Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

Woke up at 4AM, was waiting for the taxi at 445am. The guy showed up and took me around town, then stopped and switched drives with the usual guy. I was slightly confused. I got to the airport about 630am. Waited around for the flight. It was a puddle jumper. A little bus took us out onto the tarmac and we boarded the plane out there.
Flight was uneventful.
Got to Zhengzhou and there was a guy to pick me up. It was weird, we spoke some in Chinese and he understood all what I said. IT WAS AMAZING! A whole new world had opened up to me. Soooooo kool!
So we took the school van to the school. This is the school who's headmaster who's son has been in a bunch of HK films. I have a couple too not realizing it until today.
The place is really dirty. Obviously its China. But I mean...I dont know. I did expected it to be like this. Maybe not so ghetto, but still China dirty. Whatever. I met a few foreigners and the foreign team leader, Dominic. He has been here for about 7 months. He studied karate before he came to China and he really likes the wushu. Even after just 7 months, his skill must be quite good. The few foreigners I have chatted with really seem to like this place. I have noticed something, none of the foreigners in the school have ever studied gong fu before at all. They are all true beginners. Most of them come from Germany and they all found out about this place thru the website. None of them bothered to check out Dengfeng or the Shaolin Temple before coming here. So, they didnt really give me much information that I could really use. Nevertheless, they were all really nice and great people. Very kind.
Around this time, the Xanda Sifu (the guy that picked me up) asked me what I wanted to do, and I told him my plan, well, after a few hours here looking at the school I plan to go to see the Shaolin temple and Dengfeng city. He was like, "Why? Why leave and go see it now, we are going this sunday." I was like, yeah, I know, but I wanted to go today so I could check it out and sight see a bit before I decided on schools. He was like, "No, no, you should stay the night and go tomorrow see this school." As well, John and Peter both said that my plan of going to the Zhengzhou school and then to Shaolin seemed a bit too much and I thought they could be right and this guy kinda confirmed that. So i decided to sleep over and check out morning exercises then go. Little did I know that, like most Chinese, they had other ideas. I should have stuck with my plan because they sure made a mess of things.
I had lunch with Xanda Sifu. He seemed nice and he has taught himself some english. He is pretty good.
After lunch, I walked around a bit and met the other two foreigner instructors. Taiji Sifu and Wushu Sifu. Then he took me to the computer room where they started watching some Xiao Long movies (the headmaster's son). During that afternoon break that the chinese take, I had lots of time on my hands. I was actually quite bored and tired. :(
It was at this point when I was talking to a guy from New Zealand that I found out about the permission slips. You needed special permission to leave the school grounds. And the only times that you could leave the school grounds was on thrusday afternoon, saturday night, or all of Sunday. And you would always have to be home by 10pm on Saturday or Sunday. This really got to me. The boredom that I felt turned into a prison feeling, like i was stuck here and had no freedom. What made it worse is that this school is pretty much in the middle of no where. Its about 30 minutes from the airport and takes about 15-20 minutes to get into Zhengzhou proper. So together with the 2 hour morning break and the 4 hour afternoon break...i could see myself getting really frustrated. I would have all this time on my hands with nothing to do. If that website had mentioned this stuff, I wouldn't have even bothered coming here.
I went into the room that I was going to be spending the night in. I passed out for about 3 hours. I was really tired. Then, i got up and met more people for dinner. Dinner was good and I chatted with more people have been here longer. They all liked it but none of them have ever trained before and this was the only school they had come to so their was nothing I could relate it too.
After dinner, I hung around doing nothing really, until the evening meeting at 8pm. I was placed in the beginners group right away and I had an initial feeling of, "this isnt gonna go well...." But, I decided to give it a chance. Then it got kind of wierd. I met with the Head teacher, Shi Yan Lin. His english was quite good, maybe thats why he does well with foreigners.
He and Dominic took me around some of the grounds and then too the Buddha room where they wanted me to pray to Buddha. I was like, "What is this for Dominic?" Oh, its just to pray for good luck with the new student. I put the 3 insence sticks in the thing, but I was kinda a pissed that he wanted me to do this in the first place, but I decided not to make him lose face. The commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" only matters if you believe in other gods. And since I don't believe in Buddhism...it doesnt' really matter. After that wierdness, we went back to my room where they laid out the schedual of practice. And I didn't quite understand why they were doing this when i told them that I wanted to go see the temple and check out Dengfeng... There was lots in the schedual that got to me. Mandatory chinese lessons, not much gong fu practice, (the website said 6-8 hours) on the schedual, when added together, it totalled less than 6 hours. I told them I wanted to go see Shi De Cheng (Shi Xingwei - the Las Vegas monk's teacher). He is in Dengfeng. I then asked the price again of how much to stay for one night. This is when the shit really started to hit the fan.
About 15 minutes later, Xanda Sifu came to my room to tell me the price and this was also the start of somewhat bad blood between the two of us and my disrespect towards him. You are supposed to respect your teachers and school in China, but when they disrespect you, its hard to respect them back. He came back and said the price for just one night was 500RMB. I was like, WTF! What they hell are you counting. He was like, "The van to the airport and back was 200 RMB and the price for the room for tonite and food is 300RMB." I was livid. Very pissed off. I am like, what the hell are you trying to pull! First of all, sifu said via email picking me up from the airport was no problem and when I asked about the price for pick, the only response I got was was, "Yes". Then I was like, accomodation + training costs only 100RMB/day. How is it that its costing me 300RMB. I was angry and after a while, he was like...OK...ok...you pay 400RMB and I will pay the other 100RMB. I was like, no..you dont have to pay it, it shouldnt be that much. He was like, "thats what the office said..." aaaaaaaaah, i see it now. Chinese culture is the same all over the country, you will try to save face and pass blame off on others. After awhile, I thought that maybe if I tried studying here, I would save more money, and I got him to say, "You can pay for 2 weeks and if you don't like it, you can leave." Besides, I wanted to see what practice was like. Already...there was a bad start.
About 10 minutes later, Dominic and Xanda Sifu came in and Dominic said that i couldn't pay for 2 weeks and then he said the price for the night would be 300 for the pick up and room. Thats the point where I lost all respect for this Xanda Sifu. Any respect I showed him after was to save face. What a jackass. Then Dominic said people can pay and if they don't like the training they can leave after 3 days and they only have to pay for those three days. That sounds good. So, I said I would sleep on it and tell them in the morning.
I was really pissed off and I could barely sleep that night because of it. Goodnite all.

Posted by Phil at 02:21 PM | Permalink

Woke up around 8am and did a bunch of remaining packing and stuff. Washing bed sheets and other things. Unfortunately it poured rain last nite and it did so alot in the morning while I was trying to dry some needed clothes. Great. I packed up my other big suitcase and harddrives and such, i took those over to Yumi's around 1030 and then i went to Normata to get my digital camera stuff. I got the junk and tried it out. I can shoot 888 Large, photos with this new memory card. AWESOME! As I was testing it out and waiting on the new battery to get some charge, they "Memory Card Error" showed up again.
Blasted. John, Violet's dad, and I looked at it and check for anything out of place. Everything seemed fine. We were able to look into the memory card slot and checked the pins. All fine. John took some electrical equipment detergent and sprayed it in the battery and card slots. I waited a few moments and then slipped the stuff back into the camera. It still didn't fix it. We looked at it again, and then I put them back in and it worked fine. Apparently the detergent wasn't finished doing its job. However, sometimes this stuff happens randomly and goes away randomly. I don't know if its fixed. I have been checking it regularly to see if the error pops up again, but it hasn't happened yet. Cross your fingers...
I went and got some lunch after that.
Love or hate Pop-Punk music, and I am not that big a fan of it, but man...its so nice to hear it among all this other crappy chinese music. As I was leaving Normata there was a little band playing some songs in the main entrance area. Neato. It was refreshing to see people actually play music instead of do Karaoke.
As I was eating, Owen called me and said that I needed to pay my internet/water/electricity bill. I was like, "DAMNIT! I thought I was gonna get away before they realized I didn't pay my bills." I went to the office after eating and chatted with Owen. He was filling out the form and I am like, "How much do I owe" he was like 150rmb, and I was like, "Owen, you're busting my balls, buddy. Whats with this?....Busting my balls, man. Busting my balls." He had never heard this phrase before and he asked what I was saying. So I taught him what it meant. And he laughed. I told him, "You know, when Gary comes to the office and does nothing but play with himself and says, 'Owen, go to the big House, then buy some stuff for the office, then take this to the new school, and then register 40 kids for a summer camp by yourself while I sit in here and do nothing...." you say... 'Stop busting my balls, Gary!'" Owen understood after that. He was laughing too. Then Wing came into the office and I got her to say "Bust my balls." It was great. Cause Owen was laughing at the fact that she was referring to something she doesn't have and then I told her what the phrase means, 'to stop commanding things/asking to many things of me'. She understood, then I told her what it was and she got a case of the giggles.
I headed home. Owen called me about 20 minutes later saying that Boss John got angry with him because Owen gave me the house deposit already. And so Owen asked for it back until I leave the house. And I was like, Dude...I am leaving in like 2-4 hours. I am cleaning the place up. He was like...oh...so....i need the key. I was like, yeah. So come on over when you want. I will clean this place up and then meet you.
I cleaned up the room with sweeping, vacuuming and mopping. I am good at this. I got all my shaolin stuff packed up and everything. Just needed to pakc up the cmputer as well. I needed to take a pot and my lion heads to Yumi's as well. I also needed to get my bicycle tires fixed and take that to Yumi's. I will give that to the students at Lion Dance.
As I was taking the pots and some other things to Yumi's, I had my bag that I was carrying all my clothes and stuff for Shaolin with me and i was taking that. As I was walking down the street, the strap broke and the bag ripped a bit too. Great quality can be found here. I wasn't that angry. So, I took that stuff to Yumi's, then took that bag with my stuff to another bag store and bought a big travel backpack. Its nice. I brought that home and moved everything into it. Just barely fit.
I then went to take the other bag back to the store but they wouldn't give my money back so I needed to replace it with something and they wanted me to take another bag, I was like, "Hellz no!" I looked for a money belt but couldn't find one. The thing I bought last nite was a small inconspicuous fanny pack.
What made my moving out more frustrating is that Owen was sitting in the living room waiting for me to finish so he can take the key back to the office. I am like, DUDE! You're busting my balls. Go back to the office, I will call you when I am done and return the key too you. Cause that would make sense. IS that what happened? Nope. He just sat there watching TV while I was taking care of my business. I told him it would take time. Oh well.
I took my remaining things to Yumi's at about 5pm and then came back to get my bike fixed. As I was going to Yumi's, it started raining and as soon as I left her place to go get my bike, the sun came out. It was pretty. I grabbed the bike and Owen went with me to get it fixed. When it was done, I gave him the keys and we took off. On my way to Yumi's it started raining again. AIYA!
While at Yumi's,i realized that i forgot two tshirts, so I had to take a taxi back while I ran some errands to get some travel soap and contacts.
After that I met up with John and Peter at the Guangdong resturant. Good food. It was nice. Got a little tipsy. Then We went to the beer gardens where we met up with a bunch of the other folks for Ash's send off. It was relaxing and lots of fun. I was in rare form..really loopy. I headed out about 1145pm. Ok, well, its late, and I leave tomorrow morning for the airport at 5AM. Flight leaves at 820AM.

