April 30th: spy games and tent kegs

Day 226

I shaved off the pencil thin mustache, reduced myself to clean shaven for the first time in 7.5 months. It only works on John Waters. I looked like a 30's villain or a struggling pornographer. It was too ridiculous.

the short-lived pencil-thin

Spent most of the day uploading my CDs to transfer to an mp3 player I was going to purchase until I found out I might only get 30 to 60 songs on one. I typed to Heather "So I wasted my afternoon?"

"Time is never wasted." (She is the kind of person who relishes throwing your own wisdom back in your face when you forget it.)

"Well, then" I typed, "it was spent poorly."

"That may be."

We rode out to look at Walkmen, but they cost as much as the mp3 players. I shrugged. No music for the trip. I'd be more creative that way. While waiting for Mickey to arrive, Rhys, Heather and I watched "Open Water" and ate cumin snacks (the Chinese equivalent of chili cheese Fritos). "Open Water" was poorly written (some laughably bad moments), poorly acted, overrated, but had a theme (getting left behind, being lost) that struck a nerve. Unfortunately a theme does not a movie make, it is merely the skeleton from which you hang the flesh of a greater story. Mike was right, it was not good.

Mickey arrived, so we shut it off halfway through. She wanted to go to the tents to have "rice and dishes" which "all Chinese" are fond of. I went to collect Mike, but Andy was in his room. I couldn't tell Mike with Numbnuts sitting there just itching to invite himself along. We brainstormed ideas of getting the message to Mike covertly, like calling him on the phone (but he would think it was Penny.) I finally thought of something foolproof that would give me a small window to relay the information. I walked down and into Mike's room, said "Andy, I think your phone's ringing."

"Really?"

"Yours or Heather's. I don't know."

He left and I spoke in a spytone to Mike, "We're going to the tents. Mickey's here. Come down and join us."

"Mickey's here?"

"Yeah, I..."

Andy returned. No phone call, he reported. I quickly acted like Mike and I had been discussing Civ, chatting about Turkey or some such. I turned to leave and Mike said he'd be down to see us later. Spy games.

We went to the tents, Mickey saying I was lovely for circumventing the Andy situation. She doesn't care for him, probably because he looks at every creature with a vagina like they were between two pieces of bread. Can't blame her. The tents had kegs, which was a bad idea, but we did it anyway, Rhys and I drinking directly out of our liter pitchers. Keg beer, no matter what the variety, is dangerous. Whether it's the extra carbonation, or the cold steel housing, a magic ingredient is in it that gets you blotto and stabs you awake the next morning with a wicked headache. Keg beer has been the ruin of me at certain farm parties (don't eat roasted marshmallows with it), staggering off and swapping spit with underage girls and staying in Hunter S. Thompson character all night. Oofda.

The liter sizes reminded me of Mecklenburg Gardens, but Spaten Optimator this wasn't. Still, it had more flavor than the standard BBoss fare. Mickey had to leave early because she was tired, but then she's always tired.

Earlier, she and Heather were whispering something and laughing and then wouldn't tell me what it was. This is a gigantic pet peeve with me. To dangle information and then not say. It seems like a game designed to push my buttons and the more frustrated I get, the more it escalates. It doesn't matter how insignificant it is, to not tell drives me up a fucking wall. It sends me back to games of keep-away as a kid, and I'm reduced to that big-headed dork, a joke for the world to pull up a chair and watch me turn red. I hate it.

But I also hate that I'm affected at all by it. It's ego, pure and simple. It's someone not doing what I want them to and me being Zeus throwing thunderbolts when I don't get my way. I have to be mindful of that. No matter what happened to me as a kid, my reaction now is ego-driven and ugly. I apologized. It's hard to be Buddhist-like. Daily struggle.

The rest of the evening gets convoluted. I remember going to Times for ice cream but they were closed. I was insistent everyone look at the cleanest most hotel-smelling bus in China, pictures with a small white puppy. I assume I scaled the gate without injury. An interloper in a dream alley felled me with a blackjack made of sleep.

chinglish shirt

the tent liters: bad idea from the start ('toast n constable rhys)

mickey and heather

a savage den of cutthroat drunkards

constable and lao ban

heather and non-menu item

ATTN: 'toast is on holiday

daily blog postings will resume in a week when i return from my adventures in shanghai, beijing, and nanjing for may festival.

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.

April 28th:aptached Thursday and memory clerks

Day 224

I went to my first class, the Ultraman class and there was a Chinese teacher already there doing a class. I shrugged, the students said "No, this afternoon." Ok. I went to ask Rose about it, but she wasn't in. I went back and did laundry and had lunch.

Jeni popped 'round for tea and we chatted about Chinese kids, various this-that. I repeated myself on the concept of memory, so it must be important enough to document. I think the reason time moves so slow when we're kids (or seems to) is because we haven't formed any memories really. We live the moment viscerally with no comparison to past times. The older we get, the more our minds are filled with memories and we do less living, more filing. We become a file clerk for our own nostalgia, constantly pulling out, putting away, reorganizing, comparing, and we lose out on the moment, so it seems that it went by very fast. How do we shut off our cranial dewey decimal system and get back to living viscerally?

So I went to teach the afternoon triple threat, and class 1 told me I needed to go teach class 4 (Ultraman). The teacher outside class 4 told me I needed to g back to class 1. I told him I just came from there, the students from class 1 pulled me in, convinced the teacher what's what. I ran the class just chatting with the kids about May festival, didn't even get to the game.

Next class (class 1) was the same. It was too hot and the kids were lethargic, so we cranked up the AC, shut the windows and doors, chit-chatted. We talked about how the superstars lip-synced and that was "boo hao." I quizzed them about how old Mr. Willis was, when Mr. Willis's birthday was, where Mr. Willis was from and what the name of Mr. Willis's wife is. (That's the big inside joke, of constantly asking me if I have a wifeand I tease them back; any girl on a folder or on TV I declare "My wife!" In fact, during the tech rehearsalof the big show, class 7 pointed at one of the red-clad string syncers on stage and shouted in unison: "Mr. Willis! Your wife!") Some of the answers were like "S.H.E." and one clever student wrote "Mrs. Willis." The only correct answer in a linguistic way.

The next class told me I missed it. What? But a teacher had just taught it. It was not my turn to teach it, it was just being skipped, so I proceeded to class 6, shaking my head and telling the class I was very confused. We played the game and it was a hit.

After classes, the heat was sweltering. Where did Spring go? As much as I wanted to get out in the sunshine, I'm concerned about sunburn. I don't want to go out until the sun is not directly overhead. Sunscreen is as hard to find as mustard here. Erin's toilet had issues and a plumber was working a snake into it while the desk lady and Chi looked on. It must be difficult being Nigel's wife; it was 4:30 in the afternoon and she was standing in a dressing gown and slippers like it was morning. All she needs is rollers in her hair and a cigarette jabbed in the corner of her mouth.

The shower room across the hall was on, and steam had begun to pour out, adding to the heat and wasting water. I asked Chi if she was going to take a shower, and she said no, but the desk lady would. The desk lady was just standing watching the plumbing proceedings. She further said that the desk lady could not shower until the plumber was done. Ok, but the water was still running, steam billowing out like a bad special effect. It wasn't until I mentioned that water was being wasted that desk lady finally went in and shut it off. Had I not been there, would it have run all day? This didn't even really come under forethought. This was a brand new breed of ignorance.


Erin and I walked to the hotel for dinner and Nigel rode by and bothered us during the homestretch, the excrutiating fop.

A sample of his banality: "I should warn you it is time for the mosquitos. I opened my door last night and there were some dancing on my bed. Literally dancing. You should buy some spray. We have some spray and it works, but you have to leave the room..."

I want to nail a railroad spike into his brain stem every time I encounter him. After dinner, I rode up to the middle school, hung out with the crew, had some Tsingtao Light. Tomorrow Friday already. Another week put to bed. May festival almost upon us.

April 27th: fasting and the lamest show on earth

Day 223

I'm doing a matching game with cards, same as the Valentine's Day game, but with music-related vocab, to tie in with the immense hoopla on our football field. I included an addendum, allowing students to ask if their counterpart had something that began with the same letter, but it threw off one kid who asked, "Do you have something that begins with the letter spotlight?"

Incidentally, I asked the kids if they enjoyed the show and none of themsaid they did. We all agreed the dancers were subpar, there were no superstars, and lip syncing was cheating even if it was a violin. In my second class, i had just taught them the vocab when Steven came in with a pair of binoculars and said, "Mr. Willis, er the parents are standing outside the gate and it's very hot. Shall we er call it a day?" No argument here. I let the rascals loose and I was done teaching for the day. No afternoon classes because of the hoopla.

The sunshine was blazing, the sky cloudless. It was sunburn waiting to happen, so I stayed inside until the afternoon got a little less overhead and severe. I went to the arts building and sneaked in via the outside railing. My voice still isn't a hundred percent. High notes and falsetto blanked due to cleggy drainage, but the practice was more for meditative purposes.

I had decided to fast for 24 hours and it's amazing how your brain is automaically inclined to absently eat. Once you set the fast into motion, you forget about it and then catch yourself: "Time for coffee, No wait, can't. I should really finish that cheese. Aw, fuck. Can't." It becomes a mild struggle with your body and you feel more in control. "We're drinking water and detoxing and giving our organs a break. It's a good thing. You can eat at 7."

Around 3ish, I pedaled up to the middle school where everyone was on the roof. I engaged Heather in some cutthroat badminton, the wind absent for once. Afterwards, we watched "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" tokill time, probably the worst thing you can watch while fasting since the plot is about a couple stoned guys' quest for food.

If you've never fasted, the feelings are like this: The first few hours are all deprogramming, fighting the automation. You drink water like it's food. The next few hours you can feel your body sort of deflate, tighten up. All residual burps or bloating evaporate. Your brain feels a little more focused. It's enjoyable. The last couple of hours, desperation grows. You get a little antsy, impatient. The NEED takes over. Beyond 24 hours, I've deveoped a bad headache, so I never go beyond that.

Rhys, Heather, Jeni and I rode out to Royal Young and got pizzas and company sandwiches, a bowl of pistachios. I bounced in my chair, eyes frantic as Rhys and Jeni pored over the menu in agonizing indecision. "I implore you to be urgent," I managed to say without shouting. I knew I was being unreasonably edgy, from a self-inflicted state, and I reminded myself of that. Once the pistachios came, all was well. I sighed, chewed. It's like the fast never occured except the food tasted really good.

