Guns Guns Guns!

Dear TCG

A few events have had me a little concerned over the ability of the cops to protect me.

The first, and most serious event, was a last year. I lived in on a higher traffic street in a less affluent part of town. Some cars got into a traffic accident, which turned into a shooting. Nobody was actually shot, but it scared the bejesus out of me. It took the police about 2 minutes to arrive, but by that time the person with the gun had fled.

This kind of brought it home to me that bad / stupid people have guns and aren't afraid to use them. It also made me realize that police can't be everywhere all the time. They can arrive quickly, but things can get bad very, very fast and when someone is shooting a gun, 2 minutes is a very, very long time.

I have seen online some incredibly cheap deals on Chinese made carbines and rifles the SKS in particular interests me greatly but I will have to go to Canada to buy one. What is your opinion on Chinese made guns.


VJ

Dear VJ

TCG does not dabble in guns and has no knowledge whatsoever about Chinese made guns or guns made anywhere else, other than a few anecdotal stories about people shooting guns in South East Asia and the experience in Seoul where I fired a gun called a SAW.

The UK and HK are both largely gun free zones except for the police.

Therefore TCG cannot help you with this. Perhaps you should ask on more gun specific forums.

The way Hong Kong used to be

Halt ICAC! from here

VANCOUVER — A three-decade-old manhunt for one of the most notorious figures of the Hong Kong underworld — a man who pumped millions of dollars of his ill-gotten gains into British Columbia — ended Thursday in a cemetery near Vancouver.

Sgt. Lui Lok was part of a cabal of five powerful station sergeants who ruled Hong Kong's police jurisdictions during the early 1970s, collecting graft while allowing the triads to conduct their criminal activities.

The most infamous of the corrupt cops was Lok, dubbed the "$500-Million Man." He and three other so-called Dragons fled to Vancouver in the mid-1970s before seeking sanctuary in Taiwan. They left their families behind.

They sure took their damned time didn't they?




Still crime doth not always pay. As corrupt cop Fitzroy Godber was apprehended and caught soon after he tried to make his escape.

You can read more propaganda Sucessful ICAC case files here


I will say one thing though if Jacqui 'Jackboot' Smith was in Hong Kong the ICAC would be all over her like a bad rash, look at this woman claiming to be unfairly treated by the media. Well deary you got your hands slammed in the till.

What the hell is the point of the Shanghai expo?

I'm probably going to get some flak from the HK readers of this but present me with a valid argument other than jingoism / Nationalism or Chinese unity /pride. Anyhow this is a reflection of many of my HK based friends who are Chinese too and a few people in SZ too. Seriously what is the point of the Shanghai expo? European powers, the USA held their great expo to show off their technological prowess to the world.

Hey look at what we can do, the 1851 expo you can read about here Expos are to show the world your technological prowess and willy wave at other countries to get them to buy your new inventions and to show off.

Erm what exactly does China have to show off?

The man in space, erm the USSR managed that in 1961

The new high speed Harmony railway? Oh wait they use German, Japanese and French technology.

The Shanghai super high speed Maglev? Oops again made by the Germans.

Actually, there was one that they said was their "accomplishment". Do you remember the train that is supposed to be the highest elevation train in the world? The one that goes to tibet? The Chinese Gov claimed credit for it as "a great achievement for China" and etc... Except China didn't actually build it, they hired people from outside to build them, even the locomotive was made in the USA.

Or the stellar Chinese car industry lets take a look at them shall we?

Daewoo Matiz vs Chery QQ

Vauxhall Frontera vs Landwind

Honda CRV vs Laibao SRV

Mercedes C vs Geely Merrie 300

I don't quite see the resemblance do you?

Anyway the Shanghai Expo is nothing more than a marketing exercise to stir up some nationalism as really there isn't anything unique to show off. If they perfect those pebble bed reactors, or really make something unique like the Japanese expos where they can make robots which pass Turing tests then sure. But if you've got nothing to show, erm what is the point in wasting so much money in holding one?

Why not spend the money on something useful instead like the acute pollution and water shortages in China instead, something the people will thank you for, for decades rather than just this (I was going to say cheap) uber expensive publicity stunt.

Handing over a wad of money to buy technology from somebody else is not an achievement! I can't go to a shop to buy a PC and claim I built the PC can I?


Side note: TCG still thinks Asian Motor shows are worth while to visit, Korean ones especially. A photo from SZ recently



Though Korean motor shows are good too.




