Fortunately Unfortunately

Today was an interesting day. We had our weekly two hour exam (Weekly. Two hour. Exam. Yeah you heard me right.) and I did pretty well, and then we went to a Chinese kindergarden for our weekly Language Practicum (see pictures). This was pretty interesting. Some highlights:

• When we stepped into the classroom, twenty little voices piped, "Laowai laowai! Foreigners! Waiguo ren! Foreigners!" I am not sure what their attitude was towards us. I thought I detected no small amount of aggression but it could be my imagination.
• We were told to "play" with the children. This was very difficult. Ordinarily I'm pretty good with children, but either today was an off day or I just can't do it in Chinese, because my conversations with the children went nowhere fast.
• It's really kind of sad when you ask a four year old "What color is that toy?" because you yourself honestly do not know.
• At the preschool where I worked sophomore year the children all used the bathroom together, but there was only one toilet so they all took turns. There are no toilets in China. What China has is holes in the ground, or, in the case of this school, a long trench. A whole bunch of children can pee in the trench at the same time. Girls, boys, it's very weird. (Yeah, that's my big cultural observation: it's weird. Who let me out of the country?)
  
• The principal gave us a brief lecture, much of which was lost on me, but I did catch that at this school, fat children are subjected to a special diet. They get less food than the other kids, they have soup first, and they are weighed regularly. I found this peculiar but perhaps it works for them.

Then we had Chinese Lunch Table, and I went with Li laoshi (one of my teachers) and Xiao Gao, a third year boy. We had Sichuan food and it was pretty good. Plus I adore Li laoshi because he's the one who told me about Chinese math that one day.

After lunch I returned to my increasingly unpleasant room. My roommate no longer responds to my greetings. How much effort would it be to just echo "ni hao" when I say "ni hao"? Plus when my test came back she basically threw it at me. I was so filled with hulklike rage I went out for a walk. (What an anticlimactic sentence. It ought to be more like "so filled with hulklike rage I smacked her" or "I played my Steve Earle really loud over her top-40 Country." Next time.) I went to the post office and sent a letter to the Thomases which should get there sometime before August hopefully, and I explored a bit. It was my first real solo expedition in Chaoyang. I wanted to buy some underpants so as to avoid doing laundry a little longer, but Chinese underwear is really unfortunate. I really want to buy some and send it to Caroline because she would be appalled. It comes up to practically your sternum and it's all beige. Instead I bought an ice cream bar, which was probably the best 1 kuai 5 mao I've ever spent.

When I got back I read some Psmith and took a nap, with my headphones on because heaven forbid my roommate use hers, so I couldn't lie on my side and had to instead lie on my face. But I listened to the Katie Rose CD, which always cheers me up.

Then it was time for our Evening Cultural Event: a trip to see the Chinese acrobats. We rode on a chartered bus, and we had no sooner started to move than I found myself breaking down. I just started crying like a six year old in front of everybody, and most notably in front of Zhi'ang, who was (of course) across the aisle from me. He was super nice and asked me if I'd had a bad day. I managed to pull myself together a bit and respond and dry my eyes and everything, but by the time we got there I was in pieces again.

"What's wrong?" said Zhi'ang. I just sort of shook my head. When I'm upset, kindness just undoes me even further. We went inside and my friend Jiani saw me and squeezed my arm, said it was okay and offered to take me to the bathroom. I went by myself and washed my face (there was a sink, which is super fancy, but I had to dry my face with my scarf) and by the time I got to my seat (next to Zhi'ang and in front of Jiani and the two of them are my heroes of today) I was able to act like a grownup. These things happen abroad. It's stressful. It's okay.

The show was pretty amazing. It basically comes down to this: they could balance stuff really well. Stuff like other people standing on their foreheads. Things like spinning plates on sticks. The Chinese love plate-spinning. The guy who did one hand handstands on top of dozens of chairs stacked one on top of another was pretty intense. "Are your hands sweating?" Lu laoshi asked us. They were. My favorite though, was the women riding bicycles, because they reminded me of Bears on Wheels, the first book I ever read all by myself. So many women on one bicycle! So exciting!

When we got home, Lili invited me to play beer pong with some people, and I went, but just watched. I really don't like Yanjing Pijiu. I really don't like beer. I was torn between What Is More Boring, watching people play beer pong or being by myself in my room, and my room won. I know it's important to be social, but I have had a rough day. Today has been like the game we used to play when we were little: "Fortunately Unfortunately." (Do you remember that?) "Fortunately, you sat next to Zhi'ang on the bus! Unfortunately, you were crying humiliatingly! Fortunately he was really nice! Unfortunately your nose was running and your eyes were all rabbity! And so on!"

I think today has been a net gain, however. So there's that.