"Good impregnated boy"

I still can't conjure up the right words to describe how I feel about the below observation:

On my way home from work one night this week, I stopped by one of the thousands of (pirated) DVD street stands to pick up 5 movies (as one does out here).  In China, (pirated) DVDs cost around 5 yuan each.. or 50 pence/75 US cents.  It's impossible to resist.  Most of the time, the DVDs are actually great quality, as they're taken from good sources.. and all of these movies come ready-made with English subtitles.  Good, right?  Not so much.  I'm not really going to go into my personal theory about who in the world has the wonderfully amusing job of writing pirated Chinese DVD subtitles... but I'll let you form your own opinion based on samples from The Adventures of Tin Tin (don't judge, it was my favourite childhood book... and not as R-rated as the subtitles may suggest). I think these speak for themselves:

Movie: Tell me what you paid, and I'll give you double.
Subtitle: How much did you pay your penis? Hepatica double the price.

(WHAT????)

Movie: Then let me appeal to your better nature.
Subtitle: Let us then invoke a build environment.

Movie: Look what you did.
Subtitle: See you made a measurement.

(I seriously need to find a way to break into this market.  Suggestions welcome.)

Movie: That depends what you're looking for.
Subtitle: Depends on the penis measurements were looking for.

Movie: Goodnight, sir.
Subtitle: Good employee, sir.

Movie: Well done, my boy
Subtitle: Good impregnated boy.


So, on the plus side, we're paying basically nothing for DVDs out here... but the downside is that I, personally, never get around to actually seeing the movies I try to buy... I'm glued to the subtitles.  Only in China, I suppose... yet again.

Another hellish journey to another paradise

My friend Chris and I decided to take a small vacation and hop on down to Thailand for a week to escape the Shanghai winter.  After a splendid night and day in Bangkok, it was time to start the journey to get down to Koh Phangnan island in time for the famous Half Moon Jungle party... and our trip was nothing short of a test of our wills to survive.

In Thailand, even Ronald McDonald is zen

We were on a budget, so we decided to book an overnight train, followed by a ferry to the island.  Once we were on the sleeper, exhausted from a day of sight-seeing and desperate to rejuvenate ourselves before arriving on the island, we decided it would be cool to make friends with our train-mates, if you will, as we'd be spending the next 12 hours next to them.  Sadly, however, it took all of about 5 minutes for us to realise that this was a bad idea.  Our neighbours, a couple of Australian students on vacation, didn't seem to understand the following words: quiet, calm, subtle, peace, and once again, quiet.

Much desired peace and quiet found in the gardens of a Buddhist school

I won't go into the details about how I had the pleasure of listening to them hit on 2 Hungarian girls for 6, yes 6, straight hours.  Nor will I go into specifics about how they complained about the weather in Thailand for 2 straight hours before distracting themselves with their female companions.  But my personal favourite, coming from the Peace and Justice Studies student circa 12.30am (when everyone on the train was asleep save our friends), was this "cute" attempt to make one of the Hungarians laugh:

"That girl in that bed is Palestinian", he attempted to croon, to which she replied (with a horrible attempt at a flirtatious giggle): "Oh, so what if someone is Jewish?" "She'll shoot them."

Well, if I'd had a gun at this specific moment in time, I certainly would have shot it.  Directly at the "Peace and Justice Studies" student who, hours before, pretended to take great interest in my background.. Well, I admit that I can sympathise with an awkward boy trying to impress a girl... but this would have been one of the worst attempts of hitting on someone that I've ever witnessed if it weren't for one small detail.  The damn Hungarian actually laughed at the "joke".  So loudly, in fact, that it woke up half of the train.  So, one poor attempt at making the girl laugh was actually received well by the girl... too bad my imaginary gun didn't have two bullets in it... I'd have named them "peace" and "justice".

It was finally 1am when our friends decided to retire for the evening, giving the rest of us 5 uninterrupted hours of sleep before the sun came up.  How thoughtful, really.

Buddha was protecting our Ozzie "mates"

Anyway, once we did finally wake up, we were in the middle of the Thai bush, supposedly minutes away from Surat Thani (our destination).  I was a little nervous, as I had no idea where we were, and I kept imagining my parents freaking out at the prospect of me hiking through the jungle without the smallest clue as to what I was doing... nothing out of character for me, but let's be real, one tends to be rather selective when telling their parents about the less than thought out things they do.

But as the sun started rising, all of my fears, rather my parents' imaginary fears, drifted away.  I'd found another paradise.  It's hard to imagine that a place like the Thai jungle (and especially Koh Phangnan island) is even on the same earth as Shanghai, which lacks any and all nature... save the plant in my living room (and keeping that alive is a struggle enough). But, damn, it was good to know that it still existed.

