When Kimi and I were in Hangzhou we spent one morning apart, she went shopping for clothes and I went to meet Reuben (as I mentioned in this post). Beforehand I decided to go for a walk around the city centre. I was making my way past one of the biggest department stores in Hangzhou (In Time), when a man and a woman approached me. I took the headphones out of my ears and heard the woman ask if I could speak Chinese (in Chinese). I said, "a little", and she spurted out a sentence that I couldn't grasp at all. I told her I didn't understand, so she started speaking English, and pretty good English too. By this point I was very wary, I only stayed around because they seemed amiable enough, but I was waiting to see how they wanted to get to my money. Usually this kind of thing is a con, they want to take you for tea, or to see some "art". It's all completely bogus and you end up paying for it. She told me that she and her friend worked for a local Hangzhou newspaper. "Okaaay", I thought. She asked if it would be OK for them to take my picture and for it to be printed in the next edition.
A few snaps were taken, and then a lot of questions asked. Firstly introductory questions like "What is your name?", "Where do you come from?", etc. Then the questions centred entirely on my clothes. They wanted to know where I got everything from and how much it all cost. I was a little disappointed as I was wearing really old clothes. I wondered if the section in the newspaper/magazine would be, "How Not To Dress". The questions were over, a few more pictures were taken, and that was that. We shook hands, exchanged business cards and said goodbye. They were both very friendly,I felt it was all genuine....
Alas, it was. On Friday Kimi's friend in Hangzhou very kindly bought a couple of the papers and posted them to us in Wenzhou. They arrived yesterday. Here's my claim to fame:
The written Chinese is mostly what I said, but some of it is completely made up. One part of it says something like, "I don't show the skull t-shirt when I am at school so I wear something to hide it." I never said anything of the sort.I'm now available for after-dinner speeches, charity events, and supermarket openings. Contact my agent for more.
9 comments:
Would you mind signing some of your pics for me sometime my big star?!! :D
You look good in the newspaper, proud of you haha, i cant let you go to Hangzhou alone now!!
I can't believe they just 'made up' things you said and included it in their article?! Geeez, where do these people get their education from?!
Although cool that u made the style section of the newspaper! Once, me and my bf were stopped in SH as some paper wanted to take his photo... at that time our Chinese were really bad so we thought they wanted a shot of both of us.. but nope. Only him. I was gently pushed away (and felt unstylish for the rest of the day -hehe!).
That's you in the very first picture post right? Haha.
=P
But very cool, yet very lame of the publishers.
Ha Chris! Congratulation! You must be a superstar in China now!
In the past, a reporter from a magazine wanted to interview me in HK, but I rejected her as I didn't know what would be happaned! Haha!
haha,gosh,i just cannot stop laughing, some Chinese media always tend to "creat" something to meet their purpose, unfortunately u became the victim, but anyway, u r published, which could not be a too bad thing :p,although those fake words are truly annoying..
I've been reading your blog for a while now. It's really good. Very cool that you got into a magazine!
Kimi, sure I will sign a picture for you, I'll give you a discounted rate :)
Jonna, I'm sorry to hear you didn't make it into the newspaper but your boyfriend did -- that's not fair! It's crazy how they just made up what I said, at least it was funny, and they got my name right.
The Acolyte Tao, hehe, unfortunately I don't look quite like that first picture.
Mabel, when I was in Hong Kong I saw a camera crew interviewing people for what must have been the local news. It was funny seeing people reject their offers of being interviewed. I think I was actually waiting for you at that time!!
Cao, yes, it's annoying that they made it up, but it was all good fun in the end. It's something nice to add to my experience in China :)
Sunny Sweet Pea, thank you so much for reading my blog and saying that. I am just about to have a read of yours too!!
I saw you have a Casio watch. Looks very nice. How much did it cost and is it a good one? I mean reliable, accurate? Thanks :)
Hi Nino, the watch is great. I've had it for over a year now and i've not needed to adjust the time once. It's very well made too. It was given as a gift, but I think it cost about 900RMB. I guess it may have gone down a bit by now though.
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