So what is life like for Chris Pelyk in Beijing you might be wondering, I really hope you would have better things to do than ask yourselves that question, but if you don’t then please keep reading……
Lets see I have had some funny, scary, sick, drunk, feed up, what am I doing, Jesus speak English, Jesus I wish I spoke Chinese, god dam traffic, god dam bikes and dogs, great conversation, nice bum on her, what the hell am I eating, where the hell am, oh this taste awful, does she like me, oh I wish I spoke French better (good story with that , oh this taste good (Talking about food for you gutter minded people). Jesus that is fucking spicy and I do mean spicy think hottest chicken wings you ever had and multiply that 3 times, dam that’s cheap, dam that’s really cheap, no way am I go the bathroom in there, oh a 5 star hotel time to go the bathroom even if I don’t have to go oh wow that guy is riding a motorcycle smoking and taking on his cell phone quick call Circ Du Sole and sign that guy up oh and sign the guy up who I once saw taking a pee with his pants around his ankles, smoking and on cell phone and one hand on his Johnson, well maybe not Circ but call someone it was funny to see and lastly the many taxi drivers who could be in NASCAR, these are just a handful of moments from any given week from my China adventure.
I must say so far my life has been an adventure in China, basically everything I had kind of guessed it would be and a bit more.
Monthly Archive for September, 2006
Line Up Hell No
Like a lot of people in the world I am just not a big fan of line ups. Now lines ups in China now that’s a whole new meaning. Jumping the Q, budding in line, is like a national past time here I am looking into seeing if it is possible to get into included in the Olympics for 2008.
Sometimes waiting in line in the supermarket someone will literally step directly in front of me and try and get into line ahead of me, well they are messing with the wrong foreigner there is a new Sheriff in Town and his name is Chris Pelyk.
I am not some push over that you can take advantage of. I have so far on two separate occasions literally grabbed the person and pushed them out of the line and pointed to the back of the line. The startled look on their face should be on one of those MasterCard priceless commercials. Most of the time I just literally push them aside, step around them all the while giving them my evil don’t mess with this sheriff look, and that so far has worked.
Groceries 10$ Honey Comb Cereal $6.00 Telling a “budder” in English move to back of the line PRICELSS.
Line ups at the subway are different as many people just make a bee line to ticket window regardless of the line and put money down and the ticket lady gives them a ticket I have not yet figured out a way to stop that. Getting on the subway it seems to be no holds bard free for all kind of like a mini Royal Ruble that the WWF should look at incorporating into one of their Wrestle Mana’s The question is where is Hulk Hogan or the Macho Man when you need them to make some space for you.
Another common budding place is fast food restaurants where many people literally just push past you and wave money in font of the cashier so they get service and don’t care that there was a line they then ignore the fact that 5 people were actually in a line ahead of them. I sometimes wish I was working at MacDonald’s as it would not matter if you budded you would not get served, I simply would not take their order, would love to see another Priceless commercial on that.
Like a lot of people in the world I am just not a big fan of line ups. Now lines ups in China now that’s a whole new meaning. Jumping the Q, budding in line, is like a national past time here I am looking into seeing if it is possible to get into included in the Olympics for 2008.
Sometimes waiting in line in the supermarket someone will literally step directly in front of me and try and get into line ahead of me, well they are messing with the wrong foreigner there is a new Sheriff in Town and his name is Chris Pelyk.
I am not some push over that you can take advantage of. I have so far on two separate occasions literally grabbed the person and pushed them out of the line and pointed to the back of the line. The startled look on their face should be on one of those MasterCard priceless commercials. Most of the time I just literally push them aside, step around them all the while giving them my evil don’t mess with this sheriff look, and that so far has worked.
Groceries 10$ Honey Comb Cereal $6.00 Telling a “budder” in English move to back of the line PRICELSS.
Line ups at the subway are different as many people just make a bee line to ticket window regardless of the line and put money down and the ticket lady gives them a ticket I have not yet figured out a way to stop that. Getting on the subway it seems to be no holds bard free for all kind of like a mini Royal Ruble that the WWF should look at incorporating into one of their Wrestle Mana’s The question is where is Hulk Hogan or the Macho Man when you need them to make some space for you.
Another common budding place is fast food restaurants where many people literally just push past you and wave money in font of the cashier so they get service and don’t care that there was a line they then ignore the fact that 5 people were actually in a line ahead of them. I sometimes wish I was working at MacDonald’s as it would not matter if you budded you would not get served, I simply would not take their order, would love to see another Priceless commercial on that.
THE HARD Sell in China Supermarkets
Have you ever been to the Exhibitionion (CNE) in Toronto or maybe some other fair and you walk by the games and the people are just screaming at you to play. Well imagine that same type of experience when you purchase groceries here and basically almost everything else. In most cases grocery stores are small by North American standards I know there are some exceptions but lets say for arguments sake that the vast majority of them are small.