I know I know it is useful for the PRC government to claim they made this they did this, but come on the People aren't retarded and they can travel around too outside the country and will notice such things are made in other countries or originate from other countries.

How do Chinese characters work

Dear TCG,

How do Chinese characters work? Ive studied them for a while and it seems like there just random. Surely there must be more to them. They must have some kind of connection to each other. Ive heard all these terms like; classifier, radical, allograph etc. Im terrible at linguistic terminology.
Also, whats the difference between Classical and Vernacular Chinese?

Kevin

With great difficulty? I'm no expert (see the column on the right) but this is my understanding thus.

In school you get taught by rote, and are MADE to memorise by waiting them over and over again until they stick in your mind (probably why Asian cultures are generally known for their lack of creative thinking).

In school which was a hell of a long time ago, you would get explanations of thats just the way it is maybe I got shitty teachers or something.

Note to get around day to day Hong Kong/Taiwan and Macau (Chinese uses simpled text) you need to know 1500 characters, you can read a newspaper with this many. High school educated children will know 3000-5000. Highly educated types will know 10000 or so. And judging by how many aimed at adults how to write Chinese or you're confusing words in Chinese type programmes on TVB Chinese people are by no means experts too!.

I think the book fun which Chinese characters may help you here, as it explains things quite simply i.e. the origins of the word and also how to write them and context. This is down loadable if you search for it.

Essentially you get pictographs so the Chinese character looks like what is means.

Sun for example 日 if you look maybe squint it sort of looks like a 5 year old's drawing of a sun.

Actually this is a bad example Horse is better 馬 turn your head round and it sort of looks like this

Next you have ideograms where the word represents an idea the simplest of these are numbers

1 = 一
2=二
3=三

Or for example Up and down

上 下

But then you can combine them into all sorts of meanings

木 tree  森 Forrest (i.e. three trees)

Then it gets kind of complicated as you can add radials and compound your words for different meanings which again relies upon memory more than anything put it this way. My sister teaches Chinese and hasn't figured out too much of a pattern other than pictogram's and ideograms.

Vernacular is pak hua , it essentially means plain speech, ordinary speech and is how grammatically and writ en how modern Chinese is used.

Classical Chinese was sort of a hodge podge of everything before this, before various forms of standardisation. Which was further enhanced by the communists. Since before the communists (and still so) there are so many different regional variations it was a big hodge podge.

Tbh I would compare it to like Hadiths in Islam where older texts are interpreted by modern scholars, as Muslims can read the Koran but find it difficult and confusing thus many turn to Hadiths (there is a funny one about the hand of the thief shall be marked, some people have interpreted this as chop off)

Happy Birthday Nancy Kwan

Nancy Kwan is 71 today May 19th 2010

For those of you who don't know Nancy Kwan played the iconic (Ming-Lee) Suzie Wong in 1960, the film is an unconventional love story.

The trailer is here:




Also a bit here:



The film is worth checking out if only for what 1960s Hong Kong looked like as the novel was written by Richard Mason in 1951 while the film was shot in 1959 and in those 8 years there was a hell of a lot of change in this time. Hell each time I go to Hong Kong there seems to be a new building put up.

Why is this relevant? A friend has been picking my brains for cultural and locations of Hong Kong especially the Sham Shui Po district where cage homes are popular, TCG has had family live in those places once, and also participated in a SOCO project once Society for Community Organization. And thus has some knowledge of such districts.

What does pook kai mean?

Dear TCG

What does Pook Kai mean?

Jon


Dear Jon.

Oh come on wiki has a page on this, since when did this turn into Yahoo answers? I've got a back log of questions waiting, but I'm bored and decide to answer which ever ones I fancy in whatever order I fancy. TCG hears this outside the Manchester Chinatown Bookies quite often after a big race. Men will come out tearing up their tickets and will curse pook kai!

Literally it means hit head on street ~ but its more complicated than that, i.e. its more like may you become bankrupt and either:

End up having to beg in such a manner. (absolute humiliation)

OR

May you lose all your money, fall over in the street and be left there to rot since everybody who cared about you in your life has left you and you are all alone.

However given the context of Hong Kong where money is everything and having to beg is even more humiliating than death (you can't be embarrassed when you are dead). I prefer the bankruptcy meaning of things.

You can of course make it worse 死 仆街 adding si on the front.

Such an insult doesn't phase TCG though as most things flow over him and TCG generally doesn't give any body any reason to be called this either.

China school stabbings

Links

Here Here

Here

Here

Note this post was written a while ago, as of May 11th there have been 7 stabbing rampages.

