A few nights back, we watched Die Hard 4.  It was terrible.  The movie was based on, as all the Die Hard movies have been, a handful of reliable stereotypes.  My father-in-law likes to complain that they screwed the story up terribly by not having someone in worse physical shape play the lead role.  Apparently that was one of the reasons he enjoyed the book so much:  he found the main character more like a normal person.  I guess American summer blockbuster movie makers would rather be able to apply a label to a person ("disgruntled estranged cop trying to make good") than actually try to do characterization.  And Die Hard 4 was chock full of movie stereo types:  Apathetic Hacker, Short-tempered yet well meaning law enforcement middle manager, jilted evil sociopath, and, most importantly, Evil Asian Kung Fu Hacker Woman.  I've seen a number of movies that have significant roles modeled around this stereotype.  While the movies aren't always what I hope for, the EAKFHW never disappoints.

I fully expected to meet hundreds of EAKFHW’s while in Shanghai. I based this expectation on the fact that I know so many people who match at least a few of the categories.  In my line of work, I meet a lot of hackers.  Not so many hackers in the typical mainstream media sense of breaking in to stuff, but in the more classical, purist definition:  one who produces elegant, quick solutions to difficult software problems.  Since I've been at Microsoft, I've met a large number of Asian hacker women, as well.  While they're not all Chinese, I honestly can't name too many Hacker women that aren't Asian.  Asian hacker women are actually the majority experience for me, of the broader "Hacker Women" community.

Since my 9-year-old started taking martial arts training a few years back, I've also had the opportunity to meet a number of Kung Fu women.  But none of them are Asian, and none of them are hackers.  And none of them seem particularly evil (though I'm pretty sure any one of them could take Bruce Willis in a fight)

Given the number of people I know that match at least 2 or more classes of the overall stereo, and that I've never lived anywhere larger than the Seattle areas, I figured probability would dictate that I'd meet a bunch of great representations of the stereotype.  Unfortunately, all the AHW I’ve met since coming here don’t really seem to be very evil, and I don’t think they have much Kung Fu experience, either…  I guess I always thought that the only reason I didn’t know any Evil Asian Kung Fu Hacker Women in the US was because our immigration bureaucracy was effective at keeping the evil ones out of our country. Perhaps they just don’t mingle much with us normal folk. Maybe they’re all from Xi'an. I’ll have to visit and see…

PS:  I intend no offense to any of the people I know (or who are reading this) that fit into any subset of the overall stereotype.  I don't have a single friend that doesn't fit at least one of the labels (and if you're a friend of mine, but don't believe you fit one of those labels, you're probably just evil :-)

My hair was getting out of control (I always let it get out of control), so I needed to get a hair cut.  There are at least 3000 different places to get your hair cut in Shanghai (I actually don't think that's much of an exaggeration)  I just went to the first one that I saw someone else actually getting a hair cut.  I went in expecting a slightly different experience, because I'd already seen a YouTube clip by some guy that showed the basics of his haircut.  Here's what happened:

First, she put some shampoo in my hair, and then squirted some water in it.  She worked up a good lather, and spent about 20 minutes giving me a very nice scalp massage.  Then she started scrubbing my ears, which is a little weird.  I've never had anyone scrub my ears before.  She took me over to the rinse stations, and rinsed my hair out, then sat me back down in the chair.  On the trip back to the chair, I saw a guy getting a neck massage in the chair.  After I sat back down, the woman asked me "<mandarin> Massage?" and made the hand sign for 6.  Actually, she pronounced it "massajee".  I figured, hey, nice neck & shoulder massage for 6 Yuan!  Sweet!  So after I said "Dui, dui", she led me into a side room that I hadn't noticed.  There were 3 or 4 other people in there getting massages (fully clothed).  So I figured I'd signed up for a full massage for a while.  60 minutes (what the 6 referred to) later, I'd learned the words for eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hurt (the only one I still remember is "hurt" - tong).  I also learned the name of the woman giving me the massage (Yeng Hai-Xia), and learned that a Chinese massage can leave my neck & shoulders in dire need of a more American style massage.

After the massage, she washed my hair again and delivered me to one of the barbers who did a very good job of cutting my hair.  He hadn't seen my hair before it was washed, so he had no idea how I did it normally, though.  So after I parted my hair the way I've worn it since, um, 1991 (I'm a slave to fashion), he grabbed the blow dryer to finish off the job.  Now in the US at this point, I usually make it clear that I don't put any goo in my hair, but since this guy wasn't offering any goo, I figured I was safe.  Boy was I wrong.  After spending about 6 minutes getting the hair on the front top part of my head to  stick up about 2" above my scalp, he did his best to take the remaining 30 hairs that cover my expanding bald-spot and poof them up to make it look like I'm not quite as balding as I really am.  And he was quite determined.

Anyway, about 2 hours later, 110 Yuan lighter (about $16) I walked in to the apartment and, before Amy could start laughing too much, asked her "How do you say 'Not so poofy!' in Chinese?"