Xindu, July 20, 1999

22:45

There are not many new things happening right now. We keep going out for lunches and dinners with students and teachers and we teach. Besides that there is not much to report except for a few things.

Maria

Today on our way to lunch, Hoeteck and I were stopped by one young woman in a uniform. She introduced herself to us as Maria (many Chinese people choose an English name when they study English).  She asked us if we were from Xindu Yi Zhong and when we were leaving. She thought we were with the Canadian group. When we told her we taught a summer course here, she said that she had heard about that on the TV. Apparently the man with a TV camera who came to our first class, came there for a reason. Anyway, she spoke pretty good English and she seemed interested in talking to us but since we were with two of our students and she was with her husband, we suggested that she calls us at some point and we meet for tea. It turned out that she knew the man who usually lives in our apartment (and who now is in Japan for vacations) and so she knows our phone number. That was very fortunate because I didn’t know it.

Hot Pot and Karaoke incident

In the evening we went out with one of the teachers and her family. They took us for hot pot! Finally we were to experience this famous local phenomenon. On the way there we had to take pedicabs – Hoeteck and I felt really strange sitting back while an old man, our driver, was pedaling desperately trying to keep up with the other two cabs.

Hot pot was fun. The only thing that prevented me from fully enjoying the experience was the fact that I wasn’t really hungry. I just keep on eating here: either we go out, or our lady cooks for us or we go to the school cafeteria. Every time I feel that somebody is going to get offended if I do not clear the dishes so I keep stuffing myself. Now one thing that I am longing for is a day without food. I would really like to feel hungry again. Oh well, tomorrow we are going out for lunch with some of our students but in the evening we are eating at home – I can go on a fast!

Me after being pushed onto the Karaoke stage...

During the dinner there were some karaoke performances. The restaurant employed a couple of singers who also acted as MCs. They sang for us so loudly that we couldn’t talk. Then people from the public were supposed to sing. Bikui volunteered first and he, indeed, was pretty good. Then there were some other people. And then Hoeteck told me to turn around because I was, apparently, being spoken about. The MC was just informing everybody in the restaurant that there was a special guest from Poland among them and that this guest should probably sing something. That was terrifying. It’s not just that I am a bad singer but I also do not know any songs! They were so kind as to offer me a selection of songs in English but this didn’t really help: the only titles I recognized were "I will always love you" (by Whittney Houston, I guess) – there was to way I was going to sing that one, and "The Lemon Tree" which I have heard but did not know melody of. My knowledge of popular music is scandalously poor. The MC kept talking but he was talking in Chinese. He really insisted on me singing something and I really insisted on him leaving me alone. From the little bits of his tirade that were translated for me I understood that he gave me an ultimatum: either I sing or I will have to drink two more glasses of beer. What a totally silly thing to do! Given the amount of alcohol in Chinese beer, he could have asked me to drink two glasses of lemonade. It was all about the volume of one’s stomach than about anything else. Oh well, in the end I recited a twisted children’s rhyme (the kind that you can find in Alice in Wonderland). It was in Polish. For those who understand this language, here’s the rhyme:

A to psotnik z tego Rysia
Nie dobry chłopczyna
Już od rana mamie dzisiaj
Psocić on zaczyna

Mama mleczko postawiła,
Wyszła na chwileczkę,
On głowicę jej jądrową
Włożył w kaszkę z mleczkiem.

Oj ty Rysiu, skończże wreszcie
Niemądre igraszki
Jak głowica Ci odpali
To nie będzie kaszki.

The rhyme comes from Jacek Nawrot’s "A w Patafii Niebardzo". I recited it as though it was Shakespeare or Mickiewicz and everybody was happy. People from my table started frantically looking for cameras and everybody else pretty much ignored me. I finished before they took too many pictures of me. After that they left me alone.