Drying laundry on electric lines? Because China, that's why. Shut it.

West Lake is the "big thing" in the area, talked about in ancient Chinese poetry yadda yadda yadda god this is boring. I don't know if all those poems mentioned the tons of restaurants, bars, and streets alongside it. I've said it before, but Xiaoshan's Xiang Lake is quiet, prettier, and just and all around nicer place to go to.

Through three unrelated friends, I found myself there three times in one week. I'm totally okay with that, because one time there was a small carnival there. A creepy carnival? In a Chinese suburb? Yes please!

These friends are all locals, but two of them speak English quite well. They had one of those balloon walls and pellet guns, and if you win you get some stuffed something or other. They thought it was pretty cool you got to shoot a gun. Then they asked me "Do you know how to use this?" I told her in Chinese "Did you forget where I am from?" But in my mind, I was thinking "Step back ya'll, I've got this."

So 21/25 balloons later, we're walking away with our prize. A tiny stuffed heart. Ah well, it made for a neat picture. Swear to god, 90% of Chinese girls must get regular shyness injections, because she didn't want her photo taken. Well the jokes on her, I already have her on Facebook.





I'd also like to thank my friends for bringing a jumbo shaker of chili powder, because I finally got around to making some decent chili. I had to make it with pork, so I'm still not really happy about it. For god sakes China, why does beef only come around twice a month? I feel like I should be camping out like Wii launch day. On the other hand, PBR has come to China under the label "Blue Ribbon General Beer". I got the biggest kick out of the idea of "General Beer" <salute>. It commands a bit of a premium, because it's "Imported". Yeah, I'll wait until you stop laughing.






And that's it for this update. Allow this OH MY GOD IT'S GODAMN HUGE bug to show you out. This thing was like, 2 index fingers wide and just as long. After cowering under my bed, I escorted him out the window.

Okay, visit from friends #2. Lets do this.

I think the last time I talked about this I was a little to verbose, and a lot of the places we went were repeats. So I'm going to use a bit of brevity here.

Last time, I had to run out to the Hangzhou airport twice in one day. This time, there was only one place everyone was coming from. Shanghai. In the airport on the far side of town.

Damnit.

I left in the morning to get there, and along the way stopped to have lunch with Lucy. I know I've mentioned Lucy, and now after a bunch of my friends have met her - they know how totally awesome she is. But everything was pretty straightforward. We rode the maglev back, made the trip to Hangzhou, and then finally the cab ride back to Xiaoshan. We were fortunate in that we found a driver crazy enough to be willing to take 5 people with him. I'm pretty sure Shannon was squished into an impossibly small space. I told the cab driver we were Obama's kids, which he accepted with a little too much enthusiasm.

The first night, Bob, Dave and I headed out to see the "town", with some Muslim noodles in tow. We grabbed breakfast for an early jaunt into Hangzhou. Wushan Market, West Lake, Leifeng Pagoda, you know the drill. The tea was nice as always, and the street food amazing. We decided to head back to have dinner at Kaiyuan Mingdu, the amazing 5 star Japanese restaurant. I again emphasized that it may be difficult to find a cab driver willing to take 5 people, but surprisingly a Hangzhou taxi was willing to do so.

Finally my warnings were vindicated, when the next morning in Xiaoshan we were NOT able to find 1 taxi to the train station. So all we go, off to the beautiful Shanghai. I enjoyed a beer at the bar, and had a nice long chat about Chinese culture and society. Yes, quite.

After ditching our bags, we went on a perilous journey to find a pedestrian shopping district called Taekonglu. My sense of misdirection was in full force, as I managed to get quite lost and gave a desperate call for help to Lucy. I asked a bunch of people where it was, before finally breaking down in tears and getting a taxi.

Lucy told us to seek out James, the man from New Zealand who knew everything. Glier bought a stylish ring from him, and he was nice enough to give us a million suggestions of things to do. Super awesome guy, James. Going to have to remember him. After spending all day wandering about the city, we went back towards the hotel to eat an amazing duck restaurant. If you ever wanted to cross Peking Duck off your bucket list, this is a great place to do it. Well, that and Beijing I suppose. But seriously. The duck is really good.

For day #2 Lucy met us in the morning, where we got to experience some amazing street fried egg thingies. The agenda consisted of going to old town, with some shopping along the way. My haul was a bunch of hilarious movies, a new belt, a square commie hat, and snap on rollerskates. If that's not a successful day I don't know what is. We also got to go to this awesome Confucian temple complete with tea ceremony. The tea ceremony was especially awesome, and it totally worked to sell us a bunch of tea.

That evening we did a rooftop bus tour around the city, which I had never done but is actually a lot of fun. Shannon and I discussed teaching little ones, and Korean pop music. Unfortunately at that time I had to run back to Xiaoshan for work the next day. The rest of the gang stuck around Shanghai before moving onto Beijing. You can check their Facebook pages for the photo montage. (montaaaaage!)

Classy folk, they are.

I know I said I was going to talk about wacky times with the latest group of friends to visit, but there's something very poignant in my mind I'd like to write while it's fresh. I want to emphasize that this is my current opinion based on my sample size of ~10, in a population of 1.4 billion. Simply put, this sample is not statistically significant, and is just a snapshot of a small number of people in a small town in a huge country.

TL,DR: I'm full of shit.

