China-exclusive things you'd like to take an Uzi to

Elevators stopping at midnight. What about people who go on trips? And emergency? And the building has like 20 floors? Argh.

And relatedly...padlocking the exit doors after midnight. I guess emergencies and fires only happen before midnight.

Yeah the side door for our block gets locked at about 8pm.  We can still get in through the front gate but it's annoying as a few good shops are out the side.  It must do wonders for their business 

You're keeping a polite distance behind the person in front of you in line?  Sweet, just enough room for me to barge through like I was there in the first place.

You won't say a thing, will you, bitch? 

Why can't I buy soap that won't bleach me white? I'm not white, don't want to be.

No twist off beer caps. Many a lighter I have destroyed because i couldn't find an opener.

Is the chalk here made out of talcum powder?

QQ is a virus. Use a flash drive and bring the virus home with you.

If you don't eat dinner by 5:30 you will die.

I'm up at 6:30am on Sundays so obviously everyone else is too. Why not pay them a visit? but you know foreigners, to be polite, I will call first while I'm standing in front of the door.

I'm not a big McDonald's guy but where is the apple pie? Pineapple? TARO 

Dude, I have 10 ashtrays in the house, If you throw your butt on my wood floor one more time, I will not be responsible for my behaviour.

Fruit or nut flavours for ice cream. Not, I repeat not vegetables.

Yes i can use chopsticks. Thank you, my parents are indeed very proud.

How many beers can you drink? Ummm, well ... how many do you have?

Why does every taxi have a shift change at dinner rush hour.

Where are you from?
I'm from Canada.
Oh, do you know Bob?

Since there are no elevators in this building, for your convenience we have made it only 8 stories high.

China is very safe so there is no need for outdoor lights. Anywhere.

That is not bread, that is a doughnut.

How many Chinese repairmen does it take to change a light bulb and why are they using a hammer?

The temperature is 35C but I better wear my winter clothes because it's only April.

I don't like coffee it's too bitter. Would you like some preserved orange peel?

You sneezed. Better get an IV drip STAT!

Aaaah Stilly! Irony looks good on you!

 -The ones I would take an Uzi to are the Chinese bands who play music in restaurants, usually two people, one with an electric piano and two microphones. I have been to several good restaurants in Hangzhou where they had these bands. They are all so loud that one could not make conversation.

People who play the same song over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.................. (you know what I mean)

The whole concept of toasting people. I don't know who started the tradition, but I wish they would PUH-LEEEZE stop it. I don't want to guzzle glass after glass of beer until I am foolish, pissing and incoherent. If you turn down their toast, they're feelings are hurt. This kind of drinking is dangerous. One Chinese New Years, we got into a violent fight after drinking way too much wine at a party and I was so sad for several weeks for what happened. Now when we go out, we usually stick with the beer, only because it is only 3% or less per volume.

Uzi the Siwo Beer Factory in Hangzhou. Nuff said.

That Mother Fulker who took my (Chinese) wife's beautiful straight, black hair, and permed and curled it, then colored it brown. She likes it. I don't. She wont tell me who did it because she knows I will cut his thumbs off. (I like the straight black traditional hair, although I saw a hottie last night with a perm. Sometimes they are OK, mostly it's .

The idea of having to work the weekend before May 1 or October 1 holiday. I've grown to accept it as a twice a year inconvience, but it still pisses me to work 7 to 9 straight days to get a week off. I have tried to explain the western system, but it never sinks in.

The excessive talking that Chinese do to question a simple request or command.

The person who gave my wife the notion that oral sex is unhygenic.

Whoever the asshole at McDonalds China who replaced pickles with CUCUMBERS! On that note, Uzi the General Manager of Carrefour for taking out my sweet pickles and canned baked beans, and moving all the exits around to force your customers through the crappy indoor shopping mall upstairs (Carre- is in the basement.)

Is DaShan still around? I have a friend who recently went home who spoke excellent Chinese (and a speaker of Japanese and Korean to a good degree) and the Chinese usually told him that he was as good as Da Shan. I just hate the guy because he is rich and speaks better Chinese than me.

The people on West Lake who bother me wanting to solicit a "Massag-ie."

Those kids who hand out those stupid business cards on the street. Or basically anyone trying to beg or sell me stuff that I haven't solicited for.

Shoot the shopkeepers who wont leave me alone when I look at their things. No, I have no questions. No, I do not want that. Please ignore me. Same as eating out in a nice restaurant. When I walk into a restaurant and have two or three people following and shadowing me. Asking me if I want help and directing me to sit when I don't want to sit, and made to be an asshole when I don't sit. Many times I am meeting my wife or other people for lunch and hate when the staff follows me around like I am some intruder. I have been short with these people and told them to "Zou Kai!"

Going into a restaurant, being handed a menu and being shadowed by her presence while I am looking at the menu, and does not understand the concept of "Bring me my drink first and I'll look at the menu. We should Uzi the one waitress who offers one menu to four people.

Chou Dofu. If I was the Emperor of China, Chou Dofu would be outlawed.

Chinese television is awful . I never watch it except with the wife. CCTV 9 is mostly a joke too. CCTV 9 was not created for foreigners, it was made for Chinese who speak English, hence the dull programming. Edwin Maher is still a pimp though.

People who shake those dice in the bar. Since the music is too loud for anyone to have an intellegent conversation, this inane, illogical, make up your own rules as you go along bull- game is a good substitute.

People who get offended if I forget their name. Thanks for knowing my name, but I have'nt seen you for 4 months and I hardly know you to begin with.

Foreigners who speak Chinese to each other.

