Into the Vortex, Or, /r/fifthworldproblems IRL

12 Nov
1

I may have said a thing or two, either on this blog or elsewhere, about how China seems to follow different laws of physics.  For example, there is a stick of deodorant that I KNOW made it to China.  I used it the first week or two after we got here.  Now it is nowhere.  I don’t want to buy a new one, because fuck Parknshop, and I have resigned myself to occasionally using my wife’s.  Sure, I smell a little dainty, but it’s better than beef stew (don’t get me wrong, I love the smell of a good beef stew, just not when it’s emanating from under my arms).

I would also like to introduce the phenomenon we have come to know as ‘softbrick.’  Soon after we arrived in Guangzhou, my wife stopped on a sidewalk in the middle of Zhujiang New Town and announced that she thought she had stepped in something squishy, and possibly fecal in nature.  Upon this declaration, Jenny and I joined her in searching the area to find the offending pile, only to conclude that there was nothing in the immediate vicinity apart from ordinary paving bricks.  The only logical explanation was that one of the bricks had briefly changed consistency, most likely just to fuck with us.  One month later, it happened to Jenny.  Fucking softbrick, man.

I don’t think I need to go into much detail about the winding alleyways that are somehow longer than the blocks of buildings they cut into, yet never emerge on the other side…or emerge on the other side of the district, facing the opposite direction…or reach a dead end, and when you turn around you find you are on a different alley than the one you came in on.

And don’t get me started on the seemingly limitless amount of phlegm an average Chinese man can produce and distribute on the sidewalk.

Man, this shit just ain’t natural.

Comments:

  1. Les Says:

    You’re hilarious!

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