Oh Shanghai. Thou art fully modern. When the hell are you going to popularize personal checking.
I put down a deposit on my apartment today, equivalent to two-months of rent, IN CASH. The highest paper denomination here is the equivalent of a twelve-dollar bill.
So there I was, withdrawing money five times from two different ATMs over the course of two days, nervously stuffing wads of redback into my laptop bag while people in line eyeballed me suspiciously.
Do you have any idea what it feels like, going down the street with that much loot on you? Do you have any idea how many times I glanced nervously at my bag during soccer practice last night?
And here I am now, at a private, pre-arranged location, opening a briefcase with close to 150 Chinese Benjamins for you, my landlord, to count one by one. How illicit does this feel? I don’t know whether to expect your signature on the lease or a gunnysack of cocaine, fished out of your pajama pants.
It’s Max! It’s 林立丰! It’s the international super-spy, master of disguise! Is he Chinese? Japanese? Mauritian? Martian? Nobody knows!
He likes to stand innocuously at the street corner, blending in with his fellow Chinese. They all look like innocent, law-abiding pistachios, but only he knows that underneath his pistachio shell… lies a cashew! Not pistachio!
It is too fun!
Sometimes he encounters lost Mexican tourists on the subway. They discuss their plight and scratch their heads. All hope is lost. They beckon to the friendly local in the green t-shirt and pantomime their woes with the aid of the subway map. Out of this stranger come instructions in fluent Spanish! They are surprised! They are astounded! Their mouths are shaped like little Os!
Surprise!
A young man orders a chicken sandwich. The Burger King lady asks if he wants the value meal. The young man has never heard the phrase “value meal” in Chinese before. He stares at her with big dinner-plate eyes. Is he still deciding? Did he not hear her? Is he Korean? Is he having a stroke?
Who knows?!
*Chorus*
ABC Man, ABC Man,
American Born Cashew man,
Goes wherever the Chinese can…
We’re having dinner at a fine restaurant. Nearby, a woman gives an old acquaintance a hearty greeting. She pauses for a bit and sniffs the air, like a wolf on a scent. Her eyes turn to steel and she turns on the poor man.
“Are you fooling around on your wife?”
The man hesitates for a split second. Too late to bluff, he decides to raise the ante.
“Yeah. She’s a great gal. Would you like to meet her?”
“No, sorry. That’s for you to deal with,” she laughs.
They carry on like old friends. She’s not going to judge him, but she won’t be his accomplice in crime either.
“How did you know?” asks the man.
“This is the fifth, maybe sixth time you’ve come to Shanghai this year? You have some business being here. But not that much business.”
If it’s so plainly visible to a friend, it must be stark as daylight to his wife. As we feast on pepper shrimp and melon soup, I imagine a middle aged woman picking up her kids from school in some distant Chinese city, trying to preserve her dignity between politically aimed smiles.
And if the statistics are right, that’s the fate of more than half of you out there. I can bet a random woman on the street that her husband’s dallying with the daffodils and come out with even odds. If she’s well-educated, my odds are even better. Victims and perpetrators, half the lot of you. Should you just forgive your future spouses now, before you know their identities? Should you just forgive yourselves now, knowing what nature has programmed you to do?
I look at picture of myself with my girlfriend. No one thinks they’re going to cheat when they’re honeymooning at 24. I’m armed to the teeth with moral conviction and a desire to protect. So is she. Do we get a “Get Out of Fate Free” card? Or do we have to toss the coin just like everyone else?
In Shanghai you can drink life straight from the fire hose. People vent all kinds of emotion freely. Laissez fair is the default rule on the streets. China does not traipse around people’s sensitivities.
Shanghai’s disfigured frequent subway cars, advancing from individual to individual, rattling coins in a plastic cup which they hold in their one good hand. Some commuters drop coin, others just shake their heads. When it’s safe, they all steal glances at the beggar’s mangled form.
Fate is cruel. This fact isn’t so visible in the States, but in China people will make pornography of their own birth defects for profit. It makes sense on the rawest strategic level, right? And so it is happens freely here, where social correctness holds no water.
I drop a coin into the boy’s mutilated hand, but I can’t bear to look at his face. Half of it is burnt away. I wonder why I give so freely to him when I resisted the bums in Harvard Square so adamantly.
Is it inconsistent to give to some beggars and not others? Is it important to form a principle about whether you will give, or if you will not? And if you will only give sometimes, under what conditions will you do it?
Maybe you have taken time to answer these exact questions. But even if you do encase yourself in hardened moral armor for your next bum encounter, you may find it is as imaginary and irrelevant as the ambiguous philosophical ether you forged it in. Maybe you’ll decide to give, but your next beggar will have an undue sense of entitlement that just burns your socks off. Or maybe you’ll decide not to give, and you’ll meet a beggar like the ones I see on the subway. You’ll gaze into the face of the dying and lose all reason before the visage of primal reality.
My first Saturday was spent receiving a few Harvard professors from the Center of East Asian Research. Talk the talk. Do the dance. Make them feel like a little more at home since they don’t speak Mandarin.
Harvard professors are a tough crowd to entertain. Not that they aren’t nice. They are. It’s just that my life stories can’t hold a candle to their vast wealth of travel.
