Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

Thank God. Its over. We had two classes in the morning and out of all the teachers, I was the only one trying to teach anything. Everyone else was playing english songs or movies. During the first class, I told Amanda what type of pizza to pick up. She left during the 10 minute break. During the second class, half of my students were removed by their parents when they showed up to take them away. It was odd. I had only 8 left by the time class was over. Oh well.
I think this is what Amanda got upset with over the fone yesterday because people that were not organizing the camp had made decisions that they shouldn't have made about when the parents should pick up the kids. Someone was usurping her authority and she didn't like it. Eventhough, that's the chinese way. They all think they are the most important and therefore always right so they make decisions when they don't even have the authority too. So everything was hitting the fan apparently. It really upset her.
After class was over we waited about 20 minutes for the Pizza to show up. It was good. Not great, but good. We had a small party amongst ourselves. Then we still had tons of time to waste until 230pm when we were schedualed to have a small party wtih the kids. But 2:30pm came around and there were only 3 kids left. So it was canceled. Basically we wasted another few hours. Its the thing you do in China: waste time.
During this whole camp, Henry has always been flirting with Amanda, professing his love for her. She would always laugh at that. I wanted to get on the humor as well, so the whole gang was calling her sweet names like, "buttercup", "angelic muffin cake", etc. Very humorous. Eventhough this camp was awful and the worst teaching experience I have had so far, we still managed to have fun at times.
We left around 3pm and on the way back to the BOND Shiqi office, so I could talk to Maria about my VISA and a letter from my folks, we all made the conscious decision to forget about the camp. "I feel I have just woken up from a dichloromethane (chloroform) induced coma". "Where has the past week and a half gone to?"
We got to the office. Amanda got my letter for me. Apparently she has had it in her office for a few days. Why she is just giving it to me now shows the chinese mentallity. "I have seen you everday for 1.5 weeks but I didn't give you a letter that has been sitting on my desk for the past week." After that I chatted with Maria about why my Z-Visa wasn't complete. She said two more days. Ugh. I need it now!
Thats why I turned it in so early, to have it done by february. Oh well.
I hopped back into the van and we headed out. Peter asked, "Did your package show up yet?" I said, "No." Then I started to complain about Chinese postal service. About 10 minutes later, Peter threw my package onto my lap. Ha ha ha. He said Joe picked it up and threw it in the van. I didnt even see it in the office. Its great. I put on my ski jacket and i felt that warmth of hardcore skiing. My mind was instantly transported to Christmas/New Years last year in SLC and Wyoming skiing in 100 inches of fresh snow. I also got some Stollen...German Christmas break that my mom makes. Very good. Its already finished.
On the way home, we started talking about bars, and Dan mentioned about how a few months ago he was invovled in a Triad Bar Bust-up where he lives in Hunan. Basically, it was 20 triad members against 5 foreigners. The owner of the bar was a Canadian and the triad members were regulars, and for some reason, that night they decided to teach them a lesson by busting up the bar. Then one of the canadians (who apparently wasn't all there in the head) saw a member holding a crowbar and decided to pull a "Bush" pre-emtive strike. He dropped the triad member and the group of guys just let loose on Dan and the other 4 foreigners. Dan he was knocked to the ground with about 5 guys kicking him and that they had weapons as well. Blunt metallic objects. He said he got put in the hospital. He obviously looks ok now. He then said the cops showed up, a triad member said something, and the cops looked the other way and no arrests were made for busting up the bar. The canadian guy sold his bar not too much later. It was an odd story. Almost surreal. Only see that on TV.
Craziness.
We finally got to Xiaolan and we went and got paid. Gary mentioned that they had no classes lined up for us at all, so we have a nice break for a bit. Hopefully they don't find anything else. YES!
From there I headed back to the big house. Did some stuff until practice tonite. It went well, I learned some new stuff. I got Mountain to talk to Guo Sifu about whats going on for the performances. Apparently the HK thing is continuous for the whole festival, from the 6th-18th of February. Guo Sifu thinks is too much for me so he told me I can come to a couple. He is right, I want to do some travelling. So, after about 20 minutes of three way talking on one cell fone, this is what my schedual will be for the New Year Festivities.
1. Go to HK on the morning of Feb 6th and stay there until the evening of Feb 8th. We will take a bus to Shenzhen then a ferry to HK. We will stay the night in a Martial Arts school that the teacher knows. So we will be ruffing it with other people. I bet I will be a novelty. Look, the white guy!
2. I found out that I most likely won't be performing in the HK festivities, but I will be watching, helping out, and learning. I guess thats good, it gives me a chance to get some video.
3. On Feb 9th there is the New Year celebration in Shunde. Guo Sifu said at this one I will be able to do some Wushu...I will perform a couple of the Hong Quan forms.
4. On the 11-12 there are two things going on in Zhongshan that I will perform at.
All this while there will be troop members in HK still.
5. From Feb 13th - 19th I will spend just travelling around. Going to close places by bus and what not. It should be interesting. Now that I know the schedual, I will be able to put a plan of attack together.
I hope to get alot of good video for the next DVD.
Another thing that surprised me was that I received an award from Guo Sifu today. I was elected Hardest Worker at the Sunday Evening meeting and this evening he gave me this little booklet that has a certificate in it. Plus, there was an envelope with 30 kwai in it. Jeez. I totally did not expect this. I was very surprised.
Tommy was at practice today as well. He is a guy I met once before at practice but has been missing for awhile. He is studying at a university in Zhongshan and his enlish is good. It needs some fine tuning so we exchanged online names and we spent a few hours chattting tonite while I finished up a japanese Ninja movie. Well, its around 2AM. I am going to bed.

Posted by Phil at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, the drive was the normal drive to camp. We picked up David and his wife for some odd reason in ShiQi. Dunno why. We just did. Classes were bleh. I kicked two kids out withing 3 minutes of each other for not doing what I instructed and goofing around. They then sat outside the doors and looked thru the windows with dead-to-the-world Chinese puppy dog eyes. After about 10 minutes later of them just sitting outside, Miss Li finally decided to grace us with her presence. She spoke to the kids outside and I noticed one had started to cry.
During lunch we got Amanda to agree to having Bond go in 50/50 for ordering 4 Pizza Hut pizzas for our lunch tomorrow. YES!! I have to say that Pizza Hut in China is the only place to get decent pizza. Its like a gourmet restaurant here in China. Its expensive by Chinese standards, but its soo sooooooooooo worth it.
Lunch was eh.
Afternoon classes were a joke. The children were not paying attention. No Chinese teachers. I tried to teach and some of it was good but after about 20 minutes, the kids just didn't care. When class was over, I headed to the teacher’s office and Amanda came with stacked bundles of orange plastic coats. They are pretty cheap. On it says “Bond Happy Winter English Camp”. But it was anything but. We are planning to cross out the Happy part and replace it with either Unhappy or Angry or Crappy. We handed them out during class and I used that to teach the kids, “May I please have…”
After that I allowed the kids to go to Peter’s class where he was showing the Gogo DVDs. After that we had some time to kill before we had the activity class. I had the kids do the Hokey Pokey, Simon Says, and I taught them the Chicken Dance. I also got Amanda to join me in trying to teach them how to Swing Dance. You think they would like it, but the kids just went off and paid no attention. After trying everything I had them go watch a cartoon Peter was showing.
This is how bad the kids don’t want to pay attention. It has gotten to the point that the kids are watching Chinese movies instead of English Language films. Its so pathetic.
Then before everyone had gone to dinner, except for me - I ate an apple, Amanda got into a cellfone argument with someone. I was on my computer listening to Terry Gilliam’s commentary of Brazil. Its quite interesting. I am learning a lot about camera work from it. I looked up and saw Amanda talking on the fone. Something I see every waking moment, so, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. Her voiced started to get louder. I was beginning to hear the voice from the other end as well above my computer. And I guess I have been in China to long, but I stopped my computer and watched. I feel terrible about that. She began shouting into the fone for a good long while. Of course I looked at some of the other English teachers, primarly Dan and Henry because their Chinese is better than mine, and I know Peter's chinese ain't worth anything...just teasing. (Peter is reading this journal entry right now). Dan and Henry both shook their heads with that goofy, "I don't know whats going on" face while they waved their hands around like Robby the Robot....DANGER! DANGER! She then threw the cell-fone down onto the desk and stormed out of the office. I got up for the little boys room a few moments later and she was standing alone in the stairway looking off in the distance. Visibly upset.
I didn t bother going to dinner since I knew it was gonna suck. And apparently it did. According to Peter, he said Amanda was still really upset. She wasn’t answering her fone and I was told that her fone wsa going off a lot. We then headed out.
Got back to Xiaolan around 730pm. I prepared to go to Lion Dance practice and I was about to head out and I thought to have Amy call my Sifu to see if there was practice tonite. Its Sunday and I didn't want to ride my bike thru rain just to show up and have no practice. She chatted with him for a few minutes and laughed a bit. She told me after hanging up that the Lion Dance troop had a meeting around 6pm and that they had a little election for the upcoming festivities. Election? So democracy does exist in China...to some extent. Speaking of Chinese Communism...the other day Henry saw a Mercedes and said, "Welcome to Communist China." Quite humorous at the time.
Anywho, the troop had an election. Though I wasn't in attendance, I was voted most active member of the troop. What that means for the upcoming festivites, I have no clue. I think Amy said they were electing people for performances and stuff.
Since I didnt have practice, I was gonna do some stuff. I was quite bored. I am tired and I want to go to sleep, so I will. So there. However, before I leave you all, the weather has been quite chilly the past few days. And a layer of fog has been hanging about for three day straight. So, I hit the button on the space heater to start working. It was going fine for about 30 minutes. All of a sudden it just conked out. Great. So I called Jolene and she said she doesn't take care of that anymore but because she loves me she called the appropriate people and I need to take it in tomorrow or Tuesday. However, after chatting with Peter online about some camp issues and our Pizza Hut Party tomorrow, I got up to take out my contacts. As I returned, i thought, "Hey, i will try the heater again." I turned it on...and it worked. Great. It was getting cold in here. But then about a minute later it fuzzed out again. I walked towards it and it went back on again. As I sat down it shut off. Ugh! So I stood up, went over and hit the buttons. Nothing. I turned it back on. I hit it and it started working. Ugh. Here is the AIM conversation:
irmenudo@yahoo.com: my heater just fuzzed out.
Peter: that sucks
Peter: i just ordered a 160 G hd drive
irmenudo@yahoo.com: nice
Peter: yeah....now i can get all the files from you
irmenudo@yahoo.com: well, when you get it\
Peter: i get it tuesday morning
irmenudo@yahoo.com: we forgot to tell Amanda how to go about getting Pizza
Peter: we can tell her in the mornng ...she was not in the mood to talk about it I am sure
irmenudo@yahoo.com: have it ordered then have Joe/David drive out to pick itup
irmenudo@yahoo.com: or would we just drive into town?
irmenudo@yahoo.com: that would be the best
Peter: fine with me
irmenudo@yahoo.com: koolio
Peter: i am going to give adobe premiere pro a try. see how it works
Peter: I have heard good things about it
irmenudo@yahoo.com: well, my heater's working again
irmenudo@yahoo.com: i have heard its confusing. but oh well.
Peter: wierd
irmenudo@yahoo.com: Adobe products are good.
Peter: i have a tutorial
irmenudo@yahoo.com: the mac stuff is quite user friendly...and the heater just gave out again.
irmenudo@yahoo.com: then came back on
Peter: hehe
Peter: has a mind of its own i see
irmenudo@yahoo.com: again. damnit
irmenudo@yahoo.com: i just hit it, it went back on.
Peter: strange
irmenudo@yahoo.com: chinese
irmenudo@yahoo.com: just letting you know I am copying the convo about the space heater onto my journal right now

Good nite all. Sleep well. God bless.

