Tomb Sweeper: Cradle of Rice

Did you know that today is Tomb Sweeping Day in China?

I do.  Now that the China dispatch team emailed us to say that nothing is moving or happening over there today due to the public holiday.

I had never heard of it, so I found it pretty funny when they emailed me "order is not loaded due to Tomb Sweeping day".  Wikibible says that it’s also called Qingming festival, and it’s a day to honour dead ancestors, kind of like Day of the Dead.

I’m in love with all of the company that is based in Beijing.  When the KL team was shut down, I thought my heart would never mend, but the BJ team (lol, that’s how they refer to themselves, seriously) has swept me off my feet like a tomb on Qingming.  It’s probably a good change.  One of my friends in KL saw a picture of me with the Palex and commented that she didn’t know I was married.  I explained that I’m not and she seemed really shocked.  It got awkward after that.   Mmmmmm…. cultural differences….   delicious…. 

 So anyway, now the "back-end team" (sounds wrong, doesn’t it) is based in Beijing.  I talk to them on Skype & MSN, and we exchange smileys.  These smileys are actually marriage proposals.  It’s a tacit agreement that we’re engaged to be married.  I’m pretty sure they understand that.  That’s why when I send a smiley like :), they send an even smilier smiley like :D.   They’re so happy to be engaged to me.   Who wouldn’t be?

On MSN, they have rainbows and cute sayings that would come off emo if they weren’t Asian and they say cute things.  They’re like cute widdle bunnies!  Cute widdle bunnies that can use SAP and attach consignment notes to emails.  And what do you do with cute widdle bunnies?  YOU MARRY THEM OF COURSE!  yaaaaaaay…. 

See, my racist stereotypes are okay because mine are soft and fluffy.  I’m a fluffy racist.  Yay for fluffy racism!!!  WEEEEEEEEEE…. 

One of them is named Elvis.  Yes, you’re right,  that is the most awesome English name that a Chinese person could ever choose.  We were engaged until Chrissy from invoicing rang me.  She had a really nice voice and spoke the most awesome English.  I don’t have a problem with people speaking broken English – they are in China, after all – but I could see that a relationship with Chrissy would go a lot further than with Elvis’ strange grammar and him saying "Ok then" to open questions like "who should I refer this to?".    Hehe, if he can’t conjugate his verbs properly, we can’t be conjugated. 

Well, actually, his English isn’t bad.  It’s funny that this is a Chinese company, but all the people working in Beijing have to be able to speak English to work there, while no one over here needs a scrap of Mandarin to get by.  English is the Microsoft of languages.  I think the fact that there are so many more places in the world that you can go and expect English to be supported is why English speakers are so damn hard on people who don’t pick up the language quickly enough when they come here.  

The moral of this story is that managers shouldn’t play happy hardcore at work because it makes me act and think like a 15 year old candy raver.  One who’s a fluffy racist too.