Feminine Hygiene: or, Bro Buys Deodorant

So the other day I ran out of deodorant.  Spectacular.

Here's a fun fact: dudes in China are not huge on deodorant.  I don't know why; all I know is that it makes taxis and trains pretty bad in summertime.  Deodorant is therefore quite hard to come across, since stores understandably don't want to stock something that no one buys.  In the more westernized Shanghai area you can find it if you look hard enough, but in the relative Podunk that is Guiyang men's deodorant is the unicorn of personal hygiene products.

Read that again: men's deodorant.

As a matter of fact, deodorant is making inroads in the Chinese ladies' market.

So anyhow, last week I was faced with a pretty horrendous prospect: I finally ran out of the deodorant that I'd stockpiled from Mongolia.  It was time to go shopping.

Knowing more or less from the start that my quest was doomed to failure, I walked down to the local drugstore.

"Hi, what are you looking for?" asked the clerk.

"Men's deodorant." I said.

The clerk wrinkled her nose.  Clearly she had encountered in me a dangerous deviant.  What kind of man wears deodorant?  Is that how all laowai get their kicks?  Sickos.  What is this world coming to, where men can just walk into a store and ask for a stick of deodorant?  And you know the worst thing?  The way they shove their "deodorant-positive lifestyle" in your face:

I remember when I first came to China in 2010.  I asked my Chinese friend where he bought his deodorant, as I couldn't find any.  He asked me where I bought my tampons.

So was my reception in the drugstore that day.  The clerk told me in no uncertain terms that products for the gentleman of ripe fragrance were not, have never been, and will never be among the offerings of her establishment.  I asked her if she knew anywhere I could find them.

She shrugged, trying to think of something that would get me as far away from her as possible. "Wahr-ma?"

Wahr-ma, of course, being Chinese for Walmart.

Yes, Walmart has made its way to China, even to a backwater like Guiyang.  Who knew that communism and megacorporations went so well together?

So I got on a bus into town, and half an hour later I found myself standing in what could very well have been the personal care aisle of a Walmart in, say, Spokane, were it not for one important difference: Spokane has Speedstick.

Instead I was faced with various displays of seductive-looking Asian women with their arms lifted up.  Oddly enough, I noticed, the ladies in the ads had their armpits shaved, which it must be said is not enormously popular among women in China.

Oh well, I thought, and looked for someone with a smiley face on their vest.

Before long I found three middle-aged women stocking a shelf.  Understanding perfectly well that I was not about to be helped, I asked them if they could point me to men's deodorant.

The laughter was uproarious.  You could've heard it from Housewares.  Chastised and beaten, I slunk off.

I was through.  Screw it, I thought. When in Rome.  Who needs deodorant anyway?  If the local guys don't use it, then by golly neither will I.  The human race survived for decades before deodorant was invented.  It's probably just a conspiracy to get my money anyway.

Then, as discreetly as I could, I stuck my nose under my collar and sniffed.

It was awful.  I smelled like a barn that had a locker room in it.  My eyes watered, and I could feel my olfactory nerves shriveling up.  And I had just showered that morning.

Nope.  Just give me something, anything, to make me not smell terrible.   I grabbed the first roll-on I saw, hurried back home and slapped that mother on.  Zero shits given that it was in a pink tube decorated with flowers.

And that's the story of how Bro started wearing women's deodorant.

And you know what?  I have zero regrets.  A female coworker even said I "smelled nice" the other day.  

It's a good scent, too.  It's delicate and somehow powdery, with a hint of what I think is chamomile.  I don't know why guys complain about there being no deodorant here, because the ladies' stuff does the job just fine.

The only drawback is this strange desire that I've had to go buy some new pumps and drink a cosmo.  Which I'm going to go do, as today is my day off.  Now where did I put my purse...?

It's all Chinese to Me, Part 2

I think that the biggest reason Chinese is called “the hardest language in the world” is because of the writing system. Something that a lot of people hear is that English has 26 symbols, while Chinese has 5000. Very true. Many of us also know that while English letters represent sounds, Chinese symbols, or hanzi, represent words—or, more accurately, one-syllable morphemes.

When I first started to study Chinese, the idea behind the writing system did not seem very complicated. I figured that, while with an alphabetic system we write out the sounds of a word, in Chinese you basically make a stylized doodle of the thing you’re talking about. For example, the sentence we saw in the last video contained the word 母 mu3 “mother, female”. The hanzi is easy to remember, as it’s basically a crude doodle of breasts. Breasts represent motherhood. Easy enough.

Things become more complex when you have to make a doodle of an abstract concept. For example, how does one make a doodle of “good”? If you have studied basic Chinese, you already know:

好 hao3 “good”

This is a stick figure of a woman (left) with a baby (right). Because, of course, babies need Mom around, and it’s good when Mom can take care of the baby. Brilliant.

