March 31, 2009

The Ladybars of Sanlitun

My Irish flatmate arrived five days after I had moved in to my apartment. To welcome him a night on the town was in order. He was keen on visiting the House of Suzie Wong's. Supposedly a trendy Beijing club visited by Chinese ladies looking to snag Westerners, it turned out to be salsa night. After catching a few performances, we hurriedly left.


The night was still young so we took a taxi to the bar street in Sanlitun, Beijing's most famous nightlife area. I had been warned not to come here since it catered to the depraved. We were greeted by a line of brightly lit establishments with neon decor and groups of sinister individuals offering us ladies. We declined the offers and found a place with live music. Inside, a man offered to draw our portraits and a woman tried to sell us flowers. Once the band called it a night, so did we.

*****

Chinese tout: Lady?
Frenchman: Absolutely not.
Chinese tout, leaning in with eyebrow raised: Sorry?

March 30, 2009

Prejudice

My Chinese market research company conducted several English language focus groups in Beijing. My colleagues had to transliterate the comments the participants had scrawled on the worksheets that had been given to them. The writing was by and large quite messy. I provided valuable assistance in deciphering the more difficult to read words. One lady at the office asked what the word "prejudice" meant, so I explained that it is having an opinion in advance that colours someone's judgement.

Chinese lady:  I have prejudice against you. Right?
Arnab: Yes, but it's bad to have a prejudice.
Chinese lady: I can say you have prejudice against me. You have prejudice against me.
Arnab: How?
Chinese lady: I really beautiful, but you thought no.


*****

See also: Pride (totally unrelated)

March 27, 2009

Shop Talk

While I worked as a primary developer of product releases at ResponseTek, several new terms were introduced into the technical lexicon:
  • ARNABranch - Whenever features, changes, or bug fixes had to be developed, I requested a branch of the code base to work on.
  • ARNABuild - As I made rapid progress on my project, I would roll out incremental packages tot the quality assurance (QA) team so that they could validate and verify my work.
  • ARNABug - Occasionally an ARNABuild behaved in an untoward manner. These ARNABugs were not necessarily introduced in the current ARNABranch, although they were detected in it.
  • ARNABeta - When software is ready to be tried by its users but is still not ready for the big time, a 'beta' label is slapped on it. ARNABetas looked very good but rarely worked.

March 26, 2009

Taiwanese Tease

As a highly appreciated objet d'art I have always been heavily photographed by everyone from Joe Public to various subject matter experts (SMEs). A goal of mine was to be photographed by strangers for reasons not purely aesthetic. Being an alien in China, the time was ripe for me to be picturized for looking different, and not just for looking gorgeous. I thought my wish had come true at Shanghai Airport, but alas it was not to be.

I stood at the entrance to the terminal and a group of tourists gathered near me. They exchanged nervous glances and spoke to each other in hushed tones, before sending an emissary to approach me. The young fellow asked me if I could pose with his sister for a picture. I happily obliged and he thanked me for my kindness. He told me he was a fireman from Taiwan and then leaned in conspiratorially, whispering in my ear "My sister thinks you are very handsome". My dream shattered, I cast a scintillating gaze in her direction. She blushed and looked downwards.

March 17, 2009

The Place To Be

Q: Have you been to "The Place"?
A: Which place?
Q: The Place?


Beijing is full of fancy shopping malls, but a few stand apart from the rest. The Place is one of them. Asia's largest LCD screen covers an open air plaza that is part of the upscale shopping complex. 250m long and 30m wide, an array of LED's dot the massive overhead screen. A film about the solar system was being played on the giant screen, as its capabilities were showcased to the audience beneath. A slightly larger screen in Las Vegas takes the top prize, but the Place also boasts a Ferrari store where the salesmen are dressed in the signature red Formula 1 outfits donned by the team.