Always With The Questions About Beef

Tonight is another night I just can't sleep, it's already 3AM.  I don't have any fun stories about eating pig parts.  But we have noticed a pattern of questions here...

I really noticed it this summer.  During the summer it was very hot.  I was with a friend visiting a mom and her twelve year old son.  In China, as it is in the rest of Asia and even in the U.S., it is customary to remove your shoes when entering someone's home.  It is also customary here for them to provide you with slippers.

On that particular hot day I don't remember if the slippers were too small for me or not.  It's not uncommon for people to not have slippers large enough for my feet, although there are plenty of large people here, maybe their feet are small, I don't know, but it happens.  But I do remember that I wore sandals that day so I had bare feet once I slipped my sandals off.

As we were about to leave the twelve year old boy pointed at my feet in amazement and everyone looked at the crazy barefoot American standing on the hot cement floor.

Was I cold?  Weren't my feet cold?  Frankly I didn't understand the line of questioning, it was over 95 degrees outside and inside, wouldn't cold feet be desirable?  But they weren't cold, I was hot!

The twelve year old boy joyously kicked off his house slippers as if kicking off shackles and chains.  He said that he was going to be barefoot too!

But his mother immediately told him to put his slippers back on and that the only reason that I was able to do it was that my body was different because I ate beef all the time.

Yes, beef.  I have heard this so many times: Americans eat beef.  Of course it is true, the average American eats more beef than the average Chinese person.  Everyone asks us if Americans eat lamb, or sheep.  Yes, we tell them, but a lot of people don't like it, we don't eat it as often as beef...  I must have said it a hundred times!

Just what does that kid's mother think will happen to him if he doesn't wear slippers in the house when it's hot outside?  Is she worried that he won't put them back on in the winter and it gets cold out?  Actually it makes sense to me that the locals here insist that slippers should be worn, the floors are usually cement and usually cold and hard.  Cold is a very real thing to be reckoned with here. It's just strange to me that we need a wive's tale about how you must wear slippers at all times so you don't die.  Seems like kids would just want to do it on their own when it was cold.

Now recently it hasn't been hot outside, it's actually very cold.  And I wear a huge down filled jacket, hat, mittens, insulated pants, thermals, everything, it all keeps me warm.  But the trouble with all that insulation is that when I get inside and I can't take it off right away, or I have to hike up five flights of stairs:  I tend to sweat a lot.

So I usually wear a teeshirt and sometimes a flannel shirt under my huge jacket so that I can quickly take off, or open, my jacket and flannel and cool off as fast as possible, which I do often.  But so many times I get comments about how "lee-hai" I am wearing my t-shirt.  "Lee-hai" I think can translate into "fierce".  They seem quite impressed, even though people here ride motorcycles through the -35 degree wind bare faced with shaved heads, no helmets, scarves, or hats.  -35 degrees is crazy cold, it makes the exposed parts of my skin burn within seconds when I'm just standing there, with a hat and a scarf.

I am always confused by the questions.  You think I'd just learn to move past it, just nod my head or something.  But every time these questions and comments flabbergast me.  Did they not see the huge four-inch thick jacket I just peeled off?  Or didn't they notice the sweat dripping down my face and that I also took off a sweat wet flannel? Does the temperature inside, which is usually quite warm, feel different to them?  (Actually it probably does)

And, yes, of course I've been asked more than once if I can wear T-shirts in December because I eat beef all the time.  Recently I was asked that in a restaurant right after lunch, but the person who asked had just ate beef and lamb with us, we all just ate the same thing.

I think I need to turn the tables on the people here and turn the questioning back around on them.  Maybe I'll ask them if they're wearing long sleeve shirts because they eat rice or noodles every day...  Or maybe I'll just get over it and learn to just nod my head:  Yep, I eat beef every day, that's why I am the way I am.  Slippers? Don't need 'em! I ate beef for breakfast this morning.

Eyes Wide Open & Other Things Dried Open

It is 2:30 AM, sharp, as I'm typing this blog entry.  I can't sleep, I can't stop thinking, my eyes are wide open.  You probably know the feeling.  Years ago I made agreement with myself not to just lie in bed staring at the ceiling for hours on end, while not sleeping, when I could be doing something a little enjoyable or productive, while not sleeping, instead.  I might as well be doing something. Sometimes I read, sometimes I write computer code, and sometimes... I blog.

Tonight, Becky and I ate at a fancy restaurant called Pizza Hut.  You may laugh, but it is a little fancier than the Pizza Huts that I've been too in the U.S., and the menu is quite diverse, and fancy.  It is also open until 10:30 PM, being the primary reason we chose it while walking towards home through a mall whose stores were all closing at 9:00 PM.  But this blog entry isn't about Pizza Hut, I feel like I've already explained Pizza Hut in a previous blog.  Did I mention that Pizza Hut is not directly associated with the Pizza Hut in the U.S?  Anyway we had half of a left over pizza to bring home.

Dave and Irene were also not at home while Becky and I were eating our fancy dinner at Pizza Hut.  They were somewhere in some other part of town, kilometers away, saying their farewells to some friend of theirs that Becky and I'd never met.  I guess their friend was going back home to Korea or something.

A couple hours later, after pizzas had been boxed, and farewells had been said, Becky and I heard Dave and Irene come in through the front door while talking to each other.  We hadn't been home for very many minutes ourselves so we went out from our room to greet our old room-mates as they shed their thick warmth protecting jackets, boots, gloves and hats.

Dave and Irene have moved back in with us, it's the second day.  For about a month, after they got back from the U.S., they were living in an apartment across town, but it turned out to be too expensive there.  Rent is paid a year in advance here in China, and they were lucky to get 7 months of their rent back after staying that month.  So for Becky and I it has been kind of like "old times" when we first moved into this apartment as guests one year and 22 days ago.  It's nice being able to tell jokes and complain about the weather with friends in one's native tongue.

We shared our leftover pizza with them, which all four of us were excited about.  "It's almost like a real pizza!" we told them.  Pizza that tastes like pizza is hard to find here.  Apparently people on the other side of the world have different likes and dislikes when it comes to things like pizza.  Most pizza has shrimp on it here.  Also corn, peas, and other things are what people want to see on their pizza here. Becky and I have noticed that even the Pizza Hut pizza has basically no pizza sauce on it.  I never realized that I liked pizza sauce until I ate pizza without it.  It's just a little off.  Dave ate his two slices cold, like a man, but Irene heated hers up in the big toaster oven.

But my favorite part of the evening wasn't the leftover pizza that Dave and Irene were happily eating on the other side of our little breakfast table, the four of us sitting there just before midnight.  It was the lively conversation about what had happened during the day...

Dave had spent part of his day in a leather shop.  We are all good friends with, and frequently visit, the leather craftsman: Mr. Han.  Actually I was just there the day before sharing some of my favorite tea with Mr. Han and one of his apprentices.  But, tonight, Irene wanted to hear about what Dave ate for lunch.

Many times I've heard people back home in The States make jokes, and many have asked me if we've had to eat cat or dog here in China, or in Taiwan.  And that question always makes me chuckle to myself that eating cat or dog wouldn't be that bad.  The difficulty doesn't usually arise from what animal you're eating, it's more about what part of the animal you're eating.  The Chinese do not let anything go to waste.  And really, honestly, coming from the famously wasteful American culture I have to respect that.  It was not so long ago that China was having food shortages, people close to my age remember it, and, even now China has a large segment of it's population that still struggles with poverty. So it might even be a little insensitive to act disgusted because people may have been desperate enough to eat cat or dog here, and even learned to like it.  That being said, I have never seen anyone eat cat or dog here.  But I have, while driving by, seen two restaurants that, according to their signage, do indeed serve dog.

But today Dave told us, over our laughter, that he had eaten some pig butt hole for lunch.

Yes, sorry, it's hard to blog about it without being crass, but that's what they gave him for lunch today: A slice of the colon of a pig, with the anus attached.

