Whatever spark I felt was dwindling inside me was 110% ignited tonight! I don't know what lit it, but when I got home today, suddenly I was bursting with energy. At the dinner table, I brought out lyrics to a traditional Chinese song I learned today, and I busted it out of my lungs like nobody's business. My family thought this was great and so we all sung it together at the dinner table, laughing in spite of the beautiful and sad lyrics. Then my family and I sat down and practiced Chinese together, and I was in such a silly mood that I started cracking (what I thought to be) funny jokes with the language I knew. Whether my jokes were actually funny, or whether it was because I was laughing at something nonsensical and making a spectacle of myself, my family laughed, too. I think they were surprised by this new Fei Fei, which has yet to be unleashed in China.
Afterwards, I met up with Dave, Terrie, Jonny and Beth to go for a drink in our neighborhood. I nearly skipped to our meeting place, giving out happy greetings to everyone I passed, and then anxiously met them to go to a place Terrie and I discovered last night . . . . "Communism with Chinese Characteristics" is sooo prevalent by our house . . . .across the street they're building new, fancy apartment complexes, and right next door to them is a shanty town of farmers where people are living in shacks, you can see inside their entire house (let alone walk in) because they don't have a front wall, and it's just, for lack of better descriptive words at the moment, very poor. Anyways, they have community bars with a TV that everyone crowds to in order to watch Japan invasion movies (since they don't have TVs in their homes), and we went to one such bar and tried to mingle. Unfortunately, the people there were glued to the TV and in no mood to talk to foreigners. Sooo we each had a beer and then went to a different (nicer) bar/restaurant across the street. It. Was. AMAZING! The laoban (waiters) loved us and we kept cracking jokes with them in Chinese. Then, we invited them to drink with us. They explained that they were working, but that they'd join us afterwards. After everyone else left the place we re-invited them over, and once they had finished "cleaning" up, they joined us. It was 4 boys about our age (maybe a little bit younger?) and a very old couple. We gave each of the men a shot glass of beer, including the very old, very frail man, and they each chugged it, with us cheering them on. They kept laughing at us and telling us how much they liked us. After all the beer was drank, we tried to help them clean up, much to their disproval. Then, as we were leaving, two of the boys had to haul their cart to another place up the road (in the direction we were going), so they walked with us. All of a sudden they got the harebrained idea that they should give me a ride on this goofy cart, so I hopped on, holding onto the rail for dear life. They ran with me on it, laughing, while I laughed so hard I was screaming like a little girl (remember, my energy was high tonight), laughing all the way. They dragged me all the way to the next restaurant, where they were greeted by their fellow laoban (I guess the 2 places are in business together?) who were laughing hysterically at the scene before them. One of the boys hauling me yelled something along the lines of "I give you a foreigner!" so as soon as they stopped, I stood up and, while bowing, said "thank you, thank you!" to rounds of Chinese applause. It was hilarious. They want us back tomorrow. :)
Other funny side note: there is drama in our community and Dave and I are at the center of it! It is falsely rumored amongst all of the Chinese people in our neighborhood (including both of our families) that Dave and I are secretly dating. I hear my family talking about it all the time when they think I'm not listening. To make matters worse, silly things keep happening to add to their suspicions, like Dave calling at 9:30 pm and asking if he could borrow a black marker (because I'm the closest person to his apartment and he needed it for his lesson the following day) so I say "I'm going to Dave's, he needs to borrow this" and hold up black marker and then, of course, my family shares a "yeah right" glance with one another. Or tonight, when Dave called to tell me he'd be late to meet up with us, he made a joke and I laughed and said "Oh Da Wei (his Chinese name), wo ai ni (I love you...a common joke between us during language class because it was one of the first things we learned how to say)!"... So when I came out of my room and said "I'm going to meet up with Terrie and some friends," they looked at each other and said "Da Wei!"...On Dave's end of the spectrum, today he put on cologne (which isn't common in China) and his host dad smelled his wrist and then said "Ohh! Fei Fei!" I feel like a celebrity featured in the National Enquirer or something whose love life is nonexistent and boring so everyone clings to a more fun and interesting scenario. ;)
Regardless, things are fun. My students are great, my family is great, my friends are great, and I feel like singing. :) Goodnight!
P.S. I now get to top this great night off by watching old Jackie Chan "Gong Fu" movies with my host dad. Brilliant! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment