One Month Later

So yes, I’m aware that there is a lot I’ve neglected to say in the last little while, and while there is no excuse, my reasons are myriad.

Suffice it to say that things have been busy. Tumultuous. Fun. Difficult. Easy. Arduous. Heartwrenching. Heartwarming.

But enough of that. Essentially, I owe my current episode of writer’s block to five things:

Writer’s Block (hey, it happens).

Almost four uninterrupted weeks of cold, hard rain. No, I am not kidding, or exaggerating. I have not seen the sun in a damned month.

Saying yes when Chinese people ask me to do things with them.

Being absolutely brain-dead whenever I have time to myself.

And, of course, an understandable degree of moping about a certain notable absence.

That being said, tonight, after a reasonably amusing episode of KTV (that’s Karaoke TV, for the three of you reading) at which I got molested by an overzealous Chinese man… yeah, they do that here… no comment… well, I feel like I should write SOMETHING about the events that have transpired since I returned to Anqing (to say nothing of what transpired in Moscow).

Since I returned, I’ve taught four weeks of school. For two weeks, I had to take the classes all to myself, just like before. However, at last, Ray’s replacement joined me, and she’s been helpful relieving some of the workload, to say the least. So here’s the deal—I got paid, a LOT, for the extra work I did, which is excellent; my employers cater to my whimsy because of my willingness to help out in a tight spot; and I don’t have to eat alone now. Plus, the kids are a BREEZE to teach now, and I feel like I can actually make tangible progress with them. I’ve taken hold of the reins pretty hard in the classes so far this year, and they seem to be responding well to my brand of easy discipline. So, reading that, everything sounds great, right?

Well, the long and short of it is, I have very little to complain about, here. It’s an amazing experience that, so far, is getting better. Really, thinking of it now, I only have the one thing. I miss a lot of people, you know, and these days, as you may surmise, one in particular.

It won’t go away, that feeling, and really, why should it? Why would I want it to? It’s a call I should be answering. It’s something I should be beyond happy about.

And, come to think of it, I am.

At the moment, it just has its hurdles.

Good thing I get to jump over one of them next week, for a while. Then I can run free and easy, at least for a few days, till the next one comes along.

All right, now that that’s all out of the way, for the time being… Russia.

Cyrillic is a cool alphabet. It’s like code. I think if it had been Russian I was learning, I’d be damn well fluent by now. I thought it was THAT much easier. The metro was easy enough to navigate, I suppose, after a time, but stressful with luggage. And man, the cold. Everywhere, biting at your face and every other bit of uncovered flesh.

I felt it most keenly in the two or so mile walk we took to the Chinese Embassy to iron out some visa difficulties (and THERE’S a story I’m not willing to tell without a beer). Let’s just say it was a little nerve-wracking, and we almost didn’t make it back to China alive.

Well, we almost didn’t make it back to China, anyway.

After that our days were relaxing enough, taking in the Red Square (but still outside! My nose was half-dead at this point) and some of the other sights within the Kremlin. We went in a mall, ran from the police (lest they accost us and ask for passports that couldn’t be produced), and generally just explored. We even found Irish pubs, and ate at two of them!

(One night involved a pub crawl and a snowball fight. And an advertisement for Miller Midnight. What the hell?)





It was just one more amazing time to add to a growing list of ridiculousness that I am experiencing here. When I think about what I expected, from my life, a year or so ago… let’s just say that I’m now aware, more than ever, that we really don’t know what’s best for us. I’ve had plans before, sure, but the way things have turned out since I’ve been here… I couldn’t have drawn this up.

But I wouldn’t draw it any different.

To Russia With Love (And Not Enough Time!)

There’s no time to waste. All we have IS time, and we don’t have much of it. Sure, we can lose more than time. There are things we like, people we enjoy being around, habits we don’t care to break. And circumstances can force you to live without those things. Painfully, in many cases. But we never really HAVE those things. We just have the time in which we can appreciate them.

