Eating Dog

So here’s the updates as of late. I’ve got a few cool stories…

-The other night, I decided that I really needed to do something about our smoky bathroom. Our Korean next door neighbors smoke all the time in their room, and since our bathroom vents are connected, the result is the bathroom randomly smelling of smoke. So, I went to the supermarket in search of duck tape. I looked up how to say duck tape using Pleco, on Tina’s I touch, but it wasn’t in there, so I tried explaining it to the workers. Basically it went like this, “um…really strong tape…black…big.” Yeah, in short, let’s just say they didn’t have it, so I came home with clear scotch tape. I spent part of the evening standing on top of the toilet, taping the bathroom fan vent shut with layers of scotch tape. I realized that the white panels along the ceiling lifted up, making our bathroom and our next door neighbors completely connected. No wonder!…the smoke had just been coming through the cracks. So I decided to tape around the molding and some of the cracks as well. It was better for a few days, but since then, the stench has progressively come back. I’m still looking for a solution to this problem.

I try to stay on the good side of my neighbors in hopes that I can convince them to smoke outside or even stop smoking and just the fact that I want to be friends with them. The other day I went by their apartment to say hi, and I happened to show up during one of their drinking parties. Who would have thought? (I’m pretty sure they have drinking parties every night) They invited me in to have some pi jiu (beer) but I kindly declined. But we talked for a bit and we are becoming great friends. I especially love to hear there laugh attacks every night through the wall. Seriously one of the guys has the funniest loudest laugh I have ever heard in my life! All of my Korean friends seem to have loud interesting laughs. I've come to the conclusion that Koreans just really like to laugh.

Update on the smoky bathroom situation. (I wrote the previous two paragraphs a couple days ago) I think I have finally found the solution!! I tried putting a bowl (actually it’s the ash tray that our apartment came with) on top of the drain and our bathroom hasn’t smelled for a little while. We will just have to move it every time we shower. It totally makes sense though, because I think our drains are connected as well, and humidity would totally soak up a smoke stench. Yay!

-We had the opportunity to go to the annual branch party at the great wall! Every year they take buses up there on a Saturday, spend the night and have church on the great wall Sunday morning. Definitely a highlight and I love the branch.

-I ate dog… A Chinese delicacy. For more information about this experience, ask me personally.

-Silk market (bartering market) experience. So you always know you’ve gotten a good deal on something if the people you are bartering with are slightly mad at you when you agree on a price and buy something from them. At the silk market (bartering market) last week, this is about how my conversation with a lady went down…(we will call the lady: Pam)

Me: How much is this?

Pam: 200 kuai

Me: What?! That’s way to expensive.

Pam: You want. How much?

Me: 20 kuai

Pam: ?! YOU look like 20 kuai!

The funny part is that Mandarin was used for all that, except for the last line she used Chinglish: YOU look like er shi kuai! Good one Pam.

-Sunday, I was riding the subway home and I started talking to a Chinese couple. They saw that I was dressed up and asked me if I was coming from Church. They were nice and gave me their email/phone number and invited me to their Protestant church, which is actually kind of funny because actually they are not really supposed to do that because of Chinese law. I wish I could have invited them to church as well, but I decided to abide by the law. Darn. 

-Tonight, I was sitting in my room working on some homework and I heard beautiful singing coming from down the hall. So I went and found where it was coming from. I knocked on the door and some Koreans welcomed me in. They were practicing an awesome 5 part harmony gospel song that they are singing in their church in a couple weeks. We immediately became friends and they let me sing it with them once. I’ve never heard the song before but it had some tight harmony.