When I was dropped back at the hotel, I sat down to start working on my blog again. One paragraph in, my computer died. When I tried to plug my laptop charger in, I noticed the three prong outlet was different from my American charger.
I have to admit, I was beginning to rather enjoy blogging about my experiences. It made my misfortunes seem funny, instead of horribly lonely and sad. Losing the ability to continue working on this practice snapped something in my brain broke.
I had quit smoking cigarettes about two months ago. I have quit a few times before, but about three months ago my girlfriend broke up with me so I had smoked for a few weeks and then had quit again. I had been determined to not start smoking in China. I also had decided that I did not want to drink alone while I was in China. I was hoping China would be life changing experience for me where I could break all my bad habits from before. But I was in a small town with nothing to do, and I had just lost my ability to blog. So I broke.
I went down to the convenience store located inside of the hotel and purchased a small handle of baiju (which is like vodka but grosser and with more alcohol), a pack of cheap ciggarettes (15 yuan, which is like 2 dollars) and a disposable electric razor because I needed a shave. I took one swig of the baiju (I picked YOLO HIP-HOP because, yolo and hip-hop) and immediately ran back to the convience store to get a coke. This was not a drink I could handle without a chaser.
While I swigged my coke and baiju, ate a hamburger Josie ordered for me from a delivery service (In China, a hamburger is made with two buns, lettuce, mayo, and fried chicken), and smoked a cigarette out my window, I turned on Chinese Tv to see what was on.
TV in China was very strange. Apart from the children's shows, which seem basically the same, every show I watched any part of was very very confusing. Here are a few of my favorites:
On a stage in front of a live studio audience, a frustrated teacher sat behind a desk and talked to what seemed to be a mother and her son. The son was seated, silent, and the mother and the teacher were having some sort of an argument. When ever the teacher (male) said anything, the studio audience began to laugh uproariously. At first, I thought I was watching Chinese SNL, but then the young boy began screaming at the teacher. The audience became dead silent. Then the teacher stepped out from behind his desk and began to talk directly to the audience. His acting was incredibly over the top, but the audience sat rapt with attention. At this point I grew bored and changed the chanel.
Two women sat in chairs across from a table and seemed to be talking very intimately with each other. They both held big microphones which they held right up to their mouths. I thought I was watching some sort of Oprah style interview show, but then the camera panned out to show a full studio audience and three old men sitting in large gold chairs. The middle old man pulled out a microphone and began to speak to the women, almost as if he was judging the woman's conversation on American Idol or something. When the old man was finished, the audience clapped and applauded for him. Then the two women began to talk intimately again and the audience fell completely silent.
A young boy and young girl were running around a house and misbehaving. Their mother was frustrated and didn't know what to do them. Then, the mother has an idea. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two chocolate eggs! There is a chocolate egg in a blue wrapper for the boy and a chocolate egg in a pink wrapper for the girl. Each of the chocolate eggs have a toy inside. The blue wrapper has a toy spaceship inside, so the boy knows he can grow up to be an astronaut. The blue wrapper had a toy girl inside, so the girl knows she can grow up to be a girl.
A woman looks around very sad. She talks to a friend, complaining about something and than the two of them go for a walk and continue to talk. The woman begins to cry. Her friend holds her and lets her cry. I thought I was watching Days of Our Lives or something like that. Than her friend pulls out a pair of rubber slippers. When she bends them to show her friend how flexible they are, there is a Boing! sound effect. The women change their shoes, and then continue to walk happily down the street.
I watched lots of bits of other TV, but most of it was pretty boring. The only thing in English was a news report about how China and Germany are working together to advance their space programs. I soon turned off the tv. I don't know if it was the whole handle of baiju I drank or the one and a half cigarettes I smoked before throwing the pack away, but my stomach began to hurt horribly. I also still hadn't shit since reaching China. I went and sat on the toilet for 20 minutes hoping something would fall out of my butt, but I only dropped sliver of poo.
Before falling asleep that night, I went and looked out the window and saw a young girl and her mother playing badminton in the street. It was nice to know that at least someone was able to enjoy this city, because I sure hadn't figure out how to yet.
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