What?

Today I was riding my bike down the street, and saw a big black cloud of smoking blowing my way from down the road and wondered what ws going on. As I road by I took a closer glance and realized that it was just a couple of ladies hanging out burning a big pile of plastic right in front of their home. Glad I got to take a deep breath of that while I was out riding!

Week 13: Still Living

I have reached the thirteenth week of the semester, and am still managing to get by, though I have been really busy with a flurry of testing taking place over the past few weeks. Most of the testing that occurred I was administering, but I partook in (yet another)standardized test this weekend too... great fun.

Every year in China it's around Thanksgiving time that my mind becomes a haze as thoughts of family, friends, turkey, pumpkin pie, clean air, and beating random students and street vendors unconscious swirl painfully through my brain. The air quality gets particularly bad this time of year as full scale coal burning starts taking place in order to heat our apartments (and by heat I mean keep my apartment above freezing. I still wear a sweat shirt in the apartment). The mood of everyone in general becomes a bit less cheerful this time of year, thanks to the weather, and actually this is sort of a good thing for me, as I will explain later this weekend in an entry, but for classroom atmosphere it is a killer. And it is in these dull, depressing times each year that I usually have to give my mid-term exams.

I should preface a discussion of my midterms with a bit of a background on the psychological death grip examinations have on the Chinese students. The education system in China is completely based around tests. We might say that all education systems are that way, but in the American education system we at least have a few varied ways of evaluating students. In China there are only EXAMS, and they should be written in caps because there are really no such things as quizzes or small tests, there are only big EXAMS that have important consequences for the students. There are a series of national standardized tests that all the students have to take at various stages in their academic careers in order to continue to move on to the next "phase." My students are always so curious as to how the United States law could be so strict as to force their students to continue studying in school until they are 16 years old. In China there are many students who don't get a formal education at all, and by the time the students are 13 or 14 they already must pass a standardized test in order to determine if they will be able to get a high school education or not. After entering into High school they begin almost immediate to prepare for their next date with destiny: The College Entrance Examination.

The schedule for high school students in China is rigorous to say the least and the students face pressure from their family and their school that leaves lasting scars. The College Entrance Examination can determine an awful lot about the future of each student, since it is from this score alone that both the University and the major for each student is determined. Once safely in the confines of the University the testing continues. Each major has their own series standardized tests that students from every school all over the nation must pass in order to receive their diploma, and by the time most of the students are juniors they begin their 2 year preparations to take the next big EXAM： The Graduate School Entrance Examination(or as everyone likes to call it here for some reason, the Post- Graduate Exam).

All of these national exams go along with the usual exams that are given in each individual class each semester. But in China most of the time there are only one or two exams given each semester, and it is from those exams that their entire semesters grade is determined, once again making the stakes higher for each exam. There are generally two main ways for testing Chinese students: Written exams and Oral Exams (Holla!). The written exams will usually be multiple choice or fill in the blank exams(this is college level exams we are talking about), while the oral exams will usually just be the reciting of paragraphs. It is this sort of academic atmosphere that sucks the creative energy and vital spirit out of most of my students and turns them on test day in mindless test fearing zombies.

My exams were Oral, of course, and it was awesome. I just wanted the students to get in front of the group in order to give a short speech(minute and a half about something or someone who has had a great influence over their life) in order to give them public speaking experience and in order to allow me to see each one individually. I watched 350 students give speeches and my mind was numb after about 30. Everyone memorized what their speech, and most spoke it in such a monotone voice that it was sometimes difficult to discern who was who. This problem was accentuated by the fact that a few of them had memorized passages out of a magazine rather than actually say something about their own life, and apparently there are only like 6 English magazines on campus, because people were using the same ones. The students were all so nervous, angry, and nervously angry throughout the week that it was uncomfortable. I felt as though I was torturing them or betraying them by making them speak for a minute and a half. I even had the treat of four students completely losing their composure and breaking into tears in front of the group, two of which collected themselves and managed to finish, one of which quietly stepped down off the stage instead of finishing , and one trooper who completely broke down in to hysterical sobbing yet still tried to finish, until I finally gently interrupted her incoherent sobs and told her she did a good job and could relax. It is a real awkward situation to try and deal with a crying student in class, but something that I have become familiar with. Your instinct is to go up to them and try to help them, but then all the attention of the entire class is on them and they became self-conscious and more embarrassed. I have found that just leaving the student alone to compose themselves with friends works the best, and it seems from the reaction of the students that this is the most common method of most teachers here.