You get your basket with a whole bunch of other people and start walking the aisles, at every corner you get what I call the HARD SELL people yelling at you to purchase a certain product. As I don’t speak Chinese I simply shake my head and smile, that does not stop them from pushing chicken heads to ladies products at me and yelling something that I can only imagine means good deal.
Sometimes when I pick stuff up like Kleenex for example the sales lady will shove a different box in my hand. As its Kleenex I don’t care what kind so the hard sell wins me over. When it comes to cereal I must get my Frosted Flakes only foreign kind in the store and not some Chinese one that kind of taste like stale and old Rice Krispies and no Snapple Crackle or Pop.
When you get to the butcher aisle look out chicken and raw meat and live fish in the open for everyone to touch and peek through nothing better than getting to handle your meat before you purchase it. I am not so much into seeing the bloody butcher cutting up some raw meat literally ducking (No pun intended) the blood spatter. There is nothing better than getting the hard sell form the butcher a nice piece of meat thrust in your direction.
Have you ever been to the Exhibitionion (CNE) in Toronto or maybe some other fair and you walk by the games and the people are just screaming at you to play. Well imagine that same type of experience when you purchase groceries here and basically almost everything else. In most cases grocery stores are small by North American standards I know there are some exceptions but lets say for arguments sake that the vast majority of them are small.
You get your basket with a whole bunch of other people and start walking the aisles, at every corner you get what I call the HARD SELL people yelling at you to purchase a certain product. As I don’t speak Chinese I simply shake my head and smile, that does not stop them from pushing chicken heads to ladies products at me and yelling something that I can only imagine means good deal.
Sometimes when I pick stuff up like Kleenex for example the sales lady will shove a different box in my hand. As its Kleenex I don’t care what kind so the hard sell wins me over. When it comes to cereal I must get my Frosted Flakes only foreign kind in the store and not some Chinese one that kind of taste like stale and old Rice Krispies and no Snapple Crackle or Pop.
When you get to the butcher aisle look out chicken and raw meat and live fish in the open for everyone to touch and peek through nothing better than getting to handle your meat before you purchase it. I am not so much into seeing the bloody butcher cutting up some raw meat literally ducking (No pun intended) the blood spatter. There is nothing better than getting the hard sell form the butcher a nice piece of meat thrust in your direction.
Now I want to be clear before I start this story I am a huge dog lover, I grew up having a dog most of my young life. I am not so much of cat lover sorry cat lovers. I write this story in humor even if it was a bit of a scary experience. Not Steven King scary but scary.
Two days ago I was walking minding my own business and just humming along with my tunes on my nano a little Jason Mraz if you must know. An older lady was walking her dog (well basically letting the dog walk in from of her as dog leashes do not exist in China) this small dog similar to the one below attacked me and attempted to take a chunk out of my leg as I yelled in agony the dog bite me in the leg. Now this was no Cujo but still a scary experience none the less. I was able to shake it the dog off much the same way Walter Paton use to shake off attackers on the grid iron. Now this is all happening on a busy street and a few people are looking at me as I have yelled at the dog and probably wondering what’s with the weird foreign guy. The dog comes at me again this time fire in its eyes, and I spring into action like David Becham minus the good looks and the tattoos. The dog comes at me from the side it must be thinking this is my weak spot, and just like the movie I try to bend it like Becham (swift corner kick for my North American Friends) and send the dog flying, the dog landed a good 4 feet away and the “dog walking lady” started yelling at me like its my fault her dog attacked me. She picked the dog up in her arms like a baby and continued her verbal attack on me in Chinese and I just smiled back like the polite boy I am and gave her and her dog a little wave. I looked around at the 10 people looking at me and did a shoulder shake, and headed home with my slight limp and thoughts of world cup glory dancing around in my head.
http://gjmurphy.com/snippets/Images/upload/berto%20ears.jpg
Two days ago I was walking minding my own business and just humming along with my tunes on my nano a little Jason Mraz if you must know. An older lady was walking her dog (well basically letting the dog walk in from of her as dog leashes do not exist in China) this small dog similar to the one below attacked me and attempted to take a chunk out of my leg as I yelled in agony the dog bite me in the leg. Now this was no Cujo but still a scary experience none the less. I was able to shake it the dog off much the same way Walter Paton use to shake off attackers on the grid iron. Now this is all happening on a busy street and a few people are looking at me as I have yelled at the dog and probably wondering what’s with the weird foreign guy. The dog comes at me again this time fire in its eyes, and I spring into action like David Becham minus the good looks and the tattoos. The dog comes at me from the side it must be thinking this is my weak spot, and just like the movie I try to bend it like Becham (swift corner kick for my North American Friends) and send the dog flying, the dog landed a good 4 feet away and the “dog walking lady” started yelling at me like its my fault her dog attacked me. She picked the dog up in her arms like a baby and continued her verbal attack on me in Chinese and I just smiled back like the polite boy I am and gave her and her dog a little wave. I looked around at the 10 people looking at me and did a shoulder shake, and headed home with my slight limp and thoughts of world cup glory dancing around in my head.
http://gjmurphy.com/snippets/Images/upload/berto%20ears.jpg
