Stuff that happenned.
There was the day when I was crossing the street from the town market as an old man walked behind me. This city has ridiculous traffic and it seems that the only rule of the road is "If you're driving something that has wheels you can do any damn thing you want." So I guess the driver wasn't technically breaking any rules when he slammed into the old man with the car going close to 10mph. The old man rolled off the hood of the car and fell. There were many people watching and many others near the man, but I was the only one who made any immediate attempt to help the poor guy. I'm not trying to paint a picture of myself as better than the people who were around me. If anything, I was pissed off at the people around me. No one was doing anything. No one was trying to help. It made me angry. I offered the man my hand, hoping that he would understand what I was doing. He stared at me like I was some kind of old horror movie monster come to life. Finally, the driver came out of the car and helped the old man up. They were speaking Chinese and I couldn't understand a word. What else could I do? I backed off to the sidewalk and watched, very curiously, to see what would happen next. They talked. The old man seemed to assure the driver that he was ok. There was no exchange of addresses or phone numbers. No one called the cops or the ambulance. In the end, all that happenned was that the old man walked away and the driver got back in his car. This was my first week in Kaili. I thought "Where the fuck am I?"
As I was walking home, a car stopped beside me. A man I didn't recognize climbed out and walked over to me. He didn't speak English and my Chinese was about as minimal as minimal could be. He wanted something, some kind of information, but I had no idea what it was. After a few minutes of listening intently to his rapid fire speaking and trying out my vast arsenal of Chinese phrases (maybe 20 max.) I was finally able to understand the word "dien hwa." "Phone." He wanted my phone number. I'm not in the habit of giving my phone number to people I don't know even when I can communicate with them. On one hand, I knew that I didn't want to give him my number but on the other hand, I didn't want to be rude about it. I probably should've just told him I didn't understand and walked away, but I didn't. I thought about a college friend of mine. She was a beautiful girl who used to get hit on on a regular basis. I remember laughing one day when I realized that she had given an extra annoying guy a fake phone number. On this day, I stole her idea. I gave this strange man a fake phone number. Now some poor schmuck in Hunan is probably going to get a call from this random guy.
My "friend" King invited to me a restaraunt that served traditional Miao food. I was excited. I'm very interested in the fact that, in this part of China, I'm not just experiencing China but I'm actually experiencing Chinese ethnic minority culture. Many Chinese people don't even get a chance to try food like this. For the most part the food was good. There was a central pot on the middle of our round table. Two of my friends were with me and there was King and his friend. I reached into the pot and grabbed something that looked like a slim-jim. I remember it being very difficult to chew. When King told me what it was I thought he was joking. A few minutes later I thought, "Why would he be joking? I'm in China. This is Miao food. For all I know he was completely serious." He was. At this point, my stomach told me that I had two options: 1) spew it all back out over the floor regardless of whether or not I made it to the bathroom in time or 2) drown it. Chinese beer bottles are big and I drank mine like a fish. Other interesting food experiences I've had here have involved bee larvae and grasshoppers, but I knew what those were before eating them.
A girl who couldn't have been more than 12 years old or so walked up to me and said, in perfectly understandable English, "I want to sleep with you." The great thing about being a foreigner is that I can always use the old foreigner standby sentence. When you can't think of anything else to say or if you want to discourage a person from talking to you, you say, "I don't understand." That was all I could think of to say to her. The situation was too creepy for any other response. It worked and she left. I usually encourage these kids when they're speaking English, but not this time.
There's too much to write in one blog, too many crazy/interesting things that have happenned. I realize that quite a few of these anecdotes here are a bit on the negative side, but they're just things that have stuck out in my mind. There are good things too and I will write about them. Catching up on 2 months worth of cultural misunderstandings, language barrier problems, and crazy memories is not easy. I'll keep working on it.
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