there are a lot of creepers in nanjing

So I went for a run today and found this tidbit of information out: apparently in China, kicking soccer balls at people trying to run is a form of flirtation.
The first two soccer balls I kicked back. The third one popped me in the leg, after which I said no more (actually I said something much less ladylike, but I won't repeat it). The fourth, fifth, and sixth ones I jumped over, avoided, or watched as they rolled by me.

Anyway, so this weekend I: found an Indian 男朋友, almost broke my nose and trash talked basketball with a Kentucky fan (and this was before they lost). Let's start with the my new Indian boyfriend.

The DJ at the club started playing Three 6 Mafia, and if you know me at all, you know I absolutely cannot resist the lure of Three 6, ever. (It's the same with Justin Timberlake, it's some kind of Memphis curse.) So of course I join my friends on the dance floor.

Somehow I end up dancing with this Indian guy who was shorter than me and, judging from the way he smelled, was not wearing deodorant. I kept giving one of my guy friends the omgpleasehelpme face but he didn't notice.

So this guy asks me, "Where you from?" I tell him America and he literally steps back about three steps in shock (I'm getting a little pissed with this whole WTF-Americans-aren't-smart-enough-to-be-in-China attitude that so many people have). So then he tells me that I'm so beautiful, just so beautiful and I just laugh and try to back away because he's waaaaay to close to me and all his friends are cheering him on and making supportive guy noises.

Then he asks me if I have a phone number, and I lied and told him I didn't have a phone (yeah, my phone was in my pocket) and the song finally ends and I peace out from the dance floor.

Later in the night, I was dancing with one of my friends and his phone and some coins fell out of his pocket. We both bend down to pick it up, only he got there first, and whips his head back up--right up into my nose. I can't accurately describe how bad this hurt--I heard bones crunching and when I reached up to touch my nose, I really thought it was broken. However there was no blood (which seriously surprised me at the time) and Allison assures me that although my nose looks slightly swollen on Skype, it's definitely not broken and that was probably cartilage I heard crunching. (I did assure my friend that if he had broken my nose it was ok, because "a bump will give it character!" He just looked so upset, I had to say something.)

At some point in the night too, I was walking back to my friends and I was carefully picking my way through the dance floor so as not to step on cigarette butts, dice, or whatever else is lying on the floor and this Chinese guy swerves in front of me and does this weirdly affectionate bumping of my chin with his hand. I was sufficiently creeped out and skidaddled. 

And finally. Probably the greatest moment of my night. I jinxed Kentucky.

Once again, if you know me at all, you know that, being a die-hard Memphis Tigers basketball fan, I hate Coach Calipari. So watching Kentucky do so well in the big dance, while my poor Tigers piddled away in the NIT (losing to Ole Miss, my actual school, in a weird ironic twist) has been very hard to swallow.

Anyway, I had met this Kentucky fan in the elevator and we had talked a little smack so when I saw him at the bar, I went over to him and we started talking more smack. It went something along the lines of: "I hate your coach! I really hope y'all lose soon! But you probably won't." And he laughed (it was amiable trash talk) and that was it.

And then I wake up this morning to the glorious news that West Virginia upset the Wildcats to move on to the Final Four, while Kentucky gets to go home to Lexington. So yeah, I'm taking full credit for this one (not really, Kentucky fans, not really).

This post has been very short on pics, so let's see if I can get some to upload.

















My dorm view at night.
















 


This is 一九一二 (1912), the street where all the clubs are located. Kind of like Oxford Square, but less historical and more club-ish and techno. 

Well I'm off to eat dinner and 预习 (preview) tomorrow's lessons. Talk to y'all later!

st. paddy's and other adventures

Lots to update y'all on!

For St. Paddy's Day, a pretty big group of us went to our regular club, Mazo, because Wednesday nights is House music (a mix of really good techno and random songs that always include Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas and sometimes other stuff) and because they give us free drinks (alas these drinks were not green). The DJ has a habit of yelling things like "你准备好了吗？？" which means "Did you prepare well???" in the middle of songs and I think he recognizes us now.

