The Rice Eater Blues

The girlfriend says we (mother and I) cook you take the dog outside he hasn’t been out today. I wait a moment look at the puppy and agree to the task. Cradling him like a baby in my arms as the elevator doors open. It goes down to the ninth floor where her best friend gets on with an ugly skinny older man probably in his forties. She’s holding his arm and hugging him around his waist. She’s smiling, laughing and flirting with him. This is strange to me because I just met this girls “boyfriend” last week who seemed to be a very nice man and this old ugly skinny man was definitely not that boyfriend. Still clinging to his side she nervously starts telling him about the little dog in my hands. The man ceased speaking and stared at the elevator buttons as if they were going to disappear. For some reason he became ominously quiet. He stubbornly refused to look at her beaming face(she has a strikingly beautiful face one that is very easy to look at). The elevator doors open as she slaps him on the ass in-that-flirtatious-we-just-had-sex-sort-of-way. Still ignoring her outside, not turning around he walks sharply in the opposite direction disappearing in the rush of 6PM at the train station. She eagerly watches him walk away and shouts bye bye in his direction but he doesn’t respond. A moment later she turns to me and casually says, where are you going? Oh me I’m just taking the dog to shit that’s all. Where are you going? I go to eat dinner. Oh, okay, have a good night! Yea, bye bye! Mmm, bye.

Tales of a Face Giver

Sensational. That’s probably the wrong word to describe the last few days in my life but I’m not sure that one word is capable of describing it. Not even a sensational word like sensational.

Some people have an inflated view of who they are and how important they are but other people usually see through this veneer and know the sobering truth. Some people on the other hand have inflated the views of themselves to others but they themselves know that it’s not true. It’s like living a lie. I’m the latter. I’m a liar of my own grandiose persona that I reflect to the outside world. In truth, I’m not really that special . . . but the people around me this weekend thought differently. They thought I was important. It’s funny but sometimes how others perceive you actually changes you.

The booze and nicotine swirled this weekend in a haze of white teeth, laughter and applause. It all started to sound like money clanging together at the bottom of a casino tray but it was never my money or my tray. It all belonged to somebody else. It belonged to successful people benefiting from successful times.

This weekend I was a guest at the largest international investment fair in the world. What does this entail? Let me explain.

Three free nights in a five-star hotel. A sculpture of ice fashioned into a swan floated effortlessly on the Lazy Susan in front of me with slices of raw salmon resting on her chilled wings. I was wearing Ray Ban sunglasses, a suit and tie. Aged Martell dangled betwixt my fingertips more than once. A new executive-black Benz luxury sedan shuttled us around the city. A fake but more than fair Mongolian girlfriend set by my side. Sitting at the head of and giving a speech at a luxury-chaired-press-conference with leading officials and directors. The signing of a seventy million Yuan contract in front a crowded exhibition hall. Being interviewed on the spot by national and local newspapers. Yacht spotting. A platter of twenty-four crab rested on a different Lazy Susan on different night. Giant shrimp and stories of Vegas casinos all dangled in and out of this extended scene. It was a grand and sensational three day façade.

I was The Face Giver this weekend. A white executive from the West being entertained by heads of businesses, cities and counties. I was charming but in a different way I felt sordid and seedy. I was a liar. I’m not a good liar.

Humans have always clawed for glamour, respect and wealth. I’ve only maybe marginally flirted with those concepts in the past but this weekend I was treated as if I had all of these and more but to be honest it all started to get old and boring after awhile and not to mention but being The Face Giver is exhausting work.

I supposedly left the hotel that morning on my way to the airport but I really went to work.

This Bar Girl Named #

I met a bargirl.

She’s tall, charming, elegant, smart, polite and of course beautiful.

We went to a movie theater and ordered popcorn and iced sodas.

We watched Cars 2 in 3D.

Cars 2 is about a tow truck named Mater who doesn’t want to get rid of his dents because they are memories.