We rode back, hitting the ice cream chap near Shishan Lu, saw that he was watching the hatin'it concert on TV. Doesn't anyone realize they are lip syncing? The shots of the crowds revealed everyone, adults and children, were wving those ridiculous colored light saber things that we Americans only see at the circus. Permanent kindergarten.

Back at the middle school, people were gathered around the big TV at the gate watching it. I got to see Catherine, one of my students go onstage and give this choad in a Chinese kilt a bouquet. He had a glob of ceramics hanging from his ear and a mustache no heterosexual would sport. It's amazing how he was able to fade out his voice right with the music...

We watched "City of God" a Brazilian crime epic based on a true story. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant film. The after-eating euphoria was akin to post-coital bliss and I was soon asleep.

flashback to 2005/04/19: Ruckus Roboticus @ the Southgate House

Hey, last tuesday, DJ Empirical played a surprise birthday party for Chris Schadler, who does the booking at the Southgate House. DJ Empirical invited his friend, Ruckus Roboticus, down to play along, and he got these few pics.

oh yes. i am evil.

why, you ask?

this is why:

oh, yes.

that crazy stAllio! and his cafepress store

so, stAllio! had asked me whether i would mind if he used images of me (that he'd databent) in his cafepress store. of course, i don't care at all, so i said go ahead.

somehow, when i visited the store page, i missed that there were multiple pages, so i didn't initially see the dj empirical poster page. let's see if cafepress will allow hotlinking:

damn nice job, stally. i want one now. is it bad form to have a poster of yourself up in your living room? :)

2005/04/26: miscellany

work was a bit rough today, as i wasn't feeling all that well. i felt better as the day progressed, but i didn't really get back to normal until i got home & took a nap. gabe was supposed to stop by and get my half of the rent for the practice space, but apparently he'd only gotten a couple hours sleep, so he just stayed at home.

i made plans with adam to go over to his plac tomorrow & watch a dvd on his big fancy tv. i think it may be the new dream theater live dvd i have. it's filmed in widescreen, but the disc isn't programmed well, and so my player doesn't letterbox it. phooey.

andrea came over and i cooked rotini and garlic bread, which we ate while watching kaiju big battel. she couldn't stay long, since she had to drive up to chicago for another job interview. that means i won't see her again until monday evening, at the earliest. dammit: i meet a girl, and she ends up out of town a lot for the first couple weeks. oh well. :)

i uploaded some more pics from my hard drive; these are of irene and spencer's show in january. i particularly like the one of irene leaning over the lamp; i think it came out quite nicely.

i'm looking forward to friday: the AWA crew will be in town, playing at the mockbee. exciting. :)

flashback to 2005-01-14: burning star core and irene moon pics

more pics from the hard drive. these are from the burning star core show at the southgate house on 01/14, with one of irene moon's projects, the name of which i can't remember. sorry, irene.

April 26th: unclouded demeanor and gala flop

Day 222

Still felt the dull blah over me like a syrup coating, but by the first class, it was rinsed away. I'm here primarily to teach, and I love it when I interact with the kids and we're all laughing and inadvertently learning. The good feeling and good classes lasted all the way until the apathy crew. They decided to be superdemonic naughty today. I wound up writing Smalls, Noodles and Woody's names on the board, Smalls with three checkmarks behind it. I'm not sure they understand the concept exactly, but they understand it's not good.

I confiscated one Gameboy, two electronic dictionaries (with games on them), two rolled up newspaper megaphones, two magazines, and a metal tin that looked like it housed pomade. Jack started eating a snack in class and I informed him I could smell it. We didn't even make it to the song. I asked them why they were being little hellions and Jack said "There is a party tonight."

"So you have to be naughty now?"

They couldn't spoil my renewed good mood. Perhaps the bad red meat vibe has entirely evacuated. Or maybe it was talking about it that helped. I relished telling them that I'd give their toys and devices back next week and then Smalls protested, "Next week is holiday!"

"Then you'll get it back in two weeks."

Ha! Bastards. The "party" they referred to was a school-only opportunity to watch the big show's dress/tech rehearsal. It was not until 8, so I went to the middle school and played badminton, which the wind ruined. Mike, Heather and I threw the frisbee around instead, then nourished ourselves on Muslim noodles.

Heather and I rode back to my school to find it fortified like a military compound, people pressing at the main gate like it was an embassy. Eva, one of Erin's co-workers said no one was allowed in until the show was over, which was around 10 or so. Even the primary headmaster was not permitted access. Weird.

We pedaled around the back and got let in through the construction entrance, thanks to the guanxi we had built up. We stood on some plastic chairs on the outer ring (5000 kuai for a tiny plastic stool near the front? What a deal!) and watched the debacle. The first bit of stuff we witnessed was a dance routine that was nowhere near ready for a next night performance. The choreographer barked out her criticism, pulling girls out of the front row, putting them in the back, telling them they were doing it "all wrong."

Then, some other dancers, much more polished than the first set, doing a kind of Western-influenced dance with pelvic thrusts cleansed of any kind of sexuality, the "Unthreatening Dance of the Eunuch." When six ladies all clad in red came out pretending to play string instruments and flutes, we had had enough. This huge elaborate production and they can't even find people who can play their own instruments?

This was put on to lure investors to sink money into Haimen. Why didn't they just take the money they spent on this "concert" and sink it directly in? Jesus. I designed my lesson plan, watched a little BBC, then turned in.

April 25th: combatting malaise

Day 221

Since this weekend, I've felt an uncharacteristic malaise, a feeling of stagnancy, impatience, lack of energy, light despair. This is not me. The possibilities: I've developed a chemical imbalance after eating rice at every meal for 7.5 months. That's one theory.

Or it could be malignant homesickness, suppressed by novelty but all the while subdividing beneath the surface. I miss my friends and family back in the states and it grows each week. I feel like I know Haimen as well as I can. I've seen the city limits, bounced around it like a rubber hamster, but the attempts to see the ocean, to get a view of vastness beyond flat rapeseed-blanketed countryside have been thwarted twice now. I feel a little like I'm in the Truman Show dome, and I want out. It only feels real when I venture someplace new, even just Nantong. Haimen's smallness is a comfort, but it's a heavy claustrophobia, in a "rock fever" sense of places like Hawaii.

Or it might be due to the excessive consumption of red meat from this weekend. China is notorious for its inhumanity to animals, perhaps I've absorbed too much bad energy form the four (tasty as they were) beef tenderloins.

Or could it be a symptom of chronic blogging. I've written EVERY day since I got here, whether anything of note happened or not. Since I am now aware of a readership, (subscriptions and all) have I now put pressures on myself to make a dazzling entry each time? Have I changed my perception subconsciously from chronicler to entertainer? Do I feel let down by what actually happens in my life because it might be construed as a boring read?

Whatever the case, at the time of this writing it has subsided somewhat.

Events of the day: badminton, dumplings (twice), "True Romance" director's cut. It is of note to mention I met both the director Tony Scott and Gary Oldman in Moab, on separate occasions. Scott gave me a cigar.

Slept and had aptached dreams.

chicken doing the karaoke

check it: i found this pic on the hard drive & thought i'd upload it:

Yeah. It's Chicken, doing the karaoke at the Golden Lions Lounge, and rocking not only the mic, but also the handlebar mustache.

Go be his friend.

pics from the easter weekend trip to NYC

So, here are some pics from my trip to NYC with Baby Kitty.

The Guggenheim Museum, from across the street

inside the Guggenheim, looking up.

inside the Guggenheim, looking across.

We found this amazing statue when wandering around Manhattan.

i don't know WHAT the deal is, but that's sure a lot of boobs and asscheeks.

This is a fancy building.

Baby Kitty

On the way to the MOMA, we saw this even crazier dissected pregnant lady statue.
fascinating.
and huge.

a different angle. i think she's like 20 - 30 feet tall, though you can't really tell from this pic.

here's one looking up at the fancy building with the pregnant lady in the corner.

this is the easter parade.

i didn't know, but apparently there's a tradition of wandering around in the street by this old church. my friend elizabeth told me she watches the movie every year with her family, and knew exactly what i was referring to when i described this. weird; i had no idea.

Apparently part of the easter parade is wearing these crazy hats. the three white hats shown here each have little fake chicks (i.e., baby chickens) on them.

inside the MOMA:

if you were around me last April when i saw the Cremaster cycle, you'll know how excited i was to actually see one of Matthew Barney's statues that accompany the films.

this is a pic of three simultaneously projected screen tests by andy warhol of various actors.

the famous Warhol Elvis. this thing was way bigger than i'd realized, something like 6 feet.

Magritte's The False Mirror. he's one of my favorite painters, and it was amazing to see some of his work in person.
(The pic is not cropped because i wanted it to look "in context".)

Another Magritte, this one called The Menaced Assassin.

Still another Magritte, The Lovers. This one's a personal favorite; i think i stood there for 15 minutes.

an image doesn't do this piece much justice, nor will my description. It's a Gary Hill video installation in a recessed wall, with some cool ambient sound. Check here for more info.
I really liked this one a lot.

Here's some graffitti we saw all over Manhattan, wherever there were designer clothing stores.

That's all the pics... quite a bit less than last time.

2005-04-23: big fat nothing

yeah, nothing much for me today, really: i watched a couple dvds (Pulp Fiction and Se7en) and did some grocery shopping.

plus, as i hinted in my prior post, i taught aaron how to upload his pics himself. so, there should be many more coming.

test.

hey, this is me testing uploading images directly to blogger so's aaron can upload his own pics.

i think it worked.

sorry about the lack of toast pics.

i've been way behind with this stuff. i have a schload more toast pics to put up.

i really should learn him how to do it. :)

April 24th:Sunday lazy Sunday

Day 220

I coughed myself awake, had some coffee. I walked to the bakery and picked up some sweetbreads. My digestive systems felt a little subpar, likely due to the four beef tenderloins from the buffet. My system has grown accustomed to scant servings of red meat and in one night I try to dine like John Wayne. As the discomfort untied itself, I kept thinking back to all the imopacted beef found in his colon at the time of his death. Tobacco is not a vegetable, Duke.