Posted by Phil at 07:33 PM | Permalink

I woke up this morning really tired because I had only about 3 hours of sleep. It had rained during the night. Now there is this intense fog covering everything around us, like a cold, wet down-quilt. Its condensing on everything. This made it quite interesting at the Bowen School because for some reason, the Chinese love to make all their buildings covered in tiles so they get dirty really easily. The entire school is covered in tile as well as the floor. All the fog had condensed on the tile floor making it very slippery. By mid-afternoon, the floor looked as if it was under a layer of water. This is quite dangerous. The Chinese aren’t as paranoid as Americans are about safety. I have seen many things that would turn into lawsuits in the States. And for anyone who likes to have fun, dangerous = fun. So, all the kids, including me, were running and sliding all over the place. Before you yell at me and tell me, “Maybe you shouldn’t do it since you are an authority figure and the kids will imitate what you do.” I will tell you that I imitated the kids. They were the ones that got me hooked. So there. I said it. I videotaped it…it was quite humorous. The classes today pretty much stunk. The Chinese teacher only was present for about 80% of the first 2 classes and was non-existent during the second two. Fudge-cicle. After Camp was over we headed home. And of course our time was not cared about or considered and it was wasted.
On the way home we were watching internet downloads of Dr. Katz and Dave Chapelle Show. It was quite humorous. I got back around 730pm and I called Yumi to let her know I would stop over around 830pm. She is heading back to Japan for the Chinese New Year. She will be gone for about 3 weeks. Her Japanese friend who works in Shenzhen will go with her, so I get to meet her as well. I knock on Yumi’s door and her friend Noriko opens up. She is all excited and bubbly. I am like, “Hello. How are you?” She was responding with happy shrieks. She proceeded to run around in a circle and jump up and down speaking incomprehensible Japanese. “Jeez, you act as you have never seen a white person before.”
“Yes.” Yumi spoke from behind the door, “Well, she’s never met one.” I find that odd because Japan is saturated with white people…I thought. Oh well. We all chatted for a bit. Noriko was trying to remember some English to speak to me. She kept opening up that little computer dictionary that they all carry. It was funny. However, I didn't laugh at her when she tried to speak English and would speak broken English as others laugh at me when I try to speak Chinese or Japanese. I guess not everyone tries to follow the Golden Rule.
While I was there, Michelle, my Sifu’s daughter, called me and spoke to me a bit. She said there was a big meeting about the upcoming lion-dance performances on Sunday at 6pm. She was telling me to come. “Too bad Michelle, I will be stuck in ShiQi against my will until 730pm.” It took me about five minutes to explain to her that I wouldn’t be able to come, but that I could be at practice at 8pm. This confused her to no end. When she finally did understand that I wouldn’t make 6pm, she said, “Uh oh…that’s very bad. Ok. Ok. I will see you. Bye bye.” It was an interesting conversation.
After chillin’ with Yumi and Noriko I headed and now I am heading to bed. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Coming down from an altered state is a hard thing to do...
Tonite was a blast.
First off, I spent most of the day as a vegetable. Around 5pm I called some Apple Sellers in Hong Kong trying to figure out where to take my iPod to get the battery replaced. Actually, what they do is they replace it with a used/refurbished/new one of the same model, one that would be just as good as new. I still think that is the only downside of the iPod. Since tonite are the going away festivities for Sean and Suzannah, I called around to see what everyone was up to. Sean told me to meet at the Longshan gong ryen Beer Gardens at 830pm. I got there at 9pm and no one was around. So I called some people. Apparently, Sean fell asleep and the girls didn’t know what was going on. Figures. So I was told to head over to Sunday Bar where Jolene, Ash, and a couple other Chinese were already there. I walked over. After about 15 minutes or so, Sean, Suzannah, Yumi, Rumi showed up. We had a good time.
Yumi and Rumi had gotten these little booklets to have us write little happy things in to allow Sean and Suzannah to have good memories of us. Surprisingly Sean gave me a present. He had bought The Prodigy’s new album, “Always Outnumber Never Outgunned” a while back and prolly got his use out of it. He gave it to me. Kool. Thanks yo.
One of the weird things that happened was on the stereo system. After the dance remix of “Heaven is a Place on Earth”, it started playing Wolfsheim. I was super surprised. Why is Wolfsheim being played in China? I can’t believe this. It was really cool.
I haven’t been drinking much at all in the past month, so my tolerance was really low. Of course, I drank a bit too much. About 30 minutes before we left, I realized I needed lots of tea. So I went psychitsoid on the tea. By the time we were leaving, I was feeling a bit better. It was good that we walked around to other places. We went to that dance club that we had gone to for John’s send off and the Guzhen Karaoke parties. The music was turned off. It was only 1AM. Reluctantly they put the music back on and we had the floor all to ourselves. I danced on the pole. It was hilarious. I noticed off in the corner, on one of the fluorescent wall paintings (so they show up under blacklight), there was an image of Boba Fett shooting a laser beem into the mouth of a skeleton warrior. Why they had Boba Fett doing such a thing is beyond me. Oh well. The music ended around 2AM and they were playing some “cool-down” music. It was the Chinese version of “Silent Night”. It was in Cantonese and I doubt its got the same meaning. Bizarre people the Chinese. Bizarre. I went home and got some rest.

Posted by Phil at 02:48 PM | Permalink

Today was great. I just slept and vegged out.
Peter spent all day moving. He and Echo have decided to move in together since they are getting married when he gets his passport back from the Z-Visa people. They will have their own place. They are trading with Robert, the guy from Australia. Peter and Echo are moving into Robert's place. I will miss them. Its gonna be wierd.
I went to the gym and lion dance tonite. I learned some more to Hong Quan #2. Did about 5 minutes with the dragon head. It was fun. I still feel like a tub of lard working with those guys though. No fat at all and I got a bunch. It looks bizarre on camera as you will see on the News Story.
Finally got some closure: I watched Day of the Dead and the night before I watched the original Dawn of the Dead. Never had seen those really. So, got some closure from the original Zombie Trilogy. Romero ruelz. Off to bed.

Posted by Phil at 02:42 PM | Permalink

So, Bond still sucks. However, everything else is great. Bowen school is still the worst teaching experience. The chinese teacher was in class for about 1/4 of the time I was teaching. Still problematic. I left at one point and told Amanda to go teach because they weren't paying attention to me since they can't understand. She conned me to go back in if she came along. I said sure. When we got there, not more than 2 minutes went by that her cell fone rang and she stepped out of class to talk to someone for the rest of the period. When she did that, the class fell apart. SMACK! I am totally gonna steal her cell fone next time.

Posted by Phil at 02:38 PM | Permalink

I kept trying to correct the little girl in my class, "Lu-lu The Leopard", but she was intent on saying, "Lu-lu The Leper". It was kind of funny. So I wrote it on the dry erase board.
Yelled at my kids some more today.

Posted by Phil at 02:37 PM | Permalink

That's right. Out of all the teaching he has done in China. He regards this as the worst. Everything is just so disorganized and stupid. This is a typical day:

700AM: Wake up.
830AM: Catch the BOND van to head down to Shiqi.
920AM: Pick up Amanda, then Henry at their residences and head to Bowen International School.
950AM: Arrive at Bowen International School
1000AM: Teach a 40 min class
1040AM: Take a 10 min break
1050AM: Teach another 40 min class
1130AM: Take a 3 hour lunch break
230PM: Teach a 40 min class
310PM: Take a 10 min break
320PM: Teach another 40 min class
400PM: Take a 30 min break
430PM: Supervise a chant activity/lesson activity for 1 hour
530PM: Eat dinner
600PM: Get in the Bond Van and head back to ShiQi/Xiaolan
730PM: Arrive back in Xiaolan

~11 hours of our day is being sucked up by Bond here and we are only being paid for the time spent TEACHING IN CLASS. All the rest of the day is thrown into limbo. I have spent most of the lunch breaks playing Diablo II on my computer. Its pathetic. In addition to the crappy schedual. The classes are horrible.
I have about 16 kids in my classroom. Not bad. Not at all. Its a nice change from having 50 kids in class. The problems, though, are as follows:
1. The kids do not want to be there at all. They are all smart. I mean, very smart. These kids are between 6-8 years old and they know more english than most of the kids I have taught, including the Guzhen kids.
2. On top of not wanting to be there, they are naughty rich kids. I mentioned that this was a rich school earlier. Its disgusting what parents are doing to their kids.
3. There is no Chinese english teacher present in class to control the children. For some stupid stupid reason, Amanda told the chinese teachers that they don't need to be present in our classes. This has by far caused the most problems. Every hour we tell Amanda to get us those teachers, she makes some calls, but nothing ever happens.
If there are no chinese teachers in class, they can't explain the exercises to the children, they can't keep them disciplined, and they can't tell them the meanings of things. Sure, people say, "Well, that's your job." Amanda said, once when I stopped babysitting those rascals because there were no teachers in class and the kids wouldn't respond to the simplest exercises and I returned to the office, "If you can't teach just this many kids, you can't teach at all in China?"
I had to explain it to her again. The truth is, the best times I have had teaching at this camp has been when there was a Chinese Teacher in class.
We try to turn the tables, think about this: take a chinese teacher who has very little or no english training and stick them in front of a bunch of kids and say, "go teach". With nothing. She kind of understands that, but not really.
If there is no teacher there, the kids just space out immediately and make paper airplanes, write in their chinese books, read comics, or play Paper, Rock, Scissors. Its absolutely terrible.
That is how the teaching is going. And, to make matters worse is the fact that when we aren't teaching we are stuck there for most of the day just wasting our time and not getting paid for it.
The drives home are a pain in the ass as well. Each night we get in the van and head back. After dropping off Amanda and Henry, we always end up heading back to the ShiQi Office for some dumb reason. These drivers are wasting our time doing their own errands. We are really livid.
For example, today was irritatingly perfect. I got pissed for a couple reasons.
First off, I had been working on my computer alot and I had created a file that was very important with lots of time spent on it. I left my computer to do the activity class. I came back after dinner, packed it up and we headed to the van. On the way home, I tried to load up my file. That file along with another was deleted and another was in its place. WTF! What happened. Peter then mentioned he briefly saw Sparky (the driver) on my computer when he was heading to dinner. What was he doing on my computer. So i asked Amanda if she could ask Sparky if he was on my computer, he responded Yes. So i yelled at him. I am totally gonna email Big Boss John...the dick.
1. He deleted an impotant file because he can't read english very well
2. He was on my computer without my permission. If he had asked, I would have let him on and set him up, but no. He had to go on and reallly piss me off.
Since then, I have been able to recover some of the original file.
On top of that was the van ride home. Sparky ran his own errands. After we went to the ShiQi office to waste time. (Peter needed to be in Xiaolan at 7PM, it was already 630) We started driving. Next thing we know, Sparky is picking up his girlfriend and her friend and dropping her off in another place near the Bond office again, then picking up some Bond flyers. Wait a second. This couldn't be done before or after we were taken care of. So, Peter and I were given Sparky crap. We are both totally gonna contact John about the incompetence in this company.
We got back to ShiQi around 730pm.
I have been so tired that I have missed Lion Dancing on Monday and Tuesday. Ugh.

