The Rawpinions Weblog

Yup, it’s true…they eat dogs here in China.

I’m in Shanghai so I don’t get to see the “real” China.  In fact, I don’t think many Chinese living here in Shanghai really understand the “real” China.

Everytime I ask one of my Chinese friends to confirm that Chinese people do eat dogs, they tell me that dogs here are regarded as delicacies and the “dog” they eat is just called “dog” but isn’t really the ‘dog’ we all are very familiar with (i.e. the ones we keep as pets).

*Note: not all Chinese are ok with eating dogs.

So yeah…my sister is currently at “Tonghua, Jilin” on a field trip.  She sent me an sms the other day telling me about how revolted she was when she saw a dead dog in a baby bathtub on the pavement outside a restaurant.  Apparently, the dog was just boiled (she could smell it…and she told me it “smelled like boiled beef”) and there was a woman who was plucking the fur off the dog.  The dog was white “sort of like what a chicken looks like after it’s been boiled”.  My sister also said the dog was a doberman pinscher (check out the picture I’ve attached).

I’ve never really seen anything like that here in Shanghai.  I might have come across dog restaurants but I’m extra careful when I go to Chinese restaurants in case they’re serving dogs.  Dogs are more expensive than chicken, duck, pork and beef so there’s nothing to worry half the time.  Although I would suggest staying away from street stalls…’coz you never know, haha…come to think of it, mongrels are rare here.

Ultimately, I think meat is meat.  If you’re a dog lover because dogs are awesome animals then it’s definitely immoral to eat dog meat.  But for those guys who don’t really care much about dogs, this shouldn’t be that big a deal.

I was telling a friend of mine that people in Seychelles actually eat fruit bats and shark.  She thought it was gross.  I didn’t tell her that I thought it was gross to eat fruit bats (or fruit bat soup)…esp. because bats are not only cute but they’re harmless.

But as for sharks…that’s a whole other thing.  Some (or most?) people think it’s crazy for us to eat shark…although I personally don’t know many Seychellois who’d think it’s not normal.  I love tuna (and WOW I really do)…but I’d honestly swap tuna salad or tuna-anything with ’satini reken’ (shark chutney) ANYDAY.

LOL, I just checked wikipedia and there’s an entry on satini reken (not written by me).

Interesting read:
Tom Cruise planning to eat placenta (he’s always up to something), isn’t he?

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit tired so I decided to browse paipai.com (China auction site).  I actually like paipai.com more than taobao.com (most popular China auction site), ‘coz it’s more…colourful.

So I decided to search for “塞舌尔” which is Chinese for “Seychelles”.  Apparently, 2 people are trying to sell 10 rupees for 20 and another for 30 yuan.

So now I know what “rupee” is in Chinese: “卢比” - I used to think it was “塞舌尔元” or something along those lines.  I don’t think I was entirely wrong though…just not entirely correct. *lol*

When I first got here a few years ago, the rupees was valued at 5.5688 to the dollar, and RMB was at around 8.1.  Now, rupees is at 8, and RMB is at 6.8 (or 6.9).

(It’s obviously better to keep RMB than dollars at this point).

*Sigh* if we could only find a value for the Seychelles rupees…then people would start wanting it again.  Somehow I feel, tourists should not be allowed to pay for stuff in foreign exchange (incl. hotel accomodation, island hopping, etc.).  The foreign exchange goes to the wrong hands anyway (or is that the point; is that how corrupt we are?).

What am I talking about? Well, it’s the all-new online community for Seychellois! It’s about time too! What? You didn’t hear about it? LOL…OMG, just join already!

www.seywow.com

We’re putting ourselves on the online map, so be part of this neo-culture rev.

Why am I screaming? Because I’m oh-so-late for that bday party I mentioned the other day…LOL just wanted to tell you guys about the new Sey community.

Oh - and don’t forget to put yo purty pix up.

A funny Seychelles joke that circulated quite a while back.  Sometimes, when the going gets tough you just have to stop for a minute and laugh.