To be honest I was thrilled to be seen with her.

In the lobby she asked me what kind of girl I preferred. So I skirted the question by asking her what kind of girl she perceived herself to be.

She said the international kind.

I asked her what she meant by the international kind.

She said tall and beautiful and compared herself to a Victoria Secret model. I must add a side note here and say that this was a little narcissistic of her to say but in reality it was not far from the truth.

As you can imagine she refused to hold my hand during the 3D Cars 2 movie.

After the popcorn and iced sodas were emptied, we walked around the biggest newest shopping mall in Xiamen

She asked me how often I went to Shanghai or Hong Kong to go shopping. Side note: I’ve never been brand-shopping in Shanghai or Hong Kong. So I asked why she would go to those places when she had this nice and competent shopping mall very close to her own home. She said that this shopping mall was lower quality and there are more options in those cities. She said all this while we passed a Zara for kids and the Starbucks sitting next to a Calvin Klein underwear shop.

Nonetheless, when a thought of inferiority is planted it grows. So I began to wonder if this mall was really cheaper and less desirable than those in Shanghai. I’ve always been a sucker for the best.

Then she began talking about the house she was going to buy. The mall had a model of the city and she showed me the little plastic pieces where her new home was to be and when it was going to be finished. It looked nice and all I guess. She then began telling me that I should buy a car because waiting for a taxi is really quite troublesome. I told her that I wanted to buy the cheap Chinese van that they refer to as the “loaf of bread car.” She looked at me as if I had said something wrong. My Mid-Western sensibilities were kicking in and I could feel that the Victoria Secret model was distancing her from me.

She’s 22. She makes more money than I do though her line of work is a bit different from mine. She’s a bargirl.

So I began asking her about her work. I suspected that asking a bargirl about her work could prove to be tricky business. Nevertheless, at this transition period in Chinese history anything goes so I asked her about her bar business. I’m nosy. Plus I finally started reading Donald Miller’s book and it has me thinking about stories and character arcs and how people change because they want something so bad that they give everything in-order to get it.

Who was she and what did she want?

She’s a beautiful girl from a poor family in an exploding economy with a tiny middle class and Shanghai boutiques. She wants money and status. Face and honor.

So what circus hoop does she have to jump through to get that? She dresses up in short skirts and dolls makeup on her twenty-year-old skin so she can lure the most drinking-aging-beer-bellied men to her boat. A number is pinned to her short skirt so they can distinguish her from the other short skirts with other numbers on them.

The bar girl is China’s new middle class. In a land of a billion people whose average salary is less than 4,000RMB a month she can make about 20-30,000RMB a month. She is no boss or government official but she’s somewhere in the middle sitting comfortably in her short skirt.

She’s been doing this for about a year now. So I being the curious one ask her about her first night at work. What was she thinking? What were her questions? What did the experienced girls tell her?

She said she was really nervous and shy. The skirts were really short for me at the time. The men were old and fat and would try to touch me. I couldn’t drink very much back then. My first night I dressed up like a Princess you know the Snow White. Yea, I know the Snow White . . . I bet you looked beautiful. She smiled.

I started thinking about the first night of this innocent girl from a small town doe eyed by all the lights, money, glamour and makeup being told that she could now dress up like a princess. It made me a bit sad. But she was winning. She was earning lots of money she was being a good Capitalist and a good Confucius daughter, she was taking care of thyself and thy-selves parents.

Have you changed? Oh, yes. Now it is easy for me.

I also asked her what she thinks of when she sees new girls coming to work for the first time. Now she is the experienced one. She is looking at them looking at all this for the first time.

She said that the new girls always look naïve, innocent, pure and a bit nervous.

It was ten o’clock.

She had to go labor.

A Chinese High School Student Lives alone in Kansas

This is her encounter with the strange exclusive worlds of American High School and Evangelical Christianity

I enter the VIP room at my language school and see a very gifted but shy students staring back at me. She asked me where I was from and I said America and she said where in America and I said Missouri. She says, “Really! I lived in Kansas last year.”

