12th day: moons and cakes

September 28th, 12th day

Woke with some difficulty. I think the beer to water ratio wasn’t optimal before I fell asleep. Missed breakfast. This week’s lesson is feelings. I ran through a list of happy, sad, nervous, excited, sick, tired, bored, hungry, thirsty, scared, etc. After a brief description, I had each row tell me what made them feel whatever word I had written on the board. The junior 2 class did alright, although I think there’s a few kids in class who answer “play football” no matter what I ask.
Before the second class, Rose gave me a three packs of mooncakes filled with a green gel. I devoured them, found the taste a bit like pop tarts. In the next class, which Rose did not sit in this time, the kids were a little more behind. For example: “What makes you feel nervous?” “In the evening” or “at home.”
One girl, when asked what made her sad, answered, “When it’s my birthday and I get no presents.”
“Is it your birthday?”
She nodded.
I gave her a pack of mooncakes.
“Are you now feeling happy?”
She nodded, smiling. So cute.
Following class, I signed more autographs, a T-shirt, and was given a pen.
After lunch, which had a mooncake included, Nigel stopped by and inquired if Erin and I wanted to have dinner at Coffee Language. He also said tonight was the start of the Moon Festival, or the Harvest Moon, as we say in the states. That explained the sudden prevalence of all the mooncakes.
I chatted albeit briefly with David Enright, wished him a happy Harvest Moon, to which he corrected, “Jarvis Moon,” in reference to our Dung Chant album “Sun of Jarvis Moon.”
The other two classes went fine, although one class did not get to play the game because time ran out. A couple kids tried to stonewall me, but I kept at them, looming over them and basking in their silence, asking the same words over.
I went to the arts building to get some pictures of Feng Jao Li and she posed by the railing overlooking the pond. Super cute. I also took a picture of the Chinese “lapsteel harp” which I also played on for a bit.
Nigel, Chi, Erin and I rode to Coffee Language for dinner. My pedal started squeaking again and I swear the seat has sunk. My ass hurt good and proper by the time we got there.
I ordered a “company sandwich and fired (sic) potatoes.” For dessert I had bananas in a kind of floral honey, with lime ice cream.
While Chi and Erin talked about shopping and massage, Nigel told me the way to tell the massage parlors from the “handjob huts” was they said “hairdresser” on the outside, but had pink lights on the inside.
“In some places, you can lie with a girl,” he said, “Kind of play with her a bit…”
“Nigel, how the hell do you know about this?”
To which he put a finger to his lips and cringed, afraid Chi would hear our conversation.
I just laughed.




I took pictures of the place, knowing they wouldn’t do it justice, and then I was coerced to play a song on piano. I did an abridged version of “Steady” since it had a complicated left hand part, at least compared to most of my songs.
We stopped in the club next door just to see it, and we were practically shoved inside to a table. They really catered to Westerners and wanted people to see us in their club. We held up our hands apologetically, told them we were just looking. It had a kind of jungle motif, some sub-par murals of tigers and a nude couple with vines covering their naughty bits. There was some singer on the raised dance floor, composed of thick brick-style lights, a la Saturday Night Fever. I might go back there again just to have a laugh.
We rode back and I asked Chi to see how Feng Jao Li felt about me sometime. She said ok.
I had a sweet craving and punished the Junior Mints and a box of Milk Pocky, wishing I had some beer.
I uploaded the pictures, watched some documentary on slave girl trafficking, and then called it a night.