Warm Water

When I turn on the hot water in my apartment, it takes a split second for the hot water heater to engage. After the heater turns on, I'll see a steady stream of reddish colored water for a few seconds before the water becomes clear. The reddish water comes from the rust that has accumulated in the hot water pipes, and that rust in turn is caused by the high mineral content of the water in Shanghai.

Just another reason why most people don't drink the Shanghai water out of the tap (not even after boiling it, because you can't boil away minerals and metals). No, what most people have are 饮水机 (yinshuiji), or water coolers. Given the popularity of tea in China, almost all water coolers have a heater built in - the one in my apartment is no different - so that you can get both hot and room temperature water.

But all that above info is really to set the stage for what I think is a really nasty Chinese habit. I'm talking, of course, about the insidious habit that Chinese people have of drinking lukewarm water. Talk about disgusting! I mean, I enjoy the rare cup of tea here and there, but for the most part, I like my water cold or at the very least, room temperature. Imagine my surprise then, when about half the office support staff (4 ladies) chided me for drinking room temperature water while my stomach was hurting. They explained that the warm water would be less "shocking" to my sensitive stomach and thus better than cold or room temperature water. It made sense to me then so I followed their advice and put some hot water into my cup with my cold water.

Talk about a strange sensation. It's not quite the soothing sensation one experiences when drinking a hot beverage nor is it anywhere close the refreshing feeling you get when you drink cold water. It's just... weird.

So after my stomach felt better, I started drinking room temperature water again, thinking I didn't need warm water anymore! Yeah, no dice. While pouring myself a cold glass of water, a co-worker reminds me that drinking cold water will only bring back or cause more stomach pains. Later on, during lunch, I'm enjoying a nice glass of water with my food when another co-worker tells me that drinking fluids of any kind, but especially water, is really bad for digestion. She contends that the water dilutes the stomach acids and thus messes up the digestion process.

I mean, I can sort of understand the reasoning behind my co-workers' contentions, but really, I've been drinking fluids with my meals for all of my life and I've been drinking cold/room temperature water forever! I think I vaguely recall that back when my grandmother was still alive she would also drink warm water, but I just attributed that to her advancing age and loss of teeth (i.e. gums would be too sensitive to cold water), but who knows... maybe she drank it for health reasons.

But the WORST part of all this... is the water cooler at my house. Apparently the heater is super-extra-crazy strong in my water cooler so the hot water comes out scalding... and the cold water comes out... you guessed it! WARM!

So now when I drink water at home, I drink warm water... hating each sip I take. Hating myself for not unplugging the damn water cooler just in case I need hot water for something.

Mortgage Crisis... China Style

There is apparently a Chinese tradition, and a strong one at that, which mandates that when a man and a woman get married, the man should provide a house. This usually means the man has to buy a house before the woman (and the woman's family) will even consider marriage. In its abstract form, this tradition may seem harmless and even make a good bit of practical sense - after all, in a traditional marriage with traditional gender roles, the man is supposed to be able to bring home the bacon - but in practice, this tradition may have sown the seeds of a mortgage crisis.

The problem stems from the fact that real estate prices in China have been rising for many years and continue to rise even now. Some experts believe that the rising trend is merely a result of the urbanization of China, while others think China is in the midst of a housing bubble (personally, I have no idea and don't really care since I can't afford a house anyways).

With housing prices continuing to soar, men in China who are contemplating marriage are finding it harder than ever to secure the mortgages they need for their first house. Even though Shanghai has one of the highest average ages for newlywed couples in China (31 for men and 28 for women), the ridiculously high urban housing prices have made it so that even older newlyweds do not have enough savings to make the initial down payment or the subsequent mortgage payments on their first home.

Faced with the prospect of losing the love of their life (or depending on upward trending divorce rates, their love for the next 3 or 4 years), Shanghai men are turning to their parents to secure the funds they need to buy a home. This leads to scenarios where the groom's parents will sell their own house and use that money to buy a house in the son's name so that their son can get married. In more extreme cases, the down payment alone is not enough, and the groom's parents will continue to help with mortgage payments, usually by delaying retirement or even going back into the workforce. The parents would then be forced to move in with the newlywed couple or with other relatives.

Given China's one child policy and the traditional Chinese thinking of 重男轻女 (valuing sons over daughters) it makes sense that Chinese parents are willing to sacrifice their own well being for their son's potential well being, but this sacrifice may come at a societal economic cost. There are good reasons why banks shouldn't give mortgages to people that can't afford them. It's not that difficult to imagine a generation of young Chinese couples saddled with large mortgage payments that they can't afford because the older generation has passed away and cannot help with payments anymore. Even worse, if China is really in the midst of a housing bubble, then a crash in real estate prices would wipe out not only the young couple, but also the groom's parents who now have no place to stay and no savings.

Who knows how all of this will turn out? I just know that if I were to ask my parents to give me all of their savings to satisfy the demands of my potential bride, my parents would laugh at me to my face. Well, actually, before I even went to my parents, if my fiancee told me that my parents' savings were a precondition to our marriage... 我会昏倒不省人事。

First Post

"Buxingrenshi" literally means "unconcious". That, in and of itself, is of no real interest (except to the few people that really do enjoy learning new, obscure Chinese words). But how I came about to learn this new phrase... now that's an altogether more interesting story.

The first time I saw the words was in a picture of a sex shop advertisement. The store proudly hawked its "electric condom" and claimed that it would: "让男人省事，女人不省人事“. The office receptionist who pointed me to the site could not stop laughing at the image (here is a picture) but I just didn't get it. After a little bit of explaining and searching the dictionary, I finally got the joke - the electric condom apparently saves time and effort for the man and leaves the woman unconcious. By itself, the two phrases make up pretty bold advertisement, but in mandarin, they flow lyrically and even rhyme.

And that pretty much sums up the whole idea behind this blog. I'll mainly be posting about stuff in China that I encounter (or the stories about China that I hear from others) that I find interesting, annoying, weird, surprising, or whatever...

Let's just hope, for my sake, that as I get acclimated more and more to the local culture, I'll continue to have episodes of culture shock. It would be quite a shame indeed if in a year or more's time, crazy stuff like people spitting in front of me, men rubbing up on my back, or women clipping their nails next to me while I eat cease to suprise me anymore.

And even more of a shame if I started doing those things...