Pi Chi and I have decided to move. Partly because it is far more convenient to live where at least one of us can walk to work and partly because we found a really nice apartment. Pi Chi’s apartment is dark. All of the apartments in this country are dark. You have to turn lights on even in the middle of the day. Not only because the curtains are always closed but also because even with the curtains open there is never enough light. The curtains are always closed because Pi Chi’s apartment, like every other apartment, is inches away from the next building. But even when she is not home and I open the curtains there is never any light because her apartment, like every other apartment, was designed to keep light out. Sunlight is a national disgrace to Chinese people. If you are not whiter than Michael Jackson, you lose face. Anyone with any kind of tan obviously spends time in the sun and anyone who spends any time in the sun is obviously a manual laborer and therefore an inferior person. Ironically, most of the people around here are naturally tan colored, but many of them use skin whitening lotions and super lucky magic potions to make themselves ghostly white. Where I come from people who are not Michael Jackson risk cancer to make themselves darker. The skin is always greener on the other side.
We found a very nice apartment from which Pi Chi can easily walk to work. It is owned by the hospital so we get a discount. Pi Chi says we get a discount, but since you have to work at the hospital to live there and what they are charging us is their usual price, I say it is not a discount. But it is much cheaper than an equivalent apartment would be elsewhere in the same city.
Actually I think it would be very difficult to find an equivalent apartment in the same city. The new apartment has enormous windows all over the place. This is very rare around here. The new apartment has a real kitchen. This is completely unheard of around here. I wanted this apartment as soon as I saw the kitchen. Pi Chi says it is too expensive. But this three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with a real kitchen, large living room, separate dining room and plenty of hall space costs less than half of what I paid for my last American apartment, which was much smaller and did not even have a separate bedroom. And if we sell Pi Chi’s apartment she can help pay for everything. In theory at least. I know she will never help pay the rent, but at least if she sells her apartment she might have enough money to stop expecting me to pay for everything. I think she has known me long enough to realize that picking up the tab is not what I do best.
With three bedrooms we will now have a spare room should anyone decide to visit. I know that is unlikely since most of everyone Pi Chi knows lives within a thirty minute drive and most of everyone I know will never set foot in this country. Pi Chi’s apartment has always had three bedrooms, but the guest room was used by her sister for entirely too long. I still do not understand why she could not have moved out sooner. She was living with Pi Chi while her and her then fiance’s new house was being built, but she should have relocated once I moved in. I still do not understand why it took five years to build that house. It is not even a house. It is an apartment, but they call apartments houses. I still do not understand why she even lived with Pi Chi in the first place. She worked a few hours away. There must have been something much closer available.
Unless there is a catastrophic event involving death and destruction, Pi Chi and I will live alone in the new apartment. Or if someone really needs a place to say. Who am I to say no. One of the best things about Pi Chi’s family is that they all seem to like each other and most of them have room for guests if necessary. There are many options should anyone find themselves off their feet. That is why families were invented. In that spirit, if any of my relatives ever need a place to stay, I have room. Of course, this would require leaving your homeland and moving to the other side of the world where you probably do not understand the language or culture and it might take time to adjust to people who would rather kill you than slow down half a kilometer, but if life as you know it suddenly sodomizes you violently and turns your world into a festering shitheap, it is always an option.
About seven weeks ago I broke my ankle at work, but not really. I walked on a cane for most of the time since. I had only recently started hobbling around on my own, but I still brought my cane on trips outdoors because these “sidewalks” are not always what one would call horizontal. There are no sidewalks here, but it is much easier to put sidewalks in quotation marks than to explain the lack of sidewalks. Walking on a cane makes moving things more interesting. I am an easy person to move. I have some experience with moving. I came to this country with a single suitcase. I have slightly more crap now, but still enough to move in a car. Pi Chi has considerably more crap. She has lived in her apartment for at least 13 years. I really have no idea who long she has been there because every time I ask her I get a different answer. This is common. I think it is cultural. If you ask people their age they will give you different answers depending on their mood. And also not many people know how old they really are around here. Chinese children turn two at their first birthday. If I ask my students how old they are they get confused. And not because they do not understand the question.
Pi Chi’s crap will require professional movers. No easy feat since there really are no professional movers around here. We will have to pay sweaty dudes with a truck to haul her crap. I doubt they are insured for damages. But the more they damage the less we have to move. I have a good excuse for helping as little as possible since I am currently lame. Some would say I have always been lame. Lamentably, I do not have a good excuse for helping since Pi Chi is a nurse and knows exactly how lame I am. In this culture you have to be dead or rich to get any sympathy from your woman.
On Friday some “professional” movers came to the apartment to look over all of Pi Chi’s crap and determine how badly they could swindle us. Pi Chi even took time off work to be here when they came. It should be noted that Pi Chi takes time off work at the drop of a hat. Not literally, but I could probably get her to take the day off by dropping a hat if I tried. She once took the day off because she had a mosquito bite. There was no malaria or wacky fever disease. She simply found any excuse she could and took the day off. I am surprised she still has a job. On the other hand, everyone else probably does the same thing.
Previous movers had come on previous days, but they wanted to charge too much. Pi Chi reasoned that people who were only available during regular business hours would be less expensive. I am not sure how that works, but she would have taken the day off no matter what. My job was to leave the apartment while they were there. The logic being that if they saw a white face they would want to charge more. This is very reasonable. White people pay more for everything here. When anyone sees a foreigner their eyes light up with cartoon dollar signs. I chose to go to the nearby grocery store for nothing in particular since hobbling there and back should take enough time. While I was there I might as well get some candy.
While I was limping my way to the one intersection between Pi Chi’s apartment and the grocery store I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. This was not my usual sunny optimism. I knew with absolute certainty that something bad was going to happen. I thought about Pi Chi alone in the apartment with sweaty dudes who drive moving trucks and all the horrible things that could go horribly wrong. I stopped hobbling and decided to go back to the apartment. Paying too much because I am a foreigner seemed much better than the alternative. But I also thought about how that kind of thing is extremely rare in this culture. These are horribly selfish people, but not violent criminals. And Pi Chi is not the kind of person to take much crap from strangers. Even if she could not defend herself physically, she could make enough noise to bring enough neighbors running. These are also very nosey people.
I vacillated between going back to the apartment and going to the grocery store. I sent Pi Chi a text message instructing her to call me when the movers arrived and make it obvious that she was talking to her big strong boyfriend who would be home at any minute. As long as they did not know he was a rich foreigner. I figured that I could probably still get some candy and make it back before anything untoward could happen.
At the intersection I waited for the light to turn green. I always do. These are not the safest drivers in the world. Crossing at a green light is dangerous. Crossing at a red light is suicidal. Not in the way that eating McDonald’s is suicidal. It is more like lighting a chainsaw on fire and carving yourself suicidal. While I was in the intersection I noticed a car running the red light and coming toward me. “That asshole almost hit me”, I thought to myself. A fraction of a second later he did. If you have ever watched an episode of “Starsky & Hutch” you know what happens when someone is hit by a car. I flew unto the hood of the car like the heroic detective chasing the street thug. Only it was not very exciting. Either my cane or my hand made quite the dent in the car’s hood. Then my ass showed the pavement who was boss.
