Voting

Today is the day the many in South Carolina have been waiting for….today should be the last day of the ridiculous political ads to be played ad naseum. Oh yeah, today is the day of the South Carolina primary voting which, if you believe the hype, is the day the Republican Presidential candidate will be selected (take that Iowa and New Hampshire!). Of course, they’ll say that SC has picked the candidate in the last number of contests (since 1980). Eventually that will change but for many here there is a sense of pride in this. Now the fact is that this is the 3rd of the contests and that many of the candidates drop out so there are fewer to pick from and therefore the odds swing in our favor (right now it’s a 50-50 chance). But let’s not muddy the water with facts (let’s stick to a debate format, we got this question from Matt in Bumpkinville on our Twitter feed, Matt has an important concern that is on the mind of many Americans during this tough economic time. Matt wants to know why you don’t have a cat. We’ll start with Rep. Ron Paul. “Well, there aren’t any cats mentioned in the Constitution….” [his supporters wearing their aluminum foil hats cheer and walk away from the debate thinking that cats are part of the anti-Ron Paul conspiracy]).

Anyhow, back to the day. Although a Presidential election did not occur during our time abroad, we are very happy to be back in the US take part in one of the roles of an American citizen. It is a privilege to vote and unfortunately many in the US do not feel the need to perform this function. Some, like those convicted of crimes, have forfeited this opportunity but for the remainder….there are very limited excuses that can explain why they did not vote (even those that are “disenfranchised because they have to show a valid state ID in order to vote). When you look around the world, it speaks volumes that so many turn their backs on this opportunity. Voter turnout in the US is well below what it should be and Americans should be ashamed of this fact. We have become fat and lazy and have forgotten the sacrifices that have been made in the past (and are still being made). It’s funny that in China, people believe that life in the US is easy because we have “human rights”. Instead many Americans have taken for granted that voting will always be there and believe that they only need to vote “when it matters”. Sorry folks, but it matters each and every time!

Get out there and make your choice known or shut the heck up! If you don’t vote (and believe me I think there should be some kind of test to keep stupid people from voting but that’s a different post) then don’t complain about the outcome. Don’t tell me my vote doesn’t count because I know when I leave the booth, my guy has one more vote than the other guy.

New Year's Eve

Since this was our first opportunity in a long time to spend New Year’s Eve with my family, we decided to take the plunge and invite everyone over for the Dudley’s Holiday Bash with Warren Seacrest and Jacob Clark. We planned on lots of food and use the Xbox 360 Kinect for entertainment.

You’ll need some quick background information to help with the story so here’s the Reader’s Digest version (if this were Star Wars, I would call it a prequel but like Star Wars, the later episodes come first). About 2 weeks ago, my parents went to the local Humane Society and brought home a dog (at least that’s what they say it is). They got a short-haired Chihuahua (you ever hear of a long-haired Chihuahua? There is such a thing but when I think of these dogs like many others I think “Yo Quero Taco Bell”.) that is about 14 months old and looks like a small deer. The people at the HS said it was 5 years old and weighed 9 pounds….it’s actually closer to 14 months old and weighs about the same as a small bag of Doritos (Taco Flavored just to keep the theme working). My parents have gone through multiple dogs (just to be clear, the dogs died of old age…we are not Korean…but they were delicious) and after the death of Missy, it appeared that my parents were going to be “dog free”. However, things changed and it was decided that it was time to get another dog. It was a surprise but at least it wasn’t a poodle, I HATE those curly little rats! (It all started when I was five and I went to my grandparent’s house….sorry, I’ve missed my last several sessions with the shrink.). Jacob and Warren accompanied my parents to the Humane Society to pick up the dog and bring it home. It seemed like a very docile animal with none of that small dog “yip-yip” barking. However, the dog also seemed a little skittish (again, we’re not Korean and on that note, do you think Kim Jong Il is in hell right now with dogs chewing on his fat ass? Just a thought.). Anyhow, that’s the background, on to the story.