What makes everything so difficult for these exams is the fact that in general everyone around here seems to be terrified of making mistakes. Most of the Chinese teachers tend to make their grades based on grammatical errors and pronunciation errors(that they can hear) alone, (which I find funny because of the amazing amount of grammatical errors the teachers themselves make when speaking and writing) this makes things more dificult but there is also a deeper rooted fear of errors that seems to be a general cultural trend. It makes it a stifling atmosphere to try and learn a language in. My students and I both struggle in it, as I try to learn Chinese people will often not want to hear me speak Chinese because they don't want to hear me make mistakes, even if they can understand what I am saying. There is a history of showing respect for leaders by covering up the errors that they make and trying to display them as infallible. I remember reading (or maybe somebody told me the story, I can't remember anymore) a story once when visiting the summer palace. An Emporer went to a lake in the palace to learn to fish. He had never fished before, so had no skill, but the ministers sent a troop of servants to the lake and had them all stay hidden underneath the water. They used reeds for breathing and were all holding fish. When the Emperor would throw his line into the water, a servant would plant a fish on his cord and he would easily haul it in. As the day went on the emperor was hailed as a genius in fishing without learning how to do a thing. The intentions were good, the ministers did not want the Emperor to feel unskilled, and didn't want to allow others to see the Emperor in an "ugly moment," yet no learning could occur. I don't know if this story is really true or not, but I think that it says a lot about some of the attitudes towards mistakes and failure here that make it difficult to teach.

On the brighter side I was treated to some gems of quotes by students. One from a girl who was talking about what a deep influence Chairman Mao had had over her life, commenting that, "He has such great handwriting." Another came from a girl who said, "Because of our situation my parents were forced to work out for a living." In her defense, though, she was in great shape, I don't think this was a mistake. I was also amazed (once again)by the willingness of the students to talk about such incredibly personal events, the most graphic of which came from one little girl who was commenting on the death of her Uncle in an automobile accident, saying that upon arriving at the scene of the accident, "We could find no trace of my uncle, not even one finger."

It was a long week, capped off by another trip to Jinan for another exam. Too many exams make me John want to down a pint of whiskey and punch a hole through a window, so I am glad to be done with all of that nonsense and back in the friendly confines of the Zhuang. On my trip to Jinan I tried once again to take a train, and confirmed yet again that I am a huge idiot, and taking the train is always a bad idea. All of the seated positions were sold out, and so I was left standing on the train. It is pretty unreal, there are so many people everyday travelling on the train that there is no where near enough seats for all of the passengers. You are left standing in an incredibly narrow aisle, and constantly dancing around as people continue to walk back and forth up and down the aisle. Everyone is so accustomed to the crowded situation that they don't think twice about getting up and walking by you 3 or 4 times in 10 minutes just to see how their buddy's card game is going. This uncomfortable atmosphere(I won't get into the smell) is only made more pleasant by the large numbers of people looking at me, poking their friends, pointing at me and laughing, whispering "hello" to their friends trying to encourage them to say something to me I might understand, and then talking about foreigners to their friends showing their "expertise" on all things western culture. I think it is for situations like this that throwing stars were originally developed, but unfortunately I didn't have any handy on me at the time.

I did manage to pull out a few positives from the trip to Jinan: a large stuffed crust pizza courtesy of my girl on the side, Pizza Hut, a huge box of hot chocolate for the lonely winter nights, and a jar of half peanut butter-half chocolate that I have almost entirely consumed over the past day and a half. In fact I think I will go for another spoonful right now.


Hopefully this next week will be a little more exciting, bringing a little more entertainment back into my life and the blog, now that we are passed the droll days of examinations it can only be up from here, right?

Out on the Town: Beyond the Glory

Today is an interesting holiday here in China. While the US is celebrating Veteran's day on November 11th, China will be celebrating a more light hearted festival in "Bachelor's day." It is a holiday to honor all those who are single. After all it's 11/11 and with all those ones it's got to be for singles, haha! Am I right, eh? Get it!? Hehe, sighhhh...

