Bold Bugs

Okay, so this may sound very similar to a previous post. And it is, except that I added a very new items at the end. It is rather gross to it seems inappropriate to say "enjoy". So here it is:

It is hard not to take some things personally. Some drivers, for instance, interpret every forgotten turn signal, tailgater or slowpoke in the fast lane as a personal affront directed specifically at them. They take umbrage at these petty annoyances despite the fact that they are hurtling down a crowded interstate anonymously encased within a ton of steel. In fact, it is not personal, there are simply a lot of lousy, distracted drivers on the road. Whereas, the legitimacy of my complaint is that the affront did occur in my personal space.

Like many moldering, tropical locales, Hong Kong has a rich and plentiful population of creepy, eeewww-inspiring creatures; flying roaches, furry caterpillars, gargantuan spiders.  Such an emissary from the bug world confronted me one evening after I put my little gremlins to bed.  

Most evenings, for two glorious hours, I relax with a glass of red wine and mindless television.  That night is was to be Grey's Anatomy paired with an Australian Shiraz-Cabernet.  I had set the glass down on the coffee table and crossed the room to the DVD player to insert the intended disc.  

While humans are not known for the best eyesight in the animal kingdom, our eyes are good at detecting movement.  And at the moment my eyes were riveted by the movement on my wine glass.  Since there are no witnesses, I can only surmise that the look on my face combined revulsion with indignation as I watched a roach mosey up the stem of my wine glass.  
In a disturbing reversal of roles, I scurried toward the kitchen at steroid-worthy speed. Concerned the perp would escape in my absence I moved quickly; donning Playtex gloves and grabbing an industrial-sized wad of paper towels; the housewife’s equivalent of a hazmat suit. Shifting gears, I seamlessly switched to stealth mode as I crept back into the living room; six seasons of 24 were not lost on me. Evidently, I did not inspire any fear in the multi-legged interloper because rather than making a run for it, he had casually sauntered farther up the wine stem--savoring the bouquet perhaps.  

Grabbing a roach off a wine-stem without breaking the glass or spilling the wine, given my heightened state of agitation, was going to be a difficult maneuver.  I determined it needed to be a two-handed operation with simultaneous execution.   Despite my hasty planning and the intense pressure, the execution was flawless.  One roach squished beyond recognition.  

However, the incident cast an edge over the evening; relaxation was replaced with vigilance. Maybe oenophile roaches are a rare breed; I tried to tell myself.  But would my English muffin be safe in the morning?  

While bugs coming in contact or being involved in any way with food or beverage consumption is distasteful, the mouth is not the only delicate region of human anatomy. I cannot be the only person who has tried to open something with my teeth; can I? But few people try to open a bottle DOWN THERE.

Like many people, my first path in the morning is trod to the bathroom. And like many others, my eyes are not completely focused at that time. On this morning I turned to flush the toilet in time to see an unwelcome visitor perched on the inside of the bowl; a large, voracious mosquito. I live on the fifteenth floor of a high rise apartment block, how did that thing get in my toilet? Unable to stop the momentum of my finger plunging the flush lever, I simultaneously leapt up and back as the startled blood-sucker flew up into my face. I had the presence of mind to swing shut the bathroom door so it was just he and I; mano y mano.

If the shock of discovering a mosquito in such close proximity to my good girl was not enough, now I had the five minute romp around the bathroom trying to kill the little bastard. It is like they fly with a faulty Romulan cloaking device; there he is...no, now he disappeared...wait, here he is again on the other side of the room...how did he get over there...good lord, are there more than one...die, Die, DIEEEEE. Definitely awake now.

Most bugs that make an appearance at my home do so in my bathroom. Usually I find them on the floor and even though it is gross and unsettling, they are easy to dispense with a quick squish from my flip-flop; ditto walls, however, ceilings are when things get dicey. But on my bath towel? Is nothing sacred? This time the assault was a botched operation and the squirmy, sinewy creature plummeted to the bathtub. Retrieving the handheld shower head I blasted him back to whatever hell he ascended from. Perhaps he would live to tell the tale of the battle he had fought and lost, to dissuade others from venturing up the pipes. Better yet, his corpse would tell the tale for him.