I said, “Kansas? Why the hell would you live in Kansas?”

So the story goes her mom traveled with her to Kansas and then after a short stay returned back to China.

Reality: this 16 year old girl sitting across from me lived alone in her own place for a year in Kansas (for privacy reasons I won’t disclose the location). She giggled as she said that she knew it was illegal. She also said that she was very careful not to tell anyone. I joked with her that this would never happen in Missouri! She smiled. Kansas come on? Really, don’t you know when there’s a 16 year old Chinese girl living alone in one of the sparsest and whitest states in America? Get your shit together Kansas (I’m from Missouri).

She says, “there’s no people in Kansas.” I say, “Nope, I don’t call em’ people either.” (for the record I didn’t really say that and from here on I’ll try and refrain from putting down Kansas)

From a private Christian High school in Kansas

I’m a shy girl.

I don’t fit in.

The people were friendly but they weren’t really friendly if you know what I mean. They would be polite but not really your friend. For a year nobody really talked to me. I felt alone. I hated feeling alone. I felt that we had nothing in common.

People there seemed closed minded.

I know that I’m a boring person. (to counter what she said about herself, I talked with her for an hour and came away thrilled by her experiences and stories. She’s a very brave young lady in my mind).

–

My friend invited me to Church. I went to church every Sunday with her and listened to the man speak. Always telling me about heaven and hell. And my friend was always pressuring me to believe. It made me feel bad for myself and my family back in China.

I’m okay now but I was really messed up for a few months. I feel if I become a Christian that I will always have to tell my family about it and that will be annoying to them. I don’t want to be annoying to my family.

I didn’t think I would miss China but I did. I missed home! (I told her about another girl from Kansas missing home – There’s no place like . . . )

She actually said that she liked Mexican food I was happy about that.

The lesson for that day had us talking about education so I was asking about her comparative experiences with Chinese and American high school. And of course she said American high school is really easy, you don’t have to do homework every night in every subject and you get to go home at 3:00pm (it’s common for high schools in China to go into the night). But she said that she felt like she still learned despite not be being loaded down with homework (a compliment to western education).

Did you try and play any sports I asked her. She said she tried to play tennis but they already had their group (team) and the other girls were more powerful and better than her. It was my first time to play. I am no good. I have no power.

I asked her about any significant teachers either good or bad and she said that she liked her art teacher. I could tell her about feeling lonely and I knew that she understood. She liked me and would talk to me about everything. No surprise but artists are usually more open and friendly. I later asked if the art teacher was young and she surprisingly said that she was 40 something.

She also said that she didn’t like her Literature teacher because she would always point at me and the other two international students in class and ask us what do you “international students” have to say / what’s your opinion / what’s your perspective?” She hated being pointed out. We wanted to be normal, she said. Why ask us?

I asked if he she liked the great thunderstorms of middle America and she said no, it made her feel afraid.

Get this, next year she’s planning on attending school in Baltimore . . .

Dharma Bumming: How I went to a Buddhist temple with two lesbians, an accountant and my new sugar mamma.

“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.” (The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac)

Recently I’ve been fostering within me a rather simple approach to life which goes like this: if a person asks you to do something then do it even if you’re tired and try not to pass judgment. I’ve always been suspicious of this sensibility within me but I’ve never really been serious about it until recently. What happened? I read The Great Gatsby, in particular, the opening paragraphs.

“In consequence, (Fitzgerald writes) I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.

So my friend (who I refer to as sugar mamma) calls me and wants me to go eat lunch with her friends. So being disciplined to this new mantra of mine I wake up.

Mind you, I live on an island sitting in the Taiwan Strait. This indelibly means a vast array of seafood plus one strange thing that didn’t really look like it fit into the seafood category. My sugar mamma leans over and tells me with her tongue out that this is a platter of duck tongue. Not passing judgment I chopstick’d a splayed marinated duck tongue and put it on my own tongue . . . not bad . . . not good . . . just so so.

