A Quick One While He's Away

Not only is the title an amazing Who song, but it also suggests that I'm currently using Phil's computer and therefore can't post anything that will bring the house down. No pictures, no detailed accounts, just a quick one while he's away.

--A few days ago, I had my class write about their "Dream Vacation." One of my students wanted to visit America....so she could "meed the Jews." China is one of the few places in the world in which the stereotypes work out in their favor. Jews have a lot of money (which is a good thing) and everyone here knows that the Jews are very clever! Marx was Jewish. I think that has something to do with it. When I told my student that I had many friends in America that were Jewish, her eyes grew big with wonder and excitement. When I told her that most Jews in America were no different than me, her head hung in dissapointment. I'm not quite sure what she was expecting. Lizard people, perhaps.

--I watched a Chinese movie from the 80's last night. In this movie, the main charachter travels to Africa. Of course, this provided the perfect oppertunity for what I like yell...ASIAN BLACK FACE! As if the grass huts and "Ooga Booga's" weren't racist enough, any African that had a speaking part was a tall Asian man with shoe polish on his face. Vhat a counnnntry!

--Chinese music sucks. All of it. This is a sweeping generalization I know, but I'm confident in saying it. I should say that there is probably some good "classical" Chinese music. There are essentially, three kinds of music in China: Pop, Rock, and Hip-Hop. Pop primarily consists of heartfelt ballads, about love of course, and feature music videos of girls picking flowers. To give you an idea of Rock music here in China, think of the Backstreet Boys song "Backstreet's Back". Basically, it's pop music with slightly hard edge. I'm not sure about this, but I imagine they are singing about staying up past 10pm. Hip-Hop music in China is equivilent to the Hip-Hop you would hear on Radio Disney. The Hillary Duff version, if you will.

For some reason Linkin Park is really big here. That's about as bad-ass as it gets. If you question authority and don't conform like a robot....then Linkin Park is your band! My students refuse to believe that I don't like Linkin Park and a few times I've caught them searching my iPod for them. When I play them something like Led Zepplin, I might as well be playing Icelandic Experimental Synth Death Metal.

--I was going to wait and tell this story at a time when I could also show you the pictures we took, but ta hell with it! One of the first nights we went out exploring Changsha, we stumbled upon a street performance. There was a full band playing and two people acting/singing in some of scene. I would estimate that over 200 people were in the audience. Shortly after our arrival, the people around us began to take notice of us. Cigarettes were offered, everyone yelled out their one or two English phrases that they knew, and (unfortunately) a lot of attention was taken off the performance. No one seemed to mind however, so we spent the next few minutes responding to people's questions ("Yes, I like China" and "No, I am very bad at speaking Chinese"). The performance soon ended and as soon as it did, our group was presented with microphones asking us to sing American songs. Andrew got up and began singing "Jingle Bells" and the band quickly joined him. Everyone in China can sing this song, why this is I'll never know. Anna and I eventually felt sorry for him, so we hopped up and joined in. Following this, Anna informed the band that "Tommy is a very good singer and he wants to do a solo."

Thanks Anna, thanks a lot. What you have to understand is that when people in China have an idea, it's going to happen. They no problem asking over and over again. I asked the band if they knew "Hey Jude," which they said they did. They lied. The first two times through the chorus sounded horrible, but eventually they found the right chords. I sang my heart out, but when the song came to a close, it became impossible to inform the band of this. They just kept playing and I stood there with the mic like a Jackass. So naturally, I started making lyrics up. "None of you people know what I'm saying...I could say the word pussy-fucker, and you wouldn't know..." All of this, the tune of Hey Jude. It was a beautiful moment. To see grandmothers smiling ear to ear as I belt out the word cunt....I guess "magic" is the only word to describe it. Of course, most of my lyrics had to do with Andrew and my less than favorable opinion of him. I got my revenge that I had promised him in the form of public mockery, even if the public wasn't aware of the mockery.

Alrighty! I can't use this comp for much longer, so I'm going to bid you all a farewell. If you aren't currently in contact with me, let me know what you are up to these days.

Also, I don't edit this page, so stop whining about spelling mistakes, ect. I may be nerdy enough to have a blog, but not nerdy enough to care.

Tommy