Have I ever told you about the time I got tricked into eating sheep brains?

Though, I guess aside from the part that I ate sheep brains it’s not a vert riveting story.

(Since you’re probably wondering; it didn’t taste like anything, just the sauce they marinated the brains in – garlicky. However, the texture was reminiscent of what it must feel like to bite into a temperpedic mattress – very odd!)

Back in December, my co-worker and I took a flight from Shenzhen to Wuxi. I’m very good at setting up meetings and transportation to and from factories, but the one I always forget to book, time-after-time, is transportation from the airport to the hotel the night before the vendor visit. I guess it’s because I usually take the metro or a taxi because I know the area, or wake up balls early to take the first flight out in the morning and go straight to the factory.

However, this time we flew into Wuxi and were going to a hotel in Suzhou, a good 45 minutes away from the airport. The driver immediately started yelling at us and refusing to drive to Suzhou because it was “outside of his range.” He then demanded that we pay him double. Since we’d rather not be exploited by angry taxi drivers, we argued back and eventually the fight got so big that the other taxi drivers in the pickup queue came over to see what all the fuss was about. The fourth driver in the line agreed to take us there for regular price, but the airport has a law that passengers can only get in the first car in the queue, so the airport security told us that we could not legally take the fourth car until the three cars in front of it left. Read: unless the first three cars of angry drivers who wanted to charge us extra to go to Suzhou left.

Note at this point, that for some reason I cannot comprehend, there was nobody in the taxi queue! This is generally cause for celebration because it usually takes 30 minutes of getting coughed on and shoved around in a taxi line to get in a car, but in this case, we were stuck. We were on one of the latest flights and who knows when the next flight was coming in, and we needed to get our rest for an early pickup in the morning. We argued with the security, and he yelled at the driver until he agreed to take us to Suzhou for regular price. We got in the car, drove away, and he starting being extremely rude to my coworker, talking about how we were screwing him out of money, how he had no idea where the fuck the InterContinental was, etc etc.

At this point, I’m scared, I’m pretty sure he’s going to kidnap us and steal all our money and leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere with no cell phones, etc etc. Evidentially, my coworker was feeling the same way because he called up the IC and in very loud Mandarin, told the lady at the front desk that we were in a taxi with a Wuxi driver that was giving us a hard time, gave the taxi number, the driver number, and told her to call the cops if we didn’t show up in the next 45 minutes.

We made it there in 30. He charged us 120RMB extra (~$20) but at that point we were fed up of arguing and so relieved to finally be at the hotel that we just gave it to him.

A few days after the prior experience, I was back in Shenzhen. We left the factory in a bus – the driver drove all the way back to Luohu, then got lost about four minutes away from the hotel and then proceeded to drive in circles for the next half hour as a bus full of more Apple devices than people yelled directions at him in English. I’m pretty sure he didn’t speak English. I was going to jump in and help, but there was already a Mandarin-speaker up front and I was at the back of the bus. Additionally, I was sure that a bunch of smart engineers with averaging about 4.5 Apple products each would be able to figure the situation out. Some hilarious suggestions came up, including hiring a taxi to go to the Grand Hyatt and then having the bus driver follow the taxi, but nobody even thought of calling the hotel and having the concierge give directions until I brought it up. It got lost on the way to the front of the bus, but they figured it out… eventually XD

Traffic in China is always hit or miss. For example, one morning I needed to go from the Grand Hyatt in Luohu to the Westin in Nanshan (about 20 minutes) to grab a backpack, then go back to the Hyatt to drop it off, then go to Futian for a meeting. The taxi driver I got was the nicest I had ever met – she (also the first female taxi driver I had ever met) heard me take a phone call and was extremely impressed with my Chinese. We chatted for a bit, and then she told me that my perfume smelled amazing and that she wanted to pick some up as well. Then, she waited for me at the Westin, and then offered to take me to find medicine for my cough in Futian. I declined – I mean, I’m pretty sure she was just trying to make more money off me, but it’s such a refreshing change getting a nice taxi driver who is actually friendly instead of yelling that you’re a disgrace to Asians everywhere because you can’t read Chinese characters!

Then on the other hand, you’ve got your Singaporean drivers (”Uncle”!). They’re always a ton of fun and super friendly! When I was in Singapore back in January, the driver and I started chatting and he could tell I was Taiwanese by the way I said my words. Jokingly, he told me that Taiwanese people were awesome but he could not for the life of him figure out why we were all so obsessed with stinky tofu! I teased him back, saying that Singaporeans were crazy for their durian and that “at least stinky tofu isn’t banned on public transportation!” It turned into such a heated mock argument of us stubbornly defending our positions without any basis for judgment (we’d tried our respective “delicacies” but never tried the other’s) that he was seriously about to swing the car around and take me to a shop to buy a durian so I could try it. But I told him I had better things to do than to eat something that smelled like a poop and to please take me to the closest milk tea place =D

Oh I’m typing this as I ride in the back of a car. The driver definitely just rolled down the window and spat on the road. Stay classy, Shenzhen.