After duck tongue I did make a lunchtime mistake. Her friend was more than fashionably late so unbeknownst to me on grounds of not being privy to their local dialect they had set aside the last of the shrimp for her. So naturally I reached for yet another over-sized salmon colored shelled shrimp upon which laughter and rants darted in my direction (there’s nothing like eight Fujianese women telling you that you’re wrong). I threw the shrimp back as quickly as I took it but later when the friend arrived I graciously explained in my splayed-Chinese that her friends wanted to eat the shrimp but luckily for her and in her defense, I had fought off the hungry shrimp-eaters upon which an ego boosting laugh broke out (when eight Fujianese women laugh at what you say you sort of walk away feeling a bit charming – and that’s exactly what I did). Sometimes in this world it’s nice knowing that other people think you’re charming.

With a belly full of seafood and little duck tongue my sugar mamma is telling me that they want to go to the temple in San Ping (which is near Zhangzhou which is about two hours away). There really wasn’t a better place to go to empty my-water-jug-full-of-an-ego than an enlightened visit to a Buddhist temple. After all it takes Dharma to reach Nirvana (try to figure that out later). I always relish quiet places in China because there are so very few of them left so I said let’s go.

Me, my sugar mamma and her lesbian friend are in the backseat. She says, massage my shoulders. My shoulders hurt. Harder, she scolds. I grumble the way I imagine a servant in the midst royalty grumbles. Half-hearted grumbles because I know that it could be much worse. And strangely enough, Fujianese barking orders, are slightly attractive (It’s taken me two years to realize that the Chinese woman is not the meek, mild soft spoken stereotype that she is portrayed to be). The Chinese woman is a vicious and mysterious creature encased in a shell of both fortitude and subtly.

It’s vaguely raining outside as we are slowly mounting the mountain. We stop. Lychees (local fruit) are being sold on the side of the road. From the backseat window the sugar mamma sprays a few orders. A peasant hat and a wrinkled face hand us a bushel of lychees (Historical note: lychees are Empress Yang Guifei’s favorite fruit – one student told me that she would eat over three hundred in one day inevitably Yang Guifei is historically fat).

Massage my shoulders. Harder, the barking orders came. They never stop.

Looking at crumbling houses and farm plots the girls said to each other something to the extent that most people in China aren’t as lucky as they are. How true that is I mumbled under my breath. They are comfortably atop the Chinese economy. In comparison to a migrant farmer these women are like the popes and kings of the middle ages and/or the CEO’s and business tycoons of our own ages.

For example as my sugar mamma was fumbling through her Prada bag demanding to pay for her friends gas I see more money than I’ll make this month jostling between menthol cigarettes, lip gloss and hand wipes. In this social circle of fortunate’s I’m more like a court jester than a royal. I’ve concluded as most foreigners in China eventually come to terms with that that I’m only there for entertainment purposes and when they are finished smiling they will dismiss me. I don’t take it personal. It could be worse.

The lesbian driver was doing some serious rally car racing up the mountain in the rain. I was getting a little nervous. The accountant in the passenger seat was asleep.

Fog on the mountain.

Greenery so far and wide.

Gold laden Buddha’s with melancholy expressions sitting high above looking distantly and vaguely down at you in no particular direction. With a nonchalant grin spread from droopy ear to droopy ear.

In China each year is dedicated to an animal. So in correlation with your birthday everyone has an animal, there are twelve animals in the cycle. My birthday is the year of the pig (the Chinese say that the pig is the luckiest animal in the cycle because it eats and sleeps as much as it wants without responsibility). There are twelve animal statues lining the entrance of the temple so she orders me to go touch the pig for fortune and synergy. I pet the pig.

