where the hell have i been?
in a cave? well, yes. but only part of the time.you know it’s been a long time when you start getting text messages from your students telling you to update your website. so here you go, bonny.
over the past several weeks, i chose to concentrate on money-making ventures — you know, freelance writing and standing next to cars — instead of this website.
but that doesn’t mean that i haven’t been thinking about things that i could have written for this website, had writing for this website not made me feel guilty because i should have been working on a freelance assignment instead. (this happens often, as seen in the amount of website-related projects i start and never finish. i mean, who is still waiting for stories from my final six days in cambodia? or what about xinjiang?)
anyway, i have compiled a cliff’s notes version of the many things i wanted to write about but never did since late january:
* eating at the homes of chinese people: rules to live by: never act like you really, really like something, because you will be expected to eat it until it oozes from every orifice. likewise, never stray from the status quo, or else you could spark an utterly confusing chain of events. example:
HOST: would you like ice in your sprite?
YOU: sure.
family members argue in chinese at the table.
YOU: what?
HOST: we don’t have any ice.
YOU: oh, it’s ok then. i thought …
family members take turns getting up from their seats, acting like they are heading to the door.
YOU: really. i don’t need ice.
HOST: no. it’s ok. my mother will go to the store and get some.
YOU: but, i thought you already …
you attempt to get up but are immediately pushed back in your seat simultaneously by each of the remaining family members.
* fireworks: i hope being at street level in shanghai for the first seconds of the lunar new year is the closest i come to serving in a war. i didn’t know whether to cover my head or plug my ears. smoke filled the crisp night air and took on the hue of whatever was being set ablaze nearby. scraps of red paper floated like slow-motion shrapnel to the ground.
i’d love to see actual figures on the amount of injuries and casualties caused by fireworks in china every spring festival. i’m sure it would be staggering. i mean we’ve got everyday joes (or zhangs, i suppose) setting off fireworks — yes, fireworks not firecrackers — in the middle of the street or in apartment courtyards or on the roofs of buildings. these are big fireworks, the kind that in america we would see at a fourth of july carnival … set off by professionals.
the result, although undeniably dangerous, is stunning, honestly one of the most spectacular things i have ever seen. the city glows: red, green, blue, yellow. the sky above the skyline becomes an awesome and odd pollack-esque painting. look out your window, any direction, and you will see fireworks (and some might be less than a football field away from you, so don’t stick your head out of the window too far).
but day after day of this can be overkill … especially if you’re trying to sleep and there’s a war going on outside your window.
i believe my agent wang best summed up china’s fascination with fireworks with this astute observation: “very danger,” he philosophized. he then paused, scratched his chin and furrowed his brow, before finishing his deep thought. “but interesting,” he concluded with a knowing nod.
* superbowl: i watched the big game live, early monday morning at a bar downtown. all the seats were taken near the big screen, so we had to watch on a small one … thus i didn’t notice any tits during the halftime show. i did, however, notice the utterly surreal pregame show that featured plenty of flag-waving and somebody at midfield dressed up in an astronaut outfit. it was the type of display that reminds foreigners why america annoys them. at least nelly didn’t jump out out of the spaceman suit and start rapping.
at first amusing and soon thereafter rather maddening was commentary from the game’s international feed by dick stockton and darryl “moose” johnston. they treated the audience as if it were a roomful of three-year-olds: “now, he’s the quarterback. he’s the man that starts each play holding the ball.” and they grasped for any way to help the non-american viewers relate to the game. when adam vinatieri missed an easy field goal, stockton said: “that’s just like missing a penalty kick in soccer.”
* shanghai sharks: i became quite a regular at their games this season — you can’t beat $12 courtside box seats with bottomless cups of green tea. two things i learned this season: it’s not just white people who can’t dance, and, regardless of athletic ability, if you are seven feet tall you can play basketball professionally … somewhere. (i also wrote quite a long feature story on sharks player alex scales for the south china morning post. a version of it actually ran in today’s edition of the SCMP … although i have just learned that somehow no copies of the SCMP made it to shanghai today — i’m not making this up. and you need a paid subscription to view the SCMP’s website. but i have gotten my hands on a screen shot of the story. click here if you’d like to check it out … keeping in mind that the original version — which will be posted here eventually — was around 700 words longer.)