“So Professor X, you were just in Japan? I spent two months writing a travel guide in Tokyo. Did you get a chance to visit Tsukiji fish market?”
“Yes, I go to Tsukiji every time I visit Japan. Like when I lived there for five straight years.”
“Oh… I guess you know all about it then. Professor Y, did you know that teenagers dress up in strange costumes and hang around Harajuku on Wednesdays? I heard that all major fashion trends begin there.”
“Yes, that was not the original intent when I built Harajuku with my own bare hands back in the 50s.”
“I see. So Professor Z, what countries HAVEN’T you been to in Asia?”
“Kyrgyzstan.”
HE WASN’T JOKING.
So I switched gears. We talked about ideas. We talked about their experiences instead of mine. We swapped jokes and crossed wits. Lesson learned.
“So Max, what brings you to FroggyMart?” asks Felix.
“I want to learn China. I want to learn business,” I reply.
I gave a similar answer once in a tech interview. The interviewer showered praise upon my shoulders. How unpretentious! Way to cut straight to the core of what it means to be a young professional!
“Is that all?” Felix shot back.
Shit.
“Learning, learning, everybody just wants to learn. What about achievement?! Don’t you want to get anything done?”
You just can’t catch a break. I backpedal furiously.
Actually, you know what? If I wanted to achieve, I would have stayed in tech. I would have worked for an English speaking company. I wouldn’t have thrown away tens of thousands of dollars a year on opportunity cost. In fact, I’m not here to achieve. Not yet. I’m here to dive into the business world and crack open every oyster until I discover passion. Then I’m going to cash that pearl in for an entire lifetime of achievement.
Nertz to anyone who says different.
Back in China. My inaugural day of work is over.
My role at FroggyMart changed quite a bit over the month of July. To make a long story short, I am now an executive trainee. I will be going through six months of training via departmental rotation. Then I will be on the CEO’s crack project team.
I wish I could give some examples of existing and potential projects. Nondisclosure is a bitch. I really don’t want to be behind bars with Crazy Wu, Thrasher Ho, or General Tso and his chickens.
I intercepted Felix a little early, so he had me sit in on his meeting with the product design team. Like any CEO, he has intense eagle eye vision. He doesn’t mince words. He has no tolerance for bullshit.
On the flip side, he has a kind soul and his voice is kind of girly. In fact, he sounds a lot like Meowth from the Pokemon animated series. It’s endearing.
On this particular morning the rod is out and raring to smack someone.
“This system you built requires the shopper to think!” he chastises. “Always pretend you are the shopper! The system should be a no-brainer."
"顾客不用作 brainer!"
"Customers do not need to do brainers!"
"我们应该已经把所有的brainers作好了!"
"We should have all the brainers done already!"
What a great name for a breakfast cereal! Maybe the Chinese launch of Brainers will have a picture of me on the box.
A pretty girl in front of me. A pretty girl behind me. Next to me, in the aisle seat, a gentleman in his 50s sucking snot down his post-nasal cavity as though it were ambrosia.
Four years ago I came to China as an intern by day, party-boy by night, one starred-and-striped herring in a school of Westerners. Socially speaking, nothing was expected of me. If I was a conversational deadbeat or a social delinquent, I was forgiven on account of my age or my nationality.
Yes, this time will be different. There will be no get-out-of-jail-free cards when I commit faux-pas. I will pour tea. I will buy gifts for my bosses and their children. I will host dumpling dinners.
A few hours later, nose-suck man is still going strong. A diaspora of fellow mucus lovers joins the chorus from various points across the fuselage. Is this the cacophony of disgusting old men? I kill the thought. When in Rome, don’t put down the Romans.
I had a great new product idea in the shower today.
You know those newfangled GPS navigation systems? They're great. You wheel around town and a prim female voice tells you how to get to point B. My friend has one that also tells him what a bad driver he is.
"Turn left in 15 feet... ... You were supposed to turn left. Prepare to make a U-Turn in 500 feet."
It's GPS with a 'tude! But why stop there? GPS voices could be humorous. They could boost self esteem. They could enforce discipline.
So I'm thinking: politically incorrect GPS voiceover expansion packs.
Insecure drivers could install Raymundo the Fabulous on their Jettas:
“Oh gorgeous, you’ve missed a left turn! You’re so silly. Who's silly? You are, and it's just delicious darling! Just make a U-y up ahead. You’re fabulous, absolutely fabulous!”
Narcoleptic drivers can install Kaji the Agitated Japanese Businessman on their Chryslers:
“Prease to turn reft. Ah, yes. Yes. Reft here. Yes. Reft… I SAID TURN REFT!! BAKUDAI II KAGEN SHIROO!”
Excitable teenage delinquents could install Elizabeth the Sultry Prostitute on their twinked-out low-riders:
“You know what would get me hot? A left turn on Broadway. Mmm, yes. Turn left on Broadway you big stud.”
Christians can tune into Gospel Gary:
“The good lo’ sez to turn left. Left leads to the kingdom of heaven. Hallelujah! You turn right, you turn away from the lo’, you may end up somewhere you don’t want to be. Amen!”
Concerned parents could install Repressive Indian Father on their teenagers’ Honda Civics. Soccer moms could install Donald Duck on their SUVs.
You feel me?
Someone back me up here.