Well, such was the moody brew in which I began to stew as the train bounced along its seemingly endless tracks through the snowy desolation of Siberia. I felt that time was short. I felt that soon, the ride would be over. Soon, I’d be teaching again. Soon, I’d be away from people I didn’t want to be away from. Soon enough, I’d be leaving China. Soon after, I’d have to embrace a future, or flee from it. After that, well… nothing is as far away as we’d sometimes like for it to be.

Needless to say, this is not what I should have been thinking. No, what I should have been thinking was how much I had absolutely loved the places I’d been the past few weeks (to say nothing of the company), and that I had several more days to enjoy both of those things. Still, I did succeed in cramming most of my nonsensical worries into a little black box and telling them to stay the hell away from me until February 9th, when I would (and have since) resumed classes in Anqing.

First, I have to tell you about the train, because the train was… well, it was awesome.

Now, there are many things our little Lonely Planet guidebook got wrong about the Trans-Siberian Train, and I won’t really go into them here, but as it only seems to explore things from the Moscow to Beijing side of the trip, I think we got the journey with a decidedly different flavor.

First off, the train is damn near deserted--although this probably had to do with season--and very few of the passengers are Russian. That's not surprising, considering no one really seemed to get on after Mongolia. In our entire carriage (with maybe 15 cabins, give or take a few) I believe we had less than a dozen people for most of the ride. And each of those cabins can hold four, folks. Yeah.

So we could spread ourselves out. Relax. Have some privacy. That was an unexpected perk. I mean, in China, trains are crowded, dirty, sweaty journeys where you’re basically doing your damndest to keep to yourself in the middle of 8 – 10 people.

Well not so for this train, and happily.

Now, there are only so many things you can do in a train cabin. Let’s have a list.

There’s reading.

Writing.

If you just said 'rithmetic, shame on you. No.

If you have a laptop, there are movies and games.

If you have a deck of cards, well, you better have at least one friend and some knowhow. And preferably alcohol.

There’s Uno.

Drinking. (Already alluded to.)

Eating (but only if you brought food).

Sleeping.

Exercise. Yep, it’s true; with careful examination of your various available grips and points of leverage, it’s quite possible to manipulate your own body weight in at least a hundred different ways. Nice. But no cardio (unless you’re a spy/adventurer on a high-speed inter-carriage foot chase, like myself).

Waiting.

Getting off.

Feeling nervous about getting off because none of the stops last long enough and you're worried the train will run away with all your things and leave you stranded in a frozen wasteland where you last approximately 7 hours before dying a horrible, frost-bitten death... ok, so that's probably just me.

Watching the windows.

And of course—did I say it already?—drinking. Yes, well, our few carriage-mates
were all Mongolian, and turns out they had a little something about drinking they wanted to show us.

It all began after two toilsome nights waiting to go through customs. Luckily we didn’t piss anyone off enough to get shaken down (I heard about this happening to several others). Anyway, after these two joyous evenings of nail biting while waiting for several unknown uniformed individuals to return our sacred, life-giving passports (both of which dragged out to about 4 or 5 am), the Mongolians came a-knocking the third night. I’ll admit, I was a little uneasy at first, but after a few beers it seemed as if we would become fast friends. Still, the night had already grown old, and none of us could last for long.

The next day was different. After lunch, in the midst of the movie Australia (don’t ask how I got it, it is China after all), there is a quiet knock at the door. Lo and behold, a Mongolian bearing gifts! No, wait, that’s not a gift. That’s bad.

That’s vodka.

As we settled into their car, they began pouring huge shots of straight liquor, which, you know, it seemed impolite to refuse. After the liquor came strange meats, strange vegetables, bread… more meat. More meat. More bread. Much more vodka. A veritable cocktail of strange was brewing inside me. Anyway. The remainder of THAT story need not leave the train. The end.

Soon enough the train ride ended, as I knew it must, and we stepped off into a frozen world with yet another alphabet that my idiot brain finds unintelligible. Well, it did at first, anyway. Turns out, Cyrillic, as you might imagine, is a LOT more intuitive than Chinese. Anyway, a brief and somewhat confusing subway ride later, we were lugging luggage up the street toward a quaint hostel, which was all too welcome because of the cold outside and the hot shower within.