So, my sister is the first to arrive to help us setup the buffet table. We’ve got ham, spring rolls, samosas, veggies & dip, chicken fingers, buffalo chicken dip, chips, soft drinks, etc. Plenty of food for everyone…in the neighborhood. I was outside slaving over the deep fryer to get the spring rolls & samosas cooked so they would be fresh for the party, the spring rolls are always better when they are hot out of the fryer. At about 6:15 or so, around the corner comes my mom with the little dog in tow. It was sniffing around just like any other dog but became a little spooked when it saw Tammy and I standing there looking at it. Lilly (that’s the dog’s name) continued to check out the yard at the end of the leash but it would look back often to see what we were doing (pay no attention to the people by the deep fryer….and if you were wondering, yes she would easily fit into the fryer). I went over to take the leash from my mom so she could go inside the house since it was starting to get dark and cold outside. When the dog realized that the person connected to the leash was not my mom, it freaked out. It started to pull away from me and squirm. She had on a harness but somehow the dog was managing to free itself from the harness. I realized that the dog was escaping and tried to pull it in and move closer to grab it when it squirmed free. I almost had her but then she was out of the harness and on the loose. I asked my mom to come get the dog when it bolted for the neighboring town houses that were across the four empty lots by the house (the subdivision we are in is still “under construction”)`. I went inside to grab a flashlight and headed back out in the direction I last saw the dog. Warren headed out with me and everyone began to pour out of the house to find Lilly. I saw it in the distance heading behind a house and told Warren to run down the street and cut across the last house to see if he could cut off the escape route (it’s a classic pincer movement Patton used so I figured it would work on a little dog as well). So we’re all running around trying to find this small dog that could run pretty darned fast when she wanted to. We’ve got the cars out with headlights beaming into fields around the house hoping to see where she might have gone. The neighbors are coming outside their houses and we tell them we’re looking for a lost dog. [Editor’s note: Deep down, most people are pretty good about things like this. If you are just running through their yards, you get shot but if you tell them that you’ve lost your dog…they cut you a lot of slack and let you do whatever you need to do. One of my neighbors gave me one of those “deer spotter” spotlights to help find the dog. I gave it back because I wasn’t trying to prevent a ship from crashing against the rocks or send a beacon into space, I was just trying to find a small dog and it was overkill. Still, it was extremely nice for someone we didn’t know to allow us to use their stuff, even for a short time.]
We spent about 30 minutes running around, checking behind houses, walking through the thorn bushes and trying to avoid the electric fence that separates us from the cows when we finally made the tough decision to call off the search for a little while. With all the noise and a skittish dog, we were just as likely to chase her away as lure her closer so perhaps it was better to hunker down. We compared notes and essentially, no one had any idea where the dog went (I heard rustling this way, there are dogs barking over there…). I thought the dog had headed out to the cow pastures behind the house and was probably long gone (as long as she didn’t touch the electric fence). There was little we could do except to hope that someone found her and when they took her to the vet, the microchip that was implanted in the dog would tell them who she belonged to. Of course, New Year’s Eve was a pretty chilly evening and as you know, a Chihuahua isn’t exactly a small version of a Siberian Husky. We went inside and ate the moderately warm food (it was ready on time but the excitement of the dog’s departure pushed dinnertime back a little and tried to figure out what to do next.

We talked about the dog and what we could do but since the dog didn’t really approach anyone except my mom, it seemed destined to be a story with a not so happy ending (unless you like frozen dog, on a stick!). Mom went back out with my nephew and headed up the street in search of the dog. I went upstairs to look out the back window from the second floor to see what I could see around the house. From the other side of the house (the opposite direction where she took off running), around the neighbor’s fence comes this small animal just at the very corner of our lot and barely in the illumination of the floodlight. I thought I was seeing things but it was the dog, Lilly. She was moving just like a deer, the ears were perked up and she was looking all around and moving very cautiously. Then, BAM! She took off again back in the direction from which she had come. I ran downstairs (away in an instant, I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash…) and told everyone I had just seen her but she took off. It turns out that Warren was just stepping out on the back deck when he saw the dog and off it went. We called my nephew and told him to come back to the house (with my mom). So, there was some glimmer of hope as the dog made its way back to the house but the problem was still, how could we catch it since it never came close to anyone and it was so fast.

