Amy Adoyzie Enjoys Life and Junk

Gimme some time, and I'll miss this.


A month ago, Class #15's projector wasn't working and I was unable to entertain them with a lesson on cheesy American songs. I gave class the choice of "going outside" or staying in and studying. Of the 70 students, half of them decided to stick around and study while I played music the likes of Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" (I was trying to subliminally tell them that I'm a martyr for their English cause.)
This is Class #15 from this story: amyadoyzie.livejournal.com/2007/01/11/


Twice daily, Chinese students at my school do these eye exercises to give their eyeballs a rest. The recording that plays in the background is counting off, like an aerobics instructor, and she speaks the best Mandarin in all of Huarong.

I'm finally using the cheesy movie option on my digicam to present to you a tour of my fabulous accommodations here at Huarong Yizhong. The video's a bit dark, but you get to see my shoilet in all its gleaming glory.
Take note of the "Related" videos bar which includes the following clips: Eminem -Criminal Live (UP IN SMOKE TOUR), Jamaican Tour Guide, Super Paper Mario -Wii Tour Video, and A Tour of Earth - Part One.

from: amyadoyzie@gmail.com
to: info@shanghaiist.com,
date: May 24, 2007 9:15 PM
subject: Photo Courtesy

Hi there,
Just wanted to send a note about an image that was used on Shanghaiist today for this story:
http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2007/05/24/there_seem_to_b.php. A friend of mine e-mailed me to tell me that she saw my poor Macbook on your blog and, lo and behold, there it was!
What irks me most about this is that there is an attribution to me at the bottom of the story that says "Photo courtesy of," which would imply that I gave permission to use this image when, in fact, no one has even bothered to send me a message to let me know that this image was on your site (except for my friend who stumbled over it).
Generally, I have no problems with sharing my photos as long as I'm notified and asked beforehand. But in this case, if it weren't for my friend, I would have never known it was on your blog. For future reference, the next time you chose to use an "All Rights Reserved" image, you could at the very least have the 'courtesy' to email the photographer.
-Amy

RIP Zie Zie

There are nights where I turn on the TV just for background noise as I'm working on a lesson plan and a couple weeks ago I stumbled upon this gem: an infomercial for erectile dysfunction medication.

Chairman Mao would be proud that Chinese television airs informericals for the Chinese version of Viagra. Here's the panel of experts that'll help you get your shiz up. It's called Gold-Boter!
I can't read this, but I think it says something like, "With our awesome miracle drug, you'll totally be sportin' wood in 30 minutes or less, or else we'll deliver a free pizza to you!"
I understand enough Chinese characters to know that this dude is saying "because my thing is too small."
Maybe the problem with Chinese men and erectile dysfunction is that they have no weiners.
Or the issue could be that instead of a penis, Chinese men have arrows.
The females in the studio audience are amused. I would be too, sitting in a room full of dudes with messed up peeners.
I dunno where they dug up this dude, but one of the selling points for "Gold-Boter" is that it combines the wonders of Chinese and Western medicine and this "expert" was supposed to be some type of American military personel. Too bad his uniform sucks and so did his English. He sounded like he was eastern Euro if anything!

I've shaved my legs once in my life.
In 7th grade, when my classmates were sprouting ta-tas and entering womanhood, all girl-talk centered around how to maintain our new found femininity. We began wearing bras and maxi-pads, and removing hair from places that never bothered us before. Even though I've never had real body hair (save for the places that matter: armpits and cooterville), I wanted to shave the few soft, fine hairs on my knee and use those legs to step over the threshold into the gloriousness that is womanhood.
I remember being 13-years-old, locked in the bathroom, running a pink razor up my hairless shin and being wholly disappointed. This is it? I bleed from my crotch and now I'm supposed to do this too if I'm a girl? I realized that putting up with my period was enough responsibility, and nixed the whole leg-shaving ritual as an attempt to fit in with hairier white girls.
Lack of body hair has also afforded me another luxury in the realms of daily maintenance: I don't bathe with soap.
My skin is also very sensitive and soap tends to dry it out. Since I don't have fuzz all over to trap odor, I'm pretty stink-free without soaping it up. Ask ex-lovers, close friends and family, I promise that they'll vouch for my odorlessness. Don't get me wrong, when I haven't shaved my pits and forget to wear deodorant, I'm as stinky as the next Chinese middle school boy. But in the 26 years of existence, I've never showered with soap and no one's been the wiser.
Then I came to China, and it broke my soapless streak.
Hunan's beginning to heat up again and the air hangs with soot and sweat. My skin is constantly moist with ickiness. The only time I feel clean is in those few brief moments immediately after I step out of the shower. In an effort to prolong that so fresh feeling I decided to get my soap on.



