It's been a long time since I...

Wow...

Just got back from Wudang shan tonight. First time in 5 years. Got to meet three of my gong fu brothers. Da Wei, Jie Fu, and Otah. Finally got to smash on some veggies and talk with Da Wei. We were pretty unseperable the whole time. Massages, shopping, helping me remember the town becasue it has modernized so much in the last five years. Getting to meet Doug, the head of the Wudang Tourism committee. We all went to Shi Yan to help me see about getting help with my Degree and becoming a doctor in Hubei. We'll see how that pans out. But Da Wei put this together. And then we ate at a 5 star restaurant. Da Wei's first time for the 5 star smash. It was great and fun. The start on the train was fun and lots of good laughs. Me Jessi and Adam bomb got jacked and high off some Pu Er tea. it was nuts. "Mini-Moy", shaft song"but, i'm just talking about cha!" and me and Jessi making insane smiling faces o the ongoing Chinese who felt the need to stare into our room hardcore as they pass, kept us laughing. We studied Chinese, talked all sorts of stuff and when everyone went to bed, we went to the dining cart and had some more good talks about I don't know what. Philosophy, China, learning, Gong fu... it was fun. When we arrived at the shan Da Wei met us at the train station and got us set up. Them at a hostel and me with Yuan Shifu's nephew Yuan Sun Jian. He drove me back to the school. The first night I went to Shifu's room and got to see him and Shi Ma. SHe left and Shifu had me come in and sit. I will never forget thepresence he has or the look of him. Last time five years ago he seemed young and not as distinguished, but now... He is like Jedi master, top of the charts, off the radar master presence. It was crazy. sAfter a little while of catching up on stuff, Shifu had me, Jeff and Da Wei in the same room and dropped jewels to us and gave us an important lecture about not losing our paths and how all of us will follow differnet paths but how we all play a role in each others life as disciples and how important our job is too transmit what he gives us and to realize how hard his job is as it is up to him to give the 16th generation the knowledge properly. He also taught us more about Dao. We all felt priveleged. It was like having your dad give you a life lecture that you just sit in awe about and think of later. It was great to share that experience with my brothers. We went to bed after that and got up early the next morning. Jeff leads the Qi Gong class in the morning and it was great to feel that Wu Dang/Hubei energy. The air is sweet and feels like the wind is kissing you. The energy is soft and calming and the embrace you feel from it is nothing more than love and serenity. The mountain, whether the top or bottom will always feel and be home to me. And it was great to be back. After the class we ate breakfast, Da Wei and I had some tea in his room. We Bs'ed a bit and then it was time for morning class which was demonstration day. Everyone performed. Jie Fu does like half the freaking system which is a pleasure to watch, Da Wei impressed me with his Baji as well as his other forms. Shifu said his Ji Ben Quan was the best out of everyones. I did a rather lousy performance of Tai Yi Xuan Wu. Shifu said I only needed to widen my horse stance a bit more, but I felt I could have done better. I didn't plan on performing, but Gao told me if I don't perform I don't get to eat. Don't piss off a 15 year old who can do two finger hand stands and penetrate your stomahc with them. not really. I was far fom nervous, but I figured it was cool that Gao wanted me to perform and be close with the class and get back in the swing of things. Everyone did great and it's great to see the structure of things and meet the future faces of those who are entrusted with carrying on the torch. It's a breathe of fresh air to know I'm not the only one now. Give it five years. I'm calling it now. We're coming like a Tidal Wave. Wu running Jiang Hu. Watch. So after that it's lunch time. I get Shifu and the two of us go out to eat at a restaurant together... just us. It was nice. We talked about all the details of my start in America after I left five years ago and went through everything. I have come to a lot of realizations and feel i'm back to "normal." I'm on my "way" again. Thanks Shifs. :)
We talked about Zhang San Feng and his disciples... he named three of them, and the difference between family temples and forest temples. How the arts got spread through disciples an dhow sometimes through generations some disciples would be lousy or they wouldnt have someone to pass the art on to, so they gave it to another pai and then eventually it came back. Wudang can never be traced back... ever. and we don't need to prove it. it's all a rough estimate guess becasue the cultural revolution, as well as the hstory not being recorded properly and passed on. But we start here with 13 generation.
After lunch, we returned to the school and Shifu helped me call school and get info about the medical college in Shi Yan. Then he took a nap. I hung with Da Wei and we had tea. Then it was back on the town. This time... massages. that is always a treat. then it was back to the school and on to bed. Next day, more training, learned ji ben quan in an hour and had it wired tight. Did some shopping and got some corrections on my forms. Poor shifu and the medicine that burns up his sotmach. I feel for him. To se my master like this cuts like a knife. The training was fun though afterwards. He made us push hands. Me and Da Wei went toe to toe... it's alike a piece of bamboo trying to move a moutnain. He is good. We both exploited each others weaknesses and had fun pushing and practicing drills. After that, Jeff and I got to talk and things were awesome. It was the first time we got to connect since I had been there. He is very busy promoting and working for the school on top of keeping up with his training. We had some good laughs, and ate lunch. In the night time we all got together and went out. Da Wei and I met up with Jeff and the others after we did some more wandering around town. We took some pictures and watched the locals dance at the town square. Da Wei is so pimp it's ridiculous. But when we all met up ogether we drank some beer and then returned to the school to watch the terrible ong bok 2. I left 15 mins. into it. studied some chinese and fell asleep. The next morning did some qi gong with Jeff leading, ate breakfast together and did some last minute running around. This was my last day here and it rained. This is the second time I leave and the second time it rained. Da Wei said it rains when he leaves and Jeff too. I joked that the mountian cries when we leave and he said they both said the same things. Good to see we are on the same wave length. We all are humble and have a great repsect for each other. I am sol glad I have these two as brothers and not two dumb asses that i would wind up hating the rest of my life but have to deal with. Jeff wound up giving me a dragon zan zi which was hand carved by a monk at jin ding. A most precious gift indeed. I went with Da Wei to eat, after syaing good my "so longs" and getting pics. At the restaurant we ate with my friends from Taiyuan andi bought a shitty bag to carry all my stuff home. I gave Jeff my Zoo York knapsack as a polite gesture as he commented how cool it was. Later he sent me a text saying he couldn't accept it, but i pulled rank and it, IMO, can't come close to the beauty of the dragon hair pin. So we leave the restaurant after they rip us off and give us foreigner prices... nothing we could do... it's a holiday, they wanted to argue and we had a train to catch... let this one go boys. So we leave and say our good byes. We agree with a woman van driver to pay her 80 RMB to take us to the Shi Yan train station. She agrees and off we go. 20 minutes from the train station, this bitch turns the van off in front of us and says the van is broke. Daniel is up front and tell s us she turnked the van off. It didn't break.. I wintesses this first hand as well as i sat to the left and watched her as it wasn't hard to freaking notice. So a guy comes up and they try to run a scam on us. Jesse is talking to her in CHinese, cause his Chinese is bad ass and Sunny, his Chinese wife starts talking to them. But before Jesse spoke, the woman driver said to Sunny, "Hey tour guide (cause that's what she thought Sunny was to us) you know how this works, help us out!" So SUnny tells us and Jesse goes nuts. Adam and I are like, lets get out, this bitch aint getting shit.... no one pays. So we get out and stop an oncoming bus. He asks if it goes to the train station, they say yes... we get on. Jesse and daniel follow up, but before they get on the woman driver jumps in the way to prevent them. After the woman driver grabs Sunny and Jese screams at the top of his lungs at her, she lets go and continues to argue.. Daniel physically pushes her out of the way and chucks her several feet away... kind of funny to see. they all get on. The woman driver gets on and the guy gets on too. They say they can fix the van in 5mins just to get on. They also fought for us to pay them and we followed with a fury of "hell no's", "Fuck No's", and "you are out of your goddamn mind if you think you are getting money from us", in Chinese and English. I start to tell the bus driver to leave, Adam omes in a second later acking me up followed by Daniel and we're telling the bus driver to "Go." Jesse and SUnny are telling the rest of the bus that these two people are cheats and swindlers and what they are doing. The bus people/natives start to get restless and the driver decides to take off. They jump off the bus and because of greed, lack of respect, and trying to short cut and not do things the right way, they are out 80 RMB and the gas and tim e it took to get there. roughly 40 mins. Sucks for them... Win for us becasue it only cost us a total of 5 RMBnow to get us to the train station.