For the rest of the night, the kids tried to make it fun but there was the hanging cloud of “what would happen to the dog” lingering over our heads. My mom moved the chair next to the back door and was staring into the back yard hoping the dog would come back. We put some ham on a plate and moved her bed outside just to see what would happen. Every once in a while my mom would go outside and call the dog’s name. My dad and I went outside and did our best stealth moves to watch for the dog and see if we could catch her. We were about 15 feet apart, I was by the house and he was in the lot next to the house where we had seen her go back and forth before. I carried a piece of ham to try and lure the dog to me. We could see her, just outside of the lighted area and she would walk slowly up the divide between the lots and then, she would stop and look directly at my father and turn around and go back. We would move slowly towards each other hoping to close the trap when she was within reach. One time, she came within 4-5 feet of my dad and they just kind of stared at each other when she turned again and took off. We turned on the car and had my Mom call for the dog but she would not walk between us. It was looking like she was going to make life difficult on us since she was like a mirage. She was there and then, she was gone again. We went back inside and I continued to watch for the dog out of the window but I didn’t see the dog for a while and figured that the dog was determined to spend the night outside.

At around 10:30, my mom went back outside by herself and went to the edge of the field and called the dog. She carried a piece of ham to help. By this time, the dog had to be very cold and probably tired from all of the running around. I watched from the bedroom as the dog appeared and slowly moved towards her. She would inch closer and my mom didn’t move except to hold out the piece of ham. It was a slow process as the dog would lean forward to get a sniff or try to take a bite of the ham and my mom would pull it closer to her. The tension built as this continued for several minutes and the dog came closer and closer. Finally, the dog was close enough and my mom reached down and grabbed the dog and brought it inside to everyone’s relief. The dog was very cold and my mom wrapped it in a blanket to warm it up. I have to believe that Lilly was as happy to get caught as my mom was relieved to have the dog back. Like I said, it had only been two weeks but it doesn’t take that long for a dog to become part of the family.

It was a good thing because I don’t believe the dog would have survived the night outside. In my mind, I already knew I couldn’t tell my mom that we peeled the dog’s body from the grass in the morning. I was already planning the “little white lies” to keep the legend of Lilly alive.

Mom: Did you find the dog yet?
Me: No, but I have seen her around the neighborhood and the food I put out is gone so I think she is eating. The neighbors have seen her as well and think it will just be a matter of time before she’ll be caught.
Mom: Okay, you let me know when you’ve found her.
Me: No problem, don’t worry I am sure she’ll come around eventually. [Hang up the phone] Now kids, you don’t tell your grandmother that we buried the dog next to the electric fence this morning. If she asks, you tell her you almost caught the dog. Warren, you tell her you tripped over your big feet and Jacob, you tell her that you were playing the Xbox Live and heard your brother tell the story that he almost caught the dog. Don’t worry, we’ll only have to tell this story until she either stops asking or they get another dog (after all, it’s not a lie if you believe it right? But deep down I knew that one of them would crack under cross-examination so I had to prepare the next lie to cover for the first lie. No, I didn’t bury the Lilly, it was a small deer.).

So it didn’t take us waiting up until midnight to have the excitement of the ball drop. For us, it was the dog pickup that made News Year’s Eve worth celebrating

The Dating Game

In order to keep in touch while we were away on our Chinese odyssey, we used Skype to communicate with friends and family in the US. In China, they have their own Skype type program (of course, they copy everything don’t they?) that they use to communicate with their friends and family, it’s called QQ. It took me awhile to figure out that when they would say “qq” that it was simply two “q’s” (it couldn’t be that simple could it!?!). I would ask them to repeat it and I would be thinking to myself, “How would you spell that?” but then they wrote it down for me (stupid foreigner!) and I could see that it was indeed much simpler than I thought. When I first looked up QQ, I found that it was all in Chinese (duh!) so there would be little use for me to get it but I continued to research and found that there is a QQ International version. So, before I left China, I got myself setup with a QQ Account (you get a 10-digit number for an account name, ask me today and there’s no way I can tell you what my ID number is…maybe the folks from “anonymous” can help me out?). I checked it out and everything worked out without too much fuss. The people at work thought it was funny when they got a QQ message from me testing the system on my computer. Now QQ will not only work for chatting, it also is an e-mail service, it has a game center, personals, and much more (under the watchful eye of the “protectors”, like loving parents to ensure that you are not taken in by those bad influences). Another interesting thing about QQ; in the profile section you can include information like Date of Birth, Gender, Zodiac Sign and Horoscope Sign (Chinese Zodiac) and of course, the ever crucial Blood Type. Yes folks, that’s blood type! Now I don’t know exactly what they would want this information for but if you want to, you can tell everyone that you are O Positive (perhaps the Twilight/Vampire fans understand this?). There is also a second page where you can include more details about yourself (occupation, phone number, # of BMs per day, and so on) if you want to fill in that information. I guess it could be considered a way to encourage people to contact (or not contact) you.

