Home again.... (another giant post of doom)
And I am back in the United States. To back track from my last post, here's a quick rundown of my last couple days in China. ^_^
-Day of the monster post of DOOM! Right after I got back from the wang ba (net bar) my Mom, lil bro and I went out to wan (play) with her school friends. Basically, we went out to karaoke and ate buffet food and stayed there from about noon til about dinner time, hehe. Listened to Mom and her friends reminisce and rag on each other (her group is basically five women and one guy, and they've known each other variously from childhood living on the same street, middle school and high school).
Also watched lil bro and two of my "aunties'" sons play this kind of gambling thing with dice that's basically like BS with cards. Roll your (5) dice and guess how many total of some number exists in the group, like 10 fives. Each successive guess either has to have a higher count of the same number, or the same count of a higher number. You don't believe someone's claim, then reveal your dice. The boys and my "uncle" and one of my "aunts" were playing with forfeits- cough drops. *sigh* I learned how to play but got bored after a couple rounds. :P
At about 5:45 we got kicked out, so walked to the Saxophone Bar for dinner. Wow food, of Chinese and Western style. Very tasty, and there was a lot of it. I got grilled on my future plans while the boys were (again) playing dice, and the crew thought I expressed myself surprisingly decently in Cantonese, and suggested avenues to explore in jobhunting. Mainly, working in government (local or whatever), or possibly looking into a US or other international company with an office in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, since my day-to-day Cantonese is decent, my Mandarin is decent (and all writing regardless of what you speak is done with Putonghua grammar and phrasing anyway), and my English is native, so that would be an advantage. We'll see if anyone wants me first. :P I'm not terribly ambitious, but if I did get hired by anyone in GZ or HK, my uncle said to think of it as an internship or whatever, work for a year or so and get experience.
China is so competitive now that the theory is if I'm able to do well in China, then I'd certainly be able to do okay in the states, because people who follow all the rules in China? Don't get very far. you need to be flexible and whatnot, and we're (me and lil bro especially) are too used to a society where people "play by the rules" or something, too nice, hehe. so I guess my aunties and uncles want me to get toughened up.
then i wandered over to the dice-gamers to watch world cup. Oh man, Australia v. Japan. The first, oh, 80 minutes of the game were just bleh. It was like, wow they really sucked. That one goal Japan scored was pure dumb luck. We were thinking about leaving the restaurant with fifteen minutes to go but decided to stay. And OMG, three goals in nine minutes from Australia. o.O That was incredible, considering earlier in the game both teams had an awful (it seemed to me) passing/interception rate, and kept getting close to scoring but never kicking the ball with enough force to get it anywhere into the goal, etc etc. Crazy game.
-Okay, day 2 in GZ. Basically an all-day shopping expedition. Kill me now. Mom and I went with one of my aunties back to the street they grew up on, where there's a highly recommended hairdresser. Shampoo and cut and dry, all for only RMB 12. Crazy how in the states it's lots extra to shampoo, forget the hairdryer. :P I've never had my hair take so long to wash in my life, all massage-y and everything. And now I have boy-hair! "Western style" um something, so it's super short in the back like a boy's, and slightly longer in front. I like it. ^_^
we then went to meet up with the other aunties at a wonton noodle shop. Soooo yummy. They were all o.O at my short hair, since right now no one's cutting their hair like that now, long hair is in. And then they decided to make me their dressup doll. Yeah, Claremont folks might know how Wendy was always talking about dressing me up? Yeah, my aunts and cousins actually succeed in doing this to me, and I get carried off in their whirlwind. So a day of shopping. Mom got some stuff too, but a lot of the clothes my aunties directed her to were a bit too expensive or too...young and stylish for her taste. :P But I ended up getting clothes- lots. And also a suit, craziness. For interviews and whatnot. o.O
right before dinner it started raining really hard. And my aunts saw a tang yuan (sweet dumpling) shop, and ran for it, giggling like school girls. Sesame dessert (zhi ma hu) with and without the yuan, so yummy. we ran in, spend ten minutes eating it and ran out for the car one of my aunt's husband was driving to pick us up for dinner. :P My mom's friends are too busy to get together often, so my mom's presence was basically a great opportunity.