All of them are blokes / teachers who go nuts and go on a murder spree, so what is TCG's take on all this? My thoughts are multi fold.

Firstly there are rather a lot more people in China than anywhere else attacks on children can and do happen, in the Uk there have been plenty of torture and or murders of people's children, with a population 20 times bigger you get 20 times as many. In fact there has even been a teacher beating up a child here

However (puts his amateur psychologist hat on) I think the reasoning behind this in China is complex:

Firstly in society you get a large number of sociopaths, that is one notch down from a psychopath, where they don't get the courage up take it up a level and start doing the bad things psychopaths are known for. There was a study post WWII where it was found 2% of soldiers were natural born killer socio/psychopaths therefore modern training has adapted to make soldiers shoot first then think as it makes them much more effective killing machines.

Secondly China has grown fast, psychiatric and medical help for such problems often simply does not exist, socialised medicine doesn't exist much in China, and the psychiatric help you can get costs a fortune. You can't just say I feel rather unwell please can I see a psychiatrist or a psychologist?


Thirdly China is a face orientated society, you are to hide your weaknesses and put a brave face on things therefore people who could have gone and asked for help, tend to hide their need for help and as above if they needed help where exactly would they get this help? People will think if I go and get this treated how exactly will it affect my career? TCG has had similar ramblings from colleagues in accountancy before and I know quite a few of them hid their mental illnesses as they were scared it would ruin their career. Same thing in China, where there is no welfare unless you return to your home village even then it is limited.



Fourthly we have little emperor syndrome the one child policy from 1979 to the present has created 100s of little emperors. Whereby they have one child and thus treat their children incredibly well as little emperors. My dad for instance he has 3 sisters and 2 brothers, due to the old economics thing about supply and demand more children = lower value of each one. He was treated like crap by his parents as they could just rely on another one instead. In China this is worse, the children are treated like treasure by their parents, the schools are often private and thus a going concern, you castigate the children you lose customers the boss gets pissed off at you and you get fired so you can't discipline them either. In many ways they are worse than the chavs you get in schools in the UK as quite simply you can take time off from stress, or do what my teacher in school did.

My teacher in school (a very poor inner city area) stood up in class and said to me:

"All you people won't amount to shit you're all going to end up on the dole anyway."

He then sat down and read the newspaper for the rest of the year he was 92% correct as during the school reunion of 2007 out of the year of about 102 most of the people were on the dole.

The videos below of Monkeytime are actually quite typical in China especially of wealthy children this is a 'good' class, there are worse videos of much worse classes of course but this was was convenient.







Quite simply the management doesn't give a fuck, so the teachers get the flak, the parents see their children as never wrong and thus the teacher is to blame, the teacher here even in the youtube comments gets an incredible amount of abuse.

• Therefore the teachers cannot discipline the children.
• Therefore the teachers cannot turn to the management of the school for help
• Therefore the teachers cannot turn to the Chinese NHS (national health service) as it does not exist.
• Therefore the teachers cannot turn to other people other than maybe their families who will tell them to keep it secret as they have bills to pay.
• Therefore the teachers cannot go to the papers to embarrass the children into behaving either.
  

And thus quite simply they snap and go nuts on a killing spree., as I said before there are a great many sociopaths in society they normally do not go psychopath either keeping control of their desire to murder people or never being driven to it. While here I reckon they are pushed towards it. Of course this is just my humble opinion of what is going on and I could be very wrong.

Fucking spoit brats

Dear TCG

[Paraphrased] Why is Beijing so full of douches? My girlfriend and myself visited Beijing recently and all of the young people seemed so full of shit.

[and various other threads which said pretty much the same thing]

Various.

Please note this post is semi written by guest writer Patrick Woo a friend of TCG. The TCG is indisposed and is taking a break Patrick has actually lived amongst Beijingers and thus has more authority to speak about this than TCG. Profanity therefore is expected to be higher than usual in this post

Dear Various.

Hello various random people I'm sorry for your fucking shitty experience in Beijing, my explanation is as follows: What you are seeing is wealthy second generation kids [TCG hates the words kids]. In the hotspots in Beijing, say

• The Suzie Wong Bar
• The Northern Lake district north of the bell tower and forbidden city in Beijing.
• Wang Fujin Street.

Only wealthy people can afford to shop there (I paid more for a ice cream on Wangfujin than I pay back home in Canada)

Anyway their parents got wealthy via good business acumen, good trading or simply connections. This is ok as both myself and TCG don't mind if you make your own money.

