End of the semester

Asia » China » Zhejiang » Hangzhou
January 30th 2010

Published: February 2nd 2010

First of all sorry I have not posted in a while but I have been quite busy since returning from Bali. But I have just finished my first semester in China and am about to embark on a much needed vacation to Thailand for the month of February. Here are some interesting stories from the past month.

As my Friends from my days in DC will tell you, I am a California boy at heart meaning I do not adapt to well to the cold. Unfortunately for me, Hangzhou gets quite cold. But Hangzhou cold is not the dry cold I was used to in DC, instead it is a humid cold which chills you to your bones. So even on a day where it is 50 degrees I wear my biggest jacket to keep me warm. Now add the humid cold to my apartment with a kitchen window that cannot shut and a bedroom with little insolation, you get an apartment that can get extreamely cold. It takes abot three hours to heat my apartment to a comfortable tempature when it is really cold. So instead of shutting the heat off I just put it on low when I left in the morning so as to not nave to come home to a freezing apartment (I know this is not the most environmentally conscious Action in my life, but I don't like he cold). Right before Christmas I returned home to a Chinese note on my door which my tutor later told was a note from a cop telling whoever lived there had to report to the precinct station immediately but without leaving a reason. Now I have had some scary moments in my life, but this pretty much tops them. All I could think about was what I learned in my China law class, "no due process in China."

My tutor calmed me down and said she would come with me to the police station to translate. So we make our way over to the station. When we get to the station we are directed to an inspectors office. The whole process seemed a bit formal and I still had no idea why I was even there. The inspector barely looked at me and began shouting at my tutor in Chinese so fast I could not understand (he was also speaking the the local Hangzhou dialect which is quite differrent from the mandarin that I am learning). However, I did pick up one word over and over again... Kong Tiao. This is the word for the A/C unit which is also a heater. So it dawned on me that someone must not like me leaving on my heat all day (the fan is outside the apartment so others can tell when my heat is running). My tutor tells the inspector that "Wai guo ren" (foreigners) like their heat on and it there habit. The inspector then told my habit has to change. To which she replied why??? Saying I pay for the heating bill. He did not say anything more on the kong tiao and instead moved on to how neighbors had also complained that there was a blanket hanging outside my window for a month (I had forgotten that my Ayi, literally meaning aunt but really this sweet old lady who looks after me, had bought me a new one a months ago and put the otherone outside... Which I forgot about). Apparantly neighbors did not like this. So I told him I would take it down. And with that he dismissed us and I was free to go. The irony of this was when I returned home that day there was all my neighbors hanging around ouside while a kid was pissing on my building. So all in all in China hanging blankets for long periods of time not ok, but public urination ok. I hope that was the first and last time I have to deal with the Chinese police.

JOSH'S ATTEMPT AT CHINA STARDOM

So as x-mas rolled around, all of my American friends left to go home for the holidays. So I decided it was time to pursue my life-long dream of becoming a Pop icon in China. My first opportunity came when one of my friends from Estonia was sceduled to be on a show called yue tiao yue meili (more jump more beautiful), which is like a dance competiton show. My friend was the only foreigner on the show so the producers wanted some of her friends to come up and do some traditional Estonian dances with her. This is where her best friend, her boyfriend and myself came into play. Five minutes before the show I was frantically taught how to do the dance. When they introduced my friend on the show they invited all of us to come up on stage. For some reaon they wanted us to play hackey sack, maybe because they thought all foreigners could do it... But we failed miserably. Also the dance wasn't so great either. But none the less I was convinced the Chinese would still love me.... Unfortunately I was wrong. When the show aired the producers cut my dance sequence. Although you can still see me about 8 minutes into the show when they welcome us. See it here http://www.zjstv.com/media/media_detail.aspx?id=523783.

One of the hosts' of the show was a famous China tv personality named Zhu Dan. After the show she was sitting by herself on the side of the stage, so my friend Will and I decided we should go over to her and I should ask her out. Will spoke a bit more Chinese than I so he started out by rambling about how I liked her hometown (we learned this from some Chinese friend in the crowd). She hunored us for a couple of minutes with our bad Chinese. I finally asked her to come get a drink with us, and she looked me dead in the eyes and said imperfect English, "you know I'm famous, right?" At that point we decided to abandon our endeavor. Although many friends of mine in China have since given me clever lines I should of said back to her.

So far my attempts into tv stardom and dating a celebrity had failed, however there was still anoter area worth exploring: modeling. Ever since I was able to see my reflection in the mirror I knew I was something special, haha just kidding. In China you basically just need to be a foreigner to get hired. My friend Sunny heard about a job through a friend which paid about $80 for two hours work, not bad to start off. So we both go (Sunny as my translator) but when we get there, none of the clothes fit me. I was too big for any of the sizes they made.

At this point, I had a huge moment of clarity, maybe I was not put on this earth to be a Chinese celebrity. But this new truth also mad me reflect on what I was really good at in life, and then it hit me... My best skill is having people pay me not to work... So immediately Sunny and I demand our pay and end up settling for about 3/5 of the origianl wage and a taxi ride back to school.

With that my aventures in the entertainment business ceased and I went back to focusing all my energies in studying Chinese which paid off when Finals finally came around.

Hope all is well and hope to hear from all of you soon!

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