- Day 3 in GZ. Hanging with my cousin and my actual aunt before leaving for Shenzhen and crossing the border to Hong Kong. Shandong food of tastiness (it's nice to eat qingqing dandan GZ-style food again after the heavier, saltier, oilier, spicier food we've been eating during our travels through Sichuan and Chongqing) with potstickers, dumplings, tasty veggies and tianji (ahaha frog, the literal translation is chicken of the fields, the way tuna in US parlance is chicken of the sea XD). Bought more shanxia (cranberry) snacks to take home, and then off to the train station.
Going through borders stuffs was pretty standard, and then we were in HK. Stayed the night, eating Taiwan-style food and wandering the local area around the mini-hotel we were staying at. Turns out the tv didn't get any sports, so no football for us. But lil bro and I ended up watching this bizarre US movie called Species. I understood what was going on, but nothing of why. ^^;;
-Up in morning at 4:45 to take the airport bus with all our luggage. Then on the plane- first a four-hour flight at 9am to Narita Tokyo. Stayed in Tokyo for a couple hours reading this week's Newsweek in the airport and going O.o over the news, then on a 9-hour flight to SFO to arrive at 9am, hee. Narita-SFO dinner was surprisingly tasty- beef noodle with tomato sauce and carrots and broccoli, and there was a little box with a slice of salmon (wow, salmon that I could actually eat and was very tasty), edamame, and a slice of pineapple. I ate lil bro's portion of that. :P Ended up watching "The Perfect Man," which in the synopsis sounded horrifying but in execution was actually pretty clever and funny. Hilary Duff's girl friend makes me think of a punked out Gabby from Ghostwriter, hahahaha. The boy draws comics! hahahgeeky. The actual scheme is kinda dopey, and we were hit with the irony sledgehammer with an inclass discussion of tangled webs of deceptions, but overall i liked it. not too many humiliation!squick moments.
arrived in SFO, cleared customs at 9:40, and then I hung around with the luggage til noon since the car could only take half of it. ^^ Back home to crash, and I am now as you see me online. I'll post up pictures at some point soon, we'll see how that goes. :P
Hope everyone's summers are going well, that you are relaxing, or enjoying whatever your doing, whether it's travel, gainful employment, lab *pokes Christine and the Sharonkitty* or whatever. *hugs* My love to all.
-Day of the monster post of DOOM! Right after I got back from the wang ba (net bar) my Mom, lil bro and I went out to wan (play) with her school friends. Basically, we went out to karaoke and ate buffet food and stayed there from about noon til about dinner time, hehe. Listened to Mom and her friends reminisce and rag on each other (her group is basically five women and one guy, and they've known each other variously from childhood living on the same street, middle school and high school).
Also watched lil bro and two of my "aunties'" sons play this kind of gambling thing with dice that's basically like BS with cards. Roll your (5) dice and guess how many total of some number exists in the group, like 10 fives. Each successive guess either has to have a higher count of the same number, or the same count of a higher number. You don't believe someone's claim, then reveal your dice. The boys and my "uncle" and one of my "aunts" were playing with forfeits- cough drops. *sigh* I learned how to play but got bored after a couple rounds. :P
At about 5:45 we got kicked out, so walked to the Saxophone Bar for dinner. Wow food, of Chinese and Western style. Very tasty, and there was a lot of it. I got grilled on my future plans while the boys were (again) playing dice, and the crew thought I expressed myself surprisingly decently in Cantonese, and suggested avenues to explore in jobhunting. Mainly, working in government (local or whatever), or possibly looking into a US or other international company with an office in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, since my day-to-day Cantonese is decent, my Mandarin is decent (and all writing regardless of what you speak is done with Putonghua grammar and phrasing anyway), and my English is native, so that would be an advantage. We'll see if anyone wants me first. :P I'm not terribly ambitious, but if I did get hired by anyone in GZ or HK, my uncle said to think of it as an internship or whatever, work for a year or so and get experience.
