The Chinese Screwed Up Buddhism

Last time I was visiting a Buddhist temple, I saw something that reminded me of a discussion about Buddhism in one of my college history classes.

On the left was a statue of Buddha that was made when Buddhism first made its way into China. The statue was sitting upright. Legs folded in a meditating position. His expression was solemn.

On the right was a statue of Buddha that was made well after Buddhism was established in China. This Buddha was sitting in a very relaxed position with one leg propped up. He was obese, bald, and had a huge smile on his face. He looked very happy.

300 years after Buddhism arrived in China, a thin solemn meditating Indian dude becomes a fat bald happy-go-luck Chinese dude.

What happened?

Buddhism initially faced plenty of challenges when trying to get a foothold in a culture that was and still is entrenched in Confucianism and Daoism. One of the core teachings of Buddhism is to give up all possessions and attachments to find enlightenment. This was in direct conflict with the teachings of Confucianism because it focuses on the importance of social relationship between family, elders, and the people you regularly associate with. Buddhism was also in conflict with Daoism because it focuses on finding harmony, balance, and the "Middle Way" versus going to extremes to achieve enlightenment.

So Senor Buddha was going around China preaching his fire-and-brimstone message and not getting any traction.

He would walk into Confucius's neighborhood and tell fathers, "Dude, your kids, total brats. Give them up to foster care and you'll save yourself a lot of grief. This is your path to Nirvana." That ticked off a lot of Chinese dads because they were already eating up Confucius's message about living in harmony with your king, father, mother, children, dog, barista, and the white couple next door who look like they belong in a JCrew ad. Confucius would tell a dude, "Never let the wife know about the mistress no matter how guilty you feel. Ignorance is bliss. Happy wife, happy life. Everyone wins." No sane Chinese man would ever question such advice.

Buddha would then walk a couple blocks over into Laozi's (who pretty much founded Daoism) neighborhood and tell a bunch of rich dudes, "Your money. Not really yours. You inherited it from your dad. Donate it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to become dirt poor in order to find enlightenment." That really turned off the trust fund brigade because Laozi was already brainwashing them with stuff like, "You must be balanced. You must find the Golden Mean. Find the Middle Way so that your energy will be in harmony with the universe." as usual no one really understood what Laozi was talking about, but all the blah blah blah about gold, harmony, and balance made the rich dudes happy.

Buddha, the new kid on the block, is struggling to get his message across because he's contradicting Confucius and Laozi, established rockstars, who were teaching happy thoughts to everyone in China.

So something must've happened that turned everything around for Buddha.

He must've hit rock bottom and started heading back to India when he ran into Laozi and Confucius at a Starbucks along the Silk Road. This is probably what transpired....

Confucius: Buddha, You're raw. You have potential, but you're "give-up-everything" message is too fire-and-brimstony for us Chinese folks.

Buddha: But it's the truth. This stuff works. I've found the truth doing what I'm teaching...

Laozi: No one cares. One thing you gotta understand about the Chinese. You don't assimilate us. We assimilate you.

Buddha: So what are my options?

Confucius: Change your message. Change your tone. Drop the "give up possessions and attachments" portion of the message. We Chinese draw too much happiness from our money and families.

Buddha: But that's the core theme...

Laozi: Got to drop it. Family and money are awesome. Work around it. You can keep the Karma and Reincarnation stuff. Confucius and I are willing to sign off on those...

Buddha: What else?

Confucius: Kick back and relax. Be happy. Smile more often. Smile all the time.

Laozi: ...and the bushy curly Indian hair doesn't resonate with Chinese folks. Get rid of it.

Buddha: Get rid of it?

Laozi: Yeah. Shave it all off. You'll look more vibrant as a bald man.

Buddha: oookay...

Confucius: Gain a lot of weight. Being overweight is a sign of success in Chinese culture. People will listen to you if you look successful

Buddha: Anything else?

Laozi: Yeah, been thinking about this one for couple of weeks. I think you should give it a try. See how it goes; Carry around a big gold boullion.

Confucius: That's a good one Laozi. You always think up the craziest stuff, but this one actually might work. That's a good look for you Buddha. It'll make you look really really successful.

Laozi: Confucius and I think you've got talent. Just need to clean up some rough edges. Follow our lead and you're gonna be a big hit. Guaranteed.