As to be expected living overseas, you gain a different perspective on your home and the world. Part of it may be "the grass is always greener" type of thing. And I don't expect me to be some guy that goes back home and starts wearing American flag capes. But I have gained a greater appreciation for the States and western life in general. Not to say that the eastern way of thinking is bad - in fact they have some very good ideas. I think we could learn a lot from China. But something I think we excel at, and it's not something you really think about, is that we encourage creativity.

I know that sounds like something incredibly innocuous. "Well yeah, it's important. Why not?" But even with money being diverted from art programs, I think you'd be in the minority if you said creative arts are a pointless waste of time compared to playing around with Angry Birds. We encourage uniqueness and what makes you happy, as long as it's not to the detriment of others.

That just doesn't happen here.

And the effects were unnoticeable until I started looking for them. There are thousands of restaurants in my city. Small, mom and pop type of places serving up Chinese food at all hours. 99% of them are exactly the same. You know how many Thai restaurants there are? 0. Indian? 0. Italian? 0. It just doesn't exist. I use restaurants as an example, but the Chinese really do not have much of an entrepreneurial spirit that we are encouraged to have from a young age.

And speaking of young age, the school system.

As you may have expected with a country consistently at the top of international ratings, it is extremely rigorous. I think maybe only South Korean children work harder. The Chinese get up at 5, 6 in the morning after staying up til midnight doing homework. On weekends, they attend cram schools or are strongly encouraged to study. Their lives are work, work, and more work, with play taking a backseat. While we do value hard work, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. These kids have no time to be kids. They are under an immense amount of pressure at all times. They need good marks to get into a good grade school. Good grade school marks to get into a good middle school. And all the way down to a job. Yes we have that in the west, but its nowhere near the extremes it is here. There is only one path - the national exams. Where you are expected to memorize #1 is A, #2 is C, #3 is B, until the end of time. It's easy to see then, why they're good at subjects like math. Math is consistent. There is almost always only one answer. But what about applying it? Saying 2+2 = 4 is all well and good, but somehow you're going to have to come up with an idea on how to use it.

I want to stop it there, because otherwise this already long blog post would be a book. I hope I gain more perspective on this, and it's something I want to more fully understand. But towards the end of a conversation I was asked a question that got me thinking. I'll leave the same question with you as well - Where are all the Nobel Prize winning scientists from? When's the last one you heard about one from China?

I've got some friends from the states visiting me this week. We have done lots of stuff, and I'd like to tell you all about it. But there are more pressing matters.

As I like to do when I go to Shanghai, there are a large number of people selling pirated movies. I quite like the foreign ones based on titles alone, and for a few kuai apiece, it's hard to go wrong. Last time I hit paydirt with "Nunchucks". Here's my catch this time:

That's right, its the movie classic "We didn't make a rocket but... rocket has launched!" I was quite stoked to check this bad boy out. Shannon also told me my next blog post has to be a review of this movie.

As to be expected, this is an epic tale of underground rocket construction, sneaking it across country lines, with a bit of action and romance thrown in for good measure. Just kidding! Much to my dismay, there are no rockets, rocketry, rocks, rock candy, or Rocko's Modern Life. It is a movie about some guys who own a clothing store, and another group of guys who don't like them, but never actually do anything about it.

O rly?

Ya, rly, suspicious Korean guy. I don't even know why you opened the movie. You're in it for all of 5 minutes. Most of it is about these kids who have the bright aspiration to sell second hand clothing. Just look at that spirit!

NPH: It's a brand new day, yeah the sun is high!

He quickly meets his business partner, and in overacting fashion, decide it is time. The day has come for them to open their shop, and sell the shit out of some jeans.

Kim? Kim.

Let's get this party started!

The hitch in this plan though, is 80s biker Korean! He has learned of the brothers plan to sell discount clothing at low, low, low prices! Of course, he can't have any of that. He rides over post haste, wearing the same sunglasses I do.

Ima kill any mofo that sells underpants!

After arriving at the shop, his goons threaten the brothers by smashing the model airplanes they have on the ceiling, and having a "who can look like the bigger douche" contest. My money is on "Inconveniently tilted hat guy".

Why is it so shady in here?

 Of course the brothers Kim stand no chance, and a chase ensues.

We hate your sock selection!!!

Of special note during the chase, is the amazing "Knife cam". Now you too can see what a knife sees while chasing Korean dudes.

Why did my agent even book me for this movie?

The gang does eventually catch up to the brothers, but fortunately it is stopped before any violence occurs. How? Well, the director of the movie yells at them through a megaphone.

Seriously guys, this scene doesn't happen for much later.

Then everyone notices they're in front of a business called "Panty House", and go their separate ways.

Let's go home, I guess?

Then this guy shows up, for some reason. He plays pool.

I can sink the 9 ball if I act just a little more asian!

Then it flash fowards to him getting drunk at dinner.

I'm a kid who doesn't know what being drunk is actually like.

At that point, the director has decided all plot points have been resolved, but he needs to fill 10 minutes to get to the 90 minute mark. So he decrees the screen size be reduced, steps into the movie, and yells at the actors for a bit.

You know I'm not paying you for this, right?

Aaaaaand scene. " We didn't make a rocket but... rocket has launched!" (Or, WDMARBRHL) has proved to me that it is possible for a movie to be so bad it's good, and then loop right back again to terrible. I want that 90 minutes of my life back.