Well we’ll get to that bombshell in a minute. Don’t you bastards dare just scroll down. Oh man I just can’t imagine the thoughts going through everyone’s head right now. So we go on a trip to the country, Me, Ryan, Jason, Jon, Isabelle, Jacqueline, and Cheng Xi Hai, actually we call him Xi Hai. You know the first name is the last name thing. We’re on this bus for a long freaking time. We leave at 7 on the dot and yeah that’s right I was there EARLY….you hear me, E-A-R-..ah fuck it you get the point. It’s along ass ride to the mountains. We stop at a service station, I mean I felt like I was on the jersey turnpike and we just took at stop at Molly Pitcher Service Area, except everything is in Chinese. You get the trough and the urinal. Soap, not so much. So yeah you always carry hand sanitzer and wet wipes. We stop for lunch, which was included on the trip (15RMB a piece). That’s less than $2 for those keeping up the math. There was rice, glass noodles, lots of tofu, vegetables, and I think the only meat was the chicken in the chicken soup. When I say chicken soup, we’re talking about an entire chicken, from feet to head in a crock pot. (no insides, thank goodness). All the passangers on the bus was pissed at the tour guide for a crappy meal with all vegetables and no meat. Oh yeah and there was this fish as well which was a little too slimy for most people’s taste. Anyways, we get to our first stop around 2:30 in the afternoon. It’s pretty much a park, sort of like a micro (not mini) grand tetons. You get to see some mountains, breathe some clean air, see blue skies, some waterfalls, get a little wet, and this time it’s not your own sweat. Let me tell ya, it was freaking hot and humid. I could officially designate it sweltering.
So after th emountaisn, we visited this old village. The buildings in the village are over 400 years old, and people still live there. We were taking this tour actually there were lots of tours through this village and people were just going on about their daily lives. They were pretty poor, I mean I have seen worse, but these people are probably the ones who survive on $5 a day you know. So we walk through all the buildings, and my colleagues do their best to translate for us. Jason who is Chinese American speaks both languages fluently and is the interpreter for both sides. So all the door ways have an elevated wall at the bottom and it is a trip hazard. In the olden days, the higher that wall, the higher your social status. It could come waist high, and if that happened, the entrance was a side door. Of course thanks to communism, all that is gone, no more classes. So the grand finale of this day was the recreation of an old style Chinese Wedding. The way it goes is the girl comes out, looks at all the guys in the room, picks on by throwing a decorated (red) pillow at the guy she likes. Of course, me being the only lao wei, (foreigner), she picks yours truly. I go along with it. My friends and everybody else in the tour group is having a great time at my expense, and I’m happy to go along with it. I get all costumed up in this red robe and sash and a cool hat. And we go through the ceremony which lasts like 5 minutes. And then we have fake babies and everything. Good times had by all, especially my friends who could not stop laughing. Oh and their were these who lived at the village who came up to me and said hello and they were just running arund and dancing and having a grand ole time during the recreation. I taught them how to do high fives, although I couldn’t get them to do the pound or flash west siiiide. And during the reenaction they would run up to me and start pulling the hair on my legs. Hilarious.
So what a let down huh? No real marriage just a fake one, but if I send my mom the pictures, we might have an international situation on our hands.
So after that we go to dinner, which is much better because we pay a little extra to get some better dishes and afterwards we go to our hotels. We stop by a real nice looking on and we are all excited, especially the Americans to realize that we might be staying at a nice hotel. Of course, we are dissppointed as the bus drops off two of the passangers and the rest of us are dropped off at less aesthtically pleasing hotel. Well we figure let’s check out the rooms and see if they are serviceable. I’ve stayed at hostels and stuff. The rooms are actually okay, but some serious cash would have to be thrown my way for me to use those bathrooms. So we made the collective decision to ditch our deposit ($6/person), and go the nice hotel we saw. The taxis are 3 times cheaper in this town than Shanghai. The rooms are nice, the beds are good, the bathrooms are great, and the kicker was we got to go play Majan in a private room just the 7 of us. Majan is pretty much played like Gin Rummy except with these tiles with different characters on them. Forced me to learn the characters for Chinese numbers. The best part of the majan was that this thing dealt these tiles and shuffled them automatically. You press the button the center console and the tiles are shuffled and are stacked for you automatically. I have got to get me one of those at the apartment. If you don't think that’ll make me the coolest cat in the office, we’ll obviously you don’t know jack.
So after th emountaisn, we visited this old village. The buildings in the village are over 400 years old, and people still live there. We were taking this tour actually there were lots of tours through this village and people were just going on about their daily lives. They were pretty poor, I mean I have seen worse, but these people are probably the ones who survive on $5 a day you know. So we walk through all the buildings, and my colleagues do their best to translate for us. Jason who is Chinese American speaks both languages fluently and is the interpreter for both sides. So all the door ways have an elevated wall at the bottom and it is a trip hazard. In the olden days, the higher that wall, the higher your social status. It could come waist high, and if that happened, the entrance was a side door. Of course thanks to communism, all that is gone, no more classes. So the grand finale of this day was the recreation of an old style Chinese Wedding. The way it goes is the girl comes out, looks at all the guys in the room, picks on by throwing a decorated (red) pillow at the guy she likes. Of course, me being the only lao wei, (foreigner), she picks yours truly. I go along with it. My friends and everybody else in the tour group is having a great time at my expense, and I’m happy to go along with it. I get all costumed up in this red robe and sash and a cool hat. And we go through the ceremony which lasts like 5 minutes. And then we have fake babies and everything. Good times had by all, especially my friends who could not stop laughing. Oh and their were these who lived at the village who came up to me and said hello and they were just running arund and dancing and having a grand ole time during the recreation. I taught them how to do high fives, although I couldn’t get them to do the pound or flash west siiiide. And during the reenaction they would run up to me and start pulling the hair on my legs. Hilarious.
So what a let down huh? No real marriage just a fake one, but if I send my mom the pictures, we might have an international situation on our hands.
So after that we go to dinner, which is much better because we pay a little extra to get some better dishes and afterwards we go to our hotels. We stop by a real nice looking on and we are all excited, especially the Americans to realize that we might be staying at a nice hotel. Of course, we are dissppointed as the bus drops off two of the passangers and the rest of us are dropped off at less aesthtically pleasing hotel. Well we figure let’s check out the rooms and see if they are serviceable. I’ve stayed at hostels and stuff. The rooms are actually okay, but some serious cash would have to be thrown my way for me to use those bathrooms. So we made the collective decision to ditch our deposit ($6/person), and go the nice hotel we saw. The taxis are 3 times cheaper in this town than Shanghai. The rooms are nice, the beds are good, the bathrooms are great, and the kicker was we got to go play Majan in a private room just the 7 of us. Majan is pretty much played like Gin Rummy except with these tiles with different characters on them. Forced me to learn the characters for Chinese numbers. The best part of the majan was that this thing dealt these tiles and shuffled them automatically. You press the button the center console and the tiles are shuffled and are stacked for you automatically. I have got to get me one of those at the apartment. If you don't think that’ll make me the coolest cat in the office, we’ll obviously you don’t know jack.
1 comment:
Ok Milf, you're killing me. Please tell me you will send pics of this.
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