Money = Power

With a phenominal wealth gap divide those who are wealthy are arrogant fucks about this fucking rubbing it into the faces of people another negative Chinese trait. I hate little shits like that with a passion and would gladly spent all day punching them in the face ruin my knuckles and continue punching them in the face until my my arms were bloody stumps.



Let me get this straight, if you make money a successful idea or run a business well I have no beef with you at all I especially respect a certain Mr Yip of Wingyip Ltd. His son and daughter appear to be fairly decent people too.

There is an old saying common to English speaking societies and China, that wealth only lasts 3 generations. Whereby the grand dad or grand ma works hard and builds the business from the ground up (as above Mr Yip who came in 1972 with £10 in his pocket). The son or daughter is sucked into this business and is worked so they know the hardships and the guts of the business so they know how it runs. Then the grandchild grows up and at 18 gets a company car, company expenses a plush office and promptly runs the business into the ground as they never saw any of the hard work which went into building this business. As auditor and accountant I have seen so many dynastic type businesses run into the ground like this.

In modern day China is appears to have skipped a whole generation completely, whereby at a very young age people pose and show off their 'wealth' when really they haven't made a penny of this themselves. And they rub it into peoples' faces. It is a bit like LKF in Hong Kong. I hate Lam Kwai Fong, although it is also filled with arrogant fuck bankers and such like at least bankers are employed for their money. While rich fucking kiddies keep going to LKF to show off their family wealth [TCG loves to point out people's fake rolexes]

However you and me may get the last laugh in all of this Schudenfrauden is an ugly thing, but sometimes is is justified why?

These rich kiddies think their futures are so incredibly secure they tend not to do the traditional Asian thing, and that is to study their fucking balls off (or ovaries for you women out there). In fact many of them tend not to study at all. [TCG makes money sometimes from correcting their fucking terrible assignments at universities, I mean fucking hell they say Fixt costs they were too fucking lazy to change it to ed or would throw money at me, TCG has learn humility due to the recession and lack of jobs and takes it, TCG does not suffer from face dillusion]

The kiddies I see in Hong Kong carry humongous bags of homework home daily. My experience in Korea was seeing lots of school children only finishing after school schools at 10pm.

However to them it doesn't matter as they have degree mills like this where they can BUY their qualifications, which quite simply are worth fucking jack shit, seriously watch the videos this is called a Tier III 'university' calling it a university cheapens the word university to be frank.









They get shitty degrees (note going to university in China is only something wealthy people do) which aren't worth a fuck. And expect high paying jobs or worse take over such companies and run them into the ground and go bankrupt. And because they didn't have a skill to fall back on i.e. proper qualifications they go so deep into shit.

Take note of this article from 2008 775000 graduates 13500 jobs.

Granted not all of these people who go to university are from wealthier families and some really do save hard to send their children to university but the Chinese university system is stuffed full of rich clueless children. And stuffed full of schools as you see in the video.

Fried rice

Dear TCG

[EDITED lots of waffle]

How come my fried rice always sticks badly to the wok?


Anon




Dear No fried rice cooking person.


The secret to a good fried rice is to use slighty dehyrdrated rice, typically this means you cook rice the night before and allow it to cool and thus dry out for 12 hours. You must be incredibly careful about this as when reheating rice it has spores in it which release heat resistant toxins which will cause lots of puking and shitting for days if you do not heat it properly. The preferred heating reference of TCG (even though TCG is more of an instant noodle man) is that the rice grains dance on the bottle and crackle with quite a loud intensity.

Adding water can soften the rice and help transmit the heat but puts water back into the rice.

The old technique of underusing water in cooking your rice also works (using a pot people use 1 cup of water to one cup of rice) too wet and you get congee, too dry and you can get insta rice which you can use in the wok immediately. But it still isn't as good as rice from the night before.

Also note again rice isn't widely eaten in China, the damn stuff doesn't grow very well in the north, and thus going to a restaurant in Beijing and asking for rice people will look at you and say huh?

TCG

Day of the Wedding

Time to end this series even I'm getting bored of it.

Right ok, on the actual wedding day, the bride will bathe in a bath infused with some sort of citrus fruit, pumelos, grape fruits oranges etc. It varies from area to area and this is supposed to cleanse her of evil spirits. She then puts on her make up and her draws which must never have been worn on before. This is supposed to be in the presence of joss sticks and candles

TCG says: I have never seen this, as a man you are not suppose to see this, but this goes on in a modern context i.e. a wash and make up as well as fancy pants in preparation for the wedding. The copious amounts of smoke I've seen from houses of people getting married implies this too.

