I fear the hairdresser

This is not due to vanity and a concern that I will leave with a head of hair resembling a tumble-weed nursery; nor do I worry that my peroxide-addled assailant will accidentally lop off an ear; it's not even the terror of wasting a tenner on something so ephemeral.

No, it's the chit-chat.

Being forced to listen to a middle-aged woman called Doreen prattle on about her ambition to save up enough money to move to one of the costas and open a chippy, or enduring some ridiculously coiffured NVQ trainee regale me with his recent adventures down Wetherspoons just makes me long for the long-overdue automation of the hair cutting process. Though, as we have learned from countless sci-fi plotlines, there would be a certain danger in filling our high streets with heavily armed, if slightly camp, robots.

But having my larynx gouged out by a switchblade-armed robotic sociopath is a risk I'm willing to take if it means I never have to endure another half-hour session of listening to the complete gibberish about mortgages and holidays in portugal and gypsies that most carbon-based barbers come out with. They're worse than taxi drivers; at least if you challenge a cabbie, they can't retaliate by giving you a lop-sided fringe.

So what a relief it is to get a haircut in China. Initial worries before arriving in Shanghai that it would be difficult to find a barbershop, or at least be able to differentiate between the reputable ones and those full of venereal disease-ridden peasant girls who wouldn't know their shampoos from their sets, proved to be unfounded. Indeed, it is the density of hair dressing salons on the average street in China that is one of the enigmas of the countries economy that puzzles me. Surely, even in a city with a population density as high as Shanghai, there can't be any way that this number of shops can employ this number of people in any kind of sustainable manner?

But whatever, finding a place to get your short back-and-sides isn't a problem. And by comparison to the UK, where getting a hair cut is a chore, here it's more akin to a treat, with the actual hair-cutting itself being almost inconsequential.

Upon walking in you are sat down and given a glass of kai shui (hot water). Your head is then shampooed, massaged and rinsed by one of the twenty or so girls who stand around awaiting your arrival. The same girl then gives you a head, arm, hand and upper back massage. It is only then that you are lead to the barber's chair, where the guy (it is almost always a guy, in my case Tang You (sp?)) proceeds to cut your hair, paying infinitesimal attention to the back and sides, while quite often leaving the top virtually untouched, requiring you to suggest he takes a little more off. And a bit more. And just a little bit more.

This is all made even better by the fact that it costs around £2.

And then, there's the almost complete lack of scope for annoying chit-chat.

Even on my most recent visit, when the entire staff decided to gather around me just as the neck massage was spiking the endorphins and chatter away at me about where I was from, what Chinese year I was born in, and why I didn't want to marry one of the girl assistants, it was a pleasure. Even the Chinese equivalent of the NVQ boy who hovered around me snapping photos and video on his mobile phone (another economic anomaly - how can someone who probably rakes in, at most, 600RMB - or £40 - a month afford such a piece of telephonic gadgetry) while Tang You teased my locks failed to anger me.

Because, despite my interrupted massage and crowd of spectators, I knew I wouldn't have to talk to a girl called Tracey about how difficult it is being a single mother, and pay a tenner for the privilege.

A far more insightful look into the world of the Chinese barber shop can be read here.

Short changed

I, like many people I imagine, picked up Shortbus knowing nothing about it except that it would show me real people doing real rude things to each other. I had my suspicions that the film itself would be a big bag of shite, but that was by and by: It would show me REAL RUDE THINGS. Like willies, breasts and poos. And people doing really rude things with them. FOR REAL.

It shares the same main marketing hype that of Nine Songs, i.e. the actors actually have sex on film. And like Nine Songs, it is pretty unwatchable, though this has nothing to do with the sex which, like Nine Songs, is tame and humdrum.

Though where the story in Nine Songs was a wistful (mediocre) tale about lost love, Shortbus is a mess of confused imbeciles braying about their minor sexual hangups.

The Shortbus of the title is a semi-secret club in New York where people from all walks of life (read bland Greenwich Village stereotypical liberals) supposedly go to explore their sexuality, though I suppose you could also check the place out if you wanted to see a bunch of vacuous faux-boho leeches having mediocre nookie.

You can imagine the type of irritatingly smug couples going to watch this film, hand in hand, exchanging knowing glances as they watch the collection of howling mediocrities that make up the characters of this film talk oh-so-openly about their correspondingly meagre and inconsequential sexual problems.