I'm taking baby steps and using baby body wash. I's even got me a luffa for scrubbing purposes. When I told Marah about my latest endeavor she said, "Congratulations on joining the Hygiene Club!"

The instructional video, "How to do the Asian squat," explores the history and physicality of this "sturdy, comfortable and sexy" position. And it shows how the honky squat ain't got nothin' on our ancient Chinese sqautology.
Big ups to our squatting superiority!

Before leaving Portland, I made a short list of Goals of Chance, things that I wanted to happen base solely on happenstance. Four of five happened, not bad.
In my last few months in China, I came up with another list of to-dos. So far it consists of two things:
1. Make a cheesy Chinese wedding album.
In an average Chinese person's life, there are a handful of milestones that everyone strives for: pass the Gao Kao (the college entrance exam), go to university, get married, have a baby, rinse, repeat. Folk's will go all out and spend a month's salary on garish wedding pictures, set in exotic locales provided by pull-down backdrops and a half-dozen costume changes. It's total ham and it was something I needed to do before leaving China. I asked Daniel to be my faux-groom and last weekend we haggled for a cheap package deal that fit into our volunteer budgets and got our fake China wedding pictures on.
We had three costume changes and I got to sport a sparly turqouise, strapless prom dress ditty; a traditional Chinese cheong-sam dress; and a big, strapless, poofy white wedding gown stuffed with two shoulder pads in each boob. This was probably the only time in my life where I'll wear a wedding gown.
The ladies at the studio dressed me, and I made a personal rule to not refuse anything that they draped, stuck or mooshed onto my face. I wanted to be Chinese, for real. As a result, I was heavily made up with long plastic eyelashes flappin' away. They also sprouted some curly hair onto my head and wrapped a large gaudy fake diamond necklace around my collar bone. I was a sight for sore eyes.
Daniel and I mimed booty hip-hop videos, he crawled under my skirt and he didn't wear pants during the last set of pics.
I can't wait to show these to my mama.

2. Make out with a Mao.
I have a crush on a boy named Mao Wen Hao, which means that somewhere in the long history of his lineage. he's related to Chairman Mao. That makes him make-outable. He's also this tall, lanky, nerd kid who drums for Ten Bottles Heart, my favorite Chinese band. Kid doesn't speak a lick of English, but damned if I don't go home without hittin' some Mao action!
I'll keep ya'lls updated on that one.

Spring is slowly slipping away. The soft breeze hangs with a light dampness that makes my olive skin stick to everything. Every night my apartment is filled with the grey spiral smoke of mosquito repellent.
What's worse than a night of hot restless sleep that was interrupted by seasonal allergy sneezing fits? I didn't think my nights/mornings could feel any worse until I was awoken by the buzz of mosquito wings flying by my ears after it bit into my arms and legs. I was forced to crawl under a warm blanket to keep from being bitten again.
My classes are also suffering from heat stroke as my lessons have devolved into a game of apathy. I'm giving into their demands and showing bootleg films, hoping that it might reinforce what little English they know.
I find solace from a few things like this popsicle made of sweet red beans wrapped in a layer of green bean goodness. It's so heavenly that the Chinese company who makes these frozen treats is called Mygod. And there are the weekend trips to the city, something I abstained from doing throughout most of the school year. But during my last months in Hunan, one of the things that keep me going is in looking forward to spending my weekends with Daniel and going to the 4698 Club.
No matter my age or where I am in the world, I can always rely on good friends and good music to keep me sane.