When I lifted myself from the dirty street I noticed that my left pant leg was torn at the ankle. This was the same ankle that I had broken at work, but not really, exactly seven weeks before. I was only starting to walk on my own and now it felt as though maybe something was amiss. But I was not in any pain. I mostly felt that the best course of action at that point would be to see how much I would have to beat this fucknut’s head in with my cane before I got to the chewy center. It took some self-control to keep from beating the shit out of this puppetfucker. I was personally offended. You can say whatever you want to me and it will wash off like welts on a runaway slave’s back. I might even agree with you. I am difficult to offend. But hitting me with your car because none of these fucksacks can ever follow the most basic rules of the road or common sense just pisses me off. When I called Pi Chi she did not answer her phone, of course. She never does. But she soon called me because she was to call when the movers arrived. I told her that I was hit by a car and she asked me if the car was ok. I said something to the effect of “fuck the car” and expressed my opinion that I am more important than some horsewhore’s car. When she arrived on the scene she was surprised to find me lying on the curb and Monkeyfucker’s car parked oddly nearby. She then explained that she thought I had been hit by a car while I was driving her car. No such luck.
She then spent a good deal of time arguing with Shitbag, as is the custom in these situations. But in this instance, every time he tried to raise his voice I made like I was going to rearrange his ugly sack of shit face. I think this is probably the best way to go. It really saves time. His excuse was that he could not see me. I am larger than almost everyone in this country. I was wearing a red shirt at the time. Red is a lucky color. I was crossing at a well-lit intersection. And he obviously saw me because he hit the brakes before he hit me. But all the assholes have excuses. The dipshit blue truck driver who hit Pi Chi’s car because he drives like a dipshit blue truck driver said he had a headache. He was also driving at night without his lights on, but that is pretty common.
Pi Chi called an ambulance, but I said I really did not need an ambulance. Her hospital was only a ten minute drive away. She then explained that the ambulance was free. Apparently you can have an ambulance drive you to pretty much any hospital or clinic in whatever county you are in without charge. I have no idea why no one bothered to tell me this when I broke my ankle at work, but not really, and drove myself 45 minutes to Pi Chi’s hospital.
At the hospital I talked to a tired old police officer who seemed like he would rather be anywhere else. The shitsack who hit me had followed us to the hospital. This seemed odd to me. If you do not give a shit enough to ever stop at right lights why would you give a shit when you inevitably hit someone. The Chinese are not known for their respect of privacy and hospitals are no exceptions. Anyone can go pretty much anywhere in a hospital and watch. Fucksock decided he wanted to participate while I was sitting on an emergency room bed and talking to the lazy police. I convincingly expressed my opinion that he did not need to be there. This forced the lazy cop to talk to both of us in separate locations. That meant he had to walk an extra twenty feet.
Suckstain told the police that he was turning left on a green light while I was crossing the street. This was completely false. He was going straight and blatantly ran a red light. I took pictures with the crappy little camera in my phone that clearly showed that his car could not have possibly been turning left and ended up in the position it was in. His car was stopped on the painted crosswalk so it was pretty easy to make out angles in the photograph. But by the time the police arrived on the scene, after I had left, Shit4brains had moved his car out of the road and parked. This is a direct violation of local law. Everyone is supposed to leave vehicles where they are in an accident until sufficient bribes are paid and the police can decided whom they want to blame.
The photographs on my phone did not impress the lazy police officer and he announced that he was leaving since he could not effectively communicate with me. Even though Pi Chi was there to translate whatever I could not say. Like “douchebag”, for example. I have no idea how to say that in Chinese. I live in a city that is large enough to have a foreign affairs police office. Supposedly those police are supposed to be summoned when a foreigner is involved in such a situation. They never came nor was I ever contacted by anyone later. Loves2lickmonkeysacks was never charged with any crime even though he admitted to hitting a pedestrian while turning left and moving his car before the police could investigate. Apparently running the red light would have been the greater crime than hitting a pedestrian. He paid my hospital bill, but that was neither required by law nor anywhere close to expensive. I had health insurance by this point so I think the grand total was somewhere near US$30. He only paid because not paying would make him lose face. I kind of think running a red light and hitting a pedestrian is worse, but I am only a foreigner.
The doctor came just before the lazy cop left and when he asked me how I was I told him that I was in a pretty fucked up country where bitchmonkeys can hit pedestrians and the police are too lazy to give a shit. He seemed genuinely embarrassed, but the lazy cop really did not give a shit. In a culture where losing face is the worst thing in the world there seem to be a lot of people who really do not give a shit about anything. I think simply driving the way they drive would be a great loss of face.
This time I had to wait in line to get my digital x-ray. I had Pi Chi there to bypass most of the bullshit, but it was a Friday night. When you combine weekend binge drinking and people who drive like retarded lemurs on ritalin the emergency room gets a little busy. Ordinarily Pi Chi wheels me into x-ray in a wheelchair, but this was a Friday so there were none available. I got to travel by hospital gurney. This is fun because they are never moved by hospital staff. Relatives or whoever happens to be with the patient is responsible for transportation. If you have no friends or family with you, be prepared for a long night. Sometimes cheap medical care is cheap. In my case I was pushed around by someone who works at the hospital, but Pi Chi is not very good at moving gurneys. She drove it the way everyone around here drives their cars and we hit pretty much everything in the hallways. By the time she wheeled me back to the ER the doctor was looking at my digital x-ray.
This time it appeared that two of my bones had fused together. The doctor said that this probably will not cause any permanent effects, but these words were not very reassuring to me. The thought of having any permanent problems because some selfish assbag drives like all the selfish assbags around here and will never be held accountable for his actions did not make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Pi Chi told me that I could sue this particular assbag, but it would be extremely difficult to prove that he ran the red light since there are no traffic cameras at that intersection and the photographs on my phone do not count since I took them. Hitting me was never in doubt. The legal question is whether he hit me because he ran a red light or because he turned left on a green light. I contacted the closest thing to an American government agency around here to see if they had any legal advice. They have yet to respond. Eventually I decided to let it go since I was more angry than injured and it will be much healthier for me to move on than to deal with a long and probably fucked up legal battle that would likely only piss me off more than the “accident” itself. I think when you purposely drive the way these people drive you cannot call the inevitable outcome an accident.
But I went back to walking on the cane, so there is always that to enjoy.
Some would say that my feeling that something bad was going to happen was a warning about getting hit by the car. My guardian angel was looking out for me. If that is the case then my guardian angel is an asshole. Had I not stopped at the intersection and thought about going back I would have missed the car completely. Whatever convinced me that something was amiss led directly to my getting hit. But I do find it interesting that I knew without question that something bad was going to happen. I was simply wrong about who it was going to happen to. I am about as far from psychic as you can get. Most of my premonitions are along the lines of some celebrity will die eventually.
And the movers charged a small fortune.
Warning: The preceding post may have contained strong language. You should not have read it if you are easily offended by shit like that.