Yeah, you know, showers seem a lot more valuable once you’ve been on a five-and-a-half day train where they don’t exist.

The hostel was extremely comfortable, but deserted. Guess tourist season for Russia is probably during a month when the ol’ air outside isn’t hanging out somewhere well below 0. Our host Alex was extremely generous, AND helpful--he directed us very ably on our journey to Moscow's Chinese Embassy and into the hair-raising adventure that followed there during the next couple of days. But that, as they say, is a story that will have to wait.

More later, I swear. Or I’m Genghis Khan.

...To be concluded.

A Break in the Back-blog

Howdy folks.

You know, I'm sitting here, almost twelve hours on the nose from settling in on a five-day Trans-Siberian train trip, and I'm still struggling with a way to express to anyone just how much I have loved the last four weeks of my petty little existence. And it's only getting more exciting.

Now, I realize the tone of the last couple little notes I jotted down (yeah, they're there, so don't forget to read 'em, if you care to) was a bit mopey, and the one I'll eventually put up after this might have a little of that flavor too, but I just want all of you folks out there to know that I am indeed having the time of my life.

And I want you know that I'm going to hold off throwing anything else up on here until this great trip is good and done, bahahahaa! Sorry!

More to come after I jump over to Moscow and back!

And Now... Intermission. Please Enjoy the Catharsis and an Ice-Cold (Adult) Beverage

Ah, the holidays have come and gone once again—the holiday season in America, that is. For the Chinese, the holidays are just beginning, meaning that the semester break is upon us, and it is time to escape into the vast, waiting world.

In my head, all the pieces seem in place. It has all the look of a fantasy ready to be realized. So this should be a time of great excitement, yes? This time that I’ve been most looking toward since the moment I touched down in Beijing?

Of course, all is not always as it should be.

Despite all the best efforts of my friends in Anqing, western and Chinese alike, Christmas just never felt… like Christmas. Not this year. Like I’ve said, I just could not help but be reminded of all those who were so far away and so dearly missed, at that time of year above all others. The gloom that settled over me this Christmas was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It wasn’t debilitating, it didn’t even dull my mood that much. But it hung a little heavier each day, with the tenacious fingers of a climber scrabbling for a hold when his life depends on finding it. Really, now, truly--unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Not loneliness. Not homesickness. And until these last days, I still didn’t have it shaken.

I do think some of it had to do with the commercial mockery of Christmas that I saw here. Not that it was in any way intentional on the part of the Chinese—in fact I found their efforts to understand the holiday quite charming. I just realized that the Christmas I saw them trying to celebrate was a reflection of the image we must be exporting from America and other parts of the world where Christians observe the holiday, and it saddens me. But there was certainly more to it than that.

Now, New Year’s day has passed, and my malaise manifested itself physically as a nasty malady for a few days. Since that’s been behind me, my mood has moved into slightly more thoughtful territory. With school done for a bit, and China and more at my beck and call (Yes, just so you know, I have now hiked the Great Wall; there will be pictures soon enough. Rest assured it was everything I hoped it could be and more, like much of the past three weeks has been, but I can’t talk about all that yet because it’s too damn cheerful for the tone of this filler essay on my bout with the moody blues.), I just can’t get my head right to have as good a time as I want to. It’s as if a switch has been thrown in my head, and where 2008 was mostly carefree, 2009 is careworn.

I just can’t stop thinking of what’s coming. Now that what I was so looking forward to has arrived, I can’t stop looking too far ahead. And I hate it.

With half the year done, I can see the end of my stay in China clear as daylight, and I wonder—have I done what I set out to do? Have I done enough?

Certainly, I have done much since I came here of which I can be proud, but am I pleased with it? With my effort? Am I pleased with myself, the challenges I’ve met and overcome, the things I’ve learned and done?

I think the answer to that is no. Not a resounding one, mind you. But still no.
Or perhaps, more appropriately, not yet.

Half over is only one way of looking at things. Yeah, I remember now.

I still have time.

