The Next Episode

So I'm not going to apologize for not keeping up this blog because that would add up to far to many apologies and I've never really been much them anyway, so let's just continue this relationship where I write things periodically (hopefully more periodically than previous) and make you smile (and laugh if I'm lucky).

Here are a couple of stories that have been making my Taiyuan experience really worthwhile that I've been trying to get out but CLEARLY have been procrastinating doing so:

Story 1: Lars got MAD

Now I know looking at the title of this section may confuse you a bit or make you giggle to yourself thinking, "Lars? Mad? Yea, right... I gotta see where this is going" But no, ladies and gents, I was actually full-fledged angry. Doesn't happen often, but when it does I'd watch out if I were you.

A few weeks back I was in desperate need of a shaping up of my facial hair (doing the whole beard thing now... yea... it's interesting). The morning I stepped into the bathroom to do the deed, I pulled out my shaver and searched for the attachment, as I simply wanted to even it out and not go babyface. However, said attachment was NOWHERE to be found. After searching the recesses of my mind, I found the attachment on the ground under the sink in the bathroom of my family's house in Albany, NY... no bueno. I immediately contacted my sister and had her send it. This, however, did nothing for my immediate needs, and that night I was going out to Tina's birthday party. I don't like going out in public, looking less... put together than I would like. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine.

Party time comes around and I have to head out, so i do my best to hold it together, you know me... Anyway, at some point I let it slip to Tina, that I wanted to clean up my beard and she's suggests that I speak to Hans, he should be able to help me out. Lo, and behold, upon speaking to Hans, he is more than willing to lend me his shaver, all I'd have to do is come get it at his work place the next day. The prospect of fixing my "issue" sooner rather than later put me in a great mood to say the least. (No, that doesn't mean I'm vain, so hush up)

The following day, I hopped on my bike a started heading toward the address Hans had given me. You can ask my brother, Kenneth, for confirmation, but I'm not the greatest with gut feelings for directions... well maybe I am, because when i get that gut feeling it's best to just go the OPPOSITE direction of wherever my final choice is. Can't go wrong. (Unless I'm lying about my last feeling). Without fail I get to the street and take a right (instead of the correct left). I'm riding my bike slowly so as to read the signs in Chinese and check if I'm getting closer. As I'm concentrating on the reading and riding task, a Chinese man steps away from his car, and, as if I've never been greeted by a Chinese person before, Excitedly says "HELLO!" Perhaps, I was wrong with the way I respond to the man but I was very busy with riding and reading in Chinese clearly (and am not too great with multi-tasking). I replied with a "En". This sound in Chinese is not foreign, in fact, far from it. It's used to say "Yes" or any sort of affirmation sound, but not out of the oridnary for responding to a hello. Perhaps it was the "En" coupled with the not looking him in the face on account of my trying to concentrate on reading signs. At any rate, I rode past him, thereby somehow offeding him. As I rode away he screams, "HEY F&(@! YOU!" This was kind of off-putting to say the least, but i decided I'm bigger than that, and pedaled away.

I know, I know, that wasn't anger, but the story's not done yet. Once I inevitably discovered that I had chosen the wrong direction (by getting to the end of the freakin street) I turned my bike around to head in the right direction. As you may guess I ran into my old friend again. This time he was peeing on a wall (Classy) with his friend and so I assumed him to be a tad drunk (at 2 in the afternoon). This fact, however, didn't excuse his following actions. While relieving himself on the wall, he looks at me, at his friend, then back at me and under his breath AGAIN says "F%*^% you". Not only was I annoyed by the same Chinese man currently setting his people back to pre-plumbing China, but was also cursed at seriously, TWICE! Add that to the fact that I was angry at my sense of direction failing me again, I was annoyingly far from where I wanted to be, Taiyuan's traffic (currently someone was driving the wrong way on a major road), AND my facial hair was NOT up to par, and we don't have a happy camper.

I stopped my bike, put the kickstand down, and gave my number 1 player a lil pep talk.

"Yo man, if you're gonna do this... You gotta do it for real, no backin down. Let's get it!"

