Alright, last lot of things that make one go “Hmmm…”
Apart from the dozens of (rather amusing) examples of what is commonly referred to as Chinglish (Chinese badly translated into English, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinglish, one example I can remember was a sign that warned us to “Slip Carefully”), I have to admit there weren’t actually that many What The’s… here goes anyway…
- A bunch of warnings on the Great Wall to be careful around the edges, not to stray from the path, etc and of course… not to use your mobile during thunderstorms. Fair enough. You’d probably need both hands to fly your kite properly?
- There are quite a number of national TV stations (12 I think… makes the 3 or 4 BBC channels look a little anemic), one of which is CCTV9 which is fully done in English. Fair enough (and the only thing we watched for the three weeks we were there), but I was quite surprised to find that one of the anchors doing the news (in a rather Australian accent) was none other than good old… Edwin Maher. Who said weathermen couldn’t go places…
- I have seen some pretty full-on sales in my time, but nothing prepared me for walking down a stretch of shopping street in Xian. This 100m stretch was home to half a dozen mobile phone companies or so and to say things are competitive in the Chinese mobile market is a bit of an understatement. Each shop had at least 10-15 sales assistants (give or take) manning the entrance to what looked like department-store-sized mobile phone shops. All vying to get passing shoppers’ attention. Not often you see them do that though by what to my western ears sounded like (but admittedly could’ve been anything) chanting slogans and singing songs. I guess I noticed them, so perhaps the Chinese walking past did too.
- After having traveled around Japan and Nepal before arriving in China, we were pretty used to the squat toilets generally used around Asia. Wasn’t quite prepared for the old communal squat toilets though. That’s right. One of the monasteries we stayed at on Mount Emei had a set of communal toilets, which instead of having the usual discreet cubicle around each squat toilet, simply had a low concrete divider (about 50cm high, along the side of the squat toilet), and no door or other cover across the “entrance”. Combined with the balcony style “wall” (admittedly giving a great view of the surrounding forest due to the complete lack of wall from about 1m from the floor and up) and interesting (and generally short lasting
experience).
- The ability of just about all Chinese (van, bus, taxi, etc) drivers to at the same time instill a complete sense of insanity (quite commonly found amongst Asian drivers) and complete competence. Intriguing.
Forgot to put these up, figured better late than never…
- Upon moving into our room in Kathmandu we were slightly intrigued to find a complimentary box of matches with not the hotel logo on it but… Microsoft Windows? Perhaps one of the latest initiatives of the Gates Foundation?
- When checking the expiry date on some peanuts at the local supermarket, I found that it was 3 months from the date of production. The date of production was March 30th, so nothing that strange I guess… except that that day was March 28th.
- During our trek around Annapurna, at the end of one day I found that my deodorant had moved around and accidentally been emptied. Not wanting to smell too much (always a major concern when trekking ), of course we set out to look for some deodorant around the village we were staying in. We found some, which I was quite impressed with (at 1600m), but I was somewhat intrigued that the four different types that they sold were all produced by… Playboy. Makes you wonder about some of the trekkers that had dropped by previously throughout the years (and perhaps gave the locals the idea that this was a winning marketing strategy?).
- Many a guesthouse had a dining area for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. Generally fairly functional areas, a (disturbingly large) number of them had spruced them up with a few posters. Makes sense, except that most of them were pictures of tanned, oiled-up body-builders or swiss chalets. One or two would’ve just been a little odd, but the regularity makes one wonder what the locals think westerners are into. Or what they’re into. Then again, Arnie in his heyday was pretty buffed…
- Cigarettes were regularly included on food menus. I’m guessing Nepal is still a couple of years away of banning smoking in restaurants and other public spaces.
- Quite a few clothes stores could be found selling the latest North Face (or other brandname) gear. At prices generally around 10% of what you’d expect to pay in western countries, the authenticity sometimes was a little questionable. Some stores perhaps made it a little to obvious though, one example I found was of some underwear made by “Calvan Klain”. Whoops.