It is hard not to take these bold bug attacks personally, when the bugs themselves have attempted the most intimate of invasion routes. That, and the fact that I am the only member of my household being targeted.

Free For All

When I arrived in Shanghai in 2000, the most common vehicle on the road was the Volkswagen Santana. Santana’s were the taxi cabs of Shanghai. In the course of automotive evolution the Santana was eventually replaced by the Jetta. If Santana sounds more like a rock band then a car, it is because in the United States it was marketed in the mid-eighties as the Audi Fox. Whenever I saw one of these vehicles, which was every time I left the house, “Black Magic Woman” would invariably get stuck in my head. True, not nearly as annoying as “Copacabana” or “Living La Vida Loca” but, as a rock fan it just seemed wrong that a classic was reduced to the status of an ear worm. I did not have long to fret, because after a few minutes of driving, Carlos Santana’s smoldering vocals and searing guitar riffs would be replaced by Ted Nugent. All that was required to unleash the Motor City Madman inside my head was to navigate a traffic intersection in Shanghai and the next thing I knew “...it’s a free for all...’’ would be my new internal sound track.

Typically, my driver, Mr. Chang, was at the helm. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when it started, but unbeknownst to Mr. Chang, my husband and I referred to him as the Chang Man; reverently, of course. He was our fifth and final driver: our first quit for a better gig, (huh?), our second emigrated to France, (huh, huh?), and the others were fired. The Chang Man was the last man standing. In more than seven years of employment he was late for work only once and missed work only when he was hospitalized. He was so bad that we did not think he was going to make it. But he recovered and was back at work, albeit considerably thinner, several weeks later. He had a jovial manner and a persistent smile. The Chang Man loved to drive, and he especially loved our first car, a Lexus. One of the rare occasions that I witnessed his face register displeasure was when we replaced the aging Lexus with an Audi. Actually, he looked more betrayed than anything.

The Chang Man and I witnessed some hair-raising driving during our time together in Shanghai. Typically I would look horrified and he would laugh. He may have been laughing more at my expression that the catalyst for my expression. Expats bicker about which country in the world has the craziest drivers, usually India and the Philippines get more votes than China, with Saudi Arabia not far behind. But in the end, like Dante’s Inferno, you can write about levels of hell, but at the end of the day, it is still all hell.

The area where we lived in Shanghai was new. In the early 90’s it was farm fields.

By the end of the decade it would have a cluster of skyscrapers, including the one of the tallest buildings in the world, the Jin Mao; vast avenues and boulevards that were not congested; and an enormous park with a man-made lake to rival New York’s Central Park.

At an intersection of one of these wide roads our vehicle came to a stop to wait for the light. Apparently a small van in the far right lane, two lanes over from us, realized a right turn would be a mistake and a left turn would be preferable. The only problem with that decision was that quite a bit of traffic had gathered making it impossible to simply turn left. So the little van exercised the only option remaining, it backed up. The little van was backing up at a steep angle so as to cover the four lanes of traffic between their current position and their desired left turn lane before more traffic gathered at the light. The van’s only impediment was the location of our vehicle in their path. Misjudging his vehicle’s trajectory, the little van driver backed directly into the right, rear of our vehicle. The Chang Man and I watched this unfold, oddly amused. When the Chang Man surveyed the damage he had mercy on the apologetic van driver and deemed the scratch to the bumper minor. The small van driver did not escape without a finger wag from the Chang Man, however.

Mr. Chang employed the finger wag on other misbehaving drivers. Nothing was uttered, no words or insults or any other gestures; just the finger wag. More gentle admonishment than insult gesture, the finger wag was a stern reprimand from a senior driver to an amateur. The last time I saw the finger wag my mother was using it on me. I was not even sure if this was a gesture used in China, as I never saw another Chinese person ever do it. But it was Mr. Chang’s strongest rebuke to another, delinquent, driver.

