Chinese people love money.
They love money so much that they’ve come up with some
innovative, yet completely illegal, ways of making a few extra kuai. Here are
some of the best I’ve seen:
Roadworks
The main road running through the city is under construction
at the moment. I know they’re building underneath the road, but not too sure
what they’re actually building down there. Some conflicting stories are 1)
They’re building an underground mall 2) They’re building an underground car
park (which would be the most sensible option, so that can’t be it), 3) They’re
building a nuclear attack shelter (considering the paranoia these people have
about Japanese attacks, this is probably what’s being built). Either way, I’m
just waiting for this to happen:
Notice, she still has her schoolbag on her back! Guaranteed she
got home to a bollocking from her parents for wasting time and not doing
homework.
Back to the point.
So with all this construction going on, there’s a lot of
workmen doing various things involving dirt and machines (construction knowledge
right there). Unlike SOME workmen in the UK, these people don’t get paid by the
hour, they get paid depending on how much work they do; which is a lot in
fairness. Also unlike British workmen, you will never see a Chinese worker
wearing fluorescents, overalls or boots. Oh, no, no. That’s way too sensible.
Instead, they wear suits! Not necessarily a matching suit jacket and trousers.
But always a suit jacket and some sort of trousers. The most favourable
combination it seems, is a combination of a tweed jacket and cords. Fetching! Ties
are optional. This all changes in the summer, when clothes generally are
optional.
Still not at the actual point. Need to work on that.
So, these workers apparently don’t get paid enough. So they’re
always looking to make a bit of extra money on the side, or on the side of the
MAIN freaking ROAD in this case. With all this construction going on there’s
tonnes of rubble, dust, dirt and sand piled up on the side of the road. Usually
beside the hole that this rubble came from; unearthing water pipes, electricity
cables and god knows what else. Now some genius Chinese guy has bought a batch
of about 100 plastic spades and is renting them out to parents with young
children, so their kids can play in the piles of rubble! This guy stands there
in between digging holes himself, taking in a shedload of money from parents
who want to shut their kids up. Genius. He stands there gloating to his
colleagues then with the wad of cash he’s just earned. Absolute genius. What
toddler doesn’t want to get dirty? I hope to shake this guy’s hand someday. A
great big middle finger to the government and lack of minimum wage.
Grandma’s house
Most apartments in China are relatively small and every
building is crammed next to another. Yet there’s still quite a bit of empty
land. Although I’m sure it won’t be empty for long. The government owns all of
this land so most people wouldn’t dare touch it. Unless these people were
longstanding members of the comm***st party that is. Here’s what you need to
know.
CNP + parents in the CNP + grandparents in the CNP =
untouchable
I was invited to spend the mid-autumn festival with the
family of a colleague of mine, so we spent the afternoon in his parents’ house
with the entire family. They lived in a ground floor apartment in a pretty
basic block of flats near the mountains. As they were on the ground floor they
assumed that they had the right to use all the ground surrounding the block (as
you do). Some of the things they used the land for were; a shed to keep
chickens, which were tied to bricks with a piece of string; a vegetable patch;
a bathroom/open space; and 2 other apartments.
This 70 odd year old woman and her husband, who had been in a
motorbike accident the week before, had spent the morning looking for building
materials to build a third apartment. Not by nipping in to Jewsons to buy a few
hundred bricks and cement, but my rummaging around construction sites to see
what they could find. They would then organise these bricks into some sort of
cube-like structure until they had what they called an apartment. No cement was
used, there was nothing to attach the roof to the walls except a few strands of
the string (I assume they had to let a chicken go in order to do this) and the
only thing that stopped the “door” from caving in on itself was a wooden broom
handle laid across the top of it. They then charged young families to live in
these death shacks.
Clever senior citizens. Stupid tenants. Although I’m
guessing they must have been a bit desperate to live there. These poor people
were making money from even poorer people.
Side story:
The best thing about mid-autumn festival is the mooncake.
It’s basically a filling of absolutely anything covered in pastry. For me it
was pot luck, as I can’t read Chinese I had to make do with whatever was handed
to me. Sometimes I was lucky and got the red bean filling, other times I was
unlucky and got duck egg. It certainly
rattles your nerves biting in to one of them in front of a whole Chinese family,
whose 90 year old matriarch had spent days making these.
