Our 22nd week in China was dominated by two major events. The first was sports day, and the second was "the buffet".
Sports day, as you may recall, had been something scheduled for many weeks at this point. After delaying and rescheduling and moving the blasted thing about 100 times, they finally ran out of places to move it to. Thus, sports day finally happened.
For us foreign teachers, sports day meant that we had absolutely nothing to do. In what was a move that is so common at this school that it's basically part of their school slogan, they had forgotten to give us any tasks. We were still required to come into work for the entire 8 hour day, but all of our classes were cancelled. The sports day was actually several days long, so we really had a lot of down time this week.
It wasn't all bad, though. It was a great opportunity to bond with the other foreign teachers, as well as finalize all of our plans for the Spring Festival Holiday (aka Chinese New Year). We officially have been given the entire month of February off of work, and so we had a lot of planning to do.
The good news about Spring Festival is that it's a whole month that we'll be allowed to explore Asia, and it's actually a paid month as well! I'll be getting paid to go on vacation, basically. China is so strategically located that we are planning on visiting at least 3 other countries during the break (I don't want to spoil what countries we are going to yet, though!).
The bad news is that everyone else in China also has the time off. From what the other Chinese teachers say, it's absolutely chaotic to be in China for the whole month. Tradition demands that every person of Chinese descent return to their ancestral hometown for the festival, so every single means of transportation into, out of, and throughout China is completely clogged. Most tickets for everything sell out instantly, and the government allows businesses to raise ticket prices by 15% for the month of February (on top of this, most businesses actually raise their prices another 20-30% on the sly, and the government doesn't catch them).
Even though there is a Chinese New Year at roughly the same time every year, the government changes which days the citizens get to have their holiday on annually. They also wait until the middle or end of December to announce those holiday times. Our school is a public school and therefore has to abide by the rules of the Government for when we are allowed to have time off. We eagerly awaited the day when we would be told of our holiday dates, and once Angel (our boss) announced them, we quickly started making bookings. Of course, so did the other 1.3 Billion people in China.
Laura and I literally watched plane tickets prices double each time we refreshed the page. It's a wonder more websites didn't crash. The biggest jump we noticed was for plane tickets within China. One flight to Hainan Island went from 200 CNY per person (about $30) to over 2000 CNY per person (over $300) in a matter of hours.
Laura and I were quick, however, and we nabbed some pretty decent deals for our break. This is all by China standards, obviously. Living in Detroit has made us used to outrageous airline flights, to the point that they are completely cost prohibitive. Even 2000 CNY to fly all over Asia is a pretty good deal compared to the west, but after 5 months in China I am starting to get spoiled by the cheap cost of living.
I am so very excited about all the trips we have coming up that I nearly forgot that we are going to Taipei for Christmas! I cannot wait to see what the tiny island of Taiwan has to offer us. You'd better stay tuned for next week's post!
The other thing we spent a lot of time doing on sports day was walking around and observing the events. The children really appreciated us cheering them on, and it was interesting to see how a Chinese school runs a track and field day. Some of the things were different, and a lot of it looked kind of silly, but overall it was very similar to the kind of thing I remember doing when I was a little kid. By which I mean watching, because I was chunky in elementary and middle school, and I didn't run so much as waddle.
The zaniest thing about the sports day were the kids' outfits. They were wearing their normal school uniforms, but also their track suits (which are a separate uniform outfit). To top it all off they were wearing winter wear like sweaters and heavy winter jackets, plus hats and gloves. As the kids were running around they would start taking off odds and ends, and by the end of the day most of the kids had a weird combination of short shorts and ski jackets with ear muffs on as well!
After two and a half days of sports, we had to attend an award ceremony. At this point my Chinese is getting good enough that I can almost sort of understand the gist of what's going on, but I had no clue where to begin with this award ceremony. There was just something difficult to comprehend about 1600 kids running around hither and thither on a track while loudspeakers blared patriotic music and also someone shouting in Chinese. I think a lot of the kids did quite well though. Many of them came running up to me to show off their medals.