There really is absolutely no celebration for bachelor's day. From what I can gather the only traditions surrounding the holiday are everyone laughing when you mention it, and single girls wandering off to the supermarket to buy pounds of ice cream to console themselves through another year without a man. The holiday does not, as I origianally thought, symbolize some sort of more open view towards the merits of being single, or a reflection on some of the problems that the institution of marriage faces in modern society. It is more just a game with numbers(11/11) in order to subtly let all the college students or people 24-27 know that their biological clocks are ticking and they should jump on the marriage train ASAP. Universities in China don't allow their students to get married, saying they are too young, and yet by the time you get to be my age (28) people are marvelling at the fact that your single and are wondering if you'll ever be able to get married(once you watch the video's below you might be wondering that yourself). I have been amazed to see a whirlwind transformation that has occurred with so many different young Chinese people that takes them from being one of my students, who can't cook for themselves, calls their mother for every decision they make and wear pants with glitter on them, to a woman(most of my students are girls) with a formal long black coat, dress shoes, a job, a husband, and a BABY in just two to three short years. Actually it's not so much amazing as it is frightening.


But anyway, I thought that I would embrace the lonely atmosphere surrounding bachelor's day and show everyone a different side to the night life in Shandong. The past few months I have been showing clips and pictures of rocking parties, crazy dinners, and marriages with thousands of people and lakes of Baijiu. But the truth of the matter is that not every weekend sees me performing songs, tossing ganbeis around with nameless bastards, or sitting next to drunken seventy year olds who won't talk with me. Actually there are many weekends where I barely interact with anybody other than superkmarket clerks. The truth is that at the beginning of the year everyone and their mother wants to get to know you, hang out with you, and introduce you to their 13-16 year old son who wants to learn English, but by the time old bachelor's day roles around, people are too caught up with their jobs, friends and personal lives, and just don't have the time that they used to in order to pretend to be your friend. So let me take you through a more common Saturday night routine that occurs every so often here, a scene that looks a lot like this...

How else do you think I perfect those silky smooth Chinese pop songs that keep the students swooning? Looks like I got a little bit of an itch there, can't figure that one out. Though after a while the scene turns rougher...

Oh YEAH, THATS RIGHT, I was just itching for my daily shot of soybean oil!! And for all those of you who don't believe that I just really took a shot of Soybean oil, you can all go straight to hell.

There it is, the raw truth of going out in these parts. Beyond all of the hype and glory of the Halloween parties, and television shows, there are the nights where I just sit in my computer room alone, drink crappy beer and soybean oil, and sing bad pop songs. Happy bachelor's day everyone!!! Remember, if you're ever feeling bored that vegetable oil is a great substitute for soybean oil.

What A Week

This week has been a particularly interesting week around these parts for a few reasons.

1) I got a package from my brother and sister in the US, giving me a much needed restock of North America food supplies. they are not only delicious, but also aid me in avoiding catcalls by staying in my apartment for food, help my tummy-tums from getting too gurgly-googly, and help me to maintain my westernacity, something that is key to China allowing me to stay here.

The package also contained a huge selection of promotional CD's from Paste Magazine containing new music from various artists. This was like gold as I have been here for two years with only a two week sojourn back home in between. That whole time I have only supplemented the music collection I brought over with me with a large amount of bad Chinese pop and R&B songs that I learn to sing in order to improve my Chinese and entertain my students. This situation has lead to a bit of stagnation in my brain functions. The new influx of music will undoubtedly help my mental health, and also sets me up to have a sick party with all of my Chinese friends who are into the Indie music scene. That party will amount to me alone on a Saturday night listening to the CD's in my underwear, eating a snickers bar and drinking a half liter of Immense beer(no matter what that sounds like to you, to me it sounds AWESOME). I have yet to discover many Chinese friends that have a fondness for music that doesn't contain a heavy dose of electonic synthesizer. I swear when John Tesh cracks the Chinese music scene in five years he will become a god here.

2)I was finally able to capture on film something that I have been trying to capture for months, that being a child peeing on the street. This phenomenon, though common, is remarkably hard to photograph. The reason is simply because I feel bad doing it. I know from living here how embarrassing it is to have people staring at you, and taking a picture of that action would undoubtedly make the people doing it feel awkward. My goal has been to get a picture, since it is literally something I see about ten times a day, without anyone seeing me do it. The problem is that everyone stares at me while I am out, so it is unbelievably hard. Mothers often hold their children while they pee to make sure that they don't get any urine on themselves. A husband that sees me walking down the street will not hesitate to tap his wife on the shoulder and point me out, and the two, along with their sons baby penus, will continue to stare at me until I pass them by, ruining any chance that I had at a covert photo op...