Does your life flash before your eyes if you are not aware the end is near? Or, do you have to have some indication that you are about to cash out to get the lifetime recap? Since I occupied the backseat of the vehicle, I frequently failed to pay attention to the driving environment. In Shanghai, getting from departure point to destination was often akin to sausage-making and I preferred not to look. Only when the brakes started squealing, my torso tested the seatbelt tension, and I heard the unmistakable sound of the Chang Man sucking air through his teeth, did I get any indication that a traffic foible had been committed. Sucking air through his teeth was as close as the Chang Man got to expressing negative emotion.

These Final Destination moments usually occurred on one of the expressways. The scenario was amazingly consistent; another driver had missed their exit. Rather than going to the trouble of proceeding to the next exis,t they simply apply the brakes, stop, and reverse to their intended exit. The only problem of course, is that there is pesky, oncoming traffic behind them; like us. In order to keep from testing Shanghai’s mass casualty response system our only hope was that our brakes, and those of the many cars behind us, were all in working order. This was a disturbingly common occurrence. Somehow we survived.

Traffic accidents are adjudicated somewhat differently in China than back home. Fault is often determined by the location of the point of impact. This fact was demonstrated to me the evening a scooter collided with our vehicle. I thought for sure the Chang Man was taking the fall for this one. How little I understood Chinese motor vehicle laws. Contrary to perceptions outside of China, most Chinese do not ride bicycles, not in the big cities anyway (big being more than 8 million people). However, in the Pudong District of Shanghai the major roads still had bike lanes. These were populated with all manner of two-wheeled vehicles; bicycles, scooters, and motor cycles. Most other drivers were completely heedless of traffic in the bike lanes when they made right or left turns. The prevailing attitude seemed to be “bikers beware.” Mr. Chang shared that perspective. One evening, while making a right turn we both jerked our heads to the right after hearing and feeling a solid “thud” toward the back of the car. Mr. Chang pulled over and we both got out in time to see a very angry scooter driver pick himself and his scooter up off the ground. Police arrived quickly on the scene and after a cursory glance deemed the scooter driver at fault. The deciding factor? The scooter had impacted our vehicle past the mid-way point of the vehicle. Thus, our car was ahead of his scooter. Therefore, he was a fault. Mr. Chang, exonerated, replaced his concerned expression with his trademark smile and we motored on home. At least in Shanghai, it really is a free for all.

Rub a Dub Dub

My first time was in Mexico. Though not technically a massage, the woman doing my pedicure did rub my feet and calves before applying polish. It was relaxing and pampering; for this I did not require repeat exposure to develop an addiction. Unfortunately, regular pedicures were not in the meager budget of a mendicant college student. Semesters passed and I had almost forgotten how nice it felt to be rubbed by a complete stranger who was not trying to have sex with me.

A few years and steady paychecks later I became a massage adventurer; it all began in Korea. Hedonism was not on the itinerary when I booked a budget-tourist excursion to the Korean cultural capital of Kyongju. As this was a bargain tour, some quid pro quo was required. Prior to checking in at the swanky Kyongju resort my tour group was booked at, the tour bus was forced to swing by the cities of Pohang and Ulsan to visit to a steel mill, shipyard, and a bus factory. It was a kind of “shock and awe” of Korean industrial might. The second half of this incongruous tour was scheduled to take place at a resort in what was described as the Santa Fe of Korea by someone who evidently had never been to the Santa Fe of New Mexico; no adobe, pueblos, or pretentious art galleries. There were however, a lot of headless Buddha statues, a big bell, some mound-shaped graves, and coach-loads of tourists.