EPIC WIN O_o (to quote the infamous Joe Nelson)

So, we got screwed at dinner, but saved on taxi. Nature balances all things accordingly.

So we get on the train and that madness starts. Jesse and I are laughing becasue at Wudang the day before we left (my continuity is a litle off) we saw a woman who wound up calling "Grill." She stared at us for, not kidding, nearly thre minutes. We kept talking to each other in English and she kept staring at us. She had only two teeth. the molar type ones after the canines on the bottom. The rest of her mouth was a black hole. It was kind of funny looking and we kept mimicking the face. And of course laughing at it. So on the train this madness continued. We starting screaming "Dou Sha" (red bean cake) and that was pretty nuts. On top of the other random madness it was a pretty crazy ride home. Jesse finally called the Grill woman an Ape and we cried we laughed so hard. She looks like a close up of a national geographic show of apes. Just her face and grill going. Too funny. We met two girls from Denmark who were nice and they joined all of us for tea. Jesse and I shared a beer together and had some talks about lots of other cool stuff in life, but the highlights are "dou sha", "grill, the ape woman", playing xiang qi at the train station and having an entire cult following of chinese men watching us, eating at the dining cart and talking shit on the people there who stare and talk shit, and the tea parties involving pu er madness... "deez nuts, and saying things your mama can do in chinese involving inappropriate topics. Making SUnny laugh when we switch to guandong hua and all that madness that accompanied it.

