Ah-Fock-Ah You!!

Before I go on with our journey through China, in my hurry to get the last blog entry in one hour (including checking both gmail, utsw email, and fb - trust me it's difficult) I forgot to explain the title. Huay and I were waiting with our friends Jenny and Angela while Jerry ran to the apartment to get my camera (how could I not get a picture of my new friends?!). Huay was talkin to them in Chinese, and all of a sudden he starts dying laughing. [Background: Jerry's family call him Yuan Yuan (his Chinese name is Yuanxu), so we started calling him Yuan Yuan and he gets really irritated)] Apparently Huay said, Yuan Yuan is really slow. Jenny responded: Yeah he is. No... he's REALLY slow. Awe, Jerry, even the little girls noticed it......

Also, for those who know and love Jason Liu: When we were playing Chinese chess with the little girls, Jerry did/said something, to which his dad responded, in English, "FAIL! FAIL!" Oh it was so classic, as if it had come from JLiu's own mouth. Did he pick it up from us? Hard to say. But classic nonetheless.

So now you're likely wondering about this title. Trust me, it's a good story, but I must take off where I left off. Let's travel back to Sunday...... (seems like ages ago!)

I'm sort of getting lost in my updates, I don't know if I talked about our hotel that we stayed in for Saturday night/Sunday night. It was a three star hotel pretty much right next door to Jerry's dad's apt complex. Three stars. I thought I could handle anything but I wanted to throw a fit when I saw this room. For one, there was a giant stain on the floor near the bathroom.. don't even want to know where THAT came from. It was 200 Yuan a night (so like $10/pp). There were no windows to the outside (wtf?) but it did have A/C, thank goodness!! I tried not to touch much of anything and got through the night.

-Awkward: Jerry left before we woke up to visit his Grandpa and help move him to his dad's apt. Huay and I were on our own to explore that day. The awkward part was leaving the hotel room with just me and him in the morning. I felt like the stares had a little something extra in them -- oh that's right, moral judgement! The lady must have sensed something and hassled us for our passports, delaying us 20 minutes and forcing me to endure more "you're a hussy" stares. (it was likely in my head, but Huay felt damn awkward too)

-We sat in the local KFC and ate some pastries we had bought the day before (I could not eat any more of that non sweet fried bread that Jerry's dad kept getting us - with some odd wheat soy milk that was more like water than milk... no ty). Dude, the colonel is everywhere! KFC is more prevalent than McDonald's, who woulda thunk it? Oh, and it's super exp (and by that I mean a meal is like 6 american dollars which is just way too exp for food in Beijing).

-Huay and I had no plan for the day. Didn't want to take a taxi bc we had no where to go. So we decided to bus hop. Hopped on a bus and got off wherever looked cool. It was 1 Yuan!!!! SO CHEAP!

-Our adventure didn't turn out to be as - adventurous (sp?) - as we thought it was going to be. We ended up back at the Confucius place we already visited!!!! That effing taxi ride was like 40 Yuan!!! And this bus ride was ONE YUAN! Wtf man, wtf. Anyway, it was perfect bc I had spotted suan nai and wanted to get off anyway, and we hadn't fully explored this area last time. As soon as we got off, we got some suan nai and I spotted the round flat stone thingy that they make the delicious egg pancake on. (jian bing is what it's called) So of course, can't pass that up.

-Huay and I sit on the steps, sippin our suan nai and eating our jian bing. I liked watching the peddlers shoving incense on people. Here, you look like you've REALLY sinned. Here, you look like you need some religious help. Of course, I have no idea what they're saying, but this one lady chased this girl AROUND THE CORNER fifty feet away even though the girl had a disgusted look on her face and was shoving her hand out of the way. Feisty, these old ladies were!

-Now, why didn't they harass us?
1) I am 'non-Chinese'
2) I likely am not a Buddhist?
3) I don't look like I have many sins to cleanse? Holler :)
4) Since we were eating suan nai and jian bing, cleeeeearly we just blended in. (not likely)

-I noticed we got alot more stares on that day (Sunday). Huay with his gimpy foot (people really looked confused and stared at his foot, as if staring at it would some how give a revelation as to what happened to it) and me with my ... well. You know. Good times....

