Warmth and Grass

That's right, Harbin has both. I have never been so happy to see a splotch of scraggy grass while wearing a short-sleeve shirt in my life! Of course, this just confirms (again) the widespread assumption that I'm a winter wuss.

The China-life is pretty sweet as of late; last weekend was a three day-er (owing to labor day) and a group of awesomely fun people hit up the local island-park for a picnic and birthday celebration. We got to ride a ferry boat across the river, ate sandwiches with REAL peanut butter for lunch, and toodled around on some tandem (and three-person) bikes for awhile. I recommend grabbing the back seat, as you can't steer or really make any decisions about your direction whatsoever, but the opportunities for picture taking and looking around are top-rate. Speaking of pictures, the park people wanted to play "picture with the waiguoren" a lot, but I'm getting used to it. We joked among the CET students about pretending I don't speak Chinese and letting one of the Chinese boys pimp me out for 5 kuai a shot (starting at 10 kuai and bargaining down, of course). In fact, I never wear makeup in these parts, rarely touch my hair, and shower infrequently because hey, if strangers call me pretty and want my picture when I'm red-faced, dirty, and/or rain-soaked, I'm afraid I just don't see what could motivate me to do better.

(I will here confess that after putting on some mascara the other day I surprised myself in the mirror approximately 10 times before it finally wore off a few days later: "What?? A girl?! What is SHE doing in here?! WWaaahh!" You get the idea.)

Also, I think I understand about 85% of my life on any given day now. Yeah, you're thinking- hey, that's pretty cool. You're speaking only Chinese and have a really good idea of what is going around you! I hear when you got there that number was more like 35%, huh. Way to go, Cat.

Hey thanks, but um...how to put this..15% of my life is still a complete mystery to me. You know how I hate confusion and inefficiency? Well, in China, every single day things happen to or around me that are just a complete mystery. Example A, I bought some groceries at the chaoshi. As I was checking out, the lady didn't give me a bag, she just loaded all my stuff back into the basket. I asked for a bag. She said "follow me" and walked off. This made me very annoyed. I don't want to go with you to restock your stupid stash of bags- borrow one from the next cashier over or something, no really. I started trying to tell her this in an exasperated tone when she turned around and gave me a free, enviro-friendly, reusable bag from the cool people at the service desk!...Wait what? Huh? Where did this come from? Did I buy the product of the day? Is this based on amount of purchase? What just happened here??

These questions and many many others remain unanswered on a daily basis. It's like there's this purpose/meaning/explanation-obscuring fog continually edging in on my China-consciousness; sometimes it closes in, sometimes it clears up a bit, but it's always there- like Beijing pollution. The good news is, I can't get worked up about outcomes or methods that displease me much, because chances are grand that I really don't understand the issues. At times, this hazy lifestyle gets me down a bit, but usually it just contributes to the grand adventure and hey, language pledge. What did I expect.

On the other hand, a random Chinese guy spent 15 minutes at dinner the other day trying to explain a question to me. As I battled the fog, it slowly dawned on me that I didn't understand anything he was saying because his question was directly related to my life in Russia. Um, wrong-o China-man, wrong-o. I even told you I studied in the US, so I'ma have to chalk this one up as negative one point for you, waiguoren still cruising at zero. I would now like to finish enjoying my jiaozi in peace, so thanks and good night.

Diet Pepsi blows,
China-Cat