| Shanghainese girls / women screaming at their boyfriends / husbands on the streets (the guys usually docile, looking down), people pestering you "CD? DVD? Watch? El-lo-wee (LV)? Bags?", people spitting on the streets (although I'm beginning to see less, at least not as much in Shanghai than compared to Beijing) ... and the list goes on and on ... and I'm used to all of them. If any one day I walk on the streets without seeing any of these occurence, I'd freak out. Sort of like Tom Cruise in the opening scene of Vanilla Sky; nobody in the streets of Manhattan at 9 in the morning, not even by Times Square. Btw, that is one fu*ked up movie ... not bad though ... gets you thinking. Anyway, SO ... why am I writing this post you ask? That is because I've seen ... quite a few things out of the ordinary and I just wanted to ... "let it out" if you will. So yesterday afternoon, my colleague Kevin and I decided to go to McDonald's for lunch. We bought our Big Mac meals to-go and on the way back to the office, we needed to cross a busy intersection. About 3 meters in front of us was a woman, about my age (mid-20's) crossing the intersection. It was green light for the pedestrians, but cars are allowed through, but unlike the States or Canada, where people usually have the right of way, China works differently. So this taxi was going probably around 20 km/h and slams right at that poor girl and she flew 5 meters (no exaggeration), head first onto the ground. I'm sure there are lots of these accidents in China daily, but to see that happen right in front of my eyes was a whole different story. I've seen many car accidents too, but this?! So naturally, I said to the driver something about his mother and called 119. I was told 911 in China is 119 and 411 is 114 ... I was later told last night that 119 is actually the fire services. Luckily, the fire services, police and emergency lines are linked (somewhat) ... the least China could do. The actual emergency number is 120 (who would've thought ... well, okay fine ... I never knew ... but that's retarded) Anyway, and surprisingly, the police came within a minute of my call and the ambulance within 5. I told the victim I had called for help and asked if she was alright. She wasn't completely unconscious, she gave me some sort of a nod, but her whole body was completely shaking. When the medics arrived, they didn't even ask if she was alright ... got the stretcher, just lifted her up and placed her in, sent her right off. Hmm ... don't think they've heard of fractured bones or internal bleeding. All in all, it took 5 minutes for them to arrive and less than 1 minute to clear the scene. Covert. Tiananmen-style. An extra minute for the cops to take down my number in case they need a witness. The 50+ people who were crowding around the victim just breathing on top of her and not doing shit but going "woah ... woah ... woah ..." returned back to their busy pointless lives and pretended nothing had happened. Only in China. AND THEN, there's another incident, which is about diahrrea, but would not make this entry complete if I didn't write it. Its really gross, so ... don't say I didn't warn you. It was about 6 months ago ... in a KFC near People's Square. I need to take a number 1 really badly after happy hour with some mates and couldn't find a toilet except for the said KFC. It was around 10PM ... anyway, the restaurant was still very business and I had dashed straight for the men's toilet. The toilet was pretty small. I would say about 4 by 4 meters and the layout of the toilet was like this. 2 urinals on your immediate right as you enter and 1 cubicle on the far corner. There is nothing in front of you as you enter. The sinks are outside of the toilet, shared with the women. So, when I entered this toilet that faithful evening, of all timing, I saw this Chinese guy squatting right in front of me, wiping his ass, with a really small piece of toilet paper. He was facing the cubicle. There were residuals of wet feaces on the floor. (Imagine the scene: this guy was squatting right in front of you, but there is no toilet underneath him. No "in-the-floor" toilets.) So ... I was thinking ... "okay ... that was odd" ... so in entered and made a right turn to the urinals trying to avoid the mines on the floor. To my horror ... (and I've seen many horrible things in my life), there was a HUGE chunk of diahrrea sitting in one of the urinals. Disgusted, I just backtracked my previous footsteps and darted for the exit. Then I heard the guy who is wiping his ass, apparently, calling to his friend inside the cubicle for extra tissue. They were Chinese, but were speaking some Northern dialect, but I sorta figured out it was something along the lines of "Hey man, pass some more tissue over" ... and they were chit-chatting, seemingly, like buddies. So I figured, they probably had something really dirty and both needed to go to the toilet and his friend made it to the cubicle before he did, and he had no other choice but to shit diahrrea into the urinal. As I walked away with the washroom door closing behind me, I caught one last glimpse of the situation going on inside. And the guy outside of the cubicle had wanted to pass the "used" toilet paper (yes, the toilet paper he wiped his diahrrea'd sphinter with) back into the cubicle so his friend can throw it away ... the door close and I didn't see what happened, but heard some shouting ... again, I don't speak the dialect, but I'm pretty sure he said "I'M NOT TOUCHING THAT!!!". China. If I remember anymore ... I'll be sure to let you know. |
Finally ...
I promise!
