The ankle is getting better - after I took Monday off and returned to work on Tuesday, a Chinese doctor that my dad called to help me told me to stay in today. That was fine, because getting to work on crutches was worse than a 6x400m workout - by the halfway mark, an ocean of sweat had surrounded me and it took all of my willpower to not throw my crutches away and crawl to the Starbucks and drown my sorrows in a Mocha Frappucino. Well I also went to a hospital today to get x-rayed on my boss's orders and as I had expected, everything turned out dandy. After waiting 2 hours for the X-Rays, the doctor took one look at them and said "没事" and we were on our way.
Enough of my life. This Friday, at 8:08pm, 8/8/08, a very special event is occurring and a lot of people are getting excited. And it's not just that 8 is the luckiest number in Chinese. Of course, the IXXX Summer Olympiad officially begins then and you can definitely feel it. I've been teaching in English (when I am at the office) the meaning of "there's a buzz in the air." Clearly, the immense hype and over-preparation that one month ago seemed repetitive and tedious are now taking new meaning as an event 7 years in the making is finally extremely palpable. This week has seen the arrival of among others, all the big name world athletes, the presidents of Brazil, France and who knows what else, as well as probably the Dalai Lama, and the Olympic Torch. I know Bill Gates, George W and Putin are also coming, not sure if they're here yet. I don't think I've ever been in a such a star-studded city. So far the best athlete I've ever seen is either Barry Bonds or Bobby Orr, and I hope to add to that list here. Anyways, people dressed in the blue Olympic volunteer uniform have been active and ubiquitous for the last week, working in places far from Olympic venues. They're mostly Chinese and all speak some English, but I know there are a ton of Hong Kongers and I saw a French one at the hospital today. In Hou Hai on Saturday night, we saw 2 jacked guys in shirts that said "Russia" and if I had to guess, I'd say gymnasts. I have a feeling not enough athletes are going to explore and party, but if they do I hope to run into some of them.
Security is also at a frighteningly high level. I would not want to be a cop in Beijing right now, I wonder how much sleep they can get. I joked to Crystal today that I'd put the odds of an Olympics terrorist attack at 35%. So we went to the Bird's Nest and Water Cube today - have I talked about them before? I had never seen them up close... and I still haven't. The entire complex is so fenced off that the best shots I could get were from a half mile away, where a ton of Chinese tourists were swamping the fence. The Watercube seems really cool, the whole thing glows different shades of red and blue at night and really is a nice, geometric complement to the crazy, roundish and exuberant Bird's Nest just to the east. I took some pictures but I hope to get more when I come back...
Cause I got tickets! Through my own purchases and some incredible gifts, I now have tickets to track & field, ping pong, gymnastics, handball and am looking to get boxing, judo, wrestling and some sort of event that'll get me inside the water cube. Basically I've been refreshing craigslist every so often and seeing a new entry every 10 minutes. I am ultra excited about basically all these events and I have no idea what to expect: I could be hating myself that I am missing out on Phelps breaking 3 world records while watching a Decathlon event in track, or I could be experiencing the sport event of a lifetime. Hopefully the latter. I want to see a lot of "random" events, things like Handball that I've never seen even on TV, and see them live at the Olympic level. Doesn't get much better. This Friday's Ceremonies should also be pretty special if I can walk, and I'll definitely blog about that asap. I'm actually trying to get judo tickets that take place Saturday morning at like 1am, after the Ceremonies, which should be really cool if I'm not passed out drunk. On the Ceremonies, many details are a secret. It was just revealed today that Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan will sing the theme song, the language of which is even a secret. I haven't heard of either of these too - for the record, Brightman is British and Liu Huan male - but my coworkers were excited so I think they're popular in China. The Olympic Torch lighter is likewise a secret, and my guess is it won't be someone we know, like Yao Ming or Liu Xiang. The lighter can be a current athlete but is usually an older former athlete (ala Muhammed Ali) and my best guess is Li Ning, a Peking University grad who won 6 gymnastic medals including 3 gold at Los Angeles in 1984. My coworkers said he's not that popular though, so I really have no idea. Maybe they should get a relative of the last emperor, Pu Yi, and the most famous Chinese in history, Bruce Lee, to light the torch. But I haven't gotten that call yet.
I want to talk about a lot of sports and athletes that people don't know about. I feel like the Olympics are a rare event that people get really excited for without knowing what they're getting excited for. I mean for March Madness, most people I know read a lot about these random teams and know a lot about the big named teams. Every sport fan knows all the key matchups in the Super Bowl. But most people reading this probably can't tell me even the 5 most famous Chinese athletes in China, or the archery favorites or what kind of studs Brazil is bringing for their soccer team. Btw I just heard a blast that was not thunder nor fireworks and I'm legitimately worried. Anyways, I'm going to go over a few lesser known athletes (you can read about some of them online too) that I've discovered, and then tomorrow I'm going to blog about why badminton is awesome, and introduce you to the Chinese team.
Abubaker Kaki - 800 meters.
Kaki is from Sudan and a strong contestant for the 800 meter gold. I'm not sure if his 1:42.69 time is the fastest seed, (he did win the world indoors this year) but it's well below the 1:45 qualifying time and really fucking fast. Just a note: Kevin Mannering ran a 1:58 to set the RL record. I've never actually seen this guy even in TV but he's very charismatic and, get this, 19 years old. Born June 1989. Male distance runners don't peak until the early-mid 20s, and Kaki is absolutely insane for his age. He owns the junior world record of course and this won't be his last Olympics. He'll probably double or triple in the London 2012 games.
Bernard Lagat - 1500 & 5000 meters
Lagat won Olympic Silver in the 1500 in Athens and Bronze in Sydney as a Kenyan, and at that rate he'll get gold here in Beijing. However he became American shortly after the 2004 Games, having attended Washington State, so now we cheer for him. Even though he's kinda old at 33, he seems to be getting better and won the US trails in both the 1500 and the 5000. My guess is that the double, coupled with the bad air and his age, will rule him out of any medal competition but he's an exciting runner whom I've seen in TV before.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore - shooting
No I actually don't know anything about this guy, or how to pronounce his name. But he's Indian - from a large Asian country that does not do well in the Olympics - and won silver in Athens. He's 1 of 4 Indians to ever win Olympic silver and it seems the only ones to have won gold were on the same field hockey team.
Usain Bolt - 100 & 200 meters dash
The real true sprint is always exciting, if ridiculously short, and the winner takes the title of "fastest man in the world." This year seems to be the most exciting race ever, with 3 people who could make claims to that title being present in Beijing. Tyson Gay ran a heavilywind-aided 9.68 dash at the US trials, before cramping up in his best event, the 200 m, where he has run a faster time than anyone not named Michael Johnson. He'll be focusing on the 100m now and carrying the pride of the red white and blue. Btw that 9.68s would be a world record if the 4.1 m/s wind hadn't been blowing. Then there's Asafa Powell, the one time world record holder at 9.74s from Jamaica, who totally choked in Athens (5th) and seems best racing against the clock rather than against other sprinters. But Bolt is the exciting one, reallat least partially due to his incredibly apt last name. Guess what his nickname is? Bolt set a new, ratified world record in May when he beat Gay in 9.72s, and apparently he had been training for the 400 meter dash...that 100 was just his 5th in international competition. He's titanic for a sprinter at 6'5", and also going to run the 200 which could also be a terrific race as there are a ton of great Americans there. Either way, the 4x100 relay is going to be dirty.
Alicia Sacramone - Gymnastics
Shawn Johnson is the American stud in women's gymnastics. She's 16, really great, and you can read all about her in some newspaper. But I want to talk about Sacramone, the pride of Winchester, MA, whom I first read about in the Boston Globe. Her local claim to fame is that she goes to Brown University, and I'm pretty sure Frank Kanin has written about her for the Brown Daily Herald. Her freshman year was pretty packed, as she practiced with her team, then drove up to Massachusetts and practiced with another elite coach, and then went back to her dorm and tried not to fail all her classes. She dominated Ivy League gymnastics her freshman year (she's our year btw) winning all 5 events but then forfeited her remaining eligibility to turn pro. I don't know exactly her odds of medaling in Beijing but just keep an eye on her.
Jeremy Wariner - 400 meters dash
If you haven't heard of Wariner, well I guess you're not Brian Freitas. Basically, Wariner is the dominant defending gold medalist who has had 9 race winning streak including 2 world championships since then. Oh and he's white and the role model of every scrawny white American wannabe sprinter. His story is really cool, starting his career as a high sophomore on the JV team before running a 48.8 and getting bumped to the varsity. He went to Baylor, Michael Johnson's alma mater, is a stunningly thin 6' 155 pounds, and wears sunglasses no matter when. The 155 pounds really gets me, cause that's my weight...The 2004 race in Athens was an American sweep, and this one may be as yankee-centric but definitely more interesting. A stockier sprinter, LaShawn Merritt, has recently beaten Wariner twice, including at the US trials, and is definitely a legit competitor. I've got the finals, 9:20am on August 21, circled.
That's a lot for now, I'll keep em coming as I hear about them. Actually leave a comment if there's a specific little known athlete you know about and would like to share.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
STO: A long weekend just got longer
'Twas an eventful weekend. I say this with a box of jade and my left foot up on my desk, which I'll get to later. This was a weekend of shopping, sight-seeing, energy conservation, random encounters, very good food, pain and obviously heavy drinking.
