I hate the smell of bullshit.

- David Wang

thanksgiving

So as everyone back home was most certainly watching football, I stood in my apartment hallway watching some bus repairmen play soccer during their lunch break. Thanksgiving Thursday.... ahhhhhhh. I just finished giving a 25-minute presentation on street basketball to my teachers and classmates. I dare pat myself on the back for it since at the end one of my classmates who I barely know jumped out his seat to applaud it. And now I'm trying to relax and be thankful.

Thankful that I'm almost done. Thankful that I think my Chinese has improved. Thankful that I have the life that I have. Thankful.

1 Month and Counting

ACC's trip to Shanghai.

The last few weeks have been tough. I had to finish up the documentary I was making for Pomona. It's funny how you can feel so far behind straight until you're done. And when you're done you still think you're behind. The night I finished my video with subtitles and everything, I drop my laptop on the floor.

I believe there's some kind of 9/10ths mentality where a person mentally just can't complete things. They get 90% of it done but can't finish. I don't know if I subconsciously victim to this condition, but I stupidly put my laptop on my chair whose back was loaded with heavy jackets throwing the distribution of weight precariously off balance. Thus, with a little nudge the chair tipped over backwards and my computer along with my my newly subtitled 1st cut of "Beijing Ballers" fell to the floor, flickered, and shutdown. And of course I couldn't get it to start up.

At that point I went insane. It's tough enough when you're in China, at ACC, only speaking and Chinese for 5 months straight, but when your project falls off a chair, there's no sitting down. So I began to run around the apartment swearing in English. I opened the window and yelled. I complained to my Chinese roommate about how we needed carpets so this kind of thing wouldn't occur. I kicked the fallen chair into the fetal position. And then did a lot more swearing and banging.

My roommates, regardless of whether or not they understood the foul English spilling from my mouth, just watched in awe and fear.

Then I opened up my computer, popped in the Windows CD, and repaired windows. And everything was as it should of been. So I closed the window, picked up the chair, and started speaking Chinese again.

I'm ready to go home. Lately, my Chinese has been floating lazily in a stagnant pool of apathy. If anything it will drown itself. The granola that I've been getting on sale from the foreign section in the grocery store is now even more on sale, but but by the third straight month of eating the shit I wasn't all too thrilled by the price reduction. My individual report (also on Chinese streetball) is a string of senseless Chinese. Yesterday, I went and interviewed a representative from Adidas about basketball and was subtly reminded that even in English my tongue possesses little advantage. The tattoo I was planning fell through much the to pleasure of those back home who urged me to reconsider. And I'm perpetually tired.

At least Thanksgiving is next week. Although even that doesn't mean much since we still have to go to school.

School

A couple weeks ago some ACC students volunteered to go a school established for migrant workers' kids. Because most migrant workers are not official residents of Beijing, their kids are not eligible for Beijing's public schools. Thus, this school was established with private funds.

We really did not do much, other than observe and play with the kids. I bought Curious George in Chinese and attempted to read it to some 5-year-olds, but there were many points where I replaced certain details with my own because I didn't recognize the characters. But I think they were all just more interested in hearing me speak Chinese than the curious little monkey.

The conditions at the school are definitely poor by any standards. We ate the lunch that the kids were having and besides the taste being barely paletteable, there was almost no nutritional value. It was all rice, potatoes, and cabbage.

But the kids that Caroline and I are reading to in this video were truly amazing. The little 10-year-old boy knew EVERY SINGLE country's capital. Everything from Australia (who's capital, I was surprised to discover, is not Sydney nor Melobourne) to Venezuela, this little guy knew them ALL.

It's an interesting dilemma. These migrant workers are literally the entire force behind Beijing's rapid development and beautification, but they are forced to throw down their own money to educate their kids. And even this money is not enough to provide adequate conditions.