Regarding the headless statues; it was not a Venus de Milo thing where the heads accidentally fell off or were eroded off over the centuries. These were deliberate decapitations and the statues were not the only victims. My trip to Kyongju may have been budget conscious, but in addition to learning that in 2004 South Korea surpassed Japan as the world’s leading ship builder, I also learned that when Confucianism supplanted Buddhism in Korea in the 14th century, heads rolled.

My obligations fulfilled, the first item on my weekend agenda was a visit to the ladies’ spa. It was cavernous and damp with apple-shaped retirees wearing matching black maillots right out of a Lands’ End catalog. In plain view of everyone were two massage tables. Two masseuses stood at the ready. Unfamiliar with the world of massaging it did not occur to me that this was in any way unusual. But the masseuses were both clad in their underwear and bras; lacy ones. One of my female traveling companions saw me eyeing the tables and suggested I give it a try. I hopped up on the damp table, they apparently hosed if off between guests, and I was promptly doused with a generous portion of oil. The term portion is not accidental, as the oil had a faintly culinary scent. For the next hour I was rubbed with sesame oil by a lingerie-clad masseuse. I wondered if this was how human sacrifices were prepared before being tossed to the ravenous Aztec gods; the richly scented air, the pounding and kneading, and let’s not forget the gathering audience looking on in anticipation.

Initiated into the world of spa indulgence, I was eager to partake upon my arrival in Japan. Japanese love their bath houses. Colleagues were unanimously enthusiastic about the experience and strongly urged I give it a try. I did not have to look hard to find a bathhouse--Japan is famous for them and they are in plentiful supply. I checked in one Saturday morning at one not far from my home. The Japanese are particular about showering and cleaning yourself off before slipping into the water. They also segregate the genders, so there is no need to wander around with your gut sucked in, so much more relaxing letting it all hang out. And bathhouses are more than merely public hot tubs. They are entertainment complexes that just happen to be centered on being clean. Leaving the bathing area for one of the other entertainment options, patrons don what can only be described as pajamas. Cotton, pressed, and comfy, I padded around the halls in slippers, smiling at my co-bathers dressed in the same pajamas. Everyone appeared happy and sedate, as if we had all just taken our meds. Some people sat in electric massage chairs located in sunny atriums. Others dined in the cafe. And for the really adventurous, there was the karaoke lounge.

I followed the siren call to the massage room. Similar to my Korean experience, the massage beds were communally located. I grew concerned as there seemed to be no gender segregation. I need not have worried. Pajamas were not to be removed and additional towels were draped over me--so I resembled an accident scene victim. Of the six beds lined up in the room, only one other was occupied when I arrived. The masseuse pointed to a bed and I obediently climbed up and laid face down. That is when my hour of torture began.

Apparently I am not as culturally relativistic as I aspire to be. You would think the point of massage would be universal; rub sore, tired, or tense muscles to provide relief. But, just as different cultures have different ideas about what tastes good, Vegemite, there appears to be a departure in what constitutes enjoyable massage. I had signed up for shiatsu massage. Shiatsu sounds disturbingly like “me beat you.” Turns out, that is not far from the truth.

I wistfully recalled those oily, scantily-clad Korean ladies the entire time Tojo was avenging my back. At one point I wondered if she had called in reinforcements. There were simply too many things touching me at once. It was then I realized she was on top of me working me over with her bony knees and tiny hands. At another point I thought she was gouging me with a broom handle, only to realize it must have been her elbow. No, I did not cry out. Whoever was on the other table did not utter so much as a grunt. I would not be the first to break. The only sound I made was the sigh of relief when the towel was pulled back indicating I had survived, and was being released.



Chastened by my Japanese experience, but determined to give massage addiction another shot, I visited one of the ubiquitous “blind man” massage establishments in Shanghai. While some of the masseuses are blind, many are not. My masseuse was a young man who had his eyesight. I mention this to other expats, veterans of blind man massage parlors, and they wince; evidently you never go with a young male. This guy made Tojo seem like Hello Kitty. The problem was, instead of massaging muscles, this guy was targeting bones and joints. One of us was in the wrong place. I was trying to get a massage and this guy was trying to get state secrets.

