The biggest problem with these courtyard houses is that there aren’t any. Well none that I can afford anyway. If you want anything decent, you’re looking at upwards of a couple thousand US dollars a month. These ones are renovated with all the traditional woodwork, painting, parking and a couple of pygmies that will pull you in a rickshaw to the Peking Opera.

“BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE, there’s cheap ones out there!” I can hear some of you seasoned Beijing expats whining. Correct. Just like a microcosm of all that is China, the courtyards come in super rich, or super poor styles. The middle class is still confused, insecure and not sure what it is or wants to be. I saw several places that were just slightly within my price range (when they know it’s a foreigner looking for them the price gets jacked), but they were more than just fixer uppers. I mean, most of them looked to be modified by someone who had played Rubik’s cube their whole life but was never able to solve it. Just a complete jumble of rooms that made no sense. Most of the courtyards had been built over with concrete structures that looked fortified enough to withstand airborne attacks.

Often a few of the inner rooms still had some old geezers milling about with their pet pigeons that probably wouldn’t have been down with a bunch of western dudes getting buck wild to rock music and some floozies in the courtyard. But maybe they would have. I guess that will remain one of the great mysteries of our time.

One thing we couldn’t get drilled into the heads of the scheming property agents that were showing us places was that the whole point of having a courtyard home is the fucking courtyard. Why would I want to live in one of these things just for the sake of living here? If not for the courtyard, what is this magic “culture” they keep referring to that makes these places so special? The street cred, so I can be cool and say I lived for a year in one of these damn places and wore a mao suit as pajamas!? Do they think I want to live in this dilapidated area so that I can squat to take a shit next to someone else just to savor the hutong life? Do you think I want to navigate my way severely intoxicated through a series of impassible, unlit, alleyways that have random wires looking to get into the decapitation game just to get home from the bar?

I suppose you could renovate them, make em all nice and old school, get rid of those squatter toilets with the bucket of water for the flush, make the geezers hit the bricks and hook it up some pygmies to do your bidding. I also suppose your landlord would then quickly find a way to void your rental contract, make you hit the bricks, jack the rent, and charge a couple grand for it just like all the other renovated ones.

Yeah yeah yeah, history and architecture is fantastic and all, but honestly, most of them have been scarred beyond recognition. The ones that have been properly renovated are stuck in disneyesque tourist zones that require you to wade through tons of “oh isn’t this quaint” retards snapping photos of shops selling overpriced gimmicky bullshit that has nothing to do with the hutong life, culture or even common sense.

Well my solution to the ordeal was to say fuck the courtyards, fuck the hutongs, fuck the scheming agents and landlords and most of all fuck Beijing. If I’m going to get shanghaied might as well do it…in Shanghai! Longtangs here I come!

Standing in the shadow of the Toronto Chinese Consulate and gazing on, insane asylum and a fortress both come to mind. A quick ID check at the gate house and I slid past the 10 foot high spiked fence to the courtyard, where pasted up against the walls are faded pictures of various Chinese accomplishments, like rocket launches and some guy playing a broken banjo. You may assume that the security around the building is to keep all the crazy FG protesters out. Wrong. The real reason is so that they can keep all the visa applicants IN.

Just after I take a deep breath to open the door and brace myself for the onslaught of humanity, some sneaky bastard cuts in front of me, throws the door open in my face, and gets into the line that was now spilling outside of the building.

90% of people in line were Chinese, who you would think have been to China at least once before, yet for some reason, none of them had the forms filled out, and they often cut in and out of the line to get missing pages, photocopies, passport photos and whatever other forged documents they needed to make sure that when they go back the Chinese government doesn’t repossess them.

As I stood there waiting for what seemed like hours, and then days passed by, the sour stench of restless bodies encircled my head, making me dream of having one of those buttons that you can press to make everyone incinerate and implode at the same time, taking their smells with them. Oh you’ve never tried one of those buttons? They’re rad, but Doomsday Depot was sold out last I checked.

The little hellions running around, crying, grabbing other people’s applications and then putting them in their mouths provided some entertainment at first, but grew old quick, and ultimately had me calling my doctor’s office to book a vasectomy.

