April 29th: very angry student and a Chinese drag queen

Day 225

In the first class, we did the game and I told every row my spiel:"Do not bend up my cards, do not roll up my cards, do not tear my cards, do not eat my cards, do not write on my cards, do not throw my cards out the window, be nice to my cards." I thought it a little excessive to say it six times, but during the last game, some jackass bad kid wrote on my card to fuck with me. He was not clever; since I collect the cards every time there's a match, I know exactly who had which card.

I yelled and asked him why he write on my card and he replied "I don't know."

"You don't know why you wrote on my card?"

"Yes."

"Why did you write on my card? I told you six times 'do not write on my card.' Why did you write on my card?"

"I didn't hear."

"Six times and you didn't hear?"

"Yes."

"Go to the teacher's office."

He threw his head and remained sitting. I ordered him out again and he threw his head around some more but didn't leave. I finally said it in a slow, stern voice, stiffly pointing out the door and he got up in that teenage "Aw MAN!" squinting body language, threw open the back door and yelled, "I very angry!"

"Well, I am too guy!"

Really funny stuff. The rest of the day went smoothly. Jeni stopped by for tea but by the time she arrived, she was too hot for tea. She drank water and caught up on world news, taking notes for Rhys I think. Cute. I went to go teach at 1pm, but the class shooed me away until another 40 minutes. I guess since they had class tomorrow, they wouldn't be leaving early and thus had no reason to start classes at 1.

Get this: Since May holiday doesn't officially start until May 1st, the school is making Saturday into another Thursday, so the kids have classes. Rose asked if I wanted to teach, and since she gave me the option, I said no thanks. It's against my contract, and plus I just had those Thursday demons. If it had been Tuesday or Wednesday I would have obliged.

After classes, I waited out a summer shower by shaving my mustache into a pencil-thin, then rode up to the middle school. Rhys, Heather, Jeni, Mike and I had cheese and wine. We opted for tree dumplings instead of the sheep place (heat and alcohol made us loagy) but Mike rode on to KFC since they didn't have the noodles he wanted, and we got Heather some "take off" since she had a family phone call to endure.

We dropped off her dumplings, then headed to Shishan Lu for massage. I got Rachel again, and I paid attention to her technique, especially with the hands, as I want to be able to administer the same treatment to my next lover, and tell Kathy Mac about it since she has her own massage place in Cincinnati.

We went to the club and it was oddly sparse for a Friday night; not the usual wall-to-wall mayhem. The floor show was an honest-to-god drag queen, which was pretty amazing to see considering China's blind denial of nontraditional lifestyles. They believe there is only one gay person in the whole of China. Seriously. I would love to teach a college course on tolerance here, stamp out prejudice and racism and general ignorance in weekly 45 minute lectures. If China intends on being a superpower, they need to ditch the saccaharine permanent kindergarten "I love you let's be friends forever" bullshit because that olive branch isn't extended to gays or blacks.

A guy in the club motioned me over, did the thumbwars gesture and jerked a thumb towards the door. I shook my head no and returned to the table. I couldn't be sure if he was a pimp or, considering if it was gay night at the club, if he was trying to initiate a little tearoom trade in the alley. When Heather showed up, I hung onto her a bit to ward him off, whatever kippers he was peddling.

I tried to get my picture with the drag queen, but she threw attitude at me like a molotov cocktail. I didn't know whether to hate it or expect it. We staggered home at ten 'til midnight, limbs loose and heads cloudy, avalnached into sleepdom.