* standing next to cars: the latest chapter of my odd existence as a part-time “white man for hire” found me getting paid to stand next to cars. and i was flown two-and-a-half hours to guilin to do it. what, they don’t have white guys in suits down there? now, don’t get me wrong. i’m not complaining. this is easy money. in fact, the past couple months i’ve made more money from appearing in television commercials than i have from teaching. there’s definitely a story here — plenty of them, in fact — and i plan on writing about it in more detail sometime. but, then again, you’ve heard me say stuff like that before.
* yangshuo: during my paid vacation in guilin, i had a day to myself to explore nearby yangshuo. truly a beautiful place. although similar scenery — and fewer tourists — can be found in southwest guangxi. but i really can’t think of many better ways to spend an afternoon than riding a mountain bike along the tiny dirt trails that weave between yangshuo’s farmlands, streams and mountains. and i can’t think of a better guide than tang xiao zhen, who tracked me down at the bus stop. she is sweet, honest and she knows all of yangshuo’s back roads — she grew up on them. if you’re headed to yangshuo, and you’d like to ride your bike away from the main roads, send her an e-mail or call her at 136.5963.8046. and be prepared to teach her a couple new words of english. to see all of my yangshuo photos, click here.
* valentine’s day: i had a good one. but i’m not so sure about one of my former students. he sent me a v-day text message on my phone. our correspondence went like this:
HIM: hey my man happy valentine day !
ME: you too. have plans?
HIM: not yet i am still in trouble you know i am hot many foxes are dating me and you man?
ME: yeah, i have plans. i’m being surprised.
HIM: that is terrific take your time buddy and keep cool
no word on how his v-day with the foxes went.
* finals: my final exam for my students last semester was something i have taken to calling “spontaneous speeches.” basically, a student comes to the front of the room, picks a topic out of a bag, has 30 seconds to think about it, and then must give a presentation on the topic for the next 90 seconds.
to come up with the topics, i asked my students to write down any one topic they remembered discussing in my class that semester. some of their responses might make you wonder what actually goes on in my classroom. here are some of my favorites:
* “one night stand”
* “how to play the poker”
* “sexual active before marriage”
* “n-word”
* “condoms”
* “how to call the negro, black people”
* “sugar daddy”
* “the way the westerners celebrate the christmas!”
* “which center is better, yao ming or shark?”
* “what do you think of shacking up?”
* “what do you think about the sex before marriage?”
* “once we learned a word: pussy-whipped. what does it mean?”
* “it is like taking candy from baby”
* “dan don’t like the food offered in shanghai university. just ok. it’s not delicious. and i agree with you.”
* “bullshit in front of a bullshitter”
* oscars: watched the entire broadcast tape-delayed — in english — on chinese television. and it was boring as hell. no surprise there. but what i do find somewhat surprising is american television’s inability to find likable and semi-intelligent “talent” to host the pre-oscars red carpet show. billy bush is an ass. and i used to think chris connelly was ok. but here are some “words” he used during the broadcast: “epical,” “nominatable” and “competish” … for those times you just don’t have the time to say “competition.”
* playing tour guide: this can be a full-time job. and it should be. someone flew half the world to see you, they have no chinese language skills and they may never make it back to china again. you need to make it worth their effort. just try to work it so your friend doesn’t visit when you’re on deadline. the great part: it gives you an excuse to play tourist and explore. sure, you go to some of the same old places, but in a city the size of shanghai, you always seem to stumble upon new ones, too (like shanghai’s booming, and not very well hidden, fake designer-brand bag and wallet market — don’t worry ladies, the fakes are just as ugly and cheap-looking as the originals).
* nanjing: it rained.
03.11.2004, 1:06 AM · Guangxi, Movies, Observations, Photos, School, Sports
4 Comments
hey, like the photos in the standing next to car section, funny shots. But what’s up with your hair, is big hair back in fashion for men in China?
would you believe that we actually had hair and makeup people for this event? i know it doesn’t show. not sure what look the guy was going for with this — some sort of colonial wig, perhaps? — but to his defense i did have a hell of a lot of hair on my head. i have since gotten some of it chopped off. and i think that made my mom very happy.
Glad you’re still alive Dan you had me worried for a while. Love the Yangshuo photos - can’t believe I spent six months in China and never got further south than Hangzhou or further north than, erm, Shanghai Railway Station. Kicking myself. Take it easy
quote:Glad you’re still alive Dan you had me worried for a while.
Robin[@], 03.11.2004, 9:32 pm
I had the same feeling~.I thought you were kidnapped on air~haha