Since I have left China, I have been in communication with my friends still in China through QQ. Every week, I’ll hear from them and find out what they are doing and so forth. It’s pretty interesting to know how things are going for them and just to keep in contact. Without the aid of QQ, I don’t know that I would ever hear from them (or them from me, after all writing a letter is so 70’s). Since QQ is also a mobile app, most have it on their phones and check it regularly (not so in the US, I think there is a QQ App for the iPhone but not for other systems yet). Just like Skype, you can do a video chat using QQ but I know the first time I tried it; there was no sound (3 minute delay while we “improve” the signal). Anyhow, it has turned out to be a nice thing to have in order to keep in touch (just like Skype).

For those with Skype, you know that every once in a while; you’ll get someone who is trolling for contacts. So-and-so wants to add you to his contact list. You’ll look at it and say “Sweetcheeks32, now who is that?” and typically block them and move on (unless you know who the person is on the other end). Sometimes the message, name or profile will try to be alluring in order to gain your attention but it’s not really all that tempting (after all, do you really think she looks like the picture?). This same thing happens with the blog, “people” will post strange comments to try and lure you in (for nefarious purposes) but we delete those comments and move on. Well, I am finding the same is true for QQ. Since I’ve been back in the US, I get 2-3 contact requests every other day (obviously good things are being said about me, I mean if I wasn’t me; I would want to get to know me too.). The funny thing is that every once in a while, there will be something written like you see in the attached image under the Description section.

Helen is looking for a good husband and good daddy for her son (could you please define “good” for me?). What that means could be anyone’s guess but I would assume that Helen is looking for a Sugar Daddy since she has asked for a contact outside of China (if you want to search contacts in QQ, you can do it by Country, State and City and get a complete list of everyone that meets the criteria. You can’t search by name, rather by QQ ID, that 10-digit number I mentioned earlier). She is willing to do whatever it takes to improve her situation, or so it would appear. Our experience in China indicates that some Chinese women will be with much, much older men and so we know how it works (perhaps I am a cynic…just maybe, but I don’t think that this is a May-December romance, it’s a May-December convenience where she spends her time coming up with new, inventive ways of switching his Viagra pills with Ambien and waiting for him to die and leave her all of his money. Picture an I Love Lucy skit played by a Chinese Lucy. “You got some ‘splaining to do” ). We’ve seen these older men with their young wives out at dinner with their child (allegedly) and her parents. The parents are happy to have the grandchild but couldn’t care less about this old fart except when the bill comes along. [Editor’s note, this was something we heard more than once is that when you take a Chinese wife, very often you will also be taking on her parents as well. They may not show up on the honeymoon but the Chinese Frank and Marie Baron are coming to live with you!]. Anyhow, Helen could be a very nice lady who is in a bad situation but think about it…would you actually write this so it can be seen by anyone and everyone? Again, it’s the difference in cultures. The Chinese tend to be a little more blunt or perhaps it could be said that they don’t see the need to filter what they say in many settings. Now it could also be due to the language thing where they use a word that is technically correct but is deemed to be too “harsh” in English. So, they may not even realize that the words or phrases could be seen as insulting (if they say you are fat, guess what….you probably are fat, at least by their standards) or at least very odd to a Westerner. (As an example, a waitress at one place we went to would use a phrase that we were definitely not used to hearing. She would bring the drinks and we would say “Thank you”. Her response “It’s my honor.” Now it was nice to hear but a very strange use of the phrase.)