Apparently the colon is quite muscular and thick, it has a lot of meat on it, I guess it's a muscle after all.  The "meat" had been smoked, partially dried, and the colon part sliced like calamari.  Actually Dave said that the texture of the colon was a lot like calamari.  He also mentioned that the "butt hole" part was "dried open," meaning that it had been cooked in such a way that it was partially open.

Of course, over our little wobbly breakfast table that's held up on one side by a two-by-four, we all laughed and made jokes about sliding "dave's lunch" over a chopstick, or sucking up apple sauce with it.  Personally I tried not to imagine what it tasted like, or felt like while he chewed it.  According to Dave it tasted fine, he said he would not have eaten it if it had even smelled a little bit like poo.  But even so, he said, he felt a little sick and grossed out for the rest of the day.  He ate it because his friend Mr. Han said it was good and offered it to him.  Dave's a good friend.

Now in case you're wondering, it wasn't a cruel joke that Mr. Han was playing on Dave.  He wasn't laughing or anything like that, Mr. Han is very kind.  Also, in case you're wondering, you will never have to eat anything you really don't want to eat here.  No one will actually force you to eat anything or be offended if you don't.  People do love pushing food on their guests, it's considered generosity and hospitality when they put food on your plate and tell you to eat, eat, eat!  But you don't have to eat it if you don't want to, you just have to say: no, no, no!  In fact, I don't think it would be lying if you told them that you "can't" eat pig butt hole.  I mean could you?  I don't think I'd be physically capable of it. But Dave is.

Actually I think this story says something about Dave, as a guy, Dave is not somebody I'd trifle with.  I mean you just shouldn't mess with guys who can eat things like that for lunch.

Selfies & Details

At this very moment, as I'm typing this, I'm sitting in a restaurant on a maroon couch, that is less comfortable than it looks, facing one of those standing reception desks with three hostesses behind it busily yelling into walkie talkies, putting things into bags, taking payments from customers as they leave.  There is a mirror-like panel on the side of the desk facing me, about 20 feet wide with six giant simplified Chinese characters etched into it.  I think the sign says something like "Old North East Something Noodles."  I guess you could call this a "Live" blog entry.

Every time a customer comes in through the front door I feel a little blast of cold air blow in from the ice covered sidewalk outside and hit the left side of my face.  Even as I'm articulating these things into this blog entry I'm surprised at how many customers are coming into and out of this place!  It's as busy as any restaurant is that doesn't have those little plastic beepers with red lights, like The Olive Garden.  This restaurant is about a 15 second walk from our apartment building and, now that I'm noticing it, I think it accounts for a significant percentage of the traffic on the sidewalk in front of our building.  I'm also wondering how many of the cars parked on the street are parked there for this restaurant...

Someone just left one of the doors open and a server walking by ran over to close it.  It was starting to get cold fast, and they don't mess around about the cold here.  There are, of course, two sets of doors separated by a little vestibule that usually provide a little bit of what I think of as an "air lock" between the freezing air outside and the warm air inside.  I guess some people using the "air lock" can be careless and leave it open.

As I was typing the previous paragraph an important looking guy, about my age, moved me from the couch to a two person glass topped table just around the corner from my couch.  He asked me if I was waiting for someone, and I said that I was waiting for take-out.  Never-the-less he sat me down at this little table and gave me a little cup of the traditional hot water, that they give you everywhere here, and a small bowl of either corn nuts or soy nuts.  I'm not planning to eat the nuts because they were sitting on the arm of the couch next to me earlier, and it looked like someone else had been munching on them.  Although the longer they sit there the more tempting they are...  I am not germaphobic so why not?  I've never been able to find corn-nuts here so maybe I've found a source.  (Edit: I never tried them)

A girl that looked about eight years old wearing a bright red coat with a pointy hood just turned around and gave me a good long stare from the reception area.  I have altered my habits a little bit in the last several months, I don't look for people staring at me as much as I used to.  Actually I just avoid looking at people like I'm really cool or something, as if people staring at me is not even interesting to me at all, of course they're staring at me, I'm so cool.  People coming in, at least when I was sitting on the couch, did usually seem to give me a quick glance at least, but not much more than that.  I guess they don't stare at me any more than I would stare at them if they were waiting for a table at The Olive Garden.

A lot of time has passed since my last blog entry, it was cold when I got here, then it got really hot! We've been to at least two countries, Hong Kong, Taiwan that I haven't blogged about.  But other than things like that I don't feel that too many things have happened that I wanted to blog about.  Even this blog entry might not make it into my actual blog, and even if it does I might not click the "Publish" button.  I usually like to blog about amusing or weird things happening.  I guess I've gotten used to the things I used to think were weird or amusing.  But tonight I figured I might blog a little bit about some of the little things, about the details.

To my right, from my table, there is a large, four foot wide, gold painted idol of that really fat smiling guy with huge ear lobes.  I think he's the god of prosperity or something.  There are a few offerings next to him: a pile of apples and some red burnt up incense sticks poked into a little bowl of sand in front of it.  Idols like these are in a majority of restaurants here but this one is very large, shiny, and occupies a very visible and central place in this particular restaurant.

As I was typing the description of the idol a young woman, in her late twenties, came around the corner apparently to meet with her boyfriend who had sat down in front of me a few minutes earlier at the same table as me.  As I was typing, staring into my laptop screen, I noticed her walk around to take a picture of her boyfriend talking on his cell phone.  She was trying to discretely take a picture of both of us.  How do I know?

This is a common thing that happens here: People will take selfies with foreigners, like us, in the background.  I'm not completely sure if they think we foreigners don't notice, or if they just don't want to bother asking, or if it's just OK to take pictures of strangers without asking.  But I can't imagine many other reasons why a girl would want to take a picture of her boyfriend while he was talking on his cell phone.  Either way she has a picture of her boyfriend talking on his cell phone while sitting at a table across from a foreigner who's frowning into the glowing screen of his laptop that he brought into the restaurant because he knew he'd have to wait a little while for his food.

I imagine that she'll post the photo she took on one of the selfie cluttered social media networks that's popular here like WeChat.  But I can't imagine what the comment would be.  "My boyfriend's cell phone battery lasts all the way until dinner time!"  Or "My boyfriend is having dinner with the actual god of prosperity, look at his huge ear lobes and belly!"

This little incident tonight was just one example of a detail of my life that is just a little different than the details of my life when I lived on the other side of the globe.  This is one of the details, that differ, something that I used to notice but that I've forgotten about since I got here a year ago.

Maybe one of these days I'll do a selfie with someone in the background doing a selfie with me in the background.

Come Grow Old In China

Wherever you go, there you are.

That's what they say, and it's true, obviously.  But sometimes it's hard to believe: "Wouldn't I be at least a little bit different?" you might think, or at least I did. 

I'd like to revise it a little too: "Wherever you go, your body comes with you."  I thought some of my body's problems would go away, or at least lessen a lot when I came here, especially my frequent neck pain.  I also thought, or hoped, that I'd lose weight like I did when I lived in Taiwan.  Maybe I'd have more energy from all that exercise I'd get here too.  But my body is the same body that I brought with me on that 12 hour flight over so many months ago.

But this is isn't a sad blog entry about my almost 40 year-old body, let me clear that up.  Actually I think I have lost ten or fifteen pounds, my neck pain is easier to manage since I don’t have to work at a full time job, and I do get more exercise walking, although maybe not as much as you'd think.  I'd also like to add that, according to feedback my wife gets, I'm considered pretty good-looking here, handsome even, probably due to my looking a lot more like Brad Pitt than the average local does.  Brad Pitt and I are both what we'd call in America "white guys," no one could tell us apart.  Actually I haven't heard anyone use the name "Brad Pitt" here, I'm not sure why I'm comparing my looks to his.  So, the point is, even though my body looks the same to you and to me, here in China, it has a different exotic "Westerner" look to people.  So this isn't a sad blog entry, just another weird one.