12 November 2007
28 September 2007
Possible Talocalcaneonavicular Subluxation, He Said Knowingly
It took a full week at my new job for something to go horribly wrong. Not too shabby. I had a little over 300 students at my previous school. I taught about 22 classes, six days a week. I usually had three classes on weekdays except Wednesday, four classes on Wednesdays and the rest were on Saturdays. The schedule changed regularly since Boss Lady had to juggle 300 students amongst two teachers. There was one foreign teacher, me, and one Chinese teacher, her. Another Chinese teacher was brought in when I was on vacation and on the very rare occasion that Boss Lady could not teach a class. Usually for administrative reasons. Most of the students came to the school twice a week. One day they would be in my class learning English and the other day they would be in her class learning the wacky Chinese phonetic system that teaches students how to mispronounce vowels and hard consonants. Someone somewhere decided that this phonetic system was the only way Chinese people could learn to recognize the English alphabet and learn how to pronounce anything. It is also the reason they add syllables to short words like deska, baga and booka and cannot tell any vowels apart.
Boss Lady’s husband is a math teacher and he taught math classes. That has nothing to do with anything I did there so I see no reason to mention it. But we had an interesting conversation about how the Chinese write out math equations when the number 2 (二) in Chinese looks like the equals sign, 1 (一) looks like minus and 10 (十) looks like plus. 十 + 二 - 一 = 十 一.
I currently have about 25 students in four classes at my new school. I am the only foreigner and there are three Chinese teachers, including the new Boss Lady, whom I have to find a different name for since she is not The Boss Lady. At my old school I had students anywhere from 6 years old to adults. At my new school I have a class that is probably illegal for me to teach since foreigners cannot legally teach anyone under the age of 6, and none of my students are anywhere near high school age. I have one adult class. They are the Chinese teachers. This is moderately interesting to me since my students in this class are the people who teach my classes on the days I am teaching other classes. They teach the wacky KK phonetics, sing the songs and play the games. I teach the children and their teachers English.
Boss Lady at the old school spoke English much good. One of the teachers at the new school went to college in Australia. Her English is not horrible. But she misspells everything. Like doovalacky. Another teacher is completely new to teaching and to English, apparently. Her English is dreadful, but she is probably my most enthusiastic student. New Boss Lady is not too difficult to understand, but she floods her sentences with “how to say” to the point of distraction. I had a professor in college who said “if you will” so much that I quickly lost track of whatever he was trying to tell us. I could never hear the forest for the trees, if you will.
I also have a class at the local junior high school. When I was at my old school I was asked to teach classes at that local junior high. I turned it down because I would have taught from 8am to 9pm six days a week with only the traditional lunch break. The money would have been nice, but I would have burned out quickly and there would have been almost no time for Pi Chi once I met her. And junior high students are the worst. I have had many perfectly acceptable elementary students who turned into raging assholes as soon as they entered junior high.
When New Boss Lady asked me if I wanted to teach a class at the new local junior high school I quoted an absurd fee. The school accepted. Unfortunately, I only have one class there.
Last Friday I took the five minute walk from the junior high school to my school. Walking the streets around here is almost as dangerous as driving. Pedestrians never have the right of way. A mother pushing her child in a stroller does not have the right of way. Chinese drivers will run over babies if it means avoiding the brake pedal. When I learned to drive I was told that the brake is the most important part of the car. To the Chinese the brake is a shameful nuisance. Using the brakes brings dishonor to your family.
Fortunately for anyone lucky enough to read this, I have experience walking amongst atrocious drivers. I know that none of them can see me, despite the fact that most of them are staring at me with their mouths agape when they probably should be watching the car they are about to hit. My great skill and natural grace took me through innumerable obstacles and brought me safely to my school. And then I broke my ankle.
Like every private business in this country the school is really just someone’s house. The ground floor is the lobby and reception area. The classrooms are upstairs. Since this is a new school in an old house there are usually random tradespeople installing something or fixing something that someone else has recently installed. Chinese people remove their shoes when they enter a house. Local tradespeople and manual laborers remove their shoes when they come in to do whatever they are doing. I think the reasoning is that it is better to traipse your dirty feet across the floor than your dirty shoes. I have lived here for years. I know all about this.
Yet when I walked down the stairs I did not bother to notice the slippers placed on the bottom step. When I stepped on one and it slid out from under me my foot went down one way and my body went the other. It hurt like a mother fucker. In fact, that was the new vocabulary lesson I taught the student who happened to be standing nearby. She is the sweetest little girl who has no business being anywhere near the likes of me. Fortunately for her parents, she is also the only person at the school who is not one of my students. Since there is no appropriate class to put her in she has a private class with one of the Chinese teachers. The assumption is that when the school gets bigger there will be somewhere to put her.
Cara told the adults that the tall foreigner made fall down and I was soon the belle of the ball. Old Boss Lady would have immediately seen her profits decrease. Not because of hospital bills. Medical treatment costs almost nothing around here. But if the foreigner is injured he cannot teach classes, and if he does not teach any classes the parents are not happy. Parents are the people who pay the bills. New Boss Lady seemed generally concerned for my wellbeing. She graciously suggested that I sit out the first half of my class. I suggested that my ankle could conceivably be broken. This horrified her. Perhaps because an injured foreigner at a new school is unlucky. Perhaps from genuine compassion. Probably a little of both.
The locals suggested I go to the local hospital. But it is more of a clinic than a hospital and I do not have the greatest fondness for local clinics. So I tried to call Pi Chi. She works at a real hospital. She is a nurse. She does not give a rat’s ass about the school’s profits. But a funny little quirk Pi Chi has is that she never answers the phone when I call her. She will answer when her relatives call. She will answer when friends and acquaintances call. I have seen her literally drop everything and run to the phone when she has no idea who is calling. But she will never answer the phone when I call. I try not to take it personally. It is probably unlucky.
I tried to call Pi Chi at all of her phone numbers. She has three or four phone numbers at two or three phones. None of which she answers when I call. I gave one of the phone numbers to New Boss Lady and she called. Pi Chi answered the phone immediately.
Pi Chi agreed that going to her hospital was a better idea than going to the local clinic. But Pi Chi could not come and get me since I had her car. She suggested I take an ambulance, but my experience with ambulances has always been detrimental to my investment portfolio. Eventually I decided I would simply drive myself there. Her car is an automatic and it was my left ankle that was on the fritz. What could possibly go wrong.
Getting to the car was a great adventure. I quickly found that walking on the ankle was not going to happen unless I took a crash course in one of those zen yoga techniques that lets you set yourself on fire and feel only butterfly kisses. New Boss Lady offered to help me to the car, but an under five foot tall 90 pound Chinese woman is not the best crutch. Thanks to my Meigouren ingenuity I devised an intricate system of moving from one chair to another until I was out the door. I then used an umbrella as a crutch. The umbrella gallantly sacrificed its life so that I might be temporarily mobile.
At Pi Chi’s hospital the doctor wanted to play with my ankle. I wanted x-rays. He tried to move my foot around before I told him that if he was looking forward to the full use of his face any time in the future he would cease and desist immediately. I suggested x-rays. He wanted to drive a needle into my ankle and suck out fluids. I wanted x-rays. Eventually the doctor had an idea. “Why don’t we take some x-rays”, he said. Brilliant.
