I Am Eighty-Hasaam =]

Day #39
Funds: $6300ish

Sorry, internet problems. Still got em. Dunno when the next entry'll be. Want my damn net back damnit!!!

Ok! Lu Xun Park! All young white people should go to work out there!
Have I mentioned the public gyms? In parks in Shanghai and HK where we would have playgrounds for kids, they have gyms for old people. Some of these guys are insane. Upon seeing myself (in all my t-shirted and sandal-ed glory), Dylan (fairly standard-looking white guy, no disfiguring scars or the like) and Lenny (part EVERYTHING born in Singapore and sporting a mohawk), we were immediately approached. Lenny is a tank. I believe I have mentioned this before. So anyway I was the first to cop it. People here have decided I'm insane for two reasons:
1. I don't eat meat. Asking "does this have meat in it?" never gets an answer, just a confused look. I must always clarify it with an "i don't eat meat" which will be met with an even more confused, slightly horrified expression, but this can all be settled if I then follow up with "so does this have meat? I don't want to eat any meat." (And then they serve me chicken, pronounced "ji-rou" because THAT has no meat/"rou" in it =S)
2. I very rarely wear more than one layer. As you all know I have quite a speedy metabolism or something which results in me sweating like some sort of a chocolate rabbit upon any sort of physical activity, turns out whatever the deal with that is, it also causes me to be pretty warm pretty much all the time. We haven't gotten too bad, just single digits (someone tried to tell me we'd hit zero degrees one time, wasn't sure that was true), but while lots of other people are up to 3 layers, I still can't hack wearing so much. I have practically memorised the conversation where some old Chinese person freaks out and demands to know why I'm not cold then proceeds to tell me I'm awesome or something.
So obviously the 1st one didn't come up but that damned 2nd point was mighty topical for a while. While I got caught up in the conversation, Lenny and Dylan snuck off to try and do some dips n chin-ups etc. This also caught the attention of my new friends. Lenny, massive guy, was struggling to get as many dips in as he could, and he was doing them nice and slow. This guy comes up to him, and is all "Nah sonny you're doing it wrong" then immediately launched into about 5 times as many as Lenny had done in half the time. Then he dropped, all the old people clapped, and he yelled the now immortal words, "WO SHI BA SHI BA SUI!!!" (I AM 88 YEARS OLD!!!) Everyone clapped. Then some guy appeared on the same monkey bars as Dylan. He lifted himself up using only two fingers on each hand and thrashed Dylan in a similar fashion.
I gotta admit, I'm a TEENY bit proud of the next bit ^^ So finally I make it clear that I wanna try some sort of exercise when this old dude maybe a foot shorter than me came out of nowhere and said a bunch of stuff, the only part I really got being "Let's have a competition! I challenge you!" Next thing I know, dudeman is standing on his head, using one thumb and one finger on each hand for balance, as far away from his head as possible (the further away the more strength and focus is needed). So I'm thinking, haha awesome what were the odds I'd get a chance to show off? Then I was upside-down, too. That got a lot of applause actually. I noticed his arms reached out a lot farther than mine. I hoped nobody else did. Thing is, I never tried any fancy stuff before like using only one finger and one thumb for balance, but for those who didn't know I can generally stay on my head indefinitely, until I get bored, so I really wasn't sure what to expect in terms of a challenge. I never lost this game with Mishy or Neo. Then my LaoRival started doing all this weird stuff with his legs, like stretching and kicking them and stuff. I tried to copy him, fell over instantly. The crowd clapped some more and one person tried to console me. Then a second person came to translate from the first guy's Shanghainese into Mandarin. Then I caught my LaoRival with his legs folded in the lotus position (i.e., like a genie, or in meditation). He lifted himself straight up like this and balanced on his hands. I followed suit, and then he started going up and down like it was push-ups or something. So I fell over again and everyone started clapping. "WO SHI BA SHI BA SUI!!!" he yelled again. Then he felt like a bit of a chat.
"How old are you?"
"Aw I'm just 21."
"Wahahahaha! So young! No wonder you suck and are so weak and stuff! Don't worry, you'll get there!"
"Ahah, um, thanks ... How can you do that?"
[LaoRival strikes dramatic tai chi kinda pose and takes a few deep controlled breaths]
"It's qi gong (breathing/energy power)"
[Mykal mimics pose, LaoRival lights a cigarette and starts rambling in between draughts way too fast for Mykal to understand anything past "yeah, breathing control and power is important, oxygen gives us strength"] It was around this point that I realised about a quarter of the old folks at this park were smoking while they worked out like madmen. We left with our tails between our legs.

Had a good coupla weeks besides just that. Lots of fun stuff, some of it in a sort of you-had-to-be-there kinda way. Been studying reasonably hard, even though perhaps my conduct in class may not reflect that and I could be better behaved. My contributions to class discussion (in Chinese of course) have basically centred around how I really enjoy the food that I brought to class and am perhaps eating a little noisily, would he like some, how no sir, i'm not cold, this weather isn't so bad, how i hate wearing shoes so i don't if I can avoid it, and how it doesn't matter what Ivy says to win my heart, she is a vampire, and has no chance with me. Probably just as well I'm sharing the position of Class Rep with Claire, she does all the fun stuff I don't find interesting, like arranging christmas parties and all, while I do lots of interesting things that she might not have found fun, like running around making sure photocopies of revision sheets essential for exam preparation are available to our class more than 30 hours before the exam itself. Our course is quite poorly structured, and matters are made worse by what feels like poor communication between teachers here and home. The Linguistics nerd in me is getting all excited about the prospect of some sort of postgrad centred around studying teaching methods of second language acquisition, Australia clearly needs some work.

And Joy bought a phone. We beened texting!!! She's in Qingdao (to Shanghai what Sydney is to Melbourne distance and direction -wise) right now, less than 2 weeks til she's here ^^ Ok I'm starting to fall asleep. Hopefully I'll be able to post again real soon. Who knows when these damn techies are gonna actually figure out what's wrong with our net connection? Sigh.