Oh Nader, Where Art Thou?

Efforts to protect American consumers began more than 100 years ago. The first products to receive scrutiny were food and drugs. With the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Act consumer products would have their own comprehensive governmental oversight in 1972. Where there are new laws, could lawyers and lawsuits be far behind? Coming to the rescue of maltreated American consumers is an army 1 million lawyers strong. By contrast, China, a county with almost four times the population of the United States has just over 100,000 lawyers. As you might have divined, it is dark ages of consumer activism there. Given the expansion of manufacturing in China in recent decades, the Chinese consumer is at the mercy of the law of the jungle rather than the protection of the law of the land.

I was one of those hapless consumers. When we moved into our Shanghai house I was not initially alarmed by the window mounted fans in the bathrooms and kitchen. It was a different approach than the fans installed in ceilings that I was used to in the US. However, they build with concrete in China so I could understand the path of least resistance was a thin pane of glass rather than twelve inch thick reinforced concrete.

The only trifling problem with the window fans was their lack of a screen covering their blades. They appeared remarkably dangerous. But really, who would be stupid enough to stick their finger in a fan? As it turned out, I was.

I am not a thrill seeker or even particularly curious. I am, however, rather fastidious. I was cleaning the window and my hand inadvertently passed in front of the fan. It must have sucked in a few fingers. I jerked back my now fiercely throbbing hand expecting to see a bloody stump. The intense pain made me dizzy. I carefully climbed down from the toilet seat I was standing on and wrapped my hand in a mass of tissue.

I hobbled over to a chair and slumped into it. By now I was both queasy and faint and my hand felt like I did not let go of the grenade. At this point I was approached by the pair of four-legged furry men who share our home. To them, I am the “help” so I knew they were not there in a support capacity. Please. Cats? They were more worried about how the can of Friskies was going to get opened that night now that the “help” was indisposed.

As my head cleared and my nausea abated I got up to survey the damage. The cats looked relieved. I teetered over to the bathroom and gingerly opened my makeshift bandage. It could have been worse. The fingers were intact but the finger nails were history. Since I had crummy nails to begin with it was not such a devastating loss. However, I did hope they would return someday. Losing a few fingernails now seems minor compared to almost frying an entire arm.

Shanghai resides on the southern bank of the Yangtze River. Like New Orleans, this is a low, marshy floodplain; which means bugs. Amazon jungle, size of your head kind of bugs. Especially mosquitoes. Once again, my dwelling conspires against me. Because just like the window fans, the windows themselves had no screens on them. Not that I would open windows to allow in the chemical-laden Shanghai air, but I did have to open the front door occasionally.

To fight my mosquito war I possessed a few weapons in my arsenal; both offensive and defensive. My defenses consisted largely of chemical weapons. My body armor consisted of a spray that probably contained chemicals that had been banned by the Geneva Convention. The label depicted a person surrounded by what resembled a Star Trek inspired force-field. I would have preferred a Romulan cloaking device. It glistened on exposed skin making me look like a Mr. Universe contestant, sans muscles. As an additional line of defense, I burned mosquito coils on either side of my front door. My house either looked like a Buddhist temple or some New Age retreat.

Fly-swatters were too low-tech for back to the future China. Showing up on store shelves in March like a harbinger of spring were little electrified tennis racquets. Killing as sport may have gone out with Teddy Roosevelt, but the Chinese brought it back by combining technology, necessity, and sport to create mosquito killing tennis. Killing a mosquito is a satisfying accomplishment any time, but even more so mid-flight; do unto them before they tap into you. A loping mosquito however, hardly compares to the manic, erratic flight path of their fellow pestilence disseminators, flies. Killing, whether it is a mosquito or fly, is a community service making the world a safer place.


My primary offensive weapon, WMD for flying insects, was the Kill-O-Pest. It was an industrial-strength bug zapper. The advertising literature proclaimed, “If it flies, it fries.”

I was pleased to observe a full tray of bug carcasses at the bottom of the Kill-O-Pest just days after it was put into operation. I had heard a rumor that the Kill-O-Pest zapped bugs with such intensity that it blasted their body parts out in a 14 foot radius. Upon closer examination of the fatality catch tray I noted with disappointment that most carcasses belonged to flies. Not that I did not want to kill flies, I did. It is just that I wanted to kill mosquitoes even more. Perhaps pudgy poo eaters have more heft to them than mere blood-suckers. Presumably, mosquitoes, being less substantial than flies, now had their little legs, wings and thoraxes strewn about my living room. Odd as it sounds, I was somewhat comforted by that thought.