I spent the day writing, watching films, shifting in my seat as my guts worked through their issues. "Primer" is an excellent film, whereas "The Gods Must be Crazy 2" is worthless. Finally saw the end of "Kung Fu Hustle" which has become one of my favorite new films. Heather and I exchanged our crap copy for a good copy, tried getting tickets for Beijing to Nanjing, but were informed they couldn't arrange that from here.

We ate lunch at Ming Tien (company sandwich!) then returned to her place. Had a ghetto sauna in her bathroom to quell our mutual coughing. I know my stuff is allergy drainage working itself out, which with the steam has cleared up in half the time. I suspect Heather has bronchitis, since she's had a deep cough for about a month now.

The day had been overcast and unpleasant, threatening to rain but never really getting around to it. Nothing to do but stay inside, nurse the guts and chest. After "Bubba Ho-tep" sleep came skulking to spackle our brain with dream putty.

April 23rd: Matt's birthday buffet

Day 219

After securing train tickets to Beijing for May holiday, Heather and I rode to Century Mart and picked up a gift box of Remy Silver Vodka Cognac for Matt's birthday. Then Mike and I played some cutthroat badminton on the roof in the blazing sunshine. The wind played havoc with the shuttlecocks, turning the game into some psychedelic tee ball hybrid. Some students were watching us from their dorms and I would order them to "go do homework and eat snacks."

At 4:30, we all caught the bus to Nantong, and once again, the cab refused to take all five of us in one cab. (A family of four is often seen on a frail scooter, whereas five to a cab is simply unthinkable). Matt didn't answer his door when we arrived, so we tried Ben's and encountered Bruce on his way out. He helped us yell at the right volume and untied Matt and Erin from a suspected post-coital flesh knot.

After a couple beers and meeting some of Matt's college students in a meet and greet icebreaker ("My name is Erin and I like elephants...") we cabbed it over to a five star hotel for the buffet. The interior design was a piecemeal mess, utilizing tricks from Greek, Mesopotamian, (fill in country here) and ending up with a disorganized casino look. It particularly unnerved Rhys who likes his decor pureblooded.

The buffet was outstanding, especially the shrimp and musnrooms, sushi, and miniature beef tenderloins, the likes of which Matt proudly said gave him "meat sweats" last time. The beer was unlimited, nearly to the point of crying "Enough" when a split second after placing the empty down, a full one blossomed in its stead.

I ran into a Western chap while obtaining food and learned he was from Wales. I motioned to our table and pointed out Rhys, a fellow Welshman, not knowing that he would then sew himself to our group. I assumed he would chat a minute or two and return to his table.

The night drew on, the dry heat of the restaurant relentless and murder on my breathing. I had to grab a few minutes of outside time to sweeten my lungs with night. We cabbed it back to Ben's with Len, our 65 year old ex-naval shipbuilder Welshman in tow. Heather assured me it wasn't my fault. I introduced, but Ben and Matt invited him back. That's me, always trying to be a martyr, looking for any possibility of nailing myself to guilt.

The coffee I had drunk with dinner sobered me up to the point where I was just hangdog beat. We cabbed it back minutes after Michael left, passing out in the back and trusting our cabbie not to drive us to a field or off a pier. When we woke at the gates of the middle school, my foot was completely numb, not a fall-asleep pins-n-needles feeling, but no feeling at all. I picked up my leg and it flopped like a corpse. At last, blood began to fill it again and when it was properly capillary drunk, I scaled the gate and surrendered to the thing my body was hungriest for and a buffet couldn't provide: slumber.

April 22nd: law laying and Friday typicalia

Day 218

The first class of the day started poorly. One of the bad kids had locked the door on me as I approached. I went in through the back door, took my position at the pulpit. The bell rang and those few bad students (one of which I'm certain did the door-locking) took off for the WC. I locked them out, wrote on the board 9:50-10:00 WC time, 10:00-10:45 Class time. The students snickered at it during eye exercises. The bad kids soon beat on the doors and milled about outside. I instructed the other students not to let them in.

Halfway through the lesson, the three came back with a teacher. She explained there was a mistake that they had all cleared up. "Oh really?" I said. "They explained that they left for the WC when the bell rang and class began?" I pointed at what I had written on the board and she nodded, bawled them out in Chinese, the left. I hissed for them to sit.

I called on Yao to tell me why he liked and disliked summer. His answers: "I like summer because...(looked around)...play basketball. I do not like summer because....(looked around)...book." I repeated what he had said, shook my head. "That makes no sense. You are a bad student. Class, this is what happens when you tell him what to say. He becomes lazy."

I then called on another kid I knew to always receive answers from the class and his responses were as nonsensical as Yao's. Another student gone rotten because of laziness.

The last two classes were legend as usual, but I felt bad I couldn't really sing with them. The Jimmy/Pete class tried to teach me a Chinese song, then I finally had to cut class short because I desperately needed to urinate, full of tea and water that I was.

The crew had our usual sheep place la zi ji ding, then we watched the gunfight ballet of John Woo's Hong Kong crime classic "Hard Boiled." I nodded off a little during it, courtesy of the hot toddy soporifica.

April 21st: fun tyrant and new bike

Day 217

The Ultraman class could have been better today, or else the toll on my voice and sinuses is making me less patient. After lunch I went to the hotel for two cups of coffee and try to get less medicine-headed for the triple-threat of afternoon classes.

The best response I got to the "why you like summer" comment was: "My name is Summer, and I like myself." The next class still hounded me about playing football even though the field was clogged up with an immense Wembley-sized stage and lighting rig for a concert next week. Apparently, the "gold flower festival" is not about harvesting rapeseed, but about trying tolure investors to Haimen. The concert features many 'superstars" (but not S.H.E.), and in preparation, the town is repainting intersection stripes and bringing out the flowers. It reminds me of "Merano" the first song in "Chess", all about a city's jubilation over hosting the Chess tournament, gushing and self-promoting to a fault.

In the last class, a shrimpy little dude up front was making comments to his friend about me, pointing and snickering. So before class even began, he was on my list. When it came time to ask what they like about summer, I began with him, and then he made the mistake of trying to trawl for answers by looking at his classmates. I told them not to tell him the answer, that it made him lazy, recapping my statements from last week. I finally got out of him he didn't like summer.

"Why don't you like summer?"

He looked around again, and finding no help, ting bu dong'd. That would not do.

"Do you understand me?" I demanded.

He looked around.

"Are you a bad student?"

"Yes."

"Are you a lazy student?"

"Yes."

"Then get out. I will have no lazy and bad students in my class."

I pointed at the door, told him to get out, and after some urging by his classmates in Chinese, shuffled out.

I got right back into the lesson and damn if all the students were golden. However, when it came to the "swimming pool" song, some students weren't doing the hand motions. I called out one kid in the back, made him come up front. "Why aren't you having fun with the rest of us?"

"(Chinese)."

"In English."

"Not like to."

"You don't like to do it?"

"No."

I gestured toward the door. "Then get out!"

He beat his chest in fright and alarm, shook his head. "Oh, you want to have fun with us?" He nodded. "Ok, let's do it again."

So instead of doing the hand motions in the back where no one was watching him, he had to do them up front where everyone could laugh at him. I'm an iron-fisted fun tyrant. They can be bored in other classes, mine are the number 1 lucky best favorite fun classes in China!

Heather dropped by with a surprise for me: a new bike. When we had attempted the last ocean excursion, we traded bikes for a bit and the little time she spent on mine was hellish enough to warrant a drastic purchase of this sort. I was very touched, and relieved that Iwould never have to mount that little yellow piece of demon excerement again. I could let Erin have it. She's micro, so it probably wouldn't cause as much knee discomfort for her.

We tried the train ticket place to get our May festival reservations, but it was closed when we got there. Tree dumplings were had for dinner with Rhys and Jeni, an early meal before Rhys went to deal with the Koreans. Heather and I rode out and got some DVD's, finally the long-sought "Kung Fu Hustle" was in our grasp.

We played 500 and drank hot toddies (with newly acquired scotch from Times), tried to prolong my voice for one more day of teaching. When everyone was back, we turned on "Kung Fu Hustle" and it was one of the craziest films I've seen in a long time: Raimi influences abound, as do Chaplin and Tarantino. However, it glitched right before the end, to the mutual groans of everyone present. We tried playing it on Mike's machine and got another two minutes further, but then glitched out again. Crappy.

Heather's hot water heater is amazingly hot and plentiful, and I stood in the bathroom with the shower on breathing in the steam right before bed to loosen up muck in my head and chest: a ghetto sauna. Had bizarre "Kung Fu Hustle" inspired dreams.

2004-04-20: CityBeat, Living Room, and stuff

no time to post now: i just finished (mostly) making the living room look like a living room, with a couch and everything! it's hela crowded, and has that dorm room look (stuff crammed everywhere and nothing matching anything else), but it's there.

plus, my second article for CityBeat was published today. click here for the online version. it's an article about Roesing Ape, a cincinnati experimental musician.

i guess this means i officially write for citybeat now, huh? weird.

April 20th: pigment fuss and Greek epic blunders

Day 216

This week's lesson is all about swimming and such, with related vocab and the "swimming pool" song as a finale. I first quiz them as to why they enjoy summer and a few of them said they didn't. One boy answered, "I do not like summer because I am a yellow person and in summer I am a black person." I glossed over it saying, "Ah, so you don't want to get burned." He nodded. Whew.

I didn't want to get into a possible discussion about racism because my kids would be lost and I'd be fighting generations of deep-seeded ignorance. There is a quote from a Chinese college student stating: "There is no racism in China because there are no black people in China." Riiiiiiiight. Even if that bit of nonsense held water, I have seen first-hand on the BBC, anti-Japanese protestors exclaiming into the camera "I hate-a Japanese!" It seems two indoctrinated bits of school memorization are "Mao is a great man" and "Japan is bad." Whatever happened to "I before E except after C"?

Another reason I didn't want to prematurely leap onto the soapbox is my lad probably meant it as he didn't want to be dark. The Chinese equate tans with being a farmer, so the more white you are, the more wealthy you likely are. One trip down the supermarket's beauty aisle reveals all manner of skin-whitening products. The men who fancy themselves well-to-do will grow out their pinky nail (no matter how grimy it becomes) to prove they don't use a shovel. My little boarding school quipster was most likely railing against farmerhood. I would have been lecturing at the wrong venue. China's veneration of the NBA will probably soften their perspective some, after all, if it's ok for national hero Yao Ming to high-five a soul brother, why not the rest of them?

