Yes, We Have No Paizi

Two stories to tell tonight, while Mia is out with friends and i'm breaking from reading. I'm just a third through a 750 page sci fi story that i hope to finish before we leave for BeiJing. Mia's friend Zhou is back in town and they and Fan are across the street at the ChaGuan (tea house). Now Chaguans are not exactly the equivalent of a Starbucks that serves tea. In fact, they're more like a small restuarant that has couches and easy chairs at their tables. Mia and I ate there last night and her friends often frequent this and another teahouse nearby. they really have a relaxed atmosphere, one where the help doesn't bother you to move on so they can seat more customers. In fact, it's not usual for people to linger for hours after eating, talking and playing games. All for the added price of some tea or snacks along the way. but i came here to tell a few stories. My first tale is about garbage bags. Yes, garbage bags. (Gee, that brian. he must be running out of things to say.) Just you see.

You'll remember that San Francisco was threatening to ban plastic grocery bags this year, a trend that may catch on, but i don't know if SF's proposal ever saw day. If it does, i'd venture to guess that it will slowly catch on and move towards a tipping point several years down the road.

However, things can move terribly fast in China. Earlier this year, the government decreed that all plastic grocery bags would be banned as of June 1st. We knew this since we follow the news here. One site is in my Google Reader news folder and i often meander to the main site: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/. So we knew about the news and we brought several sturdy cloth bags with us to carry groceries. One of them, the CUE Conference bag, is serving just PERFECTLY, since it can hold so much water and soda. (you just don't drink the water here).
In one fell swoop, an entire county leaped years ahead of the US by recognizing the waste created by these tiny bags that don't decompose. You can do that here.

There's a problem, though. Just what do we put our garbage in? NOrmally, we use the small bags (about 2-3 gallons in volume) to hold our daily garbage and another to hold our recyclables. We dispose of the garbage daily and place the recycles out by the side of our building where savengers pick them up. (oh, that's more stories to tell). In any case, we had about 10 garbage bags when i arrived, the result of bags we'd gotten when shopping at non-grocery stores. yes, bags are banned in grocery stores but not in stores where you purchase hard goods. If you forget your cloth bag, though, you can purchase a bag for .2 yuan (about 3 cents). A few days ago, we ran out and things were about to get ugly. Mia had left to meet her friends and my mission, after i wrote my last blog, was to venture to the store to purchase bags.

Now, the GREAT thing about the ban was that while stores couldn't GIVE you the bags, they could sell you them if you didn't have a cloth bag. The ban, though, as created a culture where nearly everyone brings a cloth bag with them for their purchases. however, i needed some badly. How to ask though? My mandarin is pretty pathetic since a 600 vocabulary just doesn't cut it. i got out my dictionary out, looked up "garbage bag", and found Paizi. NOw, MOST of the time, the dictionary gets things right, but sometimes it conflicts with words that real people use. With my made up conversation firmly implanted in my head (and neatly rehearsed), i went to the store, purchased a good number of sodas and waters, and proceeded to the check out stand. Getting my CUE bag out, i pointed to the plastic garbage bag at the counter and asked in my best Mandarin, "Is this a bag?" Ok, it sounds silly, but that's the way it went. The checker said yes, so i knew is was on the right track. I then said, "I would like five", pointing to the inside of my bag where i wanted them. "Wu ge" (5) she said with an expression that told me that she thought i was 12 eggs short of a dozen. She continued to look at me for what seemed like ages, but was probably only an hour or so, wondering how i could possibly want five bags, unfilled, placed inside my perfectly good cloth bags.

She complied, counting them out slowly, placing them in my bag, and shaking her head in disbelief.

So, add one more word to my slowly expanding vocabulary, and one more grocery clerk that thinks American's are crazy.

Next year, i'm saving all my plastic WalMart bags to bring over here. Yes, if i bring 100 WalMart bags, i'll save $3, but at least I'll have some place to put my garbage.