It was another quaint weekend, closely knit with the group. It is indeed a cultural experience, but weekend time just feels like it should be reserved for the group. Mostly because we never seen anyone outside of weekdays, because our routine seems to be; go to work, go home, eat, maybe some small activity with family, and go to sleep. Very little in between time. Unless of course you're doing so little at work you can afford to go visit Maxime who craves our attention like a 7 year old wants candy. It's quite funny sometimes.
It was great seeing everyone again at Maxime's office. It's always great. I will admit, not like Katimavik, because we ARE away from eachother for so long (or what seems so long) The circle check was another, well, the word emotional is getting worn out. There was a bit of almost-crying, bit of laughing, and a bit of yelling. However, I really must disagree with one participants notion that we don't need circle check. We joked how we shouldn't say anything about anything and just let it blow up at the end. It's funny, cause that exactly what would happen! It's not just about expressing how you feel and WHY you feel that way (as we described it should be) its about sharing, your feelings and your experience, letting others know about issues you may have similar problems with or have never thought of. It enriches the culture and eases the shock I think. And apparently, segregates some particular people when we all think shes a BITCH. *cough, but I won't say who. We went for a little field trip to Tiannanmen Square that cold day. I was a bit sad, because my camera was full. Although I had already taken pictures of the square, I wanted to take pictures of the very large theatre and all the other random places we were. Not to mention the bad parking some cars did! Oh wow! I don't know how some of them do it. We went shopping at some electronic store and we had Lilly help Lyndsay and I look at USB keys. I got a 2Gb stick for 100 yuan. So about 15$. Not bad. Gotta store all my pictures somewhere. I'm still in the market for a camera and shoes. But here, you have to be careful of getting knock offs. And you can't really tell until you use the product, although some have a sticker to show its good. We went to a very, VERY spicy restaurant that night. It was more nice then spicy I think. The bathrooms had pole dancer silhouettes and the hand washers were spouts of out trees! Classy. The food was good. We had fun with a certain pepper corn that made your lips and tongue all tingly. We did the pub thing again, which was a big hassle getting people home again. And it's so freakin expensive at pubs. Like seriously, 5 yuan for a beer at a restaurant, like 45 at a pub. Go get plastered at the restaurants! Then go get the casual beer with lounge. That's the Chinese-Canadian way.
I went out with Yuchan the whole day after. We were planning on getting lost and just finding our way around, exploring, whatever. I didn't care. We did a bit of shopping, and took the subway. I was a bit surprised when Yuchan, the chinese-Canadian participant, wanted to take the LONG way to her aunts house. It would have been like 16 stops! I told her we could turn around, take the transfer and be there in like 4. She was a bit mad and stammered "Do you want to get off and go back then?" Usually, I'd fold and just be like, "sigh, FINE!" No, this time I said "Yes! I do! Let's go back" We went back, and taking the transfer, Yuchan looked at a map, and hung her head. I looked at the map and bugged her "Yuchan, does this mean I was right? Does it!!! I know China better than you!!??!" She was pissed, but also, WRONG! It was funny and made me feel a little better knowing that a small-town boy can adapt to the big city well. We went to her aunts house, visited for a short bit. They had a medium says puppy husky. It was fun, being all friendly with it, as most of the Chinese are afraid of dogs. I was rubbing its face, being all "YOUR SUCH A GOOD BOY, ARENTCHA! ARENTCHA!" They were a bit surprised I wasn't afraid, as I was a bit surprised they were surprised. It's a dog! A cute fluffy dog with one of those smiles they give! Sure, some bite, but come on! ITS CUTE! It made me feel relaxed though, almost like a bit at home. Where a pet is a pet, or to a larger extent, a member of the family. Not a novelty, like so many small dogs in clothing I see walked around. I was told large dogs are illegal. I have this theory that they are chopped up into Chinese meat. I kid you not, one restaurant had dog meat. I won't go home til I try it once! Anyway, I took Yuchan home after a long day and lots of walking.