In my last class, a boy was sitting in the back room by the water cooler, clearly separated from the other students. "Why is he back there?" I asked. No one said anything, a few laughed. One kid answered in Chinese. "In English!" (my battle cry) A few said "Sahs. Sahs."

"What?! SARS?"

They nodded, "Outbreak."

Then they started laughing. They had fooled Mr. Willis. The kid was sent back there for talking. Little bastards. I was proud of them. I didn't think they had it in them.

I ate in the dining hall, chain-drank tea trying to get my sinuses back under control and stave off losing my voice. I rode up to the middle school just ahead of a storm that was coming in. I always like the suspense that precedes it: the stillness, distant lightning flashes (which I now have to second guess as fireworks), the sudden bursts of warm wind carrying a peal of thunder on its wings. It's a kind of doomsday exhiliration.

I sat with the crew at the blue pacman, then afterwards we gathered in Heather's to watch "Alexander." It's been said that Oliver Stone has had this project in the works for years and I think ambition blinded him. Some moments are agonizingly formulaic (the breaking of the wild horse, for one) and not worthy of an auteur like Stone (this is the same chap who made "U-turn" and "Natural Born Killers" after all). There is the obligatory "St. Crispin's Day" speech ripoff where the leader on horseback is rallying his army with a spirited glory monologue. (It seems contrived in every film but Lord of the Rings). Why did the cast have Irish accents except Angelina Jolie, who as Montana pointed out had a Romanian accent. Rhys said we ought to forgive her since it was at least some sort of Balkan tongue. Oh well.

After three hours we all wound down and turned in. Mike had disappeared earlier, but then he was five drinks ahead of everyone else and was entitled.

April 19th: nasal oppression and suicidal electronics

Day 215

All the biking around in damp haze and smoke from random people burning stuff has caused me nasal oppression. Mornings are a struggle to breathe as I expel great peridot gobs of muck from my sinuses. Pleasant. It hasn't had me in the best mood.

Went to the hotel for lunch to see to get our order from the day before right. This time, they brought out the chicken sandwiches, but their feet-dragging caused Heather to have to box hers up and speed back to the middle school for a class observation (which turned out to be cancelled). Rose slid a note under my door the day before reading "David, no classes tomorrow because of exams. Come to my office and get your salary." Unexpected day off, huzzah! The weather was perfect for staying indoors and doing laundry, catching up on writing, which I did.

When dark fell, I worked out my lesson plan (swimming etc.) and Heather asked if she could borrow my CD player to do the "All Together Now" lesson. I picked it up and the bottom felt wet. I thought maybe the snow globe near it had broken, but it seemed the wetness was contained within. I opened the battery port and a bunch more fluid spilled out. Uh oh. The batteries had self-combusted from a combination of cheapness and idleness. When I bought it at Best Buy, I had bought an insurance thingy with it, which I rarely do, perhaps I had foreseen this disaster. The trick is now to find that piece of paper in all my stuff when I get back before it expires.

I rode over to the middle school and ate some strange popsicles, watched "12 Monkeys" (why did Brad Pitt not get an Oscar nod?) became horizontally wake-deprived.

April 18th: Errol Flynn and bike ride to ocean part deux

Day 214

Woke, had some bakery goodness, wrote a little. The tree dumpling place was out of the usual pork ones, so Heather and I rode to the hotel for the legendary chicken sandwiches. After a half hour wait, they brought us company sandwiches. When I went outside, the wind had blown my bike over and the front mud guard was bent against my tire. What else could go wrong?

I took a shower at my place and shaved my fu manchu into an "Errol Flynn."

Perhaps a change in facial hair would change my luck as well. We rode out on our second attempt to reach the ocean. This time, we took the definite river road instead of the hopeless switchbacks. Just a bit on from the levee where we had our picnic last time, road veered sharply left and led us past some factories, chemical plants and such. We turned down one lane that deposited us on a dirt road that snaked along the riverside. Grey sand and filthy-looking water lined the banks, victims no doubt of the surrounding industry. At least the sun was shining.

After a few kilometers of sidewinding, we opted for the nearby paved road, which had more traffic, but was a straight line. As we got on the road, a couple motorcyclists engaged Heather in conversation that amounted to them telling us the ocean was 100 kilometers away and then they laughed at us.

We aborted the ocean venture yet again, turned 'round and stopped at a roadside mom-n-pop grocery, and instantly gathered a crowd. One chap in particular who told us he was the protector of the peace and had a communist party belt buckle questioned the many differences of America and China (Did we have rapeseed oil? Farms? Were the houses nicer in America?)

Catching a cab back,we had the driver stop at the TV tower so we could climb it, but it was locked and we couldn't very well hop the gate under the watchful gaze of the construction workers tarring the roundabout.

We played badminton on the roof, but the wind kept sending the shuttlecocks over the side. The Errol Flynn was no more lucky than the fu manchu. I went and practiced songs for a while, then Heather and I caught some dinner at the tents since the tree dumpling place couldn't be bothered to make any more dumplings all day.

I rode back, worked on blog catch-up, watched a bit of BBC, laughed at people gathered outside the Sistine chapel waiting for smoke. Dorks. Slept like a cloud stapled to velvet.

April 17th: Hangzhou and back

Day 213

I woke in the morning, took a shower in our room's brand new shower booth which looked like an execution gas chamber. The water droplets fell from a circle in the ceiling (like gas pellets?) as you staredout of concave glass doors.

Heather and I went in search of coffee. I remembered seeing a "Blenz" by the lake the day before, so we headed there, but they opened at 10am. We swallowed our pride and headed towards Starbuck's. That wasn't opening until 9am. What kind of crazy country doesn't provide people with coffee in the morning? Traffic was nuts already, so it's not like the customer demographic wasn't about.

I took a deep breath, asked for universal forgiveness and went to (shudder) McDonald's. Beggars can't be choosers. I woke early, walked a couple miles; Mr. Willis was damn sure gonna have some goddamned coffee or he was gonna cut someone. We walked back and I decided for whatever reason I needed to try the ice cream bar called "the Black" which despite it nutty chocolate coating and purple ice cream tasted exactly like corn.

We walked back past tai chi groups, some with swords and fans, some with nothing at all. Groups of senior citizens were stretching (those little hobbit-sized grannies are limber!), and ballroom dancing to horrible Chinese pop songs.

Once back at the hotel had some tea, bread and honey. We tried to take a cab to the Lingyin Buddhist temple, but our cabbie dropped us off near some park saying he could go no further, that cabs weren't permitted. We hopped a very crowded bus and rode it five stops to the end of the line. I made it my mission to make this one old guy smile and it worked. I gave him a plastic rooster and told him Xienien Kuai le! We thumbs-upped each other when I got off the bus.

The temple entrance was overrun with people and touristy merch booths hawking bottled water and camera goods. A taste of what's to come when I go to Beijing I'm sure. After securing tickets we hiked our best away from the madding crowds, reached a peak to discover the view of the temple below was obscured by trees. Hordes of Chinese were crowding for a photo op with painted red characters on a rock. It seems to be a Chinese trait to "prove" where you've been with pictures rather than snapping something interesting. (Even at the lake, people were going apeshit to pose in front of a sign that read "West Lake.")

Once at the temple grounds, we had to cough up more kuai to get into the main part. Each building housed statues, ceiling tiles and intricate wooden-tiered chandeliers more impressive than the next (including a 24 meter tall statue made of camphor wood), but the anthill persistence of the crowds detracted from the beauty. Many nationalities perused the wonders, but the Chinese tourists were the ones taking flash pictures where they weren't supposed to, touching things that said "Don't touch", shouting inside the temples, decorating everything with ignorance and irreverence.

It took many deep breaths sometimes to keep centered and mellow, but I did it. Afterwards, we took a cab to a restaurant called Mohammed and gorged on authentic Middle Eastern cuisine while the TV behind us blared the last fourth of "Deep Rising." The "braising lamb" was the best, the sauce tasting similar to Cincinnati chili.

We all sat back and shook our heads, the meal was a little TOO good. How could we possibly be in China and have Middle Eastern fare of this caliber? We obtained bus tickets back that would only take us to Nantong, but would only be four hours instead of seven. The quality of the coach was remarkable, a complete 180 from the day before. We passed through Suzhou, went over the night ferry, arrived in Nantong and had nachos.

All of us were feeling exhausted but still found energy to have a couple drinks in the City Hunter Pub. Queen's Greatest Hits 2 was on the hifi, and a fat American was trying to hit on Sunny at the bar, leering and slobbering his way through what he believed to be his best and most eloquent woo, sounding more like a quiltwork of Hollywood's worst shit dialogue, but without structure or semblence of panache. He was being a bad ambassador and needed a knife in the ribs.

I lulled a bit on the cab ride back, barely remember scaling the Dongzhou gate and crashing in Heather's room.

April 16th: the road to Hangzhou

Day 212

Woke at 5am, had some coffee and Bailey's, some bakery goodness and we all groggily made our way out the front gate. I was amazed Rhys was conscious and had the motor skills for bipedal locomotion. The cabbie we got actually had some cabdriver savvy and guided us through the empty Haimen streets at an action film pace. At one point he launched us over a small mound which sent my stomach to the basement floor. Not good.

He got us there in decent time and we boarded our coach, easily claiming the title of most ghetto bus in Haimen if not all of China. Filth-ridden seats that smeared my white T-shirt with dirt streaks, uneven floors that would have felymore at home on a neglected houseboat, and great holes filled with litter in the sides of the interior as if they'd taken anti-aircraft flak and only repaired the outer skin. At least it would only be a four hour bus ride, though.

Heh. It took 7 hours to get there. Seems we took the slow bus that made every backwater stop along the way,dropping off and picking up boxes from companies too cheap to send via China Post. The shocks on the bus were in such disrepair or nonexistence that both Heather and Jeni remarked an essential piece of riding equipment should be a sports bra.

Once there, we experienced some static checking into the hotel. Rhys and Jeni's pal Jessie had been kind enough to reserve us a couple rooms at a fairly decent place that was ultra strict about paperwork. Rhys and Jeni had not brought their passports (keeping them under lock and key understandably after the Shandong mishap) and the staff ladies (who seemed more interested in keeping their arms crossed and crunching on nuts) fancied themselves Gestapo checkpoint guards bent on halting the proceedings unless they proved they were themselves.

