You know you have been too long in China when:

8 août 2008

You know you have been too long in China when:

-You read shanghaiexpat.com and understand what people are talking about.
-You offer to sell your own watch to a $2 Rolex street vendor, to fend him off.
- You think you should wear nylon sox with your Nikes, stilettos or sandals in the summer, instead of cotton ones.
-You question the waitress who didn't cut your steak piece by piece, and ask for chopsticks.
-You always leave your tray and trash on the table when you are in Starbucks and MCDO because you insist that is the way to keep everyone employed
-You're a hardworking person, voluntarily doing over time everyday, because you only chatted with your friends on QQ during office hours.
-You buy an XXXL T-shirt when you returned home.
- You take large sum of cash whenever you go to the hospital in your home country
- Your washing machine looks like it was made by Matell.
-You are now washing your socks in the sink.
- You think it's okay that your girlfriend has a chinese boyfriend too, cause she doesn't like him.
-You accept the fact that the bathroom sink "doesn't work" and just use the kitchen sink instead.
-You think it's silly to buy a new bike when it'll get stolen soon and stolen bikes are half the price.
-You relish the thought of pizza hut, but only go on special occasions.
- You'd rather pay the 10 yuan for an all night stay at the internet cafe than the 30 for a taxi home.
- You get up early for a backwards walk and thrust your hand at a 45 degree angle into the sky over and over for balanced excercise.
- When refusing someone something they expected or counted on you just say "Sorry" (buhaoyise) with no explanation whatsoever.
-When asked your reasons you just repeat "Sorry" (buhaoyisi).
-You go to Carrefour to shop for girls.
-You don't ask your 30 year old girlfriend if she wants to stay over cause you know her mom won't let her stay out past 2.
- Ice cubes in beer actually make it cooler and more refreshing
-Your definition of going home "early" or not staying out too late is around midnight
- When you take a cab, you give play-by-play driving directions to the driver
-You feel cheated if you don't receive a full head and shoulder massage when getting a haircut
-You eat three regular meals a day: lunch, dinner and night snacks
-When you go to the toilet you start bringing your own toilet paper
- You can pick up any type of food using just your chopsticks... even peanuts.
- You blow your nose or spit on the restaurant floor (of course after making a loud hocking noise)
-The footprints on the toilet seat are your own.
-You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue.
- You stop at the top or bottom of an escalator to plan your day.
- It becomes exciting to see if you can get on the lift before anyone can get off.
-It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting.
- You rank the decision making abilities of your staff by how long it takes them to reply "Up To You".
- You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes.
- You accept the fact that you have to queue to get a number for the next queue.
- You accept without question the mechanic's analysis that the car is "Broken" and that it will cost you a lot of money to get it "Fixed".
-You find that it saves time to stand and retrieve your hand luggage while the plane is on final approach.
- You can shake your hands almost perfectly dry before wiping them on your trousers, or you have your suits made with terrycloth pockets.
- A T-Bone steak with rice sounds just fine.
- You believe everything you read in the local newspaper.
- You regard traffic signals, stop signs, and counterfeit watch peddlers with equal disdain.
- You have developed an uncontrollable urge to follow people carrying small flags.
-When listening to the pilot prove he cannot speak English, you no longer wonder if he can understand the air traffic controller.
- You regard it as part of the adventure when the waiter correctly repeats your order and the cook makes something completely different.
- You are not surprised when three men with a ladder show up to change a light bulb.
- You look over people's shoulder to see what they are reading.
-You throw your trash out the window of your house, your car or the bus you are on.
-You would rather SMS someone than actually meet to talk 'face to face'.
-You start not answering your mobile so u can call back from your house/ public phone.
-You wear nylons when it is 30 degrees outside
- Car accidents become a source of heartwarming humour.
- When shopping at Carrefour some laowai stares you down for catching you looking into his basket while you wonder to yourself what laowai's eat.
- You start telling a story to a new expat friend about the crazy Beijing girl you slept with 6 months ago and he replies that he knows her and she was his girlfriend at the time. Neither of you care.
-You have figured out that it is actually the Taiwanese who are running this country.
- You start to describe delusional thoughts and fantasies as "healthy passions."
- You get your first case of bronchitus and you have never smoked a cigarette in your life.
-The idea of seeing how this place will look at Expo 2010 and the Olympics actually appeals to you.