I stepped off my bike, and proceeded toward him. I'm pretty sure I could feel the anger building and weighing me down. I could feel it, because it was such a foreign feeling for me. Every step felt (to me) like he was getting more and more scared. Once I got within speaking distance, it alllll just came out. <"You FREAKIN idiot, are you serious? are you talking to me? FREAKIN Stupid person, are you cursing at me? Is it because I didn't say "hello" to you? This presumptuous tool, how do you even know I speak English? I actually don't even speak English, you dumb farmer, I'm actually French, I'm from France. What did you think would happen when you said hi to me? did you think that would make us friends? Freakin fool..."> At this point, I realized the crowd that I had garnered. And after all the stories I'd heard about Chinese people jumping in to defend a Chinese person against a foreigner regardless of the situation, I decided getting to within hitting range was a bad idea. So I stopped advancing. I stopped to hear his retort, and decided I didn't want to, so I turned to the crowd, <"This idiot friend of yours, is a useless thing, a waste of my time. I'm leaving.> I walked back to my bike, calmly got on, rode away, and did not look back. I like to think they all started to clown on him for getting chewed out by a foreigner.

As I rode away, though, I was plauged with my morality's self-depricating arguments as to whether what I did was right or not. I mean, I stood up for myself, but the way (and especially the language) could have been much more civilized or couth. But I let some dumb tard get under my skin, over something so little. He was probably intoxicated, and probably knew all of about 3 English words, "Hello", "F%*^%", and "You". And the fact that I didn't know where I actually stood on the matter troubled me more. I'm gonna go with that NOT being my best day in Taiyuan.

Coming Soon (as in this week)
Story 2: Lars "plays" basketball

New Year: 20WIN not 2010

So, this being the new year, I figure I should get this started back up. I stopped for various reasons (lazy, China firewall, losing someone very important to me) but all of that aside this thing is actually kind of fun. So let's see. The biggest news is that after a LOT of contemplation and talking I've decided to stay in China for one more year. The plan is Grad school (where? who knows) 2011 Fall and if that's the case then going back to America to look for a job/study for GREs in such a great economy (... ) might not be the best idea. Then there's the living situation, I wouldn't want to crash with my sister and her family as they are still a young family and money isn't exactly the easiest thing to come by and it's either them or find my own place but I don't even know where I'd be going to school, that's a whole other problem. So China 2010.

Now, back to the voice of today. It's January 1, 2010! HAPPY NEW YEAR! I'm currently in Thailand, and have been here for about 4 or 5 days (honestly it all blends together), on an island called Koh Phangnan, came from Malaysia, and going to another place on another island called Krabi. It's been interesting thus far. I've never really been the kind of guy who buys a lot of presents for people but this trip I've for some reason made it a point to do so, which puts a dent in my vacation wallet to be perfectly honest, but it's all good.

Last night (New year's eve) the entire island had a party, their monthly Full Moon party fell on New Year's eve so OBVIOUSLY this was a bit more so than their usual party. When we got there the number of people was almost unbelieveable. We (Douglas Washington, Jenny Chen, and myself) proceeded to run around and enjoy ourselves. Everything was going great... until... well, let me give you a bit of background. Doug and I grab-ass for lack of a better word. Meaning i hit him and run away he'll chase and get me back, and it starts again. This night Doug was actually kicking my butt. I was NOT happy about this, like, at all. I'd get hit and I'd chase and BARELY touch him, which would count, and he'd get me back, with close to a full hit to the face. CLEARLY I was angry. So time after time I'd give chase. But anyone who's seen me post surgery should be able to tell, some of my movements are a bit awkward. One of them, my left foot has a bit of a toe drop, so my foot doesn't raise all the way up sometimes. All of these factors including the low water underfoot added up to my persuing-FAIL, my foot didnt leave the water enough and I bit it HARD, face first, into the sand, nice little scratch on the sad of my face to boot. While I'm down on the beach I look up to Doug and I'm pretty sure he's laughing at me when out of NOWHERE, this guy sprints by and hits Doug in the face with a fist and down went Frasier. This flasher was there and gone in a second and I was in NO position to help at all. Doug came out of it with a bloody sore nose, a BIG shiner, and a sore jaw, I ended the night with sand EVERYWHERE and scraped up knees and face. Great way to ring in the new year huh?