After a couple hours of bad noise, they let them check in by having Allen phone in and give the exact same information (passport numbers and such) they had already given. We got the last two rooms in the place on the 8th floor which was being renovated. The hallway carpet was sprinkled with drywall dust, strewn with electrical wiring, great rectangular holes in the walls as if sledgehammered out by a fresco artisan with ADD.

Heather and I's room smelled like something had been spilled in the carpet and was trying its best to ferment into some chemical weapon. I lit a few matches, shrugged. At least we were off the bus. We wanted to watch the sunset from West Lake, a nearby popular feature of Hangzhou, so we set out, guided by Jessie, accumulated beer and ice cream bars on the way.

The streets on the way to the lake were slightly reminiscent of Chengdu, but with more trees and less coal-tasting air. Stores with sincere titles like Unisex and Yuppie passed by until at last we reached the grand lakefront, secured a recently vacated bench and began to relax. We had no opener for the beers so a geat deal of banging them on the bench edge and jimmying with keys was needed before achieving success.

West Lake vista

Heather and 'Toast Manchu

Jeni-O and that dashing lovable hungry bastard Rhys

the sketchy guy who sketched

Many boats dotted the lake, some self-piloted, some with gondoliers and roofs. A bridge with many balloon-kite fixtures was along one edge, misty mountain outlines beyond with pagodas and towers distant. Serene if not for the consistent fray of pedestrianity. A gent sat by us and drew an ink landscape drawing, declared that he wouldn't speak to Japanese people, admonished me for speaking English (via Heather's transalation: "In China, speak Chinese"), asked for some beer (I gave him the rest of mine) and after making fun of the handrolled cig Rhys gave him ("for a woman, small") he smoked it, realized the quality and asked for an additional one. At this point he took his leave and we left our perch.

Jessie led us to a restaurant where we sampled such delights as lotus root stuffed with sticky rice, potatoes and peppers, a corn kernel tostada of sorts, two savory pork dishes, and the signature dish (a Hangzhou delicacy) Beggar's chicken. It's wrapped in lotus leaves and mud, baked until the meat is incredibly moist and soft. Stunningly delicious, a meal that raised the bar on all Chinese dinners to come. It was a little too good.

a famished Jeni-O and Jessie

Beggar's chicken banquet

Afterwards we went to the night markets, a single restored traditional Chinese street lined with shopfronts, most of which touristy and equipped with shopkeepers barking their wares like carnies on the midway if you gave a shop a couple seconds glance too long. After some refreshment, we were all starting to lose our steam, as it had been an eary day and a bus ride twice as long as we were expecting.

I stopped in a woodcarving shop and found a unique Buddha statue to grace my mantle. He has a content expression rather than outright laughing, unvarnished, and a woodgrain spiral right on the top of his head, a perfect place to rub, and with time the hand oil from touching it will stain the spiral and make it look even better. One of my goals in coming to China was to find a unique Buddha statue and now I had accomplished it. Huzzah!

I picked up a couple more items on the way out for Steve and my dad, then we said goodbye to Jessie, thanked her for all her help, cabbed it back and crashed hard.

my viewers are hip.

apparently, according to the recently reset site statistics for this domain, most of the hits are non-IE browsers.

you guys are hip, man. i like that. i myself just added a Firefox hit.

April 15th: Panda Sex and hunchback floor-shows

Day 211

In the first class, Sleepy LaBeef before class even started was hounding me about the book I confiscated from him last week. "What book?" I asked.

"Panda."

"Panda what?" I teased.

He sat, all disheartened. I pulled the book from my bag, held it up. "This one? Panda Sex? Panda SEX? Is this your book, Sleepy?" (Note to readers, "Panda Sex" is a collection of short plays and such, with pictures of DJs, nothing unsavory save the title.) For the rest of class he kept cutting out pictures and gluing them in a book. I had to take his scissors away, but he kept gluing. I wrote his name on the board and it accumulated two checkmarks, a totally empty threat used by teachers everywhere, but it got the other students interested.

After lunch, Heather stopped by and observed my last two classes, which I enjoyed. I wanted validation that I was indeed doing a good job, it felt too easy, like I was getting paid for doing nothing. She got a note from one girl which read: "Heather you are beautiful. Good luck to you." I was a little worried that they would be too distracted by her presence to concentrate, but they were excellent little citizens. Jimmy interrogated her before class through a window, introduced himself. DJ Wishywashy mocked eating worms, class was its usual delight.

Heather made a couple suggestions for improvement including doing some light grammar corrections that although I've been instructed to just work on speaking, could see her point of letting something little slide which could snowball into a habit hard to break.

We rode up to play badminton, had some highballs, basked in looming weekend-offness. When night fell, Rhys, Jeni, Heather and I rode to the bakery to get food for the morning and the bus to Hangzhou. Then, on to the tents on the far side of town to see Mr. Yeah, get some greasy tent food. Mr. Yeah hooked us up with peanuts, insistently gave us cigarettes, nodded and yeah'd everything we said. He embraced and kissed both me and Rhys on the cheek upon departing.

We hit the club so as to have an early night. Since the club closes at midnight, we end up heading home and sleeping then. If we were to stay in and watch movies, we'd most likely be up until 2 or 3am. The floor show was outright disturbing, so much so that I had to go stand outside for a bit. The Chinese Michael Jackson impersonator was bad enough, doing his three learned moves ad nauseum to "Billie Jean", then a guy pretending to be a crippled drooling hunchback came out to be verbally assaulted and physically intimidated to the delight of the crowd. I didn't know what they were saying, so it was all just shouting syllables, abuse, and jeering laughter, very psyche-damaging.

We exited right before DJ Marco started again. The dance hordes went one way, we went the other. We retired, ready to wake upon the toll of the 5am bell.

April 14th: Yanni debate and broken racquets

Day 210

The dreaded Thursday classes went well for the most part. Ultraman class once again proved that juinor 2 classes aren't always monstous.

Rhys and Jeni swung by for tea, cheese and pineapple (procured from the dining hall). We sat, had a lovely chat, then they pedaled on and I attempted to play piano, but some sort of desk dispersal was happening at the arts building and it was overrun with shrieking primary kids, a blur of red neckerchiefs and green tracksuits.

I went to see if the tower was open this time and it was to my delight. I went to the top and took some pictures of the surrounding rapeseed fields, intensely yellow rectangles dotting the horizon.

The first class after lunch had a 180 attitude change from the previous week. I guess they didn't want to sit quietly and do another add-a-sentence story. At the end of class, they wanted me to sing a song and shoved a music book into my hands. I told them I didn't know these songs and flipped the pages, found a picture of Yanni and cracked up. I pointed at the picture and they chimed, "Yanni." I felt it was my duty to inform them, "Yanni is bad."

They: "Yanni is good."
I: "Bad."
They: "Good."
I: "BOO HAO!"
They: "HAO!"

Then we all laughed and the bell rang. In the next class everything ground to a halt because one boy was letting the otehr kids answer for him, enabling his laziness and thus descent into bad studentdom. I had to tell them repeatedly not to tell him what to say because then he didn't learn English. I asked him what his name was and he looked to the others. I asked if he understood me and he looked to the others.

I told them in all sincerity "I know you want to help your friend. It is a nice thing to do, but when you tell him what to say, he becomes lazy. He goes 'I do not need to think, they will tell me what to say.' You are helping him become lazy when you tell him what to say. A lazy student is a bad student, ok?"

The room was so quiet you could hear cobwebs being knit. The next class was better, still had a couple students being lazy but they got the message faster than the previous class.

Afterwards, I rode up to the middle school and played badminton with Mike and Heather. Another racquet couldn't withstand Mike's swing ferocity and it the paddle part shot out of the handle and struck the clothes rack we use as a net. Like Mike said, it was lucky it didn't hit anyone. That thing bulleted.

I had a couple gin-n-icy mint Sprites and then Heather and I went to meet Erin at the hotel for dinner. She was actually in town for once and since her bike got stolen at the bus station, she had to walk and the hotel was closest. My stomach conducted a knot-tying lesson for the other organs and with each bit of pain I could name them: "Half hitch, granny, RRGGGHHH, double windsor..." Icy Mint Sprite is fired.

To our surprise and delight, the hotel actually had the chicken sandwich Andy ordered the one time. I split it with Heather and damn was it amazing. I felt bad that Mike wasn't with us, but we took pictures for posterity.

Afterwards Heather and I watched "Maverick" but I was pleasantly robbed of consciousness before the end.

back in business

check this out:

i just took this dead guy out of my computer and replaced him with a new one.

so, i have a lot of catching up to do, blog-wise, including a lot of special pics from the toast. also, there's that citybeat article....

bye for now, though: i'm hungry.

i'll be back soon

i got a new power supply this morning on the way to work, so hopefully tonight things will be back to normal.

i have another citybeat article to write soon, so i hope this fixes the problem. :)

April 13th: pictures in menu are different than they appear

Day 209

One class has locked onto the word "also" for some reason and will pre-emptively say it back to me even if I never utter it. I kept telling them I didn't say it, then when I had the occasion to use it, I did a grand bellow and nearly received a standing ovation for it. I think it tickles them because the "o" has a quasi-fourth tone pronunciation, and thus soudns vaguely Chinese.

In between third and fourth classes I played soccer with the Harry and Monkey class. We only had 20 minutes or so to play and they were piddle-farting around trying to choose sides by some odd-even hand game. I walked into the fray and shoved the group apart, left side was battling right, now let's go! But our play was cut short anyway by some Hainan Middle School interlopers doing their "physical exam" in matching tracksuits.

After classes, Heather and I went to the post office to mail a box to my parents, then to the bank to exchange money, both of which took far too long to transpire. My irritability stememd somewhat from a sugar crash, but was quickly remedied by a roll from the bakery. For some reason it triggers a memory of the first time I had heard of "blood sugar." My mother was diagnosed with low blood sugar and I remember my young mind thinking she was sick, but man what a way to be sick! She got to eat Twinkies and drink cranberry juice! My brother and I weren't allowed to pilfer Mom's treats, because that Twinkie might just save her life!

We saw a Westerner walking down the street, but when we tried to find him, he had disappeared. Perhaps he was a mutual mirage brought on by the desire for efficient customer service. We played badminton, ran to Times for some toilet paper, snacks and ice cream.

