Hello this is Aiden Bernhardt again, I am glad to say that our family finally apprehended the madmen writing those threatening words in the comments section of my previous post. If you did not comprehend a word I just said, that is most likely because you are unfamiliar with the drama that unfolded in the comments section after I posted that story. If that is the case I advise you pay a trip after reading this entry, to the comments section of my previous entry: The Italian Kitchen at the Bowl. After examining the video evidence and backtracking Steven’s IP address, we discovered the location of this villain’s evil lair. He lived in: Shanghai, XuJiaHui, Shama complex, room 1706.
Well, it turns out that the whole thing was a cleverly constructed prank that my dad pulled over all our heads. Not only did he create a fake email account for, and pretend to be the monkey expert from the rare earth animal society, but he was also the private detective person that Steven hired to “track” our family down. Well done Dad. Well done.
Anyway, what I really want to talk about is fashion. Everyone knows that I am a very, Very, VERY fashion sensitive person. And rightly so, because I believe that what you wear is what you are. For instance, If I were to wear a t-shirt with the words:
I don’t believe in Science. Only Love, Sex, and myself.
…Then that would be a very straightforward way of letting everyone I meet know exactly what I’m interested in. Ok, jokes aside, I was inspired to write this entry after catching sight of a college aged kid in the subway wearing this particular slogan on his shirt. It was too funny to pass by, so after whipping out a notepad I ended up writing down every single humorous T-shirt I saw for the rest of the day. Somehow in the fashion trends of China, It has become incredibly popular to wear T-shirts with various English phrases printed on them. However, as most of the people wearing these shirts do not speak English reasonably well themselves, they rarely have any idea what it is they are wearing. The words could be a random string of letters for all they care; What matters most to them seems to be the fact that it HAS English written on it in some form or another. The result is a great diversification of what is acceptable English spelling, and also the creation of hilarious phrases that are nonsensical, and occasionally ironic. I am going to stop talking now because I don’t want to spoil the following humor by telling you why the jokes are funny (turns out that’s the best way to ruin a joke (unless of course you are doing it on purpose, then it’s funny (but then again it’s really only funny to you (almost as funny as typing four parentheses in a row)))). Enjoy these T-shirt slogans that I hastily scrawled onto a back page of my sister’s private journal:
I live for Party Rock. (worn by a plump middle aged woman)
The filth and the furry fight alone.
Meals struck to float.
Death. Deadly. Murderer. (bloody shirt worn by innocent two year old)
ABCFM LLTZNOCK EDIO QNVMDSN QPVNCM
A world without strangers <3 (pink shirt. Worn by a hunchbacked, grumpy looking, elderly lady)
Life is about cheating yourself. (On a really fat guy)
Go Dunk Yourself
Blue note Rhapsody it may on key board instruments Involve a glide either upward or downward this flatness may take several forms.
And of course, my favorite:
LOUISIANA. The state located in the southern region.
Well that’s all for now. We’re going to be taking a vacation in Thailand for the next two weeks, so I suppose you’ll be hearing about that next. Buh bye now.
-Aiden
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
City Noise
There is a constant chatter of noises here in the city. Much of it is honking either by bikes, scooters or various types of motor vehicles. At first it is quite overwhelming, but after some time you learn to tune out what isn’t important to you at any given moment. I had been trying to figure out why this trip to Shanghai hasn’t been quite as overwhelming as far as street noise and understanding traffic. At first I thought maybe the streets were calmer or maybe less noisy, but what I really realized is that I have become seasoned, the noise is the same. What I really realized is that the street noise is much like a new babies cry. There are different cries for different needs. When you bring your first baby home it is all just noise that you feel helpless to understand and after a bit of time desperately trying to understand you start to get it. There are different cries for being hungry, being uncomfortable, wanting attention, really hurting, the list goes on. With each new baby you bring home the process is quicker, still a learning process because the dialect is slightly different, but nevertheless you learn what each cry means. Honking in the city is no different. There is constant communication going on and at first there is a great desire to want to know what it all means. Then slowly it unravels short, quick honks mean “Here I am, watch out for me”, short, a bit more forceful honks mean “Watch out I’m coming through” and the loud, long, forceful honks mean “Get the heck out of my way because you have 2 seconds and I’m going to crash into you!!”. It’s really pretty easy. The scooters know it, the bikes know it and now I do too. I am a seasoned parent and a somewhat seasoned traffic obeyer.
