May 25th: basketball americana and ralfing
[ posted by mcdeviltoast ]
Day 251
This week I'm teaching a one-two punch of the "Peanut butter and jelly" song from camp, and time permitting "My Bonnie" with accompanying sitting and standing for the B-words. In the Harry and Monkey class, all the students started screaming in Jellybean's ear when they sang "Jelly." That poor bastard tried putting wads of paper in his ear canals, but it didn't work.
I showed some pictures of the may holiday to spare Jellybean the sonic assault and Emnite told me I was "very bu hao" because there were two pictures of me with Heather. "Why?" I demanded. Either they didn't know Heather was the same girl or you're not supposed to have physical contact with a girl before marriage. Someone in the back called me a playboy. I shook my head. "You guys are not clever. I am not a color wolf." They would be shocked and astonished at the amount of people who have arms around each other in photos the world over. Even more baffling, was before class began I said it was hot and the seeming prudes suggested, "You can take off your clothes." Weirdos.
Rose gave both me and Erin's passports and such back to me while I was eating lunch. So much for the negative prediction that they would hold them hostage until our contracts were up. In one of my classes, a kid gave me two tickets to some NBA deal at Haimen Middle School. I showed them to Mike who conformed that Paul Pierce, whose name and photo were on the ticket, was a heavy and worth checking out. I thought perhaps it would be some interview meet-n-greet and maybe a "don't do drugs" thing, but it would be entertaining no matter what.
After some tent fare (including a draught liter from the kegs) Mike and I headed up to the middle school, presented our tickets and entered the gym, which was very surreal, like someplace transported out of middle America. An exhibition game of sorts was already in progress, perhaps a warm-up show before the guest of honor. We got into the game, relishing seeing fellow countrymen do their thing, I was personally delighted just to see some of my black brothers after a long absence. I've felt like I've been living as a white yolk in a yellow egg here. It made me really appreciate the diversity of America.
It dawned on us as the game was nearing its end, that Paul Pierce was not even there. This was China after all, taking liberty with copyrighted images and text, not knowing they actually meant (and promised) something in English. We laughed about it, met some of the players down on the court. They were here on a two week tour and we were the third and fourth English speakers they had met. A hodge-podge of NBA second-stringers, hopefuls and college grads made up their group, and we invite dthem to the tents for some keg action and conversation. A few of the guys were interested, saying they first had to shower and eat as a group.
Mike and I gave them the directions, then headed back to Dongzhou where we learned Jeni, Heather and Rhys had stayed behind, unknowingly enlisting themselves in a ganbei war purely by being there. Heather looked a little woozy and dragged out the red basin as a precautionary measure. I went to check on Jeni and Rhys, the latter a full liter ahead of the rest, who excused himself to the bathroom and seconds later a sound akin to someone throwing buckets of water against the wall sounded. Poor fella.
Mike and I went down to the tents alone, waited for our basketball bretheren. We decided to have some peanuts and cucumbers, split a liter being gunshy about ending up like the others. After an hour, we realized the chaps were not going to show. They were tired in a strange town, it was a long walk, they knew no Chinese. We decided we'd just finish our food and drink, be on our way.
A table near us was ganbei'ing each other and none looked too enthused about life. One guy vomited on the pavement by his table. The two nearest tables cleared out. He got up, jettisoned an arc of puke that came danergously close to the cooking equipment, and walked down the street cleaning off his glasses, which had sustained a hit in the last torrent of barf. Feckin' lightweights.
Mike and I vacated, called it a night.
This week I'm teaching a one-two punch of the "Peanut butter and jelly" song from camp, and time permitting "My Bonnie" with accompanying sitting and standing for the B-words. In the Harry and Monkey class, all the students started screaming in Jellybean's ear when they sang "Jelly." That poor bastard tried putting wads of paper in his ear canals, but it didn't work.
I showed some pictures of the may holiday to spare Jellybean the sonic assault and Emnite told me I was "very bu hao" because there were two pictures of me with Heather. "Why?" I demanded. Either they didn't know Heather was the same girl or you're not supposed to have physical contact with a girl before marriage. Someone in the back called me a playboy. I shook my head. "You guys are not clever. I am not a color wolf." They would be shocked and astonished at the amount of people who have arms around each other in photos the world over. Even more baffling, was before class began I said it was hot and the seeming prudes suggested, "You can take off your clothes." Weirdos.
Rose gave both me and Erin's passports and such back to me while I was eating lunch. So much for the negative prediction that they would hold them hostage until our contracts were up. In one of my classes, a kid gave me two tickets to some NBA deal at Haimen Middle School. I showed them to Mike who conformed that Paul Pierce, whose name and photo were on the ticket, was a heavy and worth checking out. I thought perhaps it would be some interview meet-n-greet and maybe a "don't do drugs" thing, but it would be entertaining no matter what.
After some tent fare (including a draught liter from the kegs) Mike and I headed up to the middle school, presented our tickets and entered the gym, which was very surreal, like someplace transported out of middle America. An exhibition game of sorts was already in progress, perhaps a warm-up show before the guest of honor. We got into the game, relishing seeing fellow countrymen do their thing, I was personally delighted just to see some of my black brothers after a long absence. I've felt like I've been living as a white yolk in a yellow egg here. It made me really appreciate the diversity of America.
It dawned on us as the game was nearing its end, that Paul Pierce was not even there. This was China after all, taking liberty with copyrighted images and text, not knowing they actually meant (and promised) something in English. We laughed about it, met some of the players down on the court. They were here on a two week tour and we were the third and fourth English speakers they had met. A hodge-podge of NBA second-stringers, hopefuls and college grads made up their group, and we invite dthem to the tents for some keg action and conversation. A few of the guys were interested, saying they first had to shower and eat as a group.
Mike and I gave them the directions, then headed back to Dongzhou where we learned Jeni, Heather and Rhys had stayed behind, unknowingly enlisting themselves in a ganbei war purely by being there. Heather looked a little woozy and dragged out the red basin as a precautionary measure. I went to check on Jeni and Rhys, the latter a full liter ahead of the rest, who excused himself to the bathroom and seconds later a sound akin to someone throwing buckets of water against the wall sounded. Poor fella.
Mike and I went down to the tents alone, waited for our basketball bretheren. We decided to have some peanuts and cucumbers, split a liter being gunshy about ending up like the others. After an hour, we realized the chaps were not going to show. They were tired in a strange town, it was a long walk, they knew no Chinese. We decided we'd just finish our food and drink, be on our way.
A table near us was ganbei'ing each other and none looked too enthused about life. One guy vomited on the pavement by his table. The two nearest tables cleared out. He got up, jettisoned an arc of puke that came danergously close to the cooking equipment, and walked down the street cleaning off his glasses, which had sustained a hit in the last torrent of barf. Feckin' lightweights.
Mike and I vacated, called it a night.
---
[ posted by mcdeviltoast @ 5/25/2005 10:08:00 PM ]
[ permanent link ] 
Post a Comment
<< Home
The dumbtronica act Montana & McDeviltoast, along with their friends, keep each other updated on their activities. Much fun having by all, and Pockys fear for their lives!