When night fell, all of us rode out to Pizza House, a restaurant we had seen when on the kite search and wanted to check out some time. After a lot of static and broken dialogue, we ordered the rest of the pizza crusts they had on stock (so sorry for the poor saps who came in behind us). We failed to learn the Royal Young lesson: picture will not necessarily match actual item. The chicken fingers I ordered turned out to be on-the-bone, and ever since a dream-vision I had of jackals tearing apart a gazelle in close-up I have not been able to eat anything off-the-bone, the thought of it turns my stomach.

The "pepperoni" pizzas we ordered had everything on it, even pineapple. We shook our heads. At least the Coke was Coke. As we ate, we did discover there was a layer of pepperoni under all the other crap, and humble pie was our dessert. I applauded the chef guy when he came out.

We stood outside for a bit and I yelled Billy Squier's "The Stroke" at nearby people trying to get the awful songs we were subjected to in the restaurant out of my head. Curiously, The Cardigans and The Cranberries surfaced on their play selection. Odd. As we rode back, we stopped by the tents outside the bazaar and said hi to Mr.Yeah. He smiled and tried to give us all cigarettes, I thanked him and put it behind my ear. He gave me a hug when we left. All he can say is "yeah" and "ok" but this guy loves us.

We cozied up in Heather's room and watched Mike's copy of "Meet the Fockers" which was probably just as good as the original. Very painful style of humor, a mix or mortification and embarrassment. Who knew Streisand could actually be low key?

Sweet, lovely sleep. I'm beginning to understand why it's a hobby here.

April 12th: rain lesson and Woodys

Day 208

The rain lesson is a good one. I only had to use "Singin' in the Rain" for the first class of the day; the rest stretched all the way out without having to resort to it. I thought of more things while I taught and forged the lesson as I went. I should write an ESL lesson plan book, these are gold.

After lunch I went and practiced in the arts building and my voice was very strong. I achieved a kind of meditative state which I sorely needed. The reverb in there is ideal and I keep forgetting how fortunate I am to have such a space availble to me, except then I remember that it's not, that they keep it like a maximum security prison after dinner for reasons known only to the staff.

The apathy crew was mostly behaved, although I had to make all of them stand up for talking. Making individuals stand didn't work, so I approached it from a platoon standpoint. I made the group suffer for one person's mistake in hopes the group will change that person's behavior.

Up front Jack was pointing and laughing at the kid standing in the next row. I looked over and the kid had a magazine over his groin. Seems the lad had sprouted an erection and was catching hell for it from Jack. The boy didn't seem mortified, he was grinning, seemed inconvenienced more than anything. I pretendedI didn't know what he was talking about and continued the lesson, trying to stifle the riotous laughter like a pack of idling racehorses in my chest. At the end of class, when I learned the kid had no English name, I dubbed him "Woody."

Heather dropped by and we went for sausage noodles at around 6. She had a dizi lesson so I hung out in her room, watched the Queen LIve at Wembley DVD Mike had picked up for me in Nantong. Rhys and I got a crate of beer each, he Tsingtao, myself the cucumber stuff, whcih seems to be the hot new product in town.

Heather joined us, and then Jeni and for a while we discussed who the fuckstain of the global community was, then watched "Toy Story" (My day is filled with Woodys) I passed out before the end.

issues? i have a subscription!

a) i fixed the blog. as stAllio correctly pointed out, sensory research's server upgrade changed the directory where public files are stored, thus rendering blogger confused. so, mcdeviltoast, if you wondered, that's what the deal was, and (as you can see) it's fixed.

b) the reason i didnt notice was that my power supply on my home PC died. ugh. no internet all weekend is killing me. i have to go get it replaced.

April 11th: day of boredom births rain lesson

Day 207

Slept until 10:30ish, wrote, tried to listen to Jenn's radio show, but the server was being wonky. Planned on a bike ride, but weather had other plans. Overcast, rainy, generally unpleasant.Entertained the idea of doing laundry, but couldn't quite be bothered enough.

Had cheese and crackers for lunch. The weather gave me an idea for this week's lesson plan: rain. Vocab, phrases, interrogation of what is good and bad about rain, activities, and finish it with the song "Singin' in the Rain."

I rode up to the middle school and rallied the troops for tree dumplings. We toasted to the 12 more weeks together and 8 years of Jeni's cancerlessness. Heather and I watched "Vertical Limit" and then I pedaled home, watched BBC for a bit. A textbook that whitewashes some of Japan's past atrocities has sparked a shitstorm of anti-Japanese sentiment. In Beijing, the Japanese embassy was vandalized. I'm curious what the textbook said that has the Chinese frothing so.

I retired and slept hard.

April 10th: fu manchu and Sunday drowse

Day 206

I woke, blogged, shaved my goatee into a fu manchu. I crack up when I see myself in the mirror. It's such a tough guy look and thus absolutely hilarious on me. All I need now is a toothpick and a Trans Am.

Heather stops by and we play badminton over the volleyball nets on the playground. Wind and hunger still our play, we adjourn to the hotel for a bite and then back to Heather's to watch films and relax. I think the bike ride from the day before had sewn residual exhaustion in our limbs and minds.

We watched the Star Wars trilogy, rallied the troops for dinner. we rode out for noodles at the sausage place, but it was closed. Plan B was the restaurant above the bakery. We were delayed en route when Jeni had a bird WC on her head, which my students tell me is bad luck. A table to accomodate all five of us was taken by an unreasonable couple. They certainly didn't need all that space and there was a table for two right next to it. I pointed thumbs-down at them and told them they were very bad eggs.

We were led upstairs to a wooden cafeteria-looking place, all the rising heat from the kitchen captured up there in a sticky cloud. The walls were filled with Chinese chracters, some Chinglish cards (I like lemon. I hope the lemon make all of the happy like some too.) and a Salinger-esque "Fuck you" scrawled near an "I love you," a post-modern cave-drawing argument.

A man nearby told me, "I know your face." My fu manchu was not even a day old yet. "You work at the experimental school. I see you in the dining hall." He was a senior politics teacher named John, and he introduced us to his wife and daughter, though not by name. Crazy.

We pedaled back, got an ice cream outside of the gate (mine tasted like buttered popcorn). We watched "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The look of the film was incredible and paid homage to the Flesicher Superman cartoons of the 40's as well as big RKO productions like "King Kong." Brilliant. The end glitched so we missed out on the last line and every time we scanned it back for another go at it, we got a slightly different ending. We cracked ourselves up doing that for a bit, then I pedaled on home, watched BBC for a while (middle-east trouble, Pope still dead, the "news" should be called "olds") and dreamt.

April 9th: bicycle excursion towards beachdom

Day 205

Today, Heather and I ventured out on bikes to find the ocean. Presumably, if we reach the river and follow it east, we'll get there. The day was hazy, overcast, and a little windy. There is a road we knew for certain led to the river but it would have been backtracking from where we started, so we rode out and tried the most promising-looking paved road parallel to it. This led us to a series of little villages, factories and switchbacks.

Haimen prides itself as the cleanest city in China, but it's dependent on where you put the city limits. Ponds and cropland overrun with garbage were at every turn. It's like the Chinese are aware of the landfill concept, but not exactly how to put it into practice. The modus operandi must be "fill the land" with garbage. Great blue trucks carrying coal and sand trundled by, stirring up dust for us to choke on.

As much as we penetrated into the countryside, there seemed to be an invisible barrier that kept us from the river. Roads would seem to go there, then chicken out, or were stopped by gates and walls of factories. As we snaked along a chicken plant, a little rain sprinkled down. When I was young, I loathed getting rained on, it seemed like such a failure. It was like a pie-in-the-face from nature. Now, I take in stride as part of the adventure. Once you're wet, you can't really get any wetter.

Th bumpy dirt road we were on took us past some water buffalo lounging in a paddy. As I took pictures, Heather noticed the road at last joined us up with the river road. Finally! The sprinkling ceased and we biked past more coal factories and a canal port. We pulled off and fashioned a picnic up on the levee of cheese, crackers, pepperoni and mustard.

We were joined by a tiger-striped toad, then another, then another. Small wild creatures are only cute until they really start to outnumber you. The rain came back, this time with a vengeance. We hurriedly packed up our picnic, laughing and shrieking, tumbling off the levee vainly searching for shelter. We hailed one of the blue trucks and Heather asked him if he could take us out of the rain. He nodded, loaded our bikes in the back, drove us back to the coal factory and delivered us under a big corrugated awning.

We thanked him as he drove away, and as we waited for the rain to let up, I discovered a woman whose house was also the coal office. She invited us in, bade us sit on her bench. She asked Heather questions, the usual stuff, like if we were American and where did we teach and such. The rain paused and we set out again, thanked our brief hostess for her kindness, abandoned the notions of reaching the beach. Rain and wind had dropped the temperature some, and we weren't exactly dry.

Pedaling along the river road, we now saw why we had difficulty reaching it before. A constant string of factories and processing plants lined it, one after another, with no room nor reason for a through-way. One place looked intriguing, with a grand gate and some garden sprawl. A vast parking lot, two murals and idling shuttle bus gave it the look of an amusement park. Heather could only make out the characters for "Green Dragon" and "Park." She inquired some chaps who emerged from an office and they handed her a brochure. It was a cemetery and mausoleum, although the entrance didn't exactly convey a sense of reverence.

We pedaled on and got to the point at the end of the known road, tried a second stab at the picnic. We hid behind the big stone monolith, but the wind came from all directions. Soon we had to endure sand particles with our edam slices.

A group of kids and adults were out in the reeds, carrying a plastic bag and poking the mud here and there. Our curiosity took us out to them and found they were collecting crabs. One man showed us proper crab-spotting and rooting technique with a stick, though we have neither fondness nor taste for the little buggers.

Cold from damp and wind, we caught a cab back into town, treated ourselves to some Bailey's and coffee, watched "Shark Tale" and rested from the ride. Later on, we ventured out for DVDs and then tree dumplings.

The dumpling place really shit the bed tonight. We ended up waiting roughly 40 minutes for a single order. The girl had given them to another table, and the other table neither ate them, nor told her they didn't order it, nor generally paid attention to anything outside of their conversation and cigarettes. What amount of oblivion does it take to not even acknowledge something new and unwanted on your table? Perhaps it's a "saving face" thing, but more and more, it's seeming like an excuse for extreme sloth and apathy.