Last night, at about 10:15 PM, I was standing in front of the little elevator door on the first floor watching the tiny orange LED screen between the up button and the down button.  The lights in the room kept going off, as they tend to do here, so I had to clap my hands or stomp my feet several times to turn them back on again.  I really need to time the delay on the lights so that I can blog about it properly, I think it's twenty seconds.

When I first got there, to that room, by myself, the little orange screen said "6" with a little up arrow indicating that the elevator was going up.  I could faintly hear it's doors opening then closing through the elevator shaft behind the door.  Then it went up another floor and made some more noise. 

"That's odd," I thought, "It seems kind of late for the elevator to be this busy."

By the ninth floor I had recognized a pattern to the sounds echoing down the elevator shaft: it was stopping at every floor opening it's doors, waiting for someone to get on, then closing it's doors and going up the next floor, which it did all the way up to the fifteenth floor.  I couldn't help but laugh a little bit to myself when I realized it was doing this.  Only a young boy would cause an elevator to do something like this, or in this case an young boy trapped in my brother-in-law's 39 year-old body, Enoch, he pushed all the buttons in the elevator.  After I congratulated him on his prank he told me he didn't realize that I was behind him, he saw me still watching a little green bug when he left.

Both of our wives and his two kids were still back on the sidewalk watching a little green praying mantis trying to climb a brick wall. It was the first time my wife had seen a real live praying mantis.  Enoch stuck around for about five minutes watching this funny aggressive little green bug attack the flashlights on our cell phones, then he announced that he was going back up to the apartment.  I only lasted another two minutes, then I went back too.  I think I'll blame my "almost 40 year-old body" for my impatience and lack of interest in little green bugs.

Actually my disinterest extends beyond green bugs to things like Uno, the card game.  It was not even an hour before we encountered that green bug, that I was waking up to my own snoring noises in the living room of our friend's house where I was sleeping behind two people who were sitting on a mattress pad.  The mattress pad had been pulled into the little living room to accommodate the extra guests who were all, but one, me, sitting around a little low folding table on the floor playing Uno with plastic, water-proof, Uno cards. 

"Huang Se!" I kept hearing as I'd drift off to sleep, which means yellow in Chinese.  If I remember right you're supposed to call out a new color when you play a wild card in Uno.

As I've been turning into an old man I've found that I really like napping in the same room while people play games.  I guess I like people enough to want them to be around me, but maybe not enough to want to play the game that they're playing.  When I was young I didn't understand why anyone would not want to play a game, games were fun.  But now that I'm turning into an old man I don't understand why I would want to sit on the floor, with an aching back, bending my fragile neck and leaning over a tiny table to play cards that were randomly assigned to me from the shuffled deck.  I remember my dad saying "I don't like random games, I like strategy."  Well I guess I'm a chip off the old block, but I've found that even a strategy game "accomplishes nothing" in the end.  So there I lied, accomplishing a nap while everybody else played Uno and got to know each other.

Another thing that shows my advancing age is my indifference to what people think about me, at least certain aspects of me, like my snoring.  When I was young I would have been depressed at the idea that I might snore, and even more embarrassed that someone might hear it.  But now I just think it's funny, it was my gift to the room so they could have something to laugh about while most of them lost at Uno.  Only one person wins, randomly.

There are a few things left to enjoy in one's twilight years, and probably the biggest one is food.  Thank goodness for the delicious food here.  Before we were playing Uno, or before *they* were playing Uno I should say, we were all sitting at a long narrow table in a restaurant building what I've been calling "Northeast [Chinese] Burritos,"  or "Dongbei Burritos."  They are made out of thin "spring pancakes" and you pile on shredded (crunchy) potato, scrambled eggs, sweet and sour meats, bean sprouts, raw onions, and a delicious brown sauce.

I've also become impatient.  Ten of us were sitting at the table for about thirty minutes waiting for the last person to show up.  We were waiting for someone who works long days six or seven days a week and probably deserves to be waited for.  But it didn't take me even fifteen minutes to loudly say that it was silly to wait for anyone this long because our food was getting cold.  Irene Rice, who was there, laughed and said that she was glad that I was there because I always said the thing she was afraid to say before she said it. 

Saying the thing other people are afraid to say, because saying it would be rude, is probably not a good habit of mine, but it's increasingly difficult to control when I'm thinking more about the food on the table than the people sitting around the table.  I like people, don't get me wrong, I love them actually, but since I've chosen to live in a foreign country for this part of my life where apparently my hearing isn't so good anymore, and most of the time people are speaking a foreign language, I tend to focus on "the little things" or at least things that I can eat.  It keeps my attention occupied.

So that's where I am in life, my crazy life, I'm a rude, food-obsessed foreigner, that thinks he looks like Brad Pitt, and goes to people's homes to eat their food and then snores on their mattress pads while everybody else, with any manners, plays games.  Apparently I was talking in my sleep too.

Needless to say, our friends here are so friendly and so awesome, they even seem to like me to come to their homes for some reason.  Just think how much they'd like you if you came to visit.

Two Nights & Two Souls in Seoul

I can finally spell Seoul now, and I've finally been there.  Which is weird because I'd already been to Korea two times before that, all in one year. 

When I was there, in Seoul, I had the "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" song by "The Shins" stuck in my head most of the time.  Becky was the only one around to hear it, poor thing, and I sometimes tried to add to the lyric: "I'm in Seoul but I'm not a soldier," but it was never as funny as I'd hoped.  Hoping that something will be funny is a good sign that it won't be.

To me it's weird to say things like "This is my third time in Korea this year."  I'm not a traveling businessman, or rich and retired, or young and trying to find myself, or whatever it is that makes people travel a lot.  Although I do like seeing new things and places I'd have to say that I have a below average desire to travel the world, I don't have a "travel bug."  But on our trip back from Seoul I was staring at the back of the airplane seat in front of me trying to remember how many times I'd been on an airplane recently, and it was a little fuzzy: China, Jeju Island in Korea, Taiwan, Beijing, Incheon Korea, Seoul Korea. So six times.

But, in case it sounds like I'm bragging too much about how many places I've been, I have a confession to all travel lovers and adventurists: I didn't really do anything in most of those places.  I am a terrible, stick-in-the-mud, traveler.

Even I, as I'm typing this, am shaking my head in disgust at myself.  All the expense, the preparation, hours of buying tickets online with bad internet connections, sitting in cramped airplane seats, trudging through airports, getting stuck in long security lines with only minutes to spare… and I'm just not motivated to do anything cool when I go places.  In Seoul we ate at Outback Steakhouse for lunch, it wasn't very good, and then we ate at Costco and had pizza and a hot dog for dinner, it was delicious!  But no Korean barbeque, no Bibimbop, nothing new and Korean.  Not even Sushi, which is plentiful in Korea.  OK I admit I really regret that last one.  I saw someone throw away a partially uneaten tray of sushi at Costco, and it broke my heart.

I should defend our decisions though.  Going to Korea is like going a little bit closer to home for us.  Korea is saturated with English, some things, signs and stuff, have only English with no Korean.  Korea also has things like Costco, Krispy Kreme, Taco Bell.  In Korea I can use a VISA card to buy things, that's pretty cool.  In Korea they have Google and our Android phones actually work, we can use  maps to navigate places!

Of course we don't have Korean, or even American, SIM cards in our cell phones so we were not able to use the aforesaid Google maps without some sort of free Wi-Fi connection.  It's actually a little bit puzzling to me that tourist brochures have websites and phone numbers on them when there's a good chance the tourists won't have working phones.  Although it might be puzzling to the people who made those brochures that I didn't buy one of those SIM cards that they are selling at the airport.  But it's hard to justify buying one when you're only there for such a short time.  Next time I think I will though.

But anyway, we were far more excited to be out of China than we were to be in Korea.  Let's just say: We miss home.