Enter my new camera phone...

Now I can pretend I am sending a text message while actually taking pictures, and so today while waiting for a friend in front of a supermarket I was able to snap this shot...

This is not the clearest shot, and so my quest will continue, but at least you can get the idea. The best part about this picture was the process of taking. The reason I was able to snap this shot is because five minutes before taking this photo there was a girl who must have been 8 or 9 who dropped trow(sp?) right in front of me and began pissing, I fumbled for my phone and by the time I had it out and converted into camera mode she was already in her dad's car and they were pulling away. I thought I could find some consolation by taking a pic of the urine on the sidewalk and explaining the situation, but right as I was walking up to take a closer look a new car pulled in, and right as they hopped out the boy started to squat down to pee. The time was mine! The mother screamed at him "If you want to pee take off your pants!!" went over to help him out, and I giggled with delight at the opportunity I had stumbled upon. I still had to play it cool though since the father of the family got out of the car and immediately began staring at me. If you look closely you can see a few feet in front of the mom and son there is a wet patch, and that is the area that the girl had just peed not five minutes before.

3) This week while walking I saw a man going down the street here who apparently had seen my blog on pollution here in Zaozhuang and decided to develop a new futuristic low exhaust vehicle to help combat the problem of air pollution:

Not the fastest of vehicles, but it does help save on fuel.

And finally 4) Something occurred in the lines of an election somewhere or something??

Yes, this week the US presidential elections took place, one of the few national elections that becomes the focus of pretty intense international scrutiny. It is always fun to watch the election festivities from a foreign country for a variety of reasons. One being the media coverage in foreign countries is, of course, decidedly different. While in the US it is easy to get caught up in the mayhem of the 24 hour news networks coverage of things, that constant droning of often useless information which creates a difficult atmosphere to see issues clearly, or even to form a personal opinion, the media coverage in China has a lot less distractions. Here the news provides a lot less superfluous information, a lot less graphics, and a lot less shouting, thus making for a more tranquil environment to get a grasp of the important issues surrounding the election. But the media coverage in China also has topics of discussion that would never be heard in the US, especially during this election.

What I was most surprised about with the news coverage of the American elections here was the sheer amount of coverage that there has been. I watch the news every morning when I wake up before I go to work, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning of this week the first ten to fifteen minutes of the national news was totally dedicated to the American election. In addition, over the past two weeks the US election has been the top news story on Baidu news (Baidu is China's equivalent to Google) as much or more than any national stories. What really blew my mind was I was reading one article that was saying that the media coverage and national vigilance of the election this year was actually less than usual, and paled in comparison to some previous elections, the 1980, 92, and 2000 elections to name a few. This has been attributed to the fact that with the rise of China's international prominence the US election won't have as great an effect on the situation here as it used to.

Imagine an equivalent in the United States. Imagine if the nightly news or the Today show gave significant amount of news coverage for a week to the political process of a foreign country. It is something that simply doesn't, and probably never will, happen. I saw a Daily Show segment a couple of weeks ago where one of the correspondents compared the US to a really hot girl that all the guy countries want to fuck and all the girl countries are jealous of. Watching the foreign media's coverage of the US election I have to say that the metaphor seems quite appropriate. The US, like a really hot girl, is on the one hand annoyingly arrogant and self centered, but on the other hand mysteriously beautiful and alluring, both in spite of and because of it's arrogance. Living in China I have discovered that most of the older citizens I meet and even many of my students dislike some parts of US culture, and especially dislike it's foreign policies, yet at the same time are strangely attracted to me, to get to know me better, to learn more about English, and to learn more about what life in the United States is like.