Anyway, I don't think anyone at Mazo knew it was St. Paddy's or noticed that a lot more Westerners than usual showed up, wearing lots of green.  At one point, I was dancing and this skinny Chinese guy started dancing with me. My general line of thought was that he wasn't dancing incredibly close to me or being creepy, so why not dance with me a little? Bad idea. He leans forward and says to me (in English), "You are so beautiful!"So I smile and try not to be too creeped out, when he asks me, "你是法国人吗?" (Are you French?) I tell him no, that I'm a 美国人 (American) and he repeats that I am so beautiful. So in a moment of utter creeped-outness, I grab Erin and sneakily slide her into my place so that now she's dancing with Skinny Creeper. Later she told me that he repeatedly told her she was beautiful. What a smooth talker.

Towards the end of the night, they put on Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone" (and all of y'all know I'm a huge sucker for some good MJ) and passed out glow sticks, which was the absolute highlight of my night.


















On Friday, my Chinese Culture class took a field trip to the Presidential Palace here in Nanjing, which is where the governor of Jiangsu Province (where Nanjing is located) lives. The Palace has a beautiful garden, and my teacher was telling us that in Chinese gardens, symmetry is very important. All the elements are supposed to be present and something must be in bloom every season.

Of course, all those beautiful blooming flowers come with a price attached. My allergies went beserk and have been punishing me ever since.

One last story before I leave y'all so I can do some homework. When we were wandering around the Presidential Palace, this non-Chinese man and his Chinese friend were strolling behind me. The non-Chinese guy glances at me then says, "You have a nice size."

My mouth drops open a little and I make this half offended, half WTFdidhejustsaytome noise and my friend Jelena, who heard him, goes, "What??" But by this time the guy and his friend are too far away to hear us, although they did turn around and look at us a few times. When we left the Palace, Maxine (Erin's roommate) spots them and goes, "I'm gonna go ask them what they went by that." And she does.

When she returns, she reports that he's Algerian and he thought I had a nice shape--a nice body. So of course when she says Algerian, all I can think of is the movie Taken (which is completely unfair to this guy seeing as how he's probably not a human trafficker) and getting freaked out.

Anyway, here's a picture of the non-Algerian friend I made at the Presidential Palace:

how to be runner in china

I went for a run today at the university track and as I was listening to the foulest rap found on my iPod, I noticed a few things about running in China that are very, very different in America. So while humming along to "Wait (The Whisper Song)" by the Ying Yang Twins (I just noticed how appropriate they are to listen to in China...hmmm) I made a list of things everyone should expect when running (or when doing anything, really) in China.

1. People will be smoking.

People will be smoking everywhere; smoking while walking, smoking while playing soccer, smoking while gawking at you run past them, smoking while sitting in the sandbox with their kids--if you can do it outside, people are smoking. So when you run past them, you're immediately struggling to breathe and coughing and generally cursing tobacco in general.

2. People will be strolling in the inside lane.

This one's not as frustrating as the smoking issue, but if you have ever run track, you know it's considered common courtesy for walkers to walk in the outside lanes, or to at least periodically check behind them to make sure they aren't in some sprinter's way. But here, toddlers and their moms, elderly, and best friends just casually walk in the inside lane. All you have to do is dodge them, but it's just good track manners to walk in the outside lane.

3. Babies/toddlers/10 year old kids will be peeing in the sandbox/on the soccer field/on the track.

I shouldn't have been as surprised by this as I was, considering babies go everywhere in China. But I did think that an enclosed space like a track would be something of a sanctuary from this.

4. You will get stared at.

Obviously.

5. The tiny old Chinese woman in jeans and dress shoes will lap you. (Sidenote: only about 1 in 10 people wear what we would consider workout clothes to workout. Most people wear jeans and whatever shoes they wore that day. Or Pumas.)

6. Someone will run approximately three inches away from your shoulder until one of you speeds up or slows down.

7. The pollution will kill your lungs (as if the smoking wasn't bad enough).

In fact, as I type this, I'm hacking and coughing like a chain smoker. Everyone I've talked to has the same problem. And if you want to hear a scary statistic that I can't cite, I heard that breathing a day in China is the equivalent of smoking 3 packs of cigarettes. Yay, cancer!