Posted by Phil at 01:59 PM | Permalink

This camp sux.

Posted by Phil at 01:57 PM | Permalink

Ok. This is to show how disorganized and idiotic the Chinese are. I believe now that it isn’t just Bond, I have seen this in other areas. Its all Chinese people. They have teachers from Xiaolan going to Bowen International School which is just outside ShiQi. Driving time is ~1 hour. They have teachers from ShiQi going to Guzhen which is a city just outside of Xiaolan for more classes, and teachers going from Xiaolan to the Bond Office in ShiQi. Can you see why we foreign teachers get frustrated with them? Why don’t they put ShiQi teachers in Bowen and Shiqi and have the Xiaolan teachers in Guzhen and Xiaolan. WTF!
Here is some more backstory to the Winter camp. Three days ago, Peter was “asked” if he “wanted” to organize the Winter camp that was supposed to take place in three days. Why Peter accepted is beyond me. Amanda first asked him to plan the opening ceremony, but then “asked” him to do the whole camp. “Amanda, I can’t make this a great camp in three days time.” –That’s ok, just make it alright.
This is just more evidence to show how the Chinese lack quality.
So, we get there in the morning at Bowen for the opening ceremony. There was Dan (a guy that was at Bond in Hunan), Henry (a south African that has been here three weeks), Peter, me, Sean, Toby, and Robert. However, the only ones teaching during the camp are me, Peter, Henry, and Dan. The others were there for publicity.
We get in the auditorium and there are many flags at the front. There was 1 American, 2 British, 1 New Zealand, and, for some bizarre reason 6 Canadian. While we were killing time waiting for the rest of the kids who were late, we started throwing Frisbee and playing some Badmitten. Some kids showed up, around 30, and we still waited on others. So we waited some more. Dan left around this time because he was a little sick, he went and threw up. Then Amanda walks in and says, “why haven’t you started.” –Because we are waiting for the rest of the kids. “Oh, there is only 56 kids in this camp and the rest aren’t coming until this afternoon.” –What? Why didn’t you tell us this?
So, instead of filling the opening ceremony for 1 hour, we got to do it for 30 minutes. Thanks for wasting our time Amanda. Peter gave a little speech and talked to the kids. We all spoke about ourselves for about 5 minutes. I chatted and said some things. I told them that if they are lucky, they will get to learn some gung fu. Sean went up and said, “Hello, my name is Sean. Goodbye.” He tried to sit down, but the kids kept saying NO! So he wasted time standing up and sitting down. Henry (south Africa) and Robert (Australia) went on and complained that their flags weren’t at the front of the auditorium. Toby went up there and said, “My name is Toby. I am a philosopher, poet, and aethiest. (you forgot “jackass” and that your poetry is really gawd awful) I like to teach, but I won’t be teaching you. Etc etc.
We then had a lunch break for 3 hours and taught an introductory lesson at 230-4pm. I already noticed something that is gonna be trouble: the Chinese teachers aren’t staying in class. How will I be able to teach the kids if there are not teachers to keep control or to explain directions?
Another thing that sucks is that we don’t get home at 730PM. Ugh.
I went to practice tonite and I felt terrible. Very tired. Very very tired. My legs were shaking during form work. I then drank some water and got energized. I then hit the bag for a few minutes and felt much better. Then worked some more on forms. Went home and fell asleep.

Posted by Phil at 01:55 PM | Permalink

I went to Guzhen this morning, what would be the last of the Guzhen classes. We were late because:
The taxi cab went to go pick up Toby and Suzannah first instead of me and Mountain. And of course, the Brits were late. Well, actually, Toby was late, Suzannah never showed up. So, the taxi guy shows up around 840Am with Toby and then we drive back and wait for Suzannah for another 5 minutes. She didn't show so we took off. We got there and a village meeting was about to be held. So, we had to go up to another classroom on level 3.
During the breaks I was playing with the kids. I was picking them up n stuff. Just playing. I went to pick up one boy and as I was lifting him up, one of his friends yanked down his pants. And for some dumb reason this kid wasn’t wearing any underwear. AIYA! Put that thing away!
After kindergarten in the evening I headed to Lion Dancing. Practice was fine. Just worked on the forms more and more.
Tomorrow I have to go to Bowen School for the start of our Winter English camp. It may be cool. Ha ha…famous last words. Good nite.

Posted by Phil at 01:53 PM | Permalink

I had to go to Guzhen to finish up the class lessons for Bond. I will have to go again tomorrow on Friday. The school seemed to be preparing for something. They were roping areas off and then putting a bunch of chairs and desks around in it.
Kindergarten went fine today. I picked up four copies of Kung Fu Hustle this evening after the gym. She had to go below the front desk in the off limits cupboard to get these DVDs out, prolly to keep them away from the sight of the police.
I went to lion dance and took a schedual of days that I will be able to be there for practice. The old sifu was there and seemed happy to see me. He was then told by one of the coaches that the headcoach wants him to teach me some new Hong Quan stuff. The headcoach showed up later. I think this is to prepare for the Lion Dance performances during the New Year. He started showing me some of Hong Quan #3. This one has some neat stuff in it. Its got the tiger claw, crane fist, and the crab technique. Chad and I refer to it as the Crab Technique because it looks hilarious, it kinda looks like a crab, when you do it, sorta. I tested it out on the punching bags once. It generates a lot of power, but its done in such a peculiar manner, I don't know when anyone would use it.
So, I was practicing this on my own in the corner, and people were watching me as usual. Then the head coach showed up. He didn’t look very happy. He watched me do it and gave me some corrections. He also showed me the slight variations from the Shaolin Hong Quan and the Wong Fei-Hong Hong Quan (which I am learning). He then told me to make some noise when I do certain tiger techniques. Kinda like the Japanese kia when you punch and kick. Only this is a modification. He showed me, and I imitated, and this brought many more of the Chinese students to watch. I took them (regular students and the lion dancing wunderkind) away from their doing nothing. I dunno but the last few days, these kids haven’t been practicing like they should. So, they came over from doing nothing and stood around staring and giggling. So, I finally got fed up. And shooed them way. “Go on. Nothing to see here. Go about your own practice. You have lots to do.” They got the hint and left.
So, I continued to practice on my own. Then one of the coach’s girlfriend and friend who was a girl visited him. They stood next to the white van that was in the warehouse. I got to the part of the form where I was doing tiger claw and I had to make some sounds. They stood there giggling. I was no more than three feet from them when I stopped and glared at them and pointed for them to leave. They did very quickly. Don’t want to lose face to the gweilo. I got to work on it some more.
Then about 15 minutes before I left, around 940pm, the head coach walked out of his office, apparently fed up with the lack of anyone practicing. He proceeded to yell at everyone for about 5 minutes. I didn't understand what he was saying, but I caught the gist of a few things:
1. You guys are practicing, so I am yelling at you because you are lazy dogs.
2. The only one here practicing and doing anything is Fei-long (Phil).
3. I am also yelling at you because its very rude to stare at Fei-long all the time. (He proceeded to point in my general direction and show how he was teaching the Tiger Claw with the shouting) I am trying to teach him and you are being very rude and distracting.
After his yelling, I heard nothing but silence and the distant drone of machinery in the factory next door. It was amazing.
I headed home.

Posted by Phil at 01:52 PM | Permalink

I was supposed to go to hand out flyers today at 11AM with Lynn. However, I woke up at 1030AM, checked my email and there was a message from Lynn saying, “Since this is the last day of school, the kids will be let out earlier. We must go at 10AM. See you then.” I sent a response back.
I had an OK kindergarten class today. It was the “10 Kid Spaz Class”. It was quarter to 5 before I was able to start the class because not all the children were there. Plus, Owen was missing. I called him up. “So, Owen…where are you?” –Oh, I am here at the office. I am busy. I can’t come to class. “Oh, that's nice. Thanks for telling me.” Owen has started picking up bad habits. Not showing up on time for class and not giving us a day’s advance notice on the info. If the foreign teachers do that, we would be penalized severly. Peter has been having these issues with Jolene as well, but much more often. Sometimes she has just not shown up for class without telling Peter. That doesn’t help trying to get the kids to follow directions.
I went home. I was getting ready to go to lion dance practice when Peter pulled out the new bootlegged copy of Stephen Chow’s latest masterpiece “Kung Fu Hustle”. I had to watch it. Besides, everyone was at the house. So we all watched it together. It was great. Very funny. I am gonna get a bunch of copies tomorrow and ship them home in my next care package. The only problem is that these are bootlegged copies and it will take many months for the real DVD to come out, and when that happens, most of the DVDs will be bootlegged anyway. China is full of criminals.