Though, I do have to say that given the current international climate I would compare the US more to that same hot, popular girl in high school the summer after freshman year of college. She has put on ten to fifteen pounds, is still quite arrogant, not quite as attractive as she used to be, and she has more vices, including drinking. China is like a diligent nerdy guy from that same high school that used to view the US as an attractive, yet unattainable dream, who after freshman year of college discovered that being smart and studious is actually a positive quality, has gained confidence and some much needed social skills. Now China finds itself at a party talking with the US, and the US is wrecked. China's all the sudden thinking, "hey, I've got a chance." (look at the trade deficit info below)

This election has been historic in large part due to the racial element. It has been interesting seeing Chinese reactions to the election of an African American as President. The reactions have been varied. One thing that I have noticed over my years of living abroad is how quick citizens of foreign countries are to point out the problem of racial discrimination in the United States. I agree that the United States has a terrible history of racial prejudice and it is something that is important to contemplate in order to try and help all of humanity move on in the direction of a more tolerant society. The problem is that almost every country I have been in talks about the United States as though racial prejudice is unique to that region. Citizens of a given nation always seem to be unable to admit intolerance within their own country. The United States has many grotesque and blatant examples of intolerance, but that all comes from the fact that it is a country that has mixed together in its borders a remarkably diverse population. The United States has also, unlike many other countries, made some attempts at facing up to the mistakes of its past. In doing so it has left itself open to criticism from foreign countries who have little racial diversity, but has also paved the way for a country with some of the most tolerant areas I have ever lived in, along with the ability to elect a minority to it's highest office.

China often talks about how it is a diverse nation, boasting that it has 56 ethnic groups that live peacefully together. It is true that China is diverse in it's own way, but this diversity cannot be compared with that of the Untied States. China is diverse in the way western Europe was diverse 100 years ago. Though there are many different ethnic groups living in it's border who speak distinct languages or dialects, They are lacking in general large scale racial and religious diversity. Almost every ethnic group in China, with the exceptions of the Uigur minority from Xinjiang province and Tibetans, have relatively similar physical features, including black hair, what is referred to here as "yellow" skin, and brown eyes(the features that are so common that, as I have mentioned in an earlier blog, have been lauded in a number of popular songs). This leads to a modern environment where one white man walking the streets of a smaller city can habitually cause people to point, gawk, and giggle, and even yell. I won't even mention some of the comments that I have heard about black people here. Yet I am constantly lectured about the problems that the United States has with with it's race relations.

I watched a television interview on CCTV earlier this week after Obama had won. A reporter was interviewing two professors from two of the most famous Universities in China. One of the professors was from Beijing University, the University that is generally accepted as the best in the nation. When the reporter asked this professor what he thought of the significance of the election of the US's first ever African American President, he responded (and I paraphrase) " It is historic, but really, I like to say that Obama is a black man in appearance with a white gene." The reporter stopped for a second and asked the professor to elaborate. He responded, "He has the appearance of a black man, but in his actions and political thoughts he is just like a white man. And lets not forget the fact that he is not 100% black, his mother is a white woman." This is coming from a professor at the most respected University in the nation, being broadcast on national television. I was pretty blown away, and I am not entirely sure what he was trying to prove, but I can only assume that his purpose was to downplay the importance of the American's breaking of the Presidential color barrier. I can only assume that this man has met about 0 black people in his life. Just the fact that talk like that is accepted on TV here speaks volumes, because let's not forget that CCTV is government sponsored, so the reporters and interviewees are not supposed to make asses out of themselves like people are cable networks in the United States.

I have also been intrigued with the discussion of how this race will effect Sino-American relations. In general the populace of China, or at least the students, have been overwhelmingly in support of Obama. This stems mainly from the fact that 1) he is black and they sympathize with the plight of minorities in the US (How many non-male non-Han people have been President, or any other major governmental position in China?) and 2)because the general populace here hates Bush. They see the Democratic party candidate as the "anti-bush," which remains to be seen. But that is the general populace. What has been interesting has been reading some of the op-ed articles in the Chinese newspapers, where I have been reading a few authors writing that McCain would be the better candidate because of his experience, and that the world would probably be safer with him in office. Words that strikingly echo those of the McCain campaign itself.

The truth is that the Chinese government has to be pretty sad to see Bush go. He has been like a gift from the gods for the leaders of China. Bush's foreign policy has given them plenty of fodder for criticism, and helped them to be able create a general anti-American sentiment throughout the country. The "war on terror" has given the government a premise to tranquilly go about hunting down enemies of the government. And Bush's economic policies have created such an enormous debt to China that the US's position in relation to the people's republic has suddenly become unfavorable. When reading articles that talk about the way that Obama's election will influence Sino-American relations the general thoughts are that it will have little influence in general since Obama is interested in keeping relations amiable, but that the focus of the relationship will shift away from foreign war issues and business relations to human rights and environmental issues, as well as a focus on eliminating the huge trade deficit the US currently has with China. While that might sound good to some people, not exactly what the CPC wants to hear.

