The Mile Swim

Back when I went to summer camp...uh boy scout summer camp, they always ended the week with a mile swim that everyone could choose to participate in. My first year there, I was the scrawniest kid in the whole camp, but with little other reason than I was growing tired of archery and electrolyte slurpee beverages I decided to go for it. Noone thought I could finish, and they told me to my face, and this includes the adults. But, I made it, bravely performing an unholy rotation of strokes that consisted only of the doggy paddle and the float.

Now, I think you see where I'm going with this. Chinese is my new mile swim. Except now I have giant concrete blocks tied to my feet, and there are no lifeguards, and actually my arms and legs were removed before they threw me into the lake. And the lake is lava. And the lava has fire proof sharks in it.

But today I managed to move a little towards that buoy in the distance. You see, when people fail during Chinese class and stammer on an answer, and things get really desperate...I mean really desperate, I've seen a student-teacher stalemate that lasted the better part of 10 seconds, the teacher just standing there as the student helplessly quivered in his seat...but when things get real bad, there's usually a go-to guy, who the teacher can depend on for quick assistance. Today it was me! I knocked my first answer of the day out of the park, and then when another student was getting destroyed, I got pointed to by the teacher. She might as well have been saying "you, go board that space ship to explore Mars and cure poverty and remove The Killers from the face of the planet". And the best part is, I didn't screw up the go-ahead goal! And then, I pretty much sucked the rest of the class.

I did have one other highlight moment. The teacher was asking us what we look for in a girlfriend. And this teacher was pretty good looking, so I planned out a little joke. I could see that my buddy across the room was scheming something to, so I had to hope that I would get called on first, before he stole the glory. The waiting was tense, but, thank heavens, she chose me, and I let rip.

"For me, it is important that a girl be not only smart, but also Chinese" I said and laughter filled the room.

I could see the look of dissapointment on my friends face: his time had passed.

Two days earlier I bought a ping pong paddle for 8 bucks, and we went to the facility here where ping pong champions are made not born. It was a lot of fun, but I was a sweaty mess by the end of it, and, besides chess, I feel that pingpong is probably the most embarassing sport to sweat because of.

That night we decided to go get a massage. In China, massage is done almost exclusively by blind people. We knew that going in, but what we didn't know was that these would be giant, strong blind Chinese people that could inflict severe pain with a single finger. My friend that I went with...not coincidentally the same lad whose joke opportunity I would steal two days later (not coincidental in that I don't have too many friends, so if I'm gonna be with a friend it's gonna be about one of two people)...had had some severe back problems, so he was pretty terrified that the guy was gonna do some damage. I had only had one very minor back injury which was the result of one too many battles with the football hitting dummy affectionately known as "Tall T". There was no way, I thought, that he would find that little injury, buried somewhere in the deep recesses of my spine.

Oh, he found it.

In discussions later, my friend and I agreed that the real joy to Chinese massage is the relief that you feel once the pain has stopped. Some of the more grueling moments came during the butt, calf and shin "work". What this was was this giant chinese man basically beating you up on these parts of your body. The main point of the game is to see if they can make you cry in front of your friends, which I did but only for a little bit. Kidding! Please don't make fun of me.

We got back late from massage, but I decided to watch my pirated DVD of "Friday Night Lights" which put my bed time at an estimated 3 am. The next morning I was to wake up at 730 for a trip to a giant gorge (longqing gorge, though I don't know why you care), so I was surprised to awake to the sounds of my roommate frantically packing at what my clock told me was 805. We had forgotten to set our alarms in act of either stunning bravado, or unfathomable stupidity. In the rush, I managed to pack my camera, with no memory card, my ipod, with no headphones, and my wallet, with no money. Remember this last one, it'll be important in the story later on.

At the gorge there was bungee jumping, but because I had no money I couldn't do it (at last the careful foreshadowing pays off). Actually I had American money, but the stupid people running the bungee jump would not accept, no matter how favorable the exchange rate they were offered. I was going to pay them twice the price of admission, in American, but they were so stupid that they said no. And we wonder why the Chinese were once referred to, by Rudyard Kipling as "the heathen Chinee". Note to Chinamen everywhere: if I am offering you a chance to double your money, take it! This is called doing business...welcome to capitalism!

So, instead, I went with a small group up a little mountain trail and took some pictures, which will be posted as soon as he sends them to me, because as I mentioned I lacked a memory card. Because I was in the forgetful mood, I decided to leave my really nice sun glasses behind that day. I hope they find a happy home.

That night, I decided to go my first Chinese night club with the aforementioned friend. Let me just say this, in spite of everything you may think you know about me, in a sea of Chinese people, I actually look like a pretty good dancer.