Posted by Phil at 01:51 PM | Permalink

So today was half good. It was a day off and after my usual stuff during the day, around 4pm I was like, I need to get another fone. So, I had all my stuff from my last fone that got stollen: The extra battery and the SIM card. So I figured, i will go get the same fone. After 3 months, the price should have fallen from 800/850 to about 600. HA HA HA. Nope. It was still the same price. I looked at a couple lesser models, but my extra battery would work with them and another battery would cost me 140 RMB. screw that. I will find the same model. I went to a bunch of places, found the cheapest they were selling the model for at 760. So I told the guy 700 and after a couple minutes and looking at things, he was like, sure.
So, he pulled out the fone and I had him test my SIM card and figure out what was wrong. He couldn't get it to work. So after about 30 minutes of him calling China Mobile, me talking to Mountain via Peter's cell fone, and the workers at this place writing chinese down for me to read when I told them five times already that I don't understand, I finally purchased the fone. I would have to take care of the SIM card later. I still had some money on it, so I don't know why it was causing me problems. Nothing is ever easy in this country.
I got back to the house, and Peter was like, oh, you should go to China Mobile above the post office and get it taken care of. So I asked Amy to go with, she said sure. I need to buy her a cake. We went to the place above the post office, but found out it was China Telecom. Peter made a mistake. UGH! Mind you, I am frustrated with alot of stuff by this time. Amy and I walked down to China Mobile by the Flower Hotel. I went to the receptionist and they said all I had to do was put some money on it and it would be fine. so i did that. They had this deal for the New Year, if you purchase time, 100RMB worth, they will give you 160RMB worth of time. Pretty kool.
Its a good thing I got this fone. I am sure I will need it to call Mountain or someone when I am stranded in some backass town in china during the New Year.
I went to Lion Dancing again. The head coach wasn't there. And it wsa just the wunderkind. And, I was the only one practicing. The wunderkind just were sitting and smoking and trying to learn how to do a back flip. Oh well. It was funny to watch. I left about 915pm.
I watched "The Hunting of the President" about the 10year right-wing campaign to bring down President Clinton. While there was alot of truth to it, it was a very very biased documentary. They made Clinton out to be some kind of idealistic icon who could do no wrong. And that all the testimony by the women and McDougals were forced, etc. The way they presented Ken Starr was always in slow motion with dark brooding music over it...sometimes in black n white. I laughed my ass off.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Lets just say I am sick and tired of being sick and tired with Chinese people in any sort of business situation. Amy, the chinese girl living at the house that's engaged to Moses, said I couldn't trust certain chinese people and with other stories and things I have heard. Here is the list of chinese people that you can't trust:
1. Tailors - I have a bunch of 1st hand experiences on this
2. Doctors - 1st hand experience
3. BOND - everyday
4. Police - stories
5. Government - its obvious
6. Muslims from the western parts of the country - 1st hand experience
7. China Travel Agency - 1st hand experience
8. Taxi: Motorbike/Car - 1st hand experience
9. Clothes Shops - 1st hand experience
10. DVD/VCD Shops - 1st hand experience
11. Supermarkets - 1st hand experience
12. Many chinese individuals - 1st hand experience
13.
14.

I am sure the list will increase with future dates.
Ok, lets see...about today.
Today was my day off. Went to the suit shop to hopefully pick up my Zhongshan suit. This will be about the 6th time I have had to go there. They don't fix it properly. I told them what needs to be done, when I come back, they either haven't fixed it or its not correct. These people are terrible. I went and got into an hour long arguement with them about the silk shirt still not being cleaned. They removed some stains, but it was still dirty. The collar was still messed up on both shirts. I then got into an arguement about how their pants are still to long in the crotch. Because of that I have a limit range of motion. I want pants that I can do anything in.
About the suit collar: They didnt make it wide enuff, it was uneven, the uneven white silk shirt collar would make this obvious when looked at. I showed them a picture of how its supposed to look and they sort of fixed it. They removed the collar on the shirt and replaced it. What gets me is that this is a very common/old style of chinese clothing, and yet, I know more about it then them. They are tailors, how do they not know how to make the suit properly.
As for the pants: Lets see...from what I can tell all chinese men wear pants that are really long in the crotch and tight in the hips. I dunno why, maybe they are compensating for something. Therefore, when I try and raise my knee or lift my leg to the side, the material catches and it destroys my range of motion. And its not just suit pants, its the same issue I had with the jumpsuit pants. So, a couple days ago I had them fold the waist line over to raise up the crotch, however, it still wasn't what I wanted. So I told them I wanted more. However, the problem is, if they did it over once more, the belt loops would be right on top of the back pockets. It would look horrible. The only thing they could do would be to remake them, and they wont do that unless I pay them more. Horrendous business sense. So, I was telling them what I wanted and they both got upset and said that if I can raise my knee to a certain area, its not his problem. "Um...yes it is. If you want to get paid, it is." Why do the chinese have to be so difficult on everything. Nothing is ever easy. He just doesnt want to do the work of making his customer happy. They told me to bring back a pair of pants that I can do what I am talking about so i said ok. I went home and didn't want to go back till after dinner.
Peter had thrown some steaks on a grill he bought. They were surprisingly good but very chewy. The problem with steaks in this country is that they aren't tender at all. I spent about 2 minutes trying to chew a small bite adequately enough to swallow it. We watched Mad Monster Party. Very bizarre movie. Its an old 50s/60s stop motion made by the same people that made Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman. It is also voiced by Boris Karloff. Phyllis Diller is also in it...
I then asked Echo to call my sifu to find out about any performances during the Chinese New Year.
Feb 6th: Hong Kong
Feb 9th: Shunde
Feb 23rd: ShiQi
Coolness. I will have people to celelbrate with and get some great video. For the 10 days I have to travel between the 10th - 20th, I think I will go to places not to far from here. It will be kool. I have to make up a plan of attack.
Did laundry.
After dinner, went back to the suit shop with my pants that fit and allow a large range of motion. Dealt with them for another hour and a half about how to fix the pants. I still had to deal with them on the collar. I also took my jumpsuit pants back to be redone since they did a half ass job the first time. I told Amy to them that I don't want to hear any refusals, just do what I say. They didn't listen and finally I just got really sick and tired of dealing with their crap and I was like screw it, I can't deal with this junk anymore. Give me my stuff, I am outta here. "Hey Amy, tell them I will never come here again and I will tell all the foreigners not to visit this place." She did. Service sucks here.
Then I went to Lion Dancing. I was late because of the suit shop. It was empty. All the kids were out studying for finals this week. I was taught some more of Hong Quan #2. Then some of the wunderkind there tried showing me the cymbals to the drum beat.
While learning the cymbols, one of the wunderkind, Victor, noticed something in the road. He yelled and a bunch of the chinese guys went outside, I followed to see what the commotion was. There had been an accident. What I saw was a motorscooter laying on its side with its blinkers on next to the 3 foot wide median with bushes. I was still on the side walk and I saw no one. I figured that since the blinkers were on, the owner of the scooter had gotten up to go talk to the authorities, there were some right next door to the Lion Dance Center. So, I went back to the drum to practice on my own. Then I noticed more and more chinese rubberneckers show up and stand around. (the chinese are the biggest gawkers in the world) So I was like, why are they just standing around looking at a knocked over bike. So I went out to look again, and there was a larger group of people by the bike along with some authorities. I got closer to the bike and was able to see over the bushes. There lay the man, unconcious (i think) with a little pool of blood on the cement street underneath his head. From what I could tell, it was still flowing. Off in the distance I heard sirens coming. I don't know how long he had been laying here, it must have been more than 10 minutes. What gets me is that no one, who say the man laying there, did anything to help. For example, check his pulse, look for breathing. They just watched him there. I know I failed in not doing enuff to help and I am upset with that. I came to the wrong assumption. I sure hope this guy pulls through. He wasn't wearing a helmet and he looked as though he was out. He just lay there crumpled.
The medics arrived and I saw one checking the guy and it look as though there were some muscle responses so he was still alive. As I stood there feeling horrible for my inaction, I noticed a few chinese staring at me. As I came up to the accident scene when I first saw the man lying on the street, I noticed a few guys look at me, then get this worried look on their face. They looked at the guy, then back at me, then back at the guy, then back at me. The only thing they could have been thinking is this: "What do I look at: The white foreigner standing next to me or the unconcious man lying in the street with a head wound? I CAN'T DECIDE! AIYA!" Don't think me as inconsiderate to the man hurt, but this is what happened.
I think there about three possibilities of what happened.
1. I noticed his tire lock was laying on the street behind me a few yards. So, its possible, his tired lock slipped down while he was driving and got caught in the spokes of his front wheel causing him to get thrown for it like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
2. He hit a rock or something in the street that caused him to fly out.
3. His bike tire somehow skidded against the median curb/ or he hit the curb and he was thrown from the bike.
Mind you this guy was thrown about 10 feet from where the bike lay.
I was still amazed that with all these people standing around, no one tried to help. They just stared. I mentioned this to Peter and he thinks that its possible that China does not have the equivalent to the
Good Samaritan Law in Canada and the USA. They prolly didnt want to get involved. Also, the chinese hate anything dirty or that carries germs, so touching another man's bleeding body is a turn off for them. Which I can understand, but thats why we have skin...its a barrier against stuff like that. However, you always must be careful.
The thing is they hate everything dirty and full of germs yet China is unbelievably dirty, the people throw their trash on the ground, in the river, (yes, i know Americans do this too, but not all Americans do it near the amount here) and they are allowed to spit on the dinner table. They also don't have soap in bathrooms to kill germs and they don't offer toilet paper.
Chinese say foreigners can never understand their culture...and they pride themselves on this...which I don't know why....the stuff I can't understand is how can they do such horrendous things.
Good nite.

Posted by Phil at 11:21 PM | Permalink

I had class with Jack, Violet, and Daisy today. It was very good. I had the kids asking each other, "May I please have...." and a bunch of other junk. It was fantastic. Very enjoyable. I then headed out to meet up with Robert because he wanted to look at buying a video camera. I havne't looked at Handheld DV cameras lately. Man, they have gotten much smaller, and are good prices. Very cool stuff....I want another camera. :D

Posted by Phil at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Well, John's contract is up today, Jan 15th. He plans to go traveling around China for about a month long in the next couple days, then return here to get all his stuff and then head back to Buffalo. He doesn't know what he will do. He has to think about it. I will miss the bugger. We are gonna have a party for him in the evening.
I went to Dim Sum with Yumi and Rumi today about 1230pm. It was good. However, they didnt have any Chow Shou Bou (steamed pork buns) which are my favourite and they also didn't have any of those Sesame balls. I really think its interesting that the best Dim Sum I have ever had was in America. It was either in Windsor or Shangri-La in Farmington Hills. That stuff was the best so far.
I then headed home to prepare for my 3pm class with Daisy and the Sunday gang. I have Sat and Sun teaching with them because I already had 2 days off this week. I went to the BOND office a few minutes to get paid. They also gipped me out of 75RMB I paid for the gas tank. Jerks. Gary searched for a classroom and since the chinese go to school on Saturdays, all the classrooms were filled with students of the middle schools. So, Gary said, "Phil, would you like to teach here in the office." I was like, dude, 4 rambonctious kids in this tiny office with about 5 people in it as well. No. Why don't we just use the gym. Gary was like...thats a great idea. OK.
Tony showed up. Great. He sat down. Lit up a cigarrette and Gary then proceeded to kick him out. Smoke outside you inconsiderate bag. I think he is gonna start pestering Doris, the new girl. It then got around 315pm and Daisy and them still hadn't shown. I was like, where are they. Gary called up them up, while he was ringing he said, "Maybe Lynn just told them yesterday about the class today." How is that possible...I have known about this class on saturday for a whole week. Daisy's mom is the one who organized the class and wanted it. Why would they not know?
Gary talked to her and apparently Daisy's mom said that she heard that I was really busy Saturday so that she didn't want to make me busier...what? Huh? Whatever.
There are two possibilities here:
1. Lynn didn't tell them about it though she told me...which is what most likely happened.
2. Daisy's mom thought I was busy because Lynn just told her about the class yesterday and said that they were busy, not Phil.
The class consequently got canceled. Bummer. Day off. :D Lack of planning.
I headed home to do some stuff I needed to do. Plus, i think I am still tired. I didnt sleep well.
Headed to John's at 730pm to enjoy some festivities. While he is gone, I am gonna borrow a bunch of DVDs that I wanted to check out. The boys were at his place and the girls were upstairs at Suzannah's. Sean, John, Peter, Owen, Mountain, and I hung out, playing cards, watched a couple shows of Mr. Show...hilarious.
Then the girls came down and we were all talking and chillin. Very nice. Jolleen had copped out. Apparently she is really upset that John is leaving and she didn't want to take part in his going away party. That sounds wierd to me. So John called her and chatted while we celebrated. Yumi and Rumi made this little foto album with all of us writing something in it. It was great. I got some video of the nite. Peter and I, before the girls came over went out to get a cake and some snacks and beer. So we had the makings.
After that, we headed to the first Disco in Xiaolan. This is the place that we went to Karaoke at previous in the week after the Guzhen shows. The place with the disturbing framed pictures hanging on the walls. The place was dead. I believe its because of the weather. The guangdong-ese people think 40 degrees is freezing and are afraid of it. However, I found that I like this place a heck of a lot better than COWBOY. The music here is actually enjoyable. It sounds alot like western style electronic dance music instead of wretched chinese dance music. I was liking some of the tunes.
So, we hung out there for awhile. Dancing, being silly, having fun.
I got home around 2AM. Time for beddy. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 05:55 PM | Permalink

