Chinalina Ding Dong

Sunday. Day off. Finally.
Except, I am sick. Connie and I both came down with some kind of sore throat thing… Funny. I figured that when I quit smoking I would stop getting the sore throat all the time. Turns out that’s a dumb joke. Dr. Wang has us on some traditional chinese medicine though, which is kind of neat. “Take five of these, and three of these, four times a day.” And I am not allowed to have sweet and/or cold drinks. But sugar is fine, just not in drink form.

 
Last night we went after three sessions of english seminars, to get massages. It was incredible. Incredible. I can’t even describe to you how amazing it was, except to say that I think I saw the face of God at one point during it. I thought about how I could go about getting a Chinese Massage in the united states without actually getting a prostitute? Something to think about…

Cecil on the steps of the

Today we went down to the beach. The boys squealed in horror as Tony discovered a “Maxi pad!!” in the water. Becca walks up to the waters edge and goes “That’s not a maxi pad that’s a panty liner, stupid.” Like it was ok that there was a panty liner floating in the water… a maxi pad though? That’s disgusting.
The water was disgusting. The beach was disgusting. The kids were naked at an uncomfortable age. The air was so thick and smoggy we could barely see to the edge of the pier.
I loved it.
Tomorrow we start another session. This one is five days long. I am already exhausted so I am not sure how this is going to work out but it will. The kids are incredibly excited to play with the americans and very eager to practice their english. A few of us sat in on a class in inner Yingkou a couple of days ago. Watching the teacher was quite amazing, really, as he was teaching the difference between “set out” on a journey and “set out” to display or arrange something. The kids were understanding very well and participating quite a bit.
The school in Da Shi Qiao was awesome. They wanted to know what kind of “Rock” music was popular in the states. They made me sing a song from each of the bands that I put on the board. It was hysterical. I got pictures of that for you Adam, because Big Surrender made it on the chalkboard They liked my (horrible) acapella version of “Bring Me The News”.
Our hotel room is equipped with a really awesome mah jhong table on which I learned to play from the “ABC’s” (american born chinese). The first game I played without any help I ended up winning. Too bad we weren’t gambling like the cooks in the alley behind our hotel. I would’ve come out with some serious RMB which would’ve been close to nothing in American dollars!! I guess I’ll settle for bragging rights.
So far, just one person I want to murder. Gene won’t shut up. Seriously, he talks as much as Yung Hai sleeps (which is, as Dorathy put it: “I work in geriatrics and I’ve never seen somebody sleep that much!”). And I still can’t figure out what he is talking about most of the time he is jabbering on. I swear. I even tried putting in my headphones and he just kept talking. I let him talk, while I listened to some Coldplay (Strawberry Swing might be the best song ever written) until he finally found someone else to talk to. Guess who it was? Qing Qang (pronounced Ching Chong), who we have endearingly named “King Kong” (Cheech ‘n Chong didn’t flow as well as a name). Poor King Kong had to sit through Gene’s ridiculous stories. I had a good laugh inside.
Tonight we’re going down to the square to watch the locals interact at night. Brittanie, Nai, Michael and Brandon and I are sticking together with our complete lack of knowledge in the Chinese language department. Pretty hysterical to watch Michael charade play words like “bank” and “fruit”.

My mandarin phrase book has come in quite handy. I of course, have adopted the “point at it” method like any good american would. But I’m picking up some of the language pretty quick which is surprising to me. Met some girls in the hotel lobby. They showed me their bedroom which was nothing more than two cots next to what looked to be some boiler of some sort or water heater or something. Tile floors, stained walls, a plastic tub for a sink. It was crazy. Sweet girls. Humbling experience.

Cecil on the steps of the “Massage Parlor”

Maxi Pad!

Where’s Waldo

I’ve Got Seoul pt. 1

Dalian City, China.

 I felt, coming in off the plane, much like I do when I get home for Christmas. Only this time it was hot and sticky and Christmas comes every four years, and only twice so far in my life. But it kind of felt like home, strangely.

The layover in Seoul was pretty brutal, I’m not going to lie. Dorothy and I bought some donuts (Yung Hai loves his coffee and donuts) at the dunkin donuts in the airport. We decided to try one of everything (which was about a dozen) and concluded that contrary to popular speculation “Rice Dream Starshape Sweet Cake” was not at all delicious. “Green Tea Original” and “Sticky Rice Stick”, however, were out of this world. That adventure was followed by a lot of duty free window shopping, lounging in these snake shaped chairs (on which we sat upside down to get some of the blood out of our feet from the 13 hour flight) and some guitar serenading by our own John Young. We laughed a lot and called each other names that we thought the Koreans might say in native tongue: “Fat Americans!” “Look she’s taking up two chairs!” “Crazy white girls!” and John Young proved to be the most PK of all PK’s I’ve met with his buzz phrases. (PK being Pastor’s Kid).

Connie is my roommate. She’s the daughter of the couple heading up this whole thing. I was somewhat relieved to find that I will be rooming with her instead of the young chick with the bad attitude. We can’t be having two young chicks with bad attitudes in one room. That would only make for elbow and tongue sharpening. But I can already tell I will need a break from the constant forced conversation. Sometimes, rarely but still, sometimes I just don’t want to talk. I don’t want to explain to you why my five year relationship ended and I certainly do not want to explain to you why I ever seriously dated an atheist (GASP!). I don’t want to explain to you why I chose Kansas as my home, because that only means I will have to explain to you why I felt as though I needed to escape a life I ruined in Fort Collins. I especially do not want to explain anything at all after having traveled for 30 some hours.

They are taking us to dinner tonight. I predict hot pot. Boy oh boy, can’t wait to slop a bunch of thinly sliced meats and strange vegetables into a vat of cloudy boiling water. Mmm mmm good.

2 hours later: Dinner was only worse than I could’ve expected. I ate a thousand year old egg and live eel. And the water tasted like the dishes had been cleaned in it before it was brought to a boil.