Mr. Zhou is our principal, and he hosted the award ceremony. I have not talked about Mr. Zhou enough on this blog. Maybe in a week or two I will do a "special" post about this dude. To keep things short (like him), he's pretty alright. He has taking a shining to me in the last few weeks. Jason told him that I study Chinese characters, and so one day he made a surprise visit to our office and gave me a quiz. Apparently I passed because he smiled, winked, and said "不错", which means "not bad"!
The other major event this week was the buffet. This was such a buffet that it can only be properly referred to as "The Buffet", capital letters and all. Funnily enough, something that ultimately had such an indelible effect on my life started out as something that seemed pretty awful. On Wednesday we were invited to a Christmas party that many of the parents of the children in our school were hosting. Not knowing anything else other than that we were invited to something nice sounding, all of us foreign teachers said we would go.
The next day Canie, one of the Chinese teachers, mentioned that we should take our Santa hats to the party. This sounded cute, and we knew that a lot of children would be present, so once again we said yes.
Friday, the day of the party, finally arrived. During lunch our boss Angel appeared seemingly out of nowhere (perhaps from the heavens?) and said "by the way you will be performing a show for the children at the party". This did not go over well with anyone. First of all, this was not a work party. It would not be on the school grounds, it was not going to be during work hours, nor was it being hosted by our employers. Second of all, we all really hated that it seemed like we had been duped. Why were they trying to trick us into performing? Why did they slowly drag out the request over three days? Why not just ask us nicely? I for one, if asked nicely, would have done it without any complaint. Finally, and most damningly, we all felt like we were being taken advantage of. Wasn't it bad enough that we had to "put on whiteface", as the expression goes, for the singing competition? It sure seemed like the only reason they wanted us at the party was so that we could be a goofy fixture.
The novelty of being pointed at, laughed at, and having my picture taken solely because of the way I look has most definitely worn out.
It was too late to back out now. I was livid. I was pissed! Heck, I was even grumpy. But we had all agreed to it and before we knew it we were on our way to the hotel.
We walked into the Intercontinental hotel and our jaws dropped. This was, without a doubt, the swankiest hotel I have ever seen, let alone had the opportunity to enter. We walked through the cavernous lobby and past a Christmas tree that was so tall it made most other Christmas trees look short.
As the gang rounded the corner, we knew that we had been wrong about the whole thing. It appeared as though this was some kid's birthday party. It was a Christmas themed birthday party. We were all invited as guests of honor. After being seated and saying hello to the children and their parents, The Buffet began.
This Buffet wasn't a Buffet as such. It was more like 12 Buffets in one. It was like a Sam's Club if all of the food in a Sam's club was already cooked and was being presented in nice hot chafing dishes. It was like I had died and gone to fat people heaven. If I were a criminal on death row and was given one last meal, I would choose this one so as to stave off death for a few more years at least.
Our party was in one entire ballroom of this hotel, and the Buffet was in a room the size of a second entire ballroom. There was a table solely for bread; a table solely for fried things (including fried bread); there was a table solely for meat; there was a table solely for seafood; and there was also a hot fudge sundae bar. They had six different kinds of pickled olives! All you can eat crab legs, escargot, squid, shrimp, and LOBSTER. Most importantly they had legitimate western food. Actual imported food that you can get in the west! MEAT AND CHEESE BOARDS PEOPLE.
I ate nonstop for over 2 hours. I didn't even take a break to go to the bathroom or to breathe. I may have eaten one or two of the children, I'll never be too sure.
Eventually 6 o'clock rolled around and Laura and I had to leave to go to our weekend job in Zhaoqing. It was the saddest moment of my life. I sobbed into my baguette, I cried into my goat cheese, and I sneezed into a quiche.
The best part of all was that they weren't even ready to have us perform! Laura and I got what was easily the most expensive dinner of our lives absolutely free and we didn't even have to do a song and dance to justify our existence there. It truly was a Christmas miracle!