(Just so you know, the day I jotted this down in my notebook I was in a foul mood, and once I finished, it seemed almost instantaneously erased. Writing is a funny thing. And—heaven help us—more is on the way, so sit tight, sports fans!)

It’s Thursday Night, And You Know What That Means… It’s Christmas Time

Wow. Christmas is (was, I know, I know—this is rather late, but please, bear with me) here. I mean that just the way it sounds, Christmas is HERE, in China, in Anqing, and boy is it strange, for so many reasons. The first and foremost of said reasons being that none of those folks with whom I would so dearly love to be at Christmas time seem to be HERE.

Now, that is not to say that I did not delight in Christmas dinner with my fast friends, the fellow foreign teachers from the other campus (bonus points for alliteration?) and the subsequent, radically awkward church service we attended (more on these later). But it does mean that the people I usually feel the need to be near at Christmas were all notably absent.

My first Christmas experience actually came several days before, when I agreed to be present at a private school’s Christmas function. It was not the school at which I teach, but seeing how they behaved, how they enthusiastically performed the few Christmas carols they knew, how they donned Santa caps (EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, had a Santa hat)… all of it made me think about how much they recognized the commercial side of Christmas, and how little they knew of the real story behind it. But from the questions they asked, I also got the impression that they wanted to know more, from a purely informational standpoint.

I didn’t have the opportunity to do so at the time, but it set in my head what I would do for the coming week with my students. Yeah, you guessed it. Time to talk about Christmas. Real Christmas.

It made for a strange lesson, to be sure, drawing pictures of Santa’s face and Christmas trees on the board, then putting a cross next to them, and asking if any of them knew what it was. A few said “Jesu,” of course… but a precious few at that. It seemed to me that all most of them knew of Christmas had to do with trees and presents and the enigmatic “Christmas Father.” Needless to say, I did my best to supply them with a little… additional info… all the while bearing in mind I probably needed to keep it really impersonal to avoid getting chunked in the clink. Of course, as I fumbled about with a way to explain words like “commercial” (at one point resorting to running around the room and striking a pose with my water bottle whilst—yeah, I said it, whilst—yelling, “SO GOOD!”), I realized that I also had to explain concepts much more basic, like the idea of something being sacred, and the idea of celebrating peace.

Truth be told, I have no idea how much of it any of them were able to grasp. I’d like to believe a little, but in the end I think it mostly just made me feel better.
It was later that week, when the day finally came, that I and three other members of Anqing’s meager contingent of foreigners sought out Christmas dinner together (well, it was Chinese food, but like we always say, it’s the thought that counts). Addendum: I have since learned that Anqing’s food leaves much, much, MUCH to be desired. It was good to be with each other, though; very. And afterward came the reaaaally exciting part—when the married couple and I took a risk and found a Chinese church!

As for what we encountered there… well…

You know, rather than explain in words, I believe I’ll elect to have these pictures, and possibly this video, if it chooses to work, do all the talking.


Oh tannenbaum...


The Christmas Feast!


Not what we expected...


Quite a congregation... now if they would tithe...


Standing room only!


I leave you this time with an aside, as I’m sure you’re well aware that Christmas day has long since passed. Having been without either regular internet or adequate time (or focus, or discipline, or whatever you want to call it… it’s no secret that I’ve been rather happily distracted of late) since those days shortly following Christmas, I hope you will forgive me a brief backlog of entries (backblog?) that I must now dump on you post-haste, forthwith, heretofore, what have you. That is to say, sorry. But you’ll just have to deal with the last month in one big fat lump. And that should get us back up to speed.
But for now—zaijian! (Chinese for “toodles!”)

Author's Note: Title shamelessly (and probably sacrilegiously, sorry folks) lifted from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU.

Yeah. It's Christmas time.

[The video was supposed to be here, but it's being finicky, so it might make it up later, or it might not. Bleh.]

Thanksgiving Made Chineasy

Author’s Note: The following has been delayed due to a lack of processing power. Not in the computer. In me. My erstwhile roommate has set off for greener pastures without a word, leaving me saddled with his workload (which I took of my own volition in the interest of making more money). However, it has been somewhat taxing, to put it lightly. I will do an amusing, obituary-esque capsule for him at the end of the show, because I will likely never see or hear from him again. But without further ado…

At last, after a sleepless night spent in the seedy recesses of downtown Hefei, I came to my destination none the worse for wear.


