Toe to Toe with the Rooskies

I promised Brian and I have a new post before morning in America, so here goes.

The other night, a few of us from the office went out for a little dinner followed by some beers. The bar we infested is called Dave's and looks like a cross between The Dog and...well, higher ceilings. The only difference is rather than a thong above the bar, they have a lot of different currencies. Dave's is a common hang out for ex-patriots of pretty much every country. On any given night you can usually find some people from England, America, Spain, Australia, Russia and South Africa. That's a bit about Dave's, back to my evening out.

The people who went out were Kailey, Abdul, Ryan (all are English teachers like me and about my age) Jonah, and April. The last two are Chinese employees of the company for which I work and are in about their mid to late twenties. After we had a few drinks at Dave's, the girls, being girls, wanted to dance. So, we all loaded up into the car and headed over to a dance club that Ryan thought he knew how to get to. Luckily, we arrived safe and sound to Club Love (or 爱的俱乐部) with relatively little difficulty.

We get in to Club Love, and it's not too bad. It's a two level club that plays a fair amount of American dance music and most importantly has Absolut. Bottles and bottles of Absolut. I drank so many shots of Absolut, a few Russians came up to me and asked if I was Russian- only it was in Russian so I can't remember exactly what I said. So, I buy three shots at the upstairs bar before we all head downstairs to grab a table by the dance floor. After we're sitting for a few seconds, a waiter comes up to us and starts talking to me in Chinese. As always I replied by yelling for Jonah to intervene. A heated exchange broke out between the two of them during which I understood that the table at which we were sitting would cost us 100 kuai. Furthermore, Jonah informed me that I was not allowed to bring drinks from the bar upstairs to the downstairs. The waiter gave me three options 1.) Pay him the 100 kuai, we could keep the table and he would look the other way about the shots 2.) Pay him 50 kuai for the difference between drink prices up and downstairs or 3.) His literal translation was that I could 'give him the glasses' and we would take the drinks away.

Naturally, I chose the third option which was to give him the glasses. Before he could stop me, I took the three shots of Absolut one after the next and handed him the three glasses. He looked at the glasses, glanced at me, glanced at the glasses and then gave me a thumbs up. The thing about many Chinese people is that they LOVE to watch foreigners drink for some reason. That guy had his fill then.

Who knew that in about 15 minutes, it took Jonah little convincing in order to get me to the dance floor. As the group of us were dancing I became more and more aware of group of Russians who were dancing near us - only with more vigor. They repeatedly glared at us as if our dancing was paling in comparison. I, not being a fan of Russians for some reason that evening, decided that we should dance with the same frivolity with which the Russians were dancing. The rest of my group obliged and the Russians looked taken aback. They then raised the stakes by jumping onto the stage and continuing to dance from there...

I don't know why I had my mind set on starting the Cold War of Dance, but set it was. Possibly it was the excitement of dancing, possibly it was because my dance partner Jonah is gorgeous intelligent Chinese woman who dances like a professional. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the lack of blood in my alcohol system. The world may never know, but dance we did. Before I could totally take stock of the situation my friends and I were dancing on the three tiered stage. I remember being on top of the highest tier and 'not leaving room for Jesus' in my dancing. The Russians seemed discouraged, or just bored and retired. We had taken the field!

Th rest of the evening was relatively uneventful with just a smattering of me and Ryan drinking, my falling into a glass table, and me dropping a shot glass. Sadly, the last two of that series had little to do with alcohol and everything to do with my own clumsiness. Well, my clumsiness peopled with the increased gravitational pull that seemed to follow me that evening.

Long story short, I had a few drinks, danced against some Russians and broke a shot glass. The picture accompanying this post was taken by either Ashley or Abdul and is no way related to the evening out described above. The only people from the evening actually in that picture are Jonah, April and Ryan. I'll let you guess who is who. Cheers!

Missin' You More Than Kathleen Misses Her Old Office

Just a quick note following my last entry to let everyone know that even if I do not e-mail or IM you that often, I'm usually thinking about most of you. The other English teachers here probably know more about you guys than you would wish people you have never met to know.