- You have a pinky fingernail an inch long
- You haven't cut you finger nails in 8 weeks.
- You forget that the other person needs to finish speaking before you can start.
-You burp in any situation and don't care.
-You start to watch CCTV9 and feel warm and comforted by the governments great work.
- You think Pizza Hut is high-class and worth queueing for.
- You go shopping to buy gifts for a future business partner, just to 'smooth things along'
-When having conversations with your friends you start leaving unnecessary words or letters out of sentences and end up talking like an imbecile
-You see people outside wearing shower caps in the rain, and instead of thinking what a freak, you actually understand the practicality behind it. The same with clipping pegs on your trousers when riding a bike
-Your eating manners in restaurants are now totally shot. Elbows on tables and spitting food out onto your plate is now seen as being dead classy.
- When you turn the volume on the television in the restaurant up so high that you cannot hear what the person across the table from you is saying.
-When you insist on paying the bill and fumble with your purse or wallet so long that the other person pays anyway.
-When you sit in the restaurant with your finger up your nose to your elbow and stare at the laowai. Then you pull it out, inspect it, roll it into a ball and casually flick it onto the wall or the closest person's plate.
- When you are able to jump the queue because the idiot laowai left 2 centimeters between themself and the person in front of them.
-When you wear nylon kneehighs with your best dress
- Before asking someone's age, you ask what animal they are.
-You start picking at other people's dinner plates before they even offer you a taste.
-You eat family style at any and all restaurants, Chinese or not.
- You would rather wait on the street for an extra ten minutes for a 1.20, than pay the extra for a big cab.
- You don't have to speak to taxi drivers. Every cab in town has taken you home at least once, so they all know where you live.
-You have absolutely no sense of traffic rules.
- You invite friends over for dinner, and serve thousand year old eggs as an appetizer.
-You no longer need tissues to blow your nose.
-You start calling other foreigners Lao Wai.
-You think singing Karaoke on Friday nights is fun.
- Other foreigners seem foreign to you.
-You talk louder than is necessary.
- You are the last of your first group of friends still in China.
- You prefer using chopsticks.
- Chinese fashion starts looking hip.
-The last time you visited your mother, you gave her your business card.
- You start to enjoy the taste of baijiu.
- You have to pause and translate your phone number into English before telling it to someone.
- Your idea of a larger home is an extra 10 square meters.
-You get used to having a before dinner, during dinner, and after dinner cigarette.
-You ask fellow foreigners the all-important question "How long have you been here?" in order to be able to properly categorize them.
- You speak putonghua better than the locals.
- You can swear in 3 different dialects.
- Pollution, what pollution?
- You start wearing long thermal underwear on October 1st no matter what the temperature is.
- You stop enjoying telling newcomers to China "all about China".
- You think "English literature major" is a polite way to say peanut brained bimbo.
- You develop a liking for corn flavored ice cream.
- When you think it's alright to stick your head into a stranger's apartment to see if anybody's home.
-You think that you can impress foreigners by drinking Budweiser.
- Someone doesn't stare at you and you wonder why.
-70 degrees F. feels cold.
-You see three people on a motorcycle and figure there's room for two more.
-"Squid" sounds better than "steak".
-There are more things strapped to your bicycle than you would ever put in your car.
- Looking at a dog makes you hungry.
-Firecrackers don't wake you up.
-Your family stops asking when you'll be coming back.
- You don't mind when your date picks his/her nose in public..
- Smoking is one of the dinner courses.
- You (male) wear white socks with your business suits.
-You (female) wear socks over your pantyhose in summer.
- People who knew you when you first arrived don't recognize you.
-You speak Chinese to your foreign friends.
- You buy a top-of-the-line karaoke machine.
- None of your shoes have laces.
- Chinese stop you on the street to ask for directions.
-You leave the plastic on all new purchases.
- Forks feel funny.
- The shortest distance between two points involves going through an alley.
- People who haven't seen you for months don't ask where you've been.
- Chinese remakes of Western songs sound better than the originals.
- You get homesick for Chinese food when away from China.
- Other foreigners give you a funny look when you tell them how long you've been here.
-You realize that smiling and nodding is Chinese body language for, "Go away; leave me alone."
-Metal scaffolding at construction sites seems much more dangerous than bamboo scaffolding.
-Pizza just doesn't taste right unless there's corn on it.
-Summers are too short; winters too long.