A quick update to let ya'lls know that I'm alive and well, and will continue my regular bloggage soon. I'm still recuperating from my post-vacation malaise and the hot Hunan heat that is seeping into all of my tiny pores. I've got stories galore and I'm finally going to work on the traveling tales from Spring Festival (in February) when I skipped my way through western China, Laos and Vietnam.
It's only another month and a half of teaching, then another month of China travels. Soon I'll be back in Los Angeles, where I'll stay two weeks at mom and dad's house vegging out in front of their television set and air-conditioned living room. And on August 11th, I'll land in PDX, back to my retirement home.

In the continuing saga that is Zie Zie's life (and end thereof), I have finally sent her away.
Initially, I was up for testing the Chinese AppleCare system, and was even a little excited about getting the Macbork back with a new hard drive. I thought that since she would be given new guts in China, I could call her my Chinese adoptee. A new name picked out and everything. She was going to be Xiao Zhu (Little Pig) since this is the year of the Pig, giving it heaps of good luck for the future. But ultimately, I decided against that when I called China AppleCare to reluctantly arrange for them to pick Zie Zie up.
They asked that I fax them my info. Fax?! Shouldn't all my info be in their system?
"Aftah we receive your fax, we will contact for pick up."
"How long will it take for the pick up?"
"Maybe one week or two week."
"Two weeks? Why does it take so long?"
"Two week. Because we have another company to do the pick-up."
"Why does it take them so long just to pick it up?"
"Pick up is two week. Because we have another company to do the pick-up."
"I understand. Why so long?"
"Because the other company will do the pick-up. They will take two weeks."
That was when I realized that China is severely lacking in the infrastructure to provide acceptable customer service for AppleCare. What if this "another company" takes Zie Zie away and loses her? There's no real accountability either. I can have all the carbon copies of delivery forms and contracts, but it'd all be in goobly-gook Chinese that I don't know what kind of recourse I would have with those sheets of paper in the States. And Sam pointed out that China is mostly in a state of martial law when it comes to consumer rights, which means that I have none. Half of the things I buy, don't come with a receipt. There are no customer service kiosks flanked with smiling representatives.

But as serendipity will have it, Nat is returning to the States today and she took Zie Zie with her. She's going to drop her off with Gus and Marah and they'll get her treatment at the Apple store in Portland. I won't see Zie Zie until I return in late August.
It says something when the stress of having Zie Zie repaired in China trumps not having her for the next four month.
Here's to my new PC life.

Every morning at 6:00 AM, the campus loudspeakers swell with a light flowery melody- its the alarm clock. It plays for a few minutes, rousing drowsy students form their slumber in their unheated, cramped dormitories. I used to sleep through this. Exhaustion from teaching kept my eyelids heavy and blocked out all noises except the sound of my breathing.
But since the beginning of the new term, a bizarre mix of anxiety and fatigue has turned me into a light sleeper. I wake at the slightest sounds and I am kept up at night with 1.3 billion thoughts muddled in my mind.
My teaching position ends in late June. Its only months away, but feels like an eternity. Longing for something that you once had is like diving into an abyss of memories of your friends and good times, but not being able to join them.

