My foot has really been hurting me lately — I can’t apply much pressure on it, or stand one-footed without a lot of pain. I’m really scared that the break hasn’t healed properly and will break again. I don’t want to spend two more months incapacitated. I’m going to go back to the hospital tomorrow for another X-ray and a consultation.
My trip to Hangzhou ended up being somewhat of a fiasco because it was too hot. I could only go out for about a half hour at a time before I got a headache. I think it was about 38 C, or about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I decided to pack it in last night and just come home. I only did about three hours of sightseeing, total.
I did manage to spend one Andy Lau-less day, Thursday, when I went to class and then immediately got on a train for Hangzhou. By the evening of the next day, though, I’d run across one of his movies on TV, then found he was on the cover of a major Chinese entertainment magazine, which I saw again the next day.
I’ve decided to do an Andy Liu watch. I’m wondering how many days can go before, in my everyday activities, I come across the image of singer/actor Andy Lau, a.k.a. Liu De Hua. I’m not a particular fan of his, but he’s constantly on TV, promoting a film or plugging a product (including PeeIs toothpaste). He’s also the spokesperson for several causes, including the Special Olympics. I really believe that it’d be hard for me to go more than two days without seeing his picture. I actually saw him five times yesterday, through no will of my own. He was on the entertainment program that showed on the subway video screen, I saw him on a TV commercial, and also on a TV show. I’ll be keeping track from now on.
Pirate copies of Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince are already on sale outside of my school. They’re 25 RMB apiece, whereas the real copies are 170. They are the English edition of the book — the Chinese version won’t be released until next month, and will probably be available in bootleg form immediately, too — or even before the legit one comes out.
I was walking the little dog the other day when suddenly, we were attacked by this cat. I’d seen it sitting on a scooter, but I assumed it’d either stay put or run away. Anyway, it ran out and attacked the dog viciously. I screamed at it and we tried to run away, but the cat was still attached to the dog. When it let go, we started running for cover, but it kept following us and attacking. It was really scary! I was screaming loudly the whole time.
I did end up agreeing to take the dog at night. I’d come get it at like 9:00 and return it at like 7:30 in the morning. However, it turned out I just couldn’t cope with having the dog in my apartment. I couldn’t sleep well with it there, it wanted to get up at three to pee, and wanted to get up and play at 5:30 a.m. Plus, I think I was allergic to it. Whenever it stayed with me I’d get a headache and a stuffed up nose. So, I ended up taking it back. I think the man at the little store was actually happy about that because he is really attached to it.
The dog, by the way, is named Alice, which surprised me because I thought it had a penis. However, other neighbors have informed me that the dog’s little bump is actually a “xiao mei mei.”
To my surprise, there’s a girl sitting next to me watching a screen full of (presumably) secret shower cam videos. I can see all these naked people scrubbing. It’s kind of odd to see a girl looking at that in public.
I had my first day of Chinese class today. I was tested and put in Intermediate Class 2. The level seems right. I can follow the teacher well, and am familiar with about half the vocabulary in the book, but there are also plenty of words that are new to me. I’m the only Caucasian in the classroom. The other ten or so studens are American Chinese, Indonesian Chinese, Italian Chinese (!), Japanese or Korean.
Last night I had an intuition that an animal would come into my life soon. This morning I heard some really awful noise that I thought was a woman being attacked, but then when I listened, I realized it was an injured dog. I think the cute setter owned by the farmers who sell melons under the overpass bridge got hit by a car. 