Got up today and headed down to ShiQi. Lynn wrote the address of the stop down for me to get off the #38 Bus at. That is where I met Maria at. I showed the addy to the bus driver and she motioned for me to get off when we got there. I got there at 1015am and Maria didnt show up till about 1030am. So I wandered around. I ran into Maria as I was wandering. We then crossed the street to the medical place.
I sat down while she talked to the guy. I filled out a form. "The whole process should take about 30 minutes." Yeah, right. I bet it will take four hours. Boy was I wrong. After about waiting for my turn about 15 minutes, They took me nextdoor and did everything and it lasted about 30 minutes. We got out of their at 1115am. Wow. I never expected that. I wonder why they were on time and every other chinese thing I participate in is late. Strange...very strange. Maybe its white people behind a curtain running everything. "DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE WHITE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!"
This is what I had done:
-Blood Pressure, body check out, weight, eyes, etc.
-A 1 minute dental exam.
-A chest X-Ray
-An ECG
-An UltraSound
-A blood test (the most important)
During this, a physician saw my passport foto and giggled. He said I looked like Tony Blair in the foto. Hmmm. I have heard of many people that I look like but never Tony Blair. Thats a first.
After that, I walked with Maria to BOND office. I was waiting for Amanda to return at 12 to discuss some things on my contract. Sure arrived and my food showed up. It was some awesome BBQ pork and green veggies......sooooooo gooooood. I told Amanda that I want it to say, "No evening classes, 2 consecutive days off, and one of the days needs to be Sunday." I must keep it Holy.
After that I was happy. I skipped down the stairs and went to jump over the last 4 steps when SMACK!
While I was in the air I smashed my head on the blue metal bar that is one of the tracks for the metal gate. I fell right on my ass. It didn't really hurt when I did it. I was more just shocked with it. Clyde was there and he heard the sound and spun around to watch me fall on my ass. I got up pretty easily. Damn. i wasn't bleeding and it didn't feel like I would have a bump, still don't have one as I write this. It sat down for a minute then took off. Got to Fu Hua Jo Dian (hotel) were the busses were and I walked to the music store where my two guitars that I want are. Once i figure out what I am doing for Chinese New Years I am gonna go buy them. Sweet. Still there.
I headed back the bus. I got my ticket and headed home. I got home about 2pm. I was mad again because my iPod didn't even hold a charge for 40 minutes. AIYA.
I got home and prepared some lessons for my kindy class and then I planned to go to Guzhen to film the performance. Kindy was good. Came home ate dinner and headed to Guzhen.
It was a cold night tonite. My nose was really cold. I wish I had my jacket. I videotaped it. It was ok. There were some funny things like Clyde's "This is my Life" bit and the balloons. Peter tried doing this thing were we listen to head fones and sing along with the chinese songs and have the audience try to guess them. Apparently its a hit or miss thing because we were told people love it, however, the audience sure didn't. They started to leave at this point. Peter did it once first, then Clyde, then Peter had me come up and after a minute I was like, "No". So Peter tried to do it with me. He was like, "I don't know these songs either." But the next song was one he knew. LOL! oh well. While he was singing I was like, "You're losing them YOU'RE LOSING THEM! CRASH & BURN!" Most of the audience started to leave, so Peter was like, OK, something else.
Some things just sound like they will work but when you actually do them...they don't. The problem with this game is that: The only thing the audience is seeing is a gweilo wearing headfones looking completely confused not being able to sing along with or pronounce the words. There is nothing else for them. It is boring.
Well, after that was over, Clyde did a balloon game. We eventually ended at about 853pm. 7 minutes before we were supposed to, but Oh Well. Not a big deal. We then headed home. We had some interesting and funny conversations in the van on the way home. Jolleen kept saying things that could be taken many different ways.
I got home and then went out with Yumi. Came home, and typed this up. Time for bed. I am going to Dim Sum tomorrow afternoon with Yumi and Rumi. mmmmmmDim sum.

Posted by Phil at 05:19 PM | Permalink

Got up this morning, and headed for the shower. The water was coming out and the igniter was clicking, but the gas wasn't firing up. So i punch the box and it started right up. If all else fails, hit it. Maybe I should try that with the chinese people. ;-)
I headed out. It rained during the night and it was still sprinkling. Crap. It hasn't rain for a month or so. Hopped a motorbike taxi to the bus station. I got there, grabbed a ticket for the next bus that started boarding 1 minute ago. Sweet. It was 820AM. Early start. I fell asleep on the bus.
I got thru customs and the border with no troubles. There was harldy any line-ups.
I walked around Macau and planned a little couple sight seeing things: Head down to Sedano Square (the shopping walking street area), then head over to Taipa Island to see the four headed Buddha, then head back to Mong Ha Hill on Macau proper. Lots of Taxi driving this entailed. I am glad I did it though, sure it was a little expensive, however, it beats getting stuck on Public Transportation for many hours. Its soooo slow. This place is too crowded.
I was disappointed when I got to the four headed Buddha statue because the map made it seem like it would be really big, but its not. Its about half the size of me. So, i took some pictures and hopped another taxi to Mong Ha Hill.
Its a real shame that it was raining all day. Because I took some fotos that would have been beautiful had it been bright and sunny like it usually is. Mong Ha was cool. I walked around the park area and trails. Very pretty. Went up to the Fort de Macau. Went off the beaten path n stuff. See for yourself from the pictures. The taxi guy took me up to the top where there was an educational resturant. A place where they train new cooks n stuff. I didn't eat there, i just hung out there to plan my attack on the hill. I headed back out into the rain and sight saw.
After I was done, I headed out and stopped by Lin Fong Temple and took a couple shots. Then I headed out. It was about 2pm when I took off from Macau. I hung around in Zhuhai shopping and looking for stuff. I found this real nice practice Bagua Dao at a sports area in the giant mall. It was 210RMB, but I tried for 120RMB and the lady wouldn't go below 200RMB. Lady, it ain't even worth 100RMB. Mind you, 200RMB is $24US. If I go back, I may try again.
I eventually caught the bus at 4pm. I got back into Xiaolan at 530pm. I am gettin really frustrated because my iPod won't hold a charge now past 1 hour. The major downfall to the iPod, the lack of battery power. Well, my plan is, when I get my Z-visa, I will head to Hong Kong and have it fixed up.
I went to the Kodak shop to get some more Passport fotos made in 1 hour because I need 8 for Z-VISA processing and I only have 7. After that I went to get some photocopies made of my Passport for the processing as well. I then headed to the computer shop to get some DV Tapes because we are running low on tapes for the Guzhen Stage taping all this week.
The guy wanted 150RMB for 5 tapes and I said 120RMB. He wouldn't do it at first, but I said 120. He checked it out, 28/tape instead of 30/tape. He finally relented and said sure. But he pretended to be upset. Dude, Peter and I are like the only people that buy these tapes from this guy. He should be grateful we gweilos are honoring him with our presence and support.
I picked up my passport fotos and headed home. It was a really chilly night tonite. I don't want to go to practice because its gonna be super cold.
I got back to the Big House thinking I would pass Peter on the way heading out to Guzhen. I got there and they said that Guzhen was canceled because it was too cold. Sweet. I didn't have to go at all, but it was nice nontheless to know Peter and Mark and Clyde didn't have to spend more time wasted on it.
Around 8pm Amy went with me to pick up my pants and try on my suit. The silk pants fit great. Can't wait to use them. I then tried on the suit. Fit pretty nicely however there were a couple problems.
1. The pants were too long in the crotch, so I looked around on them and I had them take an a bit less than an inch off the top. It would fit perfect then.
2. The shoulders of the jacket were super tight, i tried to pull my elbows back and they wouldn't go, it snagged a bunch. Then I tried to put my hands on my head and they couldn't go that hi. The couple kept saying its supposed to be like that. I am sorry, but I am sure Chinese people are able to comb their hair while wearing this suit and have manueverability of their arms while wearing it.
3. The collar had no space in it where it came together. So they said that if you wear a shirt it will fix it, so I tried on this nice white silk shirt that goes with the suit, and still the collar didn't work. So they will fix that.
4. Plus, there was a bubble between the 2nd and 3rd button down.
I want quaility damnit!
And, I figured, since they were late on doing everything, and having it done, I deserved a deal on it. Like less money or a discount on something. So for the same price of 400, i tried to get them to throw in that real nice white silk shirt for free. They got pissed. They were complaining and not letting up.
She would offer me 65 for the shirt and she cut a piece of the material and said take this to other tailors and try and get if for less than 80RMB. I figured, doing that, she knew what she was talking about. So, i thought about it, so I said, 450 for everything. After about 5 minutes of intense discussion amongst themselves, they said OK. I felt good about it. I felt I nailed the chinese with thier own deal system. But I wonder if they got me. Who knows. Amy thinks its a good deal. 450RMB =$54US.
Headed home.