Buddha: I got nothing to lose since I've already given up all everything to achieve enlightenment so I'm in. Let's do this.

And just like that Buddhism starts taking off in China. In the present, almost 3000 years later, it's still going strong across all cultures that traces its origin back to China.

Hand Towels Are Always Wet

You're finishing up washing your hands in your Chinese friend's bathroom. You reach for a hand towel to dry your hands, but it's wet. All the hand towels are wet.

You try to make due with toilet paper, but it crumbles to pieces because it's too delicate so you settle on drying your hands by wiping it on your pants like a 5 year old.

You leave the bathroom to find everyone staring at you. Your Chinese friend asks, "Why'd you pee in your pants?"

You respond, "I didn't. All your hand towels are wet. I had no choice but to dry my hands on my pants. Why are all your hand towels wet?"

Your Chinese friend doesn't answer you. He smiles and walks away while everyone else is still staring and wondering why'd you pee in pants.

Since your Chinese friend won't tell you what's going on, yours truly will fill you in...

Our hand towels are always wet because we don't use them as hand towels. We use them to wipe our faces periodically through out the day. We rinse it thoroughly with hot water, squeeze out the excess water, and then use it wipe down every nook and cranny on our oily Chinese faces.

Most Chinese people would have survived your predicament just fine because they always carry a handkerchief or a small pack of tissue in their pocket. This is common practice because stuff like that in China is like healthcare in America. You provide for yourself.

A couple learnings to remember...

1. Bring some tissue or a handkerchief with you before entering your Chinese friend's bathroom because there won't be a single dry towel in there.

2. A metric for measuring how Chinese your Chinese friends are: If every hand towel in every bathroom is wet, your Chinese friend is a 100% certified Chinese. If every hand towel in every bathroom is dry as the Gobi desert, your Chinese friend is a 100% white-washed Americano.

Do You Know Any Chinese Who Uses Deodorant? I Don't

Most Chinese people I know don't use deodorant or antiperspirant.

You can search my condo and all my relatives' homes. You would be hard pressed to find any products remotely resembling antiperspirant or deodorant. Out of all my Chinese friends, I know of only one who actually keeps a stick of deodorant in the bathroom.

Why is that, you ask?

I have no idea. Maybe my Chinese social network represents a weird anomaly of non-deodorant users. Who knows? That's the closest you're gonna get to a fact-based analysis from me. Instead I will offer you my completely unbiased opinion:

Chinese don't have BO. Everyone else does.

Again, I want to stress, completely unbiased opinion...

You stink. We don't.

Here are my completely unbiased reasons why:

1. Dairy products are not part of our regular diet

The dairy products you consume mainly come from cows. Have you been around one lately? They smell awful. Well guess what? You are what you eat. If you consume a lot stuff made from cow secretions like milk, yogurt, or cheese your gonna smell like a cow. Stop falling for those "Got Milk?" ads and you'll stop smelling like you ran marathon an hour after you stepped out of the shower.

2. Our BO is masked by the Chinese herbal smells that follow us like our shadows

We Chinese people slam down herbal soups and teas with more frequency than Barry Bonds was slamming down steroids when he was hitting home runs every at-bat. Again, you are what you eat and we eat a lot of herbal-based stuff. You can't smell our BO because it's masked by the stench of herbal remedies oozing out of our hairless Chinese pores.

So there you have it. Chinese people don't use deodorant because we don't need to. We don't need to because we don't eat stuff that oozes out of a cow utter like everyone else in the world does, but instead we eat stuff that causes us to smell like a spice cabinet 24 hours a day.

Red Envelopes Are Awesome

One of the benefits of being Chinese is receiving Red Envelopes every Chinese New Years.

A little background on Red Envelopes...

One of the traditions of Chinese New Years is handing out Red Envelopes filled with money to anyone young and unmarried. You do a good deed at the beginning of the year to receive positive Karma for the rest of the year.

While most Red Envelopes handed out from our parents' friends are chump change because it's just a formality, the ones you get from the parents, grandparents, and rich aunts and uncles can be considered investments.

Getting Red Envelopes filled with a $1868 check from each parent, $868 from each grandparent, and $868 from each of your aunts and uncles (and you have many since you're Chinese) every Chinese New Years is pretty damn awesome.