Getting home was great and giving Jessi her gifts. I can't wait to see baby dragon in the morning and start my new life as Dao Shi. Adam calls me the prdigal son of Wudang and that's kind of nice to hear. Overall, everyone there respected me and its nice to have a long group of gong fu family and friends. I can say...

I'm happy...

Ramble on...

Xi Lan sick for nearly a week.

My calligraphy teacher tells me I haven't learned Daoism well enough because I ran to my room when he sent a text saying the white house was bombed for an April fools joke. He's also a dog's ag younger than me, so I don't hold much weight to his word when it comes to things outside calligraphy.

Quinlon is 1, walking, rarely crawling and no longer a tiny baby.

I actually miss home and my own culture. I'm feeling sentimental and nostalgic today. A day at the movie would be great. Some Chik fil a fries, clearwater beach, chess with Shaolin. Talks and thoughts with Jim, tea at I-mall, my family, laughs with Jeremiah reminiescing about Ben and Jerry;s nights at the house. All the days/months/years with Tommy in the Kwoon training. The Furniture store, being homeless, time with Dad, and Aggy...

But home is not home anymore...

Taiyuan is feeling like the norm and has been great to me. I pray this does not end. I feel blessed and am truly grateful. Except for that fol who has cut me in the lunch room twice. Third times a charm mutha fucka. I'm gonna introduce this prick to the Aggy-scizzor-up-end-maneuver. This behemoth is around 6'1 and is like my cousin Richie's size. BIG. but he's gonn afall hard he cuts me again. He doesn't do it in a nice way. He actually bumps into me.

He won't like me when I'm angry.

o_O

Hulk Smash.

GAME OVER

FLAWLESS VICTORY

and on that note.

I'm done.

I thought I knew the alphabet...

So, apparently I don't know my own fucking language. True story. The other day, my first day of class i was asked by the teacher to teach the kids three new letters; J-L. Okay. Easy, right?

o_O

She starts off by showing me how they do it. Instead of the way we do it with the rectangular box and the dotted line in the middle:

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_ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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they use this:

________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________

o0o0o0okay.

So I went to use my way... the way I was taught... you know. In America. A place where the English language is taught as the mother tongue, the primary language... numero uno. But we'll do it your way I tell her.

So, I make a "J", uppercase. She comes over and says, "that's not right."

I look at her like she has three heads and wait for her to show me what's wrong with my "J". A Letter I happen to be quite familiar with, as my wife's first name begins with this letter. My brother's middle initial begins with it. My son's middle initial begins with it, as does my cousin Timmy's and about a hundred other people I can name. Including the uber famous Joe Nelson.

O_o

So she shows me what's wrong by erasing the end parts of the top of the "J" and tells me they are too long.

Oo0o0o0okay.

So I make the lower case "J" and she fixes it by placing it the way it should be in the Chinese box. Damn my American dotted line. And all this time I thought I knew. huh huh huh. Silly me... I was wrong.

So next... "K"

I make a "K" and what follows.

Eueueugh? ::with stupid head tilt::

You would have thought I drew a stick figure with a giant penis on the board for the reaction she gave me. She asks if that is how we really make "K's" in America. I thought about how much I am being paid and bit my tongue from replying "no, not at all. This is what we're told to teach in foreign countries to confuse you."

So I "Fix" my "K" to the way she can recognize it. I'm about ready to explode as I don't appreciate some one telling me I am writing the letters of the alphabet wrong. I have been writing the godforsaken things for nearly thirty years and there are only 26 of them. I've mastered the goddamn alphabet you dumb bitch. I know how they work a little better than you.

But what do you know... I got one right. My lowercase "K" and hers... they're the same. Woo hoo.

::twirls index finger in circle::

on deck... the letter "L."

So I write my "L" and once again it gets corrected. I let out a l ong sigh and stare at her. This is getting a little ridiculous now. I'm one step away from letting her have a piece of my oral English in real timne.. not the 1/4 speed I talk at so people can understand me and feel good about their listening skills. But there is only one lowercase "L" left to write, class is almost over and I wouldn't mind keeping this job. So I let it go...

