This blog will end with bike riding.

The last blog I posted should have come with an explanation.  I traved from atlanta to LA across three time zones and then up to Alaska across to russia and down Mongolia to get to Beijing.  The flight to beijing was 20 something hours and not condusive to sleep so I was very much out of my mind already on top of the absolute culture shock.  I would think that these things were clear in the email I sent that day and I therefor published that email instead of trying to recapture a feeling I was having at that moment.

The other thing I did in the Beijing airport after I sent that crazy email was I went to KFC.  At a quick glance of the english portion of the menu I only recognized fried chicken, which they sold as individual drum sticks.  I had the “New Orleans burger” which is a sandwich with chicken in a spicy orange duck suace with mayonaise.  I asked to take a picture of the menu and the girl behind the counter frowned and said no.

I think I mentioned in my email blog that the plane coming in was hours late and as I landed I missed my connecting flight to Zhounzhou (pronounced jyong jo, sort of, I think) but was luckily able to get another flight without too much trouble.  That flight was a trip, they loaded everyone on, and the safty lecture was done with two stewardasses who had turnded it into a sycronized dance with grand sweeping gestures to show where the exits and oxygen masks were stowed.  after their dance they sat down and without any warning the plane lurched into movement.

I arrived at the airport, met May and the non english speaking driver By around 2:30 pm sunday. They had made the two and a half hour journey from Shangqiu to pick me up according to the first flight which arrived at 9:30.  I got in their small mini van parked outside and the driver started the car up and drove down a wheel chair ramp to get out of the parking lot.  there was a person walking on the ramp and we pull right up to maybe a foot at most behind the guys back and lay on the horn. The driver honks over and over again, and the guy casts a slow glance over his shoulder but at no point speeds his gate.  This was my first introduction to Chinses driving, and holy God, there is no regard for rhyme and reason.  Cars, busses, taxis, motorcycles pulling trailers, and bicycles swirl around in a choatic whirling dervish amid a cocophny of blarring car horns.  They drive at each other with no sign of alarm and just start honking until one vehicle, usually but not always the smaller, get the hell out of the way.

We rode for the next two hours and had very pleasant conversation.  May is the contact I have been emailing so far, and the only person I have found at this point that will speak english to me but I am hopeful and it is only day four.  She is 33 and married with 2 children.  She is constantly appologizing for her trouble with speaking english, which I find to be very near perfect, heavy accent aside.  We discussed my living arangments and she boasted proudly that my apartment came equiped with a…whats the word…..my english not so good…thermous.

The road from Zhongzhou to Shangqiu was pretty much flat farm land, the occasional house, the rare small town.  Serious poverty showed its face in the landscape seceral times, in the form of settlements of shacks along the side of the road.  We went past a long line of people marching along the side of the road with white cloth crown like hats in traditional dress.  May got excited asked me to guess what it was, before I could get an answer she blurted out that it was a funeral, at the end of which was a cloth enclosed square box which was tall and had posts going out on the bottoms for people to carry.  I don’t know the name for it but it is something like Cleopatra would ride in.

We got to Shangqiu and it is a city of some size.  Only one million people instead of 8 million, Wikopedias mistake not mine.  The vast majority of the city is shorter than four stories tall with a few formidable skyscrappers, the streets are lined with shop fronts, New York looking hordes of people walking the streets. 

We got to my school which was a gate inside a wall.  you go through the gate into a massive compound with buildings on all sides and a soccar field in the middle.  We then met the vice principal of the school who wanted to take me to diner.  Mind you, I had not really slept in two, maybe three days, I had no way of calculating which. 

They had asked me what I wanted to eat, and not knowing what they would have I said that I wanted something that people eat alot in Shangqiu.  They took me to a place that has a dish called hot pot.  This consists of a large bowl on a hot plate filled with tomato suace and a whole fish, head hanging out one side and tail hanging out the other.  It was a very wierd tasting thing, but this was a meal in honer of my arrival and it seemed the ugly american gosche thing to do would be turn up my snobby western nose, so I made myself dig in.  It was gross!  It was tomato soup with fish stock and part fish with tomato flavor.  I think the wierd thing was the fish, I have noticed that meat itself has a strange different flavor here, and this was some wierdo tasting fish.  They kept smiling and giving me more, then they started scolding me for not helping myself.  The whole time they spoke chinese to each other as though I wasn’t there.  I really wish I spoke chinese at this point.  Finally they asked if I was full and I smiled and nodded my head, the vice principal said “then we go”. 

Over the coarse of the meal I learned that I will be making almost four times as much money as the vice principal.  I also learned that I will not be teaching grammer as I thought but just conversation.  They want me to teach the kids my culture, and don’t use the text book, just make it up as you go.  this I am fine with, although nervous about running out of ideas.  I have a few ideas already, if anyone reading this can think of cool things to do within that perameter let me know and please don’t be shy.

I then went to my place, located convieniently on a hall surrounded on both sides by classrooms.  Yes the hall goes Classroom, classroom, classroom, white guys place, classroom. Its like something out of hogwarts.   In the mornings I wake up at six to thousands of kids marching in block formation chanting chinese as the flag is raised, followed by the hustle and bustle of high school.