This really empowers you when you're 10 years old. Maybe Santa didn't get you that Transformer you wanted for Christmas. Screw him. You're buying the whole collection.

Sounds pretty good, right? Well things get a little more nuanced once you get older...

You see, your parent puts all that Red Envelope money minus the amount you used to buy your Transformers in a Money Market account for you. They also make all sorts of smart investments for you so by the time you come of age you'll use the funds to purchase a BMW to impress that hot hot Korean spice girl you met at KTV (Karoake Bar).

Still good, right? Ok, hold on tight now, we're going down the rabbit hole...

You're now gonna use a good chunk of your Red Envelope Money Market fund to purchase a diamond ring and a nice condo to start a family. You're marrying that hot hot Korean spice girl because you got her pregnant. You also need some funds for a tummy tuck to ensure your hot hot Korean spice girl wife stays hot hot after giving birth.

Kaching!

Remember, Red Envelopes are only given to you when you're young and not married. Well guess what? You're married and you have a kid now. It's time for you to give and others to receive.

Karma's a bitch. $1868 every year for your kid. $868 to each of your sister's 3 kids every year. $868 to each of your brother's 2 kids every year.

Kaching! Kaching!

Don't forget about your hot hot Korean spice girl wife. You have to keep keeping her happy. The BMW becomes a Ferrari. You need to lavish her with expensive jewelry. She'll also need more plastic surgery to keep her hot hot because she getting older.

Kaching! Kaching! Kaching!

You now have a mistress that reminds you of your hot hot Korean spice girl wife before she became your wife. Gotta buy her happiness. More importantly, you gotta buy her silence because your kid and your hot hot Korean spice girl wife will leave you if they ever found out.

Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching!

You thank Buddha and your Ancestors every time you withdraw from your Red Envelope Money Market account. Without it, you wouldn't be able to keep up all this monkey business. You would be homeless, divorced, alone, and a complete loser. Red envelopes, they are awesome.

We Are Awesome At Ping Pong

Ever met a Chinese person who isn't awesome at Ping Pong? You're a liar if you answer, "yes" because we're all rockstar Ping Pong players.

We come out of our Chinese Mom's womb with our hands tightly wrapped around a Ping Pong paddle.

Ok, maybe all of the above is not exactly true, but our passion for this game runs much deeper than the average person so we are better prepared for any match that comes our way. We know you know you've got a thorough beating coming when you're staring into our eyes while you're standing on the other end of the Ping Pong table. It doesn't matter the age or makeup, in the end, you're gonna lose...badly.

Take my grandma for instance. Bad eyes and bad knees, but in a Ping Pong match, I guarantee she's gonna beat you like a dirty Persian rug. My mom, dad, aunts, and uncles hobble around everywhere. They look like they could use the help of a walking cane when making the trip from the living room to the Ping Pong table. But once they're in front of that table they transform into a gold medal olympian. Reflexes faster than a speeding bullet when attacking the bouncing white ball. Ability to leap over buildings in a single bound to defense a long shot. The strength of locomotive behind every kill shot. The only way you'll stand a chance against these Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons is if you have the skills of a top 10 world-ranked Ping Pong professional.

They're like Yoda in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

One second he is limping gingerly towards Count Dooku, the next he's jumping off walls and running circle around Count Dooku in a lightsaber fight.



Yeah, it's exactly like that except we use Ping Pong paddles instead of lightsabers.

Toilet Paper is Kleenex

I'm sure you've experienced something similar to this before:

You have a bit of the sniffles and you happen to be at your Chinese friend's home. Your snot splatters everywhere on your face after a good sneeze and you ask you're Chinese friend for a Kleenex.

He hands you a roll of toilet paper and you're like, "What?"

Your Chinese friend's like , "What? What?"

You're like, "Dude, this is toilet paper"

He's like, "Yeah?"

You clarify, "This is for wiping ass, not nose."

Your Chinese friend gives you a look that says, "Dude, you Americans are freakin' retarded. Toilet paper, Kleenex, does it really make that much of a difference?!"

Why the disconnect? Because...

Chinese people use toilet paper to wipe their butt cracks and their faces.

Walk into a Chinese dude's living room and you'll find a roll of toilet paper instead of Kleenex box conveniently placed on the coffee table. When you see this don't freak out, we don't use our living room as a crap-house when you're not looking. We just happen to use toilet paper much like everybody else uses Kleenex.

