Santi - 10/17/2007 - Life in Xuzhou, China

CLOTHING - Heaps of people wear face masks all the time in Xuzhou, apparently because the city is extremely polluted, which is great news because I thought I would die the day one of the non-maskers coughed in front of me and I thought I was the only nincompoop NOT protecting himself against Sars and/or the bird flue. The children here don't wear diapers. In their stead they wear pants that are not really pants, more like things that cover everything EXCEPT their Shilaylays. it never gets old watching parents hold their kids over trashcans so they can pee in front of the world, or crouch em down because Xuzhou is their toilet. I wish I could send you a picture but my camera broke which is probably better because such pictures might be borderline pedophile and that's a line i hadn't planned to cross for another five to six years WHAT?

THE FOOD - As I said earlier, everything's to be found on sticks... a brief recollection: dog, lamb, cow, stinky tofu, chicken, duck, the little pigeon-like birds with little eggs that are very delicious, turtle, cow placenta (very healthy), e-to-the-tc. but the worst of all (unbeknownst to me at the time) were cow eyes which were almost as delicious as the time when my friend Fernando called me very excited after he finished his first successful castration and served me a bulls' testicles' cocktail which wasn't half bad. All in all not bad. They use cumin and cilantro galore, which is bomb, but they don't know what avocado is and words simply can't describe how sad that is.

THE DRINKS - I have been feeling extremely healthy lately, mostly due to the lack of pot, cigarettes and/or other drugs I may or may not have done in my distant past, and I was actually not drinking very much in Xuzhou until the day I woke up on my vomitful bed and looked at my floor which I peed on not before I was unable to fully take off my pants off the night before and peed on them as well. But that's not the problem. The problem is they called me from work because I was 45 minutes late for a 1-hr class so I had to get my ass on a cab and couldn't pick up my dinner and drinks from the night before until AFTER work. This line I definitely crossed before (shhh!), but didn't plan on doing so again! I guess I got carried away because people in Xuzhou can't drink very much and they get red and I’m an idiot. Maybe more the former.

MY JOB - I do have one as it turns out. The students are great and all they ask is that i be a native English speaker, which I learned the minute after I told my first batch about my proud Colombian heritage and Guatevity. Mgmt immediately told me I was from Philadelphia and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Because this is China and I don't know what I’m doing here, I let my facial hair grow the longest it's been which isn't much but still makes me the spitting image of don Quixote and his silly moustache and goatee, and one student called me out on it saying 'you know, you don't look very American (the neck on the back of my hair stands up), and when i come to think of it, I can't understand you as well as James (my black DC counterpart).

So I shave now, and don't let LEMON talk in class. Which brings me to my STUDENTS. They are great, and all have English names they get to choose in school and stick to like glue. here's a brief list of some of the names: SUNNY, APPLE, JOHNSON, WILLING, RUNNING, CHERRY - I guess this one's pretty normal, but my all-time favorites thus far are LOOKING (he wears glasses) and FAST RACE CAR.

EPOILOGUE - people told me to come to China and look at the bad English on public places, and I see many funny examples that I forget to tell you about, but one I see one all the time says "For Civilization, Please Ose Poilet" above the urinal.

All my love,

Santi

Santi - 8/27/2007 - First week in Shanghai, China

If you got the shadow, play this song as you read this, it's been on my mind as I've planned out this email [DJ Shadow - You Can't Go Home Again]

I am walking home at around 13:30 from the first night of revelry. The subway is simple enough but its 4 Kuai a pop and I've got 1.50 to my name (story of my life). It's good to leave the heavy tourist roads and away from people’s square where old men ask you to be their friends and take them out for drinks. I assume shanghai is manageable and that my map is accurate but actually there are about 13 roads between each avenue not marked on it. It begins. As the tourist fade the translated street signs do as well, and I slowly but surely come to the realization that I am fucked, north is south and I am running on one bottle of water, the only thing I could afford at the time. Fuck it, the best way to get to know a city is by getting lost, n'est pas? So I take it through the dodgy ass (and ergo most intriguing) alleyways until I can find the larger arteries that might hopefully be on my counterfeit map.

If you ever got a headache from the black exhaust fumes and filth in Guatemala then get ready for migraine capital because the city smells of cholera, Greek for diarrhea? Latin maybe? But worse than feces on the ground is the rancid ass fried tofu, a whiff of which is pure hell. They appropriately call it stinky tofu and apparently when it is stinky enough it’s quite nice. I marvel at the sites and suddenly find myself walking into a Latin-American forest, gorgeous bonsai trees engulfed by very lush plants, all towering above me. This is the kind of alley I like, but what’s crazy is I am also enveloped by the nocturnal orchestra of myriad crickets, except it’s not night, and it’s not the rainforest under the full moon at the end of haphazard torrential rains. This urban jungle reveals to me instead a very dodgy animal market, with everything from octopus to gargantuan scorpions, and the cutest parrots and puppies... on second thought; it might have been a deli because I’ve definitely seen all of the above on a stick. Wonderful. But let’s take it back a notch.

I have a haiku, but I am not sure if the appropriate structure is 5-7-5 or 7-5-7. For the sake of my creative genius, we'll make this one a 5-7-7.

Haiku to my crocs

long-walks-you're-cum-fy
but-then-poo-wa-ter-gets-in
so-now-i-stopped-wea-ring-them


So I meet a south African the previous day [so everything is 'brilliant' and 'quite nice'] and we agree to meet up at captain's hostel for drinks and a bomb view of the city (Fuzhou Rd - a bit pricy), we run into a couple of Utahns who agree to follow up with some grub. A girl tags along in the elevator and we are off to becoming surgeons. Clear gloves, out comes a plate of maybe 25 or 30 baby lobsters or crayfish maybe to dissect and put in our mouths, the poor Utahns are vegans (although not Mormon, so I guess God does only punish once)... it turns out the girl that came along is from Guate and was at all the sport tournaments I was at until '03. The world is too small. Cheap food and then the boardwalk, fantastic place to drink cheap and, well it’s a boardwalk but Chinese, until the skyline turns off at 11pm to save light. Then all is dark, and my mistake not to check the subway lines, so everyone leaves and thank God the South African is quite nice and lets me crash on his hostel roof, which he found a ladder to. I wake up circa noon and I have no idea where I am and its hot... very hot, and humid, hangover hot and humid, and where THE FUCK AM I.

So finally after many conversations that went like:

Me: wo mey loo la.
Arbitrary chinese woman: lao wai!
Me: lao wai?
A.C.W: hihihi laowai.
Me: wo mey loo la!
A.C.W: wo mee loo le?

etcetera etcetera I ask a question and they answer in Chinese, which makes it hell’uv hard to understand because I don’t speak Chinese but what are they gonna do, and the sky is hot and I drank like 8 or nine last night which does not equivalate to 1 bottle of now lukewarm water like the croc water.

Finally! I start to see more and more barbershops which abound in my neighborhood, the only problem is a lot of them don’t have any scissors or chairs, or people who cut hair, but they do have many Chinese woman sitting on couches waiting to prostitute themselves. Definitely not hairdressers some. At last I made it home after 2 and half hours on the streets. alone, locked up in my hotel room with the ac blasting and the fantastic beat of the aforementioned song that id had in my head all day.... I deprived myself of shanghai for some 16 hours, and as such thoroughly experienced china.

Warmth,

Santi