Then there’s the sketchy white dudes that look like sex tourists. No scratch that. It couldn’t be anymore obvious that these guys ARE sex tourists, what with their constant leering at every female present, to their mustaches and outdated fashion that although being really trendy right now, still looks like they just finished serving 15 years for child molestation. I can only hope that these losers take home some bianxings and wind up with more than they bargained for. Two balls and a dick more than they bargained for.

The worst are the agents. The agents are people who work for travel or tour companies, or visa services that have a huge stack of visa applications to go through. Right when I’ve got one person left in front of me, and I think I’ve almost escaped from this dungeon of despair, buddy ahead of me pulls a huge stack of visa applications out of his pants like he’s a fucking kangaroo. Then of course after checking and double checking all the forms, the consular person determines that John Lee’s name should be spelt Jon Li, and then cue the agent on the phone with the guy, yelling at each other for like 15 minutes. All the while I’m wishing that there was an armed PLA officer stationed here so he could ʈianamen square my ass.

Finally I got to the window, slid my application and my passport under, and before I have a chance to ask when I can pick it up, the lady hands me a slip and says “Come get it next Monday”. At that point, I was thinking of asking things like, “hows your salary?”, “what’s your take on Obama’s medicare bill?” or “why are you wearing arm warmers over a winter jacket?” It was one of those times where you’ve spent so long in line, and that the service you get is so little, that you feel like making shit up just to get your time’s worth. With what little sanity I had remaining, I decided against it, because at the end of the day if I wanted to have any left, I’d need to go while the going was good. There would be plenty more opportunities to lose my mind the next week, when I would be stuck in the pickup line that was twice as long.

Americans should realize that First Amendment does not apply to China. It is a whole different culture, different system and I think Americans should respect that. This is like imposing your values on a group of people who needs to be governed in a different way. If Americans have learned anything in the last century, it is to stop interfering with other cultures. Period.

-Karen Zhou from Toronto

This comment would almost be perfectly agreeable if it weren’t for what it’s commenting on, which is clearly defined in that first sentence. Now here’s probably one of the best ever reply to comments I’ve seen posted. And it absolutely OWNS Karen.

Karen Zhou (from page 1), I am all too familiar with the kind of knee-jerk ignorant “patriotism” you cling to. I am Chinese-American, and during my time in college (I recently graduated), I noticed that a good number of my mainland Chinese colleagues would gripe about Internet censorship while vacationing back home (they would, of course, try to climb the Great Firewall). Yet when they returned to the US for classes, they would go nuts if anyone — especially Chinese — dared to speak ill of China’s lack of freedom in this or that area. They would harangue the US, deriding it as imperialist with terms reminiscent of Maoist ‘struggle’ sessions.

Karen, since I can tell from your last name that you are probably of the mainland, let me give you some news: You are the cream of the crop. You’ve made it overseas. You understand English. Please, don’t try to paternalistically speak for the hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese who still live in the mainland and don’t enjoy the freedoms you do in Canada. You probably have more in common with the average Canadian than the average factory worker or farmer in China who actually has legitimate grievances to air against the government.

Your argument is specious in another respect. Chinese folks the likes of you love to lecture about how “Chinese culture” is supposedly based upon uniformity of belief. Well, let’s see. If that’s the case, then have the people in Taiwan been “violating” Chinese culture? After all, Taiwan has preserved traditional Chinese culture far more than the mainland has (think Cultural Revolution). How about Hong Kong? Upon reverting to China, the mainland granted them a “Basic Law” giving them relative freedom of speech. So is HK also somehow “un-Chinese”? How about Chinese communities abroad in the Americas and in Europe? You and I live in Western nations and we both probably identify with a local Chinese community. Now, the Chinese government claims that if it were to allow Internet freedom, then the Chinese people would fall into instability and disorder. Let me ask you: Of all the challenges we Chinese face in the West, when was the last time your Chinese community was torn apart by Internet freedom? Hmm? Are your Chinese friends feeling helpless because they can’t cope with Internet freedom?