The Chinese distributor for Carlsburg Beer. Nobody drinks that shit outside the bars. People drink it in the bars (at least in Hangzhou) because it's the only one on tap at a reasonable price. (the unreasonable ones being the Trappist Monk bullshit ale and  Irish Motor Oil)

The dude that takes the pictures of the nude girls you see in those plastic wrapped magazines at the airport. I'd kill him for his job.

Those apartment security guards who tell you that you can't use your apartment swimming pool except during the hours of 4 to 8 when there will be a 100 little yellow arseholes making the water more yellow with their pee.

The guy who said that Heaven was Hangzhou and Earth was Suzhou or whatever that phrase is. Hangzhou is good, but it's no Honolulu.

The inventor of the Squat toilet.

The people who brought Starbucks to China.

Two guys in Hangzhou. I can't do it. I'd get caught.

Senor

Hola, Senor!! 
It's a good thing that you were in a happy mood when you composed this short list, otherwise we might have really gotten to know how you feel!! 

You've just killed me!  I like some of those things.  I love playing shaizi in the bars (even bought 4 sets so that we can play it at parties here!). Slows the drinking down a bit, and we always end up with 'help' from the surrounding patrons, so it makes it more fun.

Squat toilets are better for when you have la duzi - actually more healthy overall. At la duzi events I really wish I had one in my apartment.

If your wife likes her hair - then ... as a good husband - you should too! 

I don't mind the toasting thing - but I will agree that it can get out of hand. "Sui ni" works for me rather than the 'zhende ganbei".

I speak Chinese with foreigners - alone we practice with each other to improve, in company we include the Chinese people who are with us (I had dinner last week and we spoke exclusively in Chinese, even though there was another foreigner eating with me - 3 Chinese 2 of us - even talking to each other we spoke Chinese because it would have been rude not to when the 2/3 of the Chinese people at dinner couldn't speak English). Sometimes it gets to the stage where I am not sure which language I was asked a question in! I also have a lot of 'foreign' foreign friends - ie other nationalities and sometimes it's easier to explain things in Chinese than English because it is a 'more' common language.  Many people back home get miffed at foreigners who speak their own language in our countries - how often have you heard/thought - they should learn to speak English? 

My timetable this semester means that I get 11 days off over the October week!!  Yehaa!!

I have tried to explain the western system, but it never sinks in.

And I've just taken an Uzi to you!! Telling people how to do it just like back home!

This is probably why we leave the Uzis back home - there are bits that some of us hate that others like or do!!

Uh, huh... This is just what I feared... We're beginning to aim  the Uzi at one another!   

Well, what did you expect, westerners are the most armed people in the human universe, especially the Americans amongst us.  As for myself, I would take an uzi to FT's in China who basically hate being here and love letting everyone know exactly just how much they hate China and the Chinese.

That Mother Fulker who took my (Chinese) wife's beautiful straight, black hair, and permed and curled it, then colored it brown. She likes it. I don't. She wont tell me who did it because she knows I will cut his thumbs off.

Hear, hear.  Your appearance, within the guidelines of the workplace, is not your choice foremost, but your spouse's, the person who a) has to look at you, and b) has regular sex with you.

Laowai who complain about China and the Chinese, in the presence of a Chinese person.  Forcing someone to defend their country is inconsiderate and gauche, and with the Chinese, whose lifelong training says avoid confrontation, it's plain cowardly.

Laowai who act like assholes in public, hurting us all.  I have proposed before that we should each be responsible for 'disappearing' those assholes hailing from our home countries.

Well spoken, Con!

Just Looking at some of these (very amusing) points…

QQ – totally agreed.  I have banned all Chinese visiting relatives from installing the stupid thing.  My brother in law listened as I told him that he couldn’t install it, I deleted it from the computer, wnet out for a few hours and came back to find that he had reinstall it.  His excuse?  He needed to use it to talk to a prospective employer!  FFS I had a phone in the house with free calls (within China).  What a rubbish excuse!

Oh – and the chalk!  Either it collapses, or at the other extreme (which I find happening more often) it goes all hard and becomes impossible to write with, just making a scratching noise on the board!

I quite like the icecream here.  Sure, it’s not a patch on the amazing icecreams I had back in the UK, which were made locally to where my parents live, but then 1 RMB for a cone is pretty amazing, and they have this hamigua flavour outside my house which is delicious.

I love the ‘how many beers can you drink’ question.  If it’s of the more pissy local beers, I agree, there really is no limit other than how full you are.  It’s actually quite difficult to get drunk on some of that stuff (no, I’m not looking at you, Singo beer of Wuhan, you stuff so weak you wouldn’t even get into an American beer convention).  Others, like Panax/Dalian Dry Beer here in Dalian (which I suspect of containing marijuana), can get you really nicely sizzled after about 5-6 bottles.

I agree with lotus about squat toilets.  Western ones in public would just get too utterly filthy here.  It’s the lack of bog roll in toilets that bothers me more.  It’s just irritating.

Oh, and the cabs changing shift between six and seven., 

That has to be one of THE most annoying things of all!  Where I am now, it's quite a nice, small, self-contained little area, so we don't really get cabs (if we need to travel into the main city we've got the airconditioned light railway to help us out).  And the local buses here are actually very good.

But in Wuhan, where the buses were awful (although Mrs CD sometimes forced me to get them anyway to save money), like rattling, bashed-up sardine cans, whenever I did get permission to get a cab, like when I had to get to the railway station within an hour, it would always somehow be when the cabs were changing shift.  Why do they do that?  Why not stagger it?  At the most inconvenient time of day!  It really does beggar belief.

Oh, great! Now we jump from the sweeping use of "The Chinese..." to "The Americans..."