Blogging from Baoding

[rogerluli]

April 11

Of course I spoke too soon about not drinking too much... I had one night of outdrinking one chinese guy and I knew going home that this was simply the calm before the storm; the storm arrived the next night and was truly from the moment of seeing who was at this dinner party that I was destined for the alley;

 

it was the same guys whom I drank with about 3 years ago and one guy never left the restaurant, passed out in the bathroom, one guy ended up at the local clinic trying to get pumped full of IVs... and so I cast myself headlong into the night of drinking, setting out to cleverly put everyone away early so they would maybe want to stop drinking; I simply underestimated the one guy who is about 60 pounds more than me and can drink all night.

 

In the drinking circles I am with, the common drinking phrases are:

- xiao hu (small drink, sip)

- Yi kou (one mouth full), most common

- Yi ban er (pronounced as Yi Bir--means half of whatever you happen to have). This gets things rolling

- Gan Bei (bottoms up; you drink however much you have). This is of course the most respect shown when you want to drink an entire glass with another person..but of course it can be taken to excess.

 

A simply ploy is to use Yi ban and Gan bei on others when you have less than them; One of my tricks is to go around the room and Yi bir different people in succession so that each one of my drinks is only a half of what I have, and when you already below half a glass, each round is minimal to you; just pick people who have alot more than you.

 

I probably would of been ok if it had not been for the last round; we decided to have two more bottles of beer (we had finished off 2 bottles of bai jiu and four bottles of beer already) but instead they brought out 4 bottles of beer and two of the guys stopped drinking since they said they couldn't take anymore... Anyway, as is typical for myself when I drink, I often don't feel the full effect till many hours later; in fact, me and the guy who finished off the four bottles went out and played pool for about 1.5 hours... and it was after that when the dark clouds rolled in and I found a cool metal door in the alley to lay my head against...

 

Poor David...

[tsap seui]

Alrighty now...PUKIN'S GOOOOOD....yummmy...get them heaves and puke up that yellow bile every 45 minutes.....HOT DAWGIDY....LIP SMACKIN' GOOOOOD!!!!

 

 

At least you aren't having to wake up, try to recognize whose home you are in this mornin', then go outside and look at your car to see if you hit anything the night before. Or wake up look over and scream in fright at who/what you were sleepin' with.

 

Keep havin' fun and may you always finda cool place to rest yer head.

 

tsap seui

[Don]

April 11

Of course I spoke too soon about not drinking too much... I had one night of outdrinking one chinese guy and I knew going home that this was simply the calm before the storm; the storm arrived the next night and was truly from the moment of seeing who was at this dinner party that I was destined for the alley;

 

it was the same guys whom I drank with about 3 years ago and one guy never left the restaurant, passed out in the bathroom, one guy ended up at the local clinic trying to get pumped full of IVs... and so I cast myself headlong into the night of drinking, setting out to cleverly put everyone away early so they would maybe want to stop drinking; I simply underestimated the one guy who is about 60 pounds more than me and can drink all night.

 

In the drinking circles I am with, the common drinking phrases are:

- xiao hu (small drink, sip)

- Yi kou (one mouth full), most common

- Yi ban er (pronounced as Yi Bir--means half of whatever you happen to have). This gets things rolling

- Gan Bei (bottoms up; you drink however much you have). This is of course the most respect shown when you want to drink an entire glass with another person..but of course it can be taken to excess.

 

A simply ploy is to use Yi ban and Gan bei on others when you have less than them; One of my tricks is to go around the room and Yi bir different people in succession so that each one of my drinks is only a half of what I have, and when you already below half a glass, each round is minimal to you; just pick people who have alot more than you.

 

I probably would of been ok if it had not been for the last round; we decided to have two more bottles of beer (we had finished off 2 bottles of bai jiu and four bottles of beer already) but instead they brought out 4 bottles of beer and two of the guys stopped drinking since they said they couldn't take anymore... Anyway, as is typical for myself when I drink, I often don't feel the full effect till many hours later; in fact, me and the guy who finished off the four bottles went out and played pool for about 1.5 hours... and it was after that when the dark clouds rolled in and I found a cool metal door in the alley to lay my head against...

 

Last year my wife's brothers decided that it was America against China, they will out drink me. So they alternate drinks and made us always empty the glass. I am not small, but they are not small either. China failed in this attempt they got drunk first and i was able to use my wife to keep the drinking pace moderate. Younger brother did not like the slow pace so he started drinking with his friends and me. While I only drank with the brothers. If they pushed too much (after they were drunk, they start to push for fast drinking and father and my wife was not happy), i would just pull my ear and say very soft. A soft ear on a man means he listens to his wife. Than they would push her to let me drink more.

 

So David, maybe you can use the soft ear to keep the pace even and slow.

[david_dawei]

maybe you can use the soft ear to keep the pace even and slow.

Honestly... that spoils half the fun

What I noticed about these guys is that they don't pace themselves well enough; given soup and tea, one can really dilute what goes in their stomach; instead, they tend to just eat the food and I am slopping up as much liquid as I can... In fact, if I see one guy getting to drunk too quickly, I will do many rounds of "hu cha" (drink tea) with him to get more liquid in his stomach... this also keeps him in the game a little longer

[david_dawei]

April 13

Today is a lazy sunday in Baoding... the only excitement is a gloriously warm sun and the appears of "snow"; the air is filled with snow-flake like droppings blowing off of spring trees.