You will get a bridesmaid the head bridesmaid to complement the bride to be and me her feel good, TGH says this is to probably keep them from running away. Her hair is also styled neatly

Then this cheif brides maid carries the bride so she doesn't touch the floor to the location where she is dressed and gets dressed with a red dress, and a red veil over her face.

TCG says this does still happen even in the UK, I've witnessed it before, in Hong Kong some do some don't same in Mainland China.

Once she is dressed she will bow to her parents and also the small altar you find in many Chinese homes, this still does happen, less so in the UK due to the lack of family altars in homes (TCG does not have one nor do his contemporaries).


For the groom something identical happens, without all the fancy pants and make up, he kneels and gives thanks to the family altar and a cap with leaves is placed on his head. He then again gives thanks to the family altar and he goes off on a sedan chair.

TCG says yup this still happens, sometimes red silk sashes and balls are added to this, procession, however again many homes do not have altars in the UK (my dad's house in the UK doesn't) though you find it strange high rise flats DO have altars in HK.

The groom is supposed to make a procession he leads it with people carrying gongs and drums and firecrackers are let off, a child is supposed to lead them as a precursor to his own son in the future and they would go to the bride's home with the bridal sedan. This isn't a chair on wooden rods it is completely sealed like a portaloo but in red. He would leave the sedan chair at the bride's house then go back home in his own chair which was painted blue.

The bride would stay locked in doors while the bridesmaids would demand tribute (read red packets of money) and there would be much haggling for money and tributes before the bride was let out. Incredibly rarely sometimes the groom would go in and eat dinner with the bride's parents but I've never seen this.

TCG says: This no longer happens due to the advent of cars, there are no sedan chairs anymore and thus the tribute demands in such a manner no longer happen.

The head bridesmaid would then escort the bride again carrying her on her back to the chair and close the door of the sedan chair, depending on the style (they could be open sometimes) while people tossed rice and flowers. Heh this chair had rails sometimes to chain the bride to the chair.

TCG's historical note Chinese women of past times had absolutely no choice in the men they were assigned to marry, it was arranged by their parents. This is alluded to in TVB's love is beautiful also Here

A mirror would be attached to the sedan chair to keep out evil and protect her from evil influences (like this has ever fucking worked... hold on I have to try this) and she will wear a mirror under her outer dress again to achieve the same effect.

Firecrackers etc are used once the chair sets off to scare off evil sprits (still happens with the bridal car these days)

Attendants are supposed to scatter seeds (symbolism of life) in front of the chair while they make their way there. Once they arrive at the home of the groom more firecrackers for the same purpose and a red carpet to prevent the bride from touching the ground as she dismounted, the whole family would wait for her and greet her.

TCG says : this still does happen albeit with cars.


A few rituals occur, a flame across the threashold of the doorway the flame again to cast out evil sprits. After these rituals took place, the groom could finally raise the red scarf and view the bride’s face.

Still happens though TCG is never invited to watch these things occur

The Wedding

The wedding is a bit of an anticlimax to all of this, simply they stand in front of the family Altar of the groom (it is his house hold after all), where blessings are given to heaven and earth family ancestors and various gods and or spirits people worship. Tea is offered to the parents either lotus seed or dates to the grooms parents by the bride as an act of serving the parents sort of humility. Then the bride and groom bowed to each other. This completed the marriage ceremony, except in some regions, where both also drank wine from the same goblet, ate sugar molded in the form of a rooster, and partook of the wedding dinner together.

Immediately after the ceremony, the couple were led to the bridal chamber, where both sat on the bed. In some areas, honey and wine were poured into two goblets linked by a red thread. The bride and groom took a few sips and then exchanged cups and drank it down. On the day of the wedding (and sometimes for the next three days), the bed chamber was open to visitors, who were given to teasing the young couple with ribald remarks.

The Wedding Banquets

Generally, separate wedding feasts were given by the parents of the bride and the groom for their respective friends and families. Even at the feast, men and women sat separately. There could be a single feast for each or a series of feasts over several days. However, the most important feast was that given the groom’s family on the day of the wedding. It was generally considered as public recognition of the union.

Much of this still occurs but varies from family to family, however, quite simply in the modern day in the UK and HK, they marry but they arrange to meet at a restaurant but are asked to bring a lee see, of X amount of money they sign a red cloth hand over the money eat, drink play mah-jong and then bugger off home.

Flowers

Dear TCG

I want to buy some flowers for my Chinese girlfriend do you have any recommendations and things to avoid?