::release long breathe::

She fixes my "L" and tells me the bottom is too long and shortens it. Mind you... the bottom of the "L" came to almost the half way point the way it should. Let's keep going though.

Here it is... the moment of truth.

With internal dialogue kicking like "A Christmas Carol" I can hear that voice in my head going, you got this one kid. A straight line down from top to bottom. The easiest letter to write. Do it!

So I start from the top line and I go down to the third line (don't worry your pretty little head about it, it's Chinese rules and not our awesome dotted line in the middle which makes more sense) and...

BAM!!!

I nailed it.

So I thought.

That's not right.

My arm falls dead against my side, my head whips around like a hungry snake and I give this bitch the O_o like a jehova witness at my door on Sunday.

now i'm pissed.

"What's wrong with it?"

"it doesn't have the loop on the bottom. In China this is how we write an "l."

My head said: "WELL BITCH THIS IS ENGLISH FROM AMER-I-CA AND I KNOW HOW THE SHIT WORKS AND THAT'S WHY THEY PAY ME IN ONE HOUR WHAT YOU MAKE ALL WEEK (literally they do :D), SO PISS OFF!!!"

O_o

but i haver he rshow me her "loop."

Asshole.

That's an Italic lowercase "l."

I get out the book that the school provides for me and...

BAM!!!

I show her.

I explain what italics are and use my book as proof but she does not want to hear it.

So fuck it. I pray they let me show them from M to Z. there's gonan be 29 letters now and the rest will be backwards numbers and shit.

Not really. th ekids don't deserve that, but what the shit man. Don't bring me in to teach and have me show them your half breed chinglish nonsense.

But whatever. After tha tpoint I realized I am nothing more than a dancing bear there to speak English so they can hear it natively and for the prestige of the school so they can sell themselves to parents who feel their child will get a better education at such a prestigious private school.

::sigh::

I get paid every two weeks. As long as my big bag O' money is there... we cool.

Shit. Mickey Mantle can be the 23rd president and the entire west coast is really in black and white and color came to that region in the 60's. that's why T.V. was like that. And we really obtained all our technology from the giant robot Megatron. He is in Area 51.

I think I need a can of Alphabet soup or the cereal with the letters in it mailed to me. When they askme to teach more I'll just open the can or the cereal box, throw it on the floor and all over like a pinatta exploding and walk out.

Quinlon's first BirthdayQuinlon loves cake... Scotty don't!!!

So...

Quinlon is officially one year old today. And a Ha[[y Birthday, or sheng ri kui le, to my cousin Timmy who had the same date of birth first. happy Birthdya James!!! :D

Saturday night we had a party for him. i went to Holiland, a very famous expensive bakery, to get Q a custom made cake. It had this lattice like, weave design in it and it had a bunh of cranes on it. Cranes are a symbol of longevity FYI. So at the bottom it says "Happy First Birthday Quinlon." It was beautiful. When I went to teh city to order it, i went with my Shu Fa teacher to get supplies for that. Shu Fa, once again, is calligraphy. It feels good to be learning something new that I have no clue about. It's fun and refreshing and is a great compliment to my aggressive martial side. So we put the order in for the cake, get the calligraphy supplies and then go pick up the cake. This bakery is unreal. They had the cake done in 45 minutes. You have to see it. You walk in and people greet you and and are dressed nice to help you out and you look towards the back where the bakers are and BAM. It's like Iron Chef back there. They are dressed like everyone came out of "Le Cordon Bleu" and they wear face masks and stuff. It's nuts. There is around 6-7 of them crammed in this little kitchen and they bake their asses off. So we get the cake and come home. We don't know why, but it also happened on Earth day. Our campus had no electricity for the entire day. So we bought some candles and had Quinlon's birthday party in the dark. it was really beautiful. We had six of our friends come by and it was a blast. I bought Quinlon his own little cake for him to tear into and he did just that. It was cute. After everyone left, the lights came back on. glad to see luck is still on my side. This reminds me of something said by one of the greatest sages of our time... that's right. Old Ben Kenobi. "there's no such thing as luck."

<---- This is Yuan Jie. He is Quinlons best friend. We have known him since we moved here and he is absolutely amazing and loves Quinlon. Every where we go he holds and carries Q and it's quite amazing to see the two of them interact. Q loves him.

So anyway... Sunday comes and I start my big day at my new job. Teaching part time at a prestigious English school. I miss my first class becasue the asshole taxi driver takes me to the right vicinity... a few blocks down, but tell s me the wrong building and location. So by the time I get to my class, there is only four minutes left. Thans cabby.. you cost me 120 kwai.

O_o

So I go to my other classes and the day goes by. not much to talk about. Some kids want to learn and some do not. Oh well... I get paid regardless.
But it is nice to see some kids who are really bright that pay attention.