Posted by Phil at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Yes, finally! Last day of teaching!!!! WHERD UP! TAKE THAT, SUCKA!!! Technically, my contract finishes up on August 14th, but my contract states that I have 2 weeks unpaid vacation, which I am using for my Shaolin trip. I got weekends off as well, so..... I AM DONE WITH BOND.
I taught my last class this afternoon! It was great, however, the teaching of the class...i didn't feel very good in it. I had a sickling feeling...nothing bad...just a slightly knot. Maybe it was because of the last class. After it was over, I told John it doesn't feel like I am done.
In the morning, I went over to Normata to see about maybe getting some new stuff for my camera. A new battery and a 1GB memory card. My camera has been giving me these "Memory Card" and "Replace Battery Pack" errors sometimes. Even when the battery is fully charged, I have had it say, "Replace battery pack". I don't know if these issues stem from the age of the battery or the memory card or the camera itself. Hopefully these new items will fix it. I ordered them and they will be in tomorrow at 10AM. sweet.
Afterwards I hit up the gym and had lunch. I got ready for class. Class was...eh. We went over the last speech about Food. We said some basic things. "China has many kinds of food.." "My favourite is..." "We also eat Western food..."
The chinese food we listed was all this good stuff. Then we went on and put Western food up and what did they shout out and think of when they thought of western food? KFC, McDonald's, hamburgers, ice cream, french fries, and coke. Why all the unhealthy stuff? John and I try to have fun when we do this stuff and I tried to convince him to let me put up "Freedom Fries" instead of "french fries" as a joke. He wouldnt let me. But we did get up there this little nugget of joy... "If it is alive, we will eat it." I wanted to put up "We will eat anything with four legs thats not a table." or " We will eat anything with its back to the sun." Those are the sayings northerners have for the Guangdong folk...they will eat anything and everything.
There is a boy in the class that is very naughty and is only there because his parents are important, just like others, but he is very bad. These that are placed because of the parents piss me off because they don't know any english. How did they pass the exam? This kid is a distraction and trouble maker in the class, so on the last day of the week, my last class, and the last 5 minutes of the class, I hauled his ass down to the office. Catherine talked to him and he refused to say anything and just sat there. "I don't care cause my dad is rich." mentality. I told Catherine to tell him that, "You have brought shame and disgrace upon your family name for generations to come. You don't get to come back tomorrow. You don't even get a lousy copy of our home game!" The office was laughing hard. But too bad...Catherine didn't do it. Fudge.
After class we went to Maggot pea for dinner where I got a salad n sandwich. Then I went home to pack more and I got myself a fannypack. Did you know in England "Fanny pack" means something completely different? "Bumbag" is what they call fannypacks. Fanny is slang for woman's hoo-haa.
I spoke to my dad and my Aunt Sharron in Moracco via SKYPE and that was kool. I also got my stuff packed for Shaolin. Its frustrating and nerve racking because I need to take money to pay for the training and I pay by the day and taking out money from the back account in the US ain't the best system if I want to save money. I also don't have a chinese bank account because I never had enuff money to put in one. Now I do, so I have to hide my cash everywhere and hope my gong fu can defeat any theives.
Spoke online with Chad and Yumi. Chad gave me some more schools to check out. He told me about Shi De Cheng who was monk Shi Xing Wei's sifu....who was the monk that I met in Las Vegas. So I emailed him and told him I would stop by and I attached a copy of the foto of Shi XingWei and I. I should go have that developed today.
After that, I met Ash, Irish John, John Irish, Ben, Will and Miguel at the beer gardens. It rained a bit.
It was a fun nite. Well, goodnite. I need to pack more stuff tomorrow. Take care!

Posted by Phil at 10:46 AM | Permalink

I had no morning classes today. It was wonderful. I was up to 2am last nite packing and doing stuff around the house. I woke up and took my big suitcase to Yumi's it was really heavy. As I was unloading the suitcase from the box taxi, it popped open and a bunch of stuff fell to the ground. Not much, but I was like, "BU!!!!!!!!". It was like how Darth Vader finds out that he killed Padme....only instead of yelling in English, he yelled in Chinese. I laughed so hard at that.
I picked up the stuff and closed the suitcase back up with a little help from the security guard. The secruity guards at Normata are very nice. I talk to them all the time.
After I dropped off the suitcase, I headed to the gym. Ran for a bit then headed home and typed up some stuff.
I went to class at 2pm and it was very good. We played some games today. we played Hot Potatoe and since John forgot the CD, I had to sing. So I was throwing in Niel Diamond, The Darkness, Ramones, and random things that were really funny. The kids loved it. This was, I think, the first class that really understood Simon Says. All the other classes I did the game with took forever to latch onto the concept of the game. But this class got it the second time the game came round. The first round, there were no winners.
I also had a class of 34 kids throwing up the devil horns and shouting, "ROCK!". I needed to kill 3 minutes so I taught them that. It ruled. Seeing a class of that size aged 7-10 is awesome!
After class, I searched around town for a duffle bag that i can carry to Shaolin. Not too big. I can cram all the stuff i need into the one i found, and it was cheap. Awesome.
Came home and went to practice. It was ok. Had some fun. Sifu's daughter told me today, after I told Guo Sifu two days ago that I would be leaving on sunday, she told me... "You have a wushu demo on sunday." Um....No i don't. I can when I get back and maybe I can do some forms that I learn at Shaolin. That would rule. I talked to a couple teachers via email and they both said they could teach me Zui Quan, druken boxing. How cool would that be at a demo and do your forms then kick back a bottle of beer and then do a druken boxing form. ROCK!
It wasn't too hot out today at all, however, it was super humid so it felt hot. At practice, it looked like I had taken a shower from all the sweat.
Goodnite!

Posted by Phil at 11:24 PM | Permalink

Did a bunch of things today. Had class in the morning. The last class thankfully. Chatted with Mountain and told him I made a mistake. "I need the taxi to pick me up Sunday morning at NORMATA, not the post office. I will be at Yumi's saturday nite. Not the big house."
I asked Katherine about my newspaper article, she said they lady was having it shipped and should be here today. Kool!
i didn't go to the gym today because I was a bit sore from an intensive practice from last nite and I wanted to get my final pay-out from Owen at 1140AM along with Peter. So i show up and Owen was late.
Around 12 he showed up and he went thru what each of us will receive. I looked at what I was to get, and I was like, "WTF! You are missing 1000RMB." I looked at it. The paper showed that I stop working on the 28th. They pro-rated my last 2 weeks pay as well as only trying to give me 5500RMB for my plane airfare. So, I called up Amanda and I was like, "I talked to you on the fone like 3 times and emailed you, you said my pay was fine." She called back and tried to explain why it was lower. She told Gary and Owen that I was to receive my money, but she didnt' bother to tell Emily or Gary about my hours and contract requirements. This communication bs really grates on you. I had to bust some heads to finally get what I was entitled to. If you don't speak up, you will be destroyed. And then the chinese accuse foreigners of being upstarts.
Then Owen took me and Peter to the Bank to get the cash. We were going as body guards because he would be takin out 27,000RMB. Peter and I both got about 13600RMB. Nice. We get to the bank, and the account that deals with this type of company, was gone and wouldn't be back until 2pm .Great!
Another wrench thrown into the plans. Owen would be able to get the money to either Peter or I until 7pm that day. And Peter needed it at 3pm to go buy some plane tix and his new computer. I just needed it. :D
So, i called John and asked if I could be late to class about 10 - 20 minutes, he said sure. We ran into Mark at the Maggot Pea cafe and had lunch. All the while I was waiting for a fone call from the messenger dude that is supposed to bring my Zhengzhou tix.
I got my money at 2pm and headed to class. I got there aroudn 220pm and the kids were working hard. I looked at the teacher's desk and there were 3 ice cold cans of beer. I was like, "what the hell is this", John was all like, a parent brought it in for us today. I was like damn! So during the second period, we popped open the cans. There was one for me, John, and Melina. Melina's sprayed her though when it opened. It exploded. I felt so bad. The kids laughed though. I apologized. Beer isn't viewed the same way in China as it is in the US. The dude at the bank yesterdya was drinking one while doing a transaction.
After class, John and I headed back here and I took all my DVD cases to Sheng Ya where I sold them back to them. While I was there, the messenger guy called me and he was directed to the store. I got my ticket around 530pm. I went to dinner for some noodles with John.
I came home and did alot more packing. Alot. And many other things. No practice tonite, not feeling good.
Well, goodnite all!

