"Yeah man, we got one upstairs..." (Weekend Review)

I may have mentioned this before, but Peng, from the English Bar, has at least one of everything in the world. If he doesn't have something in sight, he either "has it upstairs" or is "getting that this Friday." The other night, Will and I went down there to study for our midterms. We ended up playing for five hours on two full sized basketball shooting machines (like the kind you'd see at a larger arcade). So I got a B+ on the midterm, but, as I told my teacher, I didn't try to cheat by cramming a lot of things I didn't REALLY know into my head the night before. What was on the test represented what I had truly absorbed from her teaching, and I was not trying to deceive her in any way. I was very proud of the spin.

FRIDAY NIGHT

We met up with two of Will's friends, (I will spell this incorrectly) Zhuang Ning and Tien Tien (literally translated "Sweet-sweet") and played more basketball. I'm proud to say that, on the righthand basketball machine at the English Study Bar in Beijing, China, I hold the high score of 122. (Take that, everyone who ever laughed at my athletic ability!)

Later we met up with some more people and went back to Pyro. One of the Chinese girls had a piece of paper and started drawing while we were at the table. Then she handed me this...

I'm on the right. You know, the cross between Wolverine and a Leprechaun.

Then the girl sitting next to her gave me this...

Apparently I have a big nose.
Earlier, Dannie looked at my driver's license picture and said "oh, you've gotten fatter."
I think it's a cultural thing. I love my Chinese friends.

Though not quite as good as the good times last weekend, good times were had by all. Before leaving the bar, Zhuang Ning invited Will and I to her birthday party on Saturday!


SATURDAY NIGHT

Zhuang called Will to tell him that we would be meeting at the English Bar at six and then going to dinner. We met and went to a restaurant called "The Secret Garden," which served Hunan dishes. I don't really know what characterizes a dish from that region, but whatever she ordered for us to spin around on the giant lazy susan was great.

As the dishes came around, we asked her and her friends what they were. Spicy beef, spicy chicken, shrimp (barbecued and eaten whole- the tail was especially delicious), and the best eggplant based dish I have ever eaten.

About halfway through the meal, a new dish came out.

We asked her what this dish was, and she said "oh, this very special. It is... ball of pig." Will and I looked nervously at each other. "Are you sure?" we said. She pulled out her pocket dictionary. The next few moments were tense. "Spare ribs" she finally said. Whew.

After dinner we went back to the English bar and played more basketball/ping-pong. Dannie's aunt made some delicious corn and rice-based sugary thing in a basket, and I had fun playing with an e-reader (it's like an electronic book that doesn't hurt your eyes) that someone was showing off.

Nifty.

SUNDAY NIGHT

I didn't have any homework, so I went with Will to the Bridge Cafe for an "American" breakfast. They did a very decent job, but it still tasted distinctly Chinese. I seriously have no idea how they do it. We stayed for a while and I read a few hundred pages in a book that Will is reading about an American who stayed behind in China after World War II and fought for Communism. Of course, after he fought for Communism, he was thrown in jail for sixteen years. It's not exactly a feel-good story.

We went to the English bar because Will was scheduled to teach for two hours and he asked me to tag-team it with him. Peng had, to our great, great, amazing surprise (sarcasm is difficult in print), purchased an enormous flat-screen TV that he put in the classroom, and he just wanted us to watch a movie with the class and stop it every ten minutes to explain difficult words. We were viewing possibly the worst movie that one could possibly use to teach modern English: Casablanca (I always forget whether to put movie titles in italics or quotation marks. Mary, you're an English teacher, right?)

Casablanca is an amazing movie! I had never seen it. However, it does have...

1. Accents: Every character in the film has an accent. Only of them is a neutral American accent. And he (Rick) only says two or three lines over and over again. No one in the class has a clue what anyone else is saying. Even if they did, though, they still have to contend with...

2. Antiquated phrases: the adult students are very quick to yell out phrases that they did not understand, with the expectation that you will define it for them as it is clearly an important English phrase (it's in Casablanca, after all). So we explained such things as "fishing smack," "cheerio," "gestapo," and "here's looking at you, kid." The consequences of such phrases will be felt by Americans at the English bar for weeks.

Next week I might suggest Star Wars and see how that goes over.