I have been radiated before. I know that it takes time and in some crowded hospitals in non-emergent situations it can take days. Pi Chi’s hospital is what one might call modern. They do not actually use film x-rays that have to be developed. They shoot you with the radiation and the picture shows up on their screen immediately. The digital image can be sent to any doctor at the click of a mouse. I have no idea why American hospitals cannot utilize such technology. They would say it is too expensive. The digital x-ray at Pi Chi’s hospital cost me ten US dollars. It was only so expensive because I do not yet have health insurance.
The doctor was looking at my x-ray before I was back in his office. He said nothing was broken as far as he could tell. He did not seem too confident. He explained that there are some tiny bones in the ankle that one could easily break without feeling anything. I explained that I felt something. I could not walk without expanding on George Carlin’s seven words.
The good news about universal health care is that it is dirt cheap. The bad news is that hospitals give you nothing. I had to get my own ankle brace apparatus. The good news is that in Pi Chi’s hospital there are two hospital supply stores in the basement. The bad news is that neither had the brace that the doctor recommended. The good news is that Pi Chi knows the doctor personally and could call him to see if what was available was acceptable. The bad news is that it was not. The good news is that I already had a good cane from our trip to Paris. The bad news is that I had to get a cane when I was in Paris. The good news is that I went to Paris. At this point I have no idea if my glass is half empty or half full.
If you are a foreigner in this country people will stare at you. Everywhere. In a sense it is liberating. If I dye my hair purple and wear a suit of armor I will be stared at as much as if I wear the ‘80s fashion and hair that meets current social conformity. Walking with a cane around here will elicit stares. As will being a foreigner. But one cannot expect any consideration. The handicapped never have the right of way. When I was in Paris on a cane people offered me their seats on the metro. When we arrived home from that trip absolutely no one showed any consideration whatsoever. A few people almost knocked me down with their typical selfish behavior. Vive la différence.
Foreigners around here routinely go to work in sandals and slacker apparel. It has nothing to do with being a slacker foreigner. That is how the locals dress for work as well. I have always refused to go to work shoeless. I do not wear a suit. Far from it, but I have my own dress code. I did not wear t-shirts until I came to my new school and even now I do not wear shirts with slogans or any kind of writing. My “I am born to do it. It has to think only about the thing. Even if everthing is lost, the futures still remain. There are only three method, correct method wrong method and my method I must not run away from the weaknes. Are you fighting? It is nesessary to fight to the lost minute at time, and there is a thing to die, too. Why is not now if it fight?” shirt has never been in a classroom. But now I am going to work in sandals. I simply cannot put on shoes and socks. I am also the kind of teacher who stands in class. I have seen a few teachers who are a little more casual about their teaching methods, but I do not think the teacher should be sitting in a corner and paying more attention to his cell phone than his class. But now I sit in class. Even with a cane and approved brace I cannot stand for any length of time without sweating like a dolphin.
In my country I would be able to sue the school. I would at least get enough to pay for medical bills. Around here that is simply not an option. And there are no medical bills. Everything was paid in full before I left the hospital. In my country I could take months off for physical and psychological recovery. Here I got three days off, and only because it all happened on a Friday and the following Monday was a national holiday.
Now I always look down when I take the stairs.
Boss Lady’s husband is a math teacher and he taught math classes. That has nothing to do with anything I did there so I see no reason to mention it. But we had an interesting conversation about how the Chinese write out math equations when the number 2 (二) in Chinese looks like the equals sign, 1 (一) looks like minus and 10 (十) looks like plus. 十 + 二 - 一 = 十 一.
I currently have about 25 students in four classes at my new school. I am the only foreigner and there are three Chinese teachers, including the new Boss Lady, whom I have to find a different name for since she is not The Boss Lady. At my old school I had students anywhere from 6 years old to adults. At my new school I have a class that is probably illegal for me to teach since foreigners cannot legally teach anyone under the age of 6, and none of my students are anywhere near high school age. I have one adult class. They are the Chinese teachers. This is moderately interesting to me since my students in this class are the people who teach my classes on the days I am teaching other classes. They teach the wacky KK phonetics, sing the songs and play the games. I teach the children and their teachers English.
Boss Lady at the old school spoke English much good. One of the teachers at the new school went to college in Australia. Her English is not horrible. But she misspells everything. Like doovalacky. Another teacher is completely new to teaching and to English, apparently. Her English is dreadful, but she is probably my most enthusiastic student. New Boss Lady is not too difficult to understand, but she floods her sentences with “how to say” to the point of distraction. I had a professor in college who said “if you will” so much that I quickly lost track of whatever he was trying to tell us. I could never hear the forest for the trees, if you will.
I also have a class at the local junior high school. When I was at my old school I was asked to teach classes at that local junior high. I turned it down because I would have taught from 8am to 9pm six days a week with only the traditional lunch break. The money would have been nice, but I would have burned out quickly and there would have been almost no time for Pi Chi once I met her. And junior high students are the worst. I have had many perfectly acceptable elementary students who turned into raging assholes as soon as they entered junior high.
When New Boss Lady asked me if I wanted to teach a class at the new local junior high school I quoted an absurd fee. The school accepted. Unfortunately, I only have one class there.
Last Friday I took the five minute walk from the junior high school to my school. Walking the streets around here is almost as dangerous as driving. Pedestrians never have the right of way. A mother pushing her child in a stroller does not have the right of way. Chinese drivers will run over babies if it means avoiding the brake pedal. When I learned to drive I was told that the brake is the most important part of the car. To the Chinese the brake is a shameful nuisance. Using the brakes brings dishonor to your family.
Fortunately for anyone lucky enough to read this, I have experience walking amongst atrocious drivers. I know that none of them can see me, despite the fact that most of them are staring at me with their mouths agape when they probably should be watching the car they are about to hit. My great skill and natural grace took me through innumerable obstacles and brought me safely to my school. And then I broke my ankle.
Like every private business in this country the school is really just someone’s house. The ground floor is the lobby and reception area. The classrooms are upstairs. Since this is a new school in an old house there are usually random tradespeople installing something or fixing something that someone else has recently installed. Chinese people remove their shoes when they enter a house. Local tradespeople and manual laborers remove their shoes when they come in to do whatever they are doing. I think the reasoning is that it is better to traipse your dirty feet across the floor than your dirty shoes. I have lived here for years. I know all about this.
Yet when I walked down the stairs I did not bother to notice the slippers placed on the bottom step. When I stepped on one and it slid out from under me my foot went down one way and my body went the other. It hurt like a mother fucker. In fact, that was the new vocabulary lesson I taught the student who happened to be standing nearby. She is the sweetest little girl who has no business being anywhere near the likes of me. Fortunately for her parents, she is also the only person at the school who is not one of my students. Since there is no appropriate class to put her in she has a private class with one of the Chinese teachers. The assumption is that when the school gets bigger there will be somewhere to put her.