Even though Seoul Korea has so much English, and is so convenient, we did find ourselves next to a rice patty, with dirt roads leading into it, in the dark, on a pedestrian-less road waiting for a bus.  Our phones were both dead, even though they didn't have Internet connections they did have the address to our hotel in case we needed to give it to a Taxi driver or something. Not that we could really get a Taxi because we only had a few dollars left in our pockets, and I wasn't sure how much money was left on our bus cards.

And when I said there's lots of English in Korea, that means on the signs.  Bus drivers, and anyone else, get really stressed out when you try speaking English to them, they can read it sometimes but they can't speak it.  Maybe I just have a really mean scary face…

We ended up next to the rice patty (did I mention that it started to rain) because we got on the right bus going the wrong direction.  It took at least twenty minutes for me to realize that we had crossed too many bridges.  Yes, I'm getting a SIM card next time.

But the story has a happy ending, eventually we ended up back at the airport, which was one of the stops on the bus route, transferring to the next bus.  We tried swiping our bus cards (or T-Cards as they call them) but the bus driver made an X with his arms indicating that we didn't need to swipe our T-Cards, of course it was too late.  Then, after that, we were running through the rain, me in shorts, down a poorly lit street sidewalk that badly needed to be weeded, from the bus stop closest to our little hotel.  We even stopped at 7-Eleven, dripping wet, and got some Kimchee to eat in our hotel room. 

So it turns out that the Kimchee in Korea, even at 7-Eleven, is really good, so the trip wasn't a total waste after all.

Summer Night Freedom

(By the way, I have recently enabled comments on these blog entries if you want to comment the comments are emailed to me then they show up at the end of the blog entry)

Last night I got up to go to the bathroom, something I started doing at age 30 when I lived in Taiwan (I even blogged about), when I came back from the bathroom I quietly lowered myself back into the body indentation where I had been trying to sleep before I went to the bathroom, I didn't want to wake my wife.  About a week or two ago we bought a memory foam mattress topper for our bed, so now I can lay on my side without my arm and shoulder going numb, my body leaves and indentation.  This "lowering myself" down was a very unpleasant, the indentation from where I had been trying to sleep before was soaked with my own sweat, which was now cooled down from the fan that was blowing.  Are you sure you want to keep reading?

I'm not grossed out by sweat normally, actually I'd say that I almost like sweating sometimes, it feels purifying to me when sweat drips off my chin, as long as I'm wearing the right clothes.  Not only that but I sweat to some degree year round, I hear myself often brag "I start to sweat when it's 50 degrees outside," so I'd be very unhappy all the time if sweat grossed me out.  But a bed soaked in cold sweat goes over the line with me. 

Needless to say, it's been swelteringly hot here in northern China lately.  Just a few days ago we had three new fans delivered, the one fan just wasn't enough.  A friend of ours told us yesterday that it was 34 degrees! That’s 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit, even temperatures have to be translated here, I think in metric now.  Do you think I'm cool now because I think in metric?  I do.

So anyway, I'm laying in bed restlessly listening to the street noises, and then one of the noises compels me to get out of my now warmed up sweaty bed indentation.  Sweat doesn't feel as gross when it's warmed up by your body, or in this case: re-warmed.  Now, I wouldn't get out  bed for just any sound, at a subconscious level I knew that my sweat would start to cool down, getting grosser and grosser every minute I was away from my sleeping indentation, so I was reluctant to leave it.  But I heard someone yelling.

Yelling is very common here, people yell for many more reasons than they do in the Western world I grew up in, not just when they're at a sports event or when they're angry.  But this voice seemed angry, and it kept going on and on, so I got up to go the our fourth floor window and check it out.

I wish I could describe the scene below me better, but across the street, maybe 150 feet to give you an idea of distance, there was a restaurant, the one that specializes in donkey meat, that had it's lights on still and I could see the outlines of people standing in the door way and I could hear a scraping sound that sounded like someone dragging a garbage can on the sidewalk.  If memory serves, I could also hear a thumping sound, like someone was kicking a garbage can too.  I could also see a man standing on the sidewalk, it looked like he was yelling at the people standing in the restaurant doorway.

I never did figure out what he was yelling about, for anger or for some other reason, but I later figured out that the thumping sound was the sound of workers tossing bricks from the brick sidewalk into the back of a big blue truck.  I'm sorry that the mystery of the angry sounding yelling man will not be solved in this blog entry.   But, even though it's fairly common to hear yelling, it does motivate one to check it out and see what's going on, maybe it's human nature, or just me, I don't know.

There is still another mystery:  As I stood there watching the man yelling across the street some movement closer to me caught my eye: two middle-aged guys on the street in nothing but their boxers.  They seemed to think nothing of wearing just boxers on the street.   At that time of the night there were only a few cars here and there, so of course, it was logical to wear boxers since it was also very hot.  I guess I was wearing the same thing, just not on the street.  A minor detail.

Below our apartment there is one of several construction zones.  The construction zones are fenced in by seven feet tall plastic yellow barriers, you can't really see inside the construction zones unless you peak through the cracks between the panels.  Next to the largish construction zone below our window is what I'd call a blue job shack, where the two guys in their boxers apparently came from.  It looked like they were security guards making their rounds, checking on the construction equipment to make sure no one was stealing it or messing around with it.  One of them even stopped to re-secure one of the yellow plastic barrier panels after passing through it.

After my surprise subsided from seeing two security guards walking around in their boxers on the street, I felt myself smiling, "that's pretty cool," I thought.  When it's hot in China, just wear your boxers, no problem.  When I was in school I was taught that America is a land of freedom, I think those guys felt a large degree of freedom here in China, even if was surprising to see.  One of the guys even stopped for few minutes to gaze at the scenery and the night traffic in the distance, wearing just his boxers and flip flops.

After the two guys retreated back into the blue job shack I gazed at the traffic in the distance myself …also wearing boxers.  (But inside).

Crazy Taxi Drivers

A few weeks ago a friend of ours, Carol, was visiting from Beijing. We has just eaten a late dinner. It was delicious if I remember right. I don't remember exactly who we ate with other than Carol, but they had gone to the left to go home, and we had gone to the right. The buses stop running here at about 9:00pm, kind of early, so we had to catch a Taxi.

Taxis here are pretty cheap, it's about 2.20 USD to get halfway across town. A bus ride, mind you, is only about 0.20 USD, and the Subway, even though it has only one line is 0.40 USD, or 2 RMB, we usually say "two kuai." even when we're speaking English. Every single taxi I've seen is a Volkswagen Jetta, 90% of them from the late 90's. They are painted yellow and green usually and they have a little red meter usually in an inconvenient location next the driver so you can see how much you owe him. There are also blue taxis, also Jettas, but some people don't like them, they don't trust the meters.

I smile a lot when I get into a Taxi because the meter talks to you when it's started, first it says something quickly in Chinese then it switches to English: "Welcome to take my Taxi" it says with a female voice. Sometimes Becky and I laugh and try to explain to our non-native English speaking friends how that's funny. It's hard to explain why it's funny, and it took me awhile to figure out myself I have to admit. Think about it.

It's not uncommon for Taxi drivers to light-up when you're in their taxi, but don't worry they crack their window so the smoke blows into your face. Actually they are always pretty cool about putting it out, but they appreciate it if you tell them right before they light their cigarette, obviously they don't want to throw it away and waste it. But usually Taxi drivers don't smoke. Usually bus drivers don't smoke either.

Taxi drivers love their smart phones too. I don't think thirty seconds can go by without them recording or listening one of those mini-voicemails on WeChat that they love so much here. Imagine listening to a hundreds of little voicemails a day, like a voice mail conversation, the next level after text messaging. Taxi drivers are huge social-network butterflies, it's like the passengers aren't even there sometimes. They also love talking on their walky-talkies, often switching between WeChat and Walky-Talky.

