The 7 Most Wondrous Treasures of our Fickle Friend Hangzhou

(Running joke, please see previous post)

 

1.  Steaming Hot Steamed Buns

 

Nothing beats four piping hot pork steamed buns (zhurou baozi) for breakfast (Y6 = A$1), along with some sort of biscuit number (Y1 = A$0.16), enjoyed al fresco style on the West Lake.

 

2.  University Students Practising their English

 

En route to dinner on a crowded bus, we met a 19 year-old university student with grand plans to study in America ("Do you think I should study business or engineering?" he asked us). His father had spotted us as a useful target for his son to practise (or show off) his English. After 10 minutes, we asked how close we were to our intended destination. "I'm sorry," he said, "The West Lake is... ah... ahhhh... ehhh... how you say?  Op... Opp... Apposit..." "Opposite?" we asked.  "Yes, opposite direction. If you want to go to West Lake, you must... ahh... ummm... (pointing in the other direction) get off!"

 

3.  Paparazzi

 

Our stroll around the beautiful West Lake was graciously recorded by the local Hangzhou folk. Digital cameras and camera phones, overtly and covertly came out to record our presence. The shy ones pretended to check their text messages at eye level. The braver ones would approach us with camera in hand, "Keyi ma?" It's OK? "Keyi." Yes, it's more than OK for you to photograph us. Our question is, however, where are these pictures ending up? Is someone posting these on MySpace (Facebook is interneta non gratis in the PRC) with the status update of "Met the foreigners, anyone know which movie they are from?"

 

4.  Accidentally Walking into a,,, how you say?... Gentlemen's Club

 

(In Chinese) FH:  Can we come in?

Chinese Hostess: You, OK. Her, no OK.

 

5.  Accidentally Ordering Rat

 

Well, we're not exactly sure it was rat. But we went through the alphabet for all forms of small mammals and birds. It could have been a squirrel, but we stopped at "R", the circumstantial evidence was that great. Whatever it was, it eye-balled Reecey disconcertingly enough to get covered in green beans. Next time maybe we will spend more time with the pictures on the menu.

 

6. Line Dancing

 

It was no longer Halloween, but the 500 strong troupe of line dancers boot-scooting their stuff in the darkness that enveloped the shore of the West Lake by 9 pm on a Sunday night was comical, and just a little scary.   

 

7.  Reecey's First Encounter with the Jumpsuit Bum Slit

 

The Chinese response to toddlers' toilet accidents is ingenious for its simplicity: remove the seat of their pants. It was a bracing 8 degrees walking around Hangzhou today, and the poor kids, rugged up like little Chinese Michelin Men, had their @rses hanging out in the breeze. What a great incentive to learn how to use a (squat) toilet.