I promise to update the blog every day for the next few days because I understand that this is the only form of communication with some people. I have some OK pics to put up and some titles I'm proud of.

As a side note, when I had people at my apartment the other day, my slide show was running on my computer and of all people, my friend saw a picture of me and Paula and out of nowhere asked 'Is that your acting teacher?' I replied, "Uyeah, how in the heck did you know that?" She said that Paula 'Just looked like an acting teacher.' I guess she kind of does.

Anywho, just wanted to say hello to the Gannon crowd!

Mao Money, Mao Problems

Just as a starting note, I thought I would mention that on the 100 yuan note is a picture of Mao. Come to think of it, the picture on the 50 yuan note is also Mao... Actually the only picture on all denominations of money is Mao. I have a pocket full 'o Mao's, as it were.

It is very weird thinking that I carry a picture with me of a man who I have been taught to hate and who himself was a notorious xenophobe. I'm not sure if it is irony or not, but uncomfortable it is for sure . Anywho, I wanted to write this note on foreign money in light of the...luster muck on Wall Street. The American dollar has criminal buying power here. I honestly feel bad sometimes when I think about how much I did to earn some of that money and how much work I am buying in exchange. The only thing that is not much cheaper is alcohol and I'm sort of OK with that.

The current exchange rate is about 676.07 or take your amount in dollars and multiply it by about 6.56. I don't really want to get into figured but suffice it to say a full body massage by a blind man (that's just sort of what they're into here) is 50 yuan for an hour. I'll let you do the math for that. I can eat a pretty good meal for about 20 yuan and I can eat street food, which is usually much better and a little safer than a restaurant, for about 10 yuan. It's amazing that food in this country is cheap. In fact, necessities for life (e.g. food, water, etc.) is pretty cheap but the more refined things are a little pricier. The pricier food includes unhealthy food like McDonald's or KFC ( basically the only two chains here), which is perfect. It's refreshing to see a country where a lower class is not confined to obesity by having no healthy food options. Plus they walk a freakin' lot. I walk about 45 minutes to work on some mornings in the nice Chinese summer heat. At least I'm healthy, I shouldn't complain.

The money in China is sort of odd because they use some coins and some bills. They have standard bill denominations like 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 as well as coins worth 1 yuan, .50, .10, and .05. Due to inflation however the 'dime' and 'nickel' are so worthless, one would not even give them to a beggar. Their only use is to throw in a big bin then after about a year's time cash them in at a bank for about 5 yuan. The 1 yuan coins I sometime forget are money. They are about the size and weight of a quarter and are basically bus tokens in my eyes. A bus ride costs 1 yuan so it works out pretty well for me. I'm embarrassed to say that I have no idea how much public transport is in America but 1 yuan sounds pretty cheap and is essential to transportation in China.

In all, I must say, the living is cheap. As much as it upsets me to be supporting a government I have my differences with, and encouraging their commercial power all the while using money celebrating the life of a mass murder on their money from what I have seen happening on Wall Street, the US doesn't deserve help. Anywho, stay tuned for a bit about my city.

The Digs

So, I have no idea where to start updating people on what it's like here. Pretty much everything is different, but a lot is the same too. I guess I should start with my apartment for now.

I have a Japanese style apartment sort of in the boonies, I have views of mountains out my windows. It's a pretty nice neighborhood except for the fact that all residential areas in China look like slums. All of them. Slums. Looking at my apartment building, I thought I was in the projects, but then I got inside. From the pictures you can see that it's not a bad place at all. It's certainly no Harborview and its sort of boring living alone in a strange country, but I'm making due. As soon as I get some booze and food in this place, I need to have a party. I never realized how much I would miss having people over for wine, dinner, pizza, etc. I don't exactly have a party place though, seeing as how I don't have any sitting surfaces with backs on them and everything is low to the ground. I feel like I live in Japanese Lilliput sometimes.

Anywho, just finished the first week of teaching and wanted to drop a line and some pics. I'm on my way to the store because I'm having one of those 'Need to Spend Money' days'. I think my next post will be about the job, but if anyone has any questions/ ideas, please let me know. Cheers!