Posted by Phil at 02:07 PM | Permalink

Morning classes were bleh. 4-10 year olds just don't want to learn on a hot summer morning. The second period, no one was paying attention nor participating in things I tried to do. Fine, be stupid. Not that it really matters. All I really am to you guys is a babysitter.
Parents force their kids into schools during the summer so they don't fall in with the young crowd. How is that possible when all kids do is watch TV anyways. They never leave their house really. I have barely ever seen kids playing outside with friends when they are without their parent.
Anywho.
After class, I prepared for the gym and the bank. I went to go to the bank to purchase my Zhengzhou tickets. Its the same procedure as last time, but this time I am putting it all in at once so Jacky the Tix Guy can ship them out to me ASAP. I hopped on a taxi and drove there. When I got to the bank, I realized I had forgotten my money and invoice, i had taken it out when I moved some gym stuff around. AIYA! So, I grabbed that motorbike guy again and went back to my place, got my stuff, and then went back to the bank.
I waited for like 1 minute before I started taking care of my business with the teller. I looked to my right and there was some guy taking care of some business with another teller. Nothing special. Except that he was drinking a beer while he was doing it. Seeing stuff like that kinda messes with your head. I want to do that at National Shitty when I get back to the US.
After that, I got a taxi to the gym. The taxi driver as I got off started trying to say something to me by using his fingers. He never spoke a word. He was pointing to me, and then giving me two fingers and pointing to his seat. He did that a couple of times before I realized he was trying to say that I weighed as much as two people on his bike. Thing was, this guy was much fatter than I am. I blew him off and walked away.
Gym was good. Got lunch.
I had class at 2pm. It was good. I actually enjoyed it. The time actually flies by and I think the kids might actually get something out of this. It is intensive and they are learning new words and alot of the meanings they will need to learn by just watching John and I interact. Its good. We learned today that these kids will not be able to write their own speeches. About 40% of the kids could actually write a sentence. The rest just had words written down that we had gone over about the 3 topics.
We also got 4 new kids today. I tried to tell Jilly not to give us anymore kids because it was messing up our Qi. She was like, "huh?" I told her, "The first day, all the students and us teachers formed a very strong bond which allowed all our Qi to mesh together seamlessly. With introduction of new students, that bond/Qi mesh will no be unbalanced causing our relationship to deteriorate...."
She just walked away. I laughed to myself and John was cracking up too.
I looked at the attendance shit and saw some of the names the kids had. Now, the ones I gave, I thought were funny, but there were some good ones on there. "Might" was one.
Classes went good.
Afterwards I came home and did some more packing and junk. Around 6pm I took my guitars,swords, and erhu over to Yumi's place. I did this all at once. I had one guitar strapped to my back, the erhu slung over it while I carried my big sword in one hand and my guitar case in the other. I don't fault any of the chinese for staring. It was an interesting site to see me driving on a motorbike like that. I would have stared. When I got to Normata, the backpack case strap got stuck on the back of the bike and I almost fell over.
After I dropped off that stuff, I went to Peter's to return and pick up some stuff. We chatted and he was all getting ready to leave by about Thursday. He will pick up his computer tomorrow on wednesday after we get paid our payout. I should be getting 13500RMB. And so should Peter. Peter has also sold the pool table to BOND for about 230RMB. He got it for like 800. We got our use out of it.
After that, I headed home where I went to gong fu practice. Man, did I go hard tonite. I was practicing the wushu stuff in Chang Quan. You can take these wushu forms and break it down into their basic, technical things. I mean, like, first the form was actaully practical and then people made it fancy by throwing in jumps, falls, acrobatics, etc. So, I was trying to practice the jump kicks and everything while also practicing the practical aspects. It was tiring. I was really the only one practicing at all as well. I don't know why these kids are so lazy at this place.
When i walked in the doors when I got home, i saw a gecko scurry across the floor. I was soooo excited! My first gecko that i saw in China. I was like, "WHAT WHAT!" Sell me some car insurance BTICH!
I came home and chatted with my folks on SKYPE. We got some life insurance stuff set up since my old stuff was gonna expire on Aug 19th. Now, I got this new junk. Kool.
I had a weird dream later that nite because one of the options on the insurance plan was this "Terrorism Rider" that dealt with injury or death from a terrorist attack. My dream was I was with the Michigan Snowboard Club (UofM club) and we had set up a trip to Iraq. On my way to a party while I was on a bike, I got shot 2x by a patrolling insurgent. I showed up at the party with two bullet holes in my side while a couple people tried to patch me up, then a drunk guy came by and started singing a song about how I got shot and said, "Praise Allah."
interesting.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 02:37 PM | Permalink

Morning class was good.
Today was the start of Hopeless Star BOND camp. The first three lessons went well. We got a chinese assistant named Melina. A 19 year old college girl that is related to Boss John. So much nepotism in this company, but its china so its ok. When I found this out, I told Owen not to ask her out. ;-) We gave the students that didn't have an English name an English name. So, i decided to get a kick out of it. I named kids the following:
Jack, Rainbow, Tree, Lucy, Butterfly, Lollipop, and Violet.
Awesome! Peter got so mad at me when I told him.
I spent most of my free time today trying to figure out what school or what I was gonna do on my trip to Shaolin. Didn't go to the gym or practice becasuse of it. There is hardly any info online. I had Mountain call Tagou Wushu Center and he chatted with them and found out a price. It was expensive. 160RMB per day which included accomodation and training fee. I emailed the guy later on in the day. Appaerntly there are 130 foreigners there.
I will go check it out. It will cost about 4800RMB for 28 days. which is around $580 US. So much for me saving money from my payout.
The www.shaolin-wushu.de website has a review of only a few schools in Zhengzhou, Dengfeng, and Shaolin. Apparently they gave the official centers, Wushu Guan and Tagou bad ratings due to the high price and poor training facilities and not the same amount of training to foreigners. But those descriptions were 2 years old. Maybe they have gotten better. I did find out about, what the website highly recommends, the Songshan Shaolin Temple Xiao Long Gong Fu Training Center. Apparently they loved this school. The head foreigner teacher speaks good english and is friendly and doesn't beat chinese students for mistakes like other teachers do. He had high marks on this website. The price is about half of Tagou and sounded like it was better training too. Only problem is it is in Zhengzhou which is 3 hour bus ride from Shaolin.
What i could do is take 3 weeks at this place then a week at Tagou. Maybe. It depends on what I think of this school and Tagou when I arrive there on sundya and monday. I will fly in, check out this Zhengzhou school, then take a bus to Shaolin, and do that tourist thing and check out tagou and maybe stay the nite there. Then check out Tagou on monday and some other schools in Dengfeng. Then I will go back to Zhengzhou if I don't like it enuff down there.
It will be interesting!
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 08:27 PM | Permalink

I went with Yumi to Guangzhou today see her off on her flight back to Japan. She will be back on August 23rd. She wanted to be back on the 27th, however, the travel agency refused to fix their mistake without her paying extra. They were able to extend her flight by 1 month at no cost. Its better than nothing and I guess its better than paying extra.
It was sad to see her go. :(

After, I found the buses to get back to Xiaolan. An airport shuttle to a bus station and thena traffic jam ride back to Xiaolan.
Fun stuff. I had some dinner while John came over and we contemplated what we will be teaching tomorrow for this Hopeless Star Bond Summer Camp.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today, I spent the afternoon with Yumi going over a plan of attack for my month in Japan. Where to go, what to see, etc.
She is really busy packing up her stuff and just noticing a discrepancy on her ticket information that will cause her to fly back on July 27, not August 27th. So, she is trying to contact the people that helped issue the ticket. No one is answering any fones.
(LATER)
I don't know if this is a common occurence in the US or anywhere else, but I have heard this happening more times than it should to people here in China.... Why is it that when a travel agency or someone who deals in travel fares makes a mistake on a ticket the customer needs to pay for it. I have heard on many seperate occasions that the travel agency issued a ticket with the wrong date on it and then when it is brought to their attention they make the customer pay the difference of fixing it or not helping them out. And its not just airfare either. Its passports as well. Yumi's teaching colleague was trying to get her VISA renewed. She went thru her school like she was supposed to and she told them that her last name has changed to her husbands. The school waited until the last minute, as they usually do, and yet, after multiple reminders, they still printed the wrong name on the VISA. And when Mayu told them they refused to pay for the mistake and she was forced to pay for her new VISA on her own. And when she did take it to the government people to get it fixed, they made another mistake and wouldn't fix it. She had to pay again to have it redone. WTF is wrong with this picture!? I have never heard of stuff like this happening anywhere else. Please let me know if people have this many visa / airfare issues elsewhere and I will remember not to go there.
We went to dinner at the Northwestern place that the french folk went to last nite after Antoine's party. It was just another Zhao Zi Guan (Dumpling House). It was good. They had a special on the femur leg bone of a lamb. Yummy. We also had an interesting desert that I have never had before. They take slices of sweet potatoes and deep fry them and place them on a plate. Then, they melt lots of sugar in a pan or pot and poor it over the sweet potatoes. We needed to dip the potatoes into cold water before we ate them so the hot sugar didn't sear our mouths. It was interesting, sorta good, and very unhealthy.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 04:54 PM | Permalink

The weather today, as I woke up, was very nice. It was kool and a nice breeze with overcast skies. It doesn't seem to pretty until it comes after hot humid daze. Morning classes. Nothing different. Went well.
Went to the gym. On the way was kinda intereseting because the breeze was much harder now and it was a cool day. But as the taxi dude drove down a road, it was lined with these big trees in which the green leaves had already started turning yellow and started falling. They were the only trees around, so it felt like I was directly in an autumn day. It confused me. They gym was good.
I had my second day of oral examining. It went pretty good. There were more kids today than yesterday, however, yesterday, the skill levels of English were better. All the kids yesterday that I asked, "Have you been to the zoo?" understood and were able to respond. But today, when I asked that, Only 2 kids got it right. And they said Yes only because they didnt know the answer. It turns out, that it was the right answer. I would follow it up with another zoo question and this got them understanding the first. The kids describing of the picture today was not as good as yesterday`s either. I got a bunch of basic sentences today where yesterday I got kids going on and on about the fotos.
I also had a girl try to bribe me with compliments. After her oral exam, and I think she knew she had trouble with it, she said, "I wanted to say, You look very handsome today." After she said that, I kinda chuckled to myself, not so much that I blushed at the speaking of the truth, but becuase she tried to get a better grade by appealing to my pride. I was just like....Awesome.
Afterwards, I chatted with a couple of travel agent contacts looking for good airfare prices to go to Zhengzhou in Henan for my Shaolin trip.
Then I headed to Yumi`s. We went out to dinner at the CRC where my cellfone was stolen back in september. Then we walked over to Antoine`s place where he was having a one year anniversary party for being in China. It was fun. NIce and relaxing.
Then after that party became a bust, all the french people and others went to a North WEstern Chinese resturant. However, Yumi and I went to celebrate with Will and other teachers for WIll`s bday. John and Peter decided to go to the North Western place.
It was a good nite.

Posted by Phil at 04:42 PM | Permalink

This mornings classes went well. Nothing bad. However, the kids still come late. After classes, I headed to the gym. The gym was good.
On my way back to the house, I waited for a taxi guy. I stood there for a couple minutes before 2 taxi guys spotted me. One in front of the other. The first guy shouted out, "Wei" and they both pulled up. The first guy was second to pull up though, and I started getting on the other bike cause it was closer. This is when I was sorta assaulted. The driver that shouted grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him wanting me to take his ride. I was a little taken aback by this but not really. Strangely, I was freaked out by it. I found it weird afterwards. So I broke his wrist lock and I got on the bike. As I rode off with the other driver, the one that grabbed me drove up and followed me and started cursing me out. "Cao ni ma!" Which means, "F--- you mother." So, I returned the favor.
I couldn't believe the brass on this fella. That isn't good business practices. That's not how you get good customers. What was his problem? What a Turd Ferguson.
I went home and then I had the oral exams for these special classes.
Later.

Posted by Phil at 05:39 PM | Permalink

Morning classes went fine. I was surprised, almost all the students were there already. Between classes, Dobs was in the office and we chatted. I asked him what he was doing. He was like, "I am hoping to do some teaching." He has spent 20 days in Xiaolan and he has only taught 3 classes. He has been getting mad for awhile, but he has also been getting depressed a bit. He is stuck in this dingy room with nothing to do. He walked around Xiaolan alot, but that gets old really quick. I wants to teach, and BOND ain't giving him classes. It doesn't make sense for a company to have all these teachers and have no classes. Its a waste of time and money. Get this, we have 2 teachers in this town with no classes schedualed, Dobs and John, and yet, we are getting new teachers on top of that. WTF! This is the kind of junk we have to deal with. And since we have are under contract and we aren't told about classes till the day before, we can't really go anywhere or travel. Dobs said he his bolting if he can't get a class today or tomorrow.
More the power to ya!

