November 15th: deceptive sunshine and the other midget

Day 59

I woke, delighted to find my sunshine wish granted. After lunch I went on a quest to find deodorant and construction paper. I found the latter. The former does not appear to exist in Haimen. This spells trouble in the coming weeks. The stick I brought with me is getting to the "turning but it's not rising" stage, which will be followed by the "I turned it too much and it fell on the floor" stage. I bought some baby powder as emergency reserve. How can there be four aisles of shampoo (not an exaggeration) and no deodorant?

I found Erin's construction paper a few doors down from the electronic chap. (She's teaching her kids to make hand turkeys this week.) I shopped around for a webcam so I could add a little more humanity to chats. Before committing, I decided to se if my digital camera could be jury-rigged to do it. I researched a way with a certain cable, but for the price I may as well just get a webcam.

Having discharged my errand duties, I pedaled to Dong Jo park to read and bask in the sunshine. It was not as warm as advertised, but it still felt good on my face. I sat on a bench near the pond and attaempted to get lost in Joyce's words. Boats paddled slowly by me to rubberneck and a few passersby actually paused behind me for a minute to look over my shoulder. There's curiosity, then there's just rudeness. They couldn't read it anyway, why not just a casual glance at a safe distance? Why the need to stop their walk and stand behind me uncomfortably like some Chinese JohnWilkes Boothe?

One gent with a plastic bag passed by, sat some distance away, circled back, then brazenly came up on my right front side. He nodded to get my attention and I looked up. "Hello," he said, smiling.

"Hello."

I returned to my book, but my dude kept standing there. I looked up again and he nodded again, smiling. He made a gesture toward the book, then gave a "thumbs up."

"Yes. it's a good book."

I tried to get back to it but my concentration was shattered. I moved on, strolled past the cooing couples and a man taking pictures of two high school girls posed in front of a tree, then a rock pile, then a weeping willow grove.

I wandered aimlessly, exploring hidden pockets of the park. While circling back around a secret chess table, I ran into the smiling plastic bag dude again. "Hello," he said again, as if the veins of this word were packed with the lifeblood of truth and it, being the ultimate cosmic password, so full of answers and harmony was in danger of bursting and the only way to keep it from hemorrhaging a biblical arterial geyser was to say it as often as possible to a bearded American in sunglasses. I know he was just trying to be friendly, but the conversation went as far as it possibly could. What more did he want?

After dinner, I blogged for a bit, tried to play piano, but all the practice rooms were locked. I worked on my lesson plan (Thanksgiving this week) then got stir crazy. As per usual, the students en masse, after classes get out at 9, file into the dorm and collectively relieve their bowels. My bathroom is host to a main sewer pipe and if I forget to keep my bathroom fan on, the stench rolls out with a fury at 9pm. I need incense badly.

I lit a match, decided I could sit and suffocate in the fug, or go out to the club. I opted for the club, but when I started pedaling there, the cold influenced me to try the other club, the closer one.

Once inside, I was amazed at the throng of people packed on the dance floor. No room at all, just a huge bouncing mob spilling over at the exits. The DJs were spinning some house stuff, slower fare than Andy's club, better quality, more of what I spin.

One track was particularly good and at the break, I went up and asked if it was called "Night Train." Their English was limited, but I soon communicated I was a DJ from America, and soon I was behind the soundboard meeting everyone. The main guy was "DJ Alen." I had my CDs in my bag and he encouraged me to put some stuff on. I had no idea how to operate the decks, so I selected a CD, had him throw it on.

I flipped through my album, naming the genres as I pointed: "hip hop, trance, house..." I went into the "green room" and there was a midget warming up for a kung fu routine. I had my picture taken with him. It is my goal to have my pcture taken with every midget in Haimen, a goal I might have already completed. (How can a town this small have more than two?) The kung fu floor show involved a skinny long-haired guy burying one end of a steel pole into his throat, while the midget buried the other end in his gut and the two pushed against each other. Other feats included a bed of nails and the skinny dude stepped on the midget lying on it. Three burly (as burly as Chinese come) gents from the audience were invited to come step on the nail-mattressed midget collectively. All the while, Alen was playing my CDs for their routine and they synced up beautifully, crescendos were uncannily perfect.

Next a couple Matrix-looking gentlemen came out and did kung fu while singing awful pop songs. I got video footage of some of their stuff. Bizarre.

When the dancing started up again, Alen played from my set, calling out a genre, which I would then hand him, indicating the track listing with my hand. It sounded awesome and the crowd really dug it. He said some stuff into the mic about me to the audience, giving props, I suppose. I got some cheers, though they cheer everything at the club. I took a picture of the crowd and one stoic beefhead up front flipped me off, but I can't be sure if it was contempt or if he was trying to "be American" for the camera.

At the end of the night, I took off, despite Alen's invite to get something to eat. I planned on waking for Chinese breakfast, so I thanked himand pedaled off into the night. I was fired up. That was a proper set and someone else did all the beatmatching work. Ha! All I did was rock out and drink Heineken.

Slept smiling.