-Got a little somethin' somethin' for my madre. And padre, but I doubt he'll like it. He's particular about this certain something that I bought. Afsan might like it. Who knows. It's something the whole family can enjoy..... what a riddle! I wonder what it is!

-There are ice cream bins everywhere, and in true Beijing fashion, it's dirt cheap (1 Yuan). I decided to splurge and get a red bean popsicle.. these are kinda the ones that Emily (and I think Dulce) really liked.. but I think they liked the green bean ones. It's like a bean that they make sweet? Hard to explain. It was really odd eating something sweet and then stopping to chew the beans. Still, pretty good.

-We got off the bus twice, but in the end we realized that we were just going up and down the same street, with a few turns here and there. Whoops. We didn't really care bc it was still fun. I got to ride a two story bus!! That was a first experience. It was kind of hilarious seeing Huay hobble up the steps while the bus is swaying (it said not to go up while the bus is moving, but there was no point when the bus WASNT moving, or should I say, swerving). Once he got to the top he stood up, victorious, only to hit his head.. the ceiling was about one or two feet higher than the tops of the seats. Made for small Jerrys everywhere, I guess.

-We ended up on some street with a bunch of red lanterns hung everywhere, and decided to get some meat on a stick, one of my favorite forms of street food. By far, this was the most wonderfully delicious ones that we had. I got lamb and chicken. He put some kind of delicious sauce on there... and it was only 1 Yuan each! And each stick had like, 7 pieces on it. We went back and got more. But the problem is, we have no idea where it was because we were bus hopping! I want to show the picture of the street to Papa Dong ot see if we can find it again.

-On the list to eat before I leave: see above, donkey, duck.

-We went back to the hotel to wait for Jerry, then Huay's uncle came and picked us up to go eat. We went to a pretty nice restaurant and had our own room. Fancy! The food was wonderful - my favorite was this whole piece of fish that they scored and then breaded and then put in this wonderful orange sweet and sour type sauce. Except this isn't your ordinary sweet and sour sauce that makes you sick after about 3 bites. It was just sweet and just sour enough to make you want more. Can't explain it, but I kept eating it. Maybe Jerry can tell JLiu what it is and we can eat it in Dallas. Mmmmmmm.

-Afterwards, he dropped us off at this night market type place. If I ever go back with Affy, or Matt, or anyone else, we def need to go here. It was such a cute street with lots of great shops and bars and coffee shops! And hotels. Oh the hotels rent by the hour too. Almost all hotels I've seen have an hourly rate. Wooooooow. Bow chicka bow wow. Anywhoooo... I bought some amaaazing cow earrings, bc it is the year of the cow, and I felt it was not a trip unless I bought some crazy earrings. I'm an earring fiend. I'm taking bets on how many earrings I will come home with, especially with how cheap they are here! I think my count right now is 5 pairs? (I can hear Afsan saying, you don't need more earrings! You have a whole box full!) Alas Affy, you are incorrect. :)

-Some shop owner that Jerry asked to take our picture said my camera button was loose bc I was taking too many pictures. Wtf?! First, cameras are meant to be used. Second, it's not loose, it's made like that, so you can focus before taking the picture. Crazy people.

MONDAY!!
Fastforward to: Monday morning, leaving for Xi'an, Terra-cotta soldiers, FINALLY! Man, this is where the good stuff starts. Here we go!

-Let's give some background, again. One thing I've noticed about the Chinese: very little regard for lines. Be it, in the bathroom, getting food, in a restaurant, DRIVING (yeah those little lines on the road, they're not there for decoration and they're certainly not 'optional') Several times in the grocery store I've gotten owned by a little old lady who just swoops in in front of me without a word and acts like it's her right to be there. I was like ok little old lady but then someone my age did it. I can't cuss them out in Chinese (well now I know belzah!) so I just stand there, disgruntled. Now I know to hold my own and don't even give them a chance to swoop. So pardon me if when I return to the states if I'm a little hostile about lines. It's survival, people.