I now had proof that the Kill-O-Pest did in fact kill. My hope was that it would kill all the flying pests in the house. Despite the lack of dead mosquitoes, the tray was full and looking a little gross so I turned off the bug execution device in order to empty it. As I reached for the tray my hand lightly brushed against the coils and zap; the Kill-O-Pest was trying to kill me. My arm flew up and almost detached from my body. I went skidding back across the wood floor with the other arm trying to break my fall. My personal air defense artillery just mistook my arm for a flying insect.

I stared in disbelief at the Kill-O-Pest, with the switch in the off position. Perhaps off does not mean the same thing in Chinese.

Shanghaied in Beijing

In our new home in Shanghai, my husband and I furnished a spacious, comfortable guest room to accommodate the anticipated throngs of visitors we were sure to receive. We were certain family and friends would be eager to experience the exotic Far East. A subsequent relocation from Shanghai to Hong Kong resulted in a downgrading of our guest accommodations in terms of space and luxury. Our once commodious accommodations now consisted of a cramped cubby hole that doubled as storage space; closets and garbage disposals mystifyingly absent in Hong Kong rentals. Sure, space is at a premium in Hong Kong, but that did not entirely explain the downsizing. Almost a decade in Asia and our guest book had a grand total of three entries. I felt snubbed. I interpreted this as a broad indictment of my hospitality skills. My husband claimed it could not be him, as he was considered nice half of our couple.

Reasonable people would be grateful and kind to the few people who subject themselves to the formidable 14-hour flight across the Pacific staffed with flight attendants recruited from SuperMax facilities. But I was more like a wounded wombat than a reasonable person. Embittered or simply innately sadistic, I began developing guest itineraries that were directly proportional to the vexations guests visited upon us.

Clogging a toilet earns a guest an express trip to the local wet market; even better in the summer when the food starts cooking under the hot sun before it ever leaves the food stalls. Whether or not an offense was committed, this is a mandatory excursion for any vegetarian guests. Wet markets communicate to a more primitive version of our selves. Large chunks of red and white striped meat hanging on hooks above bloody cutting boards seems one step removed from running it down on the veldt ourselves. Even better if they have left a little fur on, or a hoof.

Once guests start craving familiar food from back home I patiently admonish them. Feigning distress, I claim that I would be remiss in my hostess duties if I neglected to provide exposure to all nine of China’s regional cuisines. I further proclaim that I cannot allow them to return home without experiencing the local delicacies such as fish heads and chicken feet. I assure them these items will not be on the menu at the Peking Garden restaurant back home.

Republicans. It just does not get much better than leaving them at the museum of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. To prevent international incidents we pick them up after about an hour.

Any of my siblings who visit automatically rate the most diabolical tour I can devise. I have a lifetime’s worth of payback stored up after the childhood hell I endured at their hands. When my sister and brother-in-law timed their first visit to Asia when I was seven month’s pregnant I was not deceived for a moment thinking they were actually concerned for my welfare. No, they wanted to see my massive maternity-clothed body waddling through the Forbidden City.

However, even my warped scheming could not have conjured up the maltreatment that lay before them at the hands of a Beijing cab driver. Prior to the Beijing Summer Olympics, most cabs in Beijing were dark red Jettas. The driver sat behind a plastic and metal cage. On the dash were the driver’s registration and the fare meter. Usually the shocks were shot and the the interior reeked of cigarette smoke.

Due to my expansive girth relative to the modest confines of the cab interior we decided to take two cabs when we went out to dinner our first night in Beijing. We communicated to the driver via the hotel doorman our destination and sent my sister and brother-in-law off in the first available cab. Our wait was no more than a few minutes and we were off in the same direction, or so we thought.

Beijing has heavy traffic spurred on by increasing car ownership. This heavy traffic load is exacerbated by tremendous construction projects throughout the capital. Keeping everything exciting are the skills of the Chinese drivers. That night our journey took forty-five hungry minutes. We expected to find our relatives waiting for us. That they were not there was not at first a cause for concern. Different routing, driver’s skill, and luck could account for different arrival times. The minutes ticked by. I visited the facilities, several times, as pregnant women often do. Minutes turned into an hour, which turned into another hour.

Perhaps it is worth noting that both missing relatives were former military members and currently employed by a sensitive department in the US government. While I had never heard of Americans getting nabbed in China, my inherited paranoia was just kicking in. Just as we were debating whether or not to contact the authorities, which began with a discussion of whose authorities, a red Jetta careened into the parking lot and came to an abrupt stop at the restaurant entrance. My relatives wearily emerged from the back seat. Their mouths started to move and nothing came out. My husband suddenly became fluent in Putonghua and embarked on a spirited debate with the driver. The driver claimed that he was told to take them to a university on the other side of town. Since my relatives spoke no Chinese, it was unclear how he managed to then find his way to the restaurant he claims he was never told about. In the end he settled for what the fare would have been had he taken the correct route.