Posted by Phil at 11:53 AM | Permalink

Classes this morning were no different. I had a brand new student today. After we're a few days in to the class. The class wasn't full until the second lesson. I taught "How old are you?" And that was tough trying to explain to the kids. Thankfully, to make it even harder, Bond allowed for a 4 year old to join the class without telling me. YES! She is a cute little girl who won't even respond to me in Chinese. Well, she would respond, however, it took like a couple minutes on each question when I asked in Chinese. It sad. And, of course, no one was around to help me out with this little girl. She is confused, nervous, and prolly afraid of me. The material, the kids learned stuff which is good.
Near the end of the first class, about 5 minutes before the end of it. Violet and her father, John, showed up while he was holding her baby sister. When she showed up, she looked a little sad, and I had all the students at the front of the class doing an activity. She walks in, and I said, with a couple other kids, "come join us, Violet." Cause we were having fun. But she looked back at her father who looked unhappy and she started to wimper and then she started crying and hyperventilating like she does. She is very sensitive. And her dad got an even meaner look then. So she started getting worse. I was like, "What a dick!" Its not her fault you got her here late like you always do! I was soooooo pissed off. And she wasn't stopping. I tried to let her get it out of her system, but it didn't work very well so i had to help her.
Afterwards I headed home and did some chinese practice. As well as going to the gym. I am trying to build up endurance for my time at the Shaolin Temple. Its gonna be tuff.
As I came home and practiced more chinese. Julie showed up with a new teacher, Brian. He was an interesting fellow. Red hair and long rat tail that was a different red. He is from Minnieapolis. And I was like, "Cool, do you know Prince?" like I do with anyone from Minnieapolis. And then he said, yeah. I used to work for him. "I was like...are you serious?" He was like, "Yup, I was part of his back up band for a while, and we played Detroit." I was like. NO SHIT! that rules! I was like, No way!
He taught in Thailand for a year, met a woman and they got married. Then he went to Sichuan and tuaght there for last year. Now he is here. He asked me what I think of Xiaolan and BOND so I told him. He was like...Thanks for the info, with a sly smile.
Yumi came back today. So I spent alot of time with her. :D!!!!

Posted by Phil at 05:30 PM | Permalink

Today started fine. My morning class went ok. Just did the usual. Its frustrating though when the first lesson is pretty much spent just waiting for most of the students to arrive. Why can't you people be on time? I asked Mountain, "Why are they so late for their classes? They are wasting their money. Not like these classes are really gonna help them..." and Mountain responded, "They are chinese. They are always late." I was like, "Hey, you said it!" Giggle.
Afterwards, I had a couple hours to spend on doing some housework. So I did. And I did some packing as well. I had a meeting at 1230pm for the Hope Star Camp that we are starting on Wednesday. So I shipped off the wedding DVDs to Ben at 12pm and headed out.
I was the last one there and I was 5 minutes early...thats what I like to see. People on time. Mark told everyone to get some drinks because he wouldn't give us the bad news until after we had something to drink. Great! Can't wait. I ordered a Corona. I was like sweet. However, they brought me a lemon instead of a lime so i gave them the lemon back and asked for a lime. Asking incorporated, some words, the pointing at of a lime inside the water jar at the table, and telling the waitress not to take the water jar off the table. I got the lime. Why is it so hard?
So, Mark began telling us this. Apparently Big Boss Jane/John had decided to change the layout that we were told about last week. She apparently changed her mind after we had our meeting which she didn't attend. Did she bother to tell us? No, she told Gary at some unknown time, and of course, that jackass didn't bother to let Mark know until 40 minutes before our meeting.
Basically, the change has taken an English Camp from something different and maybe very effective and is turning it into a normal English Camp, which I hate to say...is pretty friggin' pointless. I hate to say it because I know my efforts and abilities are not being used or appreciated. But hell, what do you expect from 4-9 year olds. More than half of these kids will never remember me.
So, we spent about 1.5 hours trying to understand wtf was going on and how we would deal with it. Classes won't start until July 25th now, however, on Thursday and Friday we need to give out Oral Exams that last about 5 minutes and we use that to cut kids from 60 to 30 for each class. There will be two classes, A and B. A will get to study for free, B will have to pay. I said, "I will only participate in this if we can get written word from all the students' parents saying 'We will not beat our kids for not passing.'"
After that meeting was over, I grabbed some ice cream from McDonald's and headed home. I went to the gym today. It was good.
I had gong fu practice tonite and it went really well. My leg muscles didnt' get sore or tired from doing form work..and I was going pretty hard. Sifu nor his daughter were there so I didn't learn anything new.
I headed home. Time for sleep.
One thing that confuses me though, with this heat, and all the exercise, and not eating too much, you would think I would be losing weight. Well...I'm not. I actually think I am gaining some tummy. I can't figure it out. I don't know if its this weather or what, but its really disheartening.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 04:29 PM | Permalink

Woke up early. Did the DVD cover. It looks good. Its finally done.
I spent alot of time cleaning up my room and packing some more stuff for good.
John came over around 230pm to get away from Echo, her mom, and her friend. Too much Chinese feminitiy. He couldn't take it. He couldn't believe the whining.
He came over and he checked out the DVD while I did some more cleaning and such.
Then we played some pool while watching the Story of Ricky-O. That movie is better the second time. John loved it. So bad but sooo funny.
Afterwards, John, Peter,an d I went to the Hunanese place with Tim and Ping. John was treating Tim because Tim got him a ride from the airport. So he was thanking him. It was good. We then grabbed a smoothy from that Jack and the Maggot Pea. It was good. Now I am here.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:30 PM | Permalink

Today was quite busy. I woke up early and put the finishing touches on the DVD. I finished it. Only thing I gots to do now is print up covers. I hit up the bank and tried to deposit the remaining cash into Jacky's account. It sorta worked. I gave them the 4020RMB and they only deposited 4000 thinking that the 20 was for service charge. It took me about 15 minutes and a fone call to Mountain to get them to deposit the last 20RMB. Crazy. The lady wasn't there today. I felt sad. I hope she is alrite and not sent to go bust up boulders in Tibet.
After that I came home and did some other work.
At 530pm I started getting ready for the wushu demo. I headed over to the warehouse and apparently it was just Sifu, his daughter, Hong Kong, and me that were going. There were some Macau folks visiting and playing with each other on the floor.
The van ride to the outskirts of Shiqi was long. And Sifu is just as bad a driver as all the other chinese. I had to grip the seats and brace myself a couple times cause I was afraid of a car accident. I can't help but want to yell at people that ride their bikes out in front of cars on the highway.
We got to the area which was on the southern outskirts of Shiqi. It took sifu awhile to find the place. Once he did, he drove us to get some dinner. This resturant's menu had some really bad english. So i took a bunch of fotos of it. My favorite one was this for a food dish.... "All Kids of Rapes". I had a good laugh and explained it to the daughter who explained it to the others. We all giggled.
After dinner we headed back to the location. It was a cement basketball court. The place had filled up with chinese people. I was very surprised. There were a bunch of different teachers from all over Zhongshan visiting with some of their students. I saw alot of cool forms and alot of old guys and young guys performing wushu. The old guys were doing more longfisted practical type things whereas the younger folks were going for the full out wushu. There was this one old dude that was 83 and he was hopping around a little bit on the court. It was neat. As far as visual entertainment is, the old guys/sifus were pretty lame. The young folks were where it was at. There was this one guy who had a bull whip who was amazing. Very good. And a couple guys with swords. One guy did some Monkey style.
My performances? well, I think they were better than my New Year's ones, but still, I felt the performances could have been better. I guess this is what you get when you haven't been focusing on the form for a couple weeks. I have been doing it everytime, but I haven't been analyzing it like i usually do. I have been trying to learn some more stuff. I originally was gonna go 2 times at the end, but I got bumped up for my firts form up into the beginning. There were about 80 performances. Lost. We were there for like 2.5 hours.
I found the audience very rude. Whenever a person came out and performed and if they made the slightest mistake the audience would bust out in laughter. I found it rude and repulsive. I don't see you imaciated chinese doing anything like this? You try it. I got laughed at once when I slipped after touching ground from a kick. I didn't let it bother me though at the time. But a few others got laughed at.
After the performances were over we all had some food together. The hosting Sifu was thanking all the teachers for visiting then he said something like, "And we even have a white guy here who has come all this way to learn Chinese Gong Fu!" And I thanked everyone. It was nice. He said Chinese Gong Fu and about 3x the volume of the rest of the sentence. It was quite humorous. I enjoyed myself. It was a good time.
Then we headed home.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:07 PM | Permalink