-After being in an accident, you tell the ambulance driver which hospital to take you to.
- You salt your fruit.
-That unopened bottle of XO has aged longer on your living room shelf than it ever did in France.
-you start expecting the rice at the end of a meal
-Your company offers you a job in your native land, and includes regular "Home Leave" to China as an incentive.
- Household furnishings are arranged for optimal fengshui.
-You think of "salad" as diced apples in mayonnaise.
-You don't recognize a bowl of chicken soup unless there are feet and a head in it.
-Your favorite pizza toppings are corn and shrimp.
- You don't bother to take the sticker off the lenses of your fake Ray-Bans.
-In the summer, you roll the legs of your pants up to your knees whenever you sit down.
-You (men) roll your shirt up to your nipples.
- You only wear a suit when you dig ditches or do home repairs.
- You have a purse and you are male.
-You go to the hospital at the first signs of a cold.
-You don't notice your gastrointestinal problems anymore.
-You would never think of entering your house without first removing your shoes.
-Your collection of business cards has outgrown your flat.
- You know that leather shoes can grow leaves during the wet season.
-You and a friend get on a bus, sit at opposite ends of the bus, and continue your conversation by yelling from one end to the other.
-You get on a bus alone and pretend to have a friend at the other end of the bus!
-You always get a seat on a bus.
- You cannot say a number without making the appropriate hand sign.
- You cannot say "Call me." without making a pretend phone with your fingers and sticking to your ear.
- You eat at exactly the same time every day, whether you are hungry or not. Then eat again later when you ARE hungry.
-You think a pedestrian crossing over the street is "beautiful".
-You start enjoying the taste of the "meat flavour beancurd" lays crisps.
-You think your nose IS kind of big.
-You like the taste of Green Tea and Chivas
- You haven't eaten anything baked in months.
- You see nothing wrong with standing on a white stripe in the middle of a highway while cars whiz past you at 90kph.
- You don't blink an eye when a complete stranger wants to take a photo of you with his family.
- You eat soup with chopsticks.
-You use Kleenex for table napkins.
-You drink warm sodas and find them refreshing.
-You complain about the price of chocolate bars...
-You start wearing a face mask on windy days and wonder at the "silly foreigners" who don't do the same.
-The smell of stinky Tofu doesn't faze you anymore.
- You can't find face lotion or cleanser that does not bleach your skin white....
-You can open and hull sunflower seeds with your tongue.
-You have ten different responses to the question, "Do you like China?"
- You know ten different ways to point out a foreigner in Chinese.
- You point out foreigners to your Chinese friends even though you're foreign yourself.
- You know words in Chinese for which you don't know the translation in English.
-You answer 'China' when people ask where you're from.
-You answer 'China' when people ask where you live.
-You call home and your family tell you to speak faster and stop correcting their grammar and pronunciation.
- You eat cake with chopsticks.
-You constantly wonder if everything has been boiled long enough.
-You answer 'So is mine.' when people say their English is so poor.
- You answer 'Into what?' when people say China is developing.
-You convince yourself that it doesn't matter how dirty the cooks' hands are, cooking will fix it.
- You start saying 'play computer' 'I very like' and other assorted chinglish.
-You hold hands with others of the same sex and think nothing of it.
-You've got a pre-paid ticket with a booked seat for a soft-seat train or plane, but you still run like mad to make sure you get a seat.
-Smoking does less harm to your lungs than breathing.
- You point over your back with your thumb when using the past tense.
- Everyone wants to be your friend - all you have to do is teach them English for free.
- Everyone wants to teach you Chinese by speaking to you in English.
-Your Chinese lessons consist of 50 words your teacher wants to know the English meaning of.
- You tell people you don't understand, so they write it for you - in Chinese.
-Your boss speaks really good English until you ask for more money.
-You have accumulated hundreds of notes and addresses but you can't read any of them.
- Groups of people find it fascinating to watch you buy an orange at a fruit market. Commentary is provided in case some people don't know exactly what's going on.
- At the beach women wear bulky swimsuits from the 1950's while men wear Speedos.
- The more you listen to the news, the more uninformed you are.
-You start thinking instant coffee tastes pretty good.
- When the national news is on, your forty TV channels magically become the same channel.
-Absolutely everything that can possibly be eaten is in some way good for your health.
-You no longer expect the truth.
-You can use "face" as a weapon.