Some time after the first round kicked in the relatives regained the power of speech. Because we had not told them how long the drive was supposed to take they had no idea anything was amiss until the driver attempted to drop them off at darkened and deserted university campus. Apparently a lively discussion ensued, they speaking English and he Chinese. His already enthusiastic driving was kicked up a notch and they sped back into traffic until they arrived at the restaurant, all the while being tossed about the back seat of a well-worn Jetta with parts of seat belts that did not connect.

I could not wipe the happy, goofy smile off my face. I secretly wanted to give that driver the tip of his life. Thank you Beijing cab driver for inadvertently participating in a younger sibling’s long term revenge scheme.

Fowl Food and Supermarket Shenanigans

One bit of Americana that does not seem to have caught on elsewhere in the world is the concept of zoning. Thus, immediately behind the gated community of three-story, 4000 square foot homes that I lived in with my husband, stood a row of bleak, pollution-stained apartment buildings; just the sort of thing to pique the interest of an adventure-starved expat. My husband and I were fond of taking morning strolls exploring Shanghai neighborhoods and one morning our stroll took us though these dreary apartment blocks. We came across a mini farmer’s market in progress; not one your weekend farmer’s market attendees back home would recognize. No one was strolling around with a latte in one hand and a NYT Sunday Edition in the other.

It was a small gathering of scruffy vendors with meager offerings and contentious senior citizens tight-fisting their RMB. There were two young boys with a flat-bed cart attached to their bicycle. A few lonely vegetables waited expectantly on the cart for interested buyers. Two elderly ladies were examining the goods and initiating negotiations with the boys.

Another vendor was a marvel of engineering modification. Who knew a 50 cc Honda scooter could aspire to be so much more than merely basic transportation? This scooter had transmogrified into a food delivery and production vehicle. The scooter was mostly obscured by all of its upgrades. Attached to the left rear side of the scooter was a propane tank. Behind it was a large pot with a burner underneath it. On the right side was a collection of cages, many with live chickens in them. Across the seat was a butcher block and a large knife.

There was a fair amount of blood, feathers, and unpleasant looking globs in the vicinity of the scooter; foreshadowing the fowl carnage to come. The vendor smiled pleasantly and nodded as we looked her way. A prospective customer approached her and began looking in the cages, inspecting the flock. Quite a bit of banter was taking place between the chicken vendor and the customer; and amongst the incarcerated chickens. Eventually a chicken was selected and we looked on in morbid anticipation.

Holding the chicken upside down by its feet, the chicken vendor expertly wrung its neck upward. It gave easily with an audible snap. The chicken’s wings flapped uselessly in surprise. As soon as the last spasms of life left the chicken the vendor got to work. Expertly, almost artistically, she cut around the anus and worked the intestines and internal organs out. Some of these she tossed on ground, others she set aside. Now I saw what the hot water was for; using long tongs she plunged the chicken into the water. After removing the chicken she plucked it, placed in a shopping bag along with the saved organs, and handed it to the waiting customer. I sincerely doubt the folks at Tyson’s can top that for freshness.

As fresh as the offerings were at my newly discovered neighborhood market, I still preferred to do my shopping at the big discount supermarket. Though the preference was tenuous. Other than the potential for a line at the check-out, grocery stores back home hold few surprises. In Shanghai, I never knew what to expect.

My neighborhood store was the German-owned discounter Metro. Most Americans have never heard of it, but it is the 4th largest retailer in world. It is a lot like Costco; membership card and all. I like it because I get to shop with a flat-bed trolley. To me the flat-bed says, “Watch out folks, serious shopper here.” Not sure my fellow shoppers saw it that way.

Because it is a discounter specializing in bulk items, many of my fellow shoppers were buying for restaurants. I looked forward to the days I got stuck in line at the checkout behind some guy with several flat-beds of his own full of pork. I am not talking pristine little styrofoam trays with plastic wrap pulled tight over cute little pork chops or thin pork loins. No, I am talking whole pigs, or big chunks of them. No wrapping. What was even better was watching them pitch the pieces into the back of a waiting pickup truck.

You see parts of animals you never realized were edible in Chinese grocery stores. Pigs heads; who eats those? Speaking of heads, they leave them on everything--fish heads, chicken heads. The only heads you see at a U.S. grocery store are green and located in the produce department.