What I didn’t know when I first started learning Chinese is that hanzi can include phonetic elements, too. Take a look at this:

媽 ma1

“Wait a minute!” You say. “That’s the stick figure woman from before!” So it is. In this symbol, the woman is next to a doodle of a horse. Therefore, the word must mean, say, female horse, right? Or maybe even “cowgirl”?

Nope. It’s just another word for “mom”.

In this hanzi, the horse represents not the meaning of the word, but the sound! The Standard Chinese word for horse is ma3*. So, while a dictionary may simply give this hanzi as “mom”, the true meaning of this symbol is closer to “the sound ‘ma’ in reference to a woman”, or even “the one associated with womanhood, that sounds like the word for ‘horse’”!*

The problem with this is that the system of “meaning + sound” can become horrendously convoluted. Many of the semantic elements only make sense if you understand the cultural references that would’ve been made by the Chinese literati of the 10^th century BC. Take for example 黃 huang2 “yellow”. This is a combination of 炗 guang1 “sunlight” and 田 tian2 “field”. “Oh, easy,” I thought at first. “It’s a doodle of the sun shining on a field. After all, sunlight is yellow.”

HAHANOPE.

炗 is phonetic, not semantic (guang → huang), which makes 田 tian2 “field” the semantic element. So why would a doodle of a field infer “yellowness”? Because in ancient China, yellow was seen as the color of the earth. From “earth” it’s a quick jump to “field”, hence the hanzi 黃 huang2 “yellow” can more accurately be translated as “the thing that sounds like the word for sunlight but refers to something associated with fields and general earthiness”.

...and it’s not getting any easier. To add another level of insanity, in order to really understand the phonetic elements in Hanzi you can’t always go by how the words sound in modern Standard Chinese—you have to reconstruct what they sounded like in Old Chinese, the language of the Shang- and Zhou-dynasty courts where the writing system was developed. Which even most Chinese speakers don’t learn unless they themselves are historical linguists. 

A quick note: “Old Chinese” is not to be confused with Classical Chinese, which is a written—not spoken—form of late Old Chinese learned by most kids in high school. Classical Chinese as learned by high school kids uses modern pronunciation, and would have sounded completely different at the time it was written. Compare this with Shakespearean English. Most high school kids read Shakespeare, but don’t study the way Early Modern English was actually pronounced:

Another example from my last video is the word他 ta1, meaning “he/him” and sometimes “his”. The semantic element of the hanzi is 亻 ren2 “man, mankind”, and the phonetic element is 也 ye3, which in modern Standard Chinese means “also”, but in Old Chinese was an emphatic particle at the end of a sentence that worked as a kind of spoken exclamation point—in English ,we might say “indeed!”. So, again, the meaning of this hanzi is not so much “he, him, his” as it is “a man who sounds like the word for ‘indeed’”.

他 Ta1 and 也 ye3 sound nothing alike! How can ye3 be the phonetic element? The answer comes from the comparative method! When we reconstruct Old Chinese, it becomes clear that both 他 and 也 were both pronounced as something akin to *laj or *lh’aj! The phonetic element made sense 3,000 years ago, but doesn’t make sense now! Crazy, huh? That’s Chinese!

Holy convoluted, Batman! But at the same time, isn’t it a super creative and interesting system? It’s so fascinating how all of these symbols came together. Over 9000 hours on Wiktionary went into this post. 

This stuff should be in every beginning Chinese textbook, as all of the hanzi discussed are what you would learn in your first semester of a Chinese class.  But it's not!  It's sacrificed on the altar of "relevance" or "practicality".

 If books and teachers told (adult) learners the stories and the cultural context behind words, we would never forget them, and learning a language would be about ten times more fun. But you know what? Screw that, too much work, too much research. Instead, just copy 他 ten times and remember it means “he”. Ok, next lesson: I go to school by bus...

*Proto-Sino-Tibetan *smrangs “horse”. Cf. Proto-Indo-European *mark- “horse”, Mongolian mori “horse” or even modern English ‘mare’.

Obamabux (tm)

One of the things that having a lot of elementary school classes has taught me is that 6-7 year olds, in groups of less than 10, are perhaps the most easily controlled people on the planet.  8-9 year olds need an actual system of consequences for classroom management, but when it comes to first and second graders, they eat up any arbitrary crap you concoct.

For example, with my first and second graders I use what I call Obamabux (tm).  I was dinking around the other day on the internet when I found an image of a $100 bill modified to have Obama's face on it:

Obama is treated in China as some sort of Pharaonic god-emperor, since he's both a smooth black guy and president:

So I printed a bunch of them out and use Obamabux(tm) to manage the classroom.  At the end of class, if they have enough Obamabux(tm) they get a sticker.  Of course, this is about as far as their little brains make it.  Exactly what the benefit is of having a sticker is never made clear, but it really doesn't need to be.

Now meet Jungle Boy.  I call him Jungle Boy not because he's Johnny Bravo's mediocre sidekick, but because he seems to think he's a lion.  When asked a question in class, instead of answering he gives what he believes sounds like a lion's roar, but in fact just sounds like a 7-year old screaming in your face.  As you might imagine, this gets real old real fast.