Sadly, our week ends with tragedy this time around. Laura's laptop was stolen on Sunday. We are not sure when or how it got taken, but the end result is all the same. It seems like we're going to have to buy Laura a new computer at some point. The silver lining is that we are probably all set in terms of lesson plans (and also because of holidays) until about March. Computers are also cheaper here than in the US. The bad news is that if we buy a computer here it will be a Chinese computer and could very well be a knock-off. Plus, it'll still be a few $100 of money that we would rather spend elsewhere!
The facts are these: We traveled home from Zhaoqing with the computer in her shoulder bag. We know that we had it when we got off the bus. We also know that we brought it back into the flat with us. We went to bed a few hours later, but neither of us looked at or used the computer after about 9:30pm. When we woke up on Sunday we had our coffee and shortly thereafter noticed its absence at around 10:30am. We spent nearly the entire day looking for it, which is especially impressive considering the size of our apartment (small) and the number of hiding places the computer could be in (few).
Most mysteriously, there were no signs of forced entry, nothing else was missing, and Laura's computer cords were all still in her laptop bag.
Now, the most important key to this tale is that our roommate Jason got drunk and left the apartment to go to the bar at about 12:30am on Saturday night. He met up with a buddy of his and they partied for a while. Both gentlemen returned to the flat at 4am and passed out in Jason's room.
Now it seems to me that three things are possible, and only one is likely.
1. The computer could have been nabbed while we were on the street and walking home to the apartment and we are simply mis-remembering that we saw it in our flat before bed. This is entirely possible, as the human memory has been proven to be easily tricked and mistaken. I find it very unlikely, though, because both Laura and I remembered seeing the computer in our flat independently. We also spent about a half hour on Sunday trying to "pickpocket" things out of Laura's bag to see how easy it would be, and I think that the computer would have been way to big and bulky to come out very easily. It accounted for more than 90% of the weight in Laura's bag! I think we would have notice some malarkey going on.
2. Jason and/or his friend stole it. This was my first thought and I behaved more than a little suspicious around his friend. I felt embarrassed and was worried about offending the guy, but I didn't know him from Adam and he was the most likely suspect. However, I think Jason is a really stand-up guy, and after living with him for more than 5 months I can say with confidence that he wouldn't do that sort of thing. His friend is someone who he has known for like 20 years, and if Jason says he is a good guy then I think he probably is. More importantly, I insisted on inspecting Jason's room and this guy's things before he left and did not find anything. So unless he drunkenly stole the computer away at 4am and managed to take it to a safe house somewhere, I'm not sure this is the answer.
3. Here's what I think most likely to have happened. I think that Jason forgot to lock the door behind him when he left for the evening, or when he and his pal stumbled in at 4am. I think that someone from outside saw an unlocked or maybe even open door and quickly helped themselves to the nearest thing they saw. The table that the laptop was on is immediately in front of the entrance to the flat, and it would have been the easiest thing to grab.
This obviously begs the question: if it was a random crook, why didn't they take the cords or the whole bag? Why not steal anything else in the flat? Well, I don't have a good answer to this. My best guess is that whoever it was was in a huge hurry and literally nabbed the single first thing they say. I will say that if Jason's buddy stole the computer he would have had plenty of time to take the cords.
Laura has a theory that maybe the boys came in drunkenly and one of them stumbled and accidentally broke the computer. Maybe they quickly took it to a dumpster and pitched it, thus removing the evidence. It would give motive to both Jason and his friend to lie without compromising their integrity as not being thieves. I'm not sure how much more plausible this is than any of the other theories.
The most frustrating thing of all is that it doesn't matter. We will never know what happened to her computer. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's gone.
Oh well, we will just do our best as we always do. We'll have to share this computer like we did last time Laura's computer situation was compromised. It's an excuse to get closer together in our relationship.
Maybe I'll find her a nice new computer in Taiwan...
(Ps. I'm posting this after midnight Christmas in China. Merry Christmas! 圣诞快乐！！！)
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