wanzhou pride.

we had dinner with one of dave's coworkers, wu peng and his gf. boy, that guy has more province pride than all the socal and norcal-ers combined. he was most proud of his wanzhou dialect, which we briefly heard him use on the phone. it sounded like a combo of russian and gibberish-wait is that redundant? i think one thing that is super-cool about these chinese folk is that they have secret languages that only people from their province can understand, called dialects. you can basically talk smack about the person in front of you and smile at them and they will think you are saying something nice about them. wu peng went on to tell us the history of his dialect, namely a vietnam war secret code. he gave us this funny example of the same word used 4x in a row, which meant 4 different things! and best of all, he said the wanzhou dialect was a "high level" dialect unlike that used in hangzhou, where he goes to college.

i proceeded to be as racist as i could be, and inquired about all the things i could not stand about the chinese culture here. i had questions and i wanted answers. hey, it was a rough day.

why are people so rude here?
why do people cut in line?
why do people steal your taxi?
why are there so many salespeople at every counter harassing you?
what's up with these amway people?
why do people ignore you?
why are the cops so unhelpful and rude?
how can people afford to buy things here given how poor they are?
what is minimum wage? (there isn't one, btw)
where are some safe chinese restaurants where i won't get sick after eating there?
can you talk smack about the government?
can you sue the government?
should we free tibet? (no i never asked this cuz he said it was a sensitive topic)

funny thing is, he had an answer for all my questions and damn good ones too. he was articulate and intelligent and his english was amazing. he was much more worldly than most chinese people here and that's probably b/c he spent time in seattle. and he had quite a sense of humor. most of all, the dude had a lot of province pride. i have no idea what OC pride would consist of. dave suggested, we have the most breast implants per capita?

i would love to learn the history of the provincial dialects. it seems so fascinating.

i really want to find both a language and cultural partner.