So Monday comes and it's Q's oficial Birthday. Xi Lan and I wake up and give him his first gift in bed. A pair of Addibas shoes. that's right. no typo there. Addibas. Total knock offs, but they are cute and made by a company called "Pretty Duck." Anyway... I can get you a camera made by Nike or a car built by Puma. Shit... I can get you anything you want made by whomever you want. That's just how we roll in the middle kingdom. :D

So we go out at 6:00 p.m. to a fancy restaurant right near the campus to meet my boss. :O

I was not expecting anything of this caliber. She brought us to a hot pot restaurant. Each seat at the table has their own hot plate built into the table. The waitreses bring you a pot with water and random stuff like garlic, dates, vegetables, etc. and spices according to how spicy you want your food. I keep mine to no spice and Xi Lan rocks it like she's in Sichuan. After you cook your food by boiling it, you then dip it into a small bowl of an oil of your choice. I got sesame oil and peanut. It tasted like a mild peanut butter sauce with that "oh-so-delicious" sesame flavor.

I wish I had pics of what we ate. First it started with cake for Q while the kitchen prepared our feast. The cake was awesome and from the same place we got his Saturday party cake from . holiland. This cake had a pink liquid coating with fruit on top. Pineapples, apples, dragon fruit, oranges, etc. It was yummy. So then the food gets there. Thinly sliced pieces of raw beef and mutton. Let me tell you... this was freakin' delicious. I can't explainhow good it was. Then the rest of the food starts getting placed on the table. Ducks's blood, cow stomach, cow marrow, mushrooms (thin sliced and thick), sweet potato, ink fish/coddle fish, two different kinds of Dou fu (tofu) one which is regular and one which is made with balck bean..Me and Q appreciated this one a lot. Ummm... some essence of wheat... it's notbread but it might have well been... ??? I dunno. we had a discussion how it wasn't bread... yet Xi Lan and I are like... "It's bread." There were two different types of noodles. One made from vegetables and another made from... damn.. I forget. I enjoyed the Duck's blood, and the various cow parts. I ate everything and enjoyed it all. thanks Anthony Bourdain for keeping my mind open. i don't know if I could have gone as far as eaten the duck's blood. it was fairly thick squares of congealed blood. but it was yummy. and even beter in fermented bean curd. That stuff is great and was reminiscient of bleu cheese. F U dairyl I don't need you anymore. I got fermented bean curd.

::crowd cheers::

So Xi Lan was not a fan of the Cow Marrow and wouldn't think to try the duck's blood. It's a texture thing. I can understand. i thought I might have to choke it down, but I liked it. I haven't relaly found anything in life I can't eat or like... except tha fucking soup from Da Wang village that gave me poisoned me. Bastards.

O_o

So the night was great and my bosses daughter Angela is adorable. She was walking with Quin and is shy. Everyone was great and we had a very memorable night. i am truly grateful for our life here and our new friends.

#2

So.. let me catch you up even further since I do nothave time like i wanted to write everyday.

I got food poisoning from eating in Da Wang Cu last week. It is the village right next to the hospital which s right next to the University. We ate gong bao ji ding. In Western terms... Kung Pao Chicken. It is better here... trust me. we had sweet and sour pork, some stupid freaking dou fu (tofu) soup that was so spicy it poisoned me. I don't know what happened but I didn't eat the next day. But the real fun was that night. I had a bad ache in my gut, but figured it was indigestion so I'll just go to bed.

HA HA

I was woken up an hour and a half later with the urge to puke my friggin guts out... and puke is just what I did. I can't describe the feeling becasue it sucked that bad. There's no words for it. I was choking on spit and the hydrochloric acid that came up with my sweet and sour pork... not to mention that ghey ass soup and tofu and the gong bao ji ding. I won't get any more graphic with the food, but to help you understand further my pain...

a rumbling came from some where else...

Oh yes friends... you are on the right track.

So I wait...

and te third time i start puking my insides out that rumbling came back harder than ever...

But right before I embarass myself to the point where i am going to hurl myself out the fifth story window so my head can land on the ground and crack like an egg, i jump up, wipe my mouth and assume sitting position to ...

lets not get graphic and keep this tasteful... no pun intended.

o_O

so lets just say ol' Z was hurting for the next couple of days... and if someone had the audacity to mention gong bao ji ding or dou fu... i would have went all OJ Simpson on them.

Next...

Holiland. 0o0oh baby. this place makes cakes that don't have any milk or dairy so we can eat them. they have green tea flavored and peanut flavored cakes, a grape flavored cake... of course chocolate. not as waxy as they used to make it. I think the Chinese pallette is developing more to the sweet stuff. Thank coke and pepsi and their high fructose corn syrup for that. Cheap assholes.

