Monday, September 03, 2007

You Know You've Lived Here Too Long When...

1. You’re at an expensive western restaurant and don’t even notice the guy at the next table yelling into his cell phone

2. You walk backwards in the park listening to a transistor radio

3. The China Daily is your source for hard hitting, fast breaking, investigative journalism

4. You smoke in crowded elevators.

5. All white people look the same to you

6. You no longer need tissues to blow your nose

7. You find western toilets uncomfortable

8. You throw your used toilet paper in the basket (as a courtesy to the next person)

9. It’s OK to throw rubbish, including old fridges, from your 18th-floor window

10. You believe that pressing the elevator button 63 times will make it move faster

11. You aren’t aware that one is supposed to pay for software

12. You think that a $7 shirt is a rip-off

13. You always leave tray and trash on the table when you are in Starbucks, McDonalds or KFC because you insist it is the way to keep everyone employed

14. You have no reservations about spitting sun flower seeds on the restaurant floor

15. You feel cheated if you don’t receive a full head and shoulder massage when getting a haircut

16. You blow your nose or spit on the restaurant floor (of course after making a loud hocking noise)

17. You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue

18. It becomes exciting to see if you can get on the elevator before anyone can get off

19. It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting

20. You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes

21. You accept the fact that you have to queue to get a number for the next queue

22. You believe everything you read in the local newspaper

23. You regard it as part of the adventure when the waiter correctly repeats your order and the cook makes something completely different.

24. You are not surprised when three men with a ladder show up to change a light bulb

25. You look over people’s shoulder to see what they are reading

26. You honk your horn at people because they are in your way as you drive down the sidewalk

27. When car accidents become a source of heartwarming humour

28. When shopping at the supermarket some laowai (foreigner) stares you down for catching you looking into his basket while you wonder to yourself what laowai’s eat

29. You have a pinky fingernail an inch long

30. You burp in any situation and don’t care

31. You think Pizza Hut is high-class and worth standing in line for

32. You have learned how to detect someone is in a hurry behind you, and now have the ability to not only walk very slowly but also grow eyes in the back of your head, so when they start to overtake on the right hand side, you automatically cut in and walk very slowly directly in front of them

33. You have absolutely no sense of traffic rules

34. You start calling other foreigners Lao Wai

35. You start cutting off large vehicles on your bicycle

36. You go shopping in pajamas

37. Firecrackers don’t wake you up

38. Forks feel funny

39. You realize that smiling and nodding is Chinese body language for, “Go away; leave me alone.”

40. You don’t bother to take the sticker off the lenses of your fake Ray-Bans

41. You only wear a suit when you dig ditches or do home repairs

42. Your handshake is weakening by the day

43. You cannot say a number without making the appropriate hand sign

44. You like the taste of Green Tea and Chivas

45. You start recognising the chinese songs on the radio and sing along to them with the taxi driver

46. You feel insulted when you enter a restaurant and only three waiters welcome you

47. When you wonder how come your friends in your country just buy ten DVDs per year

48. When you pull the bottom of your t-shirt up over your beer gut and proceed to walk around like that for an hour after you've eaten.

49. When people ask you "what is this in English" or how do you translate this, your mind goes blank because you have forgotten too.

50. You stare at other foreigners.

51. You know words in Chinese for which you don't know the translation in English.

52. You whole-heartedly agree with things that you don't agree with.

53. You just love it when new visitors from the states arrive and give you their list of what they will and won't do and eat.

54. You start thinking instant coffee tastes pretty good.

These are just a few and there is more. I will add more as they come to mind or as I find them on the net. Not all of these are mine, but all of these are true!

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