Occasionally, a fellow shopper would take an interest in my intended purchases. And that would not have bothered me so much, if they cleared it with me first. True, I had not actually paid for the items, but they were on my trolley so the intent was there. On one such occasion, a group of ladies surrounded my trolley and began examining items, passing them around, all the while commenting in Mandarin. My limited linguistic skills meant I did not understand what they were saying. But I was profoundly put out that I could not get to my cart because they had it surrounded. Some days, my reservoir of patience is deeper than others. Unfortunately, this day was not one of them. I firmly pushed one of the ladies aside, manned the helm, and steered clear of the gaggle. Much discussion followed me down the aisle. No doubt complaining about my lack of manners.

In addition to all the “raw” food in its nearly natural state, Metro mercifully also stocked unthreatening looking salmon fillets, styrofoam trays and all. As I was perusing the selection I felt something cold and hard pop me in the forehead. I looked up to see a cherubic-faced boy of about 10 years of age across the open freezer from me. He had a victorious smile on his face as he launched another salvo at my head. Another direct hit on my stunned forehead. A stern reprimand from somewhere else in the seafood section and he disappeared. I felt robbed of my retaliatory strike.

Not only do I shop with a list, I order my list according to the store layout. To a control freak like me it makes no sense to list milk and then laundry detergent. No, I cluster dairy products, produce, etc. Often my grocery list resembled my Amazon.com wish list. These were items I was hoping to purchase someday. Given the amount of quality food the U.S. produces, it was more than a little disappointing to find the only U.S. imports when I first arrived in Shanghai consisted of Pringles and Skittles. So I knew when I put Arm and Hammer baking soda on my list that it belonged in the wishful thinking column. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the familiar orange/yellow box. True, it was shelved with the cleaning products, but it was there.

While putting my groceries away upon my return home, something caught my eye on my new box of baking soda. What the hey? Arm and Hatchet? I had heard of counterfeit DVDs and designer handbags, but sodium bicarbonate? How could I have missed this? Instead of biceps and a tool on the box I had Dances with Wolves and a weapon. Then I wondered if this white powder really was sodium bicarbonate. While not the best student in my high school chemistry class, I did recall that mixing a baking soda and vinegar should result in a reaction. I whipped out a bottle of vinegar and prepared to conduct my experiment. Success in the form of foamy white bubbles.

Still, I felt sullied. I did not intend to buy bootleg. Could the folks at Arm and Hammer hold me legally liable? Would they retain lawyers like the Recording Industry of America? Unwilling to become another victim of the U.S. litigious machine I sent Arm and Hammer an email stressing that I was not complicit in any transaction intended to defraud their venerable company. They did not respond. Fine Kemosabe. I used the whole box, guilt free.

Chinese Fire Drill

"Come on, we're going for a ride," Christine beckoned.  She still had rollers in her hair and she and Carol were standing outside my bedroom window wearing pajamas, robes, and wide, mischievous grins.    

Idling at the curb was her mom’s 1970’s vintage station wagon in all its wood-paneled glory.

“I’m going out the side door,” I whispered, as I grabbed my green, quilted robe before tip-toeing down the hall past my parent’s open bedroom door.

Back in those days bench seats were common in cars and all three of us squeezed into the front seat. We were high school freshmen and Christine’s lack of a formal driver’s education or a legal license did not deter us from embarking on an early morning road trip. Wild and free before 5:00 a.m. Man-alive, I thought, it was going to be a great day. At that moment, I forever linked the act of driving with the feeling of freedom.

Twenty years later I found myself a resident of the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai where I was chauffeured around town in a slinky, black Lexus. Door-to-door service wherever and whenever I wanted to go. After a week or so the novelty wore off, and I missed having my own set of wheels. After a little digging by my assistant, okay my husband’s assistant, it was revealed that foreigners could indeed get driver’s licenses in China. My driver found my interest in obtaining a license amusing; in due course I would discover why. China did not offer reciprocal recognition of U.S. driver’s licenses. Which meant, if I wanted to drive, I would have to pass their test.

As in the states, the Chinese Transportation Department’s licensing process for drivers involves a written and a practical exam. In the states, prospective drivers receive a book of traffic laws to study which they are then tested on. In China, I received the test of traffic laws along with the test answers; which I studiously memorized. In the states, a practical exam involves demonstrating your driving ability with an evaluator in the car with you. In China, I would discover that the practical exam was something entirely different.