Posted by Phil at 04:33 PM | Permalink

Oh. This is something I forgot to mention in today's journal entry. I thought I would make a seperate one for this because its kinda important.
So, there I sat doing something on my computer today and getting ready for Guzhen tonite. Peter is chatting with me next to the computer. He then said this....
"Yeah, so, Echo went to the doctor's today to get checked out. She tested positive...................
for a baby. Echo's pregnant." JEEZ MAN! What's with the dramatic pause. As he said, "Tested positive" followed with the dramatic pause, I froze and turned my whole body to look at him. I had a look of fear in my eyes. I thought he was gonna say "HIV". He scared the crap outta me for a second. He then said "Baby". Man was I sorta relieved.
"Yeah, she woke up this morning puking her guts out." What a lovely thought. Thanks for sharing.
"We are gonna have it run again to be sure, but the doctor's pretty darn sure of it." Wow...so I guess this means....wow...you gonna be a dad. Wow. Thats weird. Well, best of luck to you. Peter loves kids, he enjoys kindergarten and lower grade classes and kids love him so its possible he will be a great dad. I was like, "so...when you guys gonna get married." Here in China...its not like in the States....if you get pregnant, its "You're getting married." There is no "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s about it. Luckily they have been planning on getting married and her family loves him. So thats a positive. I asked if they have set a date and he said in maybe in May. I was like, well, I gots a great present for ya...besides the DVD.
That was something interesting that happened today. Wow.

Posted by Phil at 11:50 PM | Permalink

Well today was ok. I flyed my school this morning. I passed out the most cause all the kids wanted to say hi to me. I spoke with Coco and told her I would be returning next term. She was happy. But when she first saw me, she said her sister's boss wanted to meet me. Too bad. I have decided to stay. Need the Z-VISA. I have a plan for Foshan though....hmmmm.
After that I went to the gym and figured out how to run my iPod through the speaker system. Finally. I then went to the Tailor to pick up my pants that he was supposed to duplicate and have done on Monday. HE HADN'T EVEN STARTED ON THEM AT ALL!!!! WTF! They were sitting on the counter. Then I asked about them, he said tomorrow. I asked about my suit, he said tomorrow, thought they were due today. Thats it, you are not getting paid the full amount. If you tell me they will be done in a week, then have them done in a week. Thats how things work. If you don't make the period, you lose money. Why can't these people get it thru their heads. One thing I miss about the US is customer service....oh do I miss it.
Went home and prepared for my performance tonite. I got some games down.
1. Wordmash - write a big long line of alphabet characters and have kids underline words they see.
2. Acting - like the game on Who's Line is it Anyways, i gave a kid a word and they would act it out for one guesser.
3. Drawing - kids would draw pictures and they would guess what it is
4. Did a quick recap of last nite.
5. I prepared a song for Karaoke - Beatles "She Loves You" and I also prepared to teach the TIME WARP from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I found out after I planned it all that Toby wanted to come along and play guitar. Well, thats some time killer. We headed out to Guzhen around 7pm.
I went first because Suzannah and Sean were gonna do their thing together. So, I went on for a good 30 minutes and did my stuff. I wasn't too happy about it, the kids weren't participating that well. They wouldn't put theirselves out there. I kept saying, "Dare to be the first!" You chinese always say that, yet you never do it. Hypocrits. Some of it was fun, but I was frustrated thru most of it. Its on video, but I don't want to watch it.
Then Toby went on after me and played and sang Bye Bye Love. It was ok. The kids seem to like Toby for some reason. Which is good. Then Suzannah and Sean came on. I figured, hey, together they should have about an hour prepared since they are logged to work for 30 minutes each, but ha ha...that didn't happen. It was about 825pm when they went on. They were finished in 20 minutes. Peter and I were pissed. Peter was MC-ing tonite. We both spent all this work on our things, yet they come out with nothing planned. And Suzannah being scared of being on camera, speaking on mic, or in front of people on a stage didn't help matters. Get over it and do your job. While Sean was playing a game with the people, Suzannah was all like, "What should we do?" I was all like, "Do your Karaoke you had planned, the chinese will go nuts." She was like all, "I think you should do The Time Warp, they would enjoy that." Yeah, and then you wouldn't be taking care of your responsibility.
So, we had 20 minutes to kill and Toby just wandered onto the stage by accident. And he began blabbering and wasting time. Peter and I were like, "Why would any Chinese want to stand in this cold for this?" He just kept walking around and blabbering with the kids...the kidson stage liked it, but the audience must have been bored.
While he was doing this, Suzannah was trying to think of other things to do. "Do the karaoke you planned on." I said. She was like, "Let's do wheelbarrels." Ugh...Ok, thats a good idea. Kids would like it. But why not Karaoke. "Oh, Do the timewarp."
ugh.
Anywho, Ash showed up near the end. Toby proceeded to run out the 20 minutes with doing nothing. Surprising. Oh well. After it was all over, Toby, Sean, and Suzannah went out with Ash to some Guzhen clubs. Leiana, Peter, me, and the chinese folk headed home. I talked with Lynn about lots of stuff too. I got back here and prepared VISA stuff for Friday and tomorrow.
Now I am here typing this up. But I need to go to bed. I have to go to Macau. goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:23 PM | Permalink

Well, today since I don't have classes at all, I have to go help out with distributing flyers. We met at the office and went to one of the schools. Despite that I hate doing this, it was enjoyable because it was Peter, Clyde, and me passing them out to a bunch of Primary School kids. Clyde was pushing them onto people, even just random passerbys. I had gotten it down to an art. As the kids drive with their parents on the scooter, I hold the flyer out and the kid snags it without ever a stop. I also gave some to those who didnt' ask for it, for example, throwing a couple in their back trailer.
BOND feels that if they pass out these flyers, they will get more business. However, the problem with it is, after we pass them out, we see them litered all over the city. BOND should be arrested for littering. Another problem is that the prices for English classes are super expensive. Most likely too expensive for the people they are passing the flyers out too.
Basically, most kids would come get them because we are gweilos and they want to interact and stare at us. Clyde kept saying, "Here, feed other people's greed."
At one point some middleschoolers rode by on a bicycle and scream out, "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!" The three of us couldn't help but laugh really hard. Hilarious.
After that was over, i headed to the gym, then went home to prepare for my Kindergarten class and stage performance in Guzhen.
For kindergarten I taught "Family" so I had them draw pictures and say who each member of the family was.
The stuff for Guzhen I got was this: Intro, Chinese Whispers (Telephone), Phil Says, Teach Left & Right, Hokey Pokey, Duck Duck Goose.
We took the BOND van at 7pm and got there, we were prepared by 740 to go. Sean went on first and did this thing with push ups and having kids say an animal while they do it. I think he underestimated how much time would drag on stage...30 minutes is a long time. So, after about 10 minutes or something, he pretty much ended. So, I went on and rocked the house. I was all like, "Are you ready to learn English?!"...Yeah!..."I said, Are you read to learn English?!"...Yeah!..."I can't hear ya! Are you ready to learn some English!!??"...YEAH!!..."ALRIGHT!"
I had tons of kids come up on stage for Chinese Whispers, more than I expected. These were the things i said: I am Chinese, I am a Jelly Donut, I am the Walrus - Goo Goo Ka Chu, Johnny Knoxville, Astronomical Anomaly, and Siu Lam Gung Fu Seng - Hou Hou Yeh.
Some of the responses were hilarious.
The end of the game came when a kid yelled out, "YOU ARE FAT!"
excuse me? what did you call me you Godless Little Bastard? you want to insult me in front of everyone? fine, I will humiliate you in front of everyone. I made him stand in the horse stance in the center of the stage in front of all the kids and audience members. That will make me gain face and cause you to lose some. Lessons need to be taught. The audience enjoyed that.
After that we played "Phil Says". I got them doing Gong Fu and the place loved it. Then I showed them the Left and Right stuff. Then we played Hokey Pokey. Everyone got a kick out of it. I then went off stage. I was up there for about 40 minutes. Then John came on and did Musical Chairs for about 25 minutes. When he was done, we realized we still had 10 minutes to kill. So Sean did a game for 5 minutes and I did Duck Duck Goose after that, and man, these kids were fast. I was totally not expecting it. Very different from Kindergarten. They kept taggin me. THIS IS NO FUN!
We have it all on video.
After that we went to Karaoke. Apparently this was the first Disco in town. Long before COWBOY Bar. To bad its the same crappy music. But anywho, we went into a Karaoke room. The one that the gang went to the night before. That's when Jane, the Boss's wife, got completely hammered and was falling on the ground. I have seen pictures from Peter. Also, hanging in this room are two really disturbing paintings.
1. What looks like the beast from Beauty and the Beast having intercourse with a naked white woman.
2. What looks like about 5 demons raping a naked white woman.
Why these PAINTINGS were hanging in the karaoke room of a club are beyond me. I mean, these aren't hentai, because they are paiting like a western style painting. Its just creepy.
So, basically, the gang of us started singing most of the english songs on the computer. They had alot surprisingly. We got to sing alot. Mostly it was me, John, and Peter that did most of it. Others sang too.
I only drank tea, but I was having such a blast that I seemed like I was...wait a second, no, I had two shots of Bei-Jiu. Nevermind.
Other than that, I headed home at 1AM.
I have most of the night on tape. I get to do it again tomorrow nite. YEAH!....NOT!

Posted by Phil at 09:54 AM | Permalink

As you may or may not notice, I did a little site update. The title banner is different. Everytime you load the website, there will be a different title. I put those together late tonite and gave it to Jenn to update. Thanx a load. good nite.

Posted by Phil at 11:52 PM | Permalink

Xiaolan has been giving off an interesting funk the past few days. I haven't been able to pin point what it was until I was at Lion Dance practice tonite.
The open areas smell like cold sausage. The alleyways smell like a mix between cold sausage and baby powder. Its really wierd. Its funky. I wonder what has been causing it all of a sudden.
Other than that, today was good. Had lunch with Yumi. It was nice. Cleaned stuff.
Oh, I got my Christmas present harddrive from Erock and Jen...ROCKING! Its awesome! I know have more space to make all my chinese DVDs I plan to work on. A box set. every 3 months there will be one. Koolio.
Talk to you guys later...i smell. Time for a shower.

Posted by Phil at 10:25 PM | Permalink

NO GUZHEN TEACHING THIS MORNING! sweet.
I went to get a two hour massage today around 1230pm. They do foot massages really good here...apparently. It was ok. When they got to the heel of my left foot (which was the first foot they did) I fell asleep. In addition to the foot they did legs, arms, shoulder and back. I wish they did a bit more with the back and head. They didnt try for any "happy endings" thank the Maker.
I then had a lesson at 3pm.
After I got done with class and a quick lunch at Wooden Chair I headed home. John was there. I proceeded to do something, then when I came out again, Jolleen had shown up and we sat down to watch Spirited Away - a really good japanese animation movie....its very very bizarre.
Its not hentai or anything.
We then went out to grab a cheap but good dinner. It was yummy. Came back here.