Chinese people use toilet paper to wipe their mouth after most of a good oily meal ends up on our lips. We use toilet paper to wipe our noses after a good snotting. We twirl toilet paper up into a little spearhead to dig gold out of our noses every morning. We even use toilet paper as those dispensable toilet covers when there's no more dispensable toilet covers in the public restrooms.

While the rest of the world is arguing over which brand of toilet paper is softer or which way the toilet paper roll is supposed to be on a toilet paper holder, we are industriously inventing new uses for toilet paper. By the summer we will use toilet paper to solve world hunger. By the end of the year we'll figure out how to create world peace with toilet paper.

One question we Chinese do have: Why is everyone who's not Chinese obsessed with using toilet paper to teepee things?

That's just wasteful. Stop it. Toilet paper should be use to clean faces and asses and in the near future create world peace.

No, not Metta World Peace. Real World Peace.

Cars Chinese People Like

Chinese people in American have very particular preferences for the type of cars they drive. Not sure what I'm about to tell you is particularly accurate, but it's just more fun passing my opinions as facts than facts as facts.

So let's get started...

1. You're young and still living off mom and dad because you're in college. You worry about you're grades. You're trying to figure out the opposite sex. You hang out with your friends whenever you want and have important discussions about things that are not important in the real world. If this is you, you totally dig the Honda Civic. Toyota Corolla and Honda Accord are acceptable alternatives. If you come from a family rolling around in money these options simply won't do. You must be seen driving down Main street in either a BMW or Benz. Rich or not, a subset of you love your car so much that you lower it, add Nitro, change the exhaust pipe to make it sound like a video-game car, and put various Asian words and pictures all over it. This is what you lovingly refer to as your Rice Rocket.

2. You're still young. You've graduated from college. You have a decent job so you have a lot of expendable income. You work hard and party even harder. Espressos and Red Bulls keep you going because you rarely sleep. If this is you, you have visited countless BMW and Benz dealers in hopes of owning German Engineering. Some of you actually drop down $50k or more for it. The rest of you think it's too steep a price to pay so you happily settle for a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry, but you never stop looking for deals that will land you a BMW or Benz at a price you consider affordable. A small subset of you are very sentimental and spend an embarrassingly huge chunk of your income Rice-Rockify your ride until it barely functions.

3. You are no longer considered young. You're married with kids. You're asleep by 9am every night. You can't wait to have some downtime to stay home and watch the Travel Channel. If this is you, you roam around suburbia in a Honda Odyssey or a Toyota Sienna shuttling your kids between soccer practice, piano lessons, and Chinese school. Your minivan is a shining display of your fuddy-duddyness. This really bothers you because you are still clinging onto the image of yourself when you were young and hip. A good percentage of you actually do something about it by splurging on a luxury SUV to mask the fuddy-duddy inside of you. SUVs from BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, or Infiniti work just fine. You're not that selective because you're desperately clinging onto something that you're losing - your former cool self. You don't even consider Rice-Rockify anything because at this point in your life it's just flat out embarrassing to even admit you used to do it.

4. You're old. Your kids are already financially independent, but you still worry about them. When will they marry? If they're married, does their wife make them soup everyday? If this is you, you finally say "f**k it! I am getting the car I always wanted". You spend more than $100k for that dream car you wanted to buy 20 years ago. You bring home either the Lexus LS, BMW 7 Series, or the Mercedes S Class. You love it, but you can't figure out half the features it has to offer because you're too damn old and you're too damn Chinese.

5. If none of the above resonates with you because you own a Volkswagen or an Audi, I'm sorry to tell you that you've betrayed your roots and your people. You're as white as my yuppie neighbors who look like they belong in a JCrew catalog.

6. If the above still doesn't resonate with you because you own a muscle car or a pickup, I don't know how to put this gently so I'll just say it; you're a redneck stuck in a Chinese body. Bad combination. Sucks to be you.

Bottom line is this; If you're Chinese you're driving either a Honda or Toyota. If you have extra money lying around you're rolling in a BMW or Mercedes Benz. Anything else, do a little self-introspection. Double-check with your folks to understand where you really came from. I doubt you're Chinese and you should too. I feel sorry for you. You should feel sorry for you. Not everyone can be Chinese. Better luck next life.