More walking ensured the next day (FUCK, I need better shoes!) I met Leah and Heather for coffee and RBT, (real brewed tea) and has a rabbit as a symbol. Jokes of the name are easy. They also have swings in there at some tables! But we also have this theory (lots of theories) that there's a waiting list to get on there, as they are always filled. So, back to lunch. We had some interesting conversations over various mocha/coffee/tea drinks and potatoe snacks. (I miss potatoes) The topics included the regular group stuff, sex, cars, and missing home. I think in that order. So now you see why I love hanging out with my group. Jamie joined us in a walk to a very commericial business center, like Times Square almost. We checked out a book store, flipped through some pages. I bought a better mandarin translation. Before I went home, I visited Maxime shortly to drop off his belated house warming gift. I had planned to buy him a carpet, but his floor is ass-nasty, and everyone wears slippers, so that seemed pointless. So I bought him some action figures at the market place, so he can re-enact little battles when he's all lonely and not with the participants. He loved them.
We had our first CAD yesterday. As Gary and I walked to the north gate of the Temple of Heaven, I asked Gary if we should be walking across the road at that point. Rushing traffic answered my question. Like the metaphor I used to describe my culture shock, it had become real. I was like a cat in the middle of Beijing traffic! Gary gripped my coat tight and told me not to walk. Well, no shit!!! We waited until a break between the cars and ran. Geez Gary! Pay attention next time!!! So we carried on. The Temple of Heaven is like right dab smack in the middle of the Chongwen district. It was quite pretty. Lots of gates, and trees, and buildings, and okay, it was AMAZING. I takes a lot to really amaze me. This was just nice. The architecture was cool though. I almost cried when camera dilemma wasn't a full memory card this time, but dead batteries! Luckily, Sadie loaned me some. So I carried on, taking group pictures, those of me in front of these monuments, and some artistic ones. There was this cool "echo wall" where if you stand at opposite sides of this circled area with bricks close together, you can hear the other person quite clearly. I was assured that it probably wouldn't work, with too many people doing it. But there were few. It was a highlight. Although you were only like 60 metres away. Some cool pictures later, and we were out for lunch. We went to a nice jiaozi place (fried dumplings) We went to a Peking Opera after! I was excited. Sure, it was opera, but I like theatre and the arts no less. Fuck, was I surprised. I thought we were going into an apartment building to take a piss, but no, it was in the basement! The stage was decent though. We had this theory (see!) that this opera, being in the basement of an apartment building, was put on by the employees (land lord, janitors, etc) the audience was the tenants. And a few bored as hell CWY participants. As you could imagine, it wasn't that great. It totally wasn't what I was expecting. While I was expecting a large auditorium, bellowing singing, amazing costumes, and the sense of a grand opera, what we got was pretty cool costumes, a talking, coughing audience (especially one guy!) annoying repetitive music, shrilling annoying "singing" and of course, the good ol' language barrier. I am quite sure, that even if I did understand what they were saying, I wouldn't have enjoyed it much more. Even the Chinese participants didn't understand everything! So we learned something that day: stay the hell away from peking opera! A few of us went to Maxime's for dinner. One girl had a real tough time, having not getting ahold of her host dad and letting him know where she was. She came from a controlled family, and had little freedom, because they were so worried about her. But she's a very independant girl, who loathes that kind of restriction. She was quite worried, but I offered to take her home. I knew abouts where she lived, so I promised her I'd get her home; it might take awhile, but I wouldn't leave her until she was in her house. So we went for a dinner in a real "hole in the wall" as Maxime called it. His dish was this seriously messed up chicken dish. It was like the chef chopped up a cooked, yet FROZEN chicken, bones and all, mashed up some nuts, through random spicy spices on it, and served it. Not well enjoyed. I took the girl home after. It was quite the adventure. I knew where we were going, but we just kept getting detoured, roads not going quite where we thought they were. But I kept on insisting it was an adventure, and we were exploring along the way. Plus, I promised I'd get her home. Also, I'm stubborn and hate to turn around. We ventured through the subway, new foreign streets, hutongs (poor, close-knit alley ways) speeding traffic ways and even walked along this dark, dirt road beside the train tracks. Surely an adventure. I think it was about 2 hours later that we arrived at her apartment building. There was a bit of phone tag between our counterparts, so to communicate to our host families what happened. My mission completed, my chivilaric self boastful, (yet modest) I bussed my own way back home. I was hen lai le (tired) and dropped into bed after getting home. And now, back at work, relaying this story to the fans.
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