I'll start with Thursday night, when I was idling at home until the lights went out. Bam no electricity. I check the rest of the apartment building - they're fine, unfortunately. This means that for the 2nd time this summer, I've run out of electricity. I'm a little pissed this time because I had just bought 150 kuai worth of electricity 10 days ago and it didn't make sense how quickly it got used up. Nonetheless, though spending the night in the dark certainly made my life inconvenient, the long-term effects of the power outage was a packet of spoiled meat. So Friday night, after having bought more electricity, I met up with Crystal and Anastassia at (where else?) Lush for dinner and drinks. Mostly drinks. Random encounter #1: Angela, Xavier and a very exhausted Kate were also eating at Lush, so it was nice to chat with them. I implored my co-worker Brandon, an intern from MIT doing programming at the office, to come party with us that night (in addition to meeting up the following day) and I was a little surprised that he actually made it out around 9:30. We were already a few drinks in and on our way to this club D-22 for a live rock show, but Brandon was a trooper and downed his Long Island in 10 minutes and we headed out.
The rock show turned out to be a lot of fun. It had been a while since I listened to live music, and this was a nice small venue that wasn't too crowded. The bands were all local but it took me a while to even figure out which language they sang in (English). Of the three bands, the first was garbage but the next two were good. However, the night was made by the cab ride over from Lush to D-22. As Crystal, Anastassia and Brandon hopped into the back, I rolled into the cab and tried to remember how many drinks I had had. Depending on how strong a Kamikaze shot is it was either 4 or 5. There was a lot of commotion and female laughter going on behind me and finally I turned around and saw that Crystal was in handcuffs. Her hands were literally behind her back as she wiggled around in the back of the cab. I'd say "only in Beijing," but with Crystal, you really don't know. Apparently our absolutely insane mutual friend Will Clary, whom we are meeting outside the club, wanted her to wear them before meeting him, so yeah. Ok, so after the first rock band played, we went outside for a little bit, and I'm not sure how one thing led to another but I do know that Clary went into a local cigarette store and came back out with a small bottle of Bai Jiu. While I expressed my discontent with that disgusting drink, Clary made Brandon down a few shots' worth of it. Brandon insisted that he liked it and finished somewhere between a third and a half of the bottle right there. Clary immediately grabbed it, downed the rest of the bottle in a gulp and a half, and chucked the bottle sideways onto the street. I'm telling you this kid is nuts. Well we went back in for the next rock band and more Heinekens, but Clary would later come back out and throw up on the sidewalk. Crystal took him back home and apparently the cab ride was hilarious but that's not my story to tell. Oh and some point Marc Poore showed up and tagged along with us.
So the rest of us decided the night was still young and that we should explore the remnants of the once glorious Propaganda club. To our surprise, while the downstairs dance floor was closed, the adjacent bar La Bamba had become a dance floor by demand. It was a pretty tight scene. Many American college students were there as always, and as I scanned through the crowd the sight of Peter Kong surprised me (Random encounter #2). In addition, Rob Schaus, another Hoya who was in my Chinese class, was also there. Rob and I had been talking about meeting up for weeks now but this was the first time I saw him. Apparently him and Peter were in the same Columbia program and I had never made the connection. That whole encounter was pretty awesome despite the fact that I had become so drunk I actually could not speak in the club. I'd go as far as to say my voice is my Achilles' heel. Or maybe that's on my left ankle.
We called it an "early" night at 2 am because Brandon and I had made plans with our co-workers to explore Beijing the following day, meeting at the office at 9:30am. Brandon hangs out with his coworkers a lot and has gone to most of the tourist sites, including the Great Wall, with them. I had wanted to go the previous week and been unable to since I chose to go to church with Kate instead. So this Saturday, along with Kaven and Wu Bei, 2 Chinese co-workers, we went to the shopping street of Qian Men 前门 which as the name suggests, is kinda the front gate of Tiananmen square. The square wasn't actually visible from the street but it was really closeby. Incidentally, Brandon and I both carried bottles of water to nurse our minor hangovers. While I've had plenty of experience buying cheap fake Chinese commodities and practicing my bad bargaining, this was definitely my favorite place to shop. Qian Men blended Western high class with traditional Chinese better than any other place I had been too, and managed to have affordable yet legitimately nice goods, within clean but Chinese-style architecture. The trip was highlighted by a silk shop, in which I turned down many fine traditional garbs for a nice collar shirt that fused the traditional silk style with a Western fit, and a Saks-style Jade store. Ok so China is well known for its jade obviously, but when I think of fine jewelry I think of Diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds. But perhaps that's due to my experience playing Diablo 2. Anyways, I've bought jade off the street for 35 kuai and it's whatever. Well apparently real high-quality jade, infinitely better than the types one would buy at a cheap stand display, are really valuable and expensive. I had leisurely ambled into the store before coming eye-to-eye with a mind boggling price tag of 2400 Kuai. Looking around, everything was 800, 1000 or (!) 13,000 Kuai. Impressed, I ask a salesperson for the most expensive pieces in the store, who shows me two pieces. The first piece was smaller, about hand-sized, of an intricately carved old Lao-Tzu type of man and commanded a price of, get ready, 129,000 块. Gulp. The second piece was about the size of a skull and seemed to be a carving of a mountainside and tipped the register at 139,000 kuai. As far as I can recall, that is the most expensive item I have ever seen at a store. Discounting cars, I think I may have seen a diamond necklace worth $7,500 but that mountain of jade is about $19,000. It was surrounded by a glass case and salespeople. Normally pieces of jewelry worth more than that are surrounded by an armored vehicle. Since I'm such a high roller, I bought something at the store. Well, it was worth 196 kuai and it'll be a gift for a person to be determined.
Later that Saturday, after napping off the rest of my hangover, I met up with Crystal at the subway stop to head to a birthday dinner for the aforementioned Peter Kong who is somehow now 21, and thus can now get trashed in bars. Oh wait, that excitement's gone. Well random encounter #3, I run into Angela again at the Wudaokou stop, and we ride together through XiZhimen as she was going to a place only 1 stop away from ours. At the XiZhiMen stop, random encounter #4 materialized in Peter Kong, and you already know where he was going. In a summer where meeting up has always been a logistical nightmare, this chance encounter made life so much simpler, because none of us actually knew where the restaurant we were going to was. Dinner had been arranged by Jimalyn, the Georgetown girl who lives in China and is well-connected in Beijing. Jimalyn was unable to join us because uh, she had tickets to the Opening Ceremonies rehearsal, a fireworks show at the Bird's Nest. If you're not jealous at reading that, you should be, cause we all were. Anyways, our dinner party was small, consisting of us 3 Hoyas and a Chinese girl named Vickie, whom Peter met on an airplane (not sketchy at all...) and attending grad school at Clark. Our dinner centered around Kao Ya, the legendary Peking Duck, which automatically got all of us excited, but this restaurant exceeded our expectations, and after the meal, I was surprised to hear myself saying how this was the best restaurant I had been to in Beijing. Jimalyn really knows her shit in this town. We didn't just have a private room, we had a private kitchen. All we had to do was say FUYUAN and a door would open and a server would materialize. The menu was probably published by the Chinese Random House - it was more tome than menu. Peter spent a good 15 minutes peering through it. In addition to the delicious kaoya, there were a ton of really "exotic" or unusual dishes ranging from plants I've never heard of, flowers I've never heard of, and dark eel fried rice. If I had looked through the menu I would have more examples, but I bet that if you can kill it in China, you can eat it in style there. But no dogs allowed. We got some pretty cool stuff, if anyone knows what that yellow shredded fruit was called, please let me know. It was just great dinner, both food and conversation-wise, and it only set our party of 4 back 700 kuai, 100 of which was for the private room. That was a lot of money, and I spent more later, so I might need to indenture myself when I'm in Ireland.
Partying that night was fun but low-key. Crystal and I were both exhausted from the previous night, and we met up with a ton, like 30, of Peter's classmates in Hou Hai. Meeting that many new people is both very exciting and very strenuous, although one was from Newton! It was too tiring though and the two of us took a half hour to go to some quiet bar, where I listened solemnly as Crystal admonished Chinese culture and we discussed the transformations of our identities. Coming back out from the bar, I did my imitation of the Soulja boy in a supercrowded bar before calling it quits around 1 or so. I'm not sure whether it was my quickly depleting wallet or the overexposure of new people but I had little inclination to get trashed that night.
Sunday was packed day beginning with a 10am breakfast with Nicole at (where else?) Lush, where I relayed the events of the weekend and further discussed Chinese culture and what that means growing up in Irvine California. If I'm up for it, I'll post my views on that sometime down the line. I then headed to Jianguomen for lunch with a very overworked Kate Egan. Interning at CBS, Kate has the unique opportunity of being enslaved in China by an American corporation who is forcing her to work every day, including that Sunday, until she leaves on the 11th. While there's certainly a lot of work to do before the Olympics, that's a pretty shitty move on her company and puts her in a very different position than just about everyone else I know here in China. So I went out to meet her for lunch and amidst discussions of RL, Winsor and living permanently in China, we got Baskin' Robbins and walked by the Iraqi embassy, which is in the same complex as CBS (as well as ABC and the BBC). I then set out for an Apple Store on SanLiTunr to repair my broken iPod.
