2016年12月9日星期五

A Story Only China Expats Will Mingbai – small town laowai

A Story Only China Expats Will Mingbai – small town laowai

A Story Only China Expats Will Mingbai

How good is your Chinglish? If you can follow this story, I'm guessing you have lived in China hao jiu.

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The other day, I was buying some ershou furniture from a guy across town but I knew it was going to be a lot of mafan to get it back to my xiaoqu. All I've got is a little diandongche and there's no way I can fit a guizi on it, even though I bet a lot of bendiren could do it, mei wenti. Anyway, first I tried using DiDi to book a mianbaoche, but you can only get kuaiches or chuzuches, so I had to think of something else. I don't know any mianbaoche drivers here yet, so I thought about sending something out on WeChat to ask some of my laowai pengyou if they could recommend someone.

I was at school and happened to stop by the waiban. There's this one laoshi there who is super nenggan so I thought about asking her for help. It's just that she's also always hen mang so I hate to mafan her. Plus, since her English is not great and my Putonghua is only mamahuhu, we often don't communicate well. But I decided to ask her to bangmang and I'm so glad I did. She called a guy and DUANG! Just like that, it was all anpai'd. I really couldn't follow what she said on the phone because they were using tuhua or some kind of fangyan, which is another reason I feel like a bendan half the time when I try to talk to people here.

She explained that the driver would need some kind of fapiao or fangxingtiao to show the baoan at the other guy's xiaoqu or they wouldn't let them out the menkou. I texted the guy right away, and thankfully, he has lived in China a long time, so he knew all about that and had it zhunbei'd.

So, that night, the mianbaoche arrived right on schedule, which was amazing considering it was gaofengqi and, well, TIC, right? I had warned the baoan they were coming, so they let them park right at my danyuan which is way more fangbian than where they'd have to park otherwise. The driver had brought along another guy and they carried the guizi and other dongxi up my stairs on their backs. Wasai! These guys are so lihai! I could never do that. I considered giving them an extra tip for all the xinku, but I know it's not the xiguan here. So, I just paid the fei and said xie xie. Then I sent a few thank you stickers to the waiban laoshi on WeChat. Chenggong le!

(P.S. I know there's a lot more of you who aren't China expats but will still be great at reading this. Shout out to my huaqiao, S'pore, Malaysian, Chinese-Anything, and English-speaking dalu friends la!)

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蘋果日報- 這個都巿很溫情 - 高慧然

蘋果日報- 這個都巿很溫情 - 高慧然

這個都巿很溫情 - 高慧然

不知從甚麼時候開始,香港多了很多「溫情」故事。

比如一個日打三份工的年輕人,駕駛電單車送外賣途中交通意外身亡,丟下患癌父親。社會人士自發捐款,幫助突遇巨變的家庭。

不止一次看到類似的事件在港聞版出現,一個社會,人與人之間互相關心,充滿人情味,好像社會很溫馨、很和諧,但這不是好事。這種現象通常出現在落後國家、政府資源不足或錯配的地方。香港本來不在此例。

很敬佩熱心人士悲天憫人的同情心,但是民間自己用捐款方式去解決政府資源錯配的問題,着實令人心酸。

這邊廂真正有需要的香港人得不到合理的經濟援助,另一邊廂政府剛剛取消低津家庭成員離港日子的限制。本來,申請低收入津貼者有離港日期限制,每六個月內,最多可離港30日。政府宣佈取消後,低收入津貼者可以不受限制在香港以外的地方居住。很明顯是慷香港人之慨討好新移民,為自己撈取政治油水。

成熟的、健康的社會不需要溫情故事。因為它們有相對完善的制度確保社會資源分配均衡、合理。絕大多數人的利益均被照顧周到。民間機構、私人不需要做任何事情去彌補政府施政的失效。

表面越溫馨的社會,其實越絕望。

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