There it was, at last. Shanghai. As if it had been waiting for me all along.

Surely here, in one of the largest cities of the world, I would be able to find turkey for my belated Thanksgiving feast. Right? Right?! Well, at first glance, Shanghai was much more confusing than Beijing, my last interaction with huge-city China. The current city is much older, having not seen the extensive renovations that Beijing received prior to the Olympics (point, Shanghai, in my opinion). Still, despite streets wound tighter than most people’s familial tensions come holiday season, I resolved that I would NOT be denied.

The train station was much more difficult to navigate than the Beijing version, but it was still fairly simple. I did, however, have some trouble finding the legal taxi line (and folks, you want to take the legal taxis. You might have to wait a little longer, sure, but wow, the taxis on the street will try and swindle you out of your pants. Foreigners = $$, and that’s it. Might as well be wearing a green T-shirt covered with dollar signs. That said, the legal taxis are completely and utterly fair. Ahem. Digression complete.).

I arrived at the hostel around noon, fully expecting to find the one person in China willing to celebrate Thanksgiving with me waiting patiently (since she has already put up with me on numerous occasions, I have come to abuse her tolerance). However, she is nowhere to be found. Of course, the logical conclusion would be that she came to her senses prior to departure and decided to stay in her city, that she might actually have some FUN on her weekend, but I learned that this was not quite the case. As I was checking in, the people at the desk realized they had a message for me. Turned out there was just a delay with the trains. She would be there around 2.

With some time on my hands, I decided to do what I do best: relax. I left my gear (not the valuable stuff, of course) on my bunk and proceeded to the hostel bar, where I sat and watched a bunch of other foreigners from various reaches of the world as I drank my beer. The crowd was just what you might expect to see at a hostel… long, unkempt hair; unshaven faces; ratty clothes…

And you should see the guys!

I joke, I joke. Well, I would like to say I fit right in, but the fact of the matter is I stuck out like, you know, a good old boy in China. Emphasis on old. These kids with their Australian accents, and others with their British, and a few more speaking German (I think)… they made me feel the years creeping up, they did. But not too bad. I nursed my beer and watched on, enjoying my first protracted viewing of white people at play in over a month. It seemed like no time at all had passed when I felt the tapping on my shoulder…

A hug and a story later we were on our way to lunch. I was starving, but I hadn’t even considered what I wanted to eat prior to the heralded Chinese Thanksgiving. Some friends in Anqing had told me about this place they called “Coco Cabana” (it was in fact called Coco Ichibanya), and I thought, you know, Coco Cabana sounds fun. Let’s go there.

It wasn’t quite what I expected, to say the least. It was a quaint, reserved little place, and it served curry. Now, as most of you know, I love Curry, but not that kind. But that kind is all right too. So I sat down, and as the menu popped open my eyes magically gravitated to “Cheeseburger Curry.” Well, I mean, come on. On paper it was like two of my three favorite things put together. I had to try it.

It wasn’t as good at the fantasy. But it was good. And hot enough to make my brain melt, just like the Curry from last year’s NCAA’s. Good thing is, I don’t have enough brain cells left for it to matter much when the old flesh cpu melts down.

So. Yeah. What was I talking about?

…

Hey, what are all these words doing here?

…OK, OK.

After that we experienced the madness of Nanjing Lu, which I can fittingly describe with only three words:


Watch! Bag! DVD!

But I’ll use more anyway, because it’s what I do.

At least every third person in this crowd would charge up to us and spout those very sentiments. Of course, I am likely the worst person this side of planet Earth with whom to play such a game. My neural-net processor isolated the correct response almost instantly. By the third or fourth guy, I simply put on a freakish, “you don’t want to know what I’d do to you” stare, and growled “Watch! Bag! DVD!” before he could say anything. I’m sure it’s been done before, as I’m just an obsolete model after all, but the look on his face was enough to tell me that it was a reaction with which he wasn’t altogether familiar.

