It's like Outback- We're Closer to Australia, so It'll Taste Better

OK, so tonight is my mega-update since I've been slacking the past few days. It isn't because I haven't tried to update the blog, but random things have been happening that have kept me from doing so. I'll include bits of the blog that I HAD written, and then reasons that I was interrupted.

01/18/08

Today I officially received my Chinese name: Jiang Jun, which means soldier and, more specifically, “General.” It’s the closest approximation Li Laoshi could find for “Johnson.”

I didn’t post yesterday because yesterday was painfully boring and all I did was find a Western Union to get money. Oh, and I ate walnut balls covered in fried ants. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was a little sweet and actually sort of tasty, but whenever I started enjoying it, the phrase “you’re eating ants!” would pop into my mind, and I would have to suppress gagging.

INTERRUPTION

1. Laundry- Here's a picture that should explain why laundry may have delayed my blogging.

But it's CHEAP! (and that's what's important)

2. "C(h)risis"- As I had finished hanging up my laundry, I received two simultaneous calls... one on my room phone, and one on my cell phone. It was Dr. Sun and Dr. Li, the directors of our program, and they wanted me to know that there was a "crisis" and Will and I needed to go to Dr. Sun's office right away. Of course, we assumed that William and Mary had screwed up on some crucial study abroad thing and we were no longer students (or something to that effect). As it turned out, however, once we got to the office Dr. Sun asked us if we would possibly be willing to move.

"Why?" We asked. He explained to us that a guy from Va. Tech had failed to show up in a room down the hall, and now the two guys in that room had to move to building number 9 (which is for doubles). We failed to see how this involved us in any way. We were soon informed that it didn't, but the guys who should move were fussing about it. Chris, especially, was very unhappy about the move. Luckily, I had talked to Chris before (he's the guy I got lost at the airport with) and I happened to know that he's one of those who just loves to argue for argument's sake. We told Dr. Sun that we'd be happy to move if it was a last resort and the other guys were going to leave the program or have some sort of fit over it, because it's really not a big deal. Which is especially why it annoyed me that such a small thing would take me away from blogging AND manage to do it in a really heart-racingly-scary way. So, after that episode (we're still on Friday) I returned to some writing...

(Friday night)

Walking around, I also found this great sign that I wanted to share with all my trumpet playing friends back home (especially Tornello because it’s her birthday). (Saturday note- it WAS her birthday)

No Trumpets Allowed in China

And right after I uploaded that image, Chinese internet decided to die. No one knew what had happened, but we DID know that we had to reset our internet, which our friend Matt, who was here last semester, kindly did for us the first time. Now, he wasn't around, so I decided to fix the internet myself. This involved wading through about ten pages that looked exactly like this-

-with me yelling out sort of what different the characters looked like, and Nell and Alice offering translation suggestions. Every few hours I would grow impatient and click randomly, which would invariably reset or fatal-error the entire system, requiring us to start over at the very beginning. Eventually, I continued to not fix it.

Later, we went out to various clubs and almost saw a fight. And by fight, I mean eight guys ran outside of a bar and nearly simultaneously broke their beer bottles in half and started brandishing them as weapons. We decided not to go to that particular establishment.

(Saturday)
01/19/08

Today we woke up and went to the Beijing City Museum, which is a fun super-huge structure on the outside.

Maybe you can't tell from the picture. SUPER-HUGE

And the least exhibition space of any museum I've ever been to on the inside. Which is OK, because the exhibits they did have were pretty cool. They had a whole section devoted to Buddhist statues constructed in the past few thousand years. I tried to be cool, interesting, and helpful all at the same time by giving Tram, my new Vietnamese friend who lives in Texas, a lesson on everything that I remembered from Intro to Buddhism (Fall '05). About halfway through my speech, she mentioned that she was, herself, Buddhist. So that was good.

This is in the museum. I wanted to position the picture so that it would look like I saw playing ball with the dog/lion/thing, but everyone said that would look dorky so I didn't.

The museum had some great exhibits, like I said, but they also had some weird things happening. I didn't get a picture of it, but one display had ancient Chinese glasses and candle holders next to a "Mitsubishi Electric Fan, Circa 1920's." And in another part of the museum, just kind of sitting out in the open, there was a "Planing Machine, British, Circa 1920's." I did get one of my favorites in a picture, though, in an exhibit about the historical Beijing Opera instruments.

The caption reads: "Saxophone- Modern Times"

Obviously I got my internet working this evening (by randomly clicking- score!) and then we went out to dinner for a hot pot, which is a distinctly Beijing thing that is actually just really good fondue. If you ever come visit, I can highly recommend them. The title of the blog comes from a comment that Will made over our hot-pot, after he said "I bet Indian food here is a lot better than in the US, because we're closer to India."

So I have to go to Outback, now, sometime before I leave.