Jet-Lagged Gary
That will be my new nickname after I go on my China trip next month. I will be gone from late August to mid-September. On my itinerary: Beijing (4 days), Shanghai (2 days) and then Lanzhou, my hometown for the rest of the time. I will be carrying around SIX airplane tickets!! First NYC-Beijing, then Beijing-Shanghai, then Shanghai-Beijing, then Beijing-Lanzhou, then Lanzhou-Beijing, and finally Beijing-NYC. I will be spending roughly 35.5 hours in the air and will need to return to work the day after I return. Pretty brutal, but so fucking exciting!! I can't believe that I haven't been back since I came to the States almost 13 years ago. I wish I could jump up and down and clap my hands like a little girl now. My visa better go through.
You know, for $1035 there better be some mighty fine bitches lined up for me when I get off the plane. Actually, I think it's illegal for foreigners to have sex with Chinese citizens. Damn, there goes the plan! Seriously though, I hope my relatives won't try to match me up with some random girl. Chinese people love to play matchmakers. Oddly enough, "Dui Xiang," the Chinese term for "match" in this context, consists of the word "opposite" and "elephant." When I heard that term as a kid, I always pictured dancing elephants.
I wonder if my relatives will think I am illiterate once I start tripping on words that I've forgotten. When I left China, I didn't even finish elementary school, although I was reading a few years ahead of my grade level. My Chinese language skills have deteriorated steadily through the years. I can't read as fast I used to and I've forgotten how to write many, many words. I probably need an English-Chinese dictionary to translate some English words whose Chinese counterparts I have forgotten. How sad. Maybe they will suspect that I never actually came to the US. That all this time my family had actually been hiding in some village in Mongolia just to play a prank on them. That would be kinda neat actually.
Oh well, at least I have about a gig worth of compactflash cards for my digicam. I hope they are enough to hold all the random pictures I will be taking.
You know, for $1035 there better be some mighty fine bitches lined up for me when I get off the plane. Actually, I think it's illegal for foreigners to have sex with Chinese citizens. Damn, there goes the plan! Seriously though, I hope my relatives won't try to match me up with some random girl. Chinese people love to play matchmakers. Oddly enough, "Dui Xiang," the Chinese term for "match" in this context, consists of the word "opposite" and "elephant." When I heard that term as a kid, I always pictured dancing elephants.
I wonder if my relatives will think I am illiterate once I start tripping on words that I've forgotten. When I left China, I didn't even finish elementary school, although I was reading a few years ahead of my grade level. My Chinese language skills have deteriorated steadily through the years. I can't read as fast I used to and I've forgotten how to write many, many words. I probably need an English-Chinese dictionary to translate some English words whose Chinese counterparts I have forgotten. How sad. Maybe they will suspect that I never actually came to the US. That all this time my family had actually been hiding in some village in Mongolia just to play a prank on them. That would be kinda neat actually.
Oh well, at least I have about a gig worth of compactflash cards for my digicam. I hope they are enough to hold all the random pictures I will be taking.
posted by Gary at
3:58 PM
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