In Palm Springs I was offered a menu of massage choices. Typically a creature of habit, I decided to instead try something new and exotic; what a mistake. My exotic massage consisted a stream of oil poured onto my forehead. I was cross-eyed by the end of the hour. Episodes like this only confirm why I always order the same thing--deviation from the norm only courts disaster.

A fellow expat who had recently visited Turkey described her experience with a male masseuse there. She said the experience was rather unsettling as his hands often wandered out of bounds and just as she would begin to object they would flitter back to safe territory. So rather than relaxing, she spent the remainder of the massage vigilant for any illegal immigration. I never experienced border intrusions, but I did receive a chest massage from a female masseuse while I was in Singapore; yes, my entire chest. One thing I was beginning to understand about massage, masseuses bring their personality to the table. A young woman in Shanghai remarked while she was rubbing my legs, “You have a very beautiful bottom.” I politely thanked her, but I bet she says that to all her customers.

Extreme Eating

In a fit of panic my sophomore year of college I joined the Air Force; not the real Air Force, but Air Force-lite, the Air Force’s Reserve Officer Training Corps, better known by its initials, ROTC. The reason for my panic was that I was getting a liberal arts degree and more than a little worried I might be going hungry come graduation day. With my new affiliation, if all went according to plan, upon graduation I would embark on four years of fun and adventure while getting paid. During that time I would figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, thereby putting off the inevitable another four years. I had a few minor hurdles before this became official, primarily successful completion of summer field training.

Field training was pleasantly difficult with lots of swearing and sweating. Midway through my summer training camp, for three fiercely hot and buggy days, my fellow trainees and I took a break from marching and Air Force academics to hang out at a muddy Kansas lake. We called ourselves survivalists. In truth, the only thing we were really trying to survive was the young enlisted man put in charge of us for the adventure. He was actually younger than most of us. Imagine if mom and dad went out and left the youngest in charge for a change, yeah, the result would be revenge torture. The airman and I got off to a spectacularly bad start when he asked all of us the simple question, “Why did we join the Air Force?” Why didn’t I provide a safe response like most of my fellow campers? All I remember was that I was powerless to suppress the shit-eating grin stretched across my face as I replied, “So I can be the dictator of a small third world country.” Who knew there would be worse things to eat than shit? The airman, that’s who. And he made me eat them.

The airman bided his time. Day two of our hostage cum survival situation and the evil airman had us out in the fields beating the ground with clubs in order to flush out a rabbit. The male campers were channeling their inner Neanderthal while chanting “hasenpfeffer” over and over again. I never actually believed we would be successful. Unfortunately, I was wrong. After a few hours broiling under the July sun a rabbit dashed across the field on a suicide mission. One scrawny rabbit versus twenty scrawny college students. The odds were about even but the students prevailed. With all the rejoicing you would have thought we brought down a Wholly Mammoth to feed the tribe for an entire year. I figured I would make due with another granola bar for dinner and leave the lapin for the boys, but the airman had other plans. He sat us down in a circle and began skinning the rabbit, explaining the procedure as he cut and sliced. The males of the tribe were ecstatic; the females, disgusted. But now it was the airman with the shit-eating grin. I would soon figure out why.

“Cadet, when you become the dictator of a small third world country, you will have to learn to enjoy native delicacies.” With that, he popped out an eyeball and handed it to me.

“I want you to chew this eyeball and tell your fellow cadets what it tastes like.” A chorus of murmurs arouse around me, “dude,” “brutal,” ‘awesome.” I looked to the small contingent of female cadets, all with horror stricken looks on their faces. My roommate shook her head and whispered, “You don’t have to eat it, he can’t make you.”