But a few weeks ago we had a new experience with a Taxi driver. We had a hard time getting a Taxi to begin with, he immediately told us, before we got into his taxi, that where we lived was too inconvenient for him to take us there. Three or four other taxis before him would not let us in because we lived too far. (15 minutes away) But this Taxi driver let us in, even though he complained.

The second thing that happened was he quickly noticed Carol's Beijing accent and told us that he hated people from Beijing! While he was telling us why he hated Beijingers he was driving unusually fast, even for here, weaving around cars like a madman. I kept my mouth shut, I was sitting in the front seat next to him and he hadn't seemed to notice that I was American. You'd be surprised how often people don't look at your face. If he didn't like Beijingers I couldn't imagine that he'd like Americans any better.

The drive back home is only about fifteen minutes, and about halfway into the drive he was still talkative but as happy and as friendly as could be, totally forgetting about how he hated people from Beijing. Becky attributes his gradual attitude change to Carol's charming personality while talking to him. Well done Carol.

Of course my favorite part was when he blew past our street, a major street, and apologized for it. After he made the U-Turn and got back on our street he turned off the meter so we didn't have to pay the extra 0.20 USD for his navigation error. That was nice of him. Perhaps we can thank Carol for that as well. But the funny part is how he apologized for missing our street: He had drank too much. He was drunk. Yes, I guess it explained the extra crazy driving, the mood changes, even the talkativeness, and blowing past our street. Though I'm not sure why he told us he had been drinking, that part mystifies my from childhood D.A.R.E. & M.A.D.D. trained brain.

In spite of this craziness we made it home just fine. And I have to say that Taxi drivers are not usually drunk, just the one so far, they don't usually smoke, but you should stop them before they light up. We do not live each day here in fear of our lives. But we do have a few stories.

Midnight Snacks, Hinges, and Light Bulbs

I just got back from eating a midnight snack in the kitchen, it's about one in the morning actually.  Everyone else is asleep, and has been for at least an hour and a half.  Dave and Irene Rice have been a little extra tired with Jet Lag for the last couple days.

I ate a pepperoni stick from a bag that Dave and Irene brought back, a small slice of Pepper Jack cheese, and an even smaller morsel of smoked gouda.  Delicious.  It's the kind you get from Costco. 

I'm sure there are people who might read this and cringe at my midnight selections.  But you have to understand that I close my eyes when I eat smoked gouda, to enjoy it more, and I only eat the smallest possible pieces to make it last as long as possible.  Remember I'm ten thousand miles from where anything like smoked gouda is made, and I feel those miles in my heart.  I love cheese and I miss it, let's put it that way.

Northern China seems to be a land of contrasts, at least in weather.  For about a week it's been swelteringly hot and humid, reverse opposite of the painfully dry and cold winter we experienced not so long ago.  It's the type of muggy here that you feel yourself sweating as you towel off after a shower, wondering if you need bother take showers.

It's a good thing that it's warm outside too because the hinges broke off of our bedroom window.  One of the two large openable window panes is sitting, somewhat dangerously, on the window sill leaning against the frame.  A small pile of hinge parts and screw drivers is sitting next to it. 

The window pane that is sitting on the window sill, leaning against the frame that it once sat in, might be unlike anything you've seen before, unless you've lived somewhere cold like the Midwest.  It's a triple pane window, just imagine two double pane windows sandwiched together.  The hinges have an extra piece in them to support about 75 pounds, pretty heavy for a window barely two feet wide.  We're really lucky that the hinges didn't break all at once and crash down and hurt someone.

Even as I'm typing this I can hear men unloading a truck outside our un-closable window.  We live on a busy street.  We live on a busy street that is also a huge construction zone, they are redoing the storm drains and building a subway station pretty much right outside our window, not more than 60 feet from where I'm sitting.

The hinges we bought to replace the broken ones are not the right size.  We take this hinge-lessness very seriously.  We know that there is a clock ticking somewhere, counting down to when the temperature will drop to thirty-five degrees below zero.  Buying the correct hinge parts will be a great challenge, like climbing a mountain, I'll even be wearing my backpack.  I'll keep water, and the broken hinge parts in a little zip lock bag in my back pack so that I can point to them when I try talking to people who look like they might sell hardware.  No Home Depot here.

It's funny even when you use the simplest possible tactic you can think of for communicating:  You put a broken hinge in a bag and point to it saying "Do you have?"  A simple yes or no answer is all you want, but there are inevitably questions that are asked.  I know that my Chinese should be better, but I think the questions they ask are a lot more complicated that what I learned: "I would like to buy an apple."  or "I would like to give you these magazines.."  I can't tell you what the are asking me when they ask, but it's kind of fun to guess.

If you ever talk to someone who is learning English you might want to learn how to use simple words.  I think this is a challenge for most people, especially if they have never learned a foreign language.  You might think that the word "hinge" is a simple word.  But is the "hinge" on a door called the same thing as the "hinge" on a window?  After all a door has a "knob" but a window has a "handle."  Why is that?  Why aren't they both called "handle" all the time?  Of course if you call it the wrong thing the person you are talking to is bound to explain the difference to you, and you, who are already confused are bound to wonder what they are talking about, because you had to look up the word "hinge" on your smart phone anyway.

But the biggest thing about this word "hinge" that you are trying to buy one of, is like I said, you had to look it up in a dictionary.  Unless you work in a hardware store or in construction it's not a word that you use every day is it? 

But imagine the array of questions they might ask you about this hinge you are trying to buy:  "Do you want aluminum or steal alloy?"  "What is the hinge-pin diameter on that?"  "Are you interested in our rewards program?"  "Is that a metric hinge or some weird American hinge.?"  "Do you want a repurposed (used) one or a new one from the factory?"  "Do you want that in a set or just the single one?"

A couple of those questions would be reasonable I think, but I swear, I get the "rewards program" question all the time, and I never get it.  It's ridiculous how many places, little tiny shops and restaurants, have phone-app rewards programs.  But of course you have to fill out forms, and eventually they'll ask you for some government ID number that you don't have because you're a foreigner and they never thought about it.

But eventually, usually, they stop asking the complicated questions that they've been trained to ask every customer and they tell you whether or not they have a hinge that looks like the one you brought in the little sandwich bag.  And then the day is over, and if you're lucky you've only spent two days buying hinges.

But this morning the light in the bathroom just went out, and it's not just a normal light bulb, it looks special, a special size and a special socket, wedged between heat lamps.  I wonder where I can find one…

Dumplings for Free

About a half hour ago I had an interesting experience.

I was sitting downstairs at XiJiaDe, the dumpling restaurant I mentioned a few days ago, by myself with my back against the wall eating boiled peanuts and celery, delicious.  It was about 3:15pm, Becky was out, we had foregone lunch because neither of us was hungry, at least until 3:15pm. 

XiJiaDe is usually pretty busy during meal times, but it wasn't meal time, there was a young woman sitting a few seats to the left of me, also with her back to the wall, and two other tables occupied in front of her.  The wait staff wasn't quite as bubbly and friendly as they usually are, but quite helpful and otherwise pleasant.  I had a plate of boiled peanuts and celery within just a few minutes and dumplings within ten.

From where I sat I could see most of the restaurant, the sidewalk fifty feet directly in front of me, and everyone walking in towards me through that door.  To my right, much closer, was another set of glass doors that led into the grocery store that XiJiaDe is attached to.  A man in his thirties was standing on the other side of those glass doors holding a small white puffy-furred dog in his arms, apparently he was waiting for his wife because she was standing by him a few minutes later. 

I made a rough estimation, while I was sitting there, that about half of the people coming in from the sidewalk were using XiJiaDe as a shortcut to get to the grocery store.  It's about half the distance as going around to the front door.  Personally I didn't like doing that, walking past all those smiling XiJiaDe employees, with their little white caps, makes me feel sad, like I'm showing up at their house at dinner time but not staying.  Other people are more callous I guess.