Monday, July 2, 2012
The Bowl's Italian Kitchen by Aiden
The Bowl's Italian Kitchen
Hello, this is Aiden Bernhardt. If by some chance you have stumbled upon this blog without prior acquaintance of its writer, or you have so far neglected to read more than the first few words of every post, then you will be delighted to learn that Hollie is currently the mother of two Brazilian monkeys and a teenage boy (me). While in all appearances, the two monkeys very closely resemble human children, I assure you that their existence would be against the law. If those two monkeys were to somehow transform into human children, then sadly, our membership at the swimming pool across the street would no longer be valid. At the Spartan Club where said pool resides, the formula for a packaged family discount only has three ingredients: one mother, one father, one child. Thus the existence of our species-diverse family.
I should mention that monkeys seem to exhibit a certain fondness for cheap Canadian pizza bought at high-end cafeterias. Thankfully, there is such a shop located in our beloved watering hole, Metro City, AKA The bowl. On our most recent expedition, we got lucky and spotted the rare human being prowling amongst the foliage and… err I mean we learned that the guys running the Italian Kitchen restaurant were extremely pleasant Canadians who had gone out of their way to make life hard for themselves by moving their startup business to China. Currently they are still in the process of convincing the locals that Pizza and Italian pasta (with cheese) are real foods that you can eat. The owner of the shop named Stu, sat and ate lunch with us while we traded experiences. We learned a lot from Stu, to say the least. Bear with me now as I will attempt to summarize what we learned in three words of no particular order: Soapy, Punches, Money. There, I said it. In case you are too ignorant to understand the depth of what I have just said, here is a more in-depth description of each word:
Soapy: On our last visit to China, We stayed very near where our current home is, and we ate lunch at the bowl nearly every day. When however my mother realized that the bowl is possibly the filthiest place you could ever order food, we stopped going for lunch. This time when we returned to China, we visited the bowl hesitantly only to discover that the place was a lot cleaner. For instance, my mother noticed that our plates and bowls were now regularly handed to us already cleaned via the magical process of soap and hot water, (something they never used to do, clean the dishes for god’s sake) Stu explained to us that this was all thanks to him. When he and his brother started up business in the empty shop near the elevator three months ago, they revolutionized the entire place by cleaning their dishes. Soon all the other shops regretfully had to rise to this new standard. Upon looking around we noticed there was even soap in the mop buckets, what a concept.
Punches: Stu told us briefly about an incident in which he lightly pushed a mall guard on the shoulder and promptly “Killed him”. He and his brother’s girl friend were shopping at the mall near closing time when they discovered that all the doors had been closed. Their only way out was to pass by a guard with a napoleon complex. He told them that “His” exit was not supposed to be used. They tried exiting anyway, and the guard got right in Stu’s face and told him that he was going to kill his girlfriend next time he saw them. Stu pushed the guard a little (it was documented with a security camera). The guard was apparently a fan of soccer because he keeled over clutching his knee and screaming in pain. The police showed up and dragged Stu away to jail. After examining the evidence, the police let him off, but told him not to be so strong in the future, and that it was ok to spit in his face and tell him you were going to kill him, but never ever was it ok to touch someone else.
Money: One of the most enlightening things Stu enlightened to us was the existence of a strict social caste system based on money. Similar to the one used in India, except tucked away, the caste system in China allows the richest of its members to mostly do whatever the hell they want without retribution. That is, as long as they have contacts in high places, and they have lots of money (obviously). Stu said that the difficulty level for setting up a business in China is turned all the way up to Expert. By coming in to the country afresh, you have no contacts to help you cut through the complicated bureaucracy, and therefore no chance what so ever. The only way they got their business running in the first place was by reaching through a long grape vine of people to the owner of the Bowl, who in one night gave them their shop front in the bowl after nine months of failed leads. It wasn’t exactly the style of restaurant they had been searching all that time for, but they settled. Thanks to them, we can buy pizza for the monkeys whenever they become restless. Well that’s all for now from me.