Sunrise in the Thai jungle

And we skipped off the train happily (rather ecstatically knowing that we were finally rid of the Ozzies), expecting to be at hour hotel in a matter of hours.  Granted, the lady at the tourism agency assured us that once we got off the train, it would be a 15-minute shuttle bus and 1 and a half hour ferry to the island.  Wrong.  It was a 2 and a half hour bus ride followed by a 2 and a half hour ferry (where we were sadly forced to sit near our Hungarian companions)... not as horrible of a journey as one might expect; however, it would have been lovely to be mentally prepared. As the minutes passed, and we had no idea how long it would actually be until we reached destination, we grew more and more anxious about what exactly it was that we'd gotten ourselves into.  But finally the moment came.  The ferry docked on the wonderful island, and we were free to roam as we pleased.

So, after more than 18 hours of travelling, we finally made it to the real paradise. (I use the term loosely here... we were shuttled in the back of an old pick-up truck to our shanty-town bungalow hotel/construction site... a rather off-putting end to our journey until we actually reached the beach and saw that we were in good hands).

I often wonder why I do this to myself... endure these crazy measures to get to places that I've only heard about in movies (and failed to research before heading there).  But I guess nothing that spectacular comes easily.  Well, actually, had we flown down, the journey would not have been quite so arduous, but it was certainly worth it to get to see the Thai countryside... once.  (Admittedly, I flew home due solely to the petrifying thought that I might encounter the Australians again and prove their shooting prophecy true). But all in all, the trip was worth every second.

Sunset on the Thai beach

I'd like to go into more details about our adventures on the island, but we made a pact that what happened in Thailand stays in Thailand (insert collective rolling of the eyes here)... not to worry though, we wrote the best of the stories down so that they can be revealed on the timely occasion of one of our weddings.  So, whoever gets married first will be lucky enough to have our antics told to all their friends and family, who will all hopefully be too drunk to remember anyway.  But for now, I'm going to close the vault on Thailand until the time is right, and continue telling my Shanghai story for those of you who remain interested. Until next time... 

The world's worst pickpocket

This is a story about perhaps one of the weirder attempts to break the law that I've ever witnessed..

I decided to walk home from work tonight, physical activity being rarity for me out here because I'm too unmotivated to join a gym and the pollution makes it bad to run outside... (ok fine, I just don't like exercising). Anyway, so I was walking down a pretty crowded street with nice malls sprinkled around at every other block (welcome to China), and I turned onto a smaller street and felt the presence of someone rather close behind me.  Granted, out here, the laws of what is socially acceptable as appropriate physical proximity differ greatly from those in the west.. so I didn't think too much about it.

So, I'm walking around with my headphones in tucked neatly behind my huge earmuffs (which also happen to slightly block my peripheral view), and a great song comes on my iphone, so I start moving my head back and forth and thinking about how in 72 hours, I'll be hanging up my winter jacket for the week and heading south for a vacation (head in the clouds, as always).  As a result of my awkward movement down the street, I assumed that the creeper behind me was just trying to get past me so he/she/it could walk faster along the street and away from the crazy, bouncing westerner that was me. But then, the unthinkable happened.  My music stopped... mid-song; mid-thoughts of white sandy beaches and warm sun.  Being so abruptly forced to return to back to the freezing reality of Shanghai is really just not ok.

I turned around and saw the shadow that was once behind me now directly to my left, and I looked at him, raised my eyebrows like a mother who just caught her horribly unsubtle child elbows-deep in the cookie jar (we've all been that kid), and to my disbelief, the guy smiled at me, returned my phone to me, winked at me, and walked away.  I started laughing at him as he walked away, and he kept looking back at me sheepishly, somewhat smiling, somewhat panicked about what I might do... and I kept looking back at him laughing.  Granted, it was pure luck that I had that awkward and accusatory expression on my face when I turned to him (maybe I have permanent skink-eye, who knows), but his reaction slash attempt to wink his way out of it was even funnier.

I'm not sure what to make of the situation... except that I definitely got lucky that he returned my phone to me.  Maybe it was the gaping crack on the back of my phone, or maybe it was pity as he saw me snap back into sad reality, but either way, I don't care.. except now I have to spend the evening backing up every little detail of my phone in case it happens again.  I hate the thought of losing the "notepad" on my phone... filled with the random thoughts that pop into my head every day (trust me, I need the phone to keep track of them, because people certainly don't want or need to hear them).

Moral of the story? I would say don't listen to music while walking because that's what pickpockets target.. but that's exactly how I realised that my phone went missing.  From now on though, I'm definitely going to practice giving out dirty (and pathetic) looks in the mirror.. I'm convinced that's what got my phone back.  Only in China...