Today, I rolled out of bed at 9:00. I am in particularly sticky situation in the room – a situation that is both coupled by, and mad ever worse by, an approaching sense of crisis (weijigan). Am running out of food in the room, and I do believe that it is safe to say that I am totally out now. As a substitute for my morning nourishment, I decided to check my email, and content myself with maintaining my fast until some later, undefined point in time.
I had two major events on my schedule for the day. The reasons for this general lack of ambition are multiple: I am still dead after the midterm from last week, and by not having any major plans, it is impossible for the day to disappoint me. Thus, I left the room, bound for Bally for a long run. When I made my way into the steaming locker room, I realized that I had made a grave mistake: I forgot my socks. I was faced with a decision: to go back to the dorm, eating uop around 25 minutes in commuting, or to shut up and run. I decided to run. And running I did, for about 75 minutes. I do have to mention that my feet were covered in horrible blisters and hot spots, that burned when I got in the showers and put on any shoes for the rest of the day. Such is the price of running…
By this time, I was on the verge of bonking. For the uninitiated:
Bonk – bawnk (v) [when running, biking or otherwise engaged in a long-distance endurance sport] to run out of blood sugar, resulting in tunnel vision, general pissy-ness, and a lack of logical decision-making processes. Ex: Spud ~ed on his training run and almost passed our.
I went over to a noodle restaurant across the street to get my first meal of the day, but not before 3:00 in the afternoon. I ate 4 meat-sticks and somechao-pian. Chao-pian is a Chinese noodle dish where the noodle squares (pian) are stir-fried (chao) with peppers and pork, instead of being boiled. I generally prefer chao-pian to boiled noodles, as I believe they have a better flavor. I was one of the many customers in the restaurant, and I watched as a wife waited in the restaurant for her husband to arrive for the majority of my meal. When he did get there, he berated the waitress for not having enough boiled water for him to drink, and he accused her of being a mute when she didn’t answer his verbal abuses. I can’t say that I blame her for her muteness.
I then returned to the dorm and performed the ancient rite of emptying my backpack of all of the bath supplies, my towel, and old clothes from my backpack. Then, I saddled up the bike and rode to Carrefour. Shopping was uninteresting, but gratifying, as it always is. I was on the lookout for the sneaky practices of the French supermarket hegemon, and I do believe that I emerged unscathed. I bought supplies for the next week, and replenished my supplies for other non-food items that I would use over the rest of the semester. These items included some shampoo, conditioner, and jasmine tea, the last of which I heartily recommend.
I rode back to the dorm and read some Sherlock Holmes. I would have read the book well into the night uninterrupted, but I was saved from my hunger by Wes and Hannah and a knock on my door around 7:30. They wanted to get some food with their friend You-you (pronounced yo-yo). You-you is a grad student at MinZu, specializing in arcane and esoteric studies of Chinese ethnic minorities, possibly in the rich cultural realm of minority folk songs. However, I may be mistaken on that aspect. While we were at the restaurant, You-you performed as a model of Chinese manners should: he called Wes handsome to the point of awkwardness and wouldn’t stop talking about how witty I was and how “great” my Chinese was. When faced with these praises, the best response is to be sheepish and toast the host, which we did almost incessantly.
We traveled to a Muslim restaurant just outside of the West Gate, where we consumed a fried rice dish with beef and carrots, a cold dish of radishes with vinegar, and rou-chuar. It was delicious, but a little on the expensive side, as we did not follow the Chinese custom of getting food and sharing it.
I, personally, was still pretty hungry when we left the restaurant, and I went with Wes to find some snacks at the West Gate. We found a little closet of a restaurant that sells sandwiches for 8.5 Yuan ($1.50)! That is amazing, considering that you usually can’t get anything Western and tasty for less than 20 Yuan. I purchased a sandwich and made friends with the service person as he made my sandwich, while Wes played with the Rubic’s cube they had on the counter. We stopped by another little store to get some snacks for the room, and headed back to the dorm to a chorus of Chinese surrounding us. Saturday night was the pinnacle of freedom for these university students, and they were taking to the streets in droves.
We came back to the room, and yet again, played Majiang. The game of Majiang is incredibly simple, but very, very addicting. It is a lot of fun, dear readers, and I am going to have to get a set before I leave. This game is too fun to just play in China. We took Alex’s stereo out of his room (as has become our custom for these nighttime Majiang sessions) and we blared Western music from our iPods. We were treading a fine line with the hotel security, but I think he has warmed up to having the Western guests in his hotel. He hasn’t made us turn down our music after that one incident a few weeks back.
My room cleared out around 12:00, and I promptly fell asleep.
I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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