Matty F


Dear Matty

Where are you? If you are in Europe, North America the protocol is identical to what you would give any other woman as they are westernised to the extent there won't be any numerical and or cultural significance.

Also you do not state if you just want to have fun or if this is serious.

Anyway TCG says unless it is serious give them anything but roses, and avoid 4s 13s 14s and any number with 4s in them. One rose is enough to imply love.

If you really want to make a gesture of it send her 10,000 roses, 10,000 pretty much means forever, probably bankrupt you though.

With crazy gold prices

A nod to the homeboyz gold bugs of HPC you know who you are you reckon your stash of gold is big? You ain't seen nothing yet presenting the 380kilo 24 carrat solid gold toilet, of Hong Kong.



Note the owner of the said toilet died in 2008, so a word for you gold bugs you can't take it with you. Though this toilet has changed hands an enormous number of times, the rest of the fixtures were melted down in 2006 to be sold.

Chinese Weddings pt3

The night before

The bride will usually take the day off and stay at home with her close friends and immediate family, they are supposed to tell her their grief at her departure and she is supposed to do the same. They are supposed to bad mouth the groom and his family EVEN her own parents for giving her away. This is supposed to be a sleep over. And she isn't supposed to leave the house until the next morning. She is NOT to see any of the groom's family at all.



TCG's notes:

This actually does still happen in modern times and I won't insult your intelligence since you can probably apply this to modern day life, except the bride tends not to stay in and goes out on the town instead for a hen night instead. Usually savouring the last moments of freedom much like a stag night.



Installing the Bridal Bed


At the same time the groom gets his stick love nest ready and should install the bed, this is supposed to entail lots of children, which is a bit of an anachronism in China due to the one child policy of Deng Xiao Ping since 1979. Traditionally the groom isn't supposed to do this at all and get his mates to do it, it is better luck to buy a new bed rather than use an old bed. The groom will come in after it is installed and shift it slightly.

After which children are invited to sit on the bed the more the merrier.

TCG notes, this still does happen, as a teenager I was locked into bedrooms with other children for no apparent reason at all, and on the bed was stacked snacks of fruit and nuts. I never knew what this happened to be but they slammed the door on us and told us to wait for a bit. I never really twigged until my twenties when I saw other people's children being locked in a bed room as TCG was too old for this when he twigged.

Tomorrow or when I feel like it Part 4 Or as I call it are we nearly there yet you have a penchant for beating around the bush don't you? You should see my books.

A tasteless joke

FBCs will find funny only probably maybe.

Bin Laden said: China is the world's only country we absolutely cannot mess with.

The reason is this: al-Qaeda terrorists had made 8 attacks on the Chinese with the following results:

1) One person was to explode a bomb in Beijing Xizhimen (the main northwest gate of Beijing) but he lost his way in the three-dimensional traffic bridge.

2) One person in Shanghai was to take a bus to explode a suicide bomb in the bus, but it was so crowded he could not get into a bus for two hours.

3) One person was to bomb a supermarket in Wuhan, but found that the bomb remote control was stolen.

4) One person wanted to bomb government buildings in Chengdu, but was stopped at the door by the security staff and arrested as an East Turkistan separatist, and was beaten and interrogated.

5) One person succeeded in bombing a Hebei mine, with hundreds of people dead and wounded, and then returned to the al-Qaeda center, but even after six months, failed to see any news reports on the success of the bombing (he was considered by the organization to claim a false victory and was executed (this is the most pathetic!).

6) One person had tried to bomb Guangzhou, but as he came off the train, a motorcycle robber (flying car robber) snatched his bag (containing the bomb) from him.

7) One person who arrived in Xi'an lost contact, and was later found at the hospital in a state of coma. Doctors said it was the result of him eating not only "black-hearted" food products, but he also drank fake alcohol, and would possibly turn into a "vegetable" (vegetative state).

8) Later, bin Laden tried to send a female terrorist to blow up Hainan Island, but she was cheated into prostitution!

Finally, bin Laden have to say: Remember! China is the world's only country we absolutely cannot mess with!

Closing times

Dear TCG

Why do Chinese takeaways and restaurants all tend to close on Mondays or Tuesdays?

Brian



Dear Brian

Erm isn't this a tad obvious? Mondays and Tuesdays are the least busy days of the week, therefore you close = less loss of business. The preferred closing day in modern times is Tuesday so this does not interfere with Bank Holiday Monday openings.

