Old school

Today I went roller skating with some friends. No, not roller blading. Roller skating.

The rink was on the fifth floor of a run-down building with no elevator. Our skates were brown and weathered, with laces that had already fallen apart and been "repaired" by tying two broken strings together. The wheels were the classic 1970s orange.

When we arrived, the rink was all but empty. I had resigned myself to a sad affair, with the five of us wobbling around the rink at a snail’s pace for an hour before getting bored and leaving.

How wrong I was.

Just a few minutes after we got there, the regulars arrived, in the form of high school dropouts with punk haircuts, low slung jeans, wife beaters, black jackets, and cigarettes dangling from their lips.

Oh. My. God.

Within seconds, these "street toughs" were actually holding hands and dancing around the rink. At first, it started out simple. They zipped around at lightning speed, forwards, backwards, changing direction like it was the easiest thing in the world. Their footwork was seriously worthy of Olympic figure skating. Crossovers, twirls, skips, jumps. And this was just the warm-up.

Soon, whole chains of guys started racing around the rink together. Like, five or six of them holding hands and going super fast. The rink was shaped like a track, with two poles in the middle: one at each end. When they got to a pole, the person on the inside grabbed it and whipped the whole chain around, sending the person on the outside flying around the curve. I was lucky enough to join one of these chains at one point, and let me tell you. It’s damn scary. And I was towards the inside.

Other craziness ensued. For example, girls who fell down and pretended to not want to get back up would be picked up by several guys on skates and dragged kicking and screaming to a mountain of boxes piled in a corner, where they would be deposited without ceremony.

The coolest thing though, was when this bad-ass guy wearing army pants (and who totally could have played Bill Sykes in “Oliver”) grabbed both hands of some girl and started spinning around in a circle. After a few seconds of this, the girl fell on her stomach, and I thought the “game” had come to an unfortunate end, but the guy kept spinning and eventually the girl became airborne, flying around him as he spun wildly around on his skates. The entire rink had stopped skating and gathered around to watch and cheer. The guy never even took his cigarette out of his mouth.

A far cry from doing the hokey-pokey at a third grade birthday party, huh?

Meat market

I've had ample opportunity over the past month to accompany my friend’s parents as they purchase meat for the various family banquets. The meat section of the grocery stores here is not for the faint-hearted. This is not the deli section of your local Stop & Shop.

Let me set the scene. Heavy, black metal hooks hanging from the ceiling. Buckets of blood splashing around by your feet. Beaks. Snouts. Toenails. Trotters. There is an entire section devoted solely to internal organs. Whether mashed, chopped, or intact and hanging from hooks, everything from intestines to liver to kidneys can be found here, just waiting to be gently stir fried and eagerly consumed.

If you don’t feel like braving the crowds at the supermarket, you can head on down to the outdoor meat market. Here, you can find full pig carcasses hanging on meat hooks, right next to butchers chopping up their innards. Feel free to poke and prod at the meat to ascertain its quality. Just keep in mind that others have done the same.

In addition to this “hands on” inspection, you can observe others enjoying the meat you are thinking about purchasing. I’m referring of course to the many dogs and flies that are living the good life at the market here. Don’t worry about sanitation though. Shoppers and sellers alike make sure to aim their giant globules of mucus away from the food, as opposed to directly towards it.

Local flair

Have you ever seen anything like this before?


Apparently it's the cool thing to do here in Mianyang.

Exotic

Being the only Westerner around, I have the dubious honor of being able to turn heads wherever I go. Small children nudge each other and point at me. Adults will stare for uncomfortably long periods of time, and a brave few will shout "hello?" and then run off giggling.

I often feel like I live in a zoo.

An advantage of this unwanted attention is that I get to collect interesting comments about my appearance. My "big nose" and "yellow hair" are favorite topics of conversation. People I've just met feel totally comfortable running their fingers through my hair and asking if it's fake.

The vast majority of people that I meet have never seen a non-Chinese person before. One guy, after staring awkwardly for a while, finally said, with awe, "I can't believe you're standing here in front of me!" as if I'm some sort of movie star or exotic animal. He then proposed that we take a photo together so he could show his family because (and I quote) "they are NOT going to believe this!" One energetic youngster, zipping past on one of those fancy two-wheeled skateboard things doubled back when he caught sight of me and then skated circles around me shouting "A foreigner! A foreigner! Grandma! Look at the foreigner!"

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The only foreigners most Chinese people see are on TV or in ads, like this woman, featured prominently at the local WalMart:


If I saw that walking down the street, I guess I'd stare too.

On a budget

In these tight times, a lot of people are starting to cut back. Fewer luxuries, a return to the basics. Well, I can help! By ceasing to pay for heat and hot water, you can save up to hundreds of dollars each month. If you follow these simple steps, you can be like me, and happily live without these “elitist” luxuries.

Step 1: Layers. I regularly walk around wearing two pairs of pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, and my winter coat. Hat and gloves are optional. Don’t bother with pajamas – taking your clothes off to change is too cold. Just strip off your coat and your top layer before diving under the covers.

Step 2: Invest in a good kettle. When you really need hot water, you can just boil some on the stove and pour it into a big bowl. Mix in some cold tap water and voila! Warm water! This can be used for washing dishes, your face, your hair, or your body in general.

Step 3: Find a bed buddy. I share a bed with my friend, and it is not uncommon to find us cuddled together in the mornings. She especially enjoys it when I wake her up by putting my icy toes on her leg.

Step 4: Heavy blankets. If you can’t find yourself a bed buddy (or even if you can), several good blankets are essential. The ones I sleep under are so heavy that I have a hard time lifting my legs up when I’m under them.

Step 5 (opt.): Small space heater. This is by no means essential, but if you’ve come this far, you deserve a little treat. It should only be used in the evenings though!

Congratulations, you’re now ready to live without heat and hot water. It may be a bit rough at the beginning, but the savings will pay off in the long run.

Broken promises

After my last shopping disaster, I vowed never again to buy a piece of Chinese clothing. Today, that promise was broken. I came home from shopping today with no fewer than three new articles of clothing, including this one:

I’d like to say I bought it in an act of solidarity with my friend, who found herself purchasing this lovely item:

But in all honesty, I’ve gotten to the point where I actually think the skirt is kinda cute.

Dreams come true

When I was very small, like many children, I hated to bathe. “Bath time” was a tortuous waste of time that should be avoided at all costs, or at least put off as long as possible. Elementary school me wanted nothing more than a world where baths were non-existent.

This week, my childhood dreams have come true.

Living in a freezing environment with no shower facilities means that “bath time” is fairly infrequent, both because stripping naked is pretty darn cold when you can see your breath inside, and because getting clean involves either a hike down the road to the public shower house, or a shivering sponge bath at home.

For my first shower here, I chose the public shower. There was a cigarette butt crushed among the other debris on the floor of my stall, but luckily I was wearing the shower shoes they handed me at the door. I’m sure they’re sanitized between every use, right?

Another feature of the public shower is that I got to share the experience with my friend. This is because to save money, and because we only had one bar of soap, we decided to share a shower stall. If that’s not taking a friendship to a whole new level, I don’t know what is.

To finish off the showering process, people here don’t bother with towels. Instead, they we simply pat ourselves off with the same damp washcloth that was used for scrubbing. It’s very efficient, plus there’s nothing like a little chill to remind you to put your clothes on.