It reminds me of the kind of dull-eyed fondue-bores who would populate risque late-night shows for grown-ups only with titles like Clitoral Knowledge and Viva las Vulva, talking openly and frankly about trying to sauce up their sex-lives with various lubricatory gels, battery-operated anal-explorers and wife-swapping with the pasty middle-aged couple from next door while Graham Norton guffawed in the background. That is, it's fucking tedious.

There is almost a nod to the stupidity of this kind of machete-frenzy-inducing emotional openness in the film when a husband and wife decide to solve their argument with a frank and honest exchange leafed out of a self-help book. But as a satire this scene is pretty limp when it becomes apparent that the entire film has this annoyingly smug air of people who boast about being open-minded and sexually liberated but who are, infact, just boring.

All becomes clear at the end of the film when the credits roll and it is revealed that the story was written in collaboration with the cast, while the thing was being filmed, which in particular explains the badly-executed and insubstantial conflicts and their conclusions. Though nothing can excuse the cloyingly self-congratulatory sing-song at the end, nor the climax to the storyline of the woman who couldn't achieve one. A climax, that is.

This rash of films of late which involve 'actual sex' usually deny that this is the main point of the film, but then go on to use it in their blurb, and turn out to have absolutely no merit. I'm not against seeing real sex in films. It would just be great if one day we could see it in good films that don't harp on about the fact that they feature real sex. If anything, it's probably easier and more fun for the actors, and more believable for the audience (I always wonder how they achieve convincing sex in films without affecting actual penetration; I imagine it involves lots of gaffer tape and plenty of persistent and uncomfortable rashes).

But until then, it's the pornos that will have better sex, deeper characterisation and more interesting plotlines than Shortbus and movies of its ilk.

一，二，三，死，五

My new, disimproved teaching timetable has afforded me the opportunity (i.e. forces me to be awake in time to) witness the students' daily exercise routine. It's something I've wanted to see for a long time, and what teacher wouldn't be attracted by the sight of his young charges being forced to march in unison for the glory of country and good posture?

The bell at ten past nine signals the two thousand or so kids to stream from their classrooms like a colony of shell-suited lemmings towards their daily constitutional, accompanied by music that sounds bizarrely similar to Liberty Bell – better known as the Monty Python theme music. Within minutes, every available square foot of space outside is covered by files and ranks of kids.

We've all seen it on television from various communist regimes across the world; the propensity for, and proficiency in, marching. Communism may have failed in its Leninist ideals, but one thing it can be relied upon for is some synchronised stamping of the first order. I think North Korea leads the world on this one, but with China a close second, so I was expecting a military style drill from the kids. No tanks though, eh?

So it was pleasant to see a display not of a well-oiled auxilliary fighting force to be, but exactly the kind of listless efforts you'd expect from a group of sixteen to eighteen year olds forced to go through the motions of the ridiculous routine they've probably had to endure since the age of four. Some put in even less effort on seeing me trying my hardest to twist my mocking grin into a big smile of encouragement.

Yes, the entire thing is pointless as a workout. It only lasts for ten minutes, and I've seen more strenuous moves enacted by the ninety-year-old tai chi practitioners. But its value to me was as a display in collective realisation of the practice's own inherent ridiculous, and an insight into the at times refreshingly cynical perspective some of these kids have. No zealous exercising for good of the nation here; just the kind of half-arsed effort you'd see in a UK comp.

Not that being anything like a British school is a good thing; just that there are far more parallels than one sometimes realises. Ask any of the kids, or even the teachers, for their thoughts on the value of the collective exercise periods, and they will probably laugh and tell you not much.
Which gives me the suspicion that the whole thing is part of the Chinese sense of humour - one big joke, endured by the kids, who in turn will have the pleasure years from now sagaciously witnessing their own offspring going through the whole rigmarole.

While taking over the world.

Temper or temperance?

While cycling along my street today, I was cut up by a middle-aged woman on her overladen electric bike. The load on the back of her bike was at least three feet wide, and struck the front of my bike as she crossed my own unerringly straight path. I maintained control very easily, though the woman continued to cycle away as if nothing had happened, though it had been a noticeable impact. More eager to demonstrate my dire Chinese than anything else, I shouted “xiao xin” (careful) after her as she wobbled across the junction and up the road to my right. She immediately turned her head towards me (ignoring the oncoming stream of traffic that she was riding into) and launched into a tirade of what I assume was abuse, the potency of which demonstrated she knew exactly the reason why I was shouting at her, and knew she had hit me.