So we are getting Quinlon a custom made birthday cake for his first B-day.

We found the the most famous tea house/restaurant in the city and it was awesome. We got a private room with a bigscreen T.V. in the wall and the chopsticks were gold tipped on the ends you don't eat with. Real Real fancy. So we order Gong Bao Ji Ding and Tang Cu Ji Rou. kung pao chicken and sweet and sour chicken. our fav. dishes. Before our food arrives we enjoy some Crysanthamum tea with fresh strawberries, lychee, a beef jerky of sorts, and some pastry with a filling. It's all delicious. The best part is that we have three attendants and the manager all in the room with us. They are chasing Quinlon around, playing with him and taking pictures. I can't tell you how many of the restaurant staff came in to se him becasue I lost count i think at 239874932874. It happens all the time everywhere we go. This kid is going to be famous... if at all for nothing... he will still be famous. it's those damn eyes. :D

So our food gets there and it's delicious. We enjoy a nice quiet meal and I don't think we said two words to eachother, but enjoyed the peace and quiet and Q and his entourage roamed the private room. After the meal we sit down and have more tea. I'm thinking.. this is gonna cost me a pretty penny. My mind is wandering on how this works. Do we pay for this room by the hour? does it cost by the plate and the room time? is it a flat fee and then how many pots of tea after ward you drink you are charged by? Is it like some rich unheard of place in Vegas where you pay like $300 per lychee and strawberry?

The possibilities were infinite and then it happened...

One of the ladies comes in (she was probably a decade younger than me, but lady none the less) and gives me a gift. A tea set. A beautiful little porcelain tea set in a case that has the restaurants insignia on it and contact info.

Oh boy.

They just gave me free shit.

I know this is gonn acost me... BIG TIME.

So I wait. I'm totally prepared to pay around 800 - 1,000 for this trip. My fault for not asking or getting prices. I thought it was a regular fancy restaurant where you sit at a table, look at a menu, go, "oh my god this place is freaking expensive! who owns this place , where is Gordon Ramsey?!?!" order food eat it, pay the bill and leave.

So I get the tea case... finish my tea and we get ready to leave. I ask for the bill... and wait. I really don't care becasue the experience was beautiful and Xi Lan (jessi) saw the advertisement forthis place on T.V. so we knew it was gonna cost.

She comes back and...

BAM!!

244 kwai.

I laughed my ass off. that's roughly $40.

R

U

Kidding.

If any of you come to China... we're there!!!

So we get ready to go and jessi goes to the bathroom.

As she comes out she tell me go in there and read the back of the hairspray bottle.

OKAY.

So i go and read.

DIRECTIONS FAIL

Allow me to clarify it for you. It states:

Wash blow clearly to fuck the or put on the half the hair after fucking. aking (not a typo... it's really - aking) just the right amount of article useds for the palm side, double crumple to wipe even. carve with the finger Need the shape.

Again... tha tis typed with no typos and how it is printed on the can. The rest is just strangley trnslated Chinese into English. But this is... quite humorous.

Anyway...

We got Quinlon some cool birthday gifts... party on Saturday and then with my bos at the restaurant on his birthday which is Monday. I will get more pics up soon of stuff talked about, but i really don't have time. I spend most of my day running around, studying or playing with Q and time with Xi Lan.

I got another job, part time at a very prestigious private school. This will cover my... ancillary expenses.

I also had a meeting with a friend of a friend. He will become my Shu Fa (calligraphy) teacher. He showed me his work and even demonstrated for me on the spot. We had a lot of talk and he will teach me out of friendship. The sword ( my specialty) and the brush (his specialty) are very kindred. The mind must be still and the body calm. When a sword is swung it's movement can not be retracted when already committed. When the brush is moved... the ink can not be erased. Both allow expression of the inner self and the practitioner always strives for perfection. I have practiced sword for many years and although I love it so much I feel it is time to learn the ways of the brush. At least I will have a physical manifestation to show for my work. I also think they will compliment each other. Calligraphy has always been a great passion of mine and now that I am in China... I finally have a teacher. My teacher's father is a very famous calligrapher in China so... I am really lucky to learn from a friend.

Other than that... I get to see my master, the first time in five years at th ebeginning of May. I can't wait!! and then again during summer holiday for a month or so. I have so much work ahead of me but it's so much fun.

that's all for now.

more to come...

___

So, here it is... the first. The little dash is actually the Chinese character for the number 1. Being an extremely private person I never thought I would have a blog. Who the hell has time for these anyway? Apparently... millions upon millions of people, so... I'll give it a whirl.

Let's catch you all up to date.