Anyway, today I came out of the apartment and found a cute puppy tied up by a little store. I played with it, and a guy offered it to me. I kind of hemmed and hawed. He said he couldn’t keep it for hygiene reasons, and his family had two already. I said I wanted it, but didn’t know if I really had enough time to raise it, since I’ll be starting Chinese lessons tomorrow. I asked if I could play with it and walk it sometime, but also said I might want it. I pondered this, while getting all fired up. I’ve thought for some time it would be good for me psychologically to own a dog. Then again, dogs are a big responsibilty. They will of course cause certain inconveniences, but then again, there would ways to get around some of the problems. So, anyway, when I went to Hualian Superstore today, I bought a flea collar, a leash, a dog toy, and some dog food. I got back and gave the collar and the toy to the dog. The store owner acted surprised, though, when I pulled out the leash. Then he told me that it is not his dog at all, but his sister’s daughter’s dog. Hmmm … so it’s confusing. I’m not sure if the dog is his to give, and I’m also worried the girl will be made to give it to me if I say I want it, because I’m a foreigner. In short, I’m not sure how to proceed from here. I do want the dog, but I don’t know if I want all the responsibility of a dog. But then again …. see, I can’t decide.
perfect viewing conditions for watching a film noir! Shall I finish the lurid Naked Kiss, or watch Pickup on South Street, both by Samuel Fuller? Recently, I got a disc of Don Siegel version of The Killers, in which Ronald Reagan slaps around Angie Dickinson, and Lee Marvin does a great dead flop, but I’ve watched it already.
After making a gentle stink, I’m getting the free Chinese lessons I was promised when I started my contract. Yay!
For the second time I’m using Flickr as a source of news. The first time it was when the anti-Japanese protests/riots happened, because I didn’t have any easy access to news stories about it. The second time was tonight, when I found out about the blasts in London. I feel like if I look at photos on Flickr, it’ll give me a more rounded, realistic perspective of what happened.
Yesterday I found an extra 10,000 RMB, or about $1,200 in my bank account. I have no idea what it’s doing there but I’m really happy about it and am hoping if it is an error it won’t be corrected any time soon. Yay!
While I’ve been sitting at this computer cafe, three different groups of foreigners have come in and acted mystified about what to do. Interestingly, none of them even seemed to notice me, sitting in the middle of the front row of the computers. This happens a lot, actually. If I’m walking along with another foreigner and a tourist comes up to ask for directions, they always approach the other person, asking something like, “Do you speak English?” as if I’m not there at all.
Really, I’m not much of a shoe guy. But I had lots of trouble with shoes last week when I was hanging out with my friend Xu Gai. Xu Gai is a friend of mine who I’ve barely gotten to see this semester because she’s been so busy. Then I found out she was asked to go to Germany at the last minute to do some research! We had a goodbye lunch over the weekend, both for her and for Maria, who is going back to Denmark. I’d just bought a fabulously ugly dress, green with lime green and sky blue circles it, which I decided to wear, and to be particularly festive, I decided to wear my fancy blue sandals too. But, lo and behold, as soon as I got to her house, they broke. She lent me another pair, which hurt, so I bought a pair of flip-flips near the restaurant. Then the next day, I went to Xu Gai’s to help her with a translation project. As we were going out to lunch, the flip-flops broke! She ended up buying me some cool polka dot slippers.
Also at lunch Xu Gai, whose name can mean something like “slowly revise,” or “revise bit by bit” asked me to help her with a translation project. She wanted me to go over a translation and clear up any English errors. I thought the document would be 20 pages or so, but it turned out to be 46 pages long! So we revised bit by bit that day from about 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 at night!
The two and a half thumbed guy hasn’t come to my class for at last six weeks, and he hasn’t made any sort of arrangement to take the final exam. I BET, though, that if I give him an F he’ll complain and state, like he did before, that he’s been in my class all along. If I could answer anything I wanted without shame I’d say, “Don’t you think I’d notice whether you come or not? Do you assume I’ll just confuse you with all my other 10 1/2 fingered students?”
There’s something I’ve been worried about lately. It’s about time I found a relationship. I mean, if I had a person to be close to all the time, that would be fun. But the problem is, when I talk to people I tend to find that they’re just not interesting. I guess that’s more a problem with men than with women. Most women have something interesting to say, whereas a lot of guys just THINK they’re interesting. But if I don’t think people are interesting, how can I have a relationship with them? And would people think I’M interesting? They may well not, considering that sometimes I am not very forthcoming.
I guess when I “people” in the above passage, I usually just mean men.
I don’t know what to do about this problem.