The routine goes like this: light three prayer sticks, shake (don’t blow) the fire out and stand with sticks above your head while giving a slight repeated bow of reverence in front of the shrine and then place the sticks upward in the ash so that they can continue to smolder and smoke for you after you leave. They smoke in semblance of prayer. It continues to curl and rise as the gloss eyed statues watch you drop money in the adjacent iron bins.

Here’s what you need to know for the temple always step over the doorway. Never step in the middle of it. It’s rude and you don’t want to be rude at the temple. You are being watched.

Drove for two hours each way. Stayed at the temple for 20 minutes. Massage my shoulders deary – peel another lychee – menthol smoke prayers – rearview mirror fog left on the mountain – life being lived somewhere in the middle of that empty page

Yep, you guessed it, seafood for dinner.

Feminism with Chinese Characteristics

So the other day my very wealthy friend invites me to dinner with her two very wealthy friends. I’m asking them what they do for fun and one woman was telling me about a bar for women. I was really curious about this so I told her that next time she went to give me a call and she thought this was a good idea so that’s what she did. Two nights later, the phone rang.

Upon arrival I walked past a room full of young boys (18-25) sitting playing games on their iPhones, chatting and looking bored as hell. They were waiting for something. Somehow I knew what they were waiting for. They were waiting for the cougars but I was surprised at the way it happened.

Sitting in the dimly lit room with menthol smoke swirling in the air. One of the women in the group barked at the waiter to “work quickly!” This meant that she wanted him to bring in the boys.

I sat and watched from the shiny black leather U-shaped sofa with about twelve cougar-esque women (married, dating and single alike) as groups of five came in the room and posed for about a minute as the girls examined them from head to toe. It was weird seeing women do this. I mean, I’ve conceptualized men doing this but not women.

Watching these boys being subjugated to the scrupulous eye of women is a strange thing. Your stomach turns when you see actual people being reduced in this way. In a way, I felt sorry for these young boys. At the most I was embarrassed for them but hey I enjoyed seeing the roles reversed as any guy would. I mean after all I was on the safe side of the sofa. They were the cattle, they were the meat they were being told yes or no based on height, weight, fashion choices, hairstyles, underarm fragrances etc… they would leave and the next batch would arrive. Tall and handsome wearing designer t’s and jeans some were buff others were slim and sleek. All were wearing numbers on their hip.

One of the women (the leader) was giving her choices to the worker as he was pointing his finger asking, “like? don’t like?” The boys were voiceless. They could only smile, suck-in and flex hoping that their number would be called. After about four or five groups of boys left the room the leader had made her choices and compiled her list with a few pointed suggestions from her friends and like that the worker left the room with the good and bad news for the boys.

I’m sure the conversation in the other room went like this: “77, 96, 88, 68, 53 come with me.” While 41 a tad bit disappointed at the news began playing yet another round of Angry Birds on his iPhone.

I curiously watched as the boys entered the room timid and scared wondering which woman to sit by. Who chose me? Which woman paid for me? Can I sit down here or not? Was I really chosen or will I get sent away because my numbers 68 and not 86. A mistake that would be devastating to any young boys ego.

Kat, one of the women in the group was asking me what this place would be called in America and I laughingly had to say that this place didn’t exist in America. I’ve never seen this before and that’s why I’m writing about it.

Kat later joked that I could get a job here and so I asked her how much money I could make in a month and she unflinchingly said 30,000 RMB plus tips. I currently work 40 hours a week for 10,000 RMB with no tips. I’m seriously considering this. I’m tall, I’m white I’m relatively handsome from the Chinese perspective. I mean it would be an easy way to pay off my debt while also doing the good deed of reversing the gender roles. And these women seem nice enough I don’t think they are going to grab my precious ham-chops or follow me home at night.

I need to go do some push-ups and sit-ups first. I’ll have to go shopping . . . get a haircut. You know, I’m a little insecure . . . should I shave my armpits?