We left my Dad's on a thirteen hour flight to Beijing. Quinlon was absolutely amazing. Not one single problem. We got there and our luggage was no where to be found. It seems at JFK they just couldn't be bothered to send it. How kind of them. So here we are in China with only our carry ons and no clothes. None of Quinlon's diapers (we use cloth diapers NOT disposables so it's not like we could go buy some)except the ones we had with us on carry on. So that was fun. Filling out paperwork in the airport for an hour. The family next to us had sixteen gy-normous boxes on roughly nine carts with an entourage of Chinese workers pushing them. They were filling out paper work because one box did not make it. I just wonder who at JFK decided no more shit gets on the plane.

Boss: "alright boys that's enough. stop there.

Worker: "But, boss, we can't just stop. These people needd their belongings."

Boss: "eyuhaaaahhhh... Nah. I think this is good. We'll send it on the next one. They can wait."

Anyway...

So, we get to Beijing and now we talk to our man from Taiyuan... Victor, via a guide sent to us by him named Pink. Yes... that's her English name. So Victor thinks it's too late to come so we should get a hotel. Okay. Ten minutes later, he calls back and I talk to him. It's okay to come. So Pink takes us to the ticket window and now we take a domestic flight from Beijing to Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi province (our home). The flight is a little over an hour to an hour and a half and Q is amazing on this flight too. They served us green tea. Real green tea and it was amazing.

So we get to Taiyuan and Victor greets us. We hop in the van and make our hour long trek to the University, but not before stopping in a three story 24 hour restaurant. We get a private room and eat some real Chinese food. Black fungus that has no English name, I got chicken feet, some famous Shanxi beef (a cold dish) some vinegar veggies and some other stuff that was yummy as well.

So we eat and are about fifteen mins. away at this point. Throughout the entire van ride I was talking to Victor. It was pleasant. We get to the University, he shows us to our room... on the fifth goddamn floor. Which means it's ten sets of stairs and their are twelve steps for each one. You do the math because we climb these things at least six or seven times a day. No need for a stairmaster in China. For real. We get some sleep and the next day comes. Some students (Christine and Jade) take us to War Mutt (Wal Mart) which is a grocery only store. Not the millions of Chinese made items that U.S. Walmarts are notoriously known for. But, you can't get a whole chicken in the U.S. like you can in China. Head on and all. I mean the whole package. The whole store and experience is different. So we spend 436 RMB in walmart getting towels and a lot of starter stuff we couldn't take. Needless to say, Quinlon is famous here and everyone mobs him as if it were Jonny Depp walking around the mall sans a disguise or fake mustache.

We get back to the campus to find out we can eat at the cafeteria.

What's that you say?

Don doesn't have to do dishes... EVER.

SKADOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOLD

WIN

FLAWLESS VICTORY

So I get me a cafeteria card and we are eating good.

I can't express to you how I LO0o0ove NOT doing dishes. I'm over it. Stick a fork in the dishes. I'm done... they're done.

So, my kitchen is basically a room to keep random stuff in. The sink doesn't get hot water anyway. Weird. Indeed, but hey... it's China. (you will hear that a lot... it's kind of the rule here.)

Shanxi is famous for several dishes and the canteen has them all. Noodles are eaten more in the North, where we are and in the south you eat more rice. So we've been eating all kinds of different noodles. It's like the twilight zone on pasta. But, it's all good. Especially the vinegar. So there are two dishes we eat ALL the time. They are thin noodles with diced potatoes and the other is tomato and egg. I have never had anything that tasted like this before and I still wonder how tye get tomato and egg to taste this way. It's freaking delicious. Unlike the American diet which consists of "whatever your fat ass feels like having at that moment," the Chinese prepare food by way of season and based on medicinal purpose in accordance with the five elements theory. Example: The potatoe dish is good to eat becasue potatoes, now, are good to eat in the dry weather and good for the heart and blood with all the pollution we are forced to live with.

So you mean... you actually want me to live? and not just to pay taxes? Get out of town. o_O

So were back at the campus and I meet with Victor and go to the office to meet my boss Shelly and Ivy (one of the teachers at the university and the person who is always helping me becasue she is at the office most of the time). Shelly keeps referring to Victor as James. And so does Ivy. Before that i'm saying to myself, "James... James... who the hell is James?!?!?!"

Apparently...

James and Victor are the same person.

James = Victor

Victor = James

O0o0o0o0okay.

I am completely baffled at this point and wondering if someone here is not playing with a full deck, or just appreciates having several random English names. Either way it is confusing and has my head ready to explode.

If it weren't for that horse I would have never spent that year in college.

o_O

So I make sense of this and just call him James. There is no closure to this... James it is.