Cara told the adults that the tall foreigner made fall down and I was soon the belle of the ball. Old Boss Lady would have immediately seen her profits decrease. Not because of hospital bills. Medical treatment costs almost nothing around here. But if the foreigner is injured he cannot teach classes, and if he does not teach any classes the parents are not happy. Parents are the people who pay the bills. New Boss Lady seemed generally concerned for my wellbeing. She graciously suggested that I sit out the first half of my class. I suggested that my ankle could conceivably be broken. This horrified her. Perhaps because an injured foreigner at a new school is unlucky. Perhaps from genuine compassion. Probably a little of both.
The locals suggested I go to the local hospital. But it is more of a clinic than a hospital and I do not have the greatest fondness for local clinics. So I tried to call Pi Chi. She works at a real hospital. She is a nurse. She does not give a rat’s ass about the school’s profits. But a funny little quirk Pi Chi has is that she never answers the phone when I call her. She will answer when her relatives call. She will answer when friends and acquaintances call. I have seen her literally drop everything and run to the phone when she has no idea who is calling. But she will never answer the phone when I call. I try not to take it personally. It is probably unlucky.
I tried to call Pi Chi at all of her phone numbers. She has three or four phone numbers at two or three phones. None of which she answers when I call. I gave one of the phone numbers to New Boss Lady and she called. Pi Chi answered the phone immediately.
Pi Chi agreed that going to her hospital was a better idea than going to the local clinic. But Pi Chi could not come and get me since I had her car. She suggested I take an ambulance, but my experience with ambulances has always been detrimental to my investment portfolio. Eventually I decided I would simply drive myself there. Her car is an automatic and it was my left ankle that was on the fritz. What could possibly go wrong.
Getting to the car was a great adventure. I quickly found that walking on the ankle was not going to happen unless I took a crash course in one of those zen yoga techniques that lets you set yourself on fire and feel only butterfly kisses. New Boss Lady offered to help me to the car, but an under five foot tall 90 pound Chinese woman is not the best crutch. Thanks to my Meigouren ingenuity I devised an intricate system of moving from one chair to another until I was out the door. I then used an umbrella as a crutch. The umbrella gallantly sacrificed its life so that I might be temporarily mobile.
At Pi Chi’s hospital the doctor wanted to play with my ankle. I wanted x-rays. He tried to move my foot around before I told him that if he was looking forward to the full use of his face any time in the future he would cease and desist immediately. I suggested x-rays. He wanted to drive a needle into my ankle and suck out fluids. I wanted x-rays. Eventually the doctor had an idea. “Why don’t we take some x-rays”, he said. Brilliant.
I have been radiated before. I know that it takes time and in some crowded hospitals in non-emergent situations it can take days. Pi Chi’s hospital is what one might call modern. They do not actually use film x-rays that have to be developed. They shoot you with the radiation and the picture shows up on their screen immediately. The digital image can be sent to any doctor at the click of a mouse. I have no idea why American hospitals cannot utilize such technology. They would say it is too expensive. The digital x-ray at Pi Chi’s hospital cost me ten US dollars. It was only so expensive because I do not yet have health insurance.
The doctor was looking at my x-ray before I was back in his office. He said nothing was broken as far as he could tell. He did not seem too confident. He explained that there are some tiny bones in the ankle that one could easily break without feeling anything. I explained that I felt something. I could not walk without expanding on George Carlin’s seven words.
The good news about universal health care is that it is dirt cheap. The bad news is that hospitals give you nothing. I had to get my own ankle brace apparatus. The good news is that in Pi Chi’s hospital there are two hospital supply stores in the basement. The bad news is that neither had the brace that the doctor recommended. The good news is that Pi Chi knows the doctor personally and could call him to see if what was available was acceptable. The bad news is that it was not. The good news is that I already had a good cane from our trip to Paris. The bad news is that I had to get a cane when I was in Paris. The good news is that I went to Paris. At this point I have no idea if my glass is half empty or half full.
If you are a foreigner in this country people will stare at you. Everywhere. In a sense it is liberating. If I dye my hair purple and wear a suit of armor I will be stared at as much as if I wear the ‘80s fashion and hair that meets current social conformity. Walking with a cane around here will elicit stares. As will being a foreigner. But one cannot expect any consideration. The handicapped never have the right of way. When I was in Paris on a cane people offered me their seats on the metro. When we arrived home from that trip absolutely no one showed any consideration whatsoever. A few people almost knocked me down with their typical selfish behavior. Vive la différence.
Foreigners around here routinely go to work in sandals and slacker apparel. It has nothing to do with being a slacker foreigner. That is how the locals dress for work as well. I have always refused to go to work shoeless. I do not wear a suit. Far from it, but I have my own dress code. I did not wear t-shirts until I came to my new school and even now I do not wear shirts with slogans or any kind of writing. My “I am born to do it. It has to think only about the thing. Even if everthing is lost, the futures still remain. There are only three method, correct method wrong method and my method I must not run away from the weaknes. Are you fighting? It is nesessary to fight to the lost minute at time, and there is a thing to die, too. Why is not now if it fight?” shirt has never been in a classroom. But now I am going to work in sandals. I simply cannot put on shoes and socks. I am also the kind of teacher who stands in class. I have seen a few teachers who are a little more casual about their teaching methods, but I do not think the teacher should be sitting in a corner and paying more attention to his cell phone than his class. But now I sit in class. Even with a cane and approved brace I cannot stand for any length of time without sweating like a dolphin.
In my country I would be able to sue the school. I would at least get enough to pay for medical bills. Around here that is simply not an option. And there are no medical bills. Everything was paid in full before I left the hospital. In my country I could take months off for physical and psychological recovery. Here I got three days off, and only because it all happened on a Friday and the following Monday was a national holiday.
Now I always look down when I take the stairs.
23 October 2006
Macao, China
澳門 is called the Las Vegas of Asia by people in 澳門. I have been to Las Vegas. I have gambled at 5 cent slot machines in Las Vegas. I saw a grown man set his arm on fire in Las Vegas. I got some in a jacuzzi in Las Vegas. 澳門 is no Las Vegas.
What 澳門 and Las Vegas have in common is legal gambling and far too many people walking around with their mouths open. In Vegas this is generally a reaction of awe. Shiny lights and $1.99 cocktails will do that to hillbillies from Nebraska. In 澳門, people apparently enjoy eating mosquitos and dirt while they walk. Both cities are also very dirty. Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert. I once stayed at the Aladdin when it was the Aladdin in January. It was very cold, which is pretty surreal in Las Vegas, and sand from the empty lot that is now the Paris hotel gave our hotel window a nice laminated sheen. 澳門 is just dirty. You can taste the utility trucks as you walk down Rua do Campo at that street triangle thing.
I have been to some amazing places in my life. I have been to more than a few places that would have been better had I stayed at a nicer hotel. I have been to places that I liked at first, but tired of quickly, and places that took time to appreciate. Then there is 澳門.
