spending 9 hours a day in an office with people speaking Chinese does odd things to your hearing. sometime in late february, somewhere deep in my synapses, cerebral beamont decided to give up on trying to relate these alien sounds to meanings. now he focuses instead on what the Chinese words sound similar to. there's a word used all the time which sounds identical to an unfortunate racial slur i think it means 'that'.
the most unsettling one is the word meaning 'correct', but used as yes - dui (dway). sounds harmless, but Chinese people in the office have a habit of shouting it a hundred times at once really, really quickly and out of nowhere. it sounds like a drum roll by the drummer of Slipknot, or a tommy gun. it's not the end of the world, but it makes me want to jump up and hide under the desk. DADADADADADADADADADADWAY! completely out of nowhere. pretty unsettling.
the most unsettling one is the word meaning 'correct', but used as yes - dui (dway). sounds harmless, but Chinese people in the office have a habit of shouting it a hundred times at once really, really quickly and out of nowhere. it sounds like a drum roll by the drummer of Slipknot, or a tommy gun. it's not the end of the world, but it makes me want to jump up and hide under the desk. DADADADADADADADADADADWAY! completely out of nowhere. pretty unsettling.
we spent the last weekend in Qingdao, on a not-so-sunny beach trying to ignore the feeling that we were the only survivors in a post-apocalyptic ghost town. things looked up - hilariously, we stumbled upon China's Muscle Beach and spent a few minutes in a ridiculous face-off with some elderly chinese weightlifters (Workers' Stadium Tai chi regiment but with heavy weights). Andrew stole the show as a Under-21 Northern Ireland Deadlifting Champion (seriously, he brought a 3kg tub of meat powder to China). My contribution will be immortalised in an upcoming photoblog...
Then spent the night with people we'd met in the hostel, some people from New Zealand and Denmark and other countries that churn out incredibly nice people. had a good night watching West Ham win 1-0 and enjoying my revelation that i should start talking to only foreigners about UK football - they have no idea i'm as clueless as they are. BUT THEN:
the next day turned out a bit worse. as the others woke to meet the Kiwi Danishes and take a bus to hike the Laoshan mountains, i decided that it would be a much better idea to contract a kind of viral-food poisoning hybrid illness. my seaside hike turned into a glaring contest with our flu-ey chinese roommate (i may stink of sick but you snore like a fucking hoover, pal), and i spent the morning getting to know the toilet bowl, sent to sleep on the freezing tiled floor by the foghorn lullaby of The Flu-ey Roomie. then spent the rest of the day glowering at eachother as we lay in sickly slumber, like two sickly pissheads vying for some A&E attention in the waiting room.
Then spent the night with people we'd met in the hostel, some people from New Zealand and Denmark and other countries that churn out incredibly nice people. had a good night watching West Ham win 1-0 and enjoying my revelation that i should start talking to only foreigners about UK football - they have no idea i'm as clueless as they are. BUT THEN:
the next day turned out a bit worse. as the others woke to meet the Kiwi Danishes and take a bus to hike the Laoshan mountains, i decided that it would be a much better idea to contract a kind of viral-food poisoning hybrid illness. my seaside hike turned into a glaring contest with our flu-ey chinese roommate (i may stink of sick but you snore like a fucking hoover, pal), and i spent the morning getting to know the toilet bowl, sent to sleep on the freezing tiled floor by the foghorn lullaby of The Flu-ey Roomie. then spent the rest of the day glowering at eachother as we lay in sickly slumber, like two sickly pissheads vying for some A&E attention in the waiting room.
Just got back into beijing from xi'an, where we saw the Terracotta Army (self-appointed 'eighth wonder of the world'). they're thousands of years old which is quite cool, especially when you consider that the only stuff we have from back then in the Uk are nondescript bronze slabs which might have been used for something somewhere by someone who was possibly important. Unfortunately, 1,000 of them are in Canada at the moment. ('on tour, like a rock band!'. Cue explanation of Spinal Tap to bemused Chinese lawyer). There were loads of them anyway. Luckily, cloud-bathing, weight-lifting and vomiting stayed off the cards. yay!
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