 

We had a surprise visit from the Baoding police the other morning... they must be apparently keeping tabs on all foreigners due to the recent events. Although I've been in baoding more than 6 months in total and registered each time (ok, once was kind of late), they have never bothered us.

 

They were asking for our marriage certificate... all we could provide them were state IDs showing the same address. I guess our matching wedding rings could be fake after all

 

----

 

My only consistent and new activity is teaching two 14 year olds english.. it's been fun so far. Since my personal feeling is that chinese education lacks in focusing on proper english pronounciation and in general on critical thinking, that is what I tend to focus our lessons around and less on their strength of rote memorization (they can do that on their own if they want). So here is what I do, mixing up at times so that the rote of learning is also not over done:

- Pronounciation of words and sounds each lesson; using parts of a word and entire words and related sounds (rhymes and tongue twisters).

- Use these above words in sentences and Q&A

- Asking them to 'teach' me something they are learning at school and also to explain their daily routine or something they did one day.

- Create a list of words from three alphabets (A, B, C--about 15 in each) and then we all take turns making up sentences and stories using the words.

 

The boy who is extremely smart (father is a doctor and mother is a physic teacher) is very strong in exactness and details. The girl is overly shy and struggles in some basic stuff, but she excels much more than him in creating stories from the words (which was a great surprise to see).

[Smitty]

Now may come an experience I'm sure I won't have repeated often in my life. First he started to use a large knife to pick away at the cork, then chop stick was shoved into the cork and I said to just push it down into the bottle, but they would not have anything to do with that. So he took the large knife and attempted to hack off the neck with very fast blows... I didn't doubt him since he is so powerful in his arms and hands but the knife broke.

Sabrage?

[david_dawei]

nice find... I took a look at the youtube link at the bottom...

 

If this is done with champagne, then the cork is already outside of the bottle and one has to simply 'extract' the cork using the sword...

 

So, I guess I witnessed the chinese version where one takes a knife and attempts to decapitate a wine bottle since who needs the useless neck of the bottle anyway!

 

Anyway, I took a picture of the bottle, post-decapitation... I should load it here at some point...

[Smitty]

Well, I guess a cork removal tool is something I should remember to bring to China!

[Joanne]

What's new?

[david_dawei]

What's new?

I'm spending too much time at yoga class

 

But I am making my way around here solo... I left the gym today and was tired and not thinking too much.. and looked up and had no idea where I was; looked in all four directions and had no better idea Then looked at the street names and recognized one of the, so decided to follow it.. about two blocks and felt this was wrong, so turned around... and in about four blocks I recognized the area... I had taken an early turn out of the gym without realizing it...

 

Most everything is done to a routine; eating same foods, drinking with the same guys;

 

One new thing is I'm play much more pool this trip than ever before; usually I play ping pong. my observation here is that pool is very popular but most are not good. Anyways, turns out the drinking buddy's are excellent players;

 

Had another request from the local police to check in... they are really keep tabs on foreigner here.. I assume it's about 1 or 2 in this city

 

I was asked by a new english school to come to a saturday party at the park to play with the kids... I'm definitely right at home here

 

Oh yea, found another good massage place... B)

[Joanne]

Your life in China is Jue(2) Dui(4) Fu(3) Bai(4)!

 

I am waiting for my turn in 3 and half months.

[IllinoisDave]

Had another request from the local police to check in... they are really keep tabs on foreigner here.. I assume it's about 1 or 2 in this city

Curious. What form do these "requests" take? Do they come and find you or what? Fascinating.

[david_dawei]

Had another request from the local police to check in... they are really keep tabs on foreigner here.. I assume it's about 1 or 2 in this city

Curious. What form do these "requests" take? Do they come and find you or what? Fascinating.

For this request, I'm not sure since it was not a house visit... so I guess they called either my wife or her sister... I simply got a message that they needed my passport to go check in. Look at the visa page and say, "hao de". Although it wasn't necessary that I be present, so jie jie took my passport.

[tsap seui]

Had another request from the local police to check in... they are really keep tabs on foreigner here.. I assume it's about 1 or 2 in this city

Curious. What form do these "requests" take? Do they come and find you or what? Fascinating.

For this request, I'm not sure since it was not a house visit... so I guess they called either my wife or her sister... I simply got a message that they needed my passport to go check in. Look at the visa page and say, "hao de". Although it wasn't necessary that I be present, so jie jie took my passport.

 

"Hao de"...same same "howdy"?

 

tsap seui

[david_dawei]

Had another request from the local police to check in... they are really keep tabs on foreigner here.. I assume it's about 1 or 2 in this city

Curious. What form do these "requests" take? Do they come and find you or what? Fascinating.

For this request, I'm not sure since it was not a house visit... so I guess they called either my wife or her sister... I simply got a message that they needed my passport to go check in. Look at the visa page and say, "hao de". Although it wasn't necessary that I be present, so jie jie took my passport.

 

"Hao de"...same same "howdy"?

 

tsap seui

except your's means 'nice to see you'... and mine is after confirmation and 'get out of my face now'