Lately, whenever I go anywhere I either find my own hotel or let local travel agents do everything. I have been pretty lucky in finding decent hotels at reasonable rates. The local travel agents always find lesser hotels, often at similar or higher rates. The first time I went to Bangkok I stayed at a hotel chosen by Boss Lady’s travel agent. Boss Lady paid for it so I saw no reason to complain. That hotel was a dump and in a terrible location. I have chosen the hotel for all subsequent visits to Thailand and it is always much better. The first time I went to Seoul, Boss Lady tried to pick my hotel but I upgraded to something far superior at the same price. That was a great trip. The second time I went to Seoul, Pi Chi’s travel agent picked my hotel and it was a dump in a terrible location. Had that been my first time in Seoul I probably would have never gone back.
Pi Chi’s travel agent picked our hotel in 澳門. Not surprisingly, it was a dump in a terrible location. 澳門 is basically a peninsula and two islands, only the islands have been fused together into one. It is almost like 香港, except that 九龍 and 香港島 are separate but equal. 氹仔島 and 澳門半島 are just separate. All the pop and parties are on the peninsula. We were on 氹仔, gateway to the airport and home of reclamated land and a few seedy docks.
Largo do Senado
氹仔 had two redeeming qualities. It is home to a famous bakery where all Chinese who visit 澳門 are required to shop. This was good news for Pi Chi as she has to buy whatever famous product is made wherever she goes for whoever she knows. They had good 月餅. Our hotel was also very close to the only grocery store in Asia where I have ever found almond M&Ms, the excellent Sanmiu Supermarkt Liited.
No matter where I go I inevitably find myself in a neighborhood grocery store. You can tell a lot about a neighborhood by its grocery store, and that is often the first place I will go after I have checked into the hotel. Not intentionally, but just because shit happens, I seem to always find myself in the candy aisle. What I quickly discovered is that every city to which I have ever been has M&Ms, but not almond. They all have plain. Most have peanut. Some have that crispy kind that I do not like. A few odd flavors have been popping up at home. But outside of the United States, and possibly Canada, I had never seen almond M&Ms. Until 澳門.
I am by no definition the world’s biggest M&M fan. But there are moments in life when you find yourself at a place and time when eating whatever is readily available is probably not the best course of action for your stomach or your dignity. M&Ms are relatively safe, easy to eat in small or large portions, and can prevent those untidy lapses into hypoglycemic comas. But plain M&Ms are too sweet for my aging taste buds, peanut M&Ms always taste like stale year-old peanuts, and I always seem to get more than a few with those black peanuts that taste just like dried battery acid. And those orange flavored M&Ms with the Russian package just freak me out. Almond M&Ms are my first choice. Especially since I live in a world where Reese’s peanut butter cups are harder to find than a virgin at the Viper Room, and twice as expensive, and Tootsie Rolls are an urbane legend.
I could die for a Tootsie Roll right about now. Or at least take a nap.
We spent most of our time traveling from our hotel end of 澳門 to the good end. We quickly found that taxis are expensive, for some reason. This was 澳門, not 東京. Taking the bus is like those travel programs about trains in India. They literally pack people on the bus until the door can just close. And I mean literally as in literally, not as in I am literally starving to death since I have not eaten in two hours. I stood on the first step to get in the bus during one such trip. Had the doors opened during a turn I would have flown out like a silkie. It is also worth mentioning that many of your typical working class Chinese have an aversion to soap and water. This is likely a cultural issue and I am not here to judge, but when you are packed into a bus that fits 30 with 50 people and it is over 35 degrees outside with 85% humidity, you want to be crammed next to as many people who took this week’s bath as possible.
We mostly took taxis in 澳門.
Mainland 澳門 had two redeeming qualities. It is home to Macao Tower (Torre Panorâmica) and a very good Italian restaurant. Macao Tower is not the tallest tower in the world, but it is the tallest tower in 澳門. The views from the top would be very good if not for all the smog. But what makes this tower interesting is that you can bungee jump from the observation level and walk around the top of the tower on the outside without any railings or protection from the weather. But they do make you wear a bright orange jumpsuit. I suppose that makes finding the bodies easier. They also do not allow people to bring their cameras. That killed it for me. I would only do it for the kick ass photography. And there was no way in hell Pi Chi was going out there, so I stayed behind for her benefit, valiant as I am. Also the price was just ridiculous.
The best thing about 澳門 for me was a quiet little Italian restaurant in a quiet little alley surrounded by casinos and jewelry stores that look like pawn shops. When we went there it was practically empty, which is a bad sign to Pi Chi and a good sign to me. I had the best gnocchi I have had in years. Pi Chi had the beef lasagna. I told her not to get it but she never listens to me. Pi Chi does not like beef. Consequently, she did not care much for the beef lasagna. When we walked away, my impression of the restaurant was higher than hers.
The most popular tourist attraction in 澳門 is what was once the front door of a 17th century Portuguese cathedral. It is “the symbol of Macao”. It is a wall. Everything that once stood behind, beside and above it is no more. But if you climb the million steps that lead to the wall and look out one of the empty windows you get a good view of the billion people shopping on the dirty streets down the hill.
St Paul’s Cathedral
The worst thing about 澳門 is that it is dirty, as has been mentioned previously. Even by Chinese standards. According to my own empirical and thoroughly researched and peer reviewed scientific survey, about 150% of the population smokes. There are clearly no automotive emissions standards. No pun intended. The men, women and children of 澳門 have no problem spitting on whatever surface happens to be in front of them. Or me. The men of 澳門 have no problem urinating into sewer grates. And 澳門, like probably all of China, has those intoxicatingly aromatic open sewers. The people of 澳門 whisper at a decibel level that could tear down walls.
For the sake of discussion we shall say that I am not a snob. I do not sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets. I do not drink Veneta caffè latte with my pinky raised smugly in the air. I think Kierkegaard was a tool.
I love New York. In the most voracious way possible. I love the smell of 1st Ave after it rains. I drink out of the can. And almost never with a twisty straw. I work blue.
I have been places where angels fear to tread. I have slept in places that I would not let a dog sleep. And I do not particularly care for dogs. But 澳門 is the only city I have ever been to in my entire life that I have absolutely no desire to ever return to for any reason whatsoever. And that includes Detroit.
[Update: I have since been back twice.]
and “the largest Chinese restaurant in the world”
What more could you need?
01 April 2006
Attaching The Shackles
Pi Chi and I went to Paris not too long ago. It was a pretty good trip. I think all trips to Paris are required to be good. They have some kind of law about it.
While we were planning the trip some people in and around Paris decided it might be fun to set a few cars on fire. This concerned Pi Chi. She did not want to go anywhere where rioting was taking place. I pointed out that our trip would not be for another month and I considered it highly unlikely that these riots would still be in force. It seems like everywhere I go there is some kind of disruption before my arrival. There is often some problem after I leave. As long as nothing too eventful happens while I am there. True to form, as soon as we left Paris some people decided to protest the new student employment law. This has become big news and Pi Chi is glad that we missed it. But really, when are the French not protesting something?
