My Life in China

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5 Days in Chengdu: Day 4/ Day 5; March 8 & 9, 2005

Previously on our Chengdu trip:

Isaac was confronted by Susan about his dark past in underground crocheting rings while the two of them tried to escape from a runaway train headed toward the nuclear missile silos in Fiji. Phil and Rebecca discovered a link between the mysterious deaths of hundreds of army ants in Bali and the recent increase trade deficit between Switzerland and Freedonia, which they discovered was once settled by Susan’s great-great grandfather. And Isaac and Phil grappled with what to do about the baby.

If only my life was so interesting.

Foot massages are interesting experiences. Well, our experience is more of a foot-and-back massage. It’s a strange sensation having some random girl come in and rub their oiled hands all over your feet. But after a while you get used to it, and by the time it’s over you kind of don’t want it to stop. Still, I don’t know why I always feel a little guilty after going into one of those places. The place we go to is a clean well-lighted place, and everyone looks professional (if a bit young). You get free refreshments and a movie with every massage, so while we are having our feet cared for we get to watch Andy Lau in “A World Without Thieves.”

Today is Wednesday, our last full day in Chengdu. Phil again wakes up at the crack of dawn to go jogging. I again try as hard as humanly possible not to wake up at all.

Today we’re going to the SWUFE satellite campus to more or less give the same presentations we did yesterday. Incidentally, there are, as far as I know, four ‘UFE’s; the Southwestern University (SWUFE), the Dongbei University (DUFE), the Shanghai University (SUFE), and ZUFE, only I don’t know what the ‘Z’ stands for. I’m assuming it means “Zanzibarian” On this morning we meet the Dean of Something I Already Forgot and my favorite New Person, Jack, and the four of us (plus driver) pile into the car for the twenty minute drive to the new SWUFE campus.

The SWUFE satellite campus doesn’t seem very big, only a few buildings and that’s it. I wonder about stir craziness. We arrive just as classes start. It’s funny to see a large wave of students all head from the dorms to the main building. Undaunted, we join the throng and head to the fifth level. Jack tells me this will be our largest crowd, with about 60 students total. I wonder if they are here because they want to be here, or if they are required to be here.

It seems that with each presentation we go to the students get younger and younger. The moment we step into the room 60 students all give us a warm applause. Apparently our reputations precede us. We set up and Phil begins. He introduces himself, and then introduces me, telling the students that I am The American. Now, before we got to the campus, Phil suggested that I introduce myself in Chinese, and then speak in English. So up to this point I had been going over in my mind what I would say to them. That of course never really works, because I get as far as “Da jia hao” before I found myself telling them that my Chinese is really bad, and that I only know how to speak in English. I’ve taught English before, and I just gave a presentation, so I don’t know why these kids make me nervous.

What is even more unsettling is when Phil tells me these are all first year students. That’s right, a bunch of freshman gave me the willies. Granted, there’s a whole lot of them, but babies nonetheless. I should have asked them what year they were at the very beginning, because then I could have gone on and on about The College Experience. That plus a bunch of newbie baby jokes could have gotten me some extra mileage.

Anyway, Phil does his thing, and it goes on for about two hours. I’m thinking it’s a three hour gig, that and Phil told me it’s going to be as long as the other ones. Then, at about the aforementioned two hour mark, Jack appears at the door. I go to answer it while Phil continues on. Jack tells me that they have to go, the presentation was supposed to end half an hour ago. I tell him ok and go to tell Phil, who starts to wrap it up. Apparently we are only supposed to be at this campus for an hour and a half, but Phil and I were under the impression that we would be spending considerably more time there.

While Phil finishes up I go outside to wait for him. So Jack takes this opportunity to tell me how it’s my fault that we’re behind schedule. It goes something like this: “Isaac this presentation is for an hour and a half. We are only supposed to be here for an hour and a half today. We have many things to do and now we are behind schedule.” The following responses run through my mind:

“Really, yeah well don’t look at me, I just work here.”
“Oh ok, well thanks for telling me this A HALF HOUR LATER. Ass.”
“Yeah, you know I’m really sorry about that. Here I’ll make it up to you, let me just hop in my portable invisible time machine and go back to about thirty minutes ago and fix it. Better yet let me jump back to about three days ago and replace you with a giant walking talking rhubarb pie.”

Of course I actually just say “Oh, ok.” without looking at him. But what really bugs is that later when we actually arrive at our hotel the Dean of Accompanying Distinguished Guests will go off to attend his own matters, while Phil and Jack sit in the lobby and chat for about 45 minutes. Well at least it’s nice to know things will get back on schedule.

Phil ends his presentation and starts taking questions from the students. So I have to go in there and drag away from his fans, a few of which ask for his email address as well as mine. Ah the perks of being a roadie.

As we leave for the car I try to engage in some conversation with Jack. He points out the large, empty lake to me. There are some rocks at the bottom of this lake, which is perhaps 6 meters deep. Some workers are on the lake bed, along with some students and what appears to be a kid on a bike. Obviously, the lake is man made. I wonder if it’s new, and ask Jack. He says, “No, they are cleaning it.” He tells me this as if it’s the most ‘duh’ thing in the world. I suppose I should have known that. After all, the invisible lake-cleaning equipment is strewn all over the place. The maintenance personnel must shop at the same store that sells invisible time machines.

