A strong challenger to my favorite cuisine, Indian, isn’t Chinese as a whole, but I think the food from the Hunan province might be. That specific variety is delicious, characterized by very spicy and hot dishes. It’s by no means as sophisticated as the Indian spices, but delicious just the same. Xiao Gi invited me out to another dinner with a friend of his. This outing was much more tame than the last one. We only had two large bottles of beer between the three of us and were not required to “gan bei” (“bottoms up”) the entire glass during each toast. Here’s a cell phone shot of the dishes:

Here’s a funny story in the Chinese newspaper, which I rarely get to read ’cause I’m so busy. These sorts of stories are typical of some of the odd culture that you experience in China if you have close contact with the locals. It shows how superstitious how some Chinese can be, especially when it comes to words. Some words are bad luck because there are other words that sound similar. I remember someone telling me something like, “Oh, that’s a very bad luck word, if you say that in that context to someone, because that word resembles ‘coffin’. So, maybe you are telling them that may die soon.” Yeah, weird stuff like that. Then there are the weird obsession stories, also like this one demonstrates. There is another story I recall that folks in my office (all normal folks) about a young lady who was obsessed with some Hong Kong star. She was so fixated on this one guy that she somehow persuaded her parents to sell their home to raise the money so she’d get the opportunity to meet the guy. I can’t recall how the story ended, but I was just shocked that the story indicated that the family went along with it. Maybe there were some good luck words that lined up one day that said this girl needed to meet this star. I have no idea. But, here’s the humorous story I read the other day:

Man’s obsession with stocks leads to divorce

An investor in Nanjing, Jingsu, was so obsessed with the market that his behavior became strange and unreasonable.

The man surnamed Wang invested about 200,000 yan ($25,641) in the market and since then all he could talk about at home was stocks. He has gradually developed an obsession with the numbers 6 and 8, which mean “smoothness” and “making a fortune” in Chinese. He only took taxis with plate numbers that included 6 and 8.

Wang was overjoyed when his son scored a 48 on a test because he believed the score was a sign.

Unable to endure Wang’s behavior, his wife applied for divorce several days ago.

To add insult to injury, the Shanghai market just had a big 8% correction last week! Poor ole Mr. Wang!

I’d long wanted to have some clothes tailored and I had long put it off. Finally, I decided to have it done. Hong Kong is a very popular place for tailored clothes, but after telling my wish to my Hong Kong friend, Jonathan, he suggested, in his usual fast-paced manner, “Oh, don’t go to Hong Kong; that is for tourists. Go to Luohu. It’s much cheaper and almost as good.” I decided I’d at least check it out and then maybe have some stuff ordered in Hong Kong too and then compare (our trusted tour guide from a couple of weeks ago had suggested a reputable tailor in Hong Kong). I found a recommendation of a tailor in Luohu, who spoke English, and I headed out Saturday (May 26th).

I am not a fan of the Luohu Commercial Center. It’s too aggressive, the bargaining gets old, and the endless “Hello! Hello! Cheap DVD for you!” and groping from the store owners gets old fast. So, I dove in and headed straight to the top floor, ignoring the salesmen and runners (the kids who run after you or who take orders and run off to get it for you). Here’s what the inside looks like:

Along the periphery of this central area, on each of the five floors, is a maze of small shops selling all sorts of junk and fake goods. The interesting thing is that this place is not popular with the locals, but with the foreigners and the Honkies (Hong Kong folks). After all, the train station is right there.

It took me a while to locate Judy’s, the tailor, shop on the 5th floor. There are many tailors on the top so it took some maze-wandering to hunt down number 5067. I finally found it (there was barely room for 3 people inside), but Judy wasn’t there. I asked the seamstress hunched over the sewing machine where Judy was and she replied something unintelligible in Chinese. So, I went outside where someone else asked me what I was looking for. I said, “Judy”, and they pointed me to a large room full of fabric. There were many people in here and it took a few minutes to hunt Judy down, who was busy picking out fabric supplies.

Here’s the shop (Xiao Gi is standing in the doorway; Judy can be seen inside):

We went back to the shop where I picked out fabrics and got measured. Another young American, from New York and visiting his father, was there getting measured for a suit. After they were done, I ordered 4 long-sleeved shirts and headed out. I had to come back a week later to pick them up. When I returned to get them, I ordered two additional short-sleeved shirts and picked them up a couple of days later along with Xiao Gi (today). All together, the bill was about $85.

Trying on the goods. That’s Judy next to me and the seamstress busy at work in the lower left:

According to Greg, Shenzhen is “stinking hot” in the summer. Even though we’re not even to the hottest part of the summer yet, it’s already way hotter than Seattle ever is. And the humidity is ridiculous (more on this in a future post). However, there’s one nice thing about the hot weather. It makes swimming even more enjoyable. Living in Seattle, I haven’t enjoyed swimming the way I used to. In fact, I never went swimming in Seattle, except for maybe dunking myself in a Cascade stream or lake. Anyway, the place I live in Shenzhen has an absolutely gorgeous pool and I’ve started enjoying it as often as possible. I like to go into the little gym, which isn’t air conditioned, get really hot, sit in the hot sun briefly, get even hotter, then take a refreshing dip in the pool. Check out this inviting panorama.