My iPod, which is basically an electronic extension of my soul, has been out of commission for 2 grueling weeks after some sort of hardware malfunction. As luck would have it, the first ever Apple Store in greater China had opened in late July near the great bar district of San Li Tun and so I cabbed it to the "苹果电脑店" (apple computer store) with success only after I told my driver to find the Adidas store and pointed to the logo on my iPod. This shop area was stunningly nice, full of clean upscale steel-framed architecture, pristinely cut street tiles, and the biggest name stores like Nike, Adidas, some clothing stores I didn't pay attention to, and now Apple. I had only passed by this place en route to a night of debauchery, although I had been nearby on July 4th when this complex was under construction. The Apple Store as always was top class and could have been anywhere in the world. Upon entering, I was helped by a nice salesperson and I stuttered trying to explain that my iPod had a hardware problem and would not turn on. I couldn't my point through, so I asked, "你会说英文吗？” (can you speak English) to which he replied, "Absolutely." Feeling slightly embarrassed, I followed him upstairs and learned that he was from nearby Tianjen, but spoke English nearly fluently. When I questioned him on how he got his great speaking skills, he just said, "I like American movies." If only it was that easy for me, but alas Chinese films suck. Anyways a hardware problem could not be solved by Apple store attendants (a problem I've encountered in the US as well) and I was given the option of trading mine in along with 1700 kuai for a new one. As much as I love my iPod, I couldn't do that and endeavor to survive these last 3 weeks and trans-Pacific plane ride without those earbuds isolating me from the world.
I had a lot of time left before I had to meet up to play Frisbee, so I mulled around that nice shopping area. I found a Nike store and decided to get some Olympic gear. Here I bumped into Jimalyn, aka Random encounter #5, aka Beijing socialite, and her dad. I thanked her so much for arranging dinner at that restaurant and made tentative group plans to have an absolute riot this Friday for the opening ceremonies. I then bought an Olympic basketball shirt for 300 kuai and proceeded to go meet up with the Ultimate players.
Ultimate Frisbee takes place in the far southeast of the city and whereas we used to meet at 2:30 for vans, we now meet at 4:15 for taxis, because the Olympic license plate restrictions, coupled with July having 31 days, have rendered our vans out of commission for consecutive Sundays, and because field space is now more limited and we have to wait for a soccer game to finish before tossing the disc. This week my red team was matched up with the star-studded blue team, but we got off to a 3-2 lead thanks to good zone play. That point, I was on defense and the last man back. I made the poor choice of fronting my man, a good player named Reid, and when he cut deep break side I was a good 10 meters away. The disc was put but very floaty, and I covered the ground quickly. Running side by side with Reid, my right foot just grazed his just before I was planning on jumping with my left. The slight contact put me off balance and when I planted my foot and exploded, the foot went every which way. I heard a pop, felt intense pain and fell to the ground screaming. I've been blessed with good health, besides the fluke shoulder injury, the broken collarbone and minor nagging injuries, and had never experienced something like this. It was clear that I hadn't just twisted my ankle, and after I had finished pounding on the ground in pain, the huge swelling already apparent indicated that I had badly sprained my ankle. I had to be helped to the sideline and had my foot propped up on a chair. Getting home was a nightmare. Like I said, the fields were in the deep southeast of the city, and I live in the northwest...furthermore cabs don't even come by those remote fields. Luckily I was surrounded by ultra friendly frisbee players, and they sent a cab for me, and 3 people got in with me and helped me back to my place. It literally took me 10 minutes to walk from the road to my apartment, and times like these really make me appreciate my feet.
So yeah, this weekend got longer cause I couldn't get to work today. Instead my bosses visited me, not even joking, and bought me crutches (what!) and lunch. They hinted that I'll pay for it tomorrow (oh no). Anyways I'm feeling better, even starting to walk (haven't said that since I was, like 2) and I think I can work tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be ready by Friday for Opening Ceremonies bonanza, but for now I've enjoyed the day of rest. Hope you enjoyed this gigantic tale of a weekend.
I'll start with Thursday night, when I was idling at home until the lights went out. Bam no electricity. I check the rest of the apartment building - they're fine, unfortunately. This means that for the 2nd time this summer, I've run out of electricity. I'm a little pissed this time because I had just bought 150 kuai worth of electricity 10 days ago and it didn't make sense how quickly it got used up. Nonetheless, though spending the night in the dark certainly made my life inconvenient, the long-term effects of the power outage was a packet of spoiled meat. So Friday night, after having bought more electricity, I met up with Crystal and Anastassia at (where else?) Lush for dinner and drinks. Mostly drinks. Random encounter #1: Angela, Xavier and a very exhausted Kate were also eating at Lush, so it was nice to chat with them. I implored my co-worker Brandon, an intern from MIT doing programming at the office, to come party with us that night (in addition to meeting up the following day) and I was a little surprised that he actually made it out around 9:30. We were already a few drinks in and on our way to this club D-22 for a live rock show, but Brandon was a trooper and downed his Long Island in 10 minutes and we headed out.
The rock show turned out to be a lot of fun. It had been a while since I listened to live music, and this was a nice small venue that wasn't too crowded. The bands were all local but it took me a while to even figure out which language they sang in (English). Of the three bands, the first was garbage but the next two were good. However, the night was made by the cab ride over from Lush to D-22. As Crystal, Anastassia and Brandon hopped into the back, I rolled into the cab and tried to remember how many drinks I had had. Depending on how strong a Kamikaze shot is it was either 4 or 5. There was a lot of commotion and female laughter going on behind me and finally I turned around and saw that Crystal was in handcuffs. Her hands were literally behind her back as she wiggled around in the back of the cab. I'd say "only in Beijing," but with Crystal, you really don't know. Apparently our absolutely insane mutual friend Will Clary, whom we are meeting outside the club, wanted her to wear them before meeting him, so yeah. Ok, so after the first rock band played, we went outside for a little bit, and I'm not sure how one thing led to another but I do know that Clary went into a local cigarette store and came back out with a small bottle of Bai Jiu. While I expressed my discontent with that disgusting drink, Clary made Brandon down a few shots' worth of it. Brandon insisted that he liked it and finished somewhere between a third and a half of the bottle right there. Clary immediately grabbed it, downed the rest of the bottle in a gulp and a half, and chucked the bottle sideways onto the street. I'm telling you this kid is nuts. Well we went back in for the next rock band and more Heinekens, but Clary would later come back out and throw up on the sidewalk. Crystal took him back home and apparently the cab ride was hilarious but that's not my story to tell. Oh and some point Marc Poore showed up and tagged along with us.
So the rest of us decided the night was still young and that we should explore the remnants of the once glorious Propaganda club. To our surprise, while the downstairs dance floor was closed, the adjacent bar La Bamba had become a dance floor by demand. It was a pretty tight scene. Many American college students were there as always, and as I scanned through the crowd the sight of Peter Kong surprised me (Random encounter #2). In addition, Rob Schaus, another Hoya who was in my Chinese class, was also there. Rob and I had been talking about meeting up for weeks now but this was the first time I saw him. Apparently him and Peter were in the same Columbia program and I had never made the connection. That whole encounter was pretty awesome despite the fact that I had become so drunk I actually could not speak in the club. I'd go as far as to say my voice is my Achilles' heel. Or maybe that's on my left ankle.
We called it an "early" night at 2 am because Brandon and I had made plans with our co-workers to explore Beijing the following day, meeting at the office at 9:30am. Brandon hangs out with his coworkers a lot and has gone to most of the tourist sites, including the Great Wall, with them. I had wanted to go the previous week and been unable to since I chose to go to church with Kate instead. So this Saturday, along with Kaven and Wu Bei, 2 Chinese co-workers, we went to the shopping street of Qian Men 前门 which as the name suggests, is kinda the front gate of Tiananmen square. The square wasn't actually visible from the street but it was really closeby. Incidentally, Brandon and I both carried bottles of water to nurse our minor hangovers. While I've had plenty of experience buying cheap fake Chinese commodities and practicing my bad bargaining, this was definitely my favorite place to shop. Qian Men blended Western high class with traditional Chinese better than any other place I had been too, and managed to have affordable yet legitimately nice goods, within clean but Chinese-style architecture. The trip was highlighted by a silk shop, in which I turned down many fine traditional garbs for a nice collar shirt that fused the traditional silk style with a Western fit, and a Saks-style Jade store. Ok so China is well known for its jade obviously, but when I think of fine jewelry I think of Diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds. But perhaps that's due to my experience playing Diablo 2. Anyways, I've bought jade off the street for 35 kuai and it's whatever. Well apparently real high-quality jade, infinitely better than the types one would buy at a cheap stand display, are really valuable and expensive. I had leisurely ambled into the store before coming eye-to-eye with a mind boggling price tag of 2400 Kuai. Looking around, everything was 800, 1000 or (!) 13,000 Kuai. Impressed, I ask a salesperson for the most expensive pieces in the store, who shows me two pieces. The first piece was smaller, about hand-sized, of an intricately carved old Lao-Tzu type of man and commanded a price of, get ready, 129,000 块. Gulp. The second piece was about the size of a skull and seemed to be a carving of a mountainside and tipped the register at 139,000 kuai. As far as I can recall, that is the most expensive item I have ever seen at a store. Discounting cars, I think I may have seen a diamond necklace worth $7,500 but that mountain of jade is about $19,000. It was surrounded by a glass case and salespeople. Normally pieces of jewelry worth more than that are surrounded by an armored vehicle. Since I'm such a high roller, I bought something at the store. Well, it was worth 196 kuai and it'll be a gift for a person to be determined.