Undaunted I ask Jack about the size of the campus, wondering if all you see is all you get. And this is what he says, no joke: “No. Library. Dorm. Gym. Lake.” And each time he says this he sticks his finger out and points at the respective building. At this moment let me just take some time out to do some pointing of my own. Pretty much all the people I’ve met while here in China are very friendly. They’re kind and respectful, always helpful. I’ve met a lot of people who make me want to be a better person, and I’ve met some truly memorable friends who I love a lot. Jack is definitely NOT one of those people. I’m really sorry to say it (actually I’m not and part of me hopes he ends up somehow reading this), but the guy’s a huge ass. He can speak English well enough, so it’s not like there’s a language barrier between us. He’s just a really big prick who for some reason thinks he’s so much better than me. Perhaps you wonder why it is that I single this one person out while I could instead go on and on about the friends for life that I’ve made. Let me put it this way, I’m like the FBI: our failures are public and our successes are private.

I have the afternoon off. Phil has another presentation, then we both have a free evening, and one more presentation at night. After lunch I relax for a bit in the room, then go out and take a look at the campus. Our hotel is right next to a large park. It seems that all kinds of people are live here; besides students meandering about there are also families and many elderly folks just strolling along, sitting on benches doing nothing in particular. In the park there are also some life size dioramas of what I assume to be professors and students enjoying their college lives. I do have to say that none of these figures looks like they are Chinese.

I meet Phil after his afternoon talk and we go for a walk around the surrounding area. He feels like getting ice cream, which sounds good to me, so we head off in search of a snack shop. We barely leave the campus when we come across this big blue building with the words “Metro” on the side in yellow lettering. Phil tells me, “Oh this place is from Germany.” I’m sure there’s a joke about the big old building not fitting in those teeny tiny seats in Coach, but I can’t find it. We decide to go inside.

If you’ve ever been inside a Costco or a Sam’s Club, you know what this place looks like. It’s a large warehouse that stocks practically everything you could think of, and then some. They even have cool imported stuff like truffle oil and avocados (!) but unlike their American counterparts, which has a meat section, they have a meat room here. It’s a big refrigerated room that just has trays and trays of meet on large metal shelves. You can even buy a whole pig or lamb hanging from a rack. I wonder how that works, do you just take the thing and put it in your cart or does someone help you package it all up? How would you get a whole pig home? And yes, here everything in this store is in bulk. You can buy five bed frames for one low, low price.

We just wander around for a while looking at stuff, then swing into a snack section. It’s like a whole aisle devoted just to special Chengdu snacks. And most of it is beef jerky. Chengdu beef jerky isn’t dry, with red pepper thingies sticking to long strips of beef. Instead, little bite size morsels are individually packaged in clear, small packets, then bundled together in an attractive outer bag. The beef is completely immersed in hot chili oil, with actual chilies in them. Sometimes you don’t know if you’re going to bite into a piece of beef jerky or a chili.

At the checkout counter the attendant asks for our member card. Phil tells her we don’t have a member card. I guess we just slipped through on the way in. She says we can’t buy anything without a member card. Phil asks how to get one, and she tells him to borrow one. So we flag down a random guy and borrow his card, then walk out of Metro with a huge bag of twenty or so bags of Chengdu beef jerky. And some spicy beans.

Back in the room, we sort through our new purchases. I get hungry so I open a pack. It’s just as spicy as it looks, so I get some water. You have to boil water here before you drink it, and let me just tell you, hot water does not help ease the fire of spicy food. In the meantime, Phil goes off to give one last presentation, while I stay behind to pack our things.

While I’m packing, I catch “Life as a House” on HBO. The house they build in that movie? Quite nice.

It’s late by the time Phil finishes, and he’s still chatting with some students by the time I get there. We ask the students if there’s a good place for late night dining. They tell us where to go, and off we go. Instead of hotpot this place has “Ma La Tang” which basically is hotpot with kebabs. The place we find is more or less a huge garage, lots of simple tables and wooden benches scattered around, with the food laid out buffet style in the middle. You go get a metal tray and load it up with meat, tofu, fungus, or veggie kebabs. You can go to the buffet thing as many times as you like, but it’s not a set per-person price that they charge. So how do they ring up the bill?

They count the sticks.

That’s right, once you’re done with a skewer, you don’t throw it away. Well, you can toss it aside, but then you have to toss all your sticks in the same pile, cuz when it comes time to calculate your tab, someone comes and picks up all the sticks and physically counts how many there are, and you pay accordingly. I don’t even want to know what they do with the sticks afterward. Let’s just say I didn’t see any trashcans with lots of wooden kebab skewers.

But the food itself is not bad. We get a wide variety of meats and veggies and some stuff that I really can’t figure out. We order some beer and some peanut milk (like soy milk, only made with peanuts) and have a nice time. But Phil thinks the food is really spicy, much more so than last night. Me? Not so much.

After eating 76 sticks’ worth of food (not a bad count, apparently) Phil really needs some ice cream. Sounds good to me, so we head off and buy some chocolate éclair ice cream bars. Along the way there’s a little roadside stand with two women cooking barbequed meat kebabs. All of a sudden a cab rolls by and the passenger window rolls down. A woman pops her head out and asks some questions, gets some answers, thinks for a bit, then hops out of the cab and hangs around to buy/eat some food. For some reason, I think that’s pretty humorous.

And that humorous little image is how I end my story. Our last night in Chengdu, our stomachs full and some good memories to take home. Then again, everyday in China has been a new adventure for me. I’ve had a good time not just in Chengdu, but overall.

The monkeys were particularly fun.

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