Besides, accidentally trespassing on a Chinese naval base is way better in hindsight.

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Liu Gong Island

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1) The way is fraught with peril. There’s no quick travel, the path from point A to Point B is always full of adventures. Come on, Frodo couldn’t just hop on the next plane to Mordor!

2) Dire predictions of doom. In fantasy stories, the protagonists are constantly warned about their destination, just like in China. “I heard of a foreign traveler who tried to reach Penglai by bus. We never saw him again.” or “You seek to visit Beijing? In October? Turn back while you still can!”

3) Searching for rare artifacts. The quester can’t just walk into the blacksmith’s and say “Good morning, I’d like to purchase the ancient, elf-made enchanted sword of the shadowlands, please.” and expect to get what he wants. Where’s the challenge there? Where’s the character development? In China, I can’t just walk into a shop and say “Good morning, I’d like to purchase some deoderant, please.”

4) Adventurers form a traveling party, using their disparate skills to work for a common goal. In my travels, Fresca can read pin yin, Dave can bargain, Will knows everyone in Yantai… (I guess I can make bardic knowledge checks, once in a while? Wait, I’m the protagonist! I don’t have to be useful!)

5) And finally, everyone speaks Common (Pu Tong Hua). Except me, my attempt at Chinese is more like a bad Renn faire accent.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Why Travel In China Is Like Being the Protagonist In A Fantasy Novel

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Dave came back to Yantai for a day before heading home to New York.

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The Last Adventure Of The Three Amigos

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Waitresses can understand my halting Chinese when Zorro’s not there, but when he is, they check with Zorro on every request I make. Sure, my Chinese is terrible, and customer service is just different here, but sometimes I feel like the hapless victim in a Monty Python sketch.

Zorro can also read a lot of characters so I’m always asking him for help. Me walking down the street in China is a lot like a car trip with a kindergartener, but instead of shouting out letters and numbers, I look for characters I can read.

I ask questions like “What’s that character? Second from the left? It looks like bu written on top of tian… I think I’m going to call it Hell.”

I can’t imagine what China must be like for Zorro. He has an entirely different set of assumptions than I do. He doesn’t get the foreigner price, or giggles everytime he speaks. He does get paragraphs of rapid-fire Chinese, based on the assumption that everyone who looks Chinese must speak it fluently. And it’s hard to be a foreign English teacher when you don’t elicit theHELLO!!! LAO WAI! greeting.

Last night, we went to the local sushi place. After the waitress double-checked my order and left, I realized Zorro was looking over my shoulder.

“A guy at the table over there has been staring at you for almost ten minutes!” he said. “That must get really annoying!”

Behind Zorro, I could see a sushi bar full of diners openly or covertly staring at the foreign girl.

“Yeah, it happens.”

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Someone Else’s China

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First, you get your own room so you don’t have to listen to any drunks crying ballads or Cyndi Lauper with the six girls:one mic ratio. Unless you brought those people. Second, although there was no pin yin option, so no one got to hear my fabulous rendition of Mice Love Rice, there was a pretty extensive English section. Page one had Africa by Toto… I took this picture because I knew no one would believe me. Honestly, that’s what it says!

We alternated between Two Butterflies and Looking At The Sea and so forth, and the English section.

This is Dave and me singing Imagine. In China. Yeah.

And then I found Angel, more commonly known as “the peeps song”. Usually my version of the song goes like this:

“So then he said… Oh my God! Is this the peeps song? It’s the peeps song! Eric, it’s scanning! How do you take this off scan? What do you mean, the same way as last time? Oh, thanks. CLOSER THAN MY PEEPS YOU ARE TO ME! It’s the peeps song, Eric! Listen! SHE WAS THERE THROUGH MY INCARCERATION, I WANNA SHOW THE NATION, MY APPRECIATION! Yeah!”

I realize now that I am going to a special English teacher hell for singing these lyrics.

Looking back Shorty always be mention
Said me not giving her much attention

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Closer Than My Peeps

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It’s an active mosque, so we weren’t allowed to go inside the prayer hall. It was pretty cool to hear the prayers and peek inside the main hall. Unfortunately, like most of Beijing, it was under construction, so I climbed up this tower. Bethie’s at the bottom here because she didn’t want to climb it. I think if there’s nothing blocking the stairs, it must be safe, right?