You write that allowing Internet freedom “is like imposing your values on a group of people who needs to be governed in a different way.” Let me ask you: Where did the ideology that underlies the CCP originate from? You know, Marxism-Leninism? I’m pretty well-versed in Chinese history, and I just don’t think we made that crock up! And if you say that Chinese have their own unique way of governance, then why haven’t Chinese like you been calling for a restoration of the dynastic system? That was our unique way of governing ourselves for oh, I don’t know, 5,000 years — until a bunch of middle-class populists (Mao & Co.) decided that China ought to violently throw out its political system and institute one conceived of by..Germans! Very original, eh? (Note: If you didn’t get the sarcasm, I don’t actually advocate returning to being ruled by emperors. But you should!)

What I discovered in college, Karen, was that Chinese who think like you actually have some sort of an “inferiority country complex.” You guys are reluctant to criticize the government of your motherland because of one or a combination of four main factors. One, the government probably helped you and your family become successful. That’s why you can afford to come overseas and “represent” the masses — you don’t want to bite the hand that fed you. Two, you somehow think that if you criticize the CCP less, foreigners will follow. Three, you were educated in China, and therefore didn’t have access to a lot of censored material people elsewhere have that reflects poorly upon the CCP. Four, you are ashamed of certain aspects of China’s development and think that admitting them to Westerners would bring shame on China as a nation. (As if Westerners didn’t already know!)

None of these reasons, however, are justifiable excuses for being knee-jerk nationalistic. When I studied abroad in China, I did not go there with the sort of national arrogance that many “patriotic” mainland Chinese tend to have here in America. I made a distinction between the US government and US society. I was not afraid to discuss the respective shortcomings — and strengths — of both entities. People like you, however, conflate the two, and therein lies great danger. Karen, we Chinese have much to be proud of in our traditional culture and values. But appreciating Chinese culture need not, and is not, equivalent to a need to blindly defend the Chinese government at all costs, as if it were representative of the Chinese people (not). That is a lie perpetuated by the Chinese government, and it is really quite sad that otherwise educated Chinese like you have eagerly bought into it. Go talk with some real netizens in China!

-eyc from NJ

There you have it. If that wasn’t a smackdown, then I’m a roast goose. If only the US gov could pop a few cans of spinach and take it to the Chinese gov’t like that. Hillary Clinton could learn something here.

The reason why I post this, is that I want to remember it. Far too often I run into mainlanders that think like Karen. They’re unable to differentiate between criticisms against the Chinese Gov’t and the Chinese people, and their panties get all bunched up like frozen chickpeas. They think it’s no business of non-Chinese to be interfere in such affairs. Well they can suck on a lemon. Just who do they think they are to be meddling in our meddlings?!

Link to the original article

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So without further unrelated preamble, here is what I think is likely to happen over the next decade in the sinosphere.

13. They find those missing animal heads from the summer palace….shoved up Stephen Harper’s ass. Their removal and return prompts a complete thawing of Canadian-Chinese relations and the PM’s frozen scowl.

12. Global climate change (or those damn weather “engineers”) pumps up the already incendiary temperatures in Beijing from “it’s getting hot in herre” to “how about this heat?” During one of the heat waves, the AC down at the mausoleum has a meltdown, causing someone to melt down quite literally.

11. The Ministry of Culture and Information continue their purge of the internets and all that is harmful to the healthy development of the people. Eventually they reach a point where they marvel in their own magnificence and give birth to a kind of digital vortex, blocking themselves from the internet and leading to the collapse of the great firewall. The people quickly clamor for the wall to be restored when all they find on the outside is Facebook, Twitter and clips of monkeys flinging poo on Youtube.

10. In an attempt at re-branding, Gansu province bills itself as “a dusty, hot, polluted, sparsely populated hell on earth that makes Abu Gharib seem like nirvana”. It works, and thousands of survivormen and weekend warriors flow in, trying to prove their machismo. Soon enough the wannabees and hipsters arrive, and before long, the whole province is gentrified to the point of starbucks being endemic and every new housing development having SoHo somewhere in its name.

