Memoirs of a 花花公子

Ten Reasons Why Mandarin Chinese Will Kick Your Ass

2006-12-16T16:13:09Z

10. Mandarin is a tonal language. If you say "hua hua" with a rising tone, it means "slippery". If you say it with a flat high tone, it means "licentious" or "womanizing". If you saying with a descending tone, it means "drawing". If you are to...

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A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

2006-12-09T15:38:32Z

"Damn!" says Pierre, reading the daily news. "怎么了? What's wrong Pierre?" I ask. "日本人真可恶! It's those damned Japanese!" he says, slamming his fist on his desk. "Oh. You hate them for historical reasons," I say. There's a lot of anti-Japanese sen...

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Butch and Butcher

2006-12-05T02:22:44Z

"PIIIIINK!" Quom, fifth horseman of the apocalypse, comes barreling across the office with a pink collared shirt in her thick hands. She stops in the vicinity of my workstation and rubs her crew cut vigorously, staring down the room. Quom yells...

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Shaolin Soccer

2006-11-28T04:37:48Z

Who’d have thought the soccer scene would be so healthy in Shanghai? I joined an expat league here, and racial clustering being what it is, the league is unofficially segregated by race. The American contingency here, sucking on baseball bats an...

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White Collar Woes

2006-11-03T12:31:15Z

Ah work. What have I to say about thee. Here are three things I hate about the retail industry: 1: Meeting with simpering baboons. A few days ago we held audience with a gutless, kowtowing American who was all form and no function. His ridicul...

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This Little Piggy Went to Market

2006-11-03T12:21:50Z

An inside scoop has it that more than 10,000 retailers in Shanghai are going to start offering fingerprint payment by early next year. Sweet Mother of Neptune! That just can't be true!! I hope my little piggies are safe. Can you imagine some b...

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Insolence

2006-10-26T13:51:25Z

Damn you, unknown Chinese character. I see you sitting there. Complacent. Smug. You think you’re all that because you’ve got 18 strokes. Want to hear a secret? I think you suck big doody. You weren’t at my fifth birthday party, when I was g...

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Questionable Moral Fiber

2006-10-09T14:10:58Z

Felix’s brother and I are waiting at the airport to receive some foreign hotshots. The plane is an hour late, so I have a rare opportunity to engage one of Thailand’s mightiest business honchos in light conversation. We talk about terrorism and ...

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California Dreaming

2006-10-04T13:42:29Z

I’m at lunch with one of our suppliers. Perrin specializes in bamboo products. Bamboo has all kinds of qualities that make it superior to wood. It’s hard as a hammer. It grows to full size in two years. What really surprised me is that it reg...

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Queuing is for Sissies

2006-10-02T08:47:39Z

Ah, the line-cutting. Oh, how the lines here are cut. The average Westerner here responds with a standard sequence of emotions. First comes shock, shock that ten little old ladies have just cut in front of him. His mouth hangs open in disbelie...

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