* * * * *

I was late for class #5. There's one boy who expects more than that and loudly asked, "Why? Why are you always late?"
I explained that I was on the phone with a friend that I haven't spoken to in months.
All I got back were blank stares because they have no reference point to how much it meant to me to be able to chat with Gus and Marah, best friends who I lived with for a year before coming to Huarong.
They were supposed to come out to the middle kingdom in July and we were going to travel to Tibet together. Gus would bring signed black-and-white headshots and have his arm hair petted by curious Chinese. Marah might get in touch with her Chinese roots and get all native and start squatting everywhere while picking her ears with her pinky. I was going to pretend to be their adopted Chinese daughter, whining in English and refusing to speak ching chong language. It was going to be a grand ol' time in the PRC. But a couple weeks ago Gus sent me an e-mail that I hoped was a late April Fool's joke. He said that they weren't coming.
Their beloved home has a case of the moldies. Their house is infected and they must act as responsible homeowners and stay put to take care of it. This is after a string of unfortunate events like Marah's aunt passing away unexpectedly and Marah's car was stolen.
I was bummed that they coldn't make it to China, but I feel worse that they've been plagued with so much BS. For months, I wasn't able to speak with them because of a shoddy internet connection. I was overjoyed when I realized that Skype was working and called then in between my first two periods, which made me late for class #5.
It was worth it though, if only because I got to hear Gus order a pint of PBR at the Pub.

It's no small feat and I can proudly say that I have spoken with each one of my 1,350 students at least once. It was in early March when I embarked on the task of creating a roster for each of my 20 classes. In doing so, I chatted with every single kid and jotted down their Chinese names in pinyin.
More than half of my kids don't have English names, mostly because they are too low-level to care and even if they were assigned an name, they'd end up forgetting it. Then there are the English-nameless kids who declare proudly, "I am Chinese" and it's reason enough.
Among my students who do have English names, the majority of them are normal like Tina and Jerry. Then there are the not totally normal names.

The Cute: Buttercup, Waterlily, Starfire, Halo, Cuckoo, Kooky

The Odd: Pi, Superman, Zero, Iceman, Eleven, Simple, Deny, John Clarkson, Mars Y, Black Rose, Dark, Clement Dirksen, Tubman, Happy King, Tricky

The Nouns: Heart, Seashell, Apple, Snow, Memory, Boss, Tank, Sugar, Coffee, Machine, Gold, Jeans, Biscuit, Ice Cream, Secret, Cookies, Oven

The Animals: Mouse, Fish, Cricket, Crocodile, Monkey

The Messed Up: Reagan (as in Ronald), Sadam, Adolf, Wiger, Kaka (like the futbol player), Satan, Kaka Dong, Enricher (to become rich)

The Gibberish: Shmily (See how much I love you), Airo, Recly, Viviter, Fafa, Yeral, PMSL, Odile, Geyen, Creesida, Cafu, Wenkiki, SIBM, XTF, JMLW, Ereaster, Masker, Youmans, Cheminver, Tchion, Valan, Speshow (Special?), Coolbe, Aserl, Tenffin, Litchi, Shuaiest (shuai means handsome, so this means handsome-est), Sfet, Dcasenck, Echienze Ryoma, Moodcool, KGG, Ziclane, Hibby, Platy,
He Ice

(Dang, this is gonna wreak havoc during spell check!)

I was watching this when Zie Zie died.

It's official. After speaking with an AppleCare tech, Zie Zie has been diagnosed with a dead hard drive. She's gone.
"It's toast," he said.
He tried to find a list of Apple-certified centers in China, and was unable to navigate/decipher the Chinese website.
"What do you mean you can't read Chinese?" I teased him.
"It's all a bunch of squiggly lines," he replied.
This begins my adventures in redeeming AppleCare in China. It ought to be a guaranteed circus.

Zie Zie was really more than just a laptop. She was my lifeline to sanity, my little tender box where I kept all my creative ventures and she was my lil' darlin'. It's only slowly beginning to sink in all that I've lost with the death of her hard drive. I haven't backed up stuff in the last few weeks. The pictures. The design projects. The ramblings of a madwoman. *Poof* Gone to tech heaven.