This morning was the official opening of the New Bond School. I took some fotos. There were a bunch of students there. Lets see, Big Boss Man got on the mic and started dishing it out in English and Chinese. He said, "Today we will have 1000 stundents come in to take a test and 1000 more tomorrow...." And then a bunch of other horse manure.
1000....LOL! what a riot...I don't even think I saw over 300 kids today.
As we were on the little platform the students were all dispersed and the girl to boy ratio was enormous. I was like, Dude, there are like 5 boys here. Mark was like, Yeah, and check it out...they are all lined up. I looked over and there were about 15 boys standing in a single file line while tons all the other students just stood randomly around....but as far away from the people with the mic as possible. I think that is one of the first lines I have seen here in China.
There were some Canadians on lone from the San Xin school to help with the opening ceremony. They sang a stupid little song. It was like, with your hands, put your hands in front, behind, on top, under, in and out. They were teaching the hand jive I think. I don't know. I didn't really see the relevance of it. Personally. They tried to get the students to do it...they weren't having it.
Afterwards I headed home and dealt with getting my translations and getting paid and figuring out how to pay this Jacky guy for my plane ticket home. BOND gives me 6000RMB for airfare, but I have to get this ticket today or tomorrow ASAP because the airlines are raising the prices soon. Jacky got a call yesterday and said they got a call to up the price. So, he wanted to issue the ticket today. No problem really. However, I don't have the cash here so I needed to take it out of my National Shitty account. 4000RMB. I asked Amanda about getting an advance on the air ticket, but they couldn't do it today because i didn't give them enuff of a warning. Hell, I didnt think I would be buying the ticket this soon. Yuppers.
As I went to the Agricultural Band of China with Wing to deposit some cash, there was this old woman, who was mostly likely not all there in the head. She was wearing a big backpack, ratted out old army uniform, and wearing a "special" helmet. I was almost expecting to see the name "Philip" taped onto the front of it and she would have to be tethered to a jungle gym.
Anywho, she was constantly repeating the same phrase over and over again in Guangdong/dialected Putonghua. She just stood out the entrance of the bank barking this out. "The People's Republic of China is rubbish." Over and over. Well, she isn't all wrong. Wing was smirking at this. She must have been there for a bit because the security guards seemed irritated. You know what she sounded like? You know the Martians from Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks"? Well, she sounded just like that. It was kinda funny but sad at the same time. The guards got so irritated that they started shouting or barking back at her.
We deposited said cash no problem. By the time we left, she had gone.
I then had to go back to the New School to watch over and distract kids from their exams again this afternoon. I found some mistakes in the exam but they are so technical, I doubt the kids would notice. I found one kid sleeping on her exam. She was just laying there. Its like steam bath in this place so I can understand it. But after I tapped her desk to wake her up, I thought I heard sniffling. I didn't quite know if she was actually sleeping or just crying because she couldn't perform well on the exam. I looked over this exam, man, its not that hard, but there was one section I was like, "wtf?". I would prolly get an 93% on it. :D
Basically this test is to weed out the best of the best. They get free classes, those that do well. I am sure thats how Bond got so many students. Their parents are forcing them to take the exams and putting immense pressure on them to do good and if they don't do well, they will disown them. Thats how it goes on here. They don't exactly dis own them, but thats the fear. Totally fear driven. But if they fail, I am sure some of those kids will get beaten.
Mark Lee gave me a ride home on his pimped out motorbike. Its like a scooter like all the others have, however this one is wider and longer because Mark is like 6 foot 3 or 5. Its the only one he could fit in. When looking at it, you think Futuristic Retro-80s. Kinda straight out of Robocop. He put in a whole speaker set up. 4 speakers and an amp. As well as under the floorboard lighting so it glows blue at nite. The thing rules. I couldn't keep the smile off my face as we drove thru town blasting Iron Maiden. IT ROCKED! I want one.
Tonite I went to practice and spent all my time practicing Hong Quan for the demo tomrrow nite. I tired myself out good. Afterwards I headed the beer gardens to help celebrate Irish John's birthday. It was a good time. I didnt have much to eat for dinner, so I was kinda....whoo hoo!
Well, its 2AM and I am going to bed. Sleep well.

Posted by Phil at 04:38 PM | Permalink

You know, its great, cause these summer camps that BOND is putting together just re-confirms to me how horrible this company is. You tend to think "Yeah, maybe BOND ain't so bad and maybe it was just me getting used to China that made my first 6 months terrible..." when the last 6 months go fairly uneventful since you know how to deal with them better and know more in general. Well, these summer camps and the crappiness with which they have been infused just goes to re-instate my previous view of BOND just in time for me leaving and being able to post a review on the TEFL websites. I can't wait really. I am excited.
I received my schedual the other day, remember? Well, its fine. I don't really have a problem with it. However, John still hasn't received a schedual and classes started on wednesday and tomorrow. They are jerking him around...big time. He has contact the people in charge of this many times and was avoided or just not cared about. They were like, "well, we don't know what to do with you. There is a camp out in Guangzhou, you want to do that?" First he has heard of it and he talked with Amanda about his pay and, boy, did she piss him off. The main deal he was told and came over here on was that he would be salaried, now its most likely going to be 80RMB/lesson because they don't have enuff classes for him.
He was livid.
And on top of that, one of the main reasons to come back here, Jolene, has disappeared for 12 days back to her home town at the last minute to take some important exams at her school. She found out 1.5 days before that she had important exams! And they haven't been connecting while he's dealing with jet lag and also dealing with a broken armed Echo who annoys the hell out of him day in and day out. I feel for the guy, i really do. I hate to see him in this situation, but, I had to say to him, "Dude, I told you to stay away, but you didn't listen. You were away too long." while shakin' my head. I hope things get better for him.
The job Catherine mentioned in Guangzhou was pretty much 2 hours for 80RMB/hour. He was like, "WTF is that!?"
Oh well.

I had my second day of the Pre-Starters camp today. It was pretty good. The kids seemed to enjoy what I got them doing. After that, I headed home and did some DVD work. I received the fotos from Ben's wedding via EMS or MES or whatever. I got to work on that right away. The translations from Daisy' mom also were completed today. Fantastic.
I went to the gym with Jez Dobs, new english guy, and John. My legs are sore again from that damn Chang Quan. ARGH! I also got a call from Guo Sifu's daughter saying that we have a Wushu Demo on saturday that I must attend at 6pm. Koolio. Bringing my video camera. I will do Hong Quan 1 and 3. Hopefully better than last time. I hope my legs heal up by then.
I was gonna hit up practice but I was much too tired and I also felt I needed to go to Roberts vacation sendoff gathering of playing snooker. He is going hiking along the silk road with some friends then back to Australia for all of August. Then he comes back here in the beginning of September.
I was there and this is where most of the fone calls concerning John and Catherine were going on.
James showed up just before I left. I cant believe he is still around.
Well, goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:17 PM | Permalink

Today was my first day at this BOND camp. I got 12, maybe 14 kids in my class, aged 5-8. I got Jack, Violet, and Daisy included. I thought Daisy didn't have time, but apparently, there she is. Its 2 periods of 40 minutes starting at 8AM. I got there and I was worried cause I was the only BOND person there. Um...its 8AM. ... Then some staff people showed up and told me 810AM. Ok. The first period was spent getting all the kids in the class. They were all late. Second period was ok.
Afterwards, I hit up the gym. Headed home. DVD work. Met John and Peter and Damon and throughout some time, alot of the other teachers at the cafe. It was good. Relaxing.
After that, John came over and we watched Zombi 2. A really bad 1980 zombie movie. But it was hilarious all the same. Its always good to watch bad zombie movies in groups. Hit up dinner then I had practice. I learned all of Chang Quan today and did it full out and boy, is it tough.

Back to the BOND classes. This new school sucks. They truly believe i think is that all they need is a place with rooms. Big Boss Man seems to have lots of high hopes for this place and lots of intentions that I can't ever see happening. I mean, at the beginning of the classes, half the rooms lack blackboards. Those that have blackboards are just slabs of wood painted black. There is no sort of anything in the rooms to use. Its a wonder I can teach the kids at all. I fear they will be bored.
Also, the glass window shutters randomly fall out of their holder and break on the floor so we got kids running around with randomly breaking glass. This place is a shithole.

I went to gong fu tonite. It was intense. I think i got myself sore again. Afterwards, I hit up "Rashion & Salon. I got myself a haircut. I asked the guy, in chinese... Do you know "Mohawk" ? and he was like, "Yes, I know." And I asked him many times as well as drawing three diagrams. And he still said, I know. But he sure wasn't doing it. I was like wtf. And of course, people were being attracted to watching it. He didn't do what I asked. And then he said, "Sorry." I was just like . ARGH!

Well, goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:37 PM | Permalink

Finally, after hearing about it for a week from some of the other teachers, Yumi and I tried out the western cafe thats new in town. I have to say. Its pretty darn nice and trendy looking. AND it had good food. We showed up and Robert was already there eating. Ha ha. Wow. Apparently its a Taiwanese chain. They had real cheese cake. !!!!!!
Its actually called Jack & The Magic Pea Cafe.
Apparently they have real good coffee but since I hate coffee, I didnt have any.
After that I had a meeting about summer camps at 3pm. Catherine had schedualed me for the Star Hope camp which takes the best of the students involved in the camps and starts to prepare them for the CCTV English Language competition. (The speech competition that I judged at back in Dec/Jan was a preliminary competition for the CCTV one) Basically they narrow it down to one English speaker per chinese province and they compete on National TV for that years first prize.
But this summer camp lasts until August 9th and I was like, Catherine, do you not know that I am gone on August 1st? She was like "Gary told me the end of August..." I was like, "Gary doesn:t know shit, and you should know this by now because you have worked with him for months. I had my contract changed with Amanada and Boss JOhn.....etc.etc". I wasnt being mean, I was just letting her know the facts. And she was like, No Problem. STill do Star Hope and I will figure it out later.
THe meeting was with me, Mark, Bill, Miguel, Will, and Clyde. THese are supposedly the best of the best that BOND has to test and we will practice with them. These kids get to go to class for free. Hardcore. There are 3 sections of this Star Hope program.
1. This summer camp.
2. THe usual weekend classes at Bond
3. THe run up to the competitions that the schools put on for their students.
It was an interesting meeting. Its gonna be interesting.
Afterwards, I went home and figured some stuff out and went to teach Daisy. It went pretty well. Her mom had finished the translations I asked her to do. And we tested to see if I could copy from WORD to DVD Studio Pro. It will work. THankfully. THat shouldn:t be a problem.
I skipped gong fu practice so I could spend some time with Yumi. She is going to Yunnan tomorrow morning at 10am for about 7 days. And I gots to work at 8AM.
Goodnite all you kids.

Posted by Phil at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Today. Well today was a pretty lame day. Nothing really going on.
However, the evening was where it was special. At 5pm, Big Boss Man John asked all the Xiaolan teachers to meet up and then go veiw the new Bond Quarters that they purchased. Its like a small school. 16 classrooms and a big space for other things. It was actually quite nice. Its like the Shiqi place only bigger. It was still in the process of fixing up. And, surprisingly, an English school couldn`t get the slogans on the banners that it was hanging correct. We all had some good laughs at the things said on the banners. For one, the name of the school, Bond Language Institute was screwed up on the building itself. It said "Bondlanguage Institute". Other banners contained these luscious tidbits. "`Silent` and `Listen` are spelled with the Same letters" - nothing really wrong there except the capital S, but i found it cute because I never thought of that. Peter came up with some others, Enlist and Tinsel. I was like Satan and Santa have the same letters.
"A great oaks from a little seeds grow" - got some Yoda-speak in there.
"A Warm Welcome to Our Studentsto Take Bond Examsof English" - this was just messy with a straight from chinese translation and misplacing of letters.
"More haste, less speed" - um....huh?
"We forge ahead in the world and the future with Bond." - tooting your own horn.