A LITTLE JOPLIN WIND

Every major news source in the country headlined a little Missouri town called Joplin yesterday. I’m from there. So are about 49,000 other people, but I’m not there at the moment. I’m about as far away from there as possible. I’m in China.

The tornado ripped through the center of the city. Destroying and damaging hospitals, schools, Wal-Mart, homes, nursing homes and churches. The latest death-toll is above a hundred. My grandmother lives in the center of the city with her new husband Clovis, whom I’ve never met because I haven’t been home in two years.

Yesterday my sister’s Facebook page read, “We can’t find Grandma.”

Hours later she reports that we’ve found grandma! It’s funny how hours can turn into years when you know your grandma’s home is destroyed, and you don’t know where she is. I lived in that home with her for two years while I was in college.

My mother writes:
Grandma and Clovis are here with us and alive! It’s going to be hard work but at least they are fine. They went into their closet and that was the only thing left of their house. They had to crawl out of the rubble. They walked for several blocks then someone picked them up and gave them a lift to his relative’s home where they were able to call us. It looks like a war zone. I’ll write more later. I love you!!!

Today my sister says:
Yeah, she [Grandma] is fine but her house is gone. We’ve been there all day looking for stuff and it’s horrible. I fell twice and all you can smell is gas. I don’t see how anyone made it out.

I’m sitting in my apartment thousands of miles away with a ball in my stomach wondering if I can go to work today. I know that with that many people dead, I know someone, but I just don’t know who…yet.

My cousin, living about twenty miles away from the wreckage, found a baby photo that had been blown into her backyard. She prays that the little boy in Snoopy overalls is okay.

The fragility of being human sometimes escapes me.

Pray for my little Missouri town.

Thoughts on Being Gentlemanly

I spent the night at a girl’s house and I didn’t even, as some would say, “sin,” and/or, as some others would say, “score.” I just sort of, you know, went over there.

It all started with a QQ question (QQ is China’s main instant messaging source, comparable to MSN). My friend: a smart, beautiful and talented young woman says,

“eric, could you come into my house and company us…we are all having the deep shadow.”

Upon further inquiry into this rather poetic statement, I ascertained that, “we are having the deep shadow,” meant that they (her and her two roommates) were scared because the night before a man had broken into their home. After stealing a thousand RMB, the man with rice liquor on his breath had began touching and kissing one of the sleeping girls before she awoke screaming. He quickly slammed the door and darted outside disappearing. The cops had no evidence.

The dangers of being young and beautiful in this world are staggering.

Not to say that China’s dangerous or anything. In fact, it might be the safest country that I’ve ever been to. But another teacher from my school was demonstrating how to carve pumpkins on Halloween when, to his surprise, some of the young ladies in the room casually pulled out sharp pocket knives from their Gucci and LV bags. He asked why in the hell did they have knives. They said for protection of course. Seeing that guns are outlawed in this country, these girls were packing.

I weigh in at nearly 200 pounds (ahem, 187) and stand about 6 feet 2 inches tall. As many of you know, I’m a teddy bear at heart, but to be honest, I truly don’t know what it feels like to be physically incapable of at least putting up a fight if it comes down to it.

So I went. I mean, when three girls ask you to come to their house because they are scared, you sort of have to go. It’s the dashing-prince-principle lodged deep in the DNA. You can’t turn that shit down.

And for the record, three girls frantically pacing around the room in pink tank tops and short, tight sleeping shorts is not the worst thing I could have been doing on my Thursday evening. Just in case you are getting a little excited here as I was…two of the girls had pit hair. Yep, little jungles growing underarm. I cringed too. But just to keep you on your proverbial toes (I’m not making this up), all three of them went to sleep together in the same bed.

I was left alone on the couch protecting. Offering ease of mind. Standing between them and danger. I was Batman, but that didn’t stop the buzzards from buzzing in my ears.

