The weekend before Halloween Sam and I went to an Ultimate tournament in Hong Kong to play with the Shanghai team. We lost in the Semis, but we won the party, largely thanks to the Berry Twins' outstanding performance as Billy and Jimmy Lee, aka Double Dragon. We're trying to track down a video for you guys, but there should be pics on facebook already.
Seeing as we're broke, we decided to take the train. We could have paid $25 for a hard seater, literally just a bench, but we figured it was worth another $25 to get a bed in the hard sleeper section since the trip is noon to noon. Hard sleeper gets you one of three bunks on top of each other (we always take the top) with about 75 people or so in one car. Trains are pretty fun; we generally lie around and read, play cards, do crosswords, etc. But there are a few interesting parts. One is the music.
Highlights included: "We Are Ready," an inspirational song about how ready China is for the Olympics, "Beijing Welcomes You" (self-explanatory), the always classic "First 45 seconds of Baby Got Back looped five times in a row," and let's not forget "Wonderwall and Boulevard of Broken Dreams alternating at 10 second intervals." We always get annoyed when these tunes start up at 8am, but it wasn't until the return trip that we found out there is a switch controlling it and that people just turn on the music full blast that early in the morning for fun!
Over the course of 24 hours, you get to know the people around you pretty well. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it isn't. On one side of us was a cool dude from Kunming who offered to drive us back from Hong Kong, but on the other side was a Little Emperor.
For those of you who are not familiar, Little Emperors are phenomena resulting from the one-child policy. Basically, since they only get one shot, some parents spoil the shit out of their kids and turn them into whining, screaming brats who end up getting a rude awakening when they get to University and have to be around other people. This kid was no exception. He frequently ran up and down the length of the car, banging on each compartment wall and screaming "LAI LE!" at the top of his lungs. Approximate translation: "come on!" At one point his mother came back to their compartment and said "But you're not screaming! I don't understand, you always scream..." or something to that effect. Other notable moments include the time he punched his mom really hard in the stomach and a certain interaction with Sam. Which brings us to:
GUESS WHICH STORY IS TRUE! (Miniature Version)
Did the Little Emperor
A) Kick Sam in the shin then run away laughing.
B) Stick gum in Sam's book then wave and say "Goodbye!" before running away.
C) Steal Sam's flip-flops and run the length of the car slapping them together.
Place your votes in the Comments section and we'll post the answer in the near future.
Also, for you Paideia people out there, we got to hang out with Liz Sizemore in Hong Kong! She's working there and we even crashed at her apartment on Sunday night. It was awesome to see her, it sounds like she's really loving living in China. She might even come visit us in Kunming!
Probably one more to come in this run of posts...
7 comments:
definitely the flip flops option.
Indeed. Definitely C.
I say B) gum in the book.
By the way, I caught a quick glimpse of a news report saying that a bunch of those white rabbit candies that you guys loved so much had been recalled. No joke. Just reinforces my theory that everything Chinese will either A) kill me or B) make me laugh or C) both A and B.
I say B.
Those white rabbit candies are gross dudes. seriously
Nate, you mean the White Rabbit candies we made bank on by selling them in the hallways of Paideia? Yeah they're totally money. But whatever, a little melanine never hurt anybody. Except for little babies.
I really hope it's B
Hell hath no furry like a Sam without flip flops.
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