The Recap of this Dinner Doesn't Reflect Well on Me

This is a story that will make ME look bad, but I put it down on paper anyway as a reminder of how I need to be more flexible, accepting and better about faking it when I need to.  The scene is set at the birthday dinner of Onions friend we call “Lao Queen (LQ)”, or “Old (in the wise and revered sense of the word) Queen.” I’ve been out to dinner with him a number of times and he’s someone that I put up with but would not choose to be friends with were I to meet him on my own. The first word that comes to mind when I think of him is, “bossy.” LQ has invited a group of 17 of us to a nice dinner and most of us arrive and are seated around a large round table. I’m seated with Onions on my left, an empty seat on my right and LQ and another guy named Nick directly across from me across the diameter of the table.

The first order of business is sorting out who’s drinking what. Baijiu (think high proof alcohol), red wine and beer are the alcoholic options. Seltzer and Coca-Cola are the two non-alcoholic options. As you all know, I don’t drink alcohol, but is something I believe LQ simply can’t comprehend. When I first met him, he always pushed alcohol (or it seemed to me) in my face and I simply refused. Am I being rude when I do this?  I might be, but at this point with LQ, I don’t drink on principle because I don’t want him to think he can push me around. I will admit that the way I refuse the alcohol might be obnoxious and I’m no longer exceedingly polite in my refusal. I just say no. Once the drinks get poured (this takes upwards of 10 minutes it seems) then the food starts to arrive.

At some point, I look down and text on my phone and I gather that LQ or someone else is speaking to me and I don’t hear.  At this point, LQ tells me, in Chinese, “no phones.” Of course he’s joking, but I internalize it as him “bossing me around” because he does that to everyone. But I simply react badly being told what to do. So I’m already on edge. Then the conversation starts and it’s mostly LQ and Nick talking and telling stories and the rest of us listening and answering when being “called on” to speak. They never call on me, fine by me, as I really have nothing so say. But as a non-Chinese speaker I can follow the conversation but it really takes a lot of concentration. And as all of us who have ever been in that situation, after a while, I simply need a rest and drift off and don’t pay attention. In addition, they use slang and as they have more to drink, they don’t enunciate as clearly so it’s harder for me to follow.

Throughout the evening, Onions and I are being toasted by other members of the group. One thing that I know I am supposed to do is to toast the birthday boy. Now once piece of information that LQ loves to remind everyone is that I, by my presence in the room, remove him from being the oldest person in the room as I am two weeks older than him. I’m the elder statesman. So in Chinese I say, “from the oldest person to the second oldest, Happy New Year and Happy Birthday!” Immediately, Nick makes fun of my Chinese because apparently the way I said second oldest was a way that one can call someone a “dick.” I didn’t know. And the fact that he made fun of my Chinese and started talking back to me in “baby English” really angered me. The rest of the evening anyone who spoke to me, didn’t speak to me in Chinese but in their infantile voice English. I know they were trying to practice their English and trying to be nice but I found it obnoxiously patronizing. I just began shutting down and tuning out. I just mentally gave up and starting watching the clock waiting for the time we got to go home.

But then, the last guest arrived and he sat next to me. Hoping for a nice quiet person that I could just have a conversation with and enjoy the rest of the evening, I got the exact opposite. I got a loud, very heavy drinking friend who quickly became the center of attention. He pounded the baijiu and so everyone was focused on him and because I was right next to him, they probably saw the fact that I wasn’t enjoying myself, not smiling, not even really engaged in the evening. The guy next to me is the kind of guy who goes around and makes fun of people. One guest had recently gotten some curls put in his hair. The teasing got so relentless that the perm guy’s boyfriend had to tell the guy on my right to shut it.