Me: dude i miss tea time
Me: and vanishing oatmeal cookies
Him: i haven’t had a good cupcake in ages
Him: its just not the same

Aww =)

I feel like I blog about tea tine a lot. I guess I miss it even more than I thought!

(Also currently in a van, blogging on my laptop through a wireless hotspot set up through my phone, going through Shenzhen Huang Gang border crossing on the way from Shenzhen to Hong Kong International Airport to take a flight to Singapore. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be doing this, I wouldn’t have believed them)

A conversation with my manager when he called on a bright Saturday morning in Shenzhen:

Manager: Hello! You’ve been out of the country for a while – how are you doing?
Me: Hello! I’m doing great! I’m buying drugs!!!

Gotta keep my life interesting, right? =D

So I’m sick. I’ve picked up a nasty cough from who-the-hell-knows-where – pretty much everyone in Shenzhen is sick and coughing and I spend all day in factories, so I’m exposed to a ridiculous number of people with questionable health, so it’s really just surprising that my immune system has been kicking off viruses for this long. It’s about time. I’ll accept it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down and stop going to work – instead, I got on a plane with more sick people and am out in Suzhou and Wuxi for a day trip! As a wise man once said, “when I get sick, I stop being sick and just become awesome instead!”

But I have used up way too many tissues trying to get the awesome out. Something must be done.

Therefore, on Saturday my co-worker took me to a store in Futian to try and find some medicine – considering my last medicine buying experience in China was a giant fail (trying to explain to a pharmacist in Shanghai that I needed alka-seltzer and then trying to explain that I might have food poisoning) I decided it would be better to have someone who could at least read the labels on bottles along. The sales rep (I’m not calling her a pharmacist because she was the farthest thing from it) was trying to sell us a bottle of little black pills and then some off-brand cough syrup, and my co-worker was asking her where it was made and why she was trying to sell us that. We determined that she was trying to make more comission, and really I just wanted a bottle of the cough syrup that I always take (Pei Pa Koa) so I asked for it. She tried to convince us that her brand worked better but… well… in addition to the fact that Pei Pa Koa has worked well for me for as long as I can remember, it also tastes DELICIOUS (imagine a bottle of liquified Ricola cough drops) so we resisted and picked that up. And then my manager called. So I told him I was buying drugs. He was amused =)

But really, being sick in China is the worst. It’s really horrible especially if you’re trying to leave, because when we fly out of Hong Kong Airport they screen you for health and if you’re not healthy or if your body temperature is too high, you get quarantined and you can’t leave! A co-worker and I went to Hong Kong for dinner Saturday night, and we were both sick and losing our voices. It was a hilarious evening because we were stuffing our faces with xiao long bao, he can’t speak a word of any Asian language, I’m trying to communicate what we want in Mandarin to a waitress who only speaks Cantonese, I sound like Lindsey Lohan (but not during the cute years – during the drug addict years), and he sounds like the dude from Professor Brothers. What a mess XD

I’m in Suzhou now – I’m a little loopy because I have a headache from all the coughing. I woke up this morning and half the bottle of Pei Pa Koa was gone because I’ve been drinking it out of the bottle instead of getting a spoon each time. Pretty sure you’re only supposed to have 3 tablespoons a day. Oh well… it’s just a bunch of random herbs right? What harm can it do?

Good thing I don’t operate heavy machinery anymore.

I am always infinitely enthused when people either think I don’t speak any English, or people think I don’t speak any Chinese, because I overhear the funniest conversations.

I was in an elevator at the Grand Hyatt Shenzhen earlier this week going up to the lobby, and two Americans were in the elevator with me. They were whispering to each other about how they thought I was cute (I was very flattered, don’t get me wrong) and they thought I didn’t understand. I started talking to them in English with a Singaporean accent to mess with them, and when I left, I turned around and in proper English bade them goodbye, blew a kiss, and told them to be careful next time, because a lot of people in China who look Asian can understand English.

I’ve had a lot of fun messing with vendors talking shit in Chinese as well – always gotta find the best way to turn a potentially awkward situation into a hilarious one, neh?

In any case – I’m starting up week 5 of my business trip! Granted, I took a week off in the middle for Thanksgiving to go to the Philippines, so we’ll say this is week 5 in Asia! Hopefully I’ll be wrapping things up and going home next Thursday – it’s been a while. It’s a good thing I love my job and my co-workers or life would be miserable! =D Two of my favorite co-workers are flying in tonight and staying with me for the next two weeks, so things can only get better!