MOVED! New HOME!

Septembuary has officially moved to wordpress at: https://septembuarycomic.wordpress.com/
It's much easier to upload and connect with social media, plus the design just looks SO much better! Enjoy!

Haircut

As a foreigner expecting to get a "trim" or any sort of thing done to your hair, be prepared for the worst. Even some of my chinese friends will say "It doesn't matter what you tell the hairdresser, even in Chinese, they will still do something completely different, and it will generally be a complete mess."I have heard of and gone through my own horror stories of hair salons here. A friend asked for a 2cm cut from her beautiful long hair, ended up with a bob. My own hair was dyed bright orange/yellow after I asked for a few highlights, even though not only had I asked and explained it in Chinese, I also brought about 10 photos of what I wanted. Apparently pictures are not worth any words sometimes.
The second part of this comic is a recurring theme in China. The shabbier a place is, the better it usually is. And this goes for everything from restaurants, to massage parlours, and even hair salons! Not only are your odds of better service guaranteed, the price is usually a LOT lower. My yellow/orange disaster was saved by one such place! And no, I do not parade around in a sexy black cocktail dress.

Nice Chicken...

If you have ever taken any time interest in the Chinese language, you will find it full of homonyms, often hilarious ones. This was one I learned while studying kung fu. Chicken in chinese is jīrou. Muscle is the same, same tones, just different characters. While this may not be one of those witty puns and idioms in the language, I still find it a bit funny.

When teaching goes haywire...

So I thought I would involve my wonderful little monsters in this one. By monsters I mean 3 year olds, which I have very many of. I can probably make a comic book about the things my kids say and do alone, but that's just going to become another project I'll never finish, so I'll pepper Septembuary from time to time. This was a true event (which is still going on), as my topic for the week was clothing, and kids can only get so excited about clothing so I decided to make it funny. And funny it was. We've now progressed onto "yummy underwear soup" and "I don't like underwear" as well. Give me some credit before you raise an eyebrow, these munchkins couldn't say more than one word when I started with them 3 months ago!

Sketch: Some T-Shirts are Just Amazing

Being a proper Canadian, I will refrain from outright profanity on this site, but the real t-shirt had the whole shebang written on it. This one is funny simply because it's missing the word "a", which now changes the whole meaning. But in general, I can never figure out how these sorts of slogans make it onto fabric. Sometimes you see things that make google translate look impeccable  by comparison!

I think I'll be making these one image sketches more often from now as fillers for weeks when we have no comic strip and just for fun and edutainment. : ) I bet I could make an illustrated book just dedicated to t-shirts in China alone...

Road Safety

Absolute, 100% truth in this one. Yes I have seen a baby in a hood!
While some cities are more strict than others, in general you can happily ride around on any form of motorized 2 wheeled beast without helmets and people or item restriction. Today I saw a man biking a fridge on his handlebars...not even sure how that is physically possible....but!

 

Guess who's back in the middle kingdom once again?? New place, new beginning, new job, but still the hectic, upside down atmosphere of this immense country.  I plan to start updating a new strip bimonthly as of next week, so stay tuned!

How to Relax

90% truth, 10% fiction of course. : ) But the point is, they hurt like hell, but the next week you feel like a champion.

The Four Quadrants of Height and Weight

Obviously this is some extreme generalizing but, overall, this is how the four corners of China seem to be height and weightwise, according to my travels and some conversations with friends and their observations. The north eastern seem paler and really really tall and elegantly thin. Where I lived down south east, people are generally shorter than me, much more tan and incredibly wiry. On the south west, I felt pretty comfortable, with people being just a the shorter than me, and generally of the same weight and size. I have yet to go north east to Xingjiang....but as a lot of people are of a mixed race, some northern, some middle eastern and some Chinese....my assumptions about height and weight are these.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment or like!

Colors

 

This was a true story. I was later explained that the term huáng rén 黄人 (yellow person) is in no way insulting and is often used in chinese culture. Coming from politically correct Canada...it took time getting used to this. 

