Snoopy, Guitars, and Lipstick

(Colin)

In my previous blog post, I started with an attempt to make it shorter than before.  As doing so did nothing, I shall make no such attempts in this post.  I shall simply let the words flow out of me, and whatever length this particular post chooses to be, it shall be.  Here it goes.

Last week was our last week with our first host families.  In celebration, ryan’s host family took us all out to eat at a restaurant known for a dish called “Beggar’s Chicken”, in which a chicken is encased in mud clay then tossed into an oven. 

The clay keeps the chicken moist and makes the whole thing look like it just came out of a brick wall.  Apparently, the dish came from a beggar who, being a beggar, had no house, meaning that he had no kitchen.  He did, however, have a chicken, which was a problem, as he wanted to eat it but lacked cooking implements.  With the ingeniousness of Bobby Flay, the beggar thought, “I need to cook this chicken.  To the Mud Pit!”  Covered in mud, the beggar found that he had a delicious meal.  And thus Beggar’s Chicken was born.

The next day, a Friday, was our final day with our host families.  Before we had any classes, Lizzy and I ventured across the perilous street to KFC and got some Kentucky Fried Coffee.  We reminisced about the trip and our host families and a plethora of other events, and then went through a local market where we passed stores selling everything from cleavers to mannequins.  After not buying anything, we went to class.

After a few uneventful hours, we met in the English office at 2:00 to meet with Helen, an English teacher, who was bringing us to go get some clothes made, as is done each year.  We walked down Silk Street (not it’s real name, but it’s easier to say “Silk Street” than it is to read Chinese), and admired the many mannequins that seemed to be made no later than 1995.  We were led to a large warehouse looking place, and went upstairs where we found a giant room full of different fabrics.  We were told to choose one.  Needless to say, this took a while.

As I walked through the giant room, many fabrics caught my eye.  Some in a good way, some in a bad way.  Some patterns were dragons, some were fish, and some were flames.  I hit a crossroads in deciding whether I should find a respectable piece of cloth, or the craziest one imaginable.  I chose a few, and found one that was dark blue with gold dragons and phoenixes on it.  Hoping to get a vest made, I think I made the right choice.  We went back to the school, where Helen told us she would call the tailor and schedule a day for her to come and take our measurements.

After school, I took bus 35 home for the last time with Ray.  At his house, his family gave me some gifts, including some nice combs (a big gift item here), a tie, a fan, and some chrysanthemum tea.  We had a delicious dinner, and then watched the news.  At about 7:30, my new host father arrived to pick me up.  We tossed my things in his car, and I said a final goodbye to the Yangs.

On the drive to my new host house, I talked to my new host father in English, which was a new experience.  My previous host parents didn’t speak English, and here I was, having a coherent conversation with a stranger in my native language.  As he drove, cigarette in one hand, gear shifter in the other, my host father told me that he is a businessman, in the business of selling saw blades and other woodworking tools.  He lives in Hangzhou, but is in Shanghai during the week.  We arrived at my new house, which is on the opposite side of Hangzhou as my previous one, and half an hour away.

I was quickly welcomed by my new host family to make myself at home, and I got a brief tour of the premises.  That night, my new host brother Gary, his friend, who I named Sean, and I played video games for a few hours.  I was very happy to find that Gary has one of my favorite games on his computer.  We played Counterstrike for a few hours, and went to bed.

Saturday, my host father drove me to school, where the Sarcastic Four and Dawn were whisked away to go to an old village.  Full of tourists, this village was quite a sight to behold.  Bisected by a river, the village hosted several museums and cool sights.  As I just said, though, it was FULL of tourists.  There was a fair amount of traffic, and the reverberating voices of dozens of tour guides were overwhelming.  I jokingly told Chris that we should tell people about this hidden gem of a village.  We ate lunch under the smelly haze of a local dish, appropriately called “smelly tofu”, which smells like a combination of a barn and bad breath.  We tried it, but were hesitant to eat more.

On the drive back, we experienced traffic, and the peculiarity of two Chinese fighter planes flying overhead.  Also, we had chips.  We arrived back at the school, where my host father was waiting for me.  Not much can be said of the ride home, other than the fact that we backtracked a lot of the route taken to get to the school from the village.  But whatever.  We returned home, and Gary’s friend Sean came soon after.  For the remainder of the day, we floated between an aging Play Station 2 and the computers, leaving a wake of destruction behind us.

Sunday, I woke up at the ripe old hour of 9:30.  I ate breakfast, which consisted of some simple food, on the table, which was covered with a very interesting covering.  The covering had a pattern that had flowers, Snoopy, electric guitars, and lipstick.  I, for the life of me, could not recall any mention of these things together in our popular culture, but I assumed that they stand for America in some way.  Let us never speak of it again.

In the afternoon, Gary, Sean and I went to KFC for lunch, where Gary got me some kind of wrap, and a small child was staring at us for the entire time we ate.  After KFC, we caught a cab and went to the west lake.  We walked around of a while, and I took a ton of pictures.  There were at least 12 couples taking wedding pictures.  It’s crazy.  During our travels, a pack of three dogs scampered around aimlessly, one with a limp, and always were just too far ahead for me to get a good picture.  As they reached a fork, they went right, we went left, but we watched them walk over the dress of a bride before we kept going.

We walked across the street, crossing a traffic jam, and continued to walk by the lake, passing by several weddings.  This traffic jam would come to haunt us, as we later tried to get a cab to go home.  Because there was little movement of automobiles, fresh cabs couldn’t get into the area. We waited for a great deal of time, I’m not sure how long because I didn’t have my watch, and I’m certain that I saw the same vendor on a bike, making his rounds, three times.  Gary finally found us a cab, and we got home a good hour later.

Back home, I helped Gary’s parents make dumplings, which we soon ate.  They were delicious.  Over dinner, I talked to them about home, my family, my school, and the day’s events.  After dinner, Gary and I played counterstrike. I’m going to like this family.

I kept a blog post to under two pages! WOOHOO!