Now just because I know that you are enthralled by my writing (or you are bored and have nothing better to do), I’ll take this a step further because it seems very strange to me to see a Chinese woman basically throwing out a line for a husband. The female-to-male ratio in China strongly favors the women (and hence it would stand to reason that it should be relatively easy to find a new companion for this woman). I should take a moment to explain that in China a male child, although desired to carry on the family name, is a significant financial burden on the family (I think this is true in all cultures, no such thing as a free kid). Many times I have heard it said that having a daughter means that you can have a better life. Why? It’s because of the traditional expectations for the family of the male child. The family must provide the male child with a place to live after he leaves the house, a car, an education, pay for his wedding and on and on the list goes. In other words, the family of the boy is expected to provide for him whatever the cost. The expectation is that later in life that they will be able to live with him (and his family) when they can no longer take care of themselves (or that is what they hope). The same monetary dynamic is not true for the family with a female child. Since the family of a female child does not have to save cash throughout her life, they can afford to do more things and buy more things. We’ve all heard the stories of the things that are done to ensure a male child in China (stuff that I will not repeat here) but with the number of females in the country, it would appear that attitudes are changing towards having a daughter. This also has major repercussions on dating in the country. The men are in constant competition to find a woman. We watched a show while in China on the dating scene in Shanghai for men and it was not a pretty picture. Not only did men have to compete with other Chinese men for a woman’s attention (and by competing, it was not always about the look, in many cases it was about the size of their…..wallet [what did you think I was going to say pervert]) but they were also in competition with any foreigners living in China. [Editor’s note: This is very similar around Asia; older Western males would go to these countries looking for a younger woman to take as their wife (or nursemaid). It got to the point where the Cambodian government had to issue a law that prevented foreigners over the age of 50 from being married to Cambodian women. There is also a second part to this law that requires the foreigner to have a monthly income of over $2,500 in order to marry a local woman (can you say pre-nup?) I wonder what the local women would get in a divorce settlement…but I digress.] So, problem #1 is the competition. I guess it would be like going to a high school where there were 50 girls and 85 guys and finding a date to the prom. The girls may first want to know who is renting a limo, the size of the limo, where they are going to eat, etc. before making the final decision on whose invitation they would accept. So the “best” guys are taken quickly and the women either choose to accept the 2nd and 3rd tier guys or they don’t go. Either way for the guys, many are going to be left out no matter what they have to offer.

If the guys were really serious about finding someone, they would go on a dating show (I don’t remember the name of it but each Province had their own version of this show). The dating shows on TV would have women judge the man as he was whisked along in front of the audience on a moving sidewalk and given the third degree by the ladies on the panel. It didn’t take much time for these ladies (imagine a panel of American Idol judges but they are a Chinese female version of Simon Cowell with PMS) to be picking the bones from the carcass as the man was given the thumbs down and off he went into oblivion (and typically it came down to the prospects for the man. What did he do for work? How much did he earn? Did he own an apartment? Did he have a car? Did he have a future? The show is called “If you are the one”. One Beijing woman (Ma Nuo) became famous in China for the phrase “I would rather be crying inside a BMW than laughing on your bicycle”. Some hated this woman because she was nothing but a greedy bi-atch but her remarks seemed to reflect the thoughts of many women in these larger cities in China). Combine this with a “one child policy” where each daughter is treated like a princess and you are in for a generation of women with high expectations that no man can meet (except “the Donald”). Not all Chinese women are like this but in the big cities where the money is, that’s where the problem is especially big for the men.

So how did I get here from QQ, I guess for me it’s easy to draw a line between what I see on QQ and what I saw when I was in China. In the US, we call people with 1 car, and only 1 big screen TV below the poverty level but in China (and other Asian countries), when they say “poor”, they mean P-O-O-R. Some will do just about anything to escape the poverty or to try and make their children’s lives better than their own. This is why there is such a competition for schools, jobs, husbands, etc. Helen is just following a path blazed for her by others; find someone who can meet your financial needs and roll the dice.