Aliens

 

The text means "Lao wai. 老外", which is the not so nice but oh so common way of referring to foreigners in China. It more or less can also mean alien, and if you look for information on applying for a Chinese visa, the official page refers to foreigners as aliens as well. This is probably the first word you learn upon your arrival in china...and it follows you EVERYWHERE you go as you can see. Some of us can choose to play along. : )

Tea Time

The "game over" usually refers to Starcraft. As for the "gumma", it's a local take on the word "shema", which means "what". The local language in my town occasionally got to a point of laziness where the sound "sh" was just too much trouble to pronounce, as I was explained.

Alcohol Matters

 

Please note that I have very little clue about brewing beer and alcohol in general, so the accuracy of this comic is a bit null. The idea is still there though, the same beer will taste different almost every time, and a few of my coworkers would joke saying "it depends on the kind of day they had at the brewery" that determines the quality.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day in China is a funny thing. First of all, they have their own Valentine's kinds of day in August, but since westernization and commercialism are very big, V-Day can be a huge thing. Who doesn't love love? What I found most funny was the popularity of what we call "junk food chain restaurants" to be the cream of the crop in the Middle Kingdom. You don't go to McDonalds cause you have the midnight munchies. That's just too pricey. (a regular giant ass delicious noodle soup will set you back about 6rmb, a crummy fast food meal though at least 20rmb, so...do the math) You DO go there on a date however, and V-Day, they are PACKED. Every western fast food joint in my town was full to the brim. I wouldn't be surprised if you needed to reserve a table.

7 Dollars

"Western" food is quite pricey in China, especially if it's imported. While there is plenty of Chinese junk food, it's more along the lines of "sweet beef jerky, dried wasabi peas, dried fruit, nuts, some festive cakes with lots of dried fruit and seeds in them) So...the nasty effects on your body don't even compare. Fresh produce at a local market however....cheap, plentiful and always fresh. So next time you wonder about the relative health levels of Chinese vs our western countries, here's a thought for you.

Subtle Differences

This one is set in Canada. Chinatown area of my city. It's amazing how grammar can make you chuckle. 

Supersize Me

I always found it funny when I would walk into a supermarket

and there you see some thing on sale, like "buy one

get one at a discount". Which apparently means: 

Chocolate bar: 1yuan.

Buy 2: 2 yuan.

Some sale huh? There was also a curious thing where you couldn't really get a large quantity of anything imported. One size is all you got. Hence anytime you felt a bit of that chocolate monster in you...you had to look like an idiot.

Passport Photos

 

Have you ever owned even ONE nice passport photo in your life? You know exactly how this goes: you get a good night sleep, throw a few boxes of powder and makeup on your face (hell, might as well just take an industrial paintbrush to it for all the good that does), do your hair and get to that corner shop that takes passport photos only to be told to tuck your chin in so you look like you have 5, make the most serial killer-esque facial expression and sit there awkwardly not knowing when exactly the photo is actually taken? And every time, it still looks like you dunked your head in a barrel of oil before you took that photo.

In China, I found people to look like supermodels in all their passports. Then, one unsuspecting morning at 7 am I got a phone call to get mine taken, with my boss waiting impatiently outside my door. Rushing out in pyjamas, still jetlagged and confused, I didn't really care what they would look like. The result was amazing. So much photoshop...didn't even know that was legal. 

Voila..proof!

Hygenic Differences

 

This kind of thing would happen EVERY time I laid my eyes on some handsome guy. Every time. 

 

Hygenic norms are a bit different between the east and west. The point in China is to rid your body of all nasty, ill things, which is all good, minus the ways a lot of people choose to get rid of them. This involves growing out the pinkie nail to pick any crevice on your body (yup, I said ANY), snot rockets, and extraordinarily loud coughing up of who knows what. However, me coughing in my elbow when I would have a cold was seen as disgusting and unhygienic. Why would I cough my own germs on myself? Kind of has some sense to it but... I'm still divided.

I think this one needs little explanation...the constant mental struggle of a western girl in China.