*Note: “napa” is most likely from the French: “…n’y a pas” and “nanryen” is from “…n’y a rien”.  Direct translation: napa = “don’t have”, nanryen = “nothing”.

This British diplomat comes to Seychelles on a courtesy visit.

On his way to State House he notices that he is out of cigarettes
and asks his assistant to stop by a shop and get him some.

So they stop at an indian shop and the guy goes in.

“Good morning sirs, a packet of Dunhill please” he asks the Indian fellow

“Sorry sir, danzil Bel Ombre” replies the shopkeeper

“No my dear fellow, a packet of cigarettes” he asks again

“napa cigarettes sir” answers the shopkeeper shaking his head,
(you know the way they do)

So the assistant gets out of the shop and tells his boss that
there are no cigarettes.

They stop at three different shops and finally give up and go
straight to State House.

While conversing with the president, the British diplomat says

“My dear fellow, your country is in really deep shit. You can’t
even buy a pack of 20’s in any shops”

Feeling a bit awkward the president asks the diplomat what
happened.

So he tells him the whole story.

“Oh, I believe your assistant might have been mislead sir” says the
president.

“Oh yes?” replies the diplomat. “How come?”

“Yes, quite so sir. You see sir, I think what the shop keeper
meant
was that he did not have any Dunhill and that you could get it in
Bel Ombre.” replies the president

“How come he shook his head and said that he did not have any
cigarettes then” asked the diplomat

“Well, you know indians. You never know if they mean yes or no
when
they shake their head” replies the president

“I believe he told your assistant that he had Napa cigarettes.
It’s
a local brand that has been around for some years now” replies the president

“We have Napa Sugar, Napa Rice and my favourite Napa Forex. Hell
we’re even thinking of starting a new line of Napa Nanryen next
year”

Need a free website with your unique domain name? This Person will register a website for you, for *free* if you piss him off good enough!

After reading SHB and her opinion of Seychelles, I’d have to say I agree with her in most parts.

Most of the Seychellois who want to live in Seychelles are the Seychellois living abroad (”there’s no place like home”).  A large percentage of Seychellois living in Seychelles are looking for a way out.  The rest have never travelled and therefore don’t know the difference.

When you’re a foreigner wanting to know about Seychelles, it’s a whole lot wiser to ask someone who’s in a position to judge.  Why bother asking someone who’s never been anywhere else? It’s like asking someone who loves the ocean, “hey, how’s the ocean?”

Sandra listed out the good and bad…and Seychelles is like any other country out there: it’s got both good and bad.  Anyone saying it’s 100% good is either lying, or delusional.

This dude should be grateful, that one person took time out of her busy schedule to elaborately explain what to expect when you’re living in Seychelles, esp. through her personal experience.

I think he got her mistaken for a travel agent who actually gets paid to say nice things.

Apparently, he got so ticked off that he literally registered a website and posted their email conversations on it.  Wow…and I thought I was relatively irrational.  Get this: as if the domain + 1 year hosting + seo-friendly link + first page wasn’t enough, the guy posts even more nasty stuff about her (page 2).  This is exactly why people want to be entrepreneurs: they want as much free time.

He’s so “well-travelled” that cabin pressure has finally affected his sanity.

This dude is very African at heart.  Except he wants to live in Seychelles because all the negative stuff (”malaria & civil unrest”) he’s heard about his mainland (I say “his” continent because according to him, he’s moving “BACK” to Africa).

Like the US, the blacks in Seychelles were brought in from the mainland by Whites.  So Seychelles is geographically African, but the country is multiracial.  So if you don’t feel like you’re 100% American because of all that happened in the past, how do you even feel the least bit Seychellois? That said, you’ll be moving to an African island, but not “back” to Africa.