The worst part about this trip for me was the shopping. I knew it was going to happen. Taking Pi Chi to Paris and not expecting her to shop is like taking a priest to a skateboarding convention and not expecting him to stain his pants. But I think I was not fully prepared for the level of shopping in Paris. I knew there are many stores and I knew that the prices there tend to be higher than they do here, especially considering that most items in Paris are genuine and the cheap imitations here are very much not. What I was not counting on was the sheer volume of time we would spend in the intellectual void that is retail.
Pi Chi was on a mission for her sister. Her instructions were to purchase one or two handbags from Louis Vuitton. That sounds simple enough. And there is a large Louis Vuitton boutique on the Champs Elysées. It is also very crowded. At least it was when we went. And the employees are not very helpful. Add French and high end fashion plus retail and you do not exactly get the world’s best customer service.
I was on a cane at the time, so standing around for a few hours while aging women wearing animals and enough perfume to make Downey smell good was not high on my to do list. I found a chair in a corner and waited. And waited.
Two hours later Pi Chi returned from the void and informed me that she finally found someone to help her. Oddly enough I thought this meant that we were about to leave. As the French say, on the contrary, my friend.
I hobbled my sore ass (the chair was not that comfortable) upstairs and was given the honor of sitting in a marginally more comfortable chair for another hour. At least the upstairs showroom was less crowded and the employees were slightly more attuned to ass kissing. By this I mean that some guy offered me a glass of water.
After three hours in this store Pi Chi told me that we were ready to leave. I was happier than Dick Cheney with a full magazine and a bottle of Jack. (This is where I incorporate a current event to show that I am not out of touch. The fact that this event took place months ago shows just how out of touch I am). We then went downstairs where we were allowed to wait in a line with about 100 other people. We, and they, had already paid. Now that the store had all of our money there was no water, no sitting down; just a lot of waiting for the merchandise. This did not really seem like high end shopping to me. But it did seem like retail.
We first entered the store at about 1pm. We left with two handbags just after 4:45.
The total charge was €1,300 (about US$1,576.12).
During our last few nights in Paris I was trying to find a really nice romantic restaurant. In Paris that should be easy. I happen to not be an expert on Paris. I can tell you where a few good sandwich shops are, and I know that the taxis are ungodly expensive, but other than Louis Vuitton I know next to nothing about where the beautiful people go.
We went to some nice restaurants, but they were not perfect for the administration of my plan. Also I had a plan.
On the night of our last full day in the city I found the perfect restaurant. This time I, and not the location, foiled my plan.
Back at the hotel Pi Chi was looking at the insanely expensive Louis Vuitton purses she bought. I asked her which she preferred. “Do you like that one or that one?” I then pulled the ring out of my pocket. “Or this one?”
I asked her in bad Chinese if she would marry me.
I have asked two women in my life to marry me. The first one stared at the ring and replied, “Yikes”. She never did say yes. Pi Chi said yes. Actually she said, “Of course” as though it was a given. She barely noticed the ring. She could hardly see it anyway with all of the tears pouring down her face.
I hope they were tears of joy.
While we were planning the trip some people in and around Paris decided it might be fun to set a few cars on fire. This concerned Pi Chi. She did not want to go anywhere where rioting was taking place. I pointed out that our trip would not be for another month and I considered it highly unlikely that these riots would still be in force. It seems like everywhere I go there is some kind of disruption before my arrival. There is often some problem after I leave. As long as nothing too eventful happens while I am there. True to form, as soon as we left Paris some people decided to protest the new student employment law. This has become big news and Pi Chi is glad that we missed it. But really, when are the French not protesting something?
The worst part about this trip for me was the shopping. I knew it was going to happen. Taking Pi Chi to Paris and not expecting her to shop is like taking a priest to a skateboarding convention and not expecting him to stain his pants. But I think I was not fully prepared for the level of shopping in Paris. I knew there are many stores and I knew that the prices there tend to be higher than they do here, especially considering that most items in Paris are genuine and the cheap imitations here are very much not. What I was not counting on was the sheer volume of time we would spend in the intellectual void that is retail.
Pi Chi was on a mission for her sister. Her instructions were to purchase one or two handbags from Louis Vuitton. That sounds simple enough. And there is a large Louis Vuitton boutique on the Champs Elysées. It is also very crowded. At least it was when we went. And the employees are not very helpful. Add French and high end fashion plus retail and you do not exactly get the world’s best customer service.
I was on a cane at the time, so standing around for a few hours while aging women wearing animals and enough perfume to make Downey smell good was not high on my to do list. I found a chair in a corner and waited. And waited.
Two hours later Pi Chi returned from the void and informed me that she finally found someone to help her. Oddly enough I thought this meant that we were about to leave. As the French say, on the contrary, my friend.
I hobbled my sore ass (the chair was not that comfortable) upstairs and was given the honor of sitting in a marginally more comfortable chair for another hour. At least the upstairs showroom was less crowded and the employees were slightly more attuned to ass kissing. By this I mean that some guy offered me a glass of water.
After three hours in this store Pi Chi told me that we were ready to leave. I was happier than Dick Cheney with a full magazine and a bottle of Jack. (This is where I incorporate a current event to show that I am not out of touch. The fact that this event took place months ago shows just how out of touch I am). We then went downstairs where we were allowed to wait in a line with about 100 other people. We, and they, had already paid. Now that the store had all of our money there was no water, no sitting down; just a lot of waiting for the merchandise. This did not really seem like high end shopping to me. But it did seem like retail.
We first entered the store at about 1pm. We left with two handbags just after 4:45.
The total charge was €1,300 (about US$1,576.12).
During our last few nights in Paris I was trying to find a really nice romantic restaurant. In Paris that should be easy. I happen to not be an expert on Paris. I can tell you where a few good sandwich shops are, and I know that the taxis are ungodly expensive, but other than Louis Vuitton I know next to nothing about where the beautiful people go.
We went to some nice restaurants, but they were not perfect for the administration of my plan. Also I had a plan.
On the night of our last full day in the city I found the perfect restaurant. This time I, and not the location, foiled my plan.
Back at the hotel Pi Chi was looking at the insanely expensive Louis Vuitton purses she bought. I asked her which she preferred. “Do you like that one or that one?” I then pulled the ring out of my pocket. “Or this one?”
I asked her in bad Chinese if she would marry me.
I have asked two women in my life to marry me. The first one stared at the ring and replied, “Yikes”. She never did say yes. Pi Chi said yes. Actually she said, “Of course” as though it was a given. She barely noticed the ring. She could hardly see it anyway with all of the tears pouring down her face.
I hope they were tears of joy.
05 March 2006
Photographs Of Paris
1er arrondissement
4e arrondissement
Disneyland Paris
Marne-la-Vallée
18e arrondissement
Sacré-Cœur
15e & 16e arrondissement
8e arrondissement
8e arrondissement
Disneyland Paris
Marne-la-Vallée
7e arrondissement
6e arrondissement
5e arrondissement
5e arrondissement
Île-de-France
4e arrondissement
28 February 2006
Paris, France
I arrived in Paris a few days before Pi Chi. I did this so that I could familiarize myself with the city and be able to show her around once she arrived. I also had far more vacation time than she did and did not want to waste it at home. Up to this point all of our travel together had been in Asia. This was the first time that I would know the local language more than she does.