Later that Saturday, after napping off the rest of my hangover, I met up with Crystal at the subway stop to head to a birthday dinner for the aforementioned Peter Kong who is somehow now 21, and thus can now get trashed in bars. Oh wait, that excitement's gone. Well random encounter #3, I run into Angela again at the Wudaokou stop, and we ride together through XiZhimen as she was going to a place only 1 stop away from ours. At the XiZhiMen stop, random encounter #4 materialized in Peter Kong, and you already know where he was going. In a summer where meeting up has always been a logistical nightmare, this chance encounter made life so much simpler, because none of us actually knew where the restaurant we were going to was. Dinner had been arranged by Jimalyn, the Georgetown girl who lives in China and is well-connected in Beijing. Jimalyn was unable to join us because uh, she had tickets to the Opening Ceremonies rehearsal, a fireworks show at the Bird's Nest. If you're not jealous at reading that, you should be, cause we all were. Anyways, our dinner party was small, consisting of us 3 Hoyas and a Chinese girl named Vickie, whom Peter met on an airplane (not sketchy at all...) and attending grad school at Clark. Our dinner centered around Kao Ya, the legendary Peking Duck, which automatically got all of us excited, but this restaurant exceeded our expectations, and after the meal, I was surprised to hear myself saying how this was the best restaurant I had been to in Beijing. Jimalyn really knows her shit in this town. We didn't just have a private room, we had a private kitchen. All we had to do was say FUYUAN and a door would open and a server would materialize. The menu was probably published by the Chinese Random House - it was more tome than menu. Peter spent a good 15 minutes peering through it. In addition to the delicious kaoya, there were a ton of really "exotic" or unusual dishes ranging from plants I've never heard of, flowers I've never heard of, and dark eel fried rice. If I had looked through the menu I would have more examples, but I bet that if you can kill it in China, you can eat it in style there. But no dogs allowed. We got some pretty cool stuff, if anyone knows what that yellow shredded fruit was called, please let me know. It was just great dinner, both food and conversation-wise, and it only set our party of 4 back 700 kuai, 100 of which was for the private room. That was a lot of money, and I spent more later, so I might need to indenture myself when I'm in Ireland.
Partying that night was fun but low-key. Crystal and I were both exhausted from the previous night, and we met up with a ton, like 30, of Peter's classmates in Hou Hai. Meeting that many new people is both very exciting and very strenuous, although one was from Newton! It was too tiring though and the two of us took a half hour to go to some quiet bar, where I listened solemnly as Crystal admonished Chinese culture and we discussed the transformations of our identities. Coming back out from the bar, I did my imitation of the Soulja boy in a supercrowded bar before calling it quits around 1 or so. I'm not sure whether it was my quickly depleting wallet or the overexposure of new people but I had little inclination to get trashed that night.
Sunday was packed day beginning with a 10am breakfast with Nicole at (where else?) Lush, where I relayed the events of the weekend and further discussed Chinese culture and what that means growing up in Irvine California. If I'm up for it, I'll post my views on that sometime down the line. I then headed to Jianguomen for lunch with a very overworked Kate Egan. Interning at CBS, Kate has the unique opportunity of being enslaved in China by an American corporation who is forcing her to work every day, including that Sunday, until she leaves on the 11th. While there's certainly a lot of work to do before the Olympics, that's a pretty shitty move on her company and puts her in a very different position than just about everyone else I know here in China. So I went out to meet her for lunch and amidst discussions of RL, Winsor and living permanently in China, we got Baskin' Robbins and walked by the Iraqi embassy, which is in the same complex as CBS (as well as ABC and the BBC). I then set out for an Apple Store on SanLiTunr to repair my broken iPod.
My iPod, which is basically an electronic extension of my soul, has been out of commission for 2 grueling weeks after some sort of hardware malfunction. As luck would have it, the first ever Apple Store in greater China had opened in late July near the great bar district of San Li Tun and so I cabbed it to the "苹果电脑店" (apple computer store) with success only after I told my driver to find the Adidas store and pointed to the logo on my iPod. This shop area was stunningly nice, full of clean upscale steel-framed architecture, pristinely cut street tiles, and the biggest name stores like Nike, Adidas, some clothing stores I didn't pay attention to, and now Apple. I had only passed by this place en route to a night of debauchery, although I had been nearby on July 4th when this complex was under construction. The Apple Store as always was top class and could have been anywhere in the world. Upon entering, I was helped by a nice salesperson and I stuttered trying to explain that my iPod had a hardware problem and would not turn on. I couldn't my point through, so I asked, "你会说英文吗？” (can you speak English) to which he replied, "Absolutely." Feeling slightly embarrassed, I followed him upstairs and learned that he was from nearby Tianjen, but spoke English nearly fluently. When I questioned him on how he got his great speaking skills, he just said, "I like American movies." If only it was that easy for me, but alas Chinese films suck. Anyways a hardware problem could not be solved by Apple store attendants (a problem I've encountered in the US as well) and I was given the option of trading mine in along with 1700 kuai for a new one. As much as I love my iPod, I couldn't do that and endeavor to survive these last 3 weeks and trans-Pacific plane ride without those earbuds isolating me from the world.
I had a lot of time left before I had to meet up to play Frisbee, so I mulled around that nice shopping area. I found a Nike store and decided to get some Olympic gear. Here I bumped into Jimalyn, aka Random encounter #5, aka Beijing socialite, and her dad. I thanked her so much for arranging dinner at that restaurant and made tentative group plans to have an absolute riot this Friday for the opening ceremonies. I then bought an Olympic basketball shirt for 300 kuai and proceeded to go meet up with the Ultimate players.
Ultimate Frisbee takes place in the far southeast of the city and whereas we used to meet at 2:30 for vans, we now meet at 4:15 for taxis, because the Olympic license plate restrictions, coupled with July having 31 days, have rendered our vans out of commission for consecutive Sundays, and because field space is now more limited and we have to wait for a soccer game to finish before tossing the disc. This week my red team was matched up with the star-studded blue team, but we got off to a 3-2 lead thanks to good zone play. That point, I was on defense and the last man back. I made the poor choice of fronting my man, a good player named Reid, and when he cut deep break side I was a good 10 meters away. The disc was put but very floaty, and I covered the ground quickly. Running side by side with Reid, my right foot just grazed his just before I was planning on jumping with my left. The slight contact put me off balance and when I planted my foot and exploded, the foot went every which way. I heard a pop, felt intense pain and fell to the ground screaming. I've been blessed with good health, besides the fluke shoulder injury, the broken collarbone and minor nagging injuries, and had never experienced something like this. It was clear that I hadn't just twisted my ankle, and after I had finished pounding on the ground in pain, the huge swelling already apparent indicated that I had badly sprained my ankle. I had to be helped to the sideline and had my foot propped up on a chair. Getting home was a nightmare. Like I said, the fields were in the deep southeast of the city, and I live in the northwest...furthermore cabs don't even come by those remote fields. Luckily I was surrounded by ultra friendly frisbee players, and they sent a cab for me, and 3 people got in with me and helped me back to my place. It literally took me 10 minutes to walk from the road to my apartment, and times like these really make me appreciate my feet.
So yeah, this weekend got longer cause I couldn't get to work today. Instead my bosses visited me, not even joking, and bought me crutches (what!) and lunch. They hinted that I'll pay for it tomorrow (oh no). Anyways I'm feeling better, even starting to walk (haven't said that since I was, like 2) and I think I can work tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be ready by Friday for Opening Ceremonies bonanza, but for now I've enjoyed the day of rest. Hope you enjoyed this gigantic tale of a weekend.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
CUL: How to go to the bathroom in China
If you are a reader of this blog who is planning on visiting China but has never been, this will be the most important post for you. As well as the most disgusting. Here I will inscribe my findings from two months of trial - and unfortunately, error - involving Chinese bathrooms, and hopefully impart some invaluable wisdom on would-be clueless Western toilet users.
For starters, the Chinese do classify toilets as being either "Chinese toilets" which we would call squat toilets, or Western toilets.
If your name is Nicole, you might also refer to squat toilets as "squatty potties." Do not make the mistake of referring to Western toilets as superior - if there's a clearcut distinction, the 1.2 billion Chinese people would have made the switch already. Instead, many people here feel more comfortable using a squat toilet, and when forced to use a Western toilet, they often choose to squat on it. Btw, note the general griminess of the bathroom to the left. This is China.
For some time now, I have endeavored to understand how the squat toilet is used, because my Western-biased opinion is that they are disgusting. This endeavor is not as straight forward as one would think because it basically involves observing another individual taking a dump, which is decidedly not cool for both parties involved. So I was left to wonder how Chinese people managed to not get tired squatting all the time, how they kept things clean, and why there was never any toilet paper at public restrooms. Even the restrooms I went to in Shanghai that I had to pay to use only supplied toilet paper upon demand. At first, I thought that squat toilets were just good for little kids who didn't have to worry about not being tall enough to pee. However, one night after playing Frisbee, I was so lucky (sic?) to be able to glimpse this practice one time in a public bathroom near Deshengmen when a chef didn't care enough to close his stall door, and unravel the unsettling mysteries. And I've discovered that the secret of the squat toilet centers on the first part of that name - the squat.
In addition to the Asian toilets and the Western toilets, there is an Asian squat and a Western squat. This is well-documented in a youtube clip that I would recommend any bored individual (namely all readers) take a look at. As stupid and humorous as that clip is, it is actually embarrassingly true. Something as basic as the squat can be done differently and in this case, it seems the Asian squat is objectively better. The trick does lie in the fact that the entire heel remains on the ground during the Asian squat, which at first seems unbalancing but in reality makes life must more comfortable on the legs. For some reason this is not part of my instinct: when I think to squat I rest on my toes. Furthermore, the Asian squat is very low to the ground, so low in fact that the chef was covering everything he needed to cover and thus was not the least embarrassed to leave the door open. During a bathroom trip, this results in limited splashing. In addition, because you're not ever touching anything with your skin, the squat toilet may in fact be more sanitary than the Western toilet, where the process of sharing buttcheek space is actually pretty disgusting. In addition, most toilets here have a foot lever to flush or constantly flush, which further reduces the chance of sharing germs. This is contrary to other parts of China, such as the dirty faucets , or the practice of eating with chopsticks in China which almost always means the sharing of germs. A problem with the squat toilet that does not exist in the Western toilet is the possibility of missing with fecal matter, but we're not going to give that subject any more mention.
