October 2005

October 16
Chinese Model
I went to my office the other day to grab a sweater and the phone rang, so I picked it up. It was a woman who was looking for a female teacher who doesn't work here anymore. Then she asked for another woman who doesn't work here anymore, so I told her that they'd were gone. Then she said "how tall are you?". So I told her and she was happy. And she asked how old I was and I told her and she was happy. Then she told me she wanted me to be in a advertisement for electric bicycles. I though, why not?

So I met her and the representative from the advertising company and the owner of the bicylce company for dinner and we had a chat. They were so excited that they immediately asked if I would be available for a clothing company ad as well as some English karaoke programs with the TV station.

I went to the motorcycle company yesterday to have a look around and for some preliminary photos and so they could give me some lines in Chinese to learn. The ad was supposed to be filmed today, but I got a message that they were going to do it later this week.

If this works out, it'll be a lot of fun I think. But, I feel a little uncomfortable about it. The Ad Rep is way too friendly for a Chinese man. They've hired their own translator for me - the woman who called me originally, who wouldn't tell me how she met the other two women who worked here who apparently did some stuff for them. They keep changing times and dates. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask one of my friends to come with me for a trustworthy translation. For now, they don't think I can understand any Chinese. I think I'll let that keep for a bit. I just hope they'll consider me useful enough in the future not to screw with me now. I hate having to think about the worst. It's agravating not being able to trust anyone.
6:55 AM

October 14
October National Holiday
We had nine days of holiday for the Chinese National day, so we went west to Xi'An by train, which took 18 hours. We had beds though, so it wasn't too bad. We arrived there at 5 in the morning and it was sooo cold there. I was totally unprepared for it. We met Jessie and her friends Zak and Chelsie (forgive me if I spelled that wrong) and Talwyn two hours later and headed straight for the Terracotta Warriors, which were amazing. In fact, most of the soldiers have not been excavated. Then we went to a recreation of what they think the King's Tomb would look like if they could excavate it, which they can't because according to records, they filled the tomb with liquid mercury to resemble the Yellow and Yangzi rivers and it could get into the groundwater. Or something like that, I couldn't understand entirely. Then we went to the Queen's Baths, which are a number of pools and bath houses that were built around a natural hot spring from the mountain. Apparantly, the King, although he had a wife, was in love with one of his concubines, whose name is Yang Gui Fei, with whom he spent much time at the baths in Xi'An. After that we went to the hotel and then we had dinner at a Brazilian Bbq place and then tried to go out to the bars but we were all so tired by nine o'clock that we just went back to the hotel to sleep. So much for clubbing in Xi'An!

So the next day we hit the Muslim quarter with the markets and the amazing market food and the temples, which were almost beautiful enough to consider conversion. Soem of it we couldn't see because we weren't muslim, but it was still pretty cool. After that we ate and went to the Drum Tower which is right beside the market, and then we had to catch our train. Now, because it was the holiday, you can't buy return tickets, so you have to get them when you get there. I asked our tour guide to help us, but she was only able to get us tickets to Nanjing, which is still two hours from Wuxi. This train was slow, so it took 20 hours to get there. Then we had to get tickets back to Wuxi, which took forever, but we did get, and then we had four more hours in Nanjing to kill. So we decided to get some food and then we went to Nanjing's Drum tower and looked at some old photos of Nanjing which was really cool. And then we went home. And then we went to Shanghai for the weekend, which was amazing for me, but shitty for Ian. And now we're back to work.
4:55 AM

Chinese job of the... something...
I have two jobs to report. Both of them are winners because, well, I haven't posted in forever, I know. So, the first one is the girls in McDonalds who paint the grout of the floor with vegetable oil every night before closing.

The other winner comes from Alex M. who witnessed the sandwich assembly line. The first person holds the bread, the second person puts some mayonnaise on the bread, and the third person spreads it.
12:58 AM

Backstreet Hotpot
Ok - Tonglu pictures are posted. Xi'An still to come - I'm busy!

After work last night I was starving so Ian and I shared a cab with Denny and got off down the street from our house where there are a lot of street vendors. Ian bought something resembling rice krispies from a guy who was making them right there in the street - he only had one rice explosion all night! I'm excited because you can't really get cereal here. Anyway, so we grabbed some BBQ chicken and meat sticks and some spicy muslim style noodles and some garlic green beans and sat down at a table to eat. After a bit, a young man came to sit down with us and he brought his hotpot - which you can now get on the side of the street, I guess because it's getting cooler. Hot pot is a boiling spicey soup that you cook whatever meat and vegetables in and then eat out of the pot, like fondue. Anyway, we were eating and I was chatting with the guy in broken Chinese and a girl came along with a guitar and a karaoke box. I discovered unfortunately that she sings you a song with one chord on an out of tune guitar for money. She only played one song for us. Anyway, that's my random story.
12:49 AM