Ni hao!
I would write a bunch of other stuff in Mandarin, but I think 95% of the people who read this (not that there are 95 people that read this blog) would not understand it and I would probably incorrectly spell 95% of the words. Nevertheless, I have taken to learning Chinese like a greedy child chasing Santa Claus around your local mall. My knee injury really put a hindrance on the learning curve of Matthew Scott Atkinson, and with the clock ticking on my stay I sometimes feel like that same angry child who didn't get his "Mighty Morphin Power Ranger" or whatever it is that the Generation XYZ Child of today is demanding. However, I have come to the conclusion that it is only I that is whom to blame, as I recently took a hard look at my Tsinghua Student Identification Card (taken around the same time as my knee injury occurred) and my face looks to be about the same size & shape of an overblown basketball (fortunately this is no longer true). I should have either come into the soccer season in better shape, or not played at all. Additionally, the fact that I made the team at all is a true miracle on Earth.
For the last five weeks I have taken 3-6 hours of Mandarin every day (yes even on weekends), and the only classes that I missed were during my infamous three-day excursion to Qingdao. I have learned to: ask/say my name (which is WU XIONG "Kung Fu Bear" in Chinese); tell time & dates; ask and give directions; talk about the weather; order food at a restaurant without being served something that you might see on "Fear Factor"; buy pirated goods from knock-off Prada purses to pirated DVDs, etc. My teacher Mrs. Wong, a bi-bespectacled sweet lady who has become a good friend, and I recently even gave her my bicycle which I of course cannot really ride anyways but it's the thought that counts right?!? I have gone from remedial learner to legitimate student, and I have to say I really do enjoy going to class. So much so that I have cashed in on the party lifestyle of Beijing so that I can be fresh and clear-headed the next day (with a couple of exceptions, but only a couple). It's been a real role-reversal for me as these last few weeks are the time where the majority of my closest compadres are off to travel: China, Southeast Asia, or head home for the holidays; however, this is the most serious I have been ironically the happiest.
That being said I can say for one that even knowing the small piece of the puzzle of the Chinese language that I hold in my hands really does make all the difference in the world. By sending text messages to Barbara/Mengjie I have been able to rekindle our friendship/romance and was even told today that my "Chinese is fabulouse"(not a typo this was her spelling, although I do admit that the particular text message she is commenting on was written by my teacher). It's a funny deal too because I I have learned more about Barbara in the last month than the previous four, and have Mandarin to thank for this.
The girl I met at the airport, whose name is "Ming Ming" I have gone out with a couple times over the last few weeks and as I speak almost no Chinese & she speaks almost no English, our conversations have not yet gone as far as "The Electoral College". For one of our dinner dates my teacher even wrote four pages of questions for me to ask her, after I finished the script in all of five minutes there was really not a lot for me to do. I can't tap-dance, do magic, or even juggle and it was looking pretty grim... that is until I pulled out the somewhat bad words that I recently picked up on the mean streets of Beijing, and out of nowhere I was right back in the derby. Since these are not really, really bad words I will write them down here: "Er Bai Uh", "Shen Jing Bing", "Bian Tai"(if you want to know their meaning feel free to say them to the next Chinese person you see who is not carrying a loaded weapon). All of the sudden I was a smash hit, and as I acted like the dumb foreigner (I do know what these words mean and Ming Ming Ming was in on the joke), and in dead-pan seriousness asked the waiter/other staff at the of the restaurant the meaning of these taboo phrases my dinner date was laughing so hysterically that I thought she may have been possessed by the devil. Soon afterward she was tugging on my arm and took me to a place which is so incredibly metrosexual; so incredibly generic; yet so incredibly awesome.
Ming Ming took me to a Pool Hall filled with Alpha Male Chinese Metrosexuals, Pop/Rap Music not played in the US since 2004, and a cheesy female VJ with one of those old-school Madonna microphones from the "Vogue" days. Jaws dropped as I walked into an exclusively non-foreigner mingling point, but I am used to this sort of thing and played it cool as a fiddle until that is it was time to shoot some pool. Not only was every Chinese metrosexual the modern Chinese man's "Minnesota Fats", but my dinner date Ming Ming smashed me to smithereens in front of the hipster crowd full of males sporting skin-tight jeans and shaggy blond haircuts. Even though it was just as humiliating as it seams (and yes it was humiliating as everyone in the damn place was laughing at me), it was still one of the most memorable good times of my stay in the Orient.
The couple of times I have gone on for drinks with the boys haven't been at clubs or bars, but a much more magical place. "U-SPEED GO -KART" a place where you are allowed to ride Go-Karts at incredibly high speeds, sip on suds and munch on burgers, and crash into your fellow racers with reckless abandon and no warnings or reprimand. You also get to only race against your friends, so there really are no boundaries when it comes to putting a glove in a fellow Tsinghua student's face! In the six races I have competed in over the last few weeks I have finished: fifth, fifth, fifth, second, fourth, and fourth. This would be out of a talent pool of five drivers, so I have not been winning the Indy 500 of Go-Kart (or whatever my German sauerkraut eating adversaries say that the top Formula One Race is). BUT, I have gotten into more life-risking crashes than anybody at that track by a mile. In my fourth race I crashed into my friend Ralf's kart with such speed that it actually broke the cart, and even his seat belt snapped off. It really could have been an all-time great YouTube clip since his cart was stuck on the rail, and rather than just drive around him I decided to crash into him at top speed with such ferocious force that my kart actually popped into the air. He kept asking me, "Why would you do that...Why?" I never really had an answer for that one, but by the looks on the faces of all the startled Chinese watching our races from the upper-deck area he was not the only one who thought that way.
It was a magical moment and henceforth I got the street credibility that I always wished I had as an adolescent, and this was proven true by the legendary driver EBO (whose finishes are polar-opposites of mine) as he was stuck on a rail and saw my kart coming and yanked off of seat-belt and ran out of his kart like the German ferry-duster he is. I have to admit, my neck still hurts and my back is sore, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
well that's all for now, this may be my last post in the Orient but I will put some pics up soon.
Love & Respect,
The King of Crash
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