She cycled off still yelling, and though I was angered and slightly surprised by her reaction, it wasn't long before I started wondering what I had hoped to achieve by shouting at her, albeit a single and not impolite suggestion that she should watch where she was going.

It's not as if I was expecting her to stop and apologise, and I'm lucky that she carried on her way – a few weeks ago a friend of mine was struck in a similar situation, except the lady decided to fall over and try to claim damages, despite being undeniably in the wrong, resulting in a long and not exactly pleasant experience with the police. I have heard of other similar, and more harrowing, situations that foreigners find themselves in. If for some reason we had both stopped, we would have been completely incapable of carrying on any kind of argument, a throng of people would have inevitably gathered and I could quickly have found myself out of my depth. This later lead me to my usual violent revenge fantasies of being chased through the streets of Pudong by this mad fishy harridan until, cornered in an alleyway of her choosing, her trap is sprung, and I am advanced upon by her gang of drug-addled vagrant hags whom I have to beat to death with my saddle in a virtuoso display of my non-existent street-smarts and pit fighting skills.

Anyway, my own passive-aggressive pathology aside, was it anger that drove me to shout? I wasn't even that bothered by the incident, it was just her complete lack of acknowledgment, let alone a small sign of an apology on her part, that slightly annoyed me.

Similar situations happen to me and, I guess, everyone, all over the world. Sometimes it is better to let things go. Like with the guy in the supermarket queue yesterday who kept knocking his trolley into me, running over my foot at one point, no matter how close towards the checkout I moved. After putting up with this slight but annoying inconvenience three or four times, I was about to say something when I found myself at the front of the line. I'm glad I didn't as, when I looked back, instead of the vendetta-setting glare I expected to receive from him, he was unconcernedly staring into space. Obviously unaware that he had even impacted upon my consciousness, I could see that saying something would have just been counter-productive.

Most of the time we know this. But we still can't help ourselves. What is this drive to tell people what they should do, or point out people's errors, when we know it will probably only inflame a situation, and won't serve to make the world a better place at all?

I often find myself thinking about this when driving in the UK, wanting to teach the guy who is riding my rear bumper a lesson by slamming on my breaks, sacrificing myself and my no claims bonus to the greater glory of knowing I've taken at least one highway code-abusing dick out of comission; or fantasising that, when some sales and marketing dicklord speeds past me on a blind bend at 90mph, I'll turn the corner to see his hideously mutilated body trying to drag itself from the snarled wreckage of his SAAB, stretching his fractured arm out while gargling the word 'help' through his blood-filled mouth as I stand over him, laughing at his foolhardiness and the justice that centrifugal force and wet road surfacing have dealt him.

The point, if any, is that (especially in China) it is usually far more sensible to swallow your pride, or whatever force it is that drives us to tell people off when they infringe some unwritten law that we may consider to be universal, and only bother saying something if you've been seriously affected by their actions.

Though whether we can, or should do this, if we want the at least partially fictional and ethereal concept of society to be maintained, is another point.

And I know there's little more annoying than some interfering bastard pointing your minor infringements of the social contract out to you.

Xiao xin!

Noodles in ambrosia

There is a cuisine available across China that is one of the finest in the world. Fortunately for me, this cuisine is also available across my street. And fortunately, it involves little or no bones, entrails, gizzards or scrotums, as far as I can tell.

It is the food of the mid-Asian Muslims, though it may as well be the food of the gods. If Mohammad, Jesus, Siddharthra and Elvis were fixing up a place to dine, it would be no great surprise if they settled on one of these joints. Mohammad would be pleased by the ban on alcohol, Jesus would be relieved by the kosher menu, Siddharthra would dig the spartan surroundings, and there'd be enough fatty acids for Elvis to maintain his holy girth.

Yep, it's the damned finest and danged heartiest food you can ever hope to eat on a lymph-chillingly damp Shanghai winter's day. And it's cheap.

The scene is pretty much the same in the tiny and reassuringly tatty restaurants that dot most of the residential streets in my locality. Outside you will find a couple of huge, steaming steel pots, one filled with a cholesterol-laden stock, the other a receptacle for the fresh noodles that you can see being stretched before your very eyes in an eternally magical dance between man and flour.