You will soon realize that what Seychelles is to a Black person is different to what Seychelles is to Whites and Asians/Indians.  Sandra considers Seychellois generally rude because there are rude Seychellois around, and because she’s White.  Seychellois deliberately ignore or are rude to Whites & Asians:

E.g. Normally, if you’re an old black woman who ends up standing in the bus, a (dark) Seychellois will stand up to give you his/her seat (pe fer bon piti).  If you’re a White or Asian old woman however, they will force themselves not to give you their seat, even if it breaks their heart to watch you deal with the nasty curvy roads.  It has something to do with their need to prove that Whites don’t rule the place, or something like that.  Because the minute they stand to give a White person the seat, you’ll hear someone in the bus comment:

“You’re not a slave, the white person can stand up…don’t they have legs to stand and hands to hold on?” or something along those lines.

This reminds me of the last time I was back home.  I went to JD’s (or whatever it’s called) to buy a card and I accidentally brought a plastic bag inside.  Here in China, it’s your responsibility not to steal anything when your in stores so they allow people to enter stores with bags.  I completely forgot that lots of people steal things whenever they can back home, so people are not permitted to enter stores with bags.

Over the years, I’ve lost that “layer of tan” most people acquire when they’re living in Seychelles.  So that girl probably assumed I was a foreigner - and decided to treat me like one.

Asians (incl. Indians) get the worst treatment in Seychelles.  The b*tch actually raised her tone of voice with me (in English), that everyone in the store actually heard her say “leave your plastic bag here”!.  Yeah, pick on the ‘foreigner’.  I actually spent 10 seconds in the store, decided to walk out and threw in a, “ou bez *bleep*” before I walked out.

Anyone wants to talk about racism? If I was dark-skinned, that b*tch with an inferiority complex wouldn’t have spoken to me the way she did.

Last week, one of my sisters told me that my mum slipped and fell a few weeks ago and actually broke her ribs.  Apart from the many factors in my life that’s stressing me out, this was the main cause for the anxiety attack I suffered.  I’m well aware that mothers grow old…it’s just happening so quickly with mine.  Worst of all, she didn’t even tell me anything about it.

How does someone fall and break a few ribs? I could fall from a 1-storey building and crack my skull but my ribs would still be fine.  She must be calcium deficient or something…It’s strange how, the person who was responsible enough to bring up so many children on her own, doesn’t know how to be responsible for herself.  Now I’ll have to send her calcium + vitamin D (if I remember correctly).  I’m also going to send her “extra calcium milk for trwazyenm az” and if she gets offended I’ll tell her not to go break her ribs next time, if she doesn’t like such stuff.

So anyway, my sister and I were then talking about my little brother who is the only one there to look after my mum.  His facing the typical teenager-issues at this point, but he will have to see that the shift has arrived - my mum is no longer fit (health-wise) to be responsible for us; we have to be responsible for her now.

My little brother is growing with the typical Seychellois mentality most kids in Seychelles grow up with: parents take care of you until you get a job and finally earn enough.  I kept with that mentality until very recently.  This conversation piece came up when my sister told me to tell my little brother that he should remind my mum about taking her vitamins.  My reply was, “I don’t think he even knows how serious this is…I think he should start thinking of earning his own money now…”

My sister burst out laughing, and said “you’re kidding, right? Isn’t that just a bit too early?”

My little brother is 15, he’ll be 16 by the end of the year.

I told my sister that I was serious, and the following actually surprised her “I’ve been domaining for a few months now, and I actually deal with kids sometimes.  These kids are in their early teens…like 13…I wouldn’t even be surprised if I was dealing with kids who were younger than that.”

It is odd for 15 year old kids to have their own businesses in Seychelles, but now that everyone’s got the internet it wouldn’t hurt for them to be passionate about things that might help them in the future.

There’s a huge advantage if you start out as a kid: you have start-up capital that you never had to work for: your parents’ money! If they lose that money, they’ll still have food on the table.  There’s no better time to start.

Adults on the other hand, have to save up or find someone willing to invest on their ideas.  Any money spent is a risk, and any loss could result in starvation and homelessness.

