October 27th: throat and tire difficulty

Day 40

Woke for Chinese breakfast. My throat felt dry and swollen. Damn the weed burners! I used my Echinacea/golden seal throat spray and drank a mochaccino, then remembered the tea I swiped from the Suzhou hotel. I made a cup to go and halfway through the first class, I felt better and could talk easier.

My first two classes were good, they wrote and paid attention and such. And they showed me how to operate the overhead projector so I could show the photos without passing them around, thereby saving wear and tear from their grubby, corner-bending digits.

Steven was in his class to observe (after monkeying with the projector for me) and told me the difficulty I might have in requisitioning a pumpkin to carve. Outdoor markets might have them, but no supermarkets will. David, the boy who always eats with Steven, drew a skeleton on the board that put mine to shame. I later found out his father is a doctor.

In lunch queue, I asked Summer and Lily if they wanted to go to KTV on Saturday, and they were for it, as long as the other teachers were going. But if everyone feels that way, no one will go, so I suspect a roundabout “no” from all parties.

Simon ate with me, along with another fellow from the Pete and Jimmy posse. He spit out fishbones with grinning abandon.

I ran into Nigel on the way to lunch, who had an odd colorful fleece/windbreaker on. I complimented it and then he proceeded to tell me he bought it in England over 20 years ago. It must have been in mothballs for 18 of those years. It’s incredibly new looking.

I drank tea in my last two classes to ease my throat. The last class had their teacher looking in the window, so I didn’t show the Fudgie and Fufu costume picture with the “lady legs” sunglasses. (The class prior, I it and explained: “A costume is clothes we wear to be a different person. This is a Fudgie costume. This is a Fufu costume.” They repeated Fudgie and Fufu back to me. Very surreal.)

At dinner, I ate with a whole new posse, but I think they’re from Pete, Jimmy, and Simon’s class. I asked what the shredded green stuff was and they couldn’t say in English. They called over my translator girl from the second class on Tuesday and she didn’t know either. I asked Steven and he said “I think in English it is seaweed?”

Hot damn. A natural source of iodine to keep my thyroid going, aiding metabolism and fighting depression. Sweet.

After dinner, Erin and I decided to ride out to Ming Tien for some fries. We swung by the arts building first and I played her the new song which we’ll call “Dovetail” for now, since it’s too song pieces dovetailed together. She liked it, said it sounded similar to some Tori Amos she’s heard. I think it sounds more Queenish, Sheer Heart Attack era. It’s finished, I just need to write words for it, but I have absolutely no idea what the subject matter will be. It’s such an odd song, a kind of glam-ragtime.

Erin’s tire went flat halfway there, so we turned back, parked our bikes at the hotel, tried to get a cab to Ming Tien. The cabbie union was in full force, though, and each one tried to charge us 10 yuen.

We shook our heads, held up five fingers. “Five quai!”

They weren’t budging from their price (as the union no doubt taught them.) We decided just to go to the hotel’s lounge.

We sat and I said, “I think we just weren’t meant to go to Ming Tien tonight. If we went we would have been killed by a de-orbiting satellite or something. Your tire went flat, the cabs tried to overcharge, what other signs do we need?”

We talked about how awful William Shatner is and how he needs his ass beat.

“There’s a long queue, though (for the ass beating). The prefix of his last name is ‘shat,’ what’s he gonna do?” He can’t help but suck, it’s in the family name.

It was Anglo Saxon night in the lounge. Three other white chaps were in there, nationality German I think.

Erin discussed how KTV was 300 yuen and you got your own room and all like in “Lost in Translation.” That would explain why no one wanted to go unless EVERYONE was going. It would greatly reduce the “per person” fee with a large group. So maybe it wasn’t just a brush-off. A group of us would be fun and we wouldn’t have to sit through strangers doing sincere songs in monotone for their girlfriends like so many dumpy cowboys I’ve witnessed in Kentucky. There’s nothing worse than sincere karaoke.

After our refreshments, we pedaled home, retired.