Still just amazing that an english school couldn:t get it right.
There were a couple others too that they didn`t fully unravel either because of the goofs. We were at the site for about 15 minutes before Boss John showed up. While a few of us stood around and chatted, some of the ENglish folk started playing cricket with a ping pong ball and a broken stick. The english man and irish man amongst our chat group started ripping on the sport. THey were like, "you guys understand this?" We were like, "No, we`re American. We like our sports to make sense."
THere were still construction workers standing around doing their jobs when they weren`t staring at us. What I found really odd was that the workers were staring at us instead of the chinese midget. I was like, you stare at things different from you, why aren`t you staring at the midget? And then what creeped me out even more was that the midget was staring at us! I was like whoa! I guess people infected with white skin and blues eyes are a better sight than Oompa Loompas.
When Big Boss John finally showed up, he saw us all laughing at the banners and I think he looked pissed off more from the fact that we were making him lose face than the actual fact that the print shop is really the ones to blame for the mistakes. But I mean, come on, he didn`t check the banners before they were finally printed out. I would have totally done that consider the fact that the chinese have a horrible time in spelling english. And they are too arogant to ask for a foreigner`s help. Sad really. But it gives us a good chuckle.
Mark Lee was like, "To get a pig to wear stilheto heals is as tough a job to get chinese to spell properly." - or something along those lines.
Then John came over to give his speech and tell us what is going on with the place. It was actually quite enjoyable. For 15 minutes he was saying stuff and we were all cracking jokes and John was able to go along with them. Surprisingly fun. And Bill...omg Bill was friggin` hilarious. This is the 65 year old Aussie thats like Bruce Banner..."Don`t make me angry...you wont like me when I`m angry." But he was just dropping laugh bombs all over the place.
When John talked about the teacher`s lounge, he was like, we need couches for having sex on. Along with the beer and other fun things. He said, he wants his grandson to have a good time when he comes around and Mark Lee was like, He knows a catholic priest?
It ruled.
After that viewing we headed off to dinner. Dinner was good. Most of the teachers sat at one table while the chinese staff and a few other teachers sat at the other. It was kinda wierd though, John kept looking at our table with inquisitive eyes. Like he was searching for Judas or something. It was weird. Very uncomfortable. Maybe it was because we were laughing and chatting and he thought it could be about him. Some of it was, but nothing bad.
After that, Miguel, John Irish, Glenn, and I went to the beer gardens for about an hour and that was bout it. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 11:28 PM | Permalink

Man, its the afternoon only, but I needed to get this down before I forgot most of it. It was an interesting morning. I met with that Gong Fu Sifu from dinner on Friday nite. I gave the card he gave me with the name of a resturant on the back to a motorbike guy and he took me a long way away. Its like the opposite side of Xiaolan..almost on the outskirts by all the farms. This started out interesting. I sat down on the curb and called up the guy. I told him where I was and he came an picked me up. He then drove me out of the city proper into the farming ghettos. Boy, and I thought I got stared at alot in the city. I got it worse here. But I think I am at the point now where it doesn't bother me anymore, but anywho, the people I saw stared at me.
He took me over small bridges thru the foliage and etc. Finally got to a complex. It looked like a small cafe/beer hangout. A nightime thing. It turns out, thats his little business. The party are for the locals. It was this building completely built out of bamboo. Its the type of building that all those hip tiki bars try to imitate. It looked ragged though. Really ragged. And so did the dog. It had a limp. Sad. I tried to pet him but he was afraid of me and wouldn't sniff my hand.
So, the guy showed me his place. In front of the bar area there were a couple concrete locations, not very large, that looked like practice areas only they haven't started practicing on them yet. He showed me this set up where he will hang heavy bags and then showed me to a squared off area where he said a Wing Chun wooden dummy would go. At this point, I was laughing in my head. All this talk about him being the #1 Gong Fu Sifu in Xiaolan, i knew it was utter bullshit when he said it, but man...this just hit it home. He doesn't have a practice area. It looks as though he is setting the place up, but it also looks like he isn't putting in much effort either.
Then we sat at one of the card/mah-jong tables and we had a disjointed conversation in Chinese and English. I was picking up some of what he was saying. He called around for people telling them he had an American Friend with him so come on over. Here I was thinking they had practice on Sunday morning like I do in the US. But nope. One of his students, a 19 year old girl, showed up. Her english sounded really good, I understood all that she said, however, she just lacked versatility in it. She has been studying for 1 year with him. But all she does is play the drums... What? Ok. Another girl showed up with better English and another guy with rotted thru teeth as well.
Why I said he was arrogant in the headline was because how he just talked about himself and how he referred to Guo Sifu and other things. He brought to my attention many times that he has been studying "real" Gong Fu for 35 years. He then would say Mr. Kuo (Guo) has been only doing gong fu for 10 years. Throughtout the morning, the length of time Guo Sifu has been studying gong fu had dropped from 10 years, to 9 years, and then finally to 3 years. He was bascially saying that Guo Sifu isn't as good as he is and that Guo Sifu isn't good at all. This is where he just really started to piss me off. It just got on my nerves. He just kept mentioning it. Then he would go on to say that what I am learning at Yongning isn't gong fu, its just for show. Its not "real" gong fu like he is doing. Well, DUH! Its wushu, its performance gong fu. But its still hard and has its basis in real gong fu. I'm sorry, but Wong Fei Hong did Hong Quan and other long fist forms. He kept on saying that gong fu that I have been learning is not typical of China... Funny, its all I see in this country. He just kept on harping on the fact that he teaches real stuff.
He said he is opening this school soon. He also said he has a couple partners. He kept mentioning his partners as well. One of them is the #1 Gong Fu man in China. Pardon me, but if he really is the #1 Champion in China, he wouldn't be hanging out in the ass end of Guangdong. His other partner is very famous in Taiwan. Sure. I bet he is. He made sure I knew this because he mentioned it five times. From what I gather, his group teaches Wing Chun, Taiji, and Lan Quan (whatever that is - not Long Quan).
And then he would say, "So you will start coming everyday, right?" It took me a while to get it into his head that I will be gone all of August. He also finally understood that I have to work the rest of July and that if I make it to his practice it will be when I have time. Talk about me feeling uncomfortable.
I think he wants me to leave Yongning and Guo Sifu and just practice with him. LOL! Hell no. Despite the fact that Guo Sifu hasn't been teaching me all that he could, he has still been quite nice to me. I won't disrespect him like that. I felt like those chinese guys in the old gong fu movies. "You disrespect my teacher! I must give you a lesson. I alone am best!" I mean there were times I wanted to just stand up and leave. I couldn't believe this guys audacity. If he was a real decent gong fu teacher, he would be humble, like Gabriel was. Never once did I hear Gabriel say spiteful things against another teacher to make him look better.
After about 1.5 hours just sitting and doing nothing, he finally decided to have everyone go to brunch. At brunch, an English teacher at the school Ben teaches at, showed up and helped with interpretting things. So, again, I had to listen to all his bullshit again in better English. This is where Guo Sifu's gong fu education had reached the low of 3 years. "Mr. Guo has been studying only 3 years where I have been studying for 30 years." The fact that he has been studying gong fu longer may be true but who has the school and who is teaching? Guo Sifu is really good and I haven't heard him sound arrogant like this fellow. His arrogance may be just pure self-confidence, and who knows, maybe he is right, but I was just disgusted with him.
He said I could start practicing on July 25th. Hmmm....5 days before I leave for the Shaolin temple. Hell, i could give it a try just to see what he is like.
"If you want to learn chinese gong fu, you better learn from me."
I came home and posted a bunch of fotos from yesterday online. Check them out.

This evening Yumi and I met up with John and Jolene around 7pm to go to dinner. First we headed out to this other Hunan place. It was packed so we went to th Yunnan place. It was good food. Only down thing is that John and Jolene got in an arguement during dinner. Don't bring it to the dinner table, please. This is where I heard that Echo had gotten into another motorbike accident. I think this is the 6th or 7th. And I found out that she broke her arm on this one. She hit a car. If this doesn't make her get a drivers licensce, I don't know what will.
Afterwards, we all went to the Beer Gardens at about 9pm. A bunch of folks were there and Yumi and I stayed till about 1130pm. She has to work tomorrow. Peter was there and it turns out that Echo got in this car accident about 2 days ago and didn't tell Peter until last today. He was really pissed off about it. He mentioned that after this, the relationship is over. I also found out it was Nick's last day pretty much. I learned some things about Moses and Amy that were mind blowing. Unbelievable. Mostly about Amy though.
Apparently she made Megan cry two times because of some of the stuff she said about Nick. She was saying things like, "Don't date a foreigner, they are only interested in sex." "You shouldn't date a foreigner younger than you because he will go to college, become smarter than you and then leave you." "You should find an old man to take care of you. (Moses)". And various others. Apparently, she did this every day. It was a complete mind job to me. Here i thought Amy was a really cool woman. Very progressive, very smart, and very different and then this sets her back into the realm of closed minded chinese culture. She seemed so great and then this. I sat there, with my mouth hanging open just dumbfounded. I couldn't believe it.
Nick mentioned the whole selling of stuff in their room as they were leaving. As they were leaving, they were selling their laundry detergent and other little things. I didn't think to much about it at the time, but after Nick mentioned all the stuff they tried to sell, i was just like, jeez. And they still left their room in a pigsty.
Craziness. Well, i am outtie.