Posted by Phil at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was another interesting one. I slept in. Woke up and did some laundry. Headed to the gym at 1pm. At the gym the girl working behind the counter likes to speak to me in chinese knowing full well I don't know much. And then she tries to write what I say. AIYA! Duh, I can't read either.
Well, anyway, i come down from the locker room and she comes running up to me with this green bamboo looking stuff. Now, this ain't bamboo, its sugar cane...i think. Its a long rod that you scrape off the green outerlayer and then chomp on the wood inside and suck the sweet juice out of it. Then you spit the chewed up wood into the trash. Its good. Sweet. A desert. Very interesting. She explained to me that she bought me a rod. Ok...you didn't have to. I didn't accept it at first, but she wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
After I got done there, I went to the little shop for lunch. While waiting for the food to cook, I checked out Sheng-Ya DVD shop. They had Kung Fu Hustle out already, however no English Subtitles. Poop. I then found "The Blade" but it had no english either. ugh.
I head back and eat my lunch. I then go to pay for it and they say they don't want my money. I am like it costs 5RMB. here is the money. And they are all speaking to me and I can't understand. So, finally one of them makes it real simple. Some guy sitting at another table who had left awhile ago and I didnt notice at all had paid for my lunch. Whoa. Why did he do that? I was confused. Surprised as well.
I then headed home. On the way home two guys on a mo-ped drove by. As they passed me they looked and started to laff and giggle and they slowed down and were staring back at me as they kept driving on around the corner. "PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD, JERKFACE!" He ran into a car pulling out of a drive way. Serves you right, Moron. I hope that teaches you not to stare.
I got home and then I got ready because Peter and I had to meet up with Sean, John, Clyde, Suzannah, and Mark Lee at Continental Cafe to discuss this Guzhen English performance next week. We had our discussion and I got more info into Clyde's past involving his stint in the porn industry. Very bizarre stuff. Apparently, his company was responsible for sending out tons of Porn SPAM from 97-00. He said in 1 year alone, his boss reaped in more than $2million from SPAM alone. He had tons of other funny stories. All in all, he is a very interesting guy and he is one of the funniest guys too. I say he is right behind Matt Naas in the funny category.
We discussed stuff and we had some decent Western Buffet food. The fries were fantastic. After that we went upstairs and played some snooker. Well, we played pool on the giant snooker tables. Ash had shown up by then. I was playing against him and he was standing next to ball I was shooting at. Some how the ball popped off the table and hit him in the waist, nothing bad, but the shock of a ball flying off the table and hitting him caused him to accidently shove his pool cue into his mouth. No major damage, just a small small cut.
Oh, what I said earlier about the guys on the mo-ped running into the car...that didnt' really happen. Though I wish it did. These jerks were staring and laffing at me as they were driving slow ahead of me...i wish they would have gotten their come-up-ings.
After pool, we headed over to the Beer Gardens. Sean brought along someone he met. A guy named Martin. We just chatted a couple hours. Toby was being all philosophical...at one point I, due to his non stop discussion/one-sided arguement, i started banging my head on the table. SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
Damon showed up after his class was over and we chatted a bit.
Anywho, about Martin. He is this Chinese guy that was born in HK. About 12 years ago, he moved to England. He spoke English with a Chinese/British accent. He had a couple kids that he raised and they were now off doing other stuff. He had saved up enuff money on his own that he moved to Xiaolan, where is mother is from, to retire. He looks quite young. He said life is too short. I am assuming he is divorced from his kids mom, because he said when he got here, he got a girlfriend, bought a horse, and got a new kid...."Instant Family." We laughed for about 5 minutes after that one. JUST ADD WATER.
sweeet.
Damon, Martin, and I chatted about lots of things, including Taiji, while Toby was blabbering on about something useless. Toby then said, "Politics...Let's talk about Chinese Politics...that Chairman Mao..what's up with him..." SHUT UP YOU RETARD!!!!
We took off about 12AM and I walked home. It had gotten chilly and I was wearing just a long sleeve shirt. No jacket.burr. good nite.

Posted by Phil at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hopfully today it has cooled off. my first class, I only got a couple of cat calls. Thankfully. My second class was canceled right as I almost entered the room. Lucy said, "Oh, i want to give a test...so you can have a rest." Not like I need a rest. I wish she could have told me yesterday because then I could have gone and done something else to make use of my time. Instead I am just wasting it in the office. Thats the chinese way.
Today is my last day at this school for this sememster. If I do decide to come back to BOND for another 6 months, its possible I may not be back here. I would like to though.
This morning I asked Anna, "Does the Headmaster ever smile? Everytime i see him, he looks mad, or with no emotion." After she figured out what I was talking about she laughed and she said that I wasn't the only one. Everyone else says hi and he shows no emotion whatsoever. Strange.
The system has defeated him.
I need to find out if I have to teach Kindergarten next week. I dont believe so, but I need to make sure. I also have to decide about other positions soon. If I stay here, I need to get my VISA taken care of before Chinese Winter Holiday. That would be nice. But being this China...it won't work.
I got my last couple 3rd grade classes to play hangman among themselves. That went over very well. The kids loved it. They all wanted to pick the word and write it on the board.
After class was over I left. It sure didn't feel like the last day at the school.
I had kindergarten and that went ok. I made Psycho Pig-Pen sit out for about 20 minutes.
Then I went out to dinner with Peter and some of his English teachers. I was super tired from everything thru out the week that I feel asleep on the schools benches while waiting for the teachers to get ready. We headed to the dinner and it was ok. The teachers already knew me from TV. They ordered a pig's stomach filled with lots of stuff. It was funny to see them bring out a stomach bloated up and blood red. They then put it in a pot and turned it into a soup. they also had this fish that was just ok. I really liked the dried Sweet Potatoes though. We had dinner with the teachers, headmaster and principal, who was the husband of the english teacher from my school that gave birth this semester.
After that was over, I came home and fell asleep at 10pm....goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 09:33 AM | Permalink

These kids are really pissing me off. They disrupt classes by yelling out, "FEI LONG!" "CHINESE GONG FU!" And then they would giggle. And others would giggle making it worse. And a couple kids would jump up and do some punches in the air....Oh...only if they let me punch you....hard.
My 3rd grade class today really made me mad. I walked in. The kids went nuts, some were rushing to the front of the room and yelling my name and saying Chinese Gong Fu! I finally got them to sit down. They then continued to talk with each other and barely pay attention.
Also, as all the kids sat, one said, "F--- You!" So I took him to the front and made him stand in the horse stance.
There is that fat psycho in the class who definitely has some wires crossed. Constantly talking during class, not listening, and jumping up in the middle of class and kicking a kids desk. He was using his 6 inch ruler as a sword. After about 20 minutes I sent him to sit next to Lucy, the teacher, hopefully that would keep him quiet....nope.
He almost seemed to get worse and he was yelling back at Lucy when she scolded him. None of the kids were able to follow directions.
This was the last day with these kids and they ruined it. I hope they are happy.
5th grade classes weren't much better. No kids needed to be sent to the front, but kids were not paying attention and being disruptive.
Kindergarten was intereesting. I walk in the school and all the kids are in the playground area rehearsing for tomorrow's sport's day or something. It was hilarious watching these kids march all around. So I videotaped it with my Digital Camera. Very funny. And all the kids were calling out my name. So, my class was shortened to about 35 minutes. They were alot of fun today. It was nice.
Daisy came by to say hi afterwards like always. She is getting a little too attached, she doesn't want to let me leave. Oh well.
I then went with Amy to the tailor trying to get some things fixed and created.
1. Take my workout pants to get hemmed.
2. Have those workout pants that I have had for 3 years duplicated exactly but with silk.
3. Have my new jumpsuit pants fixed up in the crotch.
4. Have two Zhongshan Suits built.
After all was said and done, the pants are in the work, i need to take the jumpsuit pants back again tomorrow so they can fix it better. The chinese just don't believe in quality of work. Thats what happens in communist regimes. And I will only get one suit instead of two. The second, the fabric I wanted was too damn expensive. From experience, I am guess the suit will suck as well. If its bad quality, I am gonna bust some heads. "I GIVE YOU BUSINESS, AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME!"
I went to liondancing tonite. I was late for a stupid reason. However, I just practiced my stuff and got some fine tuning. The head coach yelled at all the lion dancers who were just sitting down and smoking..i was like...HARDCORE!
I am also trying to decide where to go after this 6 months is up. Should I stay and maybe get a Z-VISA or go somewhere else and leave friends, lion dancing with a very talented man, and other things i like behind and spend about 6 months readjusting to another crap hole?
goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:03 PM | Permalink

Nothing to special. My 6th grade classes went surprisingly ok. Found out I dont have to go to classes anymore next week and stuff, however, BOND has set up some evening classes all next week. I have to go to Macau for VISA issues next week on Thursday.
I ripped my new jumpsuit pants. However, it was excpected because the pants don't fit my hips properly, so I will have a tailor put more fabric in the crotch so I can have some more room.
I went to Lion Dancing today. There was not that many people there. It seemed I was the only one practicing as well. I mean, the girls were doing the dragon, but all the lion dancers were just sitting around and smoking. Nothing irritates me more than going to practice and having people not practicing, sitting around and smoking.
They got a new lion. Amazing to see it all clean.
The Headcoach watched me doing Hong Quan. He liked it. He then showed me Hong Quan #2. This is the one with cutting fists. I have seen fotos of it and a painting of Wong FeiHong doing it at the museum. Its really cool. I picked it up right away and he was laffing. So thats good. I then headed home.

Posted by Phil at 10:47 PM | Permalink

Apparently, sometime over the weekend all my students saw the news story on TV. It was also on last nite. So, I came into school today and students were running to see me and yelling out "Fei-Long! Fei-Long!" and then taking martial art stances. There are some standing around my desk as I type this up. And one of them pointed at me and said, "Beautiful garden." um....what? Its cute, but I am sure by third period it will get a bit annoying. Oh well, I have learned to deal with being a celebrity before when I got here, i can do it again. Whats even funnier is that most of the teachers here have done the same thing. I appreciate it, but it just seems like they blow it out of proportion. But its just because they don't usually see a white fella practicing.
I will let you know how the rest of the day progresses.I have one class down, four more to go.
The second class went well then I headed off to the gym. I was at the gym doing some machine and one of the attendants was flipping through the TV stations. I then looked up and there I was on TV again. Man, they are playing this to death. After the gym and lunch I rode back to class. On the way there a little kid saw me riding and started chasing after me yelling out, "Phil!" I stoppped. I don't recognize you. "Chinese gung fu is great!" and he just stood there looking at me with this huge smile on his face. -Is that it kid? nothing else? Thanks alot. :D
I then headed back to school.
I walked in and more kids were shouting Fei Long and chinese gung fu. It got really annoying when I kept seeing the same boys all day and they constantly said it. My first six grade class, the few boys that are the comedians of the class and the ones with ADD constantly mentioned it. Look, I am flattered when people I don't know mention it and when the students mention it once...but its really really annoying and embarrassing when these kids constantly talk about it. Very frustrating.
The second class was ok. They didn't mention it as much and they were able to do someo of the lessons. All the 6th graders today were not doing the exercises from the book. All you have to do is listen. I know you guys understand this stuff. Otherwise, you wouldn't have this book. With 3+ of english, you know this. Its just a matter of overcoming your chinese mentallity and caring about it.
After class I rode home before kindergarten. On the way there, I passed a shop keeper. He called out my name and motioned me doing the dragon. I thanked him. That stuff is funny.
Kindergarten was ok. I figured out a way to get kids to stop touching and punching my butt and crotch. I finally lost it and said 1. If you touch me, you will stand in the corner, in the horse stance, while holding your hands out. 2. Your team will lose 5 points. many children got close until I warned them, but one tempted me. And I did it. No more did I receive punches to the groin or butt.
However, one student was apparently being naughty at the end of class. As the class ended, the chinese enforcers made like they were gonna leave him behind. He started bawling. I hate it when they do this. What I did was reasonable punishment for the crime. Causing a child to think that he is going to be abandoned and feel that terrible is disgusting. And i told taht to Doris who was subbing for Owen. Sickening.
I ate dinner while watching Ong-Bak. This new Thai movie featuring Tony Jaa...pretty cool. I then headed to Lion Dancing afterwards. On the way there, I passed two girls on a bike. They saw me ride past and the one sitting on the tire yelled out..."Hello, Phil!" I couldn't help but laff and then I waved back and said, "Hello!" Its weird having people say hello to you and calling you by name when you don't know who they are. I got to the Lion Dance arena and the students there were all wanting to talk to me and calling me Fei Long and this and that. Chatting to them in cantonese and mandarin. I tried to pay the head coach for the past two months but he would not accept it. He said, "Friends". Well, that is good I guess. I dont have to pay. It took him about 5 minutes until he got me to put the money away. Maybe that TV spot was worth more? Anywho, after that, he showed me the rest of Hong Quan. So I practiced that all nite. It was great. I then headed home. Good nite. Sleep well.