My digs are actually not that bad, two rooms, fridge that don’t work, microwave, tv with chinese cable that I haven’t even hooked up yet, its in chinese, computer that is slower than the slowest imaginable dailup, very-I-think-I-can- sort of a deal.  I have a double bed, dresser, table, chairs.  The bathroom is very interesting.  The shower is a water heater on the wall with a hose, but no enclosed area just a drain on the floor. I have a toilet and am adjusting to the no flushing paper rule.  Clothes washer and string.  I have a hot plate that may not work.  I have a water cooler that leaked water on the floor and deffinatly does not work.  There is a guy who comes around with a pole over both shoulders and gigantic metal flower watering cans on either side.  He brings hot boiled water and cool water.  The hot water goes in, wait for it, yes the thermous, which I also have.

Hey, I am one of the only ones in the school with hot water and a comparative mansion.  Joking aside I have it much better than the people around me and I am not complaining.  I am trying to get them to fix my fridge though.

The next day I ventured out into the world with may.  we went to the super market and got stuff I needed, I had an egg and ham sandwich which may be what made me sick for the next 24 hours, could have been the hot pot.  Whatever it was it sucked.  I was taken around the offices by may to meet countless co workers, the principal, and oh, get this.  I Meet the party secretary, he was dressed and looked just like Mau Tse Jung, smoking a cigerette with his hand backwards like a german in a WWII movie.  May was translating and clearly nervous and introduced him to me by explaining that he is very serious.  I smiled and asked her to ask him what role the party played in the school.  Seemed like an innocent question to me.  Ask the guy about his job, no?  May refused to ask him the question and whisked me the hell out of there as fast as she could.  aparently he has as much importance as the principal, I would wager a little more.  It is my hope from the bottom of my heart that we have had our last conversation.

The rest of the day I layed in bed, too sick to move, too scared to leave my cozy little flat.  I would stare out the window like a scarred rabit.  I was very sad, I had only met one person to talk to, I was sick as hell, the food had thus far sucked beyond belief, and I wondered what the hell I was thinking about coming all the way over here in the first place.

the next morning May woke me up with a phone call and took me out into the world.  This was the second time I had been outside the compound.  Anyone thinking me a sissy at this point has no idea how totally wierd it is here.  She got me dumplings and poridge for my stomach.  Oh god, Dumpings are the coolest thing ever.  I sat there greedily feasting on dumplings while the whole resturant laughed out loud and marved at how bad I am at chop sticks.  It then hit me, let those fuckers laugh!  What the hell do I care?  I traveled around the world to laughed and starred at.  fine.

I think the dumplings fixed my shitty outlook and the poredge curred my stomach.  its seems overly simplistic but its true.

So later that day I left the compound on my own.  I got to the street and looked right then left and decided on right.  off I went.  Some chinese starres pretend not to be starres, and look away when discovered but still maintain corner of the eye contact.  Some chinese starres do not look away and come with disapproving frowns.  My favorite are the ones that come with smiles and whoops of laughter, I find myself laughing too, and we nod at each other and walk on.

I walked through the city for hours, I saw so much crazy stuff.  One corner all the shops have chickens in tiny cages piled on the side of the road next to entire deep fried chicken carcasses.  there were plastic wash tubs full of different kinds of fish swimming around.  filthy little puppies survied the area for scraps.  people walking mingled with motercycles and bikes, vying for space.  I went into a dvd store and bought a copy of Wan Car Ways 2046, only to find out later from may that I a) rented it and need to return it and b) the machine I believed to be a dvd player is the cable box.

Later I came back to tell may about my adventure she said I should buy a bike.  We walked with her bike to where she thought a bike shop used to be but now only sold vespas.  The only bike shop was way across town and she said we would have to get a driver so I recomended we take a taxi there and bike home.  She agreed and hailed a cab that was a motercycle surrounded by a small carriage with two back wheels.  It had walls and a roof, we sat with the doors open and mays bike hanging across our laps and the wheels hanging out on the sides.  We went off whizzing around the city on streets and sidewalks with horn screaming the whole time.

I got the coolest bike.  It is all black and chinese writting on the seat.  It has a basket, which is a sign of mocho tough manlyness in china.  It cost 250 RMB, ($32.03 american) and it is awesome.  When the bike was ready May said lets go and hoped on her bike and into oncoming traffic like a shot.  I took a deep breath and followed.  Quickly I learned that there are a few rudemantary, rules would be a bad word here, lets say suggestions.  I think the reason why they use the horns is they want you to know they are right behind you and get out of the way.  this is good if you are riding your bike unaware that a taxi is riding your butt.  most of the cars on the side walk and on the street seem to go roughly ten miles an hour, so plenty of time to get out of the way if you are watching, and you just have to hope they are too.  

We went to a shoe market because I wanted slippers to combat my freezing lynolium floor.  The shoe market is in an alley way and the alley way is an ancient crumbling pogoda style of hanging roofs and bridges and balcanies.  May got into an argument with a lady there who said my feet were too big, we finally found a pair of slippers marked xxxxx that fit.  On the top they have a puppy face and say wang wang wang.

we spent the afternoon zooming through the traffic.  Once I got over my jitters I found it thrilling beyond description flying by shops and market places.  I could feel a stupid grin that I couldn’t lose.  May remarked that it was like flying, and coming from someone who constantly appologizes for her english I think she said it just right.

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