2007 April 30 « Wo Shi Laowai

Definitions

Han-dicapped (Adj): An inability to complete tasks and function properly because one is born Han Chinese.

From the Yellow Wings Dictionary.

Monday, April 30, 2007 Posted by MyLaowai | Uncategorized | Dictionary | 1 Comment

Today we are going to cook 5000-Years-Old, Famous-In-The-World, Delicious and Traditional Chinese Food. The actual, specific name of the recipe is unimportant, as it’s all the same anyway, but if it makes you feel better, we can call it HuoCai.

HuoCai

Ingredients:
- Everything in the cupboard
- Everything in the wetmarket
- Everything else that comes to hand

Method:
1. From amongst your huge pile of mixed ingredients, carefully select all the items you would normally consider quite edible. Place these items into a separate iron ricebowl. Then throw away the iron ricebowl and everything in it.
2. From the remaining items, put to one side the things that you would normally never eat, but which you would consider eating in a true survival situation. Make sure you get everything. When you have isolated all the items from which the human body could possibly extract any nutritional value, throw them away.
3. Take the remaining ingredients (chicken claws, insects, offal, curdled blood, turtle shells, foetuses, etc) and put them in a huge pot.
4. Add a gallon of polluted river water, HuangPu brand if possible.
5. Heat on whatever flame you like, for as long as you can be bothered for.
6. Serve in a cracked ‘Beggars Bowl’ (for luck) with a pair of chopsticks.

Voila! A meal fit for a King of Namibia! You will soon discover that this is very good for your healthy, and will cure your Chi, revitalise your Wang, and give your VitalKidneyFunction a much-needed boost.

Monday, April 30, 2007 Posted by MyLaowai | China | China | 1 Comment

What is Best Food in China?

KFC. Or McDonalds. Pizza Hut if you can stand the wait. A packet of crisps, if you can get the damned packet open. An old boiled boot would do, too, inna pinch.

That’s about it , really.

Monday, April 30, 2007 Posted by MyLaowai | China | China | 1 Comment

So this is Home. Bugger.

Q. What’s this ‘Shanghai’ place you live in?

A. Shanghai used to be a muddy little fishing village on the banks of the Huangpu River. Then the British came and set up civilization, which immediately led to huge numbers of illegal immigrants arriving to take advantage of the business climate. Some very decent Americans, Japanese and Russians also showed up. Oh yes, and some French. By the 1920’s Shanghai was a booming centre of trade and had become known worldwide as ‘The Whore of the Orient’. Never had the world seen such a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Nowadays, of course, everything is very different: more people have televisions and some of the buildings are a little taller. There’s an ambitious social program (due to be completed by 2008 2012), in which people are being trained to walk across the street only when the little green light is on. An even more ambitious and longer-term program aims to have all citizens able to both walk and chew gum simultaneously without any foreign assistance whatsoever by 2057. It’s all happening in this fast-changing mega-fishing village.

Q. What’s a ‘Laowai’?

A. Laowai is Mandarin for a no-good, uncultured and stupid barbarian who basically just comes to glorious China to steal jobs and women. Laowai’s come from uncivilized and awful places that have no culture, no history, and nothing whatsoever to like. A laowai, in fact, is the lowest conceivable grade of pond-scum. A less accurate, but more literal, translation is ‘foreigner’.

Q. I don’t live in Shanghai, am I a laowai?

A. If you can read, write and know who your parents actually are, rest assured that you are, indeed, a laowai.