As for the toilet paper, Chinese people do in fact wipe. The aforementioned chef was holding several paper towels in hand and everyone just knows to bring in the paper that they need in advance. I don't know what they do when they underestimate what they need but I hope that rarely happens. This custom is actually important in China because it requires less maintenance of the bathrooms. There are so many people here that maintenance is always difficult, and if everyone expected there to be toilet paper in the public toilets, they'd habitually run out, which is always the worst. Furthermore, the style of the squat toilet makes things easier to clean (although it often means they need more cleaning) because one can simply mop over it. Those are probably not the real reasons why the squat toilet is so widespread, it's probably a historical matter because originally toilets were just holes in the ground and people got used to those. Anyways, the bottom line is, remember to do the Asian squat and to bring paper, and no need to put the lid down.
In a related story, I was playing poker the other day, and while my opponent was dropping dueces so often we called him number 2, but I pushed the pot all in with a flush and took the whole pile home. It was the shit.
Last note: if you do come to China, you will find yourself on these toilets more often than you'd like. Indigestion is inevitable. Apparently it takes 3 or 4 months for your stomach to really get used to the food and water in China...I've been here 2 months....I really can't wait to get out of here.
EDIT: Picture of me demonstrating the Asian squat on the subway: Note the heels planted firmly on the ground.
For starters, the Chinese do classify toilets as being either "Chinese toilets" which we would call squat toilets, or Western toilets.
If your name is Nicole, you might also refer to squat toilets as "squatty potties." Do not make the mistake of referring to Western toilets as superior - if there's a clearcut distinction, the 1.2 billion Chinese people would have made the switch already. Instead, many people here feel more comfortable using a squat toilet, and when forced to use a Western toilet, they often choose to squat on it. Btw, note the general griminess of the bathroom to the left. This is China.For some time now, I have endeavored to understand how the squat toilet is used, because my Western-biased opinion is that they are disgusting. This endeavor is not as straight forward as one would think because it basically involves observing another individual taking a dump, which is decidedly not cool for both parties involved. So I was left to wonder how Chinese people managed to not get tired squatting all the time, how they kept things clean, and why there was never any toilet paper at public restrooms. Even the restrooms I went to in Shanghai that I had to pay to use only supplied toilet paper upon demand. At first, I thought that squat toilets were just good for little kids who didn't have to worry about not being tall enough to pee. However, one night after playing Frisbee, I was so lucky (sic?) to be able to glimpse this practice one time in a public bathroom near Deshengmen when a chef didn't care enough to close his stall door, and unravel the unsettling mysteries. And I've discovered that the secret of the squat toilet centers on the first part of that name - the squat.
In addition to the Asian toilets and the Western toilets, there is an Asian squat and a Western squat. This is well-documented in a youtube clip that I would recommend any bored individual (namely all readers) take a look at. As stupid and humorous as that clip is, it is actually embarrassingly true. Something as basic as the squat can be done differently and in this case, it seems the Asian squat is objectively better. The trick does lie in the fact that the entire heel remains on the ground during the Asian squat, which at first seems unbalancing but in reality makes life must more comfortable on the legs. For some reason this is not part of my instinct: when I think to squat I rest on my toes. Furthermore, the Asian squat is very low to the ground, so low in fact that the chef was covering everything he needed to cover and thus was not the least embarrassed to leave the door open. During a bathroom trip, this results in limited splashing. In addition, because you're not ever touching anything with your skin, the squat toilet may in fact be more sanitary than the Western toilet, where the process of sharing buttcheek space is actually pretty disgusting. In addition, most toilets here have a foot lever to flush or constantly flush, which further reduces the chance of sharing germs. This is contrary to other parts of China, such as the dirty faucets , or the practice of eating with chopsticks in China which almost always means the sharing of germs. A problem with the squat toilet that does not exist in the Western toilet is the possibility of missing with fecal matter, but we're not going to give that subject any more mention.
As for the toilet paper, Chinese people do in fact wipe. The aforementioned chef was holding several paper towels in hand and everyone just knows to bring in the paper that they need in advance. I don't know what they do when they underestimate what they need but I hope that rarely happens. This custom is actually important in China because it requires less maintenance of the bathrooms. There are so many people here that maintenance is always difficult, and if everyone expected there to be toilet paper in the public toilets, they'd habitually run out, which is always the worst. Furthermore, the style of the squat toilet makes things easier to clean (although it often means they need more cleaning) because one can simply mop over it. Those are probably not the real reasons why the squat toilet is so widespread, it's probably a historical matter because originally toilets were just holes in the ground and people got used to those. Anyways, the bottom line is, remember to do the Asian squat and to bring paper, and no need to put the lid down.
In a related story, I was playing poker the other day, and while my opponent was dropping dueces so often we called him number 2, but I pushed the pot all in with a flush and took the whole pile home. It was the shit.
Last note: if you do come to China, you will find yourself on these toilets more often than you'd like. Indigestion is inevitable. Apparently it takes 3 or 4 months for your stomach to really get used to the food and water in China...I've been here 2 months....I really can't wait to get out of here.
EDIT: Picture of me demonstrating the Asian squat on the subway: Note the heels planted firmly on the ground.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
In the air tonight
Tuesday was a clear day. Such a simple sentence only carries meaning and weight in Beijing, where bustling city meets scientific experiment. As far as I know, Beijing right now is the only city that has ever had a need to quickly and drastically lower pollution. Going from having among the worst air in the world to hosting the Olympic Games was always going to be a challenge, that much is obvious, but I always thought that things would work out. The Chinese government would take drastic measures that a democratically elected government could not do and the Games would go on. Then whatever happened after they were over would be just China's problem. And so far everything has gone according to plan. Factories around Beijing have been shutdown and moved to different provinces, rockets have been launched into the sky to supposedly clean gunk out, energy conservation is in and in the latest measures, construction has been halted (no more cement can be poured) and cars are only allowed to drive every other day (except the 55,000 taxis).
Except there's been one problem. The air hasn't improved. The South China Journal told me that the air quality this weekend was still at a level harmful to people with respiratory problems, at a level of around 110. 150 is really bad, 200 is toxic, 50-100 is passable, and below 50 is clean. The level of fluctuation of the air quality particularly surprised me. A strong thunderstorm on Monday night had resulted in the clear Tuesday, during which the air was legitimately good. I walked out of my building and was stunned by how much I could see. I had forgotten what clear air looked like - suddenly there were faraway buildings visible that I hadn't even realized existed. Breathing in, the air actually did taste fresher although who knows how much Mr. Placebo has to do with that. Either way, the place sparkled with a crisp morning dew and was generally pleasant. Today was a different story. Amazingly one day later, we were back to the general haze that typically gunks up this city.
Before arriving in Beijing, I had been curious what it was people were referring to when they discussed the poor air quality. Certainly their reports of toxic air must be exaggerated? O2 is a very basic element and its hard to see how much it can change from place to place. Well here are the consequences of an average day in Beijing: the afore-mentioned general haze, an immense amount of microscopic particles in the air, and difficulty performing any cardiovascular activity. The biggest problem with the air is the physical things that actually float around in it, mostly due to construction I think. I've previously documented my coughing after a tough game of basketball, but I thought this would go away after exercising in this city for a bit. Maybe it did, but Sunday after a long day of Frisbee (11-10 win bitches) I soon started to really cough. I felt like something was clogging my windpipe and if I tried to cough it out my lungs would physically start to hurt. I spent half my time breathing with difficulty and half of my time coughing painfully. It didn't seem like anyone else had this problem so I still think that people can get used to the air, which is also why I think I'll be betting on Chinese endurance athletes whenever possible.
Except there's been one problem. The air hasn't improved. The South China Journal told me that the air quality this weekend was still at a level harmful to people with respiratory problems, at a level of around 110. 150 is really bad, 200 is toxic, 50-100 is passable, and below 50 is clean. The level of fluctuation of the air quality particularly surprised me. A strong thunderstorm on Monday night had resulted in the clear Tuesday, during which the air was legitimately good. I walked out of my building and was stunned by how much I could see. I had forgotten what clear air looked like - suddenly there were faraway buildings visible that I hadn't even realized existed. Breathing in, the air actually did taste fresher although who knows how much Mr. Placebo has to do with that. Either way, the place sparkled with a crisp morning dew and was generally pleasant. Today was a different story. Amazingly one day later, we were back to the general haze that typically gunks up this city.