Anyway, Jungle Boy has these mood swings where he'll get upset at me for some unknown reason and a) start crying, b) try with varying levels of success to bite me, or c) get sore and refuse to participate in any activities for the rest of class.  About midway through the lesson the other day he dumped his stack of Obamabux (tm) on my desk. 

"Jungle Boy," I said. "No more Obama?"

In response I got a roar.  I assumed therefore that he was just being sulky and resumed the lesson.  Some minutes later I tried to reward Jungle Boy for participating in an activity, when he turned Obama down.  Immediately the class erupted into pandemonium.  This, to them, was unthinkable.  Holy crap, they thought.  He doesn't care about Obama?  But...but...if he has no Obamabux (tm), he won't get a sticker!

Before they could follow this line of thought further, I settled them down and finished the lesson.  After class, I pulled Jungle Boy aside and asked him in Chinese why he didn't want any Obamabux(tm).

He shrugged. "Why would I?"

Oh, hell, I thought. He's onto me. "Because if you don't have any Obamabux(tm), you won't get a sticker at the end of the class."

He looked at me flatly. "So?" he said.

Crap.  I hope he keeps this to himself, otherwise I might have a revolt on my hands. "Well, what would you like instead?"

Without a moment's pause he replied "Well, I'd like to stay home." Ouch.

What I didn't say is that if this was going to be his attitude, he could stay home for all I cared.  It'd save me a headache, and we'd actually get something done in class for once.  Oh well.

Bro Sets His Classroom on Fire

“Fire! Fire!”

--Beavis

So, the title to this one is pretty self-explanatory. Yesterday I was in my classroom eating lunch and listening to Rush on my computer. There’s no reason to mention that I was listening to Rush other than that Rush is awesome and more people should get into them: 

"WEEE AARE THE PRIESTS...OF THE TEMPLES...OF SYRINX!!!"

As I’ve mentioned before, the buildings don’t have central heating in my city, so until about last week classes were conducted huddled around a space heater. The space heater was plugged into a power strip, which was plugged into the wall. When it got warm last week, I unplugged the power strip and put the heater in the corner. At some point during the course of my classes, I finished a listening exercise, and to get the CD player out of the way, put it on top of the (unplugged) space heater.

Perhaps you see where this is going.

So as I say, I was in my classroom yesterday with my lunch and my Rush. I got a “low battery” message on my computer, and looked for an outlet—damned if I wouldn’t enjoy the dulcet tones of Geddy Lee with my kung pao chicken.

So, I plugged the computer into the power strip.

“That’s odd,” I said to myself. “Why is the power strip unplugged?”

So, I plugged the power strip into the wall.

“That’s odd,” I said to myself. “Why is the power strip turned off?”

So, I turned the power strip on.

I went back to my food. A minute or two passed. There was a flicker in the corner of my eye.

Probably nothing. I’m eating.

“That’s odd,” I said to myself. “This chicken smells funny.”

Another flicker in the corner of my eye. I looked up to discover that it had not occurred to me to unplug the space heater, and also that CD players are flammable.

Ohshit. I jumped from of my chair and yanked out the plug. I stood staring kind of dumbly at what had become a small bonfire in the corner of my classroom, and coughed. I realized that the room was filled with plastic smoke, and that I was getting dizzy. I stepped outside my classroom into a large common area.

How exactly does one shout “fire” without causing a panic? In the calmest voice I could muster, I said, “uh...help? Fire?” in an odd questioning sort of tone.

Only in China, where arguments on the street are a spectator sport, would people, when informed that a room was in flames, run toward the fire rather than from it. Before long I was joined by three or four curious moms, and my school's principal.

“Huh.” said the principal.

“Huh.” I said. The flaming CD player cracked and popped merrily.

I ventured an idea forth. “Do you think we should, like, get some water or something?”

Fortunately, a dad nearby was smarter than me. Right across the hallway was a fire extinguisher, which I had previously noted only as a source of amusement at its curiously spelled label (“Fine exTINGguisHer”). Naturally, I was unable to make the link between fires and fire extinguishers. To my defense, it’s hard to think clearly when your brain is full of plastic fumes.

Fortunately, the quick-thinking dad came to the rescue. He ran into the room with the extinguisher, and let it rip. Smoke billowed from the sad remains of my CD player-cum-space heater. It was over, and my classroom was coated in a thick layer of plastic ash and extinguisher...dust stuff.

I stood coughing and blinking, somewhat dazed. The principal told me that it may behoove me to get out of the room before the fumes made me faint.

“Have your class in another room.” he said. I proceeded to go and teach my kindergarteners as if nothing had happened.

In the end, the only damage was to the unfortunate CD player (and probably my brain cells, but who’s counting?). My classroom is good as new after cleaning it up, with the possible exception of a lingering plasticky smell.

The best part? Appropriately enough, I had actually just rewatched “Office Space” the other day:

Don’t touch my stapler.