Never before had I been able to swallow pills. Never. I always chewed them the few times pill taking was required of me. But as I starred down at the little grayish-black blob in the palm of my hand I knew it was time to learn that skill. And just like that, swallowing a rabbit’s little eyeball gave me the biggest pair of cojones in the camp. No, I did not chew it as instructed. But my sly smile and brief comment, “smooth and salty” seemed to satisfy my personal Torquemada. When the airman cut out the rabbit’s stomach and passed it around for all of us to partake of its contents, I did not even flinch. I have yet to find a small third world country interested in me as their dictator, but the ability to eat anything has served me well in a civilian capacity.

My mantra while in China has been, “One billion Chinese can’t be wrong” whenever I am confronted with a challenging dining option. My husband has been my ally in this regard. Growing up in a hunting family in upstate New York, he swears they ate squirrel pot pie as kids; and I thought my mom’s meatloaf was traumatizing.

Shortly after our arrival in China we visiting the charming southern city of Kunming, famous as the home base of World War II’s Flying Tigers. While there we were feted by customers of my husband’s company. Hospitality is an important aspect of Chinese culture. One of my endearing memories of China is the near universal pride in their culture, and their desire to share their culture with visitors. An integral part of Chinese culture, is Chinese cuisine.

Chinese believe in big dinners with lots of different dishes. Food is served family-style on large lazy-susans. In this way, everyone has the opportunity to try many dishes. The optimal number of guests at a Chinese meal is ten, with at least that many different dishes. At our dinner in Kunming the snacks arrived first; baskets of grasshoppers and what I thought were deep-fried worms. Since worms have no legs they look less threatening, so I snacked on some of those. They were like Cheetos, without the cheese. I guess my husband did not have the heart to tell me those were no worms. I would only find out much later from someone familiar with Yunan food that what I had eaten were really deep-fried maggots; as if the distinction were significant. Who knew all the ways my Air Force training would come in handy?



But it was not all maggots and bugs. Despite the fact that little of what I encountered in China resembled anything from the Peking Garden restaurant back home, I did really like some of the things I ate. One of my favorite Chinese dishes comes from Sichuan province. It is called MaPo Doufu. The translation of which evokes images better suited for the dermatologist’s office than the dining room. MaPo Doufu translates as pock-marked, old lady’s tofu. If you can get past the title it is a delicious, spicy tofu dish. Ants Climbing Up a Tree is another Sichuan favorite. Not mine, but someone’s. It is not really ants, but bits of beef served on noodles. I know; darn. In other cultures ants or their image are unwelcome at mealtimes, but for someone from Sichuan the ants marching one-by-one is a saliva producing image.

Despite images of insects or nasty skin conditions, the folks in Sichuan cannot compare with their adventurous neighbors in Guangdong province. During the 2003 SARs crisis it was thought the disease was spread by Civet cats sold in markets for food. An individual interviewed at a market specializing in exotic animals offered by way of explanation a commonly held sentiment in Guangdong, “You see an animal and you naturally wonder what it tastes like.” As the saying goes, “the Cantonese eat everything with legs but tables, and everything that flies but airplanes.”

For lovers of American Chinese food, being confronted with Chinese Chinese food may feel, look, and taste, a bit like bait and bait. There may even be the temptation to dine at a non-Chinese restaurant. Flashing red warning sign. If you see a foreign restaurant you may want to dine at, make sure there is a foreigner who matches the cuisine working in the kitchen. Or you may encounter quiche with nary a whiff of egg, pita bread being passed off as pizza, or enchiladas with a red curry sauce. Then try bringing the discrepancy to the attention of your unconvinced Shanghai waitress. The Chinese do not do attitude, they do impassivity.

During our China tenure we held a nearly unbroken streak of confronting and consuming culinary challenges. I will admit to two failures. The turtle. I just could not do it. It reminded me of the old box turtle that showed up from time to time in our backyard as a kid. I draw the line at pets as food. My husband is far less principled. He nonchalantly sliced off its head and mucked it on down. But even he reached the edge of his eating envelope. When offered the business end of a male donkey he politely declined. He later vaguely explained it had something to do with gender solidarity.

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.