The last half hour of the evening is a blur, not in the drunken sense for me, but just that my body language and posture signaled that I clearly didn’t want to be there anymore. I had no stories to tell and many of these friends in this group were rehashing old drinking stories. I had nothing to add. And I’m not one to find drinking stories fun to begin with anyway. As we were putting on our jackets and leaving, both Nick and the guy to my right asked me to introduce me to friends that I know are single. I lied and told them that they wouldn’t find my friends that interesting and that they aren’t really that attractive, personality-wise. But inside I was thinking I would never introduce these guys to my friend.

A few hours later, at home, after a contentious subway ride where I told Onions I didn’t have a good time and suggested that next time I don’t go, Onions got a text from LQ asking him why I didn’t enjoy the dinner. Onions spent the next few minutes, I think, putting out the fires that I caused (or at least I think I caused).

But it’s the next night, after dinner, when I sat down with Onions and told him what angered me, specifically my Chinese getting made fun of. Onions started to defend his friend and say, “well that’s just what they do, and you need to accept it.” WOAH!  And here’s where I have to make fun of myself for being the more “needy” one in the relationship. I had to tell him (and I’ve heard this from some of my female students that they need) that even though I need to be tougher in that situation and let it go that I got made fun of, but in that moment, I needed Onions to take MY SIDE and AGREE WITH ME and SYMPATHIZE WITH ME!!!  After a few minutes of me explaining what I wanted and needed was able to at least just let me complain without defending his friend Nick. But I know that he was internally rolling his eyes!

So there were lessons here. First, I’m just going to have to play along at these dinners and be more cordial. I’m going to have to fake enjoying myself, which is hard for me. And I’m going to have to put up with obnoxious “baby English.” But the biggest lesson and reveal is that I’m the more traditionally “feminine” one in our relationship. HAHAHAHA!

How I Ended Up Wearing a Gronkowski Jersey

This is a story of how THIS happened!

So....when you live in Beijing, you always hope and root for the late game, because it means you can watch the game at a "reasonable" 7AM.  So, in the divisional round, the Seahawks and Panthers played the late game and here's the crowd of Seahawks fans at Home Plate BBQ.

While I was watching the game in Beijing, I got the occasional text from my sister as she and my Mom were at the game itself in Seattle.

Unfortunately, the NFC Championship game was the early game and so it started at 4AM Monday morning. Home Plate, bless them, opened early and since I was coming back from South Korea at midnight, I went directly to Home Plate.  I felt obligated to order breakfast.  I dishonored myself as a Seahawks fan by NOT staying until the end of the game. The Hawks win and a Patriots defeat of the Colts lead to this.....

(The History teacher is a Bostonian and diehard Patriots fan...)  If the Patriots win, 1) From February 3rd through 6th, I will wear a Patriots jersey. 2) Everytime I see Fu Laoshi, I will bow to him.  3) While wearing the jersey, I will take a picture wearing it and have a smile on my face. This picture will be posted on the white board at school. 4) Next Wednesday, during assembly, I will provide a heartfelt congratulations to the New England Patriots.

Here we are taking the pledge on the Confucian Analects!

GAME DAY!  The students proposed moving the Monday class day to the previous Saturday.  Somehow, the entire Monday class day was canceled.  So many of us went to another BBQ place to watch the game.  This time a very nice, 730AM kickoff.

The Hawaii contingent, all rooting for the Seahawks!

Everytime I went to the bathroom, something amazing happened.  Fu, terrified by my bathroom jinx, is here following me to the bathroom.

This is the last time, fourth quarter, and while at the urinal, Jermaine Kearse caught "the pass!" But as we exited.....we were standing in back and "the interception" happened.  His jinx negated my jinx.

My bowing to the Patriots!

The picture that will go onto the wall here at school!

And I made him a banner that says "New England Patriots"

Mr X -- Mystery Room

My 45th Birthday party!  I invited friends to join in a group activity I've wanted to do since I heard about it.  It's a mystery room escape.

In a number of cities in China (and probably around the world), game designers have designed a physical puzzle where you and a group of friends pick a mission (our's was number 9, the Alcatraz Island), which according to Onions was medium level in difficulty.