9. Just when we thought things at Chinese bars couldn’t get any worse. A nationwide change of trends results in eurodance happy hardcore being lost to emo and the bourgeois chivas guzzling patrons replaced by sulking goth poseurs who spend the evening drinking carrot juice and writing haikus about how their lives are so miserable being only children.

8. Shanghai hosts the expo and as expected, nothing happens. With no big show to have novelty sized countdown clocks placed everywhere for, and no platform to scream “look at us, look at how developed and modern we are!!!”, China installs the reigning British monarch (King Harry) as head of state so that it can host the Commonwealth games in 2018.

7. Starcraft 2 is released, Korea gets caught with its pants down, and China takes over. Shortly after, Happy Farm 2 is released, China gets caught with its pants down, and Korea takes over. Shortly after, Diablo 3 gets released, and I stop caring about everything else.

6. Oil peaks out and the price per barrel sky rockets. Chinese food becomes magically more delicious, nutritious and popular overnight.

5. The Ministry of Propaganda finally realizes what it’s name means, and while trying to redeem itself in one of those moves that makes you want to punch yourself in the face with both fists simultaneously, it buys out News Corp. and renames itself 福克斯新闻.

4. The hatchet is finally buried with Japan after the Island nation convinces the Chinese Politburo members to ditch their phony dye jobs and combovers for a retroactive Koizumi hair comeback, thereby ensuring a popularity revival for the party (Japan also includes an unspecified number of sex robots to sweeten the deal).

3. The film industry exhausts every conceivable combination of historical costume drama story it can think up. Still being banned from covering most of the events of the 20th century it is forced to go where no Chinese have gone before…into space! Dragon shaped space ships are launched into the heavens to search out new foreign worlds and new foreign friends. Over Tsingtaos and forced Zhongnanhais they’ll insist to every alien race how they’ll never understand the glories of the past 5000 years of Chinese inventions and culture, then go on to explain it all anyway.

2. After surpassing the USA in the number of vehicles in daily use, it doesn’t take long for the entire road network to make a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday look like a model of peace and order. The central planners decide to do what the USA never had the balls to do, bring the flying car to the masses. Within mere hours of the scheme’s introduction it becomes clear why the States never followed through - people can’t even handle driving in two dimensions, adding a third was pandemonium. After this fiasco, China follows up by going with Europe’s tried and true method, and simply raises the gas taxes and toll fees to the point where only the rich can afford to drive.

1. I become fluent enough in Chinese to convince the masses the country needs it’s own Obama. In a landslide victory I become the first democratically elected foreigner to be paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China on promises of reviving long buried customs, arts and culture. My “Humble Hop Backwards” is unfortunately marred in bureaucratic red tape. I try get things right the second time with my Dawkins inspired followup: the Cult of the Evolution. Stuff starts to go awry sometime after I order all the happy farms to be seized and returned to the urban elite. A revolt ensues, and I’m forced into hiding with the ghost of Yan Xishan, Edison Chen and Tiger Woods. Luckily there’s a couple crates full of Erguotou, which we drink mercilessly into the night. I awake with a hangover but thankful it was all a dream, and firing up my computer to check the news on the net I notice a new photo scandal involving Edison Chen and……goddamn.

Forget about ingredient lists, just follow these steps and if you don’t have what they call for, pretend you lost your eyesight in a fistfight with a toucan, and grab whatever powdery substance you can find. I know you’re worried about Chaos theory and where your cat is, but these things and making edibles go hand in hand.

STEP 1

Take the license plates off your car, head to the nearest Williams Sonoma, and pillage it like you’re the damn omega man. Don’t ask questions, just do it. In the apocalypse, survival is key, and you’ll need all the measuring cups, pots and waffle irons you can get to ward of those shitty mutants.

Step 2

Get home and get your shit straight son. Unpack that waffle iron, plug it in immediately and leave it on as long as possible. This prodigal use of electricity will help burn off any remnants of finger prints or booger grease from the third world kid who assembled it and might contribute to us having a warmer summer next year.