Posted by Phil at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Sun Zhongshan Former Residence/Museum/Film Studio fotos.
Today was a very beautiful day. Yumi and I finally got mobilized and hopped a bus to Shiqi at about 1230pm. We got there and hopped another bus, the #12, and headed to Sun Zhongshan's Former Residence and Museum. The bus trip, complete with constant stops, was 1 hour long. But it cost 4RMB. It was a non-AC bus with metal bar seats. Very uncomfortable. But ever since I bought sandals and a pair of shorts, the weather and temperature in this area has been much nicer.
We finally got to our destinitation and saw all the nice sites. On our way there, just down the street we saw what Yumi said was "Zhongshan Castle". Really? I didn't know they had a castle here. Check out the fotos.
The area that he was born into and grew up in is known as Cui Heng village. They still have the village and his birth house. However, when he became more famous and studied abroad, the house he moved into was very interesting. It doesn't look chinese at all. It reminds me of some spanish/portugese style mixed with a little bit of Chinese style. Kinda like Macau. Yumi and I walked the grounds and everything and checked out the museum. It was very nice. Of course, most of what was said had to be approved by the Red Government so i had to take it with a grain of salt. Most of the stuff about his personal history seemed to fit, but I was wary about the political stuff they talked about in the museum.
At one point, there was this 10 year old boy who seemed a little lost. He came up to me and started asking me like 20 questions. It was neat. He spoke well, however, he couldn't answer everything I asked. He said goodbye and skipped off. Later on thru the time there I noticed him following us. We spoke a coupel times and he always said, "Goodbye." It was cute.
We had spent about 1.5 hours hanging out in this area when we pretty much finished it. It was only 330pm. I was like, "Well, it would be a waste to just go back home now, do you want to check out the Castle?" -Ok.
So we exited and decided to walk up the road. The whole way, about .5 miles or something, a nice easy walk, a chinese bicycle carriage rider rode along side of us trying to sell us a map for 6RMB. Literally, the whole 15 minutes as we walked this guy just rode along us saying the same thing and shoving the map in our face as much as he could. We finally got to the castle and it turned out to be the Zhongshan CCTV Film Studio. This is the thing that Coco mentioned last nite. We paid the entrance fee and it was open until 630pm. Sweet. We got lots of time and their seemed to be lots to see. And boy there was. It was really kool. As we gave our tickets to the people, they freely gave us the same map of the location that the bike guy was trying to sell us for 6RMB. What a dip.
It seemed as though this entire studio/set was created solely for the Sun Zhongshan TV Drama Series that played back a couple years ago.
The first thing to see was the fountain surrounded by a couple red buildings whose interiors were designed to look like the external and internal areas of the ship that Sun Zhongshan used to travel at during a famous/important period of his life. They had the cabins and the bed areas. All along the walls they had screen shots from the TV series of him and his wife at the time. Most of the pictures that showed a wife were supposed to be Soong Chin Ling from what I could figure out...his 3rd and final wife. well, maybe 2nd official wife, I don't think he married the middle one. But she is considered a wife by the chinese people.
After that we went a little farther and I saw some horses and people in Nationalist Uniforms. Looks like there may be a show. At first I thought maybe we could ride horseys because I saw a guy in plain clothes riding one. But a show started as we got there.
OMG! this was hilarious. It was also cool. They had the people ride around in a circle and do horse tricks like jumping off the horse then back on while they are riding and doing alll these acrobatics on the horse. They ultimate cheesyness though came when they had choreographed a staff fight between 3 people and it was complete with delayed sound effects presented over the speakers. It ruled. Afterwards they were giving rides around the track on a horse for 10rmb. So, we both did it. The saddle tore up all the healing flesh on my burn so it started oozing again. Yuck. But the most memorable thing about the ride was the fact that when the guy started galloping the horse my balls proceeded to be compeletely crushed. As the horse galloped I was like, "Oow ow ow ow ow ow ow ooooooow!" After my turn was up, I was getting down and one of the horses idling made a dash for the exit door to escape. I don't believe these guys treated the animals very well. I noticed alot of gashes and wounds on the horses. Then, for Yumi's turn as he was sending the horse of, the guy kicked him in the ass. Like...hard...and full of malice. I was like...shit!
After the horse rides we walked around the area and walked up the stairs that go to the chinese temple honoring Sun Zhongshan. The view from up here was spectacular. As we walked back down we heard a performance getting ready. We got there and sat down. We were really the only spectators there. It was funny. They had some "Shaolin" kids, some dancers, some gong fu, and some more dancers. Then they all gathered on the stage and waved goodbye to Yumi and I. Very cool.
We then walked around the other sets. American Town, China Town, England town, Japan Town, and the Battlefield. Over at England and American Town there were a couple of newlywed couples taking fotos at various places. And the photographer was a such a stereotype. Long hair, a hip black outfit with the shirt unbuttoned halfway down. So funny. It was a kool place. I am very happy we came across it. Check out the fotos.
We then walked back to the bus stop and started walking back to Shiqi until a bus showed up. This time we caught an AC equipped #12. 5RMB this time. We got to the Fu Hua hotel and we just barely snagged the last non-stop bus back to Xiaolan. ONce we got back, Yumi went home and I went to practice for an hour. I was going easy because my legs were still sore from Chang Quan the other night.
After practice, I met up with Yumi again and Nick, John, and Damon and we went to the Beer Gardens. It was good and relaxing. It was good. Such a good day. Such a good day. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 03:28 PM | Permalink

I woke up this morning and read about the London Bomb Terrorist Attacks. What a shame. I don't really know what to say about it. Other than it really sucks.

So, for some reason, John Irish came back. Of course, he explained it to me and it makes sense, but still. ITS BOND! Oh well. The first moment he got back last nite he was talking to Jolene and they planned for him to stay somewhere else when he has spoken to them about the Big House or Peter's. He was like..."It's starting..."
Last week, Jolene asked me to work friday nite so I said sure, because I had a vacation the whole week. Then, I knew this was gonna happen, Coco called me and said the DeXing End of the term dinner was tonite. So I told her i couldn't go and she couldn't understand. I called Jolene and told her what happened. I didn't ask for work off, but Jolene told me to go to the dinner. Ok. So I called Coco back and told her I was gonna go.
I spent most of this morning putting in English subtitles on the wedding DVD. Man, this subtitle editor needs some fixing in the next update. You hear that APPLE? Its sooooo slow. I then headed over to meet up with John at Pete's around 330pm. As I got there, John was leaving to go meet Jolene. So i hung out with Peter and Nick. Then I had to head out to my De Xing dinner.
As I was leaving, John was arriving back. He looks taller now. But its because of his giant boots. I told him we would get together after dinner.
I went to dinner and it was good. I said thank yous and goodbyes to everyone and toasted them all. That big guy from the Teacher's Day and end of the Fall term dinner was there again. Coco told everyone I planned to go to the Shaolin Temple during August and he got exctied and started talking to her. Apparently he is a gong teacher somewhere. It would have been nice if he coulda told me this when I first got here. I mean, Coco told everyone I liked gong fu. But nope. Oh well. Coco acted as an interpreter and he said he taught "real" chinese gong fu. OH GOD please don't let it be Xanda. That fake "real" chinese gong fu. I made plans to meet with him on sunday at 9AM for practice. I am interesting. He basically said that he is the Gong Fu King of Xiaolan and that his partner is #1 Champion of China. Thats some impressive bullshitting. I highly doubt both of those statements. He started talking about Taiji and so I figured, hey ,I can check it out. THere is no harm in it.
After dinner, which was good, I had to go to Karaoke and sing a couple songs. I tried to sing Hey Jude and Fly Me To the Moon. Its so hard to sing karaoke withou without the real music.
Afterwards I met with Yumi and John and Jolene at Sunday bar and then Antoine showed up with two of his Frenchmen posse and we hung out.
It was late so we headed home. John went with the frenchies to a cabaret bar. He said it was lame but sort of fun.

Posted by Phil at 04:06 PM | Permalink

All day today I did stuff. Mostly DVD related. I went to teach Daisy and do Chinese lesson. However, I spent my time of the lesson having Daisy's Mom help me with English translations of the chinese from the wedding. It was the best I could do. I think its far from perfect, but I don't have the ability to do an exact translation.
Daisy's cousin kept interupting us though, wanting to listen and watch and push all the buttons on the computer as we were watching it and when he was sent away....many times, he would start screaming really highpitch and fake crying. I wanted to punch this kid square in the face. He annoys the hell out of me.
I went to gong fu tonite and gave sifu his gift. He seemed to like it. He was surprised. His daughter and Tommy instructed me more on Chang Quan. They kept on saying, "Do it right" "That's not correct"
I was like, "Give me a break I just learned this new move today. I am working on it."
Tommy speaks pretty good and Michelle is ok. Still working on it.
I am really sore tonite. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:51 AM | Permalink

Well, all last nite I had an aching stomach...not too bad...just enuff to irritate me. I need talk to Nick, see if this is what he had over the weekend. If I laid on my back, it hurt the most and it was relieved as I laid on my sides. However, last nite it was the other way. If I laid on my sides, it hurt. Wierd. After I got home from gong fu, it was really sore. I had some breakfast this morning, the sweet mutant brother of the Banana, forgot the name, and an apple ans some water. Stomach is still slightly sore.
Spent most of my morning updating this here journal. The Wedding video is still encoding.
I got LIMEWIRE open so I think thats whats causing the drain on the processor speed.
I was speaking with Robert just a bit ago and I mentioned the DVD. He said he is excited to see it and I am like, well this is the wedding one. He was like, oh.
But then he said, "Man, whenever I think of the last DVD, I just keep laughing. When you pose that questions, "What do you tihnk of China?'. I can't stop laughing when I think about it. Its soooo true."

giggle. That makes mesa happy.

Posted by Phil at 12:16 PM | Permalink

I could have had the entire DVD movie edited and encoded today, but I needed to wait on some help to translate a couple of title screens into chinese. I also wanted a second opion on a color filter I was using for the apartment footage. We spent alot of time at the apartment and the lighting wasn't the best so the footage I shot all pretty dark under chinese indoor flourescent lights. I had two filters I was playing with, Color Corrector and RGB Balance. I first was using the Color Corrector, and it worked with a drawback. It brought the colors up and looked normal, however, it made it look grainier. I liked it, but it wasn't the best. So I mixed it with the RGB and increased the red which gave a positive look because it brought back in the flesh colors of the people. However, it also increased the red in all the other pixels in the room, so it accented on the negative side of the color corrector. So, Mountain and Peter took a look at it. I eventually settled on just the RGB and it seems ok. Its still smooth and dark, but with the RGB added, it looks more natural.
I had moved the TV into my bedroom because I didnt feel like moving all my junk in the living room. I tried hooking my computer to the TV for an external monitor and because I was going thru another harddrive, it wasn't working right. So I had to move files around which took time. When I had everything set up properly, it didnt' work. ugh. So frustrating. Then after a while I figured out what you ahve to do. I had to have the camera plugged in and on before starting up the program. So, i got it on TV and used that. Those color filters look good on the computer because the viewing window is so small, but once you put it on the TV, things are much bigger and it was here that I realized that the Color Corrector wasn't very good. So i trashed it.
I then added some titles to it and started the encoding process.
I then went off to Gong fu. I took a bike again because I haven't goteen around to fixing my bike tire. Practice was good and tuff. Sifu was there. We had a couple discussion in Chinese....there was lots of finger pointing and visual aids.
Well, I my stomach hurts and I don't know why. I think Nick might have given me his cold that he had this weekend. Thanks. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Today was nice. I spent most of the day throwing together this DVD for Ben and Xiao Hong. I got pretty much all the editing done today. Wow. That was quick. But thats all I really did.
I bought another harddrive today at the computer store. 160GB and I got it for about $60US. Pretty good I think.
To celebrate 4th of July, I told Nick I was gonna order a Pizza. I ran off to the computer store about 520pm, got my harddrive, and on the way back I forced a motorbike taxi guy to pull over at a little shop that was selling chinese fireworks. Those really loud red bastards that people set off during Chinese New Year and special days.
I walk up to them and they jump out of their chairs from surprise when they see me. They come over to the little table and I point to what I want. "Dou shou qin?" (or whatever the pinyin is for How much cost?" And maybe these folks only spode guangdonghua because all they did was bring out one set of fireworks. I asked again, and they brought out 2 more sets. So i brought out my wallet, shook it and pointed at the fireworks making the international money sign with my right hand. They brougth out 2 more sets. UGH! Then I think they understood. "Lian kwai" (2 kwai). Ok. so i said "wu-ga" (5 units). They gave me five and i paid 10RMB. I prolly got ripped off too. :D pretty cheap.
I hopped back on the motorbike and we headed off for the house. I got in at about 550pm and we ordered a Pizza. Yumi was on her way and she showed up 10 minutes later. So, it was just the three of us. An American, a Canadian, and a Japanese. So, we went up to the roof to set off the fireworks. It was a beautiful day today. Very pretty. Blue skies, not many clouds. Great.
I set off the fireworks. Nick videotaped it all. The chinese don't seem to beleive too much in wicks because there were barely any wicks. That means there isn't much time to get away from these loud thingyies. The first one went off fine. The second one had a longer wick, clearly by accident, and that one went off fine. The thrid...well, i almost blew off my hand. The wick was so short that before I had released the firework set from its intended arch, the wick burnt my index finger and that cause me to waver my hand which led the fireworks to break apart in the air as they were hurtling across the roof. While in the air only about 3 things exploded. The rest didn't get any fire from the initial wick.
So we spent the next 10 minutes trying to use something else for lighting the wick. Nick then lit up a cigarette and handed it to me. I used that. Placed the last couple sets on a stool and set them off. I took the duds and re used them. It was good. We contemplated dropping the last set off the roof, but the streets were too busy. If i had done so, it would have been when no one was around.
We went back down and the pizza came. Yummy.
Tonite I had gong fu practice so I went. My bike's front tire had blown over the weekend so I took a motorbike taxi. As I was getting off, my calf grazed the exhaust pipe and I burned a 2 inch diameter circle just under the calf. Fantastic!
Sifu wasn't there but his daughter was so I practiced with her. It must have been the spices on that pizza because after awhile, I started feeling sick from all the practice. So i had to leave early. I couldn't find a ride home so I walked. As I got close to home, I saw a dog urinating on a tree and then I saw a chinese kid urinating and deficating on the sidewalk. ......hmm....which one has more courtesy?
I got home and worked more on the DVD editing. I also chatted with some friends i haven't talked to in awhile. It was good. Well, goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:21 AM | Permalink