I’m 25 and I have never experience such stress in my life before this.  I go to bed thinking about how to make life better, and I wake up thinking about what needs to be done.  I’m thinking of all that, while my friends actually have space in their lives to think of “will he call me?” before they go to sleep.

It’s a bit funny, because this makes me look back into my teenage years when I’d see my mum in the house lying down and thinking.  I used to crack this one joke whenever I found her like that: “lemme guess…you’re thinking about money” and she’d laugh.  Back then, I actually thought it was funny; it was sort of like a “hey what’s up just passing by saying hi” sort of comment then I’d go off and hangout with my siblings.

Now that I think about it, I realize that it was a very serious issue.  In fact, I’m even surprised it was something she could laugh at.  2 weeks ago when I spoke to my elder sister, I actually told her that I’m glad I have no responsibilities (i.e. kids).  She even told me to breach my contract if I’m allowed to (LOL, I think she’s forgotten that it’s her signature on the “guarantor” field so it will be her debt not mine…please don’t tempt me, har har).

The other day, I was browsing through Google Maps to see if I could find the Sichuan Earthquake location and I decided to ’stroll’ a little further down south for a quick peek at Seychelles and guess what: I found Coëtivy! I’ve never been to the place, and I the only thing I know about it is that it’s an entire island used as a shrimp/prawn farm. So when I found this island, I knew it had to be Coëtivy.

Today, I finally found some time to visit a Seychelloise’s blog (a Seychelloise who found my blog, LOL).  It’s always nice to find a Seychellois blogger…especially one writing from home.

Just a quick note to people who might be a little confused: a ‘Seychelloise’ (the ‘e’ at the end) hints that the person is female, because it’s actually a French noun.  Moving along now:

You can read the Seychelloise’s blog here and I’ve added her link to my blogroll (well, I will in a few minutes).  She is a travelled individual and her blogposts are really interesting (I promise they are nowhere near as harsh as mine so self-defence is not a requirement when visiting her blog).

I freakn want to drink tonight with my galpals but strangely I want to visit the museum tomorrow morning so I don’t really know what I should do.  The other day the girls were talking about the Madame Tussaud Museum here in Shanghai and apparently it takes hours to check out the displays.  I think they said Sunday, but I really want to cheat and go there tomorrow…

Spring moving into summer is probably the worst time in Shanghai - or anywhere abroad if you’ve spent most of your life in Seychelles. When you’re walking on the streets and a cool breeze blows against your face and through your hair, you start to feel very misplaced.

Summer in Shanghai is the absolute worst. Right now, I’m in my room and I can feel the heat burning my skin. Unlike spring time, summer doesn’t come with the cool breeze. For about 2-3 months, it’s like swimming in hot water because from June-August it’s both very hot and humid.

Just 2 weeks ago, I finally switched the heater off and in about a couple of days I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to switch the aircon on. Back home, people don’t really think about the temperature. People just wonder whether it’s going to rain or not, period. It’s amazing how different life is here, and I didn’t keep a blog on my first year so I don’t even remember the little things.

At this point, I do think about missing Shanghai when I eventually have to leave (did I mention how awesome this place is?). I’m anticipating the extreme reverse culture shock I’m going to have to endure when I go back.

There has been numerous changes in Seychelles since I left (according to what I heard):
- Apparently, the buses now use smart cards and people can now choose to pay a little more for the public aircon buses (which did not exist when I was there).
- There’s a new building called Bodco and there’s either a restaurant or a pub somewhere in there, as well as a supermarket.
- The Seychelles rupees is now 8 rupees to the dollar after devaluation. It used to be 5.5688 to the dollar in 2004.
- Mandarin is being taught after class, in some schools (e.g. Plaisance).

That’s pretty much what I can think of right now. No doubt there’s a whole lot more that nobody really bothered to mention.