Step through the permanently open sliding doors to be greeted by the sight of people hunched over steaming bowls of noodles, eagerly slurping the boiling goodness into their faces. The noodles are the selling point – presented in a soupy broth with chunks of beef, corriander and spring onions. The broth also comes by itself as an entree and, full of starch and msg, possibly has the highest good taste to unhealthiness ratio of anything you'll put in your mouth. I have just recently come off a fairly long-term addiction to the stuff.

But if you're not in the mood for oodles of noodles, there is still plenty on offer, conveniently presented in a pictorial 'point and say "那个" (that one)' format. Nearly all involve stupidly tasty bits of mutton or beef (again the msg), and there's even an approximation of spaghetti bolognese. With noodles, of course.

Do not be put off if the cleanliness of your chosen restaurant leaves something to be desired – this just shows that the family who run it are one hundred per cent focused on your taste experience. But if you're a germaphobe, try not to sit facing the kitchen.

If they haven't already, then someone should bring this cuisine to the UK. But then it'd probably be ten thousand times times more hygienic, ten thousand times more expensive, and the thousand times worse than the proper ones.

Health & safety is such a drag.

The girl next door

Right beside the gates to my dormitory is a small shack from where I buy my out-of-date Suntory when my beer stocks runs low, and the kids buy their lollipops, popping candy and pigs ears after a long arduous day of schooling. The girl who, along with her father, runs this operation, is one of the most eminently sweet creatures I have ever beholden. Always well dressed like some kind of Swedish indie-elf, she'll shyly serve me my three or four bottles of pijiu. I would often wonder what she did with her spare time - does she go to school? college? have a family of her own?. The only time I ever saw her outside of the stall was when she strayed out of it to buy some spunk-apples from a passing confectioner.

It was for my good friend Jon to, as he often does in all seemingly innocuous situations, spot the true horror of the girl's condition.

We used to tease Jon with the moniker 'slightly racist Jon', not really because he's a racist (though he may be a closet racist - you never can tell!), but, looking back, because of his cutting observations. That these observations were invariably about this strange new land is probably what lead to the nickname, and merciless teasing. Though I suspect that a good deal of Jon's cynicism was built upon this kind of treatment during his childhood, conditioning him into his current cynical ways and that he revels in it.

But the point is, I'm thinking his new tightly should be 'fairly observant Jon'. On the same trip, it was Jon who pointed out that my favourite pet shop "Happy Spirit Pets" was actually called "Happy Spirts Pets", thereby trumping my funny observation with an even more humorous one, and also casting doubt on my previous career which consisted in a large part of preofessional proof reading.

That's the multi-faceted kick-in-the-nuts you can expect when you're out-observationed by fairly observational Jon!

And, while being served by the girl's father at the tiny little store, it was fairly observant Jon who noticed that within the heap of rugs, blankets and rags beneath the side counter was the sleeping form of the girl. Could she have been so tired that she'd decided to crawl under there for a quick doze, before returning to her four bedroom, two-garage house in whatever the Shanghai equivalent of the Hamptons is?

No, much future observation by mine own eyes confirmed the truth: that the 7'x5' flimsy uninsulated tin shack serves as the permanent dwelling place of the girl. As to her father, I am unsure, but it would make sense, I suppose.

She has a TV, and there's a small area behind the back wall (I'm guessing, from further observation) which can't be much wider than a svelt man where they can probably brew tea and things. But how does she manage to stay looking so good. And being so humbly cheerful and smiley all the time!?

Anyway, I have made it my life's mission that, if I ever find myself in a position to be able to do so, I will return to this little shack decades from now, stepping from the doors of my private helicopter, monacle to my eye, coat-tails flapping in the breeze, stride up to the shack, tap on the window with my faux-ivory cane, and present the young girl with a fully-paid scholarship to an ivy league university of her choice.

That she'll be around 45 by then, wizened and mentally deficient after years spent imprisoned in a rickety shack and lack any of the mental, social or linguistic skills to ever hope to make anything of such a wonderful opportunity is by-the-by. Because for me to ever be able to offer anyone such a gift would require hard work, perseverance and ambition on my part. And that isn't going to happen.

Maybe I should just ask her for tips on successful shack-operating.

I think I'm turning Japanese
or
I dated a racist

It had been a pleasant afternoon in the coffee shop off Huai Hai road. Decent, relatively inexpensive coffees had been drunk, and this protagonist had just enjoyed his first pesto and pepperoni ciabatta in a long while. He had waxed wittily with his attractive date, they had ironed out the chinglish in her company reports, the talk had turned coquettish; he had already been promised dinner at her expense, after an hour or so shooting pool in his favourite pub.