Written last night (in my physical journal):
Here I am, in the middle of China with a dearth of tech support.
I am layin in bed, surrounded by four different issues of the New Yorker, each spread to the middle of stories. My mind is so wrapped up in the stress of saving Zie Zie that I don't have the attention span to finish any of the articles.
I called China's Apple support today and was working with a staff of customer service reps that seemed ill-prepared to help someone in English.
"Oh, hi Miss Eh-mee. Okay. We must-ah try some poh-see-jures to see if we can use the hahd drive. Okay."
It's frustrating to do troubleshooting on the phone, but to do it in slow-mo teacher talk is actually slightly amusing.
"Aftah discuss this wis my co-workahs, we sink somesing is wrong with the hahd drive."
Just as I feared.
"Your Macbork need to go to a service centah."
When he re-read the serial number of Zie Zie back to me, I was keen on the words he used to clarify letters.
"L. L like love. U, like university. E. E for Engrish."
He really said EngRish. He also tried to get away with "T, like tea."
I hope that Zie Zie can speak Chinglish, because she's will be in their hands soon.

Late last evening, I was in the middle of a design project for Razorcake, typing up a new blog post and watching asinine YouTube clips when ZieZie froze like a deer flashed out by the bright headlights of an oncoming big-rig. I tried resuscitating her, to no avail.
Now whenever she boots, there's this clicky sound, which through Google research I have learned has been dubbed the click of death.
I'm sad.
Beyond sad.
This might mean that my hard drive has imploded.
And what I'm really most bummed about is not being able to meet my deadline for Razorcake, on a layout design that I was so excited about- but won't be able to complete.
The disappointment in being unable to finish my design trumps the stress of having to deal with ZieZie's possibly dead hard drive while I'm in the middle of boonies-ville China.
And then there's the zine I wanted to put together for the students. Then there are the application essays I needed to write to apply to other programs. Then there's the pictures I lost. Oh, the pictures...

Anyway, I'm writing now to let ya'll know that I'm so bummed and sad that I can't even think of other words besides bummed and sad to describe how I'm feeling. It almost feels like losing a phantom limb, but worse.
I'm rambling now.

While I was in college, I developed the habit of screening all my calls. If you didn't leave a message, I didn't pick up. This was a result of telemarketers hounding me relentlessly and before the Do Not Call registry. I got used to not answering unless I knew who it was.
I haven't this luxury in Huarong. In fact, I'm lucky if my phone works and isn't blinking and beeping incessantly. I'm still confused about how it's not cordless and tethered to the wall by some curly, coily wire thing.
It doesn't annoy me too much because no one really calls. Whenever mom calls, I usually know ahead of time because Albert will instant message me to let me know. Vice Headmaster Deng, who is an English teacher at a nearby middle school, will phone me every few months to ask if I'll give a lecture to some of his classes. But his English is so atrocious (worse than some of my best students) that I we end up speaking in circles and I have no clue where the conversation is going. I end up telling him I'm too busy.
And occasionally George Bush gives me a ring.
Or, more precisely, Jawj-ah Boosh-ah will be on the other end of the line and a typical conversation goes like this:
Hello?
Dees ees Jawj-ah Boosh-ah! Dees ees Jawj-ah Boos-ah! Ha, ha, ha.
Hi, dad.
Ees Jawj-ah Boosh-ah! Ha, ha, ha. I am Jawj-ah Boosh-ah!
Dad, what do you want?
Hello Amy. I am Jawj-ah Boosh-ah.
(Audible sigh)
Sometimes Jawj-ah Boosh-ah will threaten me and say, "You no come back to America. Stay in China. Can not come back. Ha, ha, ha." And other times he'll ask if I've eaten breakfast and when my next class will begin. I think he just gets bored and wants to call the other side of Earth to bug his only daughter because he can. He's the freakin' president.

