Posts from August 2006
August 23, 2006
Chinese Korean BBQ tuition
When you order food in China, you'll see that the locals will always squabble over the bill with the waiter. This is usually because it's probably not correct.
Or in my case tonight at the local Korean BBQ, just the standard nickle and dime scam.
Me: "So if my dinner cost me 38 yuan, plus 15 yuan for the soup, plus 5 yuan for the drink, and 2 yuan for the extra bowl of rice, why is the total 70 yuan, and not 60 yuan?"
Waiter: "Because that's what you ordered."
Me: "Let me see the bill. So what is this extra 1 yuan for here?" I point at the bill at an extra charge.
Waiter: "That's for the extra sauce."
Me: "I didn't order extra sauce."
Waiter: "It's right there in front of you. You've been dipping your meat in it."
Me: "But I didn't order that. It was put in front of me with my meal."
Waiter: "Well it costs 1 yuan."
Me: "But I didn't order it!"
Waiter: "Then you should have returned it."
Me: "And what about this other 1 yuan here?" I point at another addition.
Waiter: "That's for the other sauce."
Me: "What other sauce?"
Waiter: "The other one in front of you."
Me: "But I didn't order that either! It came with all the side dishes."
Waiter: "Well it costs 1 yuan."
Me: "But I didn't order it!"
Waiter: "Then you should have returned it, but then you wouldn't have had any sauce to dip your meat in."
Me: "So I have to pay for a sauce that's on the table and is supposed to come with the meal so that I can eat my meal."
Waiter: "Yes."
Me: "So what is this 1 yuan here?" I point at another addition on the bill.
Waiter: "That's for the chopsticks."
Me: "You've got be fucking kidding! I have to pay to use the chopsticks?"
Waiter: "They come with the wet nap."
Me: "So?"
Waiter: "That costs 1 yuan."
Me: "But I didn't order chopsticks!"
Waiter: "Then you should have returned them."
Me: "Then what do I eat with?"
Waiter: Silence
Me: "And what is this other 5 yuan here?" I point on a separate piece of paper.
Waiter: "Oh, that's for use of the BBQ burner."
Me: "Oh c'mon, you've got to be kidding! I'm supposed to pay for being able to cook the meat so that I can eat it?"
Waiter: "Yes, it costs 5 yuan."
Me: "And what is this final 2 yuan for?"
Waiter: "That's for the girl to cook your meat for you."
Me: "But I didn't ask her to."
Waiter: "But she cooked the meat."
Me: "Yes, because she asked me if I wanted her to cook the meat....oh I see...."
Waiter: "Yes, that costs 2 yuan."
Me: "But she didn't tell me it cost extra to let her cook the meat after she asked if she could."
Waiter: "It still costs 2 yuan. 70 yuan altogether."
Me: "I see. You're collecting my tuition aren't you?"
Waiter: "Huh?"
August 21, 2006
Learning Guitar with Jon Scott
For my first song on guitar I thought I'd play Paganini's 24th Caprice. Here's my teacher showing me how to do it via YouTube.
August 17, 2006
If a noodle falls in the forest...
I'm sitting in CKS airport, which you can only describe as a "cute" airport, and am having breakfast in the Au Bon Pain area, which also has a greasy joint in the back that serves up some ok dan zai mian. So I pass on the croissants and Pierrer for some Taiwanese hot noodles and a boiled egg. I look around and notice that I'm the only foreigner, which is not that unusual, but everyone else is eating Au Bon Pain, except me.
So I have a brief identity crisis. Since eating Taiwanese noodles at the airport would seem to be a common Taiwanese thing to do, definitely not a Westerner's first choice, this suggests that I'm probably more locally influenced now than Western. But when looking at all the other Taiwanese scarfing down their croissant sandwiches and bagles, if I were really localized, I'd be eating what they are eating - and acting like a Westerner.
August 16, 2006
Little Gene Krupa
My buddy Chris's son, Colin, is definitely ready for his first drum set. Check out the movie.
August 10, 2006
Do you know Satoshi?
This seems like an interesting game. Sort of an online story puzzle, real life treasure hunt. I got this letter out of the blue (below) asking for help in finding a guy named "Satoshi." Here's what he looks like:
If you know this guy or where this photo was taken, let these guys know so they can continue playing the game.
-------------------------------
Hi Corbett
I have been looking at your website and think you might have a place for this story in it...
I don't know if you have heard of PerplexCity but it is an online game, place, story and real-life treasure hunt (see Perplex City link).
In it the players have to solve puzzle cards and enter the answers onto the site. It's lots of fun and very mentally stimulating. (Add in the fact that the finder of a hidden cube wins lots of cash and you have a super way to pass the time. Though I am not particularly wanting to win the money, I do it for the love of solving puzzles).