I didn't meet an orangutang...and I know the spelling is way off on that one, but you get the idea. I just needed a title. Today was ok. Yumi and I went to foot massage, I got paid, went to John at the computer store (Violet's father) and talked to him about harddrives and CF Digital Camera Memory cards. I brought Yumi back to the house with her computer and we went thru the process of setting up her computer so we can do video chat whie she is in China dn I am in the US. It took us awhile to get it working because her webcam, though the box says, doesn't work properly with Windows XP. Chinese bootlegged crap. John sold us this thingy. It wsa kool when it was working though.
That tool along time to do. Then we grabbed some dinner. Yummy.
Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:53 AM | Permalink

Yumi and I woke up early this morning. She had to leave to meet some friends at 920AM so I walked her out and saw her off. I then went to Ben's apt to drop some clothes off. No answer. I called his fone and it was shut off. uh oh. So i went and grabbed some food and go this finalized to go. I called over there every 15 minutes. No answer. I went over there again and no answer at the door. It was getting close to the time that I needed to be checking out and leaving to go meet Peter, Nick, and Echo. It was a beautiful Saturday morning. Nice breeze, bright sun, no clouds in the sky. Great. I went over there once last time and rang the bell and he answered and let me in.
I walk into the apt. Ben is standing there and looks like he just got up. His voice was hoarse from a long night of celebrating and drinking and obviously a late wedding nite. He was pacing around the apartment. "I don't know where my wife is. We are supposed to meet my parents for dinner 10 minutes ago." He was calling her and no answer. He told me to get my stuff and bring it back so I could leave it there. So I did. As I was leaving my hotel room, out of Seth and Will's room walked one of the bridesmaids. I was like, "DAMN!" So we walked back to Ben's place together. Ben spoke with her a bit then got a hold of Xiao-hong and they discussed things. Apparently one of the aunts got upset because she didn't feel Ben and XiaoHong were paying enuff attention to them and went home early. The one that kept staring at me from yesterday. Ben and I went back to the hotel to check out. Thru all in all...I was given 100RMB back. I didn't pay anything. Apparently because of some deal they swindled with them and the parents staying at that hotel but leaving a day early, I was able to get 100RMB. Wow. kickass. I don't know the details. It was very confusing.
Seth came down and Ben was like..."guess what I heard - i have witnesses saying a bridesmaid spent the nite. Seth was like, "Yeah, she slept at the foot of the bed and her sister slept on 3 chairs pulled together. All I remember is saying something to Will last nite when we got home then waking up at 1030 this morning." Ben and I laughed.
Will then came down and we parted ways for this afternoon. I hopped the 201 bus into town. I got down to the stop and then 1 minute later it showed up. I took that for like 35 minutes into town. Got off at the beautiful hotels and walked down the rode to LATIN GRILL. It was a buffet place that had people walking around with BBQ meats. Peter was there for the beef and just kept eating beef. The one i realy liked was the LAMB. Oh man...was it good.
The owner or manager came to our table with a skewer and spoke to us in Chinese briefly because I dont think he speaks english. He is from one of the Spanish speaking countries in the New World as far as I could tell. Echo was amazed. "Wow, he knows some chinese. Do you think he know Chinese?" Duh. Peter said, "Lets see. He is the owner/manager of a large resturant in Guangzhou and he doesnt' seem to speak English, i am guessing he has to know Chinese a little bit."
Its that Chinese arrogance that just still irritates me. I spoke with Ben about it and he said it took him almost 2 years to get over and accept that mindset. He was like, they are ingrained with this belief since they are kids that Chinese people are naturally more clever, that their culture is so complex, and that the language is so hard that only Chinese people can learn it. Most of Ben's students were amazed with the fact that he was able to get around Guangzhou. They would say, "If you want to go downtown, how do you do it?" -The same way as you, Nits!
As I have told a couple people, I haven't found the language too difficult. The problems I have is finding a teacher thats useful and the other problem is that every 10 feet people speak a different dialect. Also the fact that chinese people don't believe forgeiners can speak Chinese doesn't help when you first start talking to them in Chinese.
So, after lunch, Peter and Echo went off to a job interview. Nick and I went to the big computer center. It was nice, but alot of junk. Neither of us bought anything and it started raining. So we were like...lets just go. There is nothing to do in Guangzhou if you don't need to shop. Yuppers.
I headed back to the bus stop to wait for the 201. It was pouring rain and of course, the bus stop for the 201 wasn't across the street from the other 201 stop since that would make sense, so I had to run thru the rain to find the right stop and on top of that, I missed the 201 bus. So i had to wait for another 30 minutes for the next one. I don't know why it was only 1 per 30 minutes, the damn 220 was coming every 3 minutes. Argh.
So i got back to Ben's apartment around 4pm.
I sat around with Ben's folks, Seth, and Will while they watched Drunken Master while Ben and XiaoHong dissappeared. I finally told Ben I needed to head out. Ben went with me to the bus station that I was supposed to go to originally and i got a ticket for 530pm. We chatted and stuff. I left and apparently this bus station and area is the Ass End of Guangzhou...well, the East end. The farthest from Xiaolan. It took about 2.5 hours to get back. Almost an hour to get thru Guangzhou and its suburbs. The bus was playing "A World Without Thieves". It seemed pretty good. Andy Lau movie.
I got back to my place and uploaded one of the movie tapes as I watched TV and fooled around with nothing. Goodnite.

Posted by Phil at 10:58 AM | Permalink

Woke up early again today and left Yumi sleeping. I got to Ben's at 830AM. I figured by now, the chinese family would be all over this place. I showed up and Ben was all dressed and surprised I was the first. He was like...I was reading a book. ...must be nervous. About 9AM the chinese family came over and proceeded to decorating his apartment. It was interesting because they would come to him and say something wasn't right and he would call XiaoHong and talk to her and then give them an answer. The most important room was the bedroom. The family puts down new sheets and decorates it to the 9s. They started freaking out because the pillows weren't new so one of the ladies went off to buy new pillows. I got some really good shots. There was a little boy, that according to Ben, was not supposed to be there. He was just like one of my kindergarten kids only more crazy. Ben calls him "Monster". There were a bunch of XIao Hongs family. A cousin, close friend...called Karaoke Guy, his wife, and the monster boy, Her mom, dad, and her dad's 3 sisters. One of the 3 sisters who looked as though she was wearing pajamas, whenever I was in the room with her an my camera, she was just staring at me with this huge smile. I think she makes it on film doing the same thing as well. Its kinda funny.
Oh, this was the first time I got a chance to try out my chinese Zhongshan Suit. It fit pretty good. However, it was muggy today and for some reason, chinese don't like to close sliding doors when they go out onto the porch and then back into the apartment. I don't know how many times I had to go back and close doors others had opened up. Normally I prolly wouldn't, but we had about 20+ people in this apartment and it was getting to be a steam bath. Keeping doors closed and the AC on is a good thing.
Around 11AM we headed out to go pick up Xiao Hong. We got downstairs and as we walked to the car, all of Ben's studnets were outside watching him and clapping. All the girls were screaming and fawning like during Beatlemania. As we got close to the car, I was like, "Ben, which one is the mob boss?" He said the guy in the black shirt. He was a quiet guy. He stood off behind the other drivers and had was holding his hands just under his stomach. All the other drivers were running around n shouting. Kinda an interseting site. He seemed like he may have command of these folks.
So we got to the hotel to pick up XiaoHong. We went to the 15th floor where we were walking down the hall while the cleaners were vaccuuming and everything. They saw us coming down the hall so they shut things off. We got to the last room and the room where the guys were bribing the bridesmaids to let him in to see Xiaohong. I told them to offer 1RMB and if they say "no", start walking away. It seems to work whereever I go. :D They actually tried it. Awesome. Ben proceeded to sing a song. And after some time they let him in. The room was pretty small for about 12 people standing in the same place. Xiaohong sat in between the two beds looking absolutely beautiful in her dress. Ben had to search for her shoe. He found it behind the telephone next to the bed. We then took her back to the apartment.
Back at the apartment, more people had shown up. Ben's folks, Yumi, and a few others. There, we took some fotos, and had sweet soup. Then the family did the Tea Pouring Ceremony. The kids getting married would pour tea to the parents asking for the blessing. They also did it with the rest of Xiao Hongs family: the three aunts and the close friend's family. Then we had some dumplings for lunch. After some time of just hanging out, the bridal party left to go back to the hotel to prepare the reception n stuff. We got to chill in this nice big private room.
Then came the time. They greeted the guests and received little red packets. Then as dinner started, this was sort of a hellish time for me videotaping because no one told us what was going on. THere is a reason why people in the US do wedding rehearsals. They came down the aisle and stood up and started giving a speech. I was like NOOOO!! I was running out of tape. So I made a quick change that surprisingly went pretty well. Watching it while I was downloading it made me surprised. I kept the camera pretty darn steady and focused on the right thing.
After their speeches they cut a cake,that nobody ate. Then dinner started. Then the bride and groom went to each table and they did shots of Beiju and Vodka. Then they just went aroudn chatting with people. Some people gave speeches and I got people to wish goodluck and things.
It was getting late and people had started to leave. Yumi looked bored and my job was prety much done with for the nite so we left and Ben paid me. Pretty kool.
I told Ben that I needed to go somewhere tmorrow at 12 to meet some friends and he was like, "Sure, just leave your stuff at my place and we wil check you out."
Well, Goodnite all.

Posted by Phil at 11:33 AM | Permalink