Last summer, I asked dad about why he named me Amy. I assumed it was because it was an easy name to pronounce and write, a naming jackpot for immigrant folks with their first-born American citizen. My brothers, Alan and Albert, both have A-names too. When we were kids, he told us it was because we were born in America and he wanted us to get As in school. (Later, I formulated a theory that it was because "A" is at the beginning of name books and dad was too lazy to browse further.) But that wasn't it.
I'm named after a president's daughter. Jimmy Carter was in office at the time of my birth, thus Amy Carter is my namesake. He must have had high hopes for me, or rather, for himself.
Presently, his dream is to be a yam farmer in Hawaii. This means that he would have to quit his machine operator job at the box factory. People don't fantasize about working at a manufacturing plant, but for more than 20 years the security of that position and its benefits package provided a lot for our family. It isn't a dream job, but it's a familiar theme in the first chapters of many American dreams. Mom isn't delighted by his new career aspirations, but she can't fault him for wanting to pursue this and supports him by default. I support him because I really like yams.

"Will you send me a box of yams when you are a farmer?" I asked.
"I can send yam anywhere. I can send yam to China. How much yam you want?"

I'm glad I can't screen my calls because dad never leaves messages.

Zhe li de sheng huo xi guan ma?
Every Chinese person that I've met has asked, "Are you used to the life here?"
I usually answer that it's not that bad. I try not to mention getting ripped-off, being overwhelmed by the stress of teaching, or my wonky toilet. There's no discussion of how my standard of living has dipped. Sanitation and hygiene just aren't on the top of my list. I've gotten used to lots of things about China that used to make me gag.
Your senses get effed with on a daily basis. When there's a stench of an open sewer, you're not sure if it is actually a pool of human excrement or if a street vendor is cooking stinky tofu. You learn to disassociate your senses and pretend you didn't see the waitress at the restaurant washing chopsticks and vegetables in a bucket of dingy water.
America isn't immune from the lack of sanitation either. Watch any late-night local news broadcast, and there will invariably be another caught-on-tape expose about how rat-infested the local KFC is. We've got crime and senseless acts of massive violence. Before entering junior high school, I was so anxious about gang violence and getting my ass jumped or being caught in a drive-by shooting that I changed schools.
But at least in the States, I knew the rules. I knew where I was welcomed and where not to go.
At least gangsters have manners. Trashy thugs wait in Wal-Mart check-out line just like everyone else when they're buying a new package of fresh white wifebeaters and extra-wide shoelaces.

China's trying to clean up its act though. No Spitting on the Road to Olympic Glory, Beijing Says:
Citywide campaigns are trying to curb public spitting, discourage public cursing and littering and also promote lining up. There is even a campaign to rectify the often hilariously bad English translations on signs and restaurant menus.
...

“I spent six months trying to figure out how to stop people from spitting,” Mr. Wang said. “I first wanted to wipe their spit up myself, but just how much could I wipe? So I decided the best way was to ask the spitting person to stop.”

This is in the nation's capitol city for goodness sakes!
I wonder when they'll start the campaign to end all public acts of urination and defecation? While we ponder this, please enjoy more Engrish:

Working and living in a small developing rural town in China has afforded me lots of free time to watch excellent television programming and cultivate a huge crush on the 6'7" goggle-eyed freak that is Stephen Merchant. He's half of the genius behind The Office and Extras, the latter of which I have watched about a dozen times in the last week.
My schoolgirl infatuation with him grows evermore when he says that Mandarin Chinese sounds like goobly gook and he's only seen Chinese people in kung-fu movies and in Chinatown (not really a town, more of a novelty street).
And this quote from imdb.com makes me wanna whip together a batch of fresh spring rolls and we could have a stay-in date and watch episodes of I Love Lucy and Small Wonder.
I wouldn't mind being a divine dictator and having a stab at running China. You know the concept that if everyone in China jumps up and down at the same time it'd start a tidal wave that'd destroy America? I'd phone the U.S. President and say 'We're all on the great wall of China and we're going to jump off unless you send us the girls from "The O.C."
He doesn't need those skinny bitches from The O.C.. He's got me, from the suburbs of Los Angeles! I don't pine after celebrities, but SM brings back all those fluttery feelings that I used to have for Erik Estrada (from CHiPs) when I was 5-years-old. All's I wanna do is to go on a date with him, at a pub, maybe on trivia night and swoon.
To watch this man dance, is to watch a dream in motion. I mean, if the dream were about a hella tall, lanky white English dude swervin' about, yeah, it is a dream in motion.