Rhys, Jeni, Heather and I all squeezed onto the bed and watched "The Life Aquatic" (another fine Wes Anderson film) and then retired.

April 8th: a peak teaching moment and Rhys hunt

Day 204

Woke, met Heather, Rhys and Jeni at the hotel for breakfast. There was an ugly American in a corner booth extolling the virtues of marriage to a potential mail-order bride. He looked like the type of peanut-headed potbelly who had an autographed copy of "Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Women I Learned From Porn." There are so few of we Americans with passports and this pig-vulture was leaving a ticker tape parade of bad first impressions in his wake. I seethed with hatred as I chewed bacon.

I went to my first class feeling loagy from foodstacy. It helped my demeanor. For lunch, I just ate pineapple and a little rice, still trying to metabolize the boulder in my gut. A few girls even asked me why I only had fruit, using mostly broken English and pointing. They asked me what I was teaching them and when I told them it would be a new song, they smiled and exclaimed, "Yes!" Now that's the kind of reaction you want as a teacher. There is a world of difference between the junior 1 and junior 2 grades.

In the last class of the day (my favorite class with Jimmy, Pete and co.) after we had finished the lesson, they wanted to sing "Wishy Washy Washer Woman" from the week before. And then, "All Together Now" and then "Yellow Submarine." Any damage done by Thursday was cleansed in this incredibly touching display. I had reached them, they had learned and had fun doing it. This was definitely the best experience thus far in China (inside the classroom).

I rode up to the middle school and played some badminton on the roof with Heather and Mike. When the sun began to dip, I went to the music store and played a few songs until my voice couldn't manage.

We went to the sheep place as per Friday routine. They had the cucumber beer there, too. It's apparently the new cool shit. I put on music, but a table of youths kept vetoing whatever I put on. I went from Dusted to Queen to Goldfrapp, but didn't have anything high energy and cheesy enough to satiate them. It's an eatery, not a bloody disco. I ganbei'd them and it started a war, which eventually ended when they had no one to send over but the girlfriend, whom they taught the English phrase "Hello, cheers." Highly cute.

Afterwards, Rhys, Jeni, Heather and I went to the club. We tried the raffle game thrice and got successively better prizes each time: a can of Sprite, a hair dryer, a big stuffed dog, whom Jeni adored and whose name is (I believe) Bumfy? Rhys left early to go blog, we stayed behind. I held down the fort while the girls danced. Marco ended the night with that remix of Goldfrapp's "Twist" which I don't remember giving to him, unless he ripped it from Alen.

When we got back, Rhys was not in and Jeni became panicked that something might have happened to him. We rode around town looking in familiar haunts that were still open, eateries and such, even the hospital. We went back to the school and saw that Mike was also out, bike absent, so the two were likely out together somewhere. Ever the purveyor of brightsidedness, I assured Jeni she was fortunate to have someone in her life so important to be worried sick about. They had been in the park and pedaled in around 2am. Heather and I quietly excused ourselves so she could "kill him" and sleep came shortly after.

April 7th: Thursday the dreaded hump

Day 203

The first of the three-in-a-row classes after lunch were awful. They tried regulating me by anticipating I'd ask if they had any questions ("Hello! We have no questions!") One kid couldn't be bothered to peel his head off the desk and I asked him repeatedly to sit up and act awake. This was the class before who told me "not to cry" one time. They would not be into the bear song and I didn't feel like being angry, so I told them to be quiet and add a sentence to the bear story.

They implored me to begin the lesson and I told them the lesson had already begun. When it was over I asked them if they wanted to have fun and sing songs or keep doing boring work. They opted for having fun, so on their word next week they will be good. I'm not holding my breath.

The next class kept telling me they wanted to play football. I asked if they had questions and the questions were "When do we play football?" and "Why do we not play football now?" I hate Thursdays.

For the final class, I felt like a wrung rag energywise. Two of my singers from the Christmas program were in there, so I knew they would help bolster the group. I exhaled heavily when the bell tolled.

We ate at the new Sandy's again so Mike could sample their wares. We ate upstairs this time, a duo of sneaky chaps next to us, a tableful of barking businessmen in the private room. They dropped a beer opener at one point and when I gave it back to them, I unwittingly began a ganbei tournament with them.

When we left, I felt a little tipsy. I even climbed in the front seat of a carload of strangers and nearly took off for wherever before I bailed out. The extent of laidbackness in this country is commendable. If a nutty foreigner crawled into your car in the states, it's a legal matter. Here, it's not even an occasion for a doubletake.

Heather and I sat on the roof for a while taking in the night breeze while I attempted to play Rhys's erhu. I made sounds, but nothing musical or remotely pleasant. We called it an early night since we had plans to do breakfast at the hotel.

April 6th: revamped Sandy's and the "home" concept

Day 202

The day was sunny yet hazy from the surrounding farmers burning stuff on the outskirts. It didn't help my breathing or voice much. Classes went well, some classes more into the bear song than others. I asked about the Qing Ming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day) and what they did. It occurred to me that perhaps when they say "memorize the dead" they actually mean "memorialize." Ah, Chinglish. A bottomless wellspring of humour.

I played a bit of soccer with some primary kids before the Harry and Monkey class, then they cleared out en masse. I rode up to the middle school after classes and procured a decent badminton set, one that won't shred itself asunder after one contest. Despite the wind, I played on the roof with Heather and Jeni. With the new gear it's like a whole new game.

When daylight bled its big death scene on the Western stage, we went in and killed time before dinner playing a ridiculous computer game called Nanaca crash (another gem from the internet annals of "where the hell did Steve get THIS?!") The object of the game is to hit a boy with your Japanese girl mountain biker and send his mangled body hurtling over a series of people on park benches, who if hit, aid or injure your progress.

Rhys, Jeni, Heather and I went to the place formerly known as Sandy's for dinner. The place was revamped and we were bade to go upstairs to the kitchen and order our meal by pointing. Gents were hacking away at fish and doing all manner of cooking alchemy dressed in suit coats, looking more like customers than kitchen staff. We ordered sone familiar dishes, dodging their attempts to have us order something with gills. We tried a cucumber dish that was delicious.

Speaking of cucumbers, the beer we were presented with had a picture of cucumbers on the front and had the color of pickle juice (Montana's ultimate nightmare, loathing both beer and cucumbers with equal venom) It was quite good, reminiscent in flavor to Rolling Rock. A very drunk father from upstairs came down and ganbei'd us, swaying and spilling as he toasted, his child laying a series of punches (the kind reserved for somone who is choking) into his father's buttocks.

Apparently, this was their grand opening despite being open for a week. Near us lay a stack of fireworks boxes that were due to go off at 9pm, but they jumped the gun and lit them at 8:30. We got up from our food to watch and they lit them right on the sidewalk, cinders, sparks and empty tubes began to rain down. I went farther down the sidewalk for viewing and self-preservation's sake.

One would think that seeing a huge dangerous fireworks display would elicit a moment's forethought from the passing bikers; alas, no. One lady piloted her bike through the exploding mayhem and the sparks from a just-lit box. Insane and careless. Such oblivion must be relaxing. e returned to our meal, finished and inquired about a cake box they had. They started opening it and cutting it up, even though we had no stomach room. I tried running out of the restaurant to stop the madness, but they divvied it up and I ate a piece to be polite.

We thanked them, paid and left. There are things I can get away with here that I would get my ass kicked for in the states. A guy was on his motorcycle waiting for his girl to get on. Before she did, I jumped on, clapped him on the back, pointed, said "Let's go, buddy." He gestured that he wasn't taking me, but his girl. I got off, apologized as if I truly didn't understand (all the while stifling laughter), and they rode off. Very laid-back people.

We watched "Finding Nemo," and there's a part that crushes my heart. A simple phrase that Dory says when she's pleading with Marlin not to go: "When I look at you.... I'm home." That concept of "home" not being where you are but who you're with is something that resonates with me. (My song "Favorite Witness" has the lyric "home in your arms.") Already torn between Cincinnati and Moab, I fear I'm going to leave a piece of myself in Haimen, too.

Sleep put its shadow on me, relieved me of the burden of consciousness.

April 5th: bear story and bike ride

Day 201

The Bear Song lesson is a good time. It's custom made for Chinese students. They love to repeat things anyway. I din't have the energy to deal with the apathy crew, so after writing the first few lines of the song and getting no response, i erased them and demanded someone give me a piece of paper. I wrote a sentence and had all the students add a sentence until at the end we had a story. Here is the fruit of their labor:

(Read in a Steven Hawking voice)
[note from Montana: no need to imagine: click here and read along with a computer! (courtesy of this place)]

Mr. Willis saw a bear in the park. The bear is very big and very fat, and the bear is a fool bear. He's very surprise, he go to catch it at once. The bear was very angry. Mr. Willis was worried. When the bear died, what will I do? Then he go out. Mr. Will cries out along the street. He saw many flowers and threes. A bear love a nice girl. The girl is very beautiful. So they be good friends. They are friendly to each other. Then he asked the girl to help him. But the girl like Mr. Willis so she didn't help him. After a few days Mr. Willis met the girl in the street. He see a very beautiful girl. Then he say, "Oh. Girl can you do my wife?" The girl was very anger and she said "Don't look at me!" Then she run away. The girl say "Yes, I can." Mr. Willis took she in his home. The bear will drink tea in Mr. Willis home. They're become good friends. Mr. Willis plays with the bear. They are not happy. Bear very hurger. So bear eats Mr. Willis up.

Though I knew my mauling was inevitable, I was surprised no mention of a WC popped up in their masterpiece. It filled the classtime completely and I now have a back-up plan for bad classes this week.

Heather came by after classes and we took a bike ride to find a temple near the river. We could see it (or what we assumed to be it) in the distance, but the road kept going straight. We took a dirt road that seemed aimed straight at it, but it dead-ended into a fiord. We skipped stones, talked about family pets, plans for May festival and such. We rode back as the sun was setting, got some pictures of intensely yellow rapeseed fields.

I saw a dead hedgehog on the side of the road, a bit of an oddity to dodge with your bike tire. After picking up some strawberries, we biked back to my place. Erin joined us for some cheese and crackers, wine. Just a light snack with the intention of getting fries at Ming Tien later.