The pool played, your protagonist vanquished, but seemingly nothing could spoil this pleasant Sunday of billiards. He had even splashed out on a couple of bottles of Abbots Ale for himself. Conversation revealed she was rich as well as attractive, if references to her maid and personal driver were to be believed. Tally ho! Conversation went swimmingly, until the following emanated uninvitedly from betwixt her lips:

"Y'know, I hate the Japanese. I mean, really hate them."

Him: "Um, weren't we just talking about whether China has sprouts?"

"Yeah, but I really hate them. They're all against China. They're all scheming against us."

Taken aback by the suddent vehemence of his interlocutor: "Um, what - all of them? Are you S-E-R-I-O-U-S?"

Alack and alas, despite her 18 months in an English university and, up to this point, unfaltable conversational skills, she persisted in her unprovoked attack on an entire race of people.

"They all want China to fail. I hate them so much. Once I was on holiday in Thailand, and these two guys introduced themselves to me and my friend. I could tell from their accent that they were Japanese, so I just blanked them."

"Er - you seriously hate an entire race of people?? On what basis?"

"Didn't you see? They like to eat sushi....sushi from naked women's bodies."

I did recall the (probably propagandarised) story of some Japanese businessmen eating sushi from the bare bodies of whores in China as part of a business deal.

"Yes, but that was just a few businessmen. There are nasty, rich people in all countries and cultures. You don't seriously believe that everyone in Japan, including the impoverished underclass, regularly dine from the naked flesh of Chinese courtesans?"

"Um, no...but..."

"And you say they're threatening China? How!?! What about North Korea?? They have the nuke! And China still supports the crooked regime over there. Surely that's more of a threat to security???"

"But the Japanese have nuclear weapons too!"

"Are you sure? For most of the last century they have been, militarily at least, little more than a vassal state of the US"

"They do it in secret!!!"

"But it's in America's interest to not allow them to have nuclear weapons, so I think you can be sure that Japan doesn't have them. Besides, nuclear powers such as the UK and France wouldn't allow it"

"So you're saying Japan, America, the UK and France are ganging up on China!?!?!?!?!?"

"No, no, no, just that your sweeping hatred of an entire nation based upon a few 'facts' fed to you by news agencies isn't really that well founded"

"Well....um....I hate them!"

Cue much objection, judging by her expression mostly lost, about racism and the wrongness of judging an entire group of people purely based on their biological/cultural/geographical origins etc.

What took me by surprise, apart from this altercation coming completely out of the clear blue, was her sudden switch from seemingly rational young woman to vehement, foaming-at-the-mouth hate monger. As in my sticky situation with class 10, I could barely believe she was serious. But she was. Despite the demonstrably unsound state of her "argument".

In a much-needed toilet break, I texted for advice.

"Tell her the Nazis were worse. Ha ha!" offered Dave.

"Either ignore her or tell her to stop being a nob." advised Matt.

Ironically enough, we offed to a hotpot restaurant on her advice, the cuisine of which by her own admission originated from Japan. Somehow we got onto the topic of Welsh/English animosity and I, not learning my lesson from previous encounters, decided to employ irony and sarcasm to illustrate my earlier point (vis a vis that she was very wrong for being a racist).

"So I hear English people don't like Welsh people very much?" says she.

"Oh.....oh no. Of course not!" (I) "They're evil! They're all against us and they're evil. They have nuclear weapons!"

"No, your lying!"

"Yes, yes they do! In secret! Just like the Scotch (sic) have Trident. They have nukes. In secret. AGAINST US!!!! AND WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ALL THE SHEEP!!!???"

"What do you mean?"

"They're amassing on the border. To invade. TO INVADE"

etc etc

The rest of the evening played out okay.Rather than tell her to fuck off home, I relied upon my usual crutch of alcohol to get me through the evening, and managed not to become too aggressive about her stupid opinions, that had destroyed whatever vestiges of belief in cultural relativism may have remained in my mind. There's really no excuse for that kind of thinking.

After parting ( we did not kiss, though to my shame I will probably see her again) I took the tube. As I stood and swayed, the guy sat next to me played on his PSP. Another guy in white socks, scuffed black shoes and a cordurouy collar hoiked one out onto the carriage floor. I listened to the Clash's "Spanish Bombs" and Martha and the Muffins 'Echo Beach' on my mp3 player, and felt pretty okay.