And if you haven't been fully saturated with gunky SM love just yet, ( here's a screenshot of his butt after the cut! )

"May yin Chi-nah. Kwa-lah-tee is me-dee-oh-cah."
Made in China. Quality is mediocre.

Daniel and I shot puzzled looks at each other. We were standing in the middle of an impeccably spotless electronics store on the eighth floor of a gigantic mall on the island of Hong Kong. I was in the middle of my Christmas/New Years break travels when I ran out of memory for my camera and we asked the store clerk if they carried SanDisk compact flash cards. That was his response, punctuated in a thick Hongkongnese accent, Made in China. Quality is mediocre.
Hong Kong : Mainland China is like American Urbanites : Southern Country Folks.
Hong Kong residents are total snobs, even though they're ethnically Chinese, and rightfully so. When I asked for a memory card that is produced in China, the Chinese clerk couldn't help but remind me that I was searching for second-rate goods (his store only sold Japanese-made electronics). But why the hell was I searching for a flash card anyway? Wasn't I, an anal always-prepared freak in my own right, prepared for the trip?
I thought I was going to be fine with two 1-GB and one 256-MB card for my week and a half vacation. But I didn't expect that I would love Xijiang so much, where I ended up taking hundreds of photos.
Right before I crossed the border into Hong Kong from Shenzhen, I went through the Shenzhen Luohu marketplace to buy a new card. I should have known better than to buy a memory card from vendors set up in hallways, but I was desperate and ill-informed and stupid. I dropped 200 kuai for a 4-GB card, that's about $25 USD for a card that should cost about five times as much in the States.
As expected, the card crapped on me. I was livid. It was my own fault for thinking it was a legitimate card, but I still made Daniel promise that we would return to the same vendor and demand some type of reparation.
While we were in HK, we scoured through the consumer-dreamland of a mall and found authentic flash memory cards. The salesman even showed me how the Shenzhen vendor tricked me by renaming the card so that it looked like I had four gigs worth of memory, then he formatted the bunk card to reveal that it only had 64-MB capacity.
Now we're up to speed on that part of the saga that was our HK trip.
Now let's pretend it's January 1, the first day of this new glorious year.

I've already written about the absurd adventure we had while in HK, but I haven't written about the first day of 2007:

. Woke up to the sounds of humping in our hourly Ho Motel. Daniel and I conclude that the girl is obviously faking because it's too early in the day to be that excited.
. The lady at the "front desk" (or ore accurately, booth nook), rushed us out of the room at 8 AM so that two waiting girls can get their business on.
. Yummy zuk for breakfast.
. Limped to McCafe where Daniel discussed various ways multinational chains try to class shit up, like how McDonald's was serving frothy coffee drinks out of actual ceramic mugs. I was only half-listening.
. We crooked our necks against the rounded plastic chairs and a short wall and tried to nap at the McCafe. We couldn't help it, we were kicked out of our room for some working ladies.
. Killed time at a bookstore where I perused multiple books about/by the latest literary sensation, Paris Hilton. I was comforted by the vast amount of English!
. Lunch was our last hurrah, where I ate some of the bestest delicious eel rolls at Japan Mi-Nesushi.
. We were on our way to the subway station to leave Hong Kong, we were an hour from being back in mainland China, when Daniel spat into a gully. (Daniel's been developing some unbecoming habits since living in China, one of which is his peasanty spitting.)
. Daniel was caught spitting and was fined 1,500 HK$. He almost cries.
. The officer told Daniel to not "make a scene" and that he technically didn't have to pay the fine if he never returned to Hong Kong. She asked me to comfort him.
. It was that very moment where we realized that we were in fact too mainland for Hong Kong. You can take the boy outta the developing nation, but you can't take the developing nation outta the boy.
. I almost died on the HK Subway when the automatic doors closed on my pack and shoulders. There were a few seconds where I saw my short young life flash between my four eyes. Relief came when the doors beeped a few times and re-opened to release me from its death grip.
. We are further convinced to get the hell out of HK.