Posted by Phil at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Foshan was a blast. Fotos have been posted. I will write more on the subject tomorrow. I am tired. Goodnite.
I was practicing my mandarin of Xiaolan Bus Station: "Xiaolan Qi-che zhan" to tell the motorbike taxi. On the way out the door i was continuing to practice it so I wouldn't screw it up when I spoke to the motorbike taxi. But, low and behold, I got to the driver and screwed it up. But then I said it again properly and he understood. Foshan was cool. I got to the bus station at 8am. Yumi was the next to arrive and then Coco arrived at 815am. John and Jolleen were late so I called him and he was like yeah, I will see what I can do. Take the next bus we will be there at the one afterwards. I said OK.
So, we got our tickets and Coco bought four. I was like, NO! John isn't coming. "Oh...whoops" she was able to return it. We could't get the next bus because there were only 2 seats left so we took the 900AM bus which was pretty vacant. It was an 1.5 hour ride.
While were waiting in the station and on the bus, we were looking over the Foshan map I had. I was thinking we would be able to hit many things. I even wanted to visit a university to see about getting a job there. I brought along my resume and some diploma copies.
We got to Foshan and I called John and they hadn't even left the bus station yet! What's going on over there, its 1030pm. He was like, well, I had trouble getting out of bed. And then Jolleen came over and was all like, "Oh, I need to do my hair and put on my make-up, do this and do that." Total girl b.s. He said they would hop on a bus soon and i told him to call me when they have spent an hour on the bus to give us a heads up of when they would arrive in 30 minutes.
So, Coco, Yumi and I hopped a cab to Zu Miao.
Zu Miao is a grouping of a bunch of old taoist temple buildings. They were built in 1037A.D. In addition there is an add on building that houses the Wong FeiHong museum. We met up with Coco's sister and nephew, Kevin who's 4 years old, outside the entrance gate in front of the fountain. Kevin looked really excited to see his aunt and me. very energetic. The sister headed over to get park tickets and I brought my vid-camera out to videotape the blind man playing a 3 stringed Erhu and tapping a cymbol with his foot. Coco and her sister were like, "Hurry up, Phil! there's a performance starting." What? "A lion dance troup." SWEET! I am totally there. We entered the park and i saw them doing some dancing across the way. Kevin was excited and wanted to run so I grabbed by his arm and we ran there. It was pretty funny.
We got to the performance area and it was kids no more than 13 years old practicing. The performance hadn't started yet. These kids were good though. We watched the show and I videotaped it all. And one of the lions that performed scaled the 20 foot tall poll to get some leaves. That was kool. Then he sat on a table. People would feed him donations and they would get this paper that says something like, "Good Luck and Good Health". Kevin went up and couldn't make his way thru the crowd so I picked him up and stood him on the table. Yumi then went up and gave some money too.
John called and said he and Jolleen had just showed up but they would head to lunch.
After the lion left a bunch of kids started showing off some of their gung fu skills. AWESOME!these kids rocked. Lucky little kids.
All of this was videotaped.
Next fter the show was over, we headed over to the Wong FeiHong museum. This was really kool. Finally got to learn about the true stories and, most likely, communist tainted history. There was a sign that said No Photographs, but I didnt see it. There was lots of kool stuff. There is a photograph there that is the only photo ever taken of him. There was a section of the place that was dedicated to all the movies about him. As of 1996 there were 100 movies, I mistyped what I said about over 200 movies...there are actually now over 100 movies. They had a listing o them all and some behind the scenes fotos. They also had short biographies of all the actors that have played him. We found out that at 3pm there would be a wushu/gong fu performance in the opened area. Kool beans. So, we would have to stay for that. I noticed it was getting late and we hadn't heard from John and Jolleen. It must have been a long lunch.
Coco's sister and Kevin had to take off, so I gave her my resume and some of the documents to give to her school and Coco told her to make copies and give to another friend. Sweet. Making contacts, yo.
So, we decided to head and get some food on the grounds. I looked at the time and it was alreday 1pm. Oh wow. I didn't realize. We headed to the temple areas cause thats where there is some food. We ate by the Wan Fu stage, the oldest performance stage in China, I think. Then we walked around the area and checkedout the wishing pool and headed into the Main Hall. That place was huge and it was really kool. Lots of amazing ash sculptures and it was very ornate. Very kool. Also,very dusty. I have video and pictures.
From there we meandered back to the Wong FeiHong museum. Then when we got there, I called JOhn and they said they would arrive in 10 minutes. So, we hung out and then headed back to meet them at the entrance.
Once we got them, I noticed something else that I missed before. SO I went exploring. Man was it gorgeous. It was the Confucian School grounds. They had this thing called the Wishing Tree. A tree covered in red wish ribbons and plastic tomatoes...go figure. Jolleen had told John about the tomatoes and he thought that people were throwing tomatoes into the tree to try and get them stuck there, hence making a wish. But no they werejust hanging plastic. Its possible they could have been mandarin oranges, but they looked like tomatoes. We walked around and took some fotos.
After that we headed to the museum again for the gung fu show. But it was 230 and they had another child lion dance performance. So, John and Jolleen hung out watching that as we finished our tour of the museum. At 3pm they rolled out the carpet on the freshly cleaned courtyard floor. Too bad the carpet was dirty and dusty as hell and sent dust everywhere. What a waste, you just ruined a cleaned floor. So chinese.
The wushu performance was ok. The kids were young about less than 20. I videotaped it. Then right after that there was a group of older people doing lion dancing. This was really good. It was much of the same as the kids, only much better.
After that show was over, we headed out. It was 430pm. We grabbed bus tickets for 5pm and headed back.
The bus heading back was a pain. I slept about 1 hour of the way home which was good, everyone on the bus was passed out it seemed like. I was sitting in the front. They need to fix the horn on that vehicle. Every time he honked at someone it was as loud inside the bus as it was outside. What use is that. We got back to Xiaolan and Coco went home. The four of us decided to go to dinner at the restuarant above the CRC shop...the resturant where my cell phone was stolen. Therefore it already had 1 strike against it.
We walked in and I saw on the TV the news story I was on. Giggle thats funny. Everyone eating were looking at me and talking. The man who poured the tea was giving me a big smile and thumbs up. Stop, I am blushing. It looks like the video was different than the one they played on Christmas Eve. Hmm, hopefullly I can get a copy.
Dinner wasnt really that good but the company was good. We paid and took off. On the way out we ran into May, one of the english teachers I work with and the teacher of the two horrible 6th grade classes.
We then seperated and went our seperate ways. I headed home and yet to sleep. I was tired. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:23 PM | Permalink

Hello all, I thought I would give you and update on the Lion and Dragon Dancing I have been doing. The Lion Dance training isn't going as well as I hoped. The head teacher still hasn't finished showing me Hong Quan and HE hasnt shown me anything of lion dancing. The only one who has shown me anything is a 15 year boy who lives at the studio. 1 of the 8 wunderkind. Truth be told, I haven't been able to make most practices the past month. I plan, however, to bust out all this month and go every night except for Fridays. So. As for me coming home to teach Lion Dancing to all of you, I don't think it will be possible. Maybe if I am lucky in the next 6-months. Who knows. However, being on TV was really cool. I am trying to get the footage.
I am heading to Foshan tomorrow. Wong Fei-Hong's hometown. For those of you who don't know who he is, I urge you to do some research. Lets just say he is a chinese folk hero and over 200 movies have been made about him. Most of the great martial arts movie actors have played him. If it still exists, I am gonna visit Po Chi Lam, his home and medical center. Coco, the head english teacher is taking me there, her sister lives there, and she said people refer to Po Chi Lam as one of the temples now. However, I doubt that. I think Coco just doesn't understand what I am trying to explain. Trying to save face. I will find out tomorrow.
Foshan is the center for Wushu in southern China. I am gonna see about getting a teaching position there so I can take up that for six months. Who knows it may be cool. Training in Wushu for 6 months can't hurt anything. Especially since the Lion Dance training isn't going as well as I hoped. I may be able to learn some there.
I am taking my resume and some documents to pass out there.
Well, time to go to bed. Later gators.

Posted by Phil at 11:44 PM | Permalink

Well, today I had to teach in Guzhen and the 3pm Kindergarten class. It was fine. No problems. I am really tired today and the sky is gray. However, after kindergarten I bought an adidas jumpsuit to keep me warm while at the gym. Its sweeet. Unfortunately its not the 80s red style used by rappers and breakdancers.
I then planned a trip to Foshan for tomorrow. Coco needs to call me and i haven't heard anything from her yet. Its 740pm. UGH! She want to take me there and I need to tell everyone when we leave. Hopefully we go tomorrow. I need to check it out before I decide where to go teach.
Good nite.

Posted by Phil at 07:35 PM | Permalink

So, today was pretty much spent just sleeping and junk. I did a couple job things online. Random things that aren't too impressive. I went out with one of the gang and we unintentionally met up with Rumi and Toby. We then visited a tea house with them. What a waste of time that was for me. I hate green tea. Even in China it tastes terrible.
Later on, John planned a dinner at Jiao-zi Guan (dumpling house by us) and we all met there. 8 of us. Then we went shopping looking for warmer clothes. I bought some wimping gloves. We then went to the DVD shop. I bought a couple kung fu flicks. Then headed home.
The first day of the Cock Year went well.

Posted by Phil at 07:28 PM | Permalink