To finish this post, I give you the artistic genius of Erin Singleton. We took the original picture on our flight from Detroit to Shanghai and she added to it in class a few days ago. Behold:

On that note...

china is boring

Ok so China's not really boring. It's just that nothing exciting happens during the week. Here's my schedule:

6:45-7:45: stumble out of bed and into the shower, get ready for class
8:00-12:00: class
2:00-4:00: class (on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday)
4:00-10:00: do homework, eat, Skype, Facebook, tweet, catch up on TV, occasionally go somewhere.


Basically the same as in the States, only in 中国. I guess something exciting happened last night...my electricity was cut off!

We're given 2 degrees of electricity every day (I don't know what a degree of electricity is, but we get 2 of them) and if we go over that amount, they shut off our power until we pay the 57 RMB to get it turned back on. So Tah He (my Korean roommate) and I were sitting at our desks when it was suddenly pitch black in our room (it was 10 PM). And we had to sleep in the freezing cold with no heat. I woke up wrapped up in my comforter and my snug (which explains why I dreamed I was in a box....anyway...).

I did find some more Chingrish for everyone:

I thought at first this meant that Zeus wasn't allowed in China, but Anthony pointed the obvious out to me: China is so full of Muggles that the Firebolt isn't allowed (or maybe the Chinese Quidditch team thinks the advanced nature of the Firebolt gives other teams a disadvantage?).

So I was going to upload a picture of a cute Chinese baby to make this post more interesting, but it wouldn't load. Then I was going to upload a picture of dead chickens just to be gross. But it wouldn't load either. So I'm just gonna end with this: are you happy now Leigh Cummins??

Grüße aus Deutschland!

So in order to get around the Great Firewall, I had to download a new proxy server (AnchorFree and my Mac didn't get along too well) called Vidalia (like the onion) and I think it works by routing my internet through different countries...at least that's the only explanation I can think of for why Google, CNN, Facebook and Twitter all think I'm in Germany and occasionally Russia (and Holland, but that was only once). CNN offered to lead me to its international sight, seeing as how I'm in Germany and all.

Anyway, it snowed in Nanjing yesterday! The view from my dorm:

You can't really see the flakes but trust me, it looked disgusting, probably because the snow was dirty and full of pollution. Acid snow? The end result was much better:

















Friday night was our first legit weekend in Nanjing (and by legit I mean we did more than eat at Behind the Wall and go to bed at 10 o'clock). Erin, me, Maxine (Erin's roommie), my roommate, and a bunch of kids from around the dorm went to 1912, which is basically the Square of Nanjing (except it's a street, not a roundabout). We were all walking around (there were about 10 of us) and this guy runs up, points to a bar and says the magic words: "Free drinks!"

The club ended up being a lot of fun and the drinks were indeed free. They started us off with a bottle of Hennessy and then progressively the drinks got cheaper (probably hoping that the more we consumed, the less we would notice). I watered my drinks down with lots of tea (the mixer they gave us....oh China). The night was Lady-Gaga filled and really fun, except for when a drunk local grabbed my rear, resulting in a death glare and a storm off.

Anyway my mom left Saturday, but before she left we had dinner at this Italian place across the alleyway from my dorm called Jack's Place (not to be confused with Old Jack's for the Qingdao crowd). They had my favorite dish on the menu:





















Mmmmm slow woasted pork. They also had this jewel of a picture on the wall:





















Yes, if a train came crashing out of the station window, it would indeed be an "Oh, shit!" moment. Thank you, Jack's Place.

Classes are going well, I think. I really like my 口语 teacher; Erin and I decided she looks like Dr. Lin's younger sister. Our class is about half British, with 4 Americans (including Erin and me) a few Germans, a few Japanese and one or two Russians (and a few people that I can't figure out where they're from).

Anyway, I'm off to get lunch and run errands. Have a great week everyone!