Seychelles aside, Shanghai’s had a whole bunch of changes too…
- From only 4 metro lines in 2004, there’s now about 9 lines (see? I even lost count!) that stretches all the way from the CBD to Songjiang (what I like to call the outskirts of Shanghai).
- I also noticed this building next to the JinMao Tower…where did come from??? I didn’t see it a couple of months ago, LOL.
- Ooh and language! The first year I got here restaurants couldn’t deal with anything but Mandarin. Now you’ll find English menus all over the place. Small Chinese restaurants will have pictures in their menus, so eating out is not a problem anymore (esp. for people who can’t read characters). This is why my Chinese is actually quite underdeveloped - ‘coz you can actually live here without understanding 90% of the language.
- The staring thing the Chinese used to do at foreigners is a whole lot less obvious than a few years ago. You can’t go to a place and not see a foreigner - so I’m pretty sure the Shanghai residents are already used to seeing weird skin tones that they’re not accustomed to seeing on themselves. So if you’re a foreigner and someone’s staring at you, that person’s probably new to Shanghai…or just very bored.
- The bund thing has changed. They’ve diverted the traffic (something along those lines) so instead of seeing the fab bund view from inside the taxis/buses, it’s a construction area.
- Let’s talk about currency…China’s economic boom is pushing them to constantly undergo currency revaluation. Renminbi is now at 6.9 to the dollar. Back in 2004, a person told me that it was at 8.3 but when I was here on late 2004, I only caught it at around 8.1 to the dollar. Interestingly, someone’s predicting that it’ll reach 5.x by the end of this year. At this point, it’s just better to hold RMB than USD esp. if you’re not doing anything with your cash. LOL. Allowance for Seychellois students have decreased dramatically, esp. because we are sent USD and not RMB. Worst of all, cost of living in Shanghai is also increasing…it’s not even funny.

I was reading some comments on Youtube about how some people feel that the Whites (”Europeans”) should leave Africa:

Draxx77: Whites have no business in Africa, they are NOT from there and should leave, just look at how they arrived in Africa! Whites are European. Whites came to Africa as (((INVADERS))), and should be seen as such.

That’s pretty much what a lot of the lesser-educated Blacks in Seychelles feel. They feel that Seychelles is a Black country owned by Blacks. What a lot of such people seemed to have forgotten however, is that Seychelles was uninhabited before the French (Whites) decided to settle there permanently. These French settlers brought in African slaves from the African mainland, and that’s how Blacks initially came to settle in Seychelles.

How is it all of a sudden, that some people can actually believe Seychelles belong to Blacks? The thing that happened in South Africa didn’t happen in Seychelles: the Whites didn’t “invade” Seychelles, they owned the place because they were the ones who found it! When the British decided to abolish slavery in Seychelles, they only ‘freed’ the Blacks from inhumane treatment and gave Blacks equal rights. They did not handover Seychelles to the Black population.

How ironic it is for “Draxx77″ who also claims to be from the US (according to his Youtube’s profile). I doubt a White person would say that (especially because it’s an anti-White comment) so I’m assuming it’s a Black person…a Black person in the US. That’s the one funny thing about patriotism that I can’t stand: you’re being a hypocrite if your patriotic and living in someone else’s country (assuming that Draxx77 is an African living in the US). If he’s a Black American however, I’d just have to laugh it off. As much as White Africans are Africans and have every right to their country and continent, Black Americans are Americans and have no rights to claim Africa especially if it doesn’t say “Africa” on their passports, let alone their birth certificates.

Black Seychellois claiming Seychelles to be a Black people’s country should just get an education or something (it’s usually the uneducated ones who would come to such a racist conclusion anyway). These are the ones who, when the teacher was trying to teach Seychelles History in class they were looking out of the window and day dreaming.

If they firmly believe in being where they belong, they are the ones who should move back to the mainland where they came from (which is a fact according to history anyway). As far as I’m concerned, Seychelles is a multiracial country and I’m multiracial so I guess I’m more deserving than pure breeds (if any) anyway.

And that’s just my rawpinion.