On Friday afternoon, some colleagues and I planned to hike up Nanshan Mountain Saturday morning. I’d done it before when I first came to Shenzhen and enjoyed it. It’s nowhere close to the wilderness experience of Mount Si (Seattle’s popular nearby mountain to hike) and it honestly feels funny to call Mount Si a wilderness experience. That’s how urbanized Nanshan is! Anyway, I got a text message the following morning that it was raining and that the hike had been cancelled for safety reasons. Safety? It’s a stairs and sidewalk the entire way. Well, I could understand not wanting to be rained on. So, I got up and looked out the window, but it wasn’t raining any more. “Dang”, I thought. I was looking forward to the hike. I’d gotten too lazy about staying in shape in China and was looking forward to this inaugural “get in shape” event, something I have to do if I want to go to the Alps this summer and not be the pokey one. So, while I was thinking about what to do, Joyce gave me a call and said she still wanted to go. So it was settled, Joyce and her husband Peter (from the Netherlands) and I would go “climb” Nanshan.

Are you into “mountaineering”? This way, then!

Though there’s nothing close to mountaineering here (it’s all 1st class!), it is a good workout. The ascent to the first point is up a long flight of stairs, a stairmaster machine set on “Psycho”, as Robert would say. I let Joyce and Peter know that I’d go on up ahead ’cause I was trying to get in shape and that I’d come back down and meet them when I’d arrived. So, I headed up. No breaks, a decent speed, not too fast. It didn’t take me too long to arrive, maybe 30 minutes? It’s over 1000 feet of elevation easy, but the stairs make it quick:

There are usually tons of people up here too. This time, while waiting on top, I started talking to a group of Chinese folks from the ZTE, or Zhong Xin, corporation. Their building is just down the street from ours. They were all part of an English group so most of our conversation was in English, but I tried out some easy Chinese now and then. They all wanted a picture taken so we posed here. There’s another foreigner in the picture. He was just kinda out on his own, so they invited him in the picture too:

Seemed liked we chatted for 20 minutes or so. Still Joyce and Peter hadn’t arrived. So, I headed down. I ran into them pretty soon and we continued up to the top where we took a short break. The rest of the hike hits two more summits, each with a small shelter. The second shelter is the highest and the biggest. There’s even a small staff up here who sell water, Chinese Gatorade (basically), and ice cream. We got some ice cream and took another short break.

(l-r) Joyce and Peter, A basketball team (I think). The coaches started barking out orders and they produced bricks in each hand. Then they started marching like soldiers down the mountain.

The hike between the two outer summits is nice. It’s a fairly thin ridge (no danger of falling of course) with views down to the suburbs of Shenzhen and the shipping yards below. Along the way are funny signs. This sign below says something like, “This forest is to be enjoyed by you, your sons, and your grandsons. May he who burns it down be punished for many years!” That’s not it exactly, but that’s the gist I got from Joyce. By the way, I’m just started to learn Chinese characters. Of course I couldn’t read something that complex yet.   OK, in addition to the signs, at the first shelter was a continuous recording, blaring out over a cheap loud speaker, that warned anyone who may be thinking about burning down the forest.

(l-r) Ridge running sidewalk, funny sign

Somewhere along the way, I took a big panorama shot. Below, you can see Shekou, the area where you catch the ferry, where Seaworld is, where most of the foreigners live. These are only the ‘burbs, far from downtown Shenzhen. In the distance, across the water, you can see hills. That’s the “New Territories” which belongs to Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region).

When I did this hike the first time, I went in the opposite direction. I prefer today’s direction, from west to east, because the uphill is broken into manageable sections. Going from east to west, you’ll gain almost all your elevation in one seemingly endless set of stairs at the very beginning. When we got to the bottom, Joyce was wiped out. Not being able to control her legs very well, she had a humorous walk. I admit I was pretty tired too and the following day was a bit sore. I have to go every weekend so that all the soreness is worked out.   So, I’ll be back.

I was riding home with Xiao Liu today and chatting in Chinese as usual. Lately, we’ve been looking for and counting good-looking Chinese girls on the street. Today though, a red warning came on the light of the Buick. Xiao Liu pointed it out to me and, despite the short time that the words were illuminated between flashes, I was able to make-out “Low Coolant”.

“Zhe shi shen mo?”, asked Xiao Liu. Or something like that. He was asking me what it meant. So, I thought to myself, “How do I tell him that he needs to top off the coolant?” Well, a good challenge anyway.

“Uh…uh…ni de chi che…mei you leng…”

A pretty lousy first attempt. Translation: “Your car lacks cold.”

But, the second time around, I nailed it. I recalled the words for “have to” and “add” and, well, what could I say for “liquid”? Here’s what I came up with:

“Ni yao jia chi che leng de shui.”

“Oh oh oh!! OK OK OK!!! <thumbs up> Hao hao!”

Translation: “You have to add cold water to your car.”