As I was sitting there wondering how I was possibly going to finish my last three dumplings, disliking the attitude on the face of that small white puffy-furred dog, and wondering how many people actually used the dining room of my beloved XiJiaDe as a short-cut an old woman with most of her front teeth missing appeared from my right, she must of quietly come in through the glass doors past the self-righteous white puffy-furred dog. 

She dressed normally enough, but she had a blank but wide-eyed stare, where you can see the white part of your eye all around your iris, a little scare, and she some sort of pamphlets in her hand.  She came closer to my little table and said something quietly in Chinese that I didn't understand.  I thought she was about to ask me for something or try giving me the pamphlets in her hand but instead she mumbled something else and reached down nonchalantly and snatched one of the slippery dumplings off of the serving plate in front of me with her bare hands and popped it into her mouth.

It took me a few seconds to recover from this.  I might live in a strange and fantastic far-away land, but this sort of thing has never happened to me before.  I don't think I had much of a visible reaction, confusion mostly, I think I was pretty relieved that I didn't have to finish all three of my dumplings.  In retrospect I should have offered her the rest, which I never ate. 

After realizing what had just happened I looked around me.  The woman to my left didn't seem to notice, I was hoping for an astonished look.  I'm not sure how she missed it, there wasn't much else going on.  The old woman wandered around the dining room for maybe 20 seconds and then left. 

Was this just a normal part of life here?  Or did nobody notice?  I looked over at the man holding the white puffy-furred dog with an attitude problem, he and his wife were talking to each other and smiling, for a second I suspected they were smiling about me, but they never looked at me.  If they were laughing at me I doubt they could have avoided looking at me.  So it's just me, the old lady, and my blog who know about this so far.

When I was dating my wife she was surprised at how many people would approach me on the street, or while I was pumping gas into my car, and ask me for change.  Apparently I have a look.  Do I look like a guy who freely gives away dumplings and change?  I never actually give away change.  But if you're quick you can probably score a dumpling from me.  I'll probably just look confused and slightly relieved that I don't have to eat it.

Floor Plans & Dumplings

I few minutes ago I was procrastinating and wandering from the living area into the kitchen searching for food, living up to my reputation as a "snacker."  It was dark, only the kitchen lights were lit, lighting up the living area from far away, and I couldn't help but notice that my wife was re-watching some old TV show that had been saved on her laptop way back when we lived in America.  Due to being daily immersed in a foreign language and culture and due to slow and restricted Trans-Pacific Internet connections: recorded American TV shows are extra valuable to us "Expats" here in China.  Like cigarettes in prison.  But what struck me about this TV show, at that moment standing in a dimly lit room eating my second tiny bag of some sort of vanilla cookies that had a suspicious faint moldy taste when I got to the bottom of the bag: was the floor plan.  The floor plan of the set of the TV show.

If I'm honest I'd have to say that what "struck me" was something self-absorbed, just about myself, I realized that I had a subconscious obsession with floor plans.  Becky had her earphones plugged in so all I could see was actors silently moving their lips as they walked through a spacious apartment from room to hallway to room.  I was feeling a little sense of frustration at the size and layout of the apartment, how many rooms did it have?  Was there a hallway running along the side of the apartment or down the center with rooms on either side? I had seen this show many times and many scenes had taken place it that same apartment.  I just couldn't picture the layout properly in my head.

I also realized that I had the blueprints for the Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D, all 42 decks, in a box somewhere in my parents garage.  I couldn't bear to throw the away.  I might have them send it to me.  There's a pattern here.  At one point, when I was probably about 20, I pulled out all of the (D-Sized) blue prints and taped them to the walls of my bedroom.  It took up more than one wall, kind of like a crazy person's padded cell.  Only I didn't have them up for very long, eventually I got bored with them and took them down, that's why I call it a "subsconcious obsession" instead of just a plain old "obsession."   I think I worried about them getting damaged, walls are dangerous places.

Also I usually I don't remember my dreams, but occasionally I'll remember them, and most of time all I remember are buildings and rooms.  In other words, layouts and floor plans.

But before you go thinking that I should have been an architect, I must tell you that I don't think I'm any good at it, at understanding and visualizing floor spaces.  Like for example, here in China we live on the fourth floor of a fifteen story building.  The bottom two floors are retail space.  There is a dumpling restaurant basically right underneath us, on the first floor, or partly underneath us, it's complicated.  I can't go into that restaurant without thinking about it, wondering if I'm standing three stories under my bed or under the living room, and I'm pretty sure part of the restaurant extends under our neighbors apartment.

I know what you're thinking: He lives over a dumpling restaurant?  How convenient!

Yes, don't be jealous, the dumpling restaurant is about 15 feet from the "lobby" door on our first floor.  We go down the elevator, out the door, turn right, walk 15 feet on the sidewalk, and into XiJiaDe (喜家德).  XiJiaDe is a chain with hundreds of dumpling restaurants, it takes great pride in it's dumpling quality and the cleanliness of it's restaurants.  And I can tell you that I can't think of any restaurants in the States, especially chains, that are cleaner than XiJiaDe.  I have seen them more than once tip their dining tables onto their sides so that they can mop the bottoms of the steel pedestals of their tables.  Their dumpling assemblers stand in a glass windowed assembly area and wear plastic face masks for cleanliness.

Why don't I just give you a link to their website: http://xijiade.com.cn  (I should sell ad space eh?)  You can even watch one of the videos that I've seen a hundred times playing on their dining room TVs on an endless loop.

I can also tell you that Becky and I have dined there scores of times.  It's fairly cheap, the food is pretty good, it's open past nine, the wait staff is very friendly, and, one of my favorite features in restaurants here, is that they have pictures on the menu so I know exactly what I'm ordering without a dictionary!   It's our comfort place.

If you come and visit us here in China we will take you there.  So far I think everyone who has visited us has gone there.  Whether they liked it or not.  And if you follow my infrequent blog entries and you know about my subconscious obsession you can help me figure out what part of our apartment the table we sit at is directly underneath.

Trying Not To Be Weird, A New Goal

My time is spent much differently these days.  I spend quite a bit more time at home than I used to when I lived in "The States."  (That's what Americans call America when they aren't there, "The States.")  But in Chinese we call it 美国 (Meiguo or May Go Oh), which is how we usually talk about it.  You'd be surprised how many questions we get about Meiguo.  A lot of them are questions about how much things, like houses, cost, and what foods we have or don't have in "The States."  Honestly it's annoying after awhile.  But that's the price we pay for being foreigners.  

The benefits are many though.  Cute little kids always stare at me, people love talking to me, and a lot of people think I'm beautiful.  I'm trying not to let it go to my head.  Did you know that beautiful people sometimes get free stuff?  Like "compliments of the chef" appetizers.

But I'm not going to write anymore about how beautiful I am, nor will I post pictures of myself here or on Instagram.  It's that "flex-time" that I spend differently I'm talking about.  Our bedroom window looks out over one the busiest intersections in this city,  a couple months ago they started ripping out trees and digging holes, they are starting construction on a new subway line.  I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I love subways, but that's another blog entry.  So there's lot's of things to watch outside our window.  I've even recorded two videos from our window and pasted them in this blog.

The first video is a specially fitted back-hoe, I'm sure there's a better name for it, driving steel beams vertically into the ground.  The hole it's digging looks like either an elevator shaft, escalator shaft or the beginnings of a drainage system to support the new subway.

Across the Street to the Right

The other little video is unrelated to subway construction.  This video is something you might see every day here in China.  Something that a local Chinese person would wonder: "Why on earth did he take a video of that?"  It's a video of restaurant staff doing their morning dance calisthenics on the sidewalk.  They do it during the slow times of the day, before lunch around 10, then after lunch at around 3.  I remember the first time I saw them do it was during the winter.  They were dancing inside the restaurant since it was cold outside.  It was a little surprising.  I wonder if any of the restaurants around here will assemble the whole dance team and dance for you if it's your birthday here, kind of like Red Robin.  But I guess if you really like to dance, but can't make it as a professional dancer, you can work at a restaurant here.  By the way the music they play is extremely loud, it echoes off of the buildings.  

