Naked Double-Takes on a Happy Easter Day.
I have been downloading some Ren & Stimpy cartoons lately. So funny. Most of the morning was me trying to clean my room and do things around the house. Yumi and I had plans to have lunch at 130pm at the really good Hunanese resturant. I headed out about 115pm. As I was riding on the back of a motor-taxi down a very busy road, with lots of vehicles as well as people on the road and sidewalks I did a doubletake. We were driving by the DVD shop and supermarket next door when I spotted this 4-5 year old boy with his pants around his ankles, his shirt up to his armpits, pissing on a tree. Not a care in the world. Chinese are proud of the fact that foreigners can't really ever understand their culture. Man...I don't want to understand it. Use a friggin' toilet.
Lunch was good for the most part. They were out of the duck that I wanted, that is sooooo good. And they were also out of this other dish. I asked, "Tell me what you have and then I will decide."
Catherine was giving the BOND foreign teachers a chinese lesson at 730pm today. I could only stay for 45 minutes because I had to go to a lion dance meeting. I can tell that her lessons are gonna be just as much as a joke as Lynn and Doris's. I will explain that after I introduce Ben.
I met Ben. He is a new guy from Australia. He's a few years younger than me, or so it looks. He has light brown hair and blue eyes, I think. From the 45 minutes I spent with him, he is a nice guy so far. I asked him where he was staying and he said with Bill. Ah yes, the room where English Phil stayed for three days. I told him to beware of Bill. He gets upset with BOND, which everyone has their right to do because, i mean face it, if you don't get upset with BOND, you're retarded. (Speaking of which, Toby had his bag stolen today. I guess there is no honor among thieves.) But Bill has a tendency to get hardcore into his hatreds and it makes others around him feel terrible. Especially if Ben is new, he will already be demoralized from all the horrendous surprises that BOND laid in store for him, the last thing he needs is a crazy 60+ year old hairy man telling him horror stories. I learned to steer clear of him awhile ago. Why he came back, I have no clue. The guy is a crazy, hairy man. I'm talking "Robin Williams" hairy. I'm talking body hair, mostly back and shoulder, coming out the collar of his shirt. Too bad he doesn't have someone shaving his body hair like the father in "Malcolm in the Middle" - that show ruled!
Back to the joke of chinese lessons. BOND on entering China gave us a "Useful Phrases for Foreign Teachers" booklet which has 4-5 pages of very basic chinese phrases, verbs, and nouns. For some reason they felt that this booklet would help us, except they didn't bother to get anyone to explain the tones and pronunciation. I was told by The Big Boss Man that Chinese lessons would be offered. How much bitchin' did it take, mostly on my part, to get lessons? About four months. First lesson was on Dec 17th. So, I had this packet for 4 months with no instruction on it. Sure, I was given offers to teach me Putonghua by other people I had met, but since they are all chinese, nothing ever happened on their end. I was all for it. But..alas...
So, the chinese lessons we had been offered has pretty much been "Lets go over the sheet." While going over it, they would show us the tones for each word. They didnt bother to do the basics of the language until we demanded they do it. Things like, the pinyin alphabet, phonetics, tone work, confusing areas and such. And this is supposed to be a friggin' Language Institute. So, our first lesson with Catherine started out like this. "OK! Lets go over the sheet." I immediately say, "Aaaaw, Hell no! You are teaching us everything from the start. Alphabet, tones, all the basics." The response: Well, I can teach you them while going over the packet.
My retort: No, you can't. I have been in China over 6 months and I have had this packet and other on my own practice of the language and I still have trouble. Poor Ben here has been in China 3 days with no previous experience in Chinese language at all.
Catherine said, "He was speaking to me in Chinese earlier."
Ben responded, "I was asking you how to say, 'Thank you', 'Goodbye', and 'Hello'."
Catherine was like, "Ok, what do you want to learn."
You're the teacher, Lady. Its sad when one of your students directs you on what to teach. After 5 minutes of her going thru the alphabet with Ben, she ignored me, she said, "Ok, lets go over the packet."
NO! Fuck the packet. We ain't doing that right now. Ben did not learn the basics of Chinese in 5 minutes!
UGH!
I left. I had to go to a Lion Dance meeting this evening. I didn't understand the 30 minute lecture, but I goofed around with the wunderkinded. One of them had gas so he was making humorous Qigong movements while he passed gas. Then we would hit him. After the meeting was over, I was chatting with a couple of the kids that try to speak english, they all have the ability, they are just too chinese...i mean...too scared to actually try. No one really told me what the meeting was about. But the end of it was about passing out of money. Everyone who performed for New Years was given money. I got 80RMB for my participation in the few events. Kool. Totally not expected, but nice.
Interesting night.
Happy Easter all.