Heather and I went back to the middle school, joined Jeni and Rhys for dumplings, only a few, as those fries were still slated to be had. The world is our buffet. We drank more wine and watched "Hercules" which, apart from James Woods as Hades, was pretty forgettable. All of us did a simultaneous cringe and groan at each shoddy and needless musical number.

Afterwards we went to Ming Tien, despite Erin Rock RSVPing and saying they were closed and was willing to put down 100 kuai to back up her claim. She owes me 100 kuai. They were open and we got fries and split a company sandwich. I played piano if for no other reason to get them to shut off the Christina Aguilera CD that was skipping. My voice was mostly not there, which I attribute to a combination of lying down watching films, the lateness of the hour, dust breathed in from the bike ride, and the cheese from earlier. I played the "J. Necklace Rag," "Novelty Rush (Bail Out)" (as per Heather's request), and "Bluestar." Considering the amount of wine in me, I didn't do too badly.

We cabbed it back, called it a night.

April 4th: hotel breakfast and a bout of summeritis

Day 200

I woke early to have breakfast with Matt and Erin at the hotel. Matt knocked on my door and we went to the primary wing to collect his missus. We went to the second floor, then the third floor. No Erin. We ran into Viola and went to the first floor, when she suddenly remembered Erin was teaching on the fourth floor. We walked back up to find....empty classrooms. We trudged on to the hotel, found Erin standing outside looking salty. We explained the noble and gentlemanly reason for being tardy, but she still gave us a hard time.

The breakfast was decent: eggs, toast, bacon, cereals, muffins, and all manner of Chinese weirdness. The coffee was bottomless and exceptional, worth the price of admission right there. I gorged myself and we sent Matt off back to Nantong. I pedaled Erin back on her bike, affixed myself heavily to my desk chair.

I wrote for a while, then got antsy to be in the sunshine. I walked up to the middle school by exiting through the construction area near the canteen. It probably saved me 15 minutes' walk time. I joined Heather, Rhys and Jeni on the roof. Their whole school was leaving en masse to go "memorize the dead," clotting up traffic and generally flooding the sidewalks. Some impatient people on motorcycles tried barreling through the melee, brandishing their ignorance and lack of forethought like it was a medal of valor.

Heather and I basked in the sun for a while until she had to teach her next class. I went to the music store and practiced my catalogue, then rode home and tried to think of a lesson plan for the week. I flipped through the book Rose had given me, trying to teach them something related, just saw I had already taught some lessons from the book (careers, sick vocab) inadvertently.

I ate dinner, which was not all that good, wracked my brain trying to think of a lesson plan. I got increasingly displeased with myself, and it was discouraging that I felt listless, uninspired. Perhaps it was the 200th day mark, a batch of expat blues, a kind of teacher "senioritis" going into the three month home stretch. "All Together Now" had been my back-up plan, but I had already used it. Taking a page fromthe camp song used the week before, I finally settled on the Bear song, a call-and-response and what's more, LONG tune with easy language. I'd interact with them asking them what they would do if they encountered a bear, if they'd ever climbed a tree, favorite tree, something. It should fill the 45 minutes fine.

I rode up to the middle school and joined the crew at the tents. My left brake broke on the way over which didn't help my mood. Two nan gua bings (pumpkin cakes) and a beer helped me mellow out some. After some fireworks roof antics, Rhys, Heather and I watched "Antz" but I fell asleep before the end.

April 3rd: roof picnic and dvd day

Day 199

Woke feeling a little jagged. I rode over to the middle school, noticed they had knocked down both towers by our field. The good news was the weather was warm if there was no wind. The bad news is there was wind. A wicked headwind that I hissed profanity into all the way up. Heather and I picnicked on the roof, had pepperoni, cheese and crackers.

The wind spoiled our Vitamin D intake, so we went inside and watched "The Polar Express," which was exactly the kind of film I loathe: unbearably maudlin Christmas fare (including a sappy song duet between strangers), incessantly redundant score, and a plot that offers no real character development, just an exhaustingly aggravating thread of perils that rival the cliffhanger serials of the 1950's. The animation was exceptional, but it's still a turd. ("But doesn't the steam coming off of it look so very realistic?")

We watched "Orgazmo" to cleanse ourselves of the malaise. Matt and Erin came up to join us for Muslim noodles and then watched "Kinsey" afterwards. I shared the cab with Matt and Erin, left my bike at the middle school so I could have something to do tomorrow.

I cleared the accumulated laundry off my bed, rotisseried myself over the coals of dreamland.

i just can't get into that new sound.

the killers. the bravery. bloc party.

hmm.

i just can't get into it.

that new hanin elias, though: that's cool.

April 2nd: Nantong beggars/choosers

Day 198

After morning business, I rode to meet Heather at the "sausage noodle" place next to the sheep place. I was delayed a bit watching a steamshovel knock down one of the two guard towers near the track. I tried to get a picture of the grand falling over, but they were taking too long. After lunch, I went up to the music shop, practiced one album and three songs before the sunny day called me back to its bosom.

We played badminton on the roof until it was time to catch the bus to Nantong. Rhys stayed behind, illustrating he and shopping still had no love lost between them. Once in Nantong, we entered the splendor that is the Metro. I got cheese, olives, mustard, pepperoni, microwave popcorn, Snickers bars, true delicacies of the Western hemisphere.

Afterwards, we and our gear went to the American cafe for Tex-mex. We were joined by Erin and Matt, and then later on, Ethan and his girlfriend. He was in from Nanjing visiting her. A random delightful surprise.

They joined us at the City Hunter and then on to a new place called the Lucky Bar. We had to twist Mike's arm a bit to stay and Erin (already in her cups) tried to hold his groceries hostage unless he kept the party going. Lucky bar had free KTV and I got the ball rolling with "Easy." This started a bout of "will you sing this with me" from the others and after four songs in a row and breathing in their second hand smoke, my pipes were mostly shot.

Songs on the platter were: Delilah, Sledgehammer, Take on Me, Head Over Heels, Total Eclipse of the Heart (murdered by Erin and I), My Sharona (boring), the ever-fired Summer Nights (Erin wanted to do a duet and was very pugilstic about it), and croaked my way through Bohemian Rhapsody to end the night. A group of Chinese business men challenged us and that started a flower-giving exchange during tunes. You don't know uncomfortable until a Chinese man gives you a carnation while you're singing "My Sharona."

We headed back to the City Hunter to retrieve Mike and get a chicken roll-up from across the street. A beggar came up holding her palm out and making some kind of white noise at me. I ducked into the City Hunter after reapeated "Boo yaos." It was hot and dry inside and soon I had to get air. The beggar woman came up again and I gave the rest of my roll-up to her. She looked at it, kind of cringed at it, continued shaking her open palm at me. I was a little insulted and bewildered. I had two lighters in my pocket from firework excursions, so I put those in her hand. She still shook her palm. What did she want? "Eat the sandwich," I said, "It's super damn good."

You assume a beggar would want to take care of the necessaries, but this woman shot that down. "I gave you food and the ability to make fire," I said. "Survivalists would say you have it made." Then she set the roll-up on the back of a bike. Not only did she still want something else, she didn't want what I already gave. Beggars can't be choosers. It's a saying, for fuck's sake.

I grabbed the roll-up held it out to her and shook it like she shook her palm at me, bowing my head and giving her routine back at her. She wouldn't take it. It hurt my feelings. Some Chinese kids walked by and gave her a Coke. She took it and that really cut it. "Take the sandwich!" I pleaded, feeling like Napoleon Dynamite. ("Tina! eat your food!") Seems the only charity she would accept from lao wei is money, but I wager she'd turn down a personal check.

Heather and I caught a cab back to Haimen, Mike and Jeni staying behind and living it up. The disillusioning encounter with the beggar had sobered me up. I wish I had just finished the roll-up. It reminded me of the unwanted quide we had in Huangguoshu that demanded payment for leading us down a path we were already walking and then had the nerve to look insulted when we gave her money for nothing like Dire Straits. I won't let it get me cynical. Just because two people suck doesn't mean everyone in need is greedy and unappreciative.

We started watching "Orgazmo" but the sandman had other plans.

April 1st: night of sheep place, massage, and clubbing

Day 197

All but one class fell for my prank of telling them (after 45 minutes of explaining the nature of April Fool's Day) that Mr. Willis was going back to America the next day and it was my last time teaching them. One class looked particularly crestfallen and insisted we take pictures and such. So endearing. Probably a taste of what's to come in three months time.

Jeni swung by for tea and stayed to watch BBC where the big story was the Pope's declining health (this is news?). As we sat on the stoop, Nigel made his cameo in our lives beating a stick against a rug and explaining how easy it was. Dolt. He nearly made me late for class by attempting to strike up a conversation as I was leaving. "David, what do you em, think of that woman dying?"

"What woman?"

"Terri Schiavo, I think?"

"She's probably better off, but it sucks for the family because they had no choice. Bye."


After teaching, a sense of exhaustion and depression sank in from nowhere. Outside, a front had blown in. The barometric bends strike again! I rode up to the middle school, plans to do laundry thwarted by Nigel and wife's crap taking up the machine. After a jaunt to the DVD store (where we raided most of their animated gear) we ate at the sheep place for the Friday tradition of la za ji ding. I ganbei'd three peppers for the finale, throwing caution to next day ramifications.

Mike and I went for massage afterwards and got Rachel and Chung Shiao, the two best ones. He was finally able to have a proper massage from there, with palm squeezing, spine braiding and all that. It was delicious murder. e kept saying that Chung Shiao pummelled him, would dig her elbows into his back and worked him over with authority, tohis delight.

After some fireworks, which were bunk, (as were the replacement ones,) Jeni, Heather, Andy and I went to the club. It was hot and balmy inside like being in the headlock of Ernest Borgnine. To make matters worse, ther floorshow was a fire breather who made big fireballs and further increased the temperature. Her finale was standing on eggs and not breaking them. The vibe was weird and none of us really had a desire to dance, so we cleared out a minute before the club closed. We got outside just in time to see a guy get pulled out of a cab and kicked in the ribs, presumably because he stole someone's cab, ignoring the fact that there were nine empty cabs all around. I guess if China wants to eush headlong into status as America Minus, senseless violence is a good start.

We walked back to the school, got pumpkin cake from the new tent place next door to the school. We had asked them every time we walked by if they had it, only to be told "may yo." Now that they have them, I feel obligated to buy from them in case they bought them especially for us.

We listened to Zero 7, succumbed at last to sweet sleep.