Before I forget and they become completely out of date…
- stands everywhere along the Inca Trail selling beer (called chicha, locally brewed along the track). Just what you need at the start of a casual walk up several thousand steps up a 4200m hill…
- a religious ceremony in Copacabana in Bolivia involving the local clergy blessing people’s… cars. Not just cars of course… cars decorated with flowers and covered in champagne with the hood open (so the engine could be blessed too)… who needs road-side assistance really
- dried Llama foetuses for sale at what is known as the Witches Market in La Paz. Not sure what they’re used for. Not something I figured I needed to at some point in time…
- soccer pitch at 5040m above sea level at a pass we drove over in the Altiplano in Bolivia. I was almost out of breath just sitting on the bus, would be interesting to see how long the people last that get together for their weekly runs on that soccer pitch…
- a rocket launch style count down from 10 to 0 as the Perito Moreno glacier (in Argentina) came into view… from our bus. It was a big glacier, but we weren’t exactly heading for outer space.
- wearing our goosedown winter jackets in mid-summer in Ushuaia. Apparently they were having a good spell of weather when we were there.
- celebrating New Years Eve in daylight (admittedly fading somewhat, but still) in southern Argentina. Could definitely make out the fireworks, but had the event been one hour earlier, there would’ve been some disappointed customers…
- British phone booths (you know, the red ones that everyone takes photos of in London) in… Buenos Aires. Apparently the Brits occupied the place for a bit at some stage (not sure when that was with the whole Spanish occupation, but anyway) and built some infrastructure as the Brits tended to do during their colonising days.
Anyway, not that many for two and a half months around South America. I guess they just don’t have as much originality as the Japanese when it comes to these things…
Yup, doesn’t take long, but I figured I’d mention a few “interesting” things we’ve seen so far (which reminds me, I should probably do the same for South America too… only issue it was such a “normal” place compare to Japan!):
- Vending machines at some restaurants: think a candy vending machine near the entrance of an otherwise normal restaurant, but instead of a bunch of chocolate bars, it has pictures of meals and you after you’ve paid and pressed a button, a ticket comes out which a waitress then takes once you’ve sat down. Not that hard in hindsight, but try working that one out in Japanese.
- Bowing of train conductors to the entire carriage when entering and exiting the carriage. I thought the Canadians were polite…
- You pay for bus rides at the end of the trip. Reason is that your fare is worked out down to the last yen based on the number of bus stops you’ve gone past (each additional stop incurring a higher cost). Fortunately a big board at the front of the bus will tell you the fare so far for ANY of the stops you could have started at so far. Our 2 hour trip to Sandan-kyo included 57 of these, but it still dilligently displayed all 57 separate possible fares! And once you know the exact amount, you have to pay the driver in cash as you leave, which is another story…
- Cosmetics being sold under a Manneke Pis name and logo. For those unfamiliar with this Belgian (that’s right) national symbol: Manneke Pis is a statue of a little boy pissing in a fountain. Great image that conjures up when trying to sell cosmetics. I’m guessing I’m not the target audience envisioned by that marketing strategy.
- Walking around in general (bewilderment) it becomes very easy to notice English signs in amongst a sea of Japanese characters. Especially for instance at a train station where this seemingly random room had been labelled the “Excellent Room”. Didn’t have time to check what was going on in there. Or this rather posh looking hotel in Hiroshima which had called itself the “Grand Intelligent Hotel”. Maybe something was lost in translation. Maybe the name was compensating for the marketing people behind it.
- I have now, in two days here in a hotel far from the most touristy areas of Japan, seen more NBA basketball on TV than I did in Canada or New York in two weeks. We only have 7 channels, all with the usual weird shows, etc, but one feels the need to show an hour of NBA every night! Giddy up! But I won’t mention the commentary…
I’m sure more will follow over the next few weeks…