A rainy Saturday in Guangzhou.
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.