STEP 3

Get a big bowl and put it off camera. Then take a measuring cup and fill it with 1 CUP of perfect white flour. If you’re a real man, you’ll mill that grain yourself. Those who bring up the topic of whole wheat or organic flour will find themselves on the ingredient list. These are John Wayne’s waffles not Elton John’s. Oh and as you’ve already noticed, I’ll be using imperial units, so all you base ten metric lovin motherfuckers can learn to convert and use an anachronistic system of measurement with no discernable logic and grow some fuckin balls while your at it.

STEP 4

After you throw that flour into the bowl without making your work area look like a a Columbian drug lab, grab some baking powder, and add two teaspoons of that magic dust in. Once again we’re making waffles here, not crack cocaine, so use powder, NOT soda. If you do use soda to make them, I hope you do smoke crack, cause that’s the only way you’ll be able to handle the overpowering taste of pure ass that’ll make you loco.

STEP 5

Half a teaspoon of salt is what you want to drop in there next. At the risk of being labeled an anti-semite I’d advise to stay away from that Kosher variety, unless you like chunks of saltiness t-bagging your tongue. It’s best if you slide by McDonalds, jack a shaker or two and use that. Ronald won’t mind, that slut’s busy molesting your neighbor’s kids.

STEP 6

Now comes the tricky part. So it would be best to get some tricks to do it for you. You’ll need four large and crazy eggs. Get crackin, but separate the whites from the rest segregation style. The yolks can straight in with everything else. Hide the whites someplace where little insects and birds won’t be able to go for a swim.

STEP 7

For this step, take two tablespoons of the sweetest sugar you can find and half a teaspoon of purest vanilla extract ever to be extracted to the mix. Then quickly run to your local cow, grab up on those titties and milk yourself two cups of freshness. Get back before the farmer realizes you violated his cow and dump that in there too. I don’t care if you’re lactose intolerant and real milk will leave looking like a fucking hobbit. Don’t even think of putting any of soy based wank in there.

STEP 8

Take half a stick of butter, and using the power of modern science and technology, nuke that son of a bitch down to liquid form. Try as hard as you can NOT to drink the whole thing down because it smells so delicious, and pour it into the main bowl.

STEP 9

Go find those egg whites you hid, and using a blender, or a good ol fashioned beater, beat them like a punk ass bitch. This is essential to give the waffles that light airy feeling like they came straight from an oven in heaven with cute little flying kittens and puppies and harp music, and JESUS would you hurry up and just beat those bloody things!?!

STEP 10

Once again with the beater, but preferably your bare fist or maybe even a properly sequenced tornado of round house kicks, blend the contents of the main bowl into a mélange of magic. Then pour the egg whites in there and mix some more. MIX until your goddamn hand falls off, and rats come along and eat it, and then other rats come and eat those rats.

STEP 11

If you’re a conservative pour a conservative amount of waffle batter onto the waffle iron. If you’re a pussy ass liberal, pour a liberal amount. Then like a bleeding heart bitch, scurry off to cry or write poetry about pictures of dogs when this happens:

Keep cooking them waffles until the steam coming from the iron slows down. If the steam coming from the iron doesn’t slow down, but instead increases and turns black, return to step 2.

STEP 12

Waffles need syrup like a pimp needs hoes. Using anything other than 100% real maple syrup would be just plain…ridiculous. Any bottle of “syrup” emblazoned with a crude image of a negro that looks like it belongs in another era, probably does. Toss that ooze out the window and hope it falls through the time warp that it came from. Then for about half second bask in the golden irony that some megacorp manufactures fake food from subsidized corn and then uses the image of a group it oppresses as a brand name. Not too long now, them waffles gonna get cold.

STEP 13

Remove the waffle from the iron and sprinkle on some icing sugar to make it look like you know what you’re doing. Add the syrup. Then proceed to inhale that waffle with the power of some 23 inch spinners and a bottle of crystal. Because you’ve earned it; trying to figure out how to make waffles, while taking pictures along the way to show a bunch of randoms on the internet how to do something they probably would be better off doing without your wack advice.