the long winded china stories
(part five)
in xuzhou we just mainly hung out. it was VERY hot so we didn't do a
whole lot. i did get to teach one of tiger's classes which he teaches
in his home. the kids were all about 13 years old and most of them had
probably never met a foreigner before. i mainly taught them conversation
so it was pretty easy. one day i asked this one boy "are you an egg?"
and he said "yes" so i drew a picture of an egg on the board and asked
"is this you?" he then said "no" but it was too late. and from that day
on he was known as mr. egg.
nearly every day we would go to this dumpling restaurant to eat.(i love
dumplings) the bosses husbund used to be a doctor. but he makes more
money working for his wife without having to deal with politics.
their daughter was in junior high and had been studying english. so
whenever i was there he would phone her and say "come quick teacher
william is here". and then she'd come to practice her english with us.
she was a really bright girl. i was impressed. the boss' husbund also showed
me the photo album he had of the various foreingers that had come to
their restaurant. we took pictures together and i am sure now i am in that
photo album. they were very kind to me.
one day tiger and one of his friends who had a van took me to see an old
tomb. there are lots of tombs in and around xuzhou. its really great to
walk in the damp ancient hallways. and to touch these walls carved 2,000
years ago. unfortunately most of the actual artifacts found were taken
to a museum in beijing. but it was still nice to see.
one day we were getting ready to eat. and tiger showed me this dish
and asked me if i had ever seen this before. it looked like blackened
bumble bees. but they weren't, they were cicadas. during the summer
you can hear them buzzing in the trees. the hotter it gets the louder they
get. needless to say. i was not feeling adventurous enough to eat them.
near the end of my trip one of tiger's friends, master li, came to visit us.
he works with tiger at his school doing maintenance work. he is a very kind
man. last time i was here he brought me local xuzhou food to try. this
time he brought me a chinese dictionary to help with my studies. now if
only i was a better student i might actually be able to use it. (the
dictionary is all in chinese using simplified characters which are harder
for me to read).
on my last night there i went out with tiger and a friend of his i'll just
call the playboy. we went to a karaoke place. before i went i told them
i wouldn't sing just listen. (i hate to sing). well once we get there
they tell me since there are only 3 of us i HAVE to sing. so i end up
singing "happy birthday" and "say you say me". well singing is probably
stretching what i was doing. during one of my attempts a woman walks into
our room and sits down by the playboy. he is flirting with her. and then
turns to me and says "china girl you like?". i look at tiger as if to say
is he saying what i think he is? later when we got home tiger asked me if
their were many girls like that in america. and i asked him like what?
he said girls that sell their bodies for sex. so then i knew i hadn't imagined
it i had been offered a prostitute!
the next day i flew back to beijing. i was wary of beijing after the
problems i had had there before. but when i got off the plane a man
asked me if i needed a taxi. he asked me in perfect english too. i told
him i needed to go to the bank. so he showed me where it was. and then i asked
if he knew where a cheap hotel was. and he took me to one that was like dorm
housing. well, very cheap at any rate. it was filled with foreigners.
this taxi driver of course wasn't a real taxi driver. he drove only
foreigners so he doesn't get caught. i probably paid him too much but
he was kind and told me how he picked up his english by playing pool
with americans in bars. he also told me he wanted to come to the u.s.
but had been denied a visa both times he applied. he said he had 10,000
u.s. saved for the american woman that would marry him.
from my trips to beijing i really feel like i only saw a small part of
the city. despite the problems there i did like the city. maybe not as
much as i expected to. the pollution was so bad i could never see very
far so i never could get a good idea of how big the city really was.
after my trips to china i am even more suspicious of anything i read
in the paper. i always wonder who the journalists talked to. were they
just bussinessmen? people in the big city? or people in smaller cities?
the whole china problem is much more complicated than the press really is
able to show. the only way to truly see how life is there is to go see for
yourself. and even then you will only see a fraction of it. i feel very
lucky to have gone twice. and to have learned what i learned by being there.
part two
part three
part four
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