Strange Things in China, part 1

While I could certainly do a full blog about Strange Things in China, and probably manage a daily posting, I thought I would introduce one I happened to take a snapshot of during a recent trip:

Snickers bars!!  (Batteries Included).

For some reason, the Chinese tend to give really unrelated things as incentives to buy certain products, like batteries with Snickers bars.  Other examples I've personally witnessed:

- Buy one packet of biscuits, get a free teacup.

- Buy 3 packs of Oreos, get a free tote bag (which you can subsequently use to proudly carry-out your newly-purchased Oreos).

-Buy a cell phone, get a free set of glassware (guaranteed to break within 30 days or your money back).

-Buy this out-of-date Orange Juice, and get a free cheap plastic food container.

And my personal favorite so far:

- Buy this cell-phone plan for 30RMB, or by the exact same cell phone plan for 50RMB, and receive a free knife set!  Brilliant!

Hopefully, more to come on Strange Things in China.  At last, a ridiculously easy topic to write about...


(If you did not like this post, please accept this picture of this beautiful Chinese girl instead.  [Unfortunately, no, not my girlfriend, just a friend.])

(I think this picture is worth clicking on.)

"Foreigners in China!", Story at 11

In the classic style of being a westerner in a city with very few westerners, Ross and I made it into the paper the other day. Original article faithfully reprinted here:

老外包汤圆

(Translation: "Foreigner makes Tangyuan")

汤圆，咱中国老百姓再熟悉不过了，可对“洋先生”来说，绝对是个新鲜物儿。这不，2月25日上午，在我市的一家大酒店，俩“洋先生”就亲身体会了一把做汤圆的乐趣。
“味道还不错！”品尝了自己的“作品”后，Jackson、Ross满意地说，“以前尝过饺子，做汤圆还是第一次。”Jackson和Ross分别来自美国、苏格兰，半年前到许昌学院任教。
“请两位‘洋先生’包汤圆，是为了让他们过一个特别的元宵节。”该酒店负责人说，做汤圆有助于“洋先生”更深刻地了解中国的传统民俗文化，感受中国传统节日的魅力。

-记者 黄增瑞

Now, I'm not going to translate the whole thing, because it's really not all that interesting.  It essentially says "Hey look, here's some foreigners making Tangyuan; bet they've never done that before!"  But what is interesting is the general news-mentality around here:

You might not notice clearly from the picture, but myself and Ross were invited to a nice hotel to participate in this activity, which was designed entirely for our sakes.  I thought for sure this was some sort of festival or large-scale activity, but when we arrived, there were 4 or 5 chefs and a small army of bell/service staff just standing around in this room waiting for us to come and get our picture taken making these little flour-balls.  After coming upon this scene, I felt surely it was going into the paper as an advertisement for the hotel we were in, but the hotel's name isn't even mentioned in the article!  The whole thing was just a news gimmick.

And so, in summary, this newspaper set up their own news story, just so they could write about it.  And not only that, but the only thing newsworthy in the story was a picture of a couple of foreigners participating in a traditional Chinese holiday, all so that the dear readers of the newspaper can give themselves all a collective pat on the back for being so wonderfully hospitable.

And who said China isn't great?

(If you did not like this post, please accept this picture of a poorly-cropped Little Boy with a Mullet instead)