Before arriving in Beijing, I had been curious what it was people were referring to when they discussed the poor air quality. Certainly their reports of toxic air must be exaggerated? O2 is a very basic element and its hard to see how much it can change from place to place. Well here are the consequences of an average day in Beijing: the afore-mentioned general haze, an immense amount of microscopic particles in the air, and difficulty performing any cardiovascular activity. The biggest problem with the air is the physical things that actually float around in it, mostly due to construction I think. I've previously documented my coughing after a tough game of basketball, but I thought this would go away after exercising in this city for a bit. Maybe it did, but Sunday after a long day of Frisbee (11-10 win bitches) I soon started to really cough. I felt like something was clogging my windpipe and if I tried to cough it out my lungs would physically start to hurt. I spent half my time breathing with difficulty and half of my time coughing painfully. It didn't seem like anyone else had this problem so I still think that people can get used to the air, which is also why I think I'll be betting on Chinese endurance athletes whenever possible.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
STO: My New Haircut
Not now chief I'm in the fucking zone. Sorry, I love that line. Anyways, the composition of this post follows my first haircut in Beijing by a mere two hours. While this was far from my first time having my haircut by Chinese people, this was a historical haircut under other criteria. At 38 kuai, this was the cheapest haircut I've ever had. Unsurprisingly, the style of this haircut was also unique as I just told the barbers to do their Asian thing. In addition, this was my first haircut not only in foreign soil, but just my 5th different parlor ever. My previous haircuts had taken place in just a total of 4 haircut spots in Boston and DC (as far as I can recall) - 2 places in Boston Chinatown that I regularly go to, 1 place on Wisconsin Ave. in DC that I go to in college, and then 1 place in West Roxbury that I went to once senior year. EDIT: Oh and apparently I neglected to mention that this was also my first haircut at night, and first time I had walked straight from after-work drinks at a bar to a barbershop. Thanks, I know you all were totally fascinated by my hairstyling history. Either way I currently look like this picture:
Ok so Saturday night was goodbye night for the wonderful individuals at the CIEE program at Bei Da. It's ok, I'm carrying on, but it's not often that half the numbers in your phonebook suddenly become obsolete. Well I was hoping that this would be a blessing in disguise: between working all day until 6, playing Frisbee twice a week and going out another four times, I don't get a whole lot of home time. There's so much I do want to do here especially practicing Chinese. In addition, I haven't seen a movie, read a book, done or written a crossword, in the last month. I have however imbibed a fair amount of White Russians and Singapore Slings, so I'm not complaining or anything.
So Monday night was going to be a chill night for me. I'd write a blog post, listen to some Chinese podcasts and work on my presentation for work (about linguistics and the English language) and perhaps see a few episodes of the Office. Well instead, after lifting weights for an hour, I get a text from Crystal and her friend Anastassia within minutes of getting back to my place: "Crystal and i at lush if u want to come" Well...I really shouldn't...fine.
So Crystal has just come back from a weekend trip to Xi'an and is apparently on antibiotics but nonetheless eagerly anticipating downing several Long Islands. Anastassia is coming off a 5:30am night and a full day of work but shows no ill effects - she is just a total baller. Well we take Lush's buy 2 drinks get 1 free deal and order 3 Long Islands, but unfortunately the 服务员 gives us 3 Adios instead. The full name is something like"Adios Mother Fucker" and the description reads: "The best way to end the night. And it will end your night." Lovely. For the record, an Adios is blue, tastes like vodka mixed poorly with powerade and gets you drunk. So there's a lonely white guy sitting on the bar right in my line of vision, making love to his White Russian and trying to find someone to talk to. I couldn't stand a dude like that, so after hearing stories of Anastassia's ill-fated 2 year engagement, I tell Crystal to invite this guy to our table. I'd like to think of this as my best and worst suggestion ever, or at least of the night. The kid was named Marc and had just finished his freshman year at Colby. We found out the next day that there's a Facebook group dedicated to him not made by him, so that says a ton about him right there. For the RLers reading this, think Nafis Ahmed. Marc was superbly awkward but had the amazing gift that whenever he opened his mouth, hilarity ensued. He said the craziest, most absurd and misunderstood ideas and we all loved them.
At some point during this, Crystal went to the bathroom and returned wearing, in her words, "slutty boob dress." Anyways, Crystal really wanted to play "Never Have I Ever" and Crystal typically gets what she wants, so voila I'm playing "Never Have I Ever" with 2 girls who have become best friends because they're both totally nuts, and a total crazed stranger. Halfway through the game, some dude just pulled his stool up to our table and said, "Hey, I'm joining you guys." Not "Hey do you mind if I join you guys?" or "Could I join you guys" but a forced entrance into our little table. Creeeeper. He was later joined by 2 other creepers - all 3 of them had apparently just graduated from the same high school but the original guy was clearly the alpha creeper. So yeah this was an interesting game of "Never Have I Ever." For the sake of privacy, I won't go over all that was gleaned during this game, but let's just say Marc has never jumped off a cliff, and I've never gotten it going in a McCarthy shower.
Suffice to say, last night was not my chill night. I stumbled back at 2 am. Crystal blacked out due to the combination of adios, antibiotics, and significantly more drinking during "Never Have I Ever" than any other participant. Anastassia got everyone's phone number and posted on the Facebook group dedicated to Marc. I've been decidedly more chill tonight in addition to the haircut, and among other things, cooked stir fry rice with egg and chicken. It actually was not bad and I'm thinking I'm going to refer to myself as Maestro Cal more often.
Ok so Saturday night was goodbye night for the wonderful individuals at the CIEE program at Bei Da. It's ok, I'm carrying on, but it's not often that half the numbers in your phonebook suddenly become obsolete. Well I was hoping that this would be a blessing in disguise: between working all day until 6, playing Frisbee twice a week and going out another four times, I don't get a whole lot of home time. There's so much I do want to do here especially practicing Chinese. In addition, I haven't seen a movie, read a book, done or written a crossword, in the last month. I have however imbibed a fair amount of White Russians and Singapore Slings, so I'm not complaining or anything.
So Monday night was going to be a chill night for me. I'd write a blog post, listen to some Chinese podcasts and work on my presentation for work (about linguistics and the English language) and perhaps see a few episodes of the Office. Well instead, after lifting weights for an hour, I get a text from Crystal and her friend Anastassia within minutes of getting back to my place: "Crystal and i at lush if u want to come" Well...I really shouldn't...fine.
So Crystal has just come back from a weekend trip to Xi'an and is apparently on antibiotics but nonetheless eagerly anticipating downing several Long Islands. Anastassia is coming off a 5:30am night and a full day of work but shows no ill effects - she is just a total baller. Well we take Lush's buy 2 drinks get 1 free deal and order 3 Long Islands, but unfortunately the 服务员 gives us 3 Adios instead. The full name is something like"Adios Mother Fucker" and the description reads: "The best way to end the night. And it will end your night." Lovely. For the record, an Adios is blue, tastes like vodka mixed poorly with powerade and gets you drunk. So there's a lonely white guy sitting on the bar right in my line of vision, making love to his White Russian and trying to find someone to talk to. I couldn't stand a dude like that, so after hearing stories of Anastassia's ill-fated 2 year engagement, I tell Crystal to invite this guy to our table. I'd like to think of this as my best and worst suggestion ever, or at least of the night. The kid was named Marc and had just finished his freshman year at Colby. We found out the next day that there's a Facebook group dedicated to him not made by him, so that says a ton about him right there. For the RLers reading this, think Nafis Ahmed. Marc was superbly awkward but had the amazing gift that whenever he opened his mouth, hilarity ensued. He said the craziest, most absurd and misunderstood ideas and we all loved them.
At some point during this, Crystal went to the bathroom and returned wearing, in her words, "slutty boob dress." Anyways, Crystal really wanted to play "Never Have I Ever" and Crystal typically gets what she wants, so voila I'm playing "Never Have I Ever" with 2 girls who have become best friends because they're both totally nuts, and a total crazed stranger. Halfway through the game, some dude just pulled his stool up to our table and said, "Hey, I'm joining you guys." Not "Hey do you mind if I join you guys?" or "Could I join you guys" but a forced entrance into our little table. Creeeeper. He was later joined by 2 other creepers - all 3 of them had apparently just graduated from the same high school but the original guy was clearly the alpha creeper. So yeah this was an interesting game of "Never Have I Ever." For the sake of privacy, I won't go over all that was gleaned during this game, but let's just say Marc has never jumped off a cliff, and I've never gotten it going in a McCarthy shower.
Suffice to say, last night was not my chill night. I stumbled back at 2 am. Crystal blacked out due to the combination of adios, antibiotics, and significantly more drinking during "Never Have I Ever" than any other participant. Anastassia got everyone's phone number and posted on the Facebook group dedicated to Marc. I've been decidedly more chill tonight in addition to the haircut, and among other things, cooked stir fry rice with egg and chicken. It actually was not bad and I'm thinking I'm going to refer to myself as Maestro Cal more often.
Monday, July 28, 2008
SPO & CUL: Athletic protests in the Olympics
Politics in the Olympics?
Here is one of the biggest questions that always float over Olympic Games and especially so over these games: Should we mix politics with the Olympics?
Well to answer this, we must answer what the Games are. My humble ranking of the significances of the Olympics are:
1a) A inter-cultural and international phenomenon
1b) An athletic event
3) A chance for NBC to wave its giant peacock
1000) Beijing's chance to make a lot of money
I rank the cultural and athletic implications 1a and 1b because to a huge group of people, these are the only point of the Olympics. To many Chinese in this country, the sports competition couldn't mean less. This is merely a chance to broadcast Beijing, and by relation, China, to the entire world. This is a international convention where people from just about every single country in the entire freaking world (except Iraq) will take part. It doesn't matter that some will shoot arrows, some will run exactly 1500 meters, and some will try to judge a ball in the air to see whether they should run or stay near the white square object and try to "tag up."