Across the Street to the Left

But I didn't really start this blog entry to talk about how "wait staff" is synonymous with "dance team" here.  The only reason I mention the dancing and subway construction is to illustrate how I occupy my time with weird things here.  I'll stand in front of the window and lean my head on the glass and stare out over the street wondering about the lives of the people I'm watching.  I think it's an isolated way to spend your time, and I think it makes you a little weird.

If you've ever thought that someone from a different country who lived in your area was little weird, but you figured it was just their culture or their different customs, maybe even the language barrier, think of me, I'm one of those people.  But I'm not weird because of cultural differences, it's not American culture that's weird, it's me.  It's probably because I spend way too much time with my head leaning on the glass staring at cars as they drive by.  It's probably also because I can't understand what people are saying to me or about me 80% of the time, so I just smile, daydream about something else, and hope it's all nice things.  It's probably because the hot water tank in my bathroom has a schedule that doesn't quite jive with my schedule because I can't program it because all the menus and buttons are in Chinese.  I've looked up the characters but they don't make sense.  The clock is wrong too.  Why do hot water tanks have clocks and remotes here anyway?  I guess it's to save energy.

Of course if you actually know me, you know that I was already weird before I came here, and that I can't blame it on being a foreigner.  But, also, you know that I'm quite happy being weird, if anything I've cultivated it over the years.  But there is a point where I need to draw the line, or so I've recently discovered.  And that's why I started this blog entry, the moment when I realized that I'm officially in danger of becoming "a weirdo."

I was on the bus a few hours ago, on my way home.  Two other foreigners got on the bus right in front of me, they appeared to be from the middle east or somewhere east of the middle east, either way they weren't from here, and they weren't speaking English.  We were all lucky enough to get a seat, for some reason the bus was empty when we all boarded it.  I was actually sitting directly across from the two foreigners trying not to make too much eye contact.  But I noticed that they smelled good.  They were both guys so this was particularly exceptional of them to smell good.  I was trying to think how I could tell them that they smelled good, wondering if I should say it in Chinese or take a risk and say it in English.

But then, that's when it occurred to me.  I was a weirdo.  That's like something a large overweight hairy sociopath says to you in prison after the guard locks the cell door and leaves.  I can imagine the two guys getting home that day talking about it to their friends: "Some weirdo on the bus stared at us for half an hour then told us we smelled good.  We told him to mind his own business in Chinese but he just smiled at us and nodded with a far away look in his eyes." 

But I didn't.  I didn't tell them they smelled good.  And if you're worried about me, don't worry, I didn't even want to say it after it occurred to me that it was weird.  But I guess I'm blogging about it, so I'm still pretty weird.

Couches, Metal Plates, Words, and Stop Signs

I was just wondering to myself what a boring non-eventful day would sound like here if I blogged about it dramatically.  So here it goes:

This morning I woke up a little late.  But that's OK, I wasn't on a fixed schedule today.  Becky woke up a little later or a little earlier than me, I'm not sure because I don't remember because my memory hasn't been working very well these days, I seem to have memory problems, it could be serious!

About an hour later I was on the tan leather couch that came with this apartment, a little grubby around the edges but comfortable.  Now just a second, before I continue, Clifford recently told me that this couch is hard and not soft, I've never noticed.  I wonder why I haven't noticed.  What else have I not noticed? I have kinda forgotten about how hard the beds are here! This could be serious!

So anyway, an hour later I was sitting on the couch, still, working on my latest masterpiece, a bit of computer code that pleases the eye like no other that I've ever typed!  After all I aspire to be a craftsman one day, a master code wielder.  Mind you I don't aspire to greatness, neigh, merely humble craftsmanship, or competence at my trade.  Should any man who works with his hands do less?  But I digress!  It's this chaotic mind of mine.  It could be serious!

I was reminded of the word "Craftsman" when I was visiting a friend of mine who is a leather craftsman, and has a Chinese "Craftsman" seal he puts on his stuff.  He was trained years ago by a Japanese leather craftsman.  Craftsmen are usually trained by older craftsmen.

"Craftsman" in Ancient Chinese (Possibly Upside Down)

With me still on that tan leather couch, Becky asked me if I'd like to join her and go outside and visit one of her friends.

"Outside?"  I thought.  "That's China out there!" I deduced.  "No!  I can do this.  I didn't come here to sit on this tan leather couch with my laptop." said I.  "Yes OK" I said aloud to Becky.

"We'll have to leave pretty soon." She said.  But she didn't say how soon.  So about fifteen minutes later she told me that we'd have to be at her friend's work by 11:00.  I had decided I'd have enough time to fix a bug in my code, but I was wrong!

So into the shower I went, stepping delicately over the little track on the floor that the curved glass door runs on top of, with my bare feet hoping that the silicon caulking that fixed the track to the floor would hold.  You see: bathrooms apparently don't come with showers here in China, they come with sinks, toilets, and drains in the floor.  In our case, we're lucky, we have two drains in the floor, one in the middle, and one in the corner where someone who lived here long before us glued in a glass walled corner shower with a curved sliding door.  It's not huge but it's plenty big for a shower.  Sometimes the water leaks under the glue.  I hate it when it does that.  I always eye that little glue seam running along the bottom outer edge of the shower when I step into it.

If I see a little water leaking, or I like to use the word "oozing", under the shower seam I like to feel strong dramatic feelings of disgust and I imagine myself complaining articulately about it to someone later.  I also feel a little unmanly for being grossed out by a little water.  But then I do nothing, other than wipe up the water, or spray it away with the shower head.  I also forget to complain about it to anyone, at least until this blog.  Now I have complained.  And I feel as I should: Foolish!

So after I got out of the shower, dried off with a towel that always smells kinda funny (not like Downy like it should) and dressed into my air dried clothes which also smell kinda funny, like the wood that my dresser drawer is made of instead of Downy.  (Downy Fresh, I should put ads on this blog yeah?)  So anyway I was almost dressed entirely except for my feet which were bare, and I came out into the living room, where Becky was, to put on my socks and shoes.  And guess what.  Becky was still in her sweat pants!  I had gotten dressed faster than her.  That almost never happens!

So after I put on my socks that have holes in them because I haven't figured out where to buy socks in this crazy town of endless Chinese signs, and my slippers, I sat and waited a few minutes for Becky.  I know I picked up my laptop and looked at my beautiful masterpiece, but I don't remember if I had enough time to finish fixing that bug I was working on earlier.  We may never know if I did, it may always be a mystery.  Actually I'm not even sure there was a bug.  It's my memory acting up again.

After a just a few minutes Becky and I were waiting for the smelly old elevator just outside our apartment door.  Then we were racing up the sidewalk dodging stares, glances, and frowns from the locals who had spotted a funny looking foreign guy walking down the sidewalk with a normal looking Chinese girl. Poor girl.

Within a minute we were crossing turn lanes, walking through the ashes where money had recently been burned for ancestors (Which is typically done at four way intersections) and on the other side of the busy street.  I won't go into the details of crossing two turning lanes and two one way lanes at a major intersection in China.

Actually the details aren't that exciting, what was exciting was the big metal plates on the road covering some sort of holes dug for construction.  The big metal plates I'm talking about are the same ones they use in America when they aren't quite done with some hole they've dug in the middle of an intersection.  Instead of filling the hole they toss a big metal plate over it that can't apparently withstand the weight of a car or a big truck driving over it.  The metal plate I was staring at, part way across the street, looked like it was slowly being shifted away from the hole that it was covering.