To preserve the integrity of the game, all cell phones and/or cameras are locked up before entering. In addition, everyone is scanned with a wand before entering as well.  Here's the layout of our puzzle.

 

The twelve of us divided ourselves into groups of six and entered our respective jail rooms.  Then the jail doors were locked and the clock started counting down from 60 minutes. My group was in jail room 1. In each jail room was a sink, a toilet, a lock box and a poster on the wall with certain letters of words highlighted.

We found a key and magnet in our toilet and the other group found a key as well.  We then determined that our key opened their box and that the letters on the two posters were color-coded and were the four digits we needed to open our lock. Inside we found a hex wrench and a uv-light and they found a flashlight and a turnkey that we could use on our floor.  We passed the items across to each other. We use the turnkey and unscrew the thing on our floor but find nothing.  We had no idea what it signified or the result of the unlocking of the thing on the floor.  But within a minute the other group in room two had found that their sink was actually a door, it opened up and all of a sudden they disappeared through their wall into what I’m calling the puzzle room.  The six of us on our side were left trying to find our escape from our jail room. Our thought was that we could find a code that would work on the numeric pad on our jail door. Unfortunately, we spent the next thirty minutes trying to determine what that code was. We looked everywhere, tried to decipher numbers from the poster, even finding numbers written on the spigot of the faucet on our sink.  Nothing worked.  During our attempts to find a code, we the other group would occasionally come back and check on us and ask us to pass them items that we had.

Then, with some 30 minutes to go, Onions comes running back with a four digit code and it opens our door and we all spill out into the corridor between the two cells and are faced with another door with a keypad that leads into the hallway. Stumped again, we are fixated on the code, but in that corridor we find another turnkey, which we give to the other group and they go back through the wall and are working on the puzzles from their side.  It’s clear that the other group having a blast on their side as we hear yelling and screaming and the occasional, “WOAH!” Nothing is working and we’re stuck wandering between our cell and the corridor. So with 10 minutes to go, we flag the staff and ask for a hint. He tells us to push on the walls…which we do and lo and behold, our room begins to PHYSICALLY slide away from the entrance wall. Then where the ceiling is exposed we see a hole in the ceiling, which leads to a ceiling passageway. Then I notice on the exposed floor where our room used to be is ANOTHER turnkey. I hope over and pick it up and pass it up to one of my teammates that is already through the ceiling and he passes it to one of the members of the other jail cell.  Our groups have met up!  That turnkey I found opens the door in the ceiling where our groups meet.  From the small corridor we climb down a ladder back down to the level of the room and then find….the water room.  This long room has a bunch of tubes in which there appear to be bodies and from our side to the far side of the room is a shallow pool of water.  There are five minutes on the clock. One of the other side brings over pair of waders and we our first member goes over.  We see there is some infrared projection on the ground where we are standing and the uv-light is brought over….and then time is called.  We didn’t escape.

So after the time was called we got a chance to walk through the puzzle. Onions, on the other team, relayed to me that in the puzzle room, they had to solve a puzzle, which gave them a key to open the door onto the hallway. I’m unclear about what exactly the glass window room was about but I did see that in the surgery room, there was an operating table with a dead body on it, a box on the ground with a gym locker type lock (those kind where you have to turn right, then left and then right) and on the wall a pad with five lighted buttons. The locked box had yet to be opened but four of the five lights were green. Onions said that when they found the room only two of the lights were green. Then the final escape door had a lock on it that we didn’t have the key too.

In our post-game analysis, we finally figured out that the random screw on the ground in our original jail cell actually unlocked the room so it could slide on the rails. We also figured that the uv-code on our side of the water room most probably would have opened the lock box in the surgery room.  We were ALL IMPRESSED at how cool and well thought out this puzzle room was!  Apparently the Mr. X here in Beijing has four other ones currently set up.

Scenes of Seoul

Ekonomy Hotel?  Here's what you get for $45 dollars.  It's small, but clean and comfortable.

And a nice bathroom!