Also, see it in the 1930s! A bit different now, huh?


Before long it was time for the oft-discussed Thanksgiving dinner. I had come to the decision several days prior that we would dine at Malone’s, or the “most American place in Shanghai” as it was dubbed by one reviewer named Steve who has requested that he remain anonymous.

It took us a bit to find, because I can be stubborn with directions at times… oh, who am I kidding? I’m stubborn with everything, all the time. But we did find it. And we got the menus…

…to find no turkey dinner. But that was OK. Because they had a bacon bar-be-que cheeseburger with an onion ring on it, and it was almost good enough to make my year (if other things hadn’t done that already). And you know, my Thanksgiving table-mate (Megan’s name has been omitted to protect the innocent) kept the feeling alive by ordering a turkey BLT lathered liberally with guacamole—complete with real leftover Thanksgiving turkey, of course! She insists that it was heaven, and I'm sure it WAS almost that good. But I'm also certain my burger was better. Ha HA!

So we ate hearty, and drank beer, and drank Jack Daniel’s, and gave thanks, and listened as the cover band regaled us with a number of hits from the darker nooks and crannies of musical history (Yes, I’m talking about YOU, 80’s. What?! No, no, I’m just kidding. The 80’s were awesome, man. Hey. Hey! I DO like your Africa song, Toto! I swear! No! Don’t!!!!).

AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

…


…


…


This is HP Pavilion dv2700 Notebook PC Ser. No. 373-0112b. We’re sorry. John can no longer be with us for this entry. We will do our best to explain the remainder of his Shanghai experience, complete with however many relevant pictures we can find stored on our hard disk.

We are certain he gave thanks on Saturday for a lazy afternoon of walking around and seeing the river (and the gigantic television boats that he believed should have been broadcasting NFL football games).


He also gave thanks Saturday evening for the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. This was my favorite, but he neglected to take many pictures, as he was preoccupied with other attractions.


He gave thanks for Shanghai at night, and for the fact that he was not as obese as the Mao statue.




He gave a little thanks for no longer feeling at all like a tourist.

He gave thanks for Irish Pubs around the world!


Sunday he gave thanks for boats, and for cruising the river, although it was all too short.


That afternoon he gave thanks for coffee shops.

Later he gave thanks for hot pot dining with lots of crazy meats.

He did NOT give thanks for train stations or departure times.

He did, however, give thanks for chance encounters, airport difficulties, welcome distractions, and the strange forks life continually throws into your path.

And he gave thanks for Who is responsible for all that, and responsible for the incredible friends and family that are supporting him while he's here.

Now, before we go, we will deliver on John’s promise and include a small bit about the roommate, Ray. Also, John is in every way responsible for what we say. That'll teach him to open up so many programs at once.


An older French-Canadian fellow with a thick accent (we often wondered how well the students understood him), Ray was always quick with a joke and quicker with a lewd word about the ladies. And he did like the ladies. Still, despite his idiosyncrasies, he and John seemed to get along fine to our dimly-lit, electronic web-eye, but we were often concerned; Ray always found reasons to complain about his situation in Anqing, and he seemed to find no enjoyment in what he was doing. We often found ourselves wondering, “Why is he here?”

Now he is not. We hope he finds what he is looking for, whatever that may be. Take good care.

That is all we have for you at this time. Please be assured that John will return to form soon, after he recovers from garish wounds sustained while caught between the razor-sharp teeth of Toto’s gnashing maw.



HP Pavilion dv2700's Note: We have since neutralized the problem by deconstructing the little beast particle by particle and emailing it to a secure account in Kansas with no known password.

We’ll also include an obligatory “Go Cats!” for Saturday's victorious effort. John would have wanted it that way.

Thanks to Give, but No One to Give It To (Yet)

As Written November 27, 2008:

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. If you love your family, I can’t imagine how it could not be. It’s one of those sacred times in my memory, a time to see those for whom you care most, and, all too often, those you see least.