China is so competitive now that the theory is if I'm able to do well in China, then I'd certainly be able to do okay in the states, because people who follow all the rules in China? Don't get very far. you need to be flexible and whatnot, and we're (me and lil bro especially) are too used to a society where people "play by the rules" or something, too nice, hehe. so I guess my aunties and uncles want me to get toughened up.
then i wandered over to the dice-gamers to watch world cup. Oh man, Australia v. Japan. The first, oh, 80 minutes of the game were just bleh. It was like, wow they really sucked. That one goal Japan scored was pure dumb luck. We were thinking about leaving the restaurant with fifteen minutes to go but decided to stay. And OMG, three goals in nine minutes from Australia. o.O That was incredible, considering earlier in the game both teams had an awful (it seemed to me) passing/interception rate, and kept getting close to scoring but never kicking the ball with enough force to get it anywhere into the goal, etc etc. Crazy game.
-Okay, day 2 in GZ. Basically an all-day shopping expedition. Kill me now. Mom and I went with one of my aunties back to the street they grew up on, where there's a highly recommended hairdresser. Shampoo and cut and dry, all for only RMB 12. Crazy how in the states it's lots extra to shampoo, forget the hairdryer. :P I've never had my hair take so long to wash in my life, all massage-y and everything. And now I have boy-hair! "Western style" um something, so it's super short in the back like a boy's, and slightly longer in front. I like it. ^_^
we then went to meet up with the other aunties at a wonton noodle shop. Soooo yummy. They were all o.O at my short hair, since right now no one's cutting their hair like that now, long hair is in. And then they decided to make me their dressup doll. Yeah, Claremont folks might know how Wendy was always talking about dressing me up? Yeah, my aunts and cousins actually succeed in doing this to me, and I get carried off in their whirlwind. So a day of shopping. Mom got some stuff too, but a lot of the clothes my aunties directed her to were a bit too expensive or too...young and stylish for her taste. :P But I ended up getting clothes- lots. And also a suit, craziness. For interviews and whatnot. o.O
right before dinner it started raining really hard. And my aunts saw a tang yuan (sweet dumpling) shop, and ran for it, giggling like school girls. Sesame dessert (zhi ma hu) with and without the yuan, so yummy. we ran in, spend ten minutes eating it and ran out for the car one of my aunt's husband was driving to pick us up for dinner. :P My mom's friends are too busy to get together often, so my mom's presence was basically a great opportunity.
- Day 3 in GZ. Hanging with my cousin and my actual aunt before leaving for Shenzhen and crossing the border to Hong Kong. Shandong food of tastiness (it's nice to eat qingqing dandan GZ-style food again after the heavier, saltier, oilier, spicier food we've been eating during our travels through Sichuan and Chongqing) with potstickers, dumplings, tasty veggies and tianji (ahaha frog, the literal translation is chicken of the fields, the way tuna in US parlance is chicken of the sea XD). Bought more shanxia (cranberry) snacks to take home, and then off to the train station.
Going through borders stuffs was pretty standard, and then we were in HK. Stayed the night, eating Taiwan-style food and wandering the local area around the mini-hotel we were staying at. Turns out the tv didn't get any sports, so no football for us. But lil bro and I ended up watching this bizarre US movie called Species. I understood what was going on, but nothing of why. ^^;;
-Up in morning at 4:45 to take the airport bus with all our luggage. Then on the plane- first a four-hour flight at 9am to Narita Tokyo. Stayed in Tokyo for a couple hours reading this week's Newsweek in the airport and going O.o over the news, then on a 9-hour flight to SFO to arrive at 9am, hee. Narita-SFO dinner was surprisingly tasty- beef noodle with tomato sauce and carrots and broccoli, and there was a little box with a slice of salmon (wow, salmon that I could actually eat and was very tasty), edamame, and a slice of pineapple. I ate lil bro's portion of that. :P Ended up watching "The Perfect Man," which in the synopsis sounded horrifying but in execution was actually pretty clever and funny. Hilary Duff's girl friend makes me think of a punked out Gabby from Ghostwriter, hahahaha. The boy draws comics! hahahgeeky. The actual scheme is kinda dopey, and we were hit with the irony sledgehammer with an inclass discussion of tangled webs of deceptions, but overall i liked it. not too many humiliation!squick moments.
arrived in SFO, cleared customs at 9:40, and then I hung around with the luggage til noon since the car could only take half of it. ^^ Back home to crash, and I am now as you see me online. I'll post up pictures at some point soon, we'll see how that goes. :P
Hope everyone's summers are going well, that you are relaxing, or enjoying whatever your doing, whether it's travel, gainful employment, lab *pokes Christine and the Sharonkitty* or whatever. *hugs* My love to all.