Anyway, as I was whole heartedly welcomed into this family
for the day, I had to make the effort with the grandmother, which involved
using the very little Chinese I possess, refilling her tea and handing her
mooncakes. I couldn’t understand a word
she was telling me, but she kept repeating herself in the hope that I’d
eventually understand what she was saying. So I asked my colleague to step in
and translate, this is how the conversation went.
Me: What is she saying Tommy?
T: She’s saying she likes….errrrr….errrrr….black semen
Mooncake spluttered everywhere
Me: WHAT does she like? (Oh god not another one of these
conversations)
T: Black semen (Ok, he’s perfectly aware of what he’s
saying)
Me: Right, ok (don’t have any on me I’m afraid)
Praying for this conversation to end, but it got worse before it got
better
T: Have you tried the black semen?
Me: Errrr ghjewkhgbf;v
T: What? Have you? Do you like it?
Me: Errrrr… Do you like it? (I may get into politics when I
get back)
T: A little, but I make a mess with it
Me: Oh Jesus
That was it. He left me with his 90 year old black semen
loving grandmother, who just sat there smiling at me. I was racking my brains
out trying to think of what he could have meant. He’s mistranslated this before
and it turned out he meant cement. But there was no way cement fitted into this
context.
It was a few minutes later when the grandmother turned to
me, with her mouth full, pointing at her lips and putting her thumbs up. Ohhhhh
yey she obviously likes something. Then her grandson turned around and said
“She’s got some black semen and she wants to share it with you”.
“Oh. Yey” .
She then opened her hand and then it all clicked. She was holding
half a black SESAME filled mooncake. Sesame. Freaking sesame. Did I correct the
guy? No. That would have involved an awkward conversation about the definition
of semen. So, I’ll let some other poor, unsuspecting foreigner fill him in on
that one.
Turns out black semen flavoured mooncakes are good. No
wonder she liked them.
Employing a foreigner
Advertising that a foreigner works for you. Since I started
working in a kindergarten the school has added my face to their posters and has
increased the school fees by 1000yuan per term. 1000yuan!! I do nothing except
get spewed upon, tell mothers that their children are cute, teach “clap clap
1,2,3”, pose for photos with the other teachers (during the time they are
supposed to be teaching) and generally act like a clown. There’s 200 kids in
this kindergarten, that’s an extra 200,000rmb per term. I’m definitely starting
my own kindergarten/circus.
Owning a manpurse
Carrying 400,000rmb in cash in a man purse wherever you go,
just incase “friends need to borrow money”. This man is a loan shark. He’s the
brother in law of another colleague and every time I go to dinner with them,
this man jets off with his little purse for half an hour or so, comes back and
acts like he was there the whole time. I started questioning and this is what I
was told:
“I don’t trust him. He borrows money from people and
promises to give it back to them with interest. I don’t understand how he can
make so much money from lending money to his friends and getting them to pay
him back. I don’t trust him at all, so I only gave him 10,000yuan for 2 years”.
Waw. Naïve.
Every time I see him now I keep an eye out for blood marks
on his clothes (quite difficult to spot on a leather jacket), knuckle dusters
in his pockets, a violin case or if he sneaks a chopstick from the table as he
leaves.
Begging
There’s quite a lot of beggars in the city. Some of whom are
disabled. Others are just old and without a job. Rule number 2 of living in
China is to always carry change in your pocket. There is nothing worse than passing
a beggar and not giving him money, especially when every single Chinese person
assumes that foreigners are minted. But anyway, I’ve chosen my favourite beggar.
The first time I walked passed him, sitting on the floor near the duck neck
vendor, I thought to myself “What the hell is this white guy doing sitting on
the floor? ”. Then I got nearer and that initial excitement of seeing another
foreigner got subdued by the realisation that this “white guy” was in fact a
blind albino. Nice one Merrigan.
Not many people can say they’ve seen an albino Chinese guy.
So naturally, I had to blog about it. I’m not yet brave enough to take a photo,
not that he’d know I was taking one. Rule
number 1 is to always carry a camera in with you, photo opportunities on every
corner.
He sometimes sings. Badly.
And yes I do give him money. I hope he invests it in singing
lessons.
I’m going to hell.
Mentioning the J country, the com****t party and a youtube
link in one post. If god doesn’t decide to kill me off in my sleep tonight then
I’m sure Voldy will do the job.