Regardless of what anyone believes politically, this election has certainly been a hugely important one for the US and the world. I don't believe that Barack Obama will dramatically change the landscape of United States politics. Even if he really wanted to our political system and the 46 percent of Americans that didn't vote for him won't allow it to happen(that said, just becoming a bit more moderate and reserved than the Bush administration's policies will be a relatively great change). Yet his election has had some very positive consequences, mainly that of dramatically improving the image of the United States in the international community in just a matter of one week. Not only does it signal that the United States itself has accepted that many of the policies of the last eight years were a mistake(which is pretty important given the fact that much of the world has seen the Bush adminstration as a sort of extremist regime), but it also shown that the US has the confidence and tolerance to do something that nearly no other country in the world is capable of doing, electing a minority to lead it.

I was recently reading a friends blog where he was reflecting on the election, he mentioned how only in the wake of Obama's victory was he able to sort of reflect and realize how hard the last eight years have truly been. He had come to realize the fact that for a long time he had been living with a sort of dark cynicism that he was finally beginning to awaken from. He also mentioned how he has been somewhat hesitant to tell people that he was American due to its reputation abroad, and how maddening that is to be a bit embarrassed of where you come from. That struck a chord with me in a lot of ways. Starting in the year 2001 I have lived outside of the United States for five years, and the whole time I have been fairly uncomfortable discussing my home country. This is largely due to the fact that all that has been done by the government representing the people of the United States over that time has been very difficult for those coming from an outside perspective to understand. It does not help matters that I have found the policies utterly indefensible. I have often had to helplessly listen to groups of people around me rail on the US while I would vainly attempt to describe the parts of the United States I thought were admirable(namely the tolerance and free thought that can be found in many areas there) without having any real hard evidence to back my claims. The election of Obama is irrefutable proof that, despite all of mistakes the United States has made, despite all of the terrible injustices that citizens of the US have had to endure and still do endure, those experiences along with the remarkable diversity of the United States has helped to create an society that is becoming increasingly more progressive and tolerant(though I am still pissed about Prop 8), and in some areas already is wonderfully so. An environment where that very tolerance and diversity can produce some very beautiful things. For the first time in my adult life I have a solid, substantive reason, beyond just a feeling, to be proud to be from the United States.

But patriotism is overrated in my book anyway. Too often it is used as an excuse to be selfish. I was amazed this week to see how much coverage that the US election was getting in China. The fact is that the US is the focus of so much attention in so many countries all over the world. The reason is because of its stature and policies the US has a great influence over the whole world. The United States elections (disregarding the more serious corporeal influence our foreign policy can have in certain areas of the world)have the ability to create grudging resentment, or inspire millions. I can only hope that that might mean that the citizens of the US can take the challenge and the responsibility that that sort of position entails and step to the polls with more in mind than how much is in their wallet.

Happy Halloween！

Here we are, partying our faces off!! This is the party table at the front, serving water of course, like all sick parties do, gotta stay hydrated!


Halloween has come and gone, and as I look over facebook and see all of the pictures from American Halloween (I think that there is like a 700 percent increase in picture posting the weekend of halloween, unreal) I gotta say that despite the fun of an American Halloween, I am glad that this year I was in the People's Republic. Halloween might not be a traditional Chinese holiday, but they are learning how to perfect it with just the right combination of song, rollerskating, and forced interaction to make the holiday special. Our party was off the f--in' hook, as shown by the picture above that shows us getting warmed up for the hardcore partying that would occur. First let's take a trip through all of the craziest costumes that I saw on the evening to get an idea of the scene.

Joe and Carolyn, two of the other foreign teachers dressed up in some classic outfits that they brought back from the US. Can you guess my outfit? I'll let you know in a bit. This picture was taken during a 15 minute savage photo shoot when we first arrived in which we were surrounded by people, the ones behind watching, and the ones in front snapping. You can see how the person who took this picture couldn't help but get a piece of another person they were closely pressed up against to the right of them. I was getting majorly fidgety and frustrated during this session as I was feeling likely a mixture between a member of 98 Degrees, and King Kong.