Chinese people all collectively elect a day to take off so they can all go and party together. In Manchester for example Piccadilly 21s and Mr Smiths in nearby Warrington as well as in Bolton at the Temple. As below:



Oh look TCG did it again and put in lairy stuff to ogle,

Are filled with young Chinese people, unfortunately the triad gangs started coercing people into joining them and thus these Chinese nights are no longer as packed as previously. In fact let me go off on one of my many tangents, my over used story of the early 2000s was when I peeved off a gang banger in the temple and had about 20 hand guns pointed at me. The old adage of look but do not touch especially gangster's girlfriends applies here.

Chinese Weddings pt2

Bargaining stage.

A few people have asked what traditional Chinese weddings are about from start to end and I thought I would make this into a bit of a series as the original document became way too big to write properly



The parents of each family then bargain with each other as tokens of intent with more tokens and therefore a price would be set generally considered dowry in other countries for the family of the girl. The Yenta would then ask the bride to be's family for various dates for the actual wedding and also when such gifts should be handed over.

Gifts from the males would be:

Tea ~ this is MANDATORY sort of..
cakes ~ This is also semi mandatory more = better they are dragon/phoenix cakes i.e. male/female cakes.
Poultry
Meat
Cigarettes
Wine
Gold etc
An Itemised list is presented so the Yenta doesn't dip his or her hands into the gifts.


The bride's family then sends wedding invites out along with cakes the older you are (and wealthier) the more chance you will get an invite and a cake, TCG is not particularly young or old and is piss poor therefore never receives cakes and cakes kind of died out decades ago.

Cakes are NOT free you attend the wedding you are expected to bring a red packet with hard cold cash in them, in the past it was left up to the discretion of people to put as much or as little as they could afford. In Modern day greed centric Hong Kong they ask for huge sums of money. You may recall a previous post about extortion on Chinese new year, I consider this equal as extortion, my cousins think so too as they receive invitations that state £500 as a gift to the bride and groom. It used to be £100, bloody greedy shits.

This is probably why TCG does not have an address to which to send such invites to, no invites no pay big wedges of money which is good considering I am piss poor anyway and have little love for my extended family.

These gifts are supposed to be 'acknowledgement' or rather compensation for the efforts of the parents in raising the girl and acceptance of the gifts indicates they are willing to give the bride to the family of the man. That's GIVE the bride to the FAMILY not the groom. You're one of us now as you might call it.

Has some overtones of

"We are the Borg. Lower your shields, and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile."

But this is just the negotiation, once it is agreed as to how much she is 'worth' the agreement is made and unless both families agree to annul it there is no escape. This is a particular bastard when agreements are made when you are a child since you've taken the payment.

Anyway the bride's family shows off the gifts as a show of social status and love for daughter.


In modern day Hong Kong and most of China this does not happen very often maybe in some rural areas but modern cities nope doth not happen, wedding cakes are replaced by paper envelope demands for money which people like me attempt to avoid.

This however does not prevent the said parents showing off to their peers and boasting of their son or daughter marrying somebody of wealth or high social status though. Which is the modern form of this sort of arrangement, as gifts between families? Doesn't happen anymore well it might do but rarely.

Such boasts are often completely filled with lies and bullshit and thus must be taken with a handful of salt, I've personally caught many bullshitters out this way the problem is parents will use said bullshit against their own children

"look how fucking useless you are compared to so and so's son."

Ha I caught my uncle doing this more than once where he lied copiously about my cousin without telling him of the actual lies, I caught him out and he went all ad hominem against me.



Tomorrow maybe today the actual preparations and rituals and how or "Chinese people we have by and large abandoned them completely"

Material girl cover.

Dear TCG

I remember an old Song from TVB tapes I heard quite often as a child I can't remember who the writer or who did the vocals however it was a cover of Material girl or sounded like it. Ive checked wikipedia and asked on lots of forums but nobody seems to have heard of it

Vanessa Y


Dear Vanessa

Today is your lucky day. I know the song because erm I know the song. The song is by Sally Yeh/Yip. It is called 200 degrees, it is uncredited on wiki probably because they are so incredibly embarrassed just to watch the video, back in 1985 this was probably cool but today is rather embarrassing.

葉蒨文 200度

And you can watch the video here:



Try watch the video and not smirk at the two guys.

You may remember Sally from such films as the killer


Sally plays the poor girl who sings at the start and is involved in a massive shootout and is blinded by Chow Yun Fat





TCG reactivating repressed childhood memories since 2009!

You thought your job was shit?