It's China.

and once again...

o_O

moving on.

The next several days suck becasue we have no clothes and we start to smell... and I start to smell worse than everyone. There is something in Chinese food that makes you smell like garlic is ripping through your pores like steroids through the major league. And the more i eat... the more I smell. I hope you can laugh becasue I am still embarrased by this.

So... the next few days go by and finally after 6 days... we get our luggage.

I drag those three bags up the five flights of stairs which is really ten individual sets at 12 stairs each, cut the yellow plastic straps the airline put on for theft purposes, fire that son of a bitch open grab a handful of clothes and i'm off to shower.

::sigh::

Chinese people are not that tall..........




So here I am a six foot tall man trying to shower in a little tykes baby bath. My shower (no tub... we're talking plastic portable floor about 6 inches off the ground you stand in with a shower curtain that basically coccoons you.) is anything but comfortable.

Taking a shower... is my new "doing dishes."

::sigh::

but at least now... an hour later and several bruises from smashing into the wall trying not to let water out on the floor due to my WAY out of control obsessive compulsive behavior... i'm clean.

Seriously... it's like being blindfolded and thrown into a wrestling ring with a real live Polar Bear. You're kind of just thrown around blindly trying to find a way out, yet there is none.

So a few days go by and I have my first week of classes. It's horrible. James tells me I do not need anything, just to talk to them. Okay... that's what i'm here to do, right?

I get my schedule and it seems Monday is my heavy day. 5 classes. from 8a.m. - 12p.m.

yeah, real hard.

so I think I'm gonna have 5 individual classes.

Think again Z.

The first three classes are teh same students. So for two hours I have to ramble about all sorts of stuff and run out of stuff to talk about. This happened all week long.

It was kind of funny. But felt morelike that dream everyone has about sitting in class and being called to the black board, but when you walk up you find you're completely naked. And there I am. Doing arithmatic in my birthday suit.

So my second week of classes is much better and the students actually like me. That Friday was amazing. Ivy comes to the class to tell me I have to give a lecture on American culture Tuesday night.

Excellent. A lecture. I can't freaking wait.

So, Jessi, my beautiful and smart wife is like a fucking magician with power point and whips me up some magic and bad assery that could only be defined as awesome. Thanks doll. :X

My lecture packs out. people are standing in the aisles to hear me speak. The hall I had to give a lecture in holds 154 people. There were a lot more than that becasue people were camping out in the aisles for my two hour lecture. So I'm gonna say there were 200 people easy.

A little side note here.

Those of you that really know me know i'm not a speaker. I can. But I don't like it. I'm a hermit. I belong in a cave, sipping tea, reading, meditating, playing taiji. Not giving lectures. But, I do. And it goes really great. Better than I thought.

Way to go Z!!!

Now you have to give a lecture every month.

My next one. How Chinese culture has impacted America.

Piece of cake. Shaw Bros. films, Quentin Tarantino and Wutang clan. 'nuff said.

So.. we've been to downtown and shopping. The Chinese fashion sense is amazing. All of you who ever said I was gaudy and tacky. I am home!!!!!!!!!!!!

To tie this up quickly... My boss is awesome and everyone here is helpful and giving and caring. I had to go to the Doctor for my headaches which have returned and the Doctor said I need to heal myself. I'm too angry and I have much desire. But I can cure myself with meditation and nei gong (inner work). We have good talks over the couple of days I went there and two of my students paid for my visits. The Chinese are so giving. I pay for dinner and lunch and little things to try andmake up for the generosity.

They truly get that friendship does not come with a price tag.

Right next to the Doctor's is a tea shop. We sit down and I apparently impress everyone with my knowledge of tea and Chinese culture and history. I buy some really high grade Pu Er and the owner wants me to come back and just have tea with her.

soon...

I also got some amazing Mao Feng tea and the ever so elusive... Jin Zhen (golden needle). The Mao Feng has quickly become one of my favorite greens and the golden needle much to my dismay was a little light for my palette. I got these teas at a tea shop in a three story dept./grocery store. That tea shop owner said I can come back anytime as well. He doesn't speak Enlgish at all and I need more friends like that so my Chinese will improve.

As of today... I bought my books for the September semester. I am taking five classes and going for the Acupuncture and Massage degree. Five years long. I'm doing it all in Chinese and have a lot of work ahead of me. One of the courses scares me. It's on traditional and ancient Chinese writing. The Chinese kids themselves don't know Jack about this... Hopefully I can hang. I figure if they don't know and can learn.. so can I.

I am wrong though... from time to time. <--- movie reference o_O

So here we are. It's now Friday. You are caught up to date. I will keep you posted. Lots of pics and video to come. Stay tuned.