-More background: We've been taking for granted that pretty much no one in our general vicinity, for the most part, can speak English or at least can understand as fast as we speak. So we'll walk into stores or wherever and pretty much speak our mind openly, and no one so much as bats an eye (except for staring and going, what is that non-Chinese speak!?). We even talk about people, it's quite fantastic. Our potty mouths have kinda gone nuts (eek), and as you will see, makes for a humorous situation (that coulda been bad news bears).

-SO. Now we've come to the title of this blog entry. We're in line to check in, and there's a yellow line for you to stand behind until it's our turn, so that you're not in the other person's biznaz. (personal space = non existent if you want to fit in billions of people in confined spaces) So next to us, there's another line, but there is no worker at the front of that line, so obv it's closed. These two middle aged men come up and stand in that line. We're like, wtf, are they trying to cut? So Jerry gets all Jerry-like and says, screw this yellow line and stands right behind the guy in front of us. The cutters counter by putting their tickets on the counter so the lady sees it. Jerry's fuming I can see it. I'm kinda thinkin, oh hellz no, too. So the lady is done and she looks up to see Jerry right at the counter and the cutter shoving the tickets in her face. Because she was a freakin wuss, she takes the cutters tickets. We all make different comments: I say, someone needs to learn their manners! Indignant and pissed, the Tourets in Jerry rears its ugly head and he says, loud and clear (I think many of you can guess) "Man, fuck you!"

Pretty much instantly, the guy turns around, angry, and says, "Ah-fock-ah YOU!" He also jabbed his portly little finger in the air, in case we didn't understand who he was "ah-fock-ah-you"-ing at. We're all sort of stunned by what just happened, but we recovered quickly and began mumbling insults we were suure he wouldn't understand. He sort of glared at us, as if he knew what was going on, but finally stormed off. As soon as he left, I recounted the situation in my head and just started dying laughing. Did that really just happen?! It's been one of my favorite stories thus far, and "ah-fock-ah you" has become a constant part of our daily vocab. Good times.

-What makes that story even funnier is that my mom warned me (half jokingly, half for real) not to give the police at the airport, or any police, or anyone for that matter, any lip because I'd likely get arrested and never seen again. I can see her slapping her own hand and clucking her tongue in half shock and half amusement. :) No worries, we didn't get arrested, we just made a portly Chinese man angry! And we helped him use some of that wonderful English he's been saving. Points all around!

-China airlines: domestic OR international -- they serve meals. Crazy! China is super serious about its food. The food wasn't fantastic, but it was a pretty good snack. My fish had a consistency between tofu and jello. I took one bite and decided ummm, no thanks. We had some noodles at the airport anyway..... oooh we also saw a group of boys about our age maybe older who were backpacking through Chinese and apparently spoke very well with little accent (even impressed Jerry!) - there was one in particular that wasn't too hard on the eyes.... oh stop freaking out Matt :)

-More proof of lack of regard for others: I had trouble getting into my seat on the plane because the guy in front of me had gotten on the plane early and had his seat back and was already asleep. That's fine, but I couldn't get into my seat. So Huay decided the best way to solve this problem was to poke his seat til he got the point. Poke once. Nothing. Again, nothing. Ok, poke three times, a little harder and oh! He finally understood and moved his chair --- halfway. Augh, can't have it all I guess. He got owned by the flight attendant later, anyways. HA!

-So apparently this airport in the city near Xi'an (where we landed) didn't have enough terminals.. so we definitely went down steps onto the tar mat (sp?) and got herded into buses to take us to the terminal. I felt like the President, or someone important... minus the bagillions of Chinapeople around me..... maybe they could be my entourage? :)

-Our hotel was suuuuuch a step up from the 3 star hole in the wall we stayed at in the first one. The toilet and the shower were still one big room, but the floor wasn't disgusting, it had a window, and it didn't smell. So many big steps.

OK, so it looks like I'm running out of time, and I think Jerry is hungry. I'll leave the story here, and I'll take it up, along with the Great Wall (tomorrow- Thursday!) and whatever else. I really write too much, but I hope you all are enjoying it. It'll be really fun to read a couple months from now.

Picture count: 532. Not too shabby.

Love from Team China!
L J H