Anyway, the latest batch of puzzle cards just came out on July 31st. The cards are colour coded from Red (Easy) to Silver (Really really hard and sometimes very annoying). One of the Silver cards that has just come out and remains unsolved is called "Billion to One". It just shows the picture of an Asian man (possibly Japanese, though we are remaining open-minded on this) and some Japanese text that (when translated to English) says "Find me". The background of the picture looks European and we know that the man's name is Satoshi. That's all we have got to go on!
We think that this card is meant to be solved through the "Six Degrees of Separation" idea. That is, you might not know the person, but someone you know might know someone who knows someone who knows someone (etc) who does know them.
We are currently exploring ways of publicising the picture and one of the ways is that one of the players has set up a web page http://www.billion2one.org/.
We were hoping that you might be willing to feature a link to this on your web page, which seems to deal with odd things. This definitely falls into that category, I would have thought and you never know, one of your readers might just know the guy (or know someone who knows someone who knows someone... you get the picture).
Hoping to hear from you soon
Paul Whitaker
Stockton-On-Tees
England
(Perplex City player name: Cabbage)
August 06, 2006
Beer
If you drink 10 beers,
The next day really sucks bad.
What was I thinking?
Three naked men
My friend Tony and I were sitting at a folding table by this cool little park back behind the Asia Hotel near the center of town, having some tasty lamb kebobs and cold dishes with a good amount of beer. We both share an affinity for down market food and hangouts, and it was a good people watching alley. Young fashionistas strutting by, guys with their Beijing bellies hanging out, kids running around, people with their pants legs rolled up.
I mentioned this down market bath house I went to for my first cuo zhao, which can only be described as a complete loofa scrub down by some skinny guy in red underwear. They scrub all the dirt and skin off of you, head to toe, so you get sort of an idea what a dog feels like when they get washed. It's definitely not for the sheepish Westerner because the ole string and nuggets do get moved around a bit.
We decided it might be a good night to do the bath thing again, so I called Sean my Beijing colleague, who enjoys a good soak as well to join us. He mentioned the newly opened collosal Las Vegas style "Apartment No. 8" in Chao Yang Park across from the apartments we operate. This place from the outside looks part missle launch, part mausoleum, part Liberace-played-here-once. We're talking seven floors of luxury, a line of Mercedes out front, a disco palace next door, and a lot of neon.
Most up market service industries in China will make sure there is a large foyer with flowers, a dozen women in ball room gowns, a hotel style reception counter, chandeliers, flat screen TVs, and valet parking. This applies to KTVs as well as seafood restaurants. Apartment No. 8 was no different, and we were ushered to the left (being co-ed, women are ushered to the right), were issued these cool magnetic electronic locker key wrist bands, disrobed, and headed for the water. We all gasped in awe at the same time when we walked into the bath area as it's about six stories high, laid out in a Fantasy Island motif, a half dozen large pools with bridges, fauna, sitting areas, cascading waterfalls, and a ceiling with laser light stars that change colors. The only thing it was missing was Xena the Amazon warrior princess.
The steam room was this unusual egg shaped room, enclosed in a circular glass room, and tiled in red mosaic, which looked to me like a huge tiled penis trapped in a large suction device. The sauna was an enormous beautifully laid out pine carved room large enough to hold thirty naked sweating men, with a 2 meter wide heat factory/stone fireplace in the middle, and a large overhead ceiling shower. It had a fantastic wood smell and was hot as hell. The wide bay windows overlooked the entire weird futuristic jungle world before us.
The pools were all super clean, lots of cool jet shower devices, my favorite being the head to toe overhead jungle rain machine. You lie face down on a slab of granite, and overhead a 2 meter long shower tube jets a cascade of water onto your back. Very cool, and I did this many times.
After we were completely soaked, we went into the scrubbing area where a team of scrubbers waited to get busy. I chose the salt milk scrub which was sort of a combination of sea salt and coconut milk, and let the skinny guy in the underwear get to work. An hour later your skin is silky smooth, and you feel as fresh as a new born baby.
We then donned our Roman tunics and went into the grand dining room, a palacial 5-star hotel domed dining area with plush carpet, a full buffet, and about forty tables of freshly soaked bathers scarfing down food and beers. I passed on the buffet, carefully navigating past the silk worms, and grabbed a seat next to the entertainment. In the middle of the room was a young woman on a round elevated stage, wearing a white Cinderella gown, playing Debussy on the piano. We were the only people listening to her, and I commented on having played some tough gigs before, but never played a bath house buffet before. Tony told me that Barbara Streisand was discovered playing a gay bath house in New York, which generated some good back and forth discussion about whether this young woman had aspirations of being a star. Sean was convinced we could live for a month in one of these places, never having to leave, and Tony said we should think about doing a reality TV style blog about living in a bath house for a month, since they also offered free internet access. By this time, we had had plenty of beer and were totally soaked out. It was already nearly three in the morning, and we hadn't even explored the other four floors.
On the way out we asked about their VIP membership (another must have item for any Chinese service establishment), which was RMB10,000. I wonder how many of my friends have a VIP bath membership. Something to consider...
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