Dear TCG

I saw this in Beijing recently what the fuck?



T2200


Dear T2200

There is a by law in Beijing and many cities in China whereby there is no shitting in the toilet you are supposed to shit by the side of the hole and not in the hole.

A bloke comes and literally carts off the shit in a wagon sized bucket, heh this reminds me of the the bucket of shit fight in the hostel in 2009. Again something in my book, I already give far too much away about my book on this subject.

Anyway the reasoning behind this is toilets without running water to flush away the faeces has this by-law, as if people did shit into the toilet hole without water it would quickly clog up. That it effectively it, the toilets in western hotels and the ones nearby the big tourist attractions are all plumbed in and therefore you will usually see this in hutong more than anywhere else. These are cleaned up daily and when walking around Beijing late night or early morning I would see rather smell such men with carts cleaning out the hutong toilets. Which makes them 'relatively' clean. Compared to say the toilets of government house in Wanchai before 1997, the Manchester Hacienda or the horrible toilet in Azerbaijan and Mongolia whereby I opened the lid and it was filled to the brim and made me sick at the sight of them

TCG

Chinese Weddings pt1

A few people have asked what traditional Chinese weddings are about from start to end and I thought I would make this into a bit of a series as the original document became way too big to write properly


The normal coloured text bits are what traditionally occurred, the light blue bit of the text is the modern context.


The first part is:

A proposal, whereby a go between was made to make a proposal and then an acceptance back and forth sort of like an estate agent with negotiations between parents. The bride and groom had no input into this. Marriage was for alliances money and family lines.

Men's parents would seek girls and offer gifts. The gifts can be anything in rural areas this might have been animals, grain, gold opium etc, however the family are judged upon the gifts. And thus care needs to be taken much like a modern context. I.e. if you buy your girl friend perfume she may take offence and may think you think she smells.

What happens next is then an emissary not dissimilar to a yenta record the date and times of birth formally and take this to the family ancestral home. Then ask a fortune teller if there was anything wrong with this information i.e. if it was an unlucky name or there were some omens. Also to ask if there would be a good match between the sons and daughters.

The same thing would happen with the bride to be.

Only if both were favourable would the families meet face to face and discuss like a job interview education, appearance, income and social position.

In modern times this does not happen so much, Billy my cousin got married and there was no such ritual, it was more he met her in a bar they dated they married. Billy works as a labourer and his wife works a call centre job, this does not happen at all.

My acquaintances who got married in the UK, this didn't happen at all.

In a highly cynical modern context, the proposal of meeting of families is a job interview, TCG has far too often sat through dates where parents are present (what the fuck is with this?) and it is like a fucking job interview. It means is the man rich?

Take for example 李嘉欣 (Lee Kar Yan) Michelle Reis, Michelle Reis is usually regarded as a fake, a bitch, for her tendency to go after married wealthy men and is universally hated by women because she is hot. I would bang her endlessly even though she is 40 or so now, seriously she has the looks without photoshop. Chinese girls today still use her as a yard stick in terms of hotness and beauty. Though it is hard to get the looks of Lee Kar Yan as her looks are from being half Portugese which give her the height and paleness which is real. TCG has actually seen LKY in the flesh she REALLY does look like her photos.











Another excuse to post pictures of hot Chinese women (btw the pictures are from the film Fallen Angels 1995 the sequel sort of to Chungking Express).

Anyway Lee Kar Yan got married this guy, a guy who would normally not have a chance unless he was seriously wealthy, he is seriously wealthy, heh I have bumped into him and know people who have bumped into him and he is a proper nerd my big toe has more social skills than he does. Ergo my cynicism on the initial 'interview' meeting of families, heh when I worked as an accountant and made lots of money (or so they thought as I was a piss poor paid accountant, like most accountants actually as there is a hierarchy only the ones at the top get well paid the salaried staff get fuck all), I used to get shit loads of these interview dates. Now I am considerably poorer piss poor in fact with enough time to run this blog, such dates have diminished correlation?

Ok ok sure sure there could be some love in there but what are the odds ?



I'm not bitter towards women about this as this is merely their nature by and large as 1000000 years of evolution has made them seek partners who potentially can provide for them in the future and therefore give their hypothetical children the best start in life. As nature's joke men go after as many women as possible as it is in their nature.


Prt2 tomorrow about the Bequeathment of gifts, or the more cynical title: "These are just dowry gifts' I'm not pimping my daughter out how dare you!"

Bra unhooking competitions

Is China going to hell? Or is this just an excuse to post some leary garbage?