In Vienna I was surprised by how much German I knew. I could get basic information from shopkeepers, order food, and even count without taking off my shoes. The street signs might as well have been in English. In Vienna I was the master of all I surveyed and everyone bowed before my mighty abilities.
In Paris I was surprised by how little French I knew. I could read menus and signs, but as soon as people spoke they might as well have all been Arabic. “Slow down, por favor, surrender monkey”, became my catchphrase. When I speak English too quickly for Pi Chi to understand me it is funny, but when the French speak too quickly for me to understand it is just annoying. The French, especially Parisians, have a reputation among Americans for being rude. Other than one cheese eater at a Planet Hollywood (of all places), they were not rude, but they did all have a habit of speaking French as though it was their native tongue and not slowing painfully down to a crawl so that us camera swinging tourists could buy purple barets with tiny Eiffel Towers sewn flimsily across the brow.
The guy at Planet Hollywood was just an asshole. I do not know what his problem was. Probably too many baguettes up his ass. When I asked him why he had such a lousy attitude he sarcastically apologized, saying that “France can not live up to the rest of the world’s standards.”
“It is not France”, I said. “It is you.”
This little confrontation began because we wanted a non-smoking table. I realize that in France smoking is a national pastime, but this guy was personally offended because I wanted to eat and breathe at the same time. I would have asked to speak to the manager, but I think he was the manager. And we ordered French fries that never came. Oddly enough, the menu called them French fries. Planet Hollywood just sucks.
Damn Americans.
About a week before Pi Chi arrived on the continent I had my second bout of gout. But it was still at the stage where I could pretend it was not there. Two or three days before Pi Chi, I was limping a little and wondering how far it was going to go. By the time Pi Chi arrived it was pretty obvious that I was not going to be able to hide it from her. After hobbling around Paris for a few days I decided it might be a good idea to do something about it. Generally, medicine and rest is the best solution. Consulting with doctors is not usually my forte and there was no way I was about to spend the rest of this trip in the hotel room. There was far too much to see and, really, how bad could it get.
Apparently it just gets worse and worse when you ignore it and continue to walk around all day. Eventually I compromised and bought a cane from a local pharmacy. Although probably not the best solution, it made a world of difference. Another difference between Europeans and Asians; the French actually moved out of my way when I was on a cane. They seem to have some consideration for other people. Go figure.
Pi Chi had been to Europe before, but she had never been to any of the museums. To me this is wrong. So on her second full day in Paris we went to the Louvre. For a first Western museum experience this was not a bad choice. I told her we would be there the entire day. I do not think she believed me until we took our first meal break. While eating what she considered the best sandwich in Paris (to which I strongly disagreed. The best sandwich is clearly from that tiny shop on Rue de la Pépinière. I mean, come on), I showed her all of the things I wanted to see on the museum map. We had been there several hours and had only covered the Denon wing. By the end of the day we had seen everything we cared about, except the 17th Century Holland and Flanders rooms (which were closed), and had even managed to find a few rooms we were not looking for. The next day we went to Disneyland.
Having previously gone to Tokyo for no real reason other than to see Tokyo Disneyland, it seemed only fair to visit Disneyland Paris (often called EuroDisney, although not by them). The differences between the two are striking. I do believe both are about the same size, and both are smaller than California Disneyland (maybe), but where Tokyo Disneyland makes an attempt to look very similar to California Disneyland, Disneyland Paris looks nothing like either. Disneyland Paris probably has all of the same rides as California Disneyland. Tokyo Disneyland was missing several, mainly because there is an entirely separate sea themed park right next door.
Tokyo Disneyland’s Pirates Of The Caribbean was eerily similar to California Disneyland’s. Disneyland Paris’ was completely different, but it made a lot more sense to have the pirates talking in French rather than in Japanese.
One of the most obvious contrasts was that most of the rides at Disneyland Paris are not sponsored by any corporations. This seemed all the more foreign to me. Also, and this is important, when you exit Main Street (called World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland and Main Street, USA at Disneyland Paris) a simple left turn should take you to Pirates Of The Caribbean. This was not the case at Disneyland Paris. Their Pirates Of The Caribbean is as far from Main Street as one can get. And that is just wrong. But that left turn will take you to Phantom Manor, which has its own little cemetery apart from the ride that you can actually visit. The cemetery is next door to a hot spring geyser, for some reason.
Pi Chi preferred Tokyo Disneyland. Probably because there was no snow on the ground and very little wind cold enough to slice through bone. I preferred Disneyland Paris. Primarily because there were 10 million fewer people. But to their detriment, neither Tokyo Disneyland nor Disneyland Paris have a monorail. Maybe this is because the citizens of Tokyo and Paris, unlike Californians, do not consider an efficient mass transit system to be some kind of futuristic marvel.
While Pi Chi and I took the obligatory romantic walk along the Seine I kept at least one hand in my pocket at all times. The reasons for this were that it was quite cold, and I was fiddling with a small box in my pocket. When I went to Bangkok three or four months earlier I spent pretty much all of my travel money on a ring. Many precious stones are indigenous to Thailand and it is a pretty good place to buy them at semi-reasonable prices. They are much cheaper from the backs of trucks, but I chose to visit an actual jeweler that was regulated by the government.
The River Seine turned out not to be the right place. Neither were a million other places we explored. I was beginning to wonder where the right place would be or if it would even present itself. Then I thought that maybe it was not the places that were causing my hesitation, but me. Near the end of our trip we decided to forgo the usual pizza or sandwich dinner and actually go to some of the many restaurants Paris has to offer. When we went to a Mexican restaurant in the Quartier latin I had fully intended to finally remove the ring from my pocket. But this was a real Mexican restaurant, full of noise, Mariachi, and cigarette smoke.
On our next to last night in Paris I had the hotel’s concierge recommend a good Italian restaurant. I specifically mentioned that it should be quiet. When we arrived I knew that this was the right place. It was a good restaurant with real customer service, something I do not get to experience at home, and there was only one other occupied table. My mistake was waiting until after our meal. It was a good meal, the best pasta I have had in a very long time, but what was an empty restaurant when we got there quickly became full by the time we were ready to leave. I have no problem with an audience, but I wanted the quiet romantic atmosphere that it was when we arrived. I let yet another opportunity slip away. Only now I was quickly running out of time.
Back at the hotel Pi Chi was looking at the insanely expensive Louis Vuitton purses she bought. I asked her which one she preferred. “Do you like that one or that one?” I then pulled the ring out of my pocket. “Or this one?” I asked her in Chinese if she would marry me.
22 February 2006
Photographs Of Vienna
Innere Stadt
Innere Stadt
Somewhere around Sonnenfelsgasse
Hietzing
Donaustadt
Near that Chinese restaurant
Leopoldstadt
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Profile
All content © 2004-2013
I have no qualms about disseminating creative works for the public benefit when the author is duly credited, but if you use any of the writing or photography contained herein and try to pass it off as yours, that just shows you are a big pussy who is too lazy to come up with your own word usements or shoot your own digital paintings. You should be ashamed of your dipshittery.