In the morning she called the small store near her home and had them deliver something. A man buzzed the door. She cautiously checked the peephole, glanced at me, then opened the door. The delivery boy handed her a new washcloth and toothbrush for 12 RMB. She must have told them on the phone that I was a boy because both of the items were blue. She was now taking care of me.

Before leaving, I left her this note on her phone: “Eric’s the hero.” I hope she reads it.

We got into her car and went to the nicest dim-sum restaurant in the city for breakfast. We had juicy pulled pork inside of steamed buns, porridge soup topped with flaky crisps, shrimp wrapped dumplings, chrysanthemum tea . . . and . . . and . . . I think she said . . . pig knuckles?

Bob Dylan’s Beijing Blues

Forced to sign-and-red-star-stamp a document insuring that he wouldn’t offend the fragile feelings of the Chinese people. He complied but even a preapproved Dylan is a resourceful Dylan. He’s gritty at 69 and has songs about everything.

Nontheless, the preapproved Dylan was a sad Dylan. A love sick Dylan. A tangled up in blue Dylan. A rollin’ and tumblin’ Dylan. And even an it’s all over now baby blue Dylan. But nontheless in a simple twist of fate he was a forever young Dylan who stood upon the watchtower and told the thin man with a pencil in his hand about the hard rain that was gonna fall down highway 61 revisited.

And I even left a few out like tweedle dum said to tweedle dee. The show thundered down the mountain like a rollin’ stone to the spirit on the water. Of course he said somewhere beyond here lies nothing but I nonetheless think this sad harmonica playing man with the Beijing blues had the intentions of changin’ my way of thinking because that’s what he said first.

Not a sell out at all but an artist who said there’s something happening here . . .

[Workers Gymnasium: Beijing China: April 6, 2011]

A historical moment. I was there. The ticket stub says so.

China and It’s Little Salt Rumor

The same weekend that I get sick and need to gargle salt water happens to be the same weekend that I run out of salt. I’m a bachelor so I don’t need to buy salt that often (once a year maybe) so naturally I went to the supermarket but little did I know that this was also the weekend that a certain little rumor was more than twittering across China (twitter’s band). It was rumbling. Rumor has it that salt is magical. That it can some how fight off nuclear radiation. The Chinese have swarmed the supermarkets and ravaged the salt supply ever since reports started stirring about the radiation leaks from the quake in neighboring Japan.

Some stores have been reprimanded for jacking up salt prices which normally hover around 1-2 RMB. Reports have shown that in the most common cases it is 5-10RMB and in the most extreme cases I’ve heard that it has skyrocketed to 80 to 100 RMB for one bag of salt. Other stores in the true communist fashion have decided to share by taking names down and limiting customers to only 2 or 3 containers per person.

There are two motivations behind the salt dash. One is salt’s supposed superpowers against nuclear waste and the other is the fear that nuclear waste will leak into the water supply and contaminate further supplies of salt.

There have been reports of family member who live in different cities phoning or QQ’ing their far away relatives and coaxing them into sending salt via packaged mail. For younger generations their have been reports of buyers going online to China’s equivalent to Ebay and purchasing salt online. Stores who run out of salt are bringing out stock piles of soy sauce trying to sell that as an alternative and surprisingly it is working.

Newspapers are NOT showing long lines of people waiting to purchase salt but rather large bulges of people wiggling, pivoting and elbowing their way to the cashier all while clutching tightly to their precious salt.

During this mad rush for salt no one has considered that the nuclear spill took place on the opposite coast of Japan and as any meteorologist will tell you that wind and water currents aren’t on their way to China but rather to the western coast of the Americas.

Despite the truth behind any of these claims it is a good day to be in the salt industry in China (government) and a bad day to be sick in China. I wonder if the Japanese, American’s or Canadians are scrambling for salt? Probably not.

The Chinese people are a massive tour de force and something as small as a salt rumor can empty shelves from Beijing to Guangzhou in a matter of hours and this is why the Chinese government is so very careful.