To many athletes, this event is entirely a sports showcase. This will be a global showcase of their talents, but it doesn't matter whether the games are in Beijing, Athens or Reykjavik. The ultimate goal of any runner, swimmer, gymnast ping pong player or fencer is to make the Olympics. While every sport has their own championship, and usually a world championship, the Olympics is often the highest and most glorious rewarder. I was talking with a Frisbee player here in Beijing who is reporting for ESPN the Magazine, and he was saying that the criteria for Olympic Sports should be whether the Olympics are the greatest level of competition for the sport. This is a great criteria that will eliminate among others, soccer, baseball, tennis and probably basketball from the Games but will represent why, athletically, the Olympic Games are so special. This is the chance for all these otherwise unknown sports to get worldwide coverage. Without the Olympics, we will never hear of great athletes including contemporaries like Paul Hamm, the Lopez Tae-Kwan-Do siblings, Tyson Gay and Alan Webb, and historical figures like Greg Louganis, Tommy Moe, Carl Lewis and Flo-Jo, all of whom have entered our athletic lore because of these great events.
So the Olympic Games are dually cultural and athletic... it's the Jesus Christ of international conventions. But how does this relate to politics? Why have the British Olympic Committee forbidden its athletes from making any sort of political statements?
Well viewing the Olympics as a cultural event, not only do we see this as a chance for the world to see Chinese culture, but inevitably we see a chance to criticize Chinese culture (government). Journalists coming in to recount their experience will be unable to help themselves from talking about the same things I've talked about - massive police presence, internet censorship, biased internal media, strong and unchallengeable government decrees and if they dig deeper, perhaps human rights violations. Cross cultural exposure is directly linked to cross cultural criticism, and while I urge anyone visiting a different culture to be totally open and understanding, eventually understanding combined with evaluation will result in truly detecting flaws. Even a journalist that comes in without bias will be forced to write about the inadequacies he/she sees in this country if he/she is observant enough. This is true about any country but especially China.
However, a journalist is not an athlete. Most newspapers will be sending journalists not only well-versed in Olympic sports, but with a keen eye and incentive to keep an eye out for larger nationalistic and cultural stories. On the other hand, athletes are chosen solely for their abilities to represent their country with pride and bring back medals. If every athlete was pressured to make political statements whenever they had the podium, we'd have Darfur protesters who couldn't find Sudan on the map. Even Steven Spielberg, who was hired as a consultant director for the ceremonies but resigned for China's role in trading with Sudan, has no idea what he was talking about. His resignation was meaningless, uninformed and at best, mildly damaging. Helping China present a worthwhile Opening Ceremonies has absolutely nothing to do with racial genocide in Darfur. There is much more to be gained from investigating and understanding a vastly different culture then there is from reading a newspaper article and stepping away in protest.
I don't have a problem with an athlete who has a truly personal reason to protest to do so. I completely support John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their now famous Black Power salute on the 200 meter medalstand to show the whole world a symbol of African American pride and demonstrate the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time. If some Olympic athlete wants to send a message because their brother was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese government for 15 years, let them. If Michael Phelps' cousin starved to death in the Great Leap Forward, maybe he should be allowed to talk about it. However, I am deathly afraid of athletes who know nothing about history, culture or politics, to come in here and, under pressure from whoevernot, to speak ill of things they don't understand and incur the wrath of 1 billion Chinese. Even if their opinions are worthwhile, there's a difference between expressing those opinions and understanding them.
Here is one of the biggest questions that always float over Olympic Games and especially so over these games: Should we mix politics with the Olympics?
Well to answer this, we must answer what the Games are. My humble ranking of the significances of the Olympics are:
1a) A inter-cultural and international phenomenon
1b) An athletic event
3) A chance for NBC to wave its giant peacock
1000) Beijing's chance to make a lot of money
I rank the cultural and athletic implications 1a and 1b because to a huge group of people, these are the only point of the Olympics. To many Chinese in this country, the sports competition couldn't mean less. This is merely a chance to broadcast Beijing, and by relation, China, to the entire world. This is a international convention where people from just about every single country in the entire freaking world (except Iraq) will take part. It doesn't matter that some will shoot arrows, some will run exactly 1500 meters, and some will try to judge a ball in the air to see whether they should run or stay near the white square object and try to "tag up."
To many athletes, this event is entirely a sports showcase. This will be a global showcase of their talents, but it doesn't matter whether the games are in Beijing, Athens or Reykjavik. The ultimate goal of any runner, swimmer, gymnast ping pong player or fencer is to make the Olympics. While every sport has their own championship, and usually a world championship, the Olympics is often the highest and most glorious rewarder. I was talking with a Frisbee player here in Beijing who is reporting for ESPN the Magazine, and he was saying that the criteria for Olympic Sports should be whether the Olympics are the greatest level of competition for the sport. This is a great criteria that will eliminate among others, soccer, baseball, tennis and probably basketball from the Games but will represent why, athletically, the Olympic Games are so special. This is the chance for all these otherwise unknown sports to get worldwide coverage. Without the Olympics, we will never hear of great athletes including contemporaries like Paul Hamm, the Lopez Tae-Kwan-Do siblings, Tyson Gay and Alan Webb, and historical figures like Greg Louganis, Tommy Moe, Carl Lewis and Flo-Jo, all of whom have entered our athletic lore because of these great events.
So the Olympic Games are dually cultural and athletic... it's the Jesus Christ of international conventions. But how does this relate to politics? Why have the British Olympic Committee forbidden its athletes from making any sort of political statements?
Well viewing the Olympics as a cultural event, not only do we see this as a chance for the world to see Chinese culture, but inevitably we see a chance to criticize Chinese culture (government). Journalists coming in to recount their experience will be unable to help themselves from talking about the same things I've talked about - massive police presence, internet censorship, biased internal media, strong and unchallengeable government decrees and if they dig deeper, perhaps human rights violations. Cross cultural exposure is directly linked to cross cultural criticism, and while I urge anyone visiting a different culture to be totally open and understanding, eventually understanding combined with evaluation will result in truly detecting flaws. Even a journalist that comes in without bias will be forced to write about the inadequacies he/she sees in this country if he/she is observant enough. This is true about any country but especially China.
However, a journalist is not an athlete. Most newspapers will be sending journalists not only well-versed in Olympic sports, but with a keen eye and incentive to keep an eye out for larger nationalistic and cultural stories. On the other hand, athletes are chosen solely for their abilities to represent their country with pride and bring back medals. If every athlete was pressured to make political statements whenever they had the podium, we'd have Darfur protesters who couldn't find Sudan on the map. Even Steven Spielberg, who was hired as a consultant director for the ceremonies but resigned for China's role in trading with Sudan, has no idea what he was talking about. His resignation was meaningless, uninformed and at best, mildly damaging. Helping China present a worthwhile Opening Ceremonies has absolutely nothing to do with racial genocide in Darfur. There is much more to be gained from investigating and understanding a vastly different culture then there is from reading a newspaper article and stepping away in protest.
I don't have a problem with an athlete who has a truly personal reason to protest to do so. I completely support John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their now famous Black Power salute on the 200 meter medalstand to show the whole world a symbol of African American pride and demonstrate the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time. If some Olympic athlete wants to send a message because their brother was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese government for 15 years, let them. If Michael Phelps' cousin starved to death in the Great Leap Forward, maybe he should be allowed to talk about it. However, I am deathly afraid of athletes who know nothing about history, culture or politics, to come in here and, under pressure from whoevernot, to speak ill of things they don't understand and incur the wrath of 1 billion Chinese. Even if their opinions are worthwhile, there's a difference between expressing those opinions and understanding them.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
CUL: Useless jobs
Chinese unemployment rate is officially listed at 4% and unofficially at 13%. I can take a guess at what that means. Even still, with 1.3 billion people, it doesn't take a math major to realize that at either of those figures, there are a lot of jobs to go around. Here are some:
1. Elevator attendant - there are several people, including some in my apartment building, whose main job seems to be to take care of buildings, janitorial style. However every so often, I notice that they'll just stand by the elevator and try to be active. This includes pressing the up button when they hear someone coming, and holding the elevator open when it arrives. I think this may save the average individual about 1.8 seconds, and create an average of 10.3 seconds of awkwardness while the individual waits for the elevator alongside the attendant, who is patiently pretending she has a job.
2. Mall serenader - a few weeks ago, my dad and his friends took me to a Japanese restaurant in some high end mall. On our way out, taking the escalators down, we were serenaded at every level by 4 young-ish women standing on both sides of the escalator. They would bow when we landed and say a phrase in Chinese that meant something like, "Honored guest, please return sometime." I managed to constrain my laughter with extreme difficulty - their situation was simply comical. These women surrounded the escalators of like 4 levels as well as all the mall entrances. That's at least 32 people on the mall's payroll that appear meek as a living. Eh, there are worst jobs.
3. Plastic bottle collectors - this is technically not a job. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but many old people collect plastic bottles in order to recycle them back for cash. This makes about a nickel in the US and I can't imagine that the price is significantly higher here in China so you can imagine how hard these people must work to buy dinner. At the Forbidden City, a women came up to me and asked for my bottle of water. When I replied that it still had water in it, she made me chug it and then took it. When playing basketball at Tsinghua University, an old man would watch the action then come collect the inevitable scattered plastic bottles.
4. Bathroom massager - by far the scariest and most awkward of all the jobs. In China Doll, a classy club in San Li Tunr, I had to take a leak and found 2 bathroom attendants inside. I've seen bathroom attendants before - in Hong Kong - and while certainly useless and awkward, they hadn't prepared me for this dude. As I take my place by the urinal, he comes up behind me and starts massaging my shoulders. It is NOT comfortable, and does NOT help me pee. After I'm done, shake him off, he turns the faucet on, waits for me to wash my hands, brings the soap to me, and does a sort of half-bow while presenting me with a paper towel. Amazingly there was a bowl for tips there filled with 20s. I threw a 5 in and ran away.
