Melissa's Place

Being a bad boy in China

While Mark was in Japan, he did mini-trips to other places. His good friend Dan was also teaching abroad, but in China, so Mark went to visit him.

Apparently, while in China, he saw bicycles for sale for $2. It seemed like a good way to get around, so he bought one. I forget all the details of the story, but it seemed to involve a basket on the front of the bike which proved perfect for carrying six-packs of beer, which may or may not have been consumed while Mark was riding. The beer version is the most recent one I've heard, but I remember a previous version of this story involving what might have been a one-way street. We may never know exactly what went wrong that day in China, but what we do know is that a very angry chinese policeman stopped Mark and scolded him.

As a punishment for whatever infringement Mark had done, he was forced to stand on a street corner with a large orange sign with chinese writing on it. He had to hold it high above his head for an hour and when his arms began to give, the policeman would poke him with a stick and yell in chinese.

Who knows what the orange sign said. I've learned though, that in Japan, they often use dishonour as a punishment (if you don't sort your garbage properly, they put nasty alienating stickers on your garbage bags presumably saying things like, "I'm a bad person. I don't give a damn about the environment. I like to waste limited resources. I am a detriment to society."), so perhaps China was delivering Mark's punishment in a similar punishment. I'm sure he would have been more ashamed, had he known that the sign read, "I am a stupid North American who can't tell when I'm riding the wrong way down a one way street!" or "I am an embarrassment because I spit on the sidewalk". But he had no idea what it said. He just knew that his arms were getting sore.

At one point, he did yell, "You're only doing this to me because I'm white!"

The policeman then pointed across the street where a chinese man stood on an opposite corner holding a similar orange sign in shame.