My thinking at the time was that those plates are extremely thick and heavy, but then so are cars.  Eventually that plate is going to shift right off of the top of whatever hole in the road it's covering.  It was making a really loud banging sound every time a car drove over it.  Actually it's funny because I can hear that exact plate banging from the night time traffic driving over it right now, from this tan leather couch in our living room.  For the last few days I've wondered what I was hearing, I thought it was some sort of fireworks being set off to scare away the spirits.

After we crossed that noisy-metal-plate-ridden street we starting walking up the wide brick sidewalk in search of some building that we couldn't quite remember.  I have recently realized that a lot of this enormous city looks the same to me probably because I'm basically illiterate.  I don't see signs that say "Spicy Noodles" or "Watch Repair" I just see signs basically say nothing, kind of like a dream, they say you can't really read in dreams.  I don't know if that's true, but I know I can't read many signs here.

It just occurred to me that I've never noticed a stop sign here.  How do they write "Stop" in Chinese?  Do they even have them here?  I'll look into it and get back to you on it.

So eventually I found myself sitting across from Becky and her friend trying to focus on words that I knew here and there in their rapid Chinese conversation.  As I sat there I reflected on what my experience here is really like and how a large portion of it could be defined by a lack of understandable words, on signs, and on lips.  And so I write words here, that I do understand, on this blog to make up for it.

Lions & Tigers & Bars

My feet are throbbing, Clifford is pouring me a beer from a can, a dark beer from Germany, not the lightly colored local beer.  We just got back from the tiger park, a park where you get to ride around an 80 acre reserve in a little bus with barred windows and look at, honk at, and take pictures of tigers sleeping and yawning.  Every once and awhile one of the zoo keepers, or whatever they are called, will throw a chicken out and you'll get to see some action for a few seconds.  Only one of the tigers will get the chicken.

This "Tiger Park" has at least 200 tigers in it, most of them roam the park freely, but many are in little cages pacing and growling.  There are even lions, a leopard, and a liger.  The spell check has a problem with the word "liger", but you know what I'm talking about.

The liger is a huge tiger and lion hybrid, it has faint stripes and a short mane, as well as that little tassel at the end of it's tail, whatever that's called.  But, according to my studious wife Becky, and her research, the liger isn't supposed to exist.  It is difficult for it to be born, nature usually rejects it.  I think Becky said it has a 0.1% chance of being born.  Anyway, once it's born, and becomes and adult, it isn't quite right.  The liger is not a very happy animal, in it's tiny cement cage, biting it's tail and growling at it.  It was attacking it's tail the last time we were there a few months ago too, only last time it's tail was bleeding a little.  I wonder what would happen if they let it out of it's cage.

But I'd have to say that the most exciting part of the day was in the cage right before the liger cage.  Becky was taking a video of a white Siberian tiger in one of the tiny little cages.  The tiger was upset because someone had closed it's gate, it was batting at the wall and growling, and acting like an aggressive animal.

There are two layers of protection between the animals and the humans.  The layer closest to the animals is a chain link fence, just like the ones around the middle school I went to when I was a kid.  After the chain link fence, closest to the humans, is a grid of welded together rebar.  The holes between the bars are big enough to stick your head through, but not big enough for a tigers head.  His paws would fit through easily though.  When we took pictures of the tigers, and the liger, we reached past the bars and put the camera up against the chain link pointing the lens between the gaps.

Now before you get all worried, moms, the humans are about ten feet off the ground too and there are many warning signs that tell you to not put your fingers through the chain link fence.  And Becky didn't have her fingers through the fence, just her phone pressed up against it.  So, to get to the point, she nearly had a heart attack when the white tiger attacked the chain link fence she was pressing her phone against.

And yes, she still has the video.

So I could have titled this blog entry: My Wife Was Attacked By An 800 Pound Tiger Today.  And then in small print: ...but was protected by a chain link fence and bars.

On the way out of the tiger viewing area Clifford and I wondered aloud to each other if they ever check the strength of the fences and bars which are already rusting.  How would they do that anyway?  X-Rays?

What's The Opposite of a Blinking Red Light?

Tomorrow morning we will be driving our guests to the airport.  My wife Becky just told me that one of our guests, Cassandra, who has read this blog, asked her: "Does he always make fun of his roommates?" I think she was referring to the "Cellulite Pants" blog entry with Irene.  But I'd like to clear the air on that particular "expose."  A few weeks went by before I actually got around to blogging about that.  Irene kept asking me: "Did you blog about the cellulite pants yet?"  

Irene asks me to blog about things.  Most things she asks me to blog about, or tells me that I should blog about, don't end up in this blog.  She's sitting about five feet away from me right now, curious what I'm blogging about, and looking at a picture of a guy we know who's at least 6'6" standing next to a guy who's about 4'10" at most.  Dave just commented that the big guy is about six of the little guys.  How can people vary so much in size?

I guess that while I'm clearing the air, or telling you that I didn't blog about Irene behind her back, in fact it was at her behest.  I'm also, at the same time, making fun of her again.  The four of us have been sharing an apartment for almost four months now, most of it unblogged about.

A shame really, so many things have happened that have been blog-worthy, but it seems that when the blog-worthy things that happen, the less time I have to type them into a blog.

Many things happen here that are not fun for me to blog about.  For example today we went and visited "Russian Street" and saw the river half thawed.  It was exciting, and I'm not sure what else to say about it...  There was a weird tunnel under the road with a McDonald's in it right before the river.

Also today: we had six single girls over to visit with us and our guests.  Becky and Irene arranged it, they called it "The single girl party," the goal of the party was to counteract the pressure the girls have here from their families to get married.  I slept through the first half of it, in other words I was sleeping in our room and woke up and came out blinking and confused why I heard so much giggling.  Becky had waked me to pray so they could eat dinner.  Now that I'm thinking about it I wonder if my stumbling into the living room was part of the "stay single" plan.  Anyway, enough about me, the "single girl party" was a smashing success I'm told.  

Irene has asked me to blog about the washing machine several times.  But I never have.  Our washing machine is a piece of junk.  There are two columns of buttons labeled in Chinese, each with little red lights next to them.  I've never understood all the complexities of washing machines, for twenty years I've just used the "default" setting.  (I had to calculate how long I've done laundry)

Even though I don't know what the buttons say, it doesn't take long to figure out how to get the machine spinning and spraying hot water on my dirty clothes.  Maybe it's just difficult enough to look at those buttons to make you forget to put the drain hose into either the shower drain or into the floor drain in the middle of the bathroom.

Twenty or thirty minutes later you'll be sitting in the living room reading something or chatting with your room-mates yelling loudly above the ridiculously loud banging of the washing machine as it works itself across the bathroom floor, and you'll hear the water gushing...  

Hearing water flowing is perfectly normal when you're within ear-shot of a washing machine.  But something will catch your attention about the sound: it'll be just a little extra clear and crisp sounding. The sound waves will be unhindered by the washing machine's little round glass door, as if they were on the wrong side of it.  What you'll hear is the drain hose pumping several gallons of water onto your bathroom floor.  

Some of the water will spill over the little threshold and into the hallway area outside the bathroom, but not much.  The little shower mat, that I normally step out onto after carefully drying myself and my feet, will be floating if you let the washing machine completely drain out.

You'd think this would be one of those "I'll never let that happen again" things, which all four of us have said to ourselves.  But we've all forgotten that hose at least three times, and there are four of us.  I'm sure it's a simple thing, but there is something mysterious to me about things like this stupid hose that is so easy to forget.   How does that work in my brain?  Have brain scientists ever studied this phenomenon?  It's like the reverse of advertising: How to make someone forget something they want to remember.  Or it's the reverse of a blinking red light that the brain can't ignore.  My phone used to have a blinking red light when it was charging,  I always had to turn it upside down at night because I couldn't ignore that blinking.  Something about that white plastic hose makes our brains forget it.

The positive thing about all of this is that the bathroom floor gets cleaned pretty well when that happens.