5. Umbrella seller - amazingly, when it rains, these guys just materialize. They sell nothing besides 10 kuai umbrellas and are nowhere to be seen on a sunny day. But when it pours, these guys are more popular than hot dog vendors at Fenway Park, or Barack Obama in Berlin.
6. Police officer - yes this is not exactly a useless job, until you realize how many there are in Beijing now. With the Olympics around, officers are everywhere important and several places that are decidedly unimportant. The Bei Da campus' many entrances are all guarded by armed security dressed in the intimidating dark green uniforms of the Chinese police. To enter the campus, you need to flash your Chinese student ID, and even then you might get a second look and a patdown. For me, I needed to be signed in by a student, give them an ID and fill out like 6 categories in Chinese, 2 of which I recognized (i faked some characters for the other 4). I gave them my Hong Kong ID cause it had my Chinese name on it so I don't know how they'd react to an American ID (I doubt it's a big difference). All in all, it's a lot harder to get into this campus than it is to sneak into LXR and it's all because there will be some ping pong events held in the gymnasium in 3 weeks time. I heard a rumor that some athletes are also staying there already, which might make the security seem more sensible, but overall the abundance of cops really indicates the paranoia that the Chinese government is feeling towards these games. More on that later.
1. Elevator attendant - there are several people, including some in my apartment building, whose main job seems to be to take care of buildings, janitorial style. However every so often, I notice that they'll just stand by the elevator and try to be active. This includes pressing the up button when they hear someone coming, and holding the elevator open when it arrives. I think this may save the average individual about 1.8 seconds, and create an average of 10.3 seconds of awkwardness while the individual waits for the elevator alongside the attendant, who is patiently pretending she has a job.
2. Mall serenader - a few weeks ago, my dad and his friends took me to a Japanese restaurant in some high end mall. On our way out, taking the escalators down, we were serenaded at every level by 4 young-ish women standing on both sides of the escalator. They would bow when we landed and say a phrase in Chinese that meant something like, "Honored guest, please return sometime." I managed to constrain my laughter with extreme difficulty - their situation was simply comical. These women surrounded the escalators of like 4 levels as well as all the mall entrances. That's at least 32 people on the mall's payroll that appear meek as a living. Eh, there are worst jobs.
3. Plastic bottle collectors - this is technically not a job. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but many old people collect plastic bottles in order to recycle them back for cash. This makes about a nickel in the US and I can't imagine that the price is significantly higher here in China so you can imagine how hard these people must work to buy dinner. At the Forbidden City, a women came up to me and asked for my bottle of water. When I replied that it still had water in it, she made me chug it and then took it. When playing basketball at Tsinghua University, an old man would watch the action then come collect the inevitable scattered plastic bottles.
4. Bathroom massager - by far the scariest and most awkward of all the jobs. In China Doll, a classy club in San Li Tunr, I had to take a leak and found 2 bathroom attendants inside. I've seen bathroom attendants before - in Hong Kong - and while certainly useless and awkward, they hadn't prepared me for this dude. As I take my place by the urinal, he comes up behind me and starts massaging my shoulders. It is NOT comfortable, and does NOT help me pee. After I'm done, shake him off, he turns the faucet on, waits for me to wash my hands, brings the soap to me, and does a sort of half-bow while presenting me with a paper towel. Amazingly there was a bowl for tips there filled with 20s. I threw a 5 in and ran away.
5. Umbrella seller - amazingly, when it rains, these guys just materialize. They sell nothing besides 10 kuai umbrellas and are nowhere to be seen on a sunny day. But when it pours, these guys are more popular than hot dog vendors at Fenway Park, or Barack Obama in Berlin.
6. Police officer - yes this is not exactly a useless job, until you realize how many there are in Beijing now. With the Olympics around, officers are everywhere important and several places that are decidedly unimportant. The Bei Da campus' many entrances are all guarded by armed security dressed in the intimidating dark green uniforms of the Chinese police. To enter the campus, you need to flash your Chinese student ID, and even then you might get a second look and a patdown. For me, I needed to be signed in by a student, give them an ID and fill out like 6 categories in Chinese, 2 of which I recognized (i faked some characters for the other 4). I gave them my Hong Kong ID cause it had my Chinese name on it so I don't know how they'd react to an American ID (I doubt it's a big difference). All in all, it's a lot harder to get into this campus than it is to sneak into LXR and it's all because there will be some ping pong events held in the gymnasium in 3 weeks time. I heard a rumor that some athletes are also staying there already, which might make the security seem more sensible, but overall the abundance of cops really indicates the paranoia that the Chinese government is feeling towards these games. More on that later.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
STO: Teenagers scare the living shit out of me
Tuesday marks the end of my teenage years. Birthdays have always been an interesting part of my life. A summer birthday has led to some uneventful July twenty-seconds as Boston-area residents habitually head to the cape or camp or whatnot and I have rarely spent my birthday with friends. Past birthdays have ranged from a parent-thrown party in June when I was 10, a full day in Driver's ED class complete with 2 trips to the RMV because I didn't bring my birth certificate the first time, to a day in Washington DC on a social service trip in which my parents neglected to call me to driving around in circles on my 18th and then spending the day isolated in Connecticut. So Greg and I disagree on what birthdays are about - he doesn't like the pressure of "needing to have a good day" on your birthday and thinks it should just be an ordinary day. I disagree. It's the one day of the year where people celebrate you, unless you're Barack Obama and the date is January 20, 2009. So of course I threw a party on Saturday. Note: I don't quite remember the circumstances of this picture.
Saturday morning and afternoon was a little high stress for me as I got the apartment ready and talked on the phone with various guests all day. My computer's speakers are broken so I needed to buy a speaker for the music and headed over to 海龙, the giant electronics mall that is abuzzing with Asians obsessing over cameras and mobiles. I looked up the word for speaker, 扬声器, and headed over with a fat wallet and a sense of optimism. I returned with an electronic pig. As ridiculous as it looks, I'm very proud of my little piggy - all the speakers were either animal-shaped or large multi-pieced iPod docks. For 450 kuai I had this spheroid shaped thing with two speakers for eyes. So I plug it into my computer and start blasting Sweetest Girl and life is good. I had made the salesperson plug in the pig and prove that it worked beforehand but I was still nervous about its functionality, because in China so many electronic goods are broken. Ok so I lean onto this pig and suddenly the volume drops. Fuck. I can't even find where you adjust the volume, there's this little Bass knob on the back but that's not it. I start banging on the pig and at first nothing changes. After one particular bang the volume totally dies. Wonderful. Dejected, forlorn and tired, I reluctantly look up the Chinese word for volume, drag my pig back to the electronics superhub and go back to the salesman, who promptly shows me that the sound is working fine. I blubber around for answers, and to my immense shame, the salesman shows me that pressing down on the ears of the pig adjusts the volume. My pig and I were blushing the whole taxi ride back to my apartment.
After cleaning up my apartment, buying cups and more beer at 7Eleven, I head out for dinner at this wonderful little pizza restaurant called Kro's Nest with Charlie, Saloni and Christie. The bbq chicken, onion and mushroom pizza was legit, delish and like all other food in China, terrible for one's digestive system. I hurried home from dinner as the party was scheduled to start at 8:30. I had a shot of Absolut vodka with Saloni to start the night but things were really lowkey for a while because no one arrived until like 9:30 and as of 10 o'clock, there were like 6 people here. Then everything blew up, and after a few drinks and what seemed like 20 minutes, another 10 people arrived and I changed the music from my "pre-game chill" list to the "party list." Lots of people brought a few drinks and Christie even brought a birthday cake. I had a whole set of amusing rules which no one really followed, but the best one was definitely the punishment of baijiu for any perpetrator of a party foul (which included me). In some order, I took a shot of jack daniels with JD (who despite being 10 years older and not knowing anyone else was really the life of the party) and then another one with Lisa, sharing a Corona with Kate, choked back on some baijiu, played some Kings, and told at least 5 different people to "look for the foot massage place" while trying to find my building. We also had an ice-breaking session, where I made everyone say their name, what they're doing in Beijing, and why I'm awesome. The best quotes from that session were from Christie, "I like eating chocolate," and Angela, "Cal is awesome because although both his parents are Chinese, he looks like a HALFIE."
At some point around midnight the party really went nuts. We broke out the cake which served a function in addition to dessert. Lisa told me to come over and when I obliged, she slapped me in the face with a piece of cake she had hidden in her pocket. It got everywhere, all over my shirt and face, it was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I took off my shirt after that. Everyone at the party surprised me with a birthday card with at least 15 signatures. Around 1 or 130am I made everyone leave the apartment and head to Lush. This included a brief stop on the bridge in the middle of the complex, where I think at least 5 of us guys peed off it. Absolutely shameless. The cops walked over to us when that happened but I think we were miraculously spared.
I woke up this morning sleeping with a decidedly wicked hangover. Among the battle scars in my apartment this morning: about 20 open containers of alcohol and a quarter of cake strewn across two tables, broken tiles at the base of my wall, sprite stains on my laptop (the only residual effect is a sticky left clicker), a piece of cake on a plate on top of my air conditioning, a page of my notebook filled with the rules for King's, and my favorite shot glass in several pieces :(. Nothing really terrible though, like a dead body or a pile of vomit, and all totally worth it. Anyways, this was the best party I had ever attended. I think from this point out, my time in Beijing will be more cultural, healthier and more academic as opposed to alcoholic. There's still a lot of stuff I want to do in this city and having an awesome party is no longer one of them.
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