Here is a costume that is more on par with what we saw for the evening:
Trannies

And that was about it. No one was dressed up, they just came to party and take pictures of other people dressed up. I had multiple people ask me why I didn't dress up, I responded that I had, and they didn't believe me, because to them a costume needs a mask. One girl even came up to me with a ghost mask and asked me if I wanted it, as though I would feel out of the loop if I didn't dress up.

And suddenly, the party began. Some boys from the Bio department decided to whiz in and show the English majors (90% girls) what studying life science is all about, with this, the first performance...





I never knew being a bio major was so f--in' hot!! Following these guys there were a few more standard party performances. One was a couple of girls singing an English song. Another was a group of 'bladers rollerblading to techno, which sounds a lot more awesome than it was. Before I knew it I was up. I knew I had to sing a song for the party, so I needed to choose a music star to be my costume. I wracked my brain to come up with a suitable singer/musician that could be a suitable representation for the whole of western music, and western culture in general, and finally only one name came to mind, that man is clearly Michael Bolton: (special thanks to the Nichol's and Beal Juke Box, without which I would have never remembered this beautiful little diddy)



Separated at birth?? To Chinese vieweres we look remarkably alike, which is sweet. Actually I only decided to be late 90's Bolton when my original plan of being flowing locks Bolton failed horribly as seen below...

Now lets take a listen of what transpired...




Funny thing about singing Michael Bolton in front of a huge gymnasium full of people is that it is a lot different than singing Michael Bolton alone in your apartment. Alone in your apartment you might be able to kid yourself into thinking that you have the heat, the passion, that steely glint in your eye to pull off a funny Bolton imitation. I got out there ready to blow everyone away and realized almost immediately that my voice had no where near enough bold sexuality to handle Bolton's song... maybe if I had worn the glittering wig. I even scared the living daylights out of that poor girl who kept bringing out the ballons to me (Which I just kept tossing up in the air as I became inebriated with the power of Bolton's rock. ) when I made my valiant attempt at imitating Bolton's end of song falsetto. That noise ended up sounding a lot more like one of the cackles you hear coming out of a cheesey haunted house around Halloween, so at least I hit the venue right. Though my version couldn't reach the levels of the true Bolton, I still managed to set a cuttingly sexy mood that made more than one student uncomfortable, a mood that had everyone wishing they were wearing masks and dancing ballroom style right before a huge orgy, like in "Eyes Wide Shut." And then, this happened...




This is Helen. If you have read this blog before you might already know her for her killer panda jokes. Helen is the fourth English speaking foreign teacher at our school, she is nearly seventy years old, refuses to talk with me (even when I say hello to her while passing her on the street and looking her in the eye), and has a penchant for booze(and like a good friend of mine once said, there is nothing hotter than older ladies who love to booze). Before this performance she indulged in a few, as I could smell it on her breath when she was sitting next to me at the party table. You can't quite catch the first thing she said when she went riding out on the broom, but it was"I am a Canadian Witch!"(dead serious) At which point I had to fight to stifle my laughter.

We made it through the games that she taught them how to play, and then it came time in the program for what was known as "Social Dancing," or directly translated from Chinese "Make friends dancing." I saw this on the program and immediately knew that it would be when I would have to make my exit. I knew that it would end up being a situation where the leaders would try to get everyone involved, and that no one would want to be involved, and it would turn into a huge awkward fest in which they would turn to the foreign teachers for dancing partners. But being the hard-nosed reporter that I am I stuck through the beginning of the Social Dancing to be able to document it, and see what it really was. It began in this fashion. The two MC's started telling everyone to dance, which of course, no one did. Then they put people on stage to dance and had students sing. The first few songs were like this...



Fun or what?! Then after about three songs they decided to turn down the lights, switch to R&B and get the party back to the mood it was in right after Bolton rocked everyone to the point they wanted to take off their outer-most layer of clothing. The leaders of the party kept sending freshman students out into the crowd to dance amongst them to force people into the mood. The MC's continued to yell at people to dance. Students kept coming up to me and asking me "why aren't you dancing?" "Why aren't you talking with people?" to the point that I finally made my famous claim that I make at all parties, that I was "very tired." and made my way to the bathroom before gracefully sneaking out the back door. But before I left all of the harrassment had become successful, some students left, but those that stayed were in freak mode by the end...


What did I say before about "Eyes Wide Shut?!" Needless to say that 5 minutes later, while I was making my way home in the cold, dark night, the group sex began.... and another successful Halloween is in the books