A promising start to a new year, huh? When we finally crossed the border back into China, it was only a little after lunchtime. The day wasn't even near being over. We were at the Shenzhen, Guangdong crossing where I had bought that crap card at the Luohu shopping center, which is built at the border so that people who are coming into and out of China/Hong Kong can buy sackfuls of cheap shit. It's a perfect location for vendors to sell shoddy merchandise because most of their customers are en route to somewhere else, and won't likely come back to complain.
Except for us, your mainland trash protagonists, who were already having a pretty effed-up day and we were on a roll.
I wanted Daniel to break out his awesome Mando and yell and scream and be a total asshole on my behalf. I wanted him to make all the other vendors grateful that they didn't sell me a piece of shit card. It feels awful to get ripped off like that, but seldom do you get the chance to go back to your ripper-offer to tell him what's what, so I wanted Daniel to express every bit of frustration I'v stored up from being cheated so many times.
We wound through the narrow halls between shiny shops stocked with fake Versace and Prada, and found the small corridor where I bought the card. I expected the vendor to take one look at me and to tell us to scram, that he had no idea who we were and to be a crybaby to someone else. But he didn't. He looked me in the eyes and averted his gaze when I pointed at him and said, "This is it."
Daniel, the born-diplomat that he is, handled it with the utmost gentlemaness. There were no raised voices, just a calm explanation of what happened, like how they lied to my face and sold me a fake card and I'd like some type of replacement. I stood quietly with a sullen look, and when I could pick out the part where Daniel said that I was on the verge of tears, I furrowed my brows like I was about to cry.
I already knew going in I wasn't going to my money back, but I wanted something other than a broken peice of plastic. They offered me another 4-GB card, which I promptly stuck into my camera and formatted. Voila, it was another 64-MB POS. Then they waved over a brightly-lit display of MP3 players and other electronic sundries that I knew wouldn't last the plane ride home back to Changsha. Finally, they broke down and said that they could give me a real 1-GB card (as opposed to the 4-GB fake that they kept trying to pawn off on me.)
But there was a catch, I'd have to pay another 60 kuai for it. They wanted me to pay more money for a functional card because they effed me over by selling me crap flash memory. 260 yuan for a real ONE-gig card as opposed to 200 yuan for the fake four-gig one.
HA!
"She bought a 4-GB card for 200 yuan, what did she expect?" One of the vendors asked Daniel. It was a good question and tinged with so many levels of effed-upness because they sold it to me!
When I refused to pay more for a functional card, they tried bargaining.
240.
No.
220.
No.
C'mon, it's only 20 kuai more! (!!!)
No.
Fine.
In the end, I got a "1-GB" card. Theoretically, it should be fully functional and not implode after a dozen pictures, but I don't trust it much. The most important thing about the whole ordeal is that we made the vendors lose face.
These folks are in the business of scamming people, there's no two-ways about it. They're hustlers, thieves, businessmen. And it's okay, apparently. Because these shops are ubiquitous in China, and they continue to flourish. But seldom do customers come back to seek restitution, probably because they're too embarrassed or are back home hundreds of miles away.
"This situation is really hard to talk about," another worker told Daniel before we left the shop.
"Next time I see you," the vendor said, "I won't lie to you."

(A pic I took outside of Luohu, with the new memory card.)

It's a lucky coincidence that I decided to begin my 365 Days project on 4/13. I'm actually a really superstitious person and this is one of the dumb, tiny ways that I'm trying to conquer my lameness.
I am thankful that I'm not stricken with neither triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) or tetraphobia (the fear of the number 4).

Here's to an auspicious year of 365ing!
(The 365 Days Flickr Group)