This… is a different Thanksgiving for me. I’m in Hefei tonight, waiting for a morning train. In looking for a hotel, I decided to live dangerously. When I got turned away from the Railway Hotel, an older Chinese woman rushed to my side, yammering furiously (albeit unintelligibly, to me) and pointing.

Of course I followed her.

I ended up in an honest-to-goodness Chinese Hotel. Not the kind where a foreigner would stay. There are people living here. The bathrooms, for the most part, seem communal. However—

They provided me with the best room in the house. The best, and they gave it to me for half the listed price (though they do that a lot here, so I don’t feel too special. Well, maybe. No, check that… ah, screw it. All depends on your definition of special).

Apparently, they weren’t really set up for foreigners, so the guy wanted to take my passport to the police station while I waited. That’s a big no-no in my book, even if the guy did seem harmless… but I didn’t just want to be a typical paranoid traveler and run away… RUN AWAYYY!... ahem. Sorry.

I walked to the police station with him. As soon as I entered, a mildly funny scene ensued, featuring an overweight officer trying to hum the Star Spangled Banner. Well, it wasn’t quite humming. More like, dum dah dum dum DAAH DUMMM!, but with a slightly mocking lilt to it, at least to my ear. Not to be outdone (or mocked) I decided to belt the whole thing out, pregame style. I think that confused the hell out of them.

Hey, what? They like singing here, damn it. And they did laugh. With a slightly mocking lilt.

After that I walked back, took these amusing pictures of this room, and here I sit, waiting to go to Shanghai for my belated Chinese Thanksgiving.


Note the stain.


Cozy.

As I reflect, I realize I haven’t posted an entry in a bit, so rather than go into what I’m looking forward to in Shanghai, I’ll look back. To last weekend.

The events of last Saturday were the result of me doing a favor.

I know! I know. What a fool I am. But I helped a High School senior edit his admissions essay, which he is submitting to Purdue and UMN. Ill advised as that might have been, it earned me the thanks of his father, and a pretty crazy day got laid out all over my plate.

First (well, second. I had already watched the Wildcats mercilessly dismember the Winthrop Eagles. Have to love the powers of the internet. Go Cats!). First? Hmm, yes. Wildcat basketball. What? Where was I? Oh, yes.

Around 9:30 I met the student and a couple of his other friends outside my apartment. We rode down to the river (less than a mile away) and booked passage on the ferry. Within about 15 minutes we were on the south bank of the river. And folks…

…welcome to China. No, not the China to which I am growing accustomed, with crazy drivers and bad McDonald's and noodles and strangely dressed pedestrians. No. This was real China. Farmland, stretching as far as the eye can see (Ok, it was a little foggy). A quaint Buddhist temple. Cows. Rangy dogs. Dirt roads. People harvesting, hashing out a hard, honest day of physical labor in their fields, the kind of work we can easily forget about once we’ve spent so long in our cities. And keep these people in mind. Because if something crazy happens to the world, something wild that robs us of our fuels and our electronics and even (gasp!--DARE I say it?)our internets… watch. These will be the people we turn to because we’ve forgotten how to stay alive without everything at our beck and call.




Undoubtedly the dirtiest dog I have ever seen. Well, that's not necessarily true... I've met a lot of bad guys.

Ahem. Yes, well, we spent several hours wandering around and watching these quiet folk, and finally we even bought some vegetables from them. Had to pick them ourselves. All right. I know what you’re thinking. Me, pick vegetables? Me, eat vegetables?

Don’t worry. It was the young Chinese woman with us who wanted them. But I did get roped into carrying them. Bah.

Again, too nice.

Some miles later, around two o’clock, we finally made our way back to the ferry. The plan now? An all vegetarian lunch at the large Buddhist temple (Zhen Fen Temple) in Anqing proper. Now, at first thought this wasn’t my favorite idea I’ve ever heard. But fine, I think, I’ll roll with it.

It was strange. Most of the dishes were made of tofu, and they were seasoned (and shaped) like dead animals. They kind of paled in comparison to the real deal, but you know, they tried. The strangest, by far, was a crazy looking dish that tasted like shrimp but looked like Bill Cosby should have done the ad campaign. I dubbed them Gummy Shrimp. No one understood.