Another departure from the way it is done back home is the order of testing. In the states, in order to qualify for the practical, or driving portion of the test, you must pass the written portion first. In China it is the other way around. Emphasizing driving skills over traffic laws explains in the casual regard most Chinese motorists have for traffic laws.

My driver accompanied me to the testing facility. Eager, I suppose, to see how I would fare on the exam. Initially, I thought we were in the wrong place. This did not look like the bleak, dingy, over-crowded DMV facilities I had been subjected to in New Jersey. This resembled, no kidding, a carnival. There was a definite festive mood to the air. I was given a check sheet indicating rooms I was to visit. Each room contained a different examination. After successful completion of a task I was given a “chop” or stamp from the examiner. All were apparently critical components to operating a motor vehicle. There was no particular order, but I had to complete and pass each one prior to being allowed to take the written exam.

The hearing test was straight-forward and similar to ones I had taken during annual physical exams. I am not aware if deaf people are prevented from driving in the states, but in China it is grounds for disqualification. Next was the vision test. Makes sense that eyesight is necessary for driving. But here is where the Chinese are a bit more stringent than the states; apparently color-blindness is also grounds for disqualification.

A relevant tangent if I may; in China everything is negotiable. As many business people will attest, in China, the real negotiation starts after the contract is signed. I have witnessed negotiations over restaurant bills and at the grocery check out. So it should not have come as a surprise that when the guy ahead of me was disqualified for driving due to color-blindness, he was not going to depart quietly. Thus, a negotiation ensued between the color blind guy and the test proctor. Luckily for those of us waiting, reinforcements were brought in from other stations to get the line moving again. I was quickly tested to the sound of an increasingly heated negotiation.

Next up was the depth perception test. I sat at the end of what resembled a shuffle board table. Mid-way down the length of the table was a board, perpendicular to the test taker, with a notch missing. Running the length of the table and through the notch was a cable. Once I sat down and indicated that I was ready, the tester sent a target down the cable in my direction. I was supposed to press a button when the target passed through the notch in the perpendicular board; seemed simple enough. Evidently my driver was not so confident in my abilities. He stationed himself beside the perpendicular board and as the target passed through the notch he began to gesture emphatically with outstretched arms. I was so surprised at his thrusting arm movements that I almost missed pressing the button.

I may have failed the next portion of the practical exam, because frankly, I never understood it. For this task I stood in front of a a spinning wheel about the size of a dinner plate. It was positioned about chest high.  Red dots covered the wheel. The object was to guide a needle through, or around, the red dots. I simply wove my way around and through red dots until they told me to stop. My driver seemed a little disappointed in me at that point.

One more driving challenge to go and a chance to redeem myself after my last performance. A large and boisterous crowd pressed into the doorway of my remaining driving challenge. I would soon discover that it was not the test that was so entertaining, but rather, the test proctor. A test taker sat at a table. Across the table from her was a standard traffic light; red, yellow, and green. There were buttons at each hand and a pedal under the right foot. The point of the test was to gauge reflexes and eye-hand coordination; red light illumination required pressing the foot pedal, green light the right-hand button, and yellow light the left-hand button.

The current test taker was rather uncoordinated so the test proctor was taking extra measures to assist her. She had a long stick in her hand and was whacking the table next to the test taker’s hand indicating what button to press as the lights blinked on and off. All this whacking and the crowds’ shouts and laughter had completely unnerved the test taker. Undeterred, the test proctor seemed resolute that no one was failing her test. She continued to whack away with her stick to roars from the crowd and frantic squeals and twitches from the test taker.

When the victim left I was unclear whether she had passed or failed, but I did not have time to contemplate it because my driver pushed me through the door and into the seat. The test proctor gave me a challenging look and explained in Mandarin what I was supposed to do. I nodded my understanding; not because I understood Mandarin, but because I did not want to get whacked. She had her stick at the ready. Despite the pressure of the hungry crowd and stern proctor I passed the test quickly; the stick was never used on me. The crowd, initially out for blood, cheered my success. Soon we would be adversaries on the road, but for a moment we savored each other’s victories.

Despite flubbing the driving wheel portion of the practical exam, I was cleared for the written portion. I was anxious to proceed as I did not know how much longer my short-term memory would hold up. I felt test answers leaking out of my head. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. I quickly dispatched the written test and received a perfect score.

In short order I was the proud recipient of a Chinese driver’s license. I had a stronger sense of accomplishment than when I got my Texas driver’s license at 18. And while I never sat behind the wheel of a car with an impassive state trooper in the passenger seat holding the clipboard of shame, I think it is fair to point out that when I took the practical exam in Texas I never left second gear of my father’s Honda Civic for the entire driving portion of the test.