Turns out that the suggested hotel location was located right in Myeongdong, a very busy street with lots of shops and quite touristy.  It was right outside my door!

So, this is Kim Hyun....Korea's IT guy.  (By the way Onions recognized him so apparently he's famous in China as well).  Kim Hyun is the face of EVERYTHING.

...he's so big he has his OWN MUSEUM!!!

The Seoul Subway is as advertised.  Clean, efficient (although not as frequent as Beijing) and EXTENSIVE!

Every station is supplied with emergency supplies.  Beijing, time to step up your game!

In Korea, of course it's time for Korean BBQ!

BBQ with a side of sweet beef noodles!

The newly opened Zaha Hadid designed Dongdaemun center.

In center Seoul there are still traditional houses.  Here in Bukchon village, most of it feels like a museum.

I liked the juxtaposition of the traditional and the modern in the background!

Over on a stop in Itaewon (near the American base and heart of the expat community), I stepped out of the subway and saw a demonstration/march by Muslims.  Not sure what the message was...

.....but I know there is NO WAY anything like this could ever happen in China!  Props to South Korea for honoring the concept of free speech.

Fried Meatballs!

I was wandering around Myeongdong and what's this?  The Chinese Embassy!

Before I left Seoul, I read on Tripadvisor that there was a great show called a NANTA near my hotel.

I was thinking it was a cooking show.....

But it turned out more to be a cross between lots of chopping of food and it being thrown around, drumming and audience participation.  It was ok....I was expecting more!

AP Calculus Conference

This past weekend I flew to Seoul, South Korea to attend a two day College Board AP Calculus conference held at the Korea International School.

Built within the last decade, it is built in the southern suburbs of Seoul and has all the amenities!

The conference covered Calculus, Psychology and Physics.  My class was 10 people, most from Korea, but a teacher from Hong Kong, Krygyzstan and myself from China.  Turns out, many of the teachers had never taught Calculus before so I didn't get as much out of it as I had hoped.

However, I did pick up some very valuable information on how the test is scored and learned how to teach some topics (a special case of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, derivatives of inverse functions and I finally got a handle on how to teach LaGrange error) that I had never really understood well, so overall, the conference was useful.  The only torture?  The printed material and the overheads were in the font, COMIC SANS!  AAAAHHHGGGHHH!

Beijing Subway Challenge

On December 28th, 2014, the Beijing Subway system will add one new entire line as well as two line extensions. However, the big change is that it will move from single ride fare to a distance based fare system.  Therefore, yesterday (12/26) was the last opportunity I had to complete something I've wanted to do since I moved to Beijing...to ride each and every line at least once on a 2 kuai fare. The rule was I had to get off and take a photo a a non-transfer station on every line in the system.

Start at 9:40AM at Jishuitan on Line 2.

I convinced two students to join me.  Here's Kevin M. who mapped out an excellent plan!

Hepingli Beijie on Line 5 at 9:58AM

Cuigezhuang on Line 15 at 10:48AM

Oh, and here's my other partner in this challenge, Samantha G.

Beiyuan on Line 13 at 11:12AM.

On certain lines, we did successfully got off the train, took the picture and back on the SAME train.  "Chinese fire drill" on a Chinese Subway.  Yuzhilu on Line 8 at 11:46AM

Life Science Park on Changping Line at 12:05PM.

Beijing Zoo on Line 4 at 2:16.

Huayuanqiao on Line 6 at 2:40PM

Xidiaoyutai on Line 10 at 2:47PM.

Keyilu on Line 9 at 3:17PM

Dabaotai on the Fangshan Line at 3:29PM

Dajing on Line 14 at 3:55PM

Xiaocun on the Yizhuang Line at 4:42PM

We all got seats together for the first time all day!

Gaobeidian on the Batong Line at 5:32.

Last line, at Tian'anmen East on Line 1 and 6:02PM

Success...and overall elapsed time?  8 hours 22 minutes!  Thanks to Samantha and Kevin for being great sports.  This era in the history of the Beijing subway...over!