There was one delicious dish—these jiaozi, or dumplings. Those are the stuff. I could eat them until my system experienced overexposure to the vinegar with which I so liberally showered them.

With a belly full of stuff I never would have eaten of my own accord, it was off to KTV. Not a bar, like I’ve been to a few times, but a straight KTV club, with a private room and endless popcorn and tea.

We were there for four hours. I don’t want to talk about it…



Sweet, sweet serenade...

…but I will. It was just ridiculous. All the songs they have in English are these great sappy ballads. Well, not all of them. But most. I’d like to think I gave them their money’s worth, here, as I was rather uninhibited. I thing I sang about 2 dozen songs, among them Brown-Eyed Girl, Hotel California, Hey Jude, Desperado, Hard to Say I’m Sorry (Don’t Ask), Mack the Knife (A damn good rendition if I do say so my damn self), Carry on my Wayward Son, Wild Thing, Don’t go Breakin’ My Heart, Lyin’ Eyes (I think they like the Eagles over here), Toto’s Africa, and… Paradise City.

Yes, THAT Paradise City. And instead of going conventional, I said what the hell and tried to screech it like Axl. That’ll teach ‘em to keep me in that little room for four hours again. But I think I popped the ribbon off my voice box.

Before I could treat them to my emotionally stirring version of Scarborough Fair, our time was up. At this point we had grown into a party of six. The student’s father had arrived at lunch, and another very amusing man named Mr. Xiao had joined us at the KTV. He brought the wine that brings me to the next amusing story…

Dinner. Now, I didn’t gripe about the vegetables or anything, but I think I made an offhand comment about being, essentially, a carnivore. Consequently, the dinner was meat. All meat. ALL. And, consequently, I stuffed myself.

As I have seen several times already from my Chinese hosts, the father (hereafter called Mr. Ye) seemed intent on encouraging me to drink. And he seemed intent on matching me. Out came the wine.

I think we were about 3 glasses deep when he realized he was in over his head. By the end of the fifth glass, we moved to beer. By the middle of the second beer (22 oz.) he was pretty well drunk. I must say, I admire his self-control (or perhaps it was simply his desire not to get sick), because he stopped then and there, and did not drink again until much later. But, as I was in a good mood, and we were having such an enjoyable time poking fun at Mr. Xiao for not finishing his glass of wine (and no, I wasn’t being mean, and no, I wasn’t the one who started calling him Mrs. Xiao—that distinction belongs to one of the women at the table), I couldn’t resist having a few more.

Three beers later, dinner is done, and I’m feeling pretty happy. I ask if they know of a place that is not KTV, a place that is quiet, where you can just sit and talk and have a beer. Mr. Xiao and the student leave, but the others come along and we find a strange place called a “Blues Café” that is, well… no such thing. But it is quiet, and they do have beer.

It’s nearing midnight now, and time to go home. Two more 22 ouncers down, just enough to get a good feeling. As we’re leaving, I have a detour to the restroom, and start cackling hysterically because there is a bouquet of flowers in the urinal to freshen the scent. No, no cake. Honestly. A bouquet of flowers. Even on a day full of them, the best “shake my head” moment is the last.

And yes, before you ask, I do have a picture, and no, you can't see it. For various reasons.

Thus, we leave “Blues Café.” Mr. Ye rides with me in a taxi, even though I could easily have walked. He gives me a solid pat on the shoulder as I get out at my apartment and thanks me for helping his son. I smile and shake his hand. “Thanks for a hell of a day.” He laughs. I don’t think he’s familiar with the expression, but he gets the idea.

I remember thinking it then, and I’m thinking it now, sitting on this rather spartan bed after following a strange woman I couldn’t understand.

That paranoid fear of “getting taken” is gone. Not the healthy caution, understand… but the fear.

I’ve finally begun to trust myself here.

I’m finally getting comfortable. And what can I say? I’m thankful for that. And other things, too. But I’ll save those for another time.

Like when I write about Thanksgiving in Shanghai.