gǔndàn), 滚开 (gǔnkāi)

literal meaning: “roll egg,” “roll away” (roll + egg, roll + away)

colloquial usage: “Go away!”, “Get out of here!”, “Get lost!”

土 (tǔ), 土包子 (tǔbāozi)

literal meaning: 土 = “dirt” or “earth”; 包子 = “steamed bun,” a common food in poor and rural areas (“dirt”; “dirt” + “steamed bun”)

colloquial usage: 土 = “ignorant,” “uncultured,” “rural,” “untrendy,” “out”; 土包子 = “yokel” or “bumpkin” (also, anyone out of touch with or ignorant about modern or trendy things)

土得掉渣 (tǔdediàozhā)

literal meaning: “so rural that [one is] shedding dirt”

colloquial usage: “What/Such a bumpkin!”, “So ignorant/untrendy!”

狗屁 (gǒupì)

literal meaning: “dog fart” (dog + fart/butt)

colloquial usage: “BS!”, “Nonsense!”

废话 (fèihuà)

literal meaning: “wasted words” (waste + words/speech)

colloquial usage: “Nonsense!” or “Duh!” (“Well, of course, you dummy!”, “Thank you, Captain Obvious!”)

瞎说 (xiāshuō)

literal meaning: “speak blindly” (blind + speak)

colloquial usage: “to speak nonsense,” “Nonsense!”

拜托 (bàituō), 帮帮忙 (bāngbāngmáng)

literal meaning: “please”; “help [me] out”

colloquial usage: “Oh, please!”, “Yeah, right!”, “Come on!”, “Gimme a break!” (sarcastic)

吹牛 (chuī niú) [from 吹牛皮 (chuī niúpí)]

literal meaning: “to blow up (inflate) a cow” [“blow up a cowhide”]

colloquial usage: “to brag” (especially when making exaggerated or false claims)

牛 (niú)

literal meaning: cow, ox

colloquial usage: “awesome,” “badass” (For an explanation of the surprisingly vulgar origin of this widely used expression, see Eveline Chao’s book.)

拍马屁 (pāi mǎpì)

literal meaning: “pat the horse’s butt” (pat + horse + butt)

colloquial usage: “flatter” (especially to flatter someone in a position of authority or someone with the power to help you with something)

没劲 (méijìn)

literal meaning: “lacking strength” (lacking/no + strength)

colloquial usage: “lame”

面 (miàn), 面瓜 (miànguā)

literal meaning: “noodles”; “noodle melon” (noodles + melon)

colloquial usage: “wimpy,” “timid,” “weak”; “wimp,” “wuss,” “coward” (northern slang)

傻瓜 (shǎguā)

literal meaning: “foolish melon”

colloquial usage: “little fool,” “silly billy” (usually affectionate)

三八 (sānbā)

literal meaning: “three eight” (three + eight)

colloquial usage: “silly” (often used to describe feminine silliness), though it can have a stronger, more insulting meaning among some Mainland Chinese

书虫 (shūchóng), 书呆子 (shūdāizi)

literal meaning: “bookbug” (book + bug/insect), “bookish fool” (book + fool/idiot)

colloquial usage: “bookworm,” “nerd,” “a person with no social skills”

In her book, Eveline Chao doesn’t pull any punches; she includes a wide array of vulgar and extremely insulting expressions that I’ve elected to leave out of this post. So if you want to know when people are saying bad things about or to you (or want to be able to dish it out in return), you’ll find her book extremely useful.