Tune in next week, maybe. -Aiden
Hello, this is Aiden Bernhardt. If by some chance you have stumbled upon this blog without prior acquaintance of its writer, or you have so far neglected to read more than the first few words of every post, then you will be delighted to learn that Hollie is currently the mother of two Brazilian monkeys and a teenage boy (me). While in all appearances, the two monkeys very closely resemble human children, I assure you that their existence would be against the law. If those two monkeys were to somehow transform into human children, then sadly, our membership at the swimming pool across the street would no longer be valid. At the Spartan Club where said pool resides, the formula for a packaged family discount only has three ingredients: one mother, one father, one child. Thus the existence of our species-diverse family.
I should mention that monkeys seem to exhibit a certain fondness for cheap Canadian pizza bought at high-end cafeterias. Thankfully, there is such a shop located in our beloved watering hole, Metro City, AKA The bowl. On our most recent expedition, we got lucky and spotted the rare human being prowling amongst the foliage and… err I mean we learned that the guys running the Italian Kitchen restaurant were extremely pleasant Canadians who had gone out of their way to make life hard for themselves by moving their startup business to China. Currently they are still in the process of convincing the locals that Pizza and Italian pasta (with cheese) are real foods that you can eat. The owner of the shop named Stu, sat and ate lunch with us while we traded experiences. We learned a lot from Stu, to say the least. Bear with me now as I will attempt to summarize what we learned in three words of no particular order: Soapy, Punches, Money. There, I said it. In case you are too ignorant to understand the depth of what I have just said, here is a more in-depth description of each word:
Soapy: On our last visit to China, We stayed very near where our current home is, and we ate lunch at the bowl nearly every day. When however my mother realized that the bowl is possibly the filthiest place you could ever order food, we stopped going for lunch. This time when we returned to China, we visited the bowl hesitantly only to discover that the place was a lot cleaner. For instance, my mother noticed that our plates and bowls were now regularly handed to us already cleaned via the magical process of soap and hot water, (something they never used to do, clean the dishes for god’s sake) Stu explained to us that this was all thanks to him. When he and his brother started up business in the empty shop near the elevator three months ago, they revolutionized the entire place by cleaning their dishes. Soon all the other shops regretfully had to rise to this new standard. Upon looking around we noticed there was even soap in the mop buckets, what a concept.
Punches: Stu told us briefly about an incident in which he lightly pushed a mall guard on the shoulder and promptly “Killed him”. He and his brother’s girl friend were shopping at the mall near closing time when they discovered that all the doors had been closed. Their only way out was to pass by a guard with a napoleon complex. He told them that “His” exit was not supposed to be used. They tried exiting anyway, and the guard got right in Stu’s face and told him that he was going to kill his girlfriend next time he saw them. Stu pushed the guard a little (it was documented with a security camera). The guard was apparently a fan of soccer because he keeled over clutching his knee and screaming in pain. The police showed up and dragged Stu away to jail. After examining the evidence, the police let him off, but told him not to be so strong in the future, and that it was ok to spit in his face and tell him you were going to kill him, but never ever was it ok to touch someone else.
Money: One of the most enlightening things Stu enlightened to us was the existence of a strict social caste system based on money. Similar to the one used in India, except tucked away, the caste system in China allows the richest of its members to mostly do whatever the hell they want without retribution. That is, as long as they have contacts in high places, and they have lots of money (obviously). Stu said that the difficulty level for setting up a business in China is turned all the way up to Expert. By coming in to the country afresh, you have no contacts to help you cut through the complicated bureaucracy, and therefore no chance what so ever. The only way they got their business running in the first place was by reaching through a long grape vine of people to the owner of the Bowl, who in one night gave them their shop front in the bowl after nine months of failed leads. It wasn’t exactly the style of restaurant they had been searching all that time for, but they settled. Thanks to them, we can buy pizza for the monkeys whenever they become restless. Well that’s all for now from me.
Tune in next week, maybe. -Aiden
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