Actually it was pretty warm that day but I put on wrap on because I didn’t want to tempt the faithful with my demon flesh. Very considerate of me, wasn’t it?

We soon learned the reason it’s called Cow Street. Muslims are forbidden to eat pork, and, as my adventures with Dave have shown me, pork is a major part of most Chinese meals. And next to the mosque, was an entire street of butcher shops, presumably to serve beef to the local Muslims.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Beijing Mecca

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I love pre-teens and teenagers. It’s kind of a joke in the office that I wish I had all teenage classes, since the other teachers like to avoid them. Honestly, I would trade my adults for teenagers in a heartbeat. My girls play games, tease each other and ask questions. The adults are usually fine products of the Chinese school system who just want to sit quietly and learn English via repetition and lao wai osmosis. They base their English level on how many words they’ve memorized, not on how much they can express in English.

And that’s why I love teenagers. With girls, though, you need to show no weakness. I spent quite a while planning my first-day activities and my contingency plan in case my lessons flopped or turned out to be too difficult. A slight sign of hesitation, and they swarm like sharks smelling blood in the water. They are a rabid fashion paparazzi regarding the American teacher. But they’re worse to each other, and they turn on each other Lord Of The Flies style in seconds. If it sounds like teaching 15-year-old girls is an extreme sport, well, that’s because is it.

(This is not a photo of me teaching. It’s a photo of me after a few bottles of sake with Dave. But this is how I look in class with the teenagers. Happy, I mean. Not half-drunk. Yeah.)

Today I was covering past progressive with past simple. I started by telling them about the time our class stole a car.

“While the man was shopping inside, I stole his sports car.” I said. “When I was driving it away, I saw it was low on gas,” Recognition showed on their faces, they realized I was kidding. Then they started to add to the story, telling me that they stole a car and robbed a bank. But the bank only had 2 kwai, so they robbed a store with a gun, hid the money in the zoo under the tigers and spent rest of the money on candy.

I don’t know if their English has improved yet, but their creativity surely has.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Extreme Teaching!

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“If you had to date a cartoon character, who would it be?” Dave asked after a few minutes of playing. Maybe he just wanted a break in our highly-mature stick and ball jokes. “Mine would be She-Ra… or Jessica Rabbit. Meg, you’re next.”

“I don’t know.”

“Optimus Prime is a nice Jewish boy,” Dave suggested.

“Nah… Tenchi Muyo!” I said. “No, wait, can I date Sluggy Freelance? Even if he’s not strictly a cartoon character?”

“You are such a nerd,” Zorro told me.

“Only another nerd would know,” I said. “Go on, who would you pick?”

“Um. Jasmine.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s hot,” Dave said. “Heh, you knocked my balls in,”

I can’t believe we’re in charge of children.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Maturity Level

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So today, when I was in Dave’s DVD Store (Hey Nick, where is your DVD store? Is it in Kaifaqu?), and I saw the sequel to the D&D movie… I just had to pay the 5 kwai and go home to watch my gaming movie.

When will I learn my lesson about sequels? I mean, the original D&D movie was barely worth watching, and that was only because I had a crowd of nerds. This time, it was The opening sequence is a lot like the opening sequence of LOTR, only terrible. It’s almost a parody, but parodies are usually funny. Here is a sample of the narration:

I, the evil villian of this piece, am undead, which means I’m not alive any more but I’m still alive and thinking of ways to ruin the protagonists’ lives. I am after an orb of power which will enable to me CONTROL THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!

“An artifact of extreme power? I bet the GM’s girlfriend has it.” I said. My coffeetable thought this was very funny, but unfortunately it responded to this, and all my other witty comments, with resounding silence.

Then later on:

Mages like me use arcane magic, which means we study and read old books. There’s also divine magic which comes direct from the gods. I took that as my restricted school, but if I pick up the Mountain Dew for next week’s game, I bet the GM will let me.

Unfortunately I have no other quotes because I had to turn it off.

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

RPG Withdrawal

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“I’m not very good at English — I’m not an easy girl,”

“What a shame,” I said, between sips, “Dave really needs an easy girl,”

I moved my legs out of kicking range as she continued, “I memorize many words, but English grammar makes me too hard,”

“Don’t worry, it’s the same for us.” Dave said, sweetly, but then he couldn’t resist adding, “Your English grammar is certainly making me hard.”

From the blog Simpson's Paradox, please comment here:

Good Grammar

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