I hate the rain. I don't mean the small spring showers we get in Ohio where it will pound done rain for like 10 minutes and then sprinkle for 3 hours. Even when it rains steady all day, at least I can drive through it or sit at home and watch. It started raining in Shiyan a measly 13 days ago, and it only once for about 5 hours in the afternoon. At first the rain was just annoying but then it decided that it was autumn so now it is ridiculously cold outside. Which is even more fun when you have to go tromping through the rain and you just wetter as you go so you get colder as you again so eventually you end up a soaking, freezing mess, hypothermia anyone? It was in this beautiful weather that our school prepared to welcome its new class of Freshman, a meager 5200 or so students. As you may be able to tell from the pictures I posted we welcomed all the students outdoors under 10 by 10 ft canopies. I sat with the International School and provided the service of a handshake and "Welcome to college, you are going to love it. It is the best time of your life." The Chinese people with me just passed out class lists, schedules, IDs, and maps of the campus. Obviously I felt my contribution was the most important. Mostly though I just ended up scaring students and their parents because I am a big scary foreigner and they have never seen one in person. As Gordon put it, "The shape and arrangement of your facial organs are unpleasant for some people to look at." In essence, I am ugly. We also got hosed as a department with the placement of our desk. There were two sides one side was on pavers and the other side was in grass. Now with only 200 or so students coming to our desk it took mos of the day to turn the grassy knoll we were sitting on into a mud pit. So for the last 4 hours or so we sat in mud basically. Instead of just moving the line of desk forward 3 yards so we could be on the pavers as well, the Chinese just threw large posters and other papers on the ground to cover the mud. Which of course worked great until 3 people walked on it and pushed them into the mud and the depression filled with water. All in all it wasn't to terrible, I met the president of the school. He came down with the leaders and they were walking around shaking hands and kissing babies and such. They spotted me so of course they came over and said hello. Then with Gordon translating I had a short 5 minute conversation with him, I now have what the Chinese call guanxi, which means connections with important people. Of course when I tell my Chinese friend this, they just roll their eyes at me, they are jealous I know it! At one point I decided to help a few students out that were wearing their nurses uniform and trying to stand at attention by their table. There were 3 in all and they were sub standard by Buckingham palace standards. So being the culture sharing foreigner that I am I went over and tried to show them the proper way to do it. You don't check your cell phone, you don't talk to your friends, no laughing, no smiling, and definitely no sitting down on the job. So I should them how to stand like a rock with no expression and absolute focus, and then they all just lined up and took pictures next to me, crazy. So you may see in one the photos I took a picture with one of the girls, you might notice most of pictures involve girls. Besides Gordon their was a noticeable lack of guys who showed up, it was like 3 or 4 to 1, not that I was complaining. The last funny story, on the second day of check-in we had to wait the whole day for the last 20 or so students that had not shown up on the first day. So Gordon and I were playing cards and we got in trouble. Which of course made me angry because at the table next to us two of the students there were asleep, but we couldn't play cards, ridiculous.
You will also notice in the new pictures so photos from a dinner at Gordon's grandparent's home. Last week was mid-autumn festival, a little soon I thought but who cares I got a day off of school for it. So the festival was on Monday, so on Sunday Peter and I went to one of his student's family homes to eat lunch. It was a pretty routine affair, trying to get Peter and I drunk and feeding us lots of spicy food that was a little scary to look at. On the whole though most of the food was good and it was a pleasant afternoon, which involved me beating Chinese people at Chinese poker and visiting a residential construction site, which was pretty exciting but we will discuss in culture corner next time. Then on Monday we went to Gordon's families home for dinner and it was amazing. They had ond of the greatest foods I hav ever tasted in China. They had made a dumpling with pork filling, but instead of a dough shell they made the shell out of an egg that had been scrambled and fried. It might be the best breakfast idea I have run across in China. Imagine a sausage filled egg for breakfast every morning you could eat 2 or 3 it would be amazing. Also we had spring rolls, fried peanuts, regular dumplings, beef and tomato soup and a horde of other delicious foods. It was by far the best family meal I have eaten in China, the only one better would have been my taco night last Tuesday. Two weeks ago some students came over and cooked me dinner, so I decided to reciprocate by making tacos. I had taco seasoning and cheese (yes cheese real cheese) and I went out and bought ground beef, tomatoes, lettuce, and flour and cornmeal. My first mistake was completely over estimated the amount of flour and cornmeal I needed. In China it is sold by the jin, which is roughly half a kilogram which is roughly a pound, but as I was buying it I was thinking a jin was half a pound because I was distracted, high, or dumb not sure which. So I ended up with 3 jin of each. To make the tortilla shells, I wanted make 30 of them, I only need 3 1/2 cups of each, I still have like a full pound of each in my kitchen. I made up the dough then rolled them and then cooked up some homemade tortillas and then cooked up the beef and diced up tomatoes and lettuce and of course shredded the cheese. I think I ended up with about 32 shells total and 3 pounds of hamburger total. It only took 11 of us about 20 minutes to eat them all. It was eerie how quickly it got quite in my apartment a few minutes after I put the food on the table. It was definitely a success and already I have had more students who heard about it asking me to do it for them, so If you are listening at home I need taco seasoning, cheese, salsa, and enchilada sauce so I can try something new. Just email me and I will send you the address so you can send me some, thanks.
Last I want to talk about the Three Kingdoms Glory and Conspiracy. The Three Kingdoms is a famous period of Chinese history when there were you guessed it 3 competing kingdoms in China. Many of the stories and movies about Ancient China center around this period. Well the Chinese have developed a card strategy game, not a collectible card or trading card strategy game just a standard card strategy game. You buy one box and all the cards are in it and then you can buy expansion boxes with more characters. So as not to bore the majority of you and to keep me off your nerd radar I won't go into the finer points of the game. As some of you may know I have played the odd strategy game either on a computer, Playstation, with cards, or even on a table, so I am not new to the ideas in the game. However the whole game is of course in Chinese, but Gordon who loves the game spent the time to translate the whole game into English, so I have a file on my computer with every card and its English translation. I spent one afternoon with Gordon maybe 3 hours learning how to play the game. Now to Gordon's great displeasure and the amazement of all the Chinese I play, I dominate the game. We have played a lot Gordon and I, both one on one and in large groups of 6 to 8 players. On taco night we played four games, I won all four. We played two nights later just me and Gordon, I won 3 out of 4. It just amazes all these Chinese people that I can be so good at a game that is in Chinese. It makes my day and just because I am a rude foreigner I do a happy dance every now and then when I win. Also there is a special occasion in the game where lightening plays an important roll. You have a chance to be hit by it, a low chance, but if you are it usually kills your character. I have the lucky touch when it comes to this event, I almost never get hit and the person I am playing does get hit. So I will close with this as a poor dejected Chinese person stares across the table at me realizing that they just lost again to a foreigner I look them in the face and I ask, "Can you hear the thunder? Cause I Can Feel The LIGHTENING!!"
p.s. man i am a jerk
