Allot of cool things have happened since my last self-loathing blog post. I've been to Beijing to see a rock festival, Ive drastically changed my appearance, and I've been on Chinese TV.
Lets start at the beginning. A few weeks ago 3 friends and myself ( Ricky, Lauren, & Jon) went to Beijing because we heard of this big "Moon Bear" rock festival going on. So we hop on the fast train at 9 in the morning (that is standing room only) with a case of beer and no clue what a Chinese rock festival is going to look like. The beer is for the train ride, we would be standing a in a train for a little over 3 hours, we were going to have a good time. We get to Beijing, our beers are gone, and we are ready for anything. Jon knows Beijing pretty well and he is fluent in Chinese so he is our navigator. We walk around the streets and meander through the Hutongs (very narrow alleyway types of streets chalked full of stuff to do) and finally make it to our hostel. We throw our stuff in our rooms, grab a bite, then make our way to the show. Its not an easy task to get to this venue. We had to walk to the subway station, get on one train for a few stops, get off, get on another train for about 10 stops, then hire some dude with a van to drive us about 20 minutes to the venue. We arrive and there are 3 stages put up and people everywhere. This is going to be a good time. Food, drinks, people, live music ranging from reggae to metal. We go in there and plant our flag near the main stage. They had this little area with big pillows and tables that you could hang out at. The surrounding were beautiful. High mountains everywhere, a perfect setting for what was happening. The music was great, we met allot of cool people, Chinese and fellow foreigners alike. The beautiful thing was that we hall had the same thought in mind. Lets party and rock the hell out. And that's exactly what we did. The Chinese reggae bad had to be my favorite, they would be playing their hearts out on stage with a Jamaican flag flying behind them and someone in the crowd would be holding a huge flagpole with a Chinese flag on the end. Two cultures I never expected to cross paths but I suppose if anyone was going to sing "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights" it should be the Chinese people. It was a 3 day festival but we oly had the energy to go to 2 days. Besides the best part was over, the headliner on day 2 was none other than U.S band Mr. Big!! Come on you know who they are " Im the one who wants to be with you, deep inside I hope you feel it to!". They have been around for a long time but there main era was in the 80's. They were amazingly impressive. Ricky told me that Mr.Big has one of the greatest guitar players around right now, Paul Gilbert. I have never heard of the guy bet apparently he has played guitar with all of the best. Ricky was right by the way, that guy could wail. Again, I was impressed.
The day after the Mr. Big show we just wanted to walk around the streets and take in the sights, sounds, and for sure flavors of Beijing. We went to Tieniman square, the forbidden city, all that fun stuff but my favorite part was just walking around experiencing everything that I didnt get to see the first time. I even went to the place where the dreaded "Lisa" experience happend looking for that horrible woman but to no avail. She must have been off conning some poor sap out of his money.
There are so many more little aspects of this story that I would love to talk about but I dont feel I could convey how cool it was through words. Here is a list and if you want to hear more about it, let me know. I would be more than happy to chew your ear off dear reader.
1. Befriended a 20 year old kid from Kansas. He was in BJ (Beijing you pervs) to learn martial arts.
2. Walking around the hutongs at 2 in the morning a tad intoxicated looking for a KFC with some more Americans that we met.
3. Cramming our bodies into the subway car, my ass literally got pinched in the door. When the doors opened, I had my hand on one of the rails in the ceiling and everyone was flooding around me tryin to get off the train. My feet came off the ground from the massive wave of people movinng passed me.
4. The Chinese tourist areas were selling T-shirts with Obama's face on Mao Zedong's body. Now, if you know anything about Chinese history, that's just weird. We could talk for hours on the reasoning behind that shirt being made.
5. Kids pooping in the street and the parents cleaning it up. I guess its better than buying a diaper and creates less trash. Still pretty gross to see though.
6. Going to the "party" district of BJ and going to the restroom at one of the bars. A man was working in there and as I washed my hands he came to me and said "massagey?" and proceeded to rub me down and crack my back! What service! First tip I've ever given someone in China.
7. Homeless women using their cross-eyed kids as leverage while begging on the streets. It worked.
8. Randomly finding Jon and Lauren asleep in the middle of a field after the Mr.Big concert.
OK thats enough about the Beijing trip for now, lets move on. Recently I've decided that its time for my long hair to go. The problem was that I didn't know how to get it shipped back home for Locks of Love. Well, my mom is comming to visit soon (woo hoo!!) and she can take the hair back with her! So off it goes. For the first time in 6 years I once again have short hair and I gotta tell you, it feels amazing. I feel and look like a whole new person. Its like the hair was dragging me down (as lame as that sounds). The day after I cut it all off I had to teach high school and one of the teachers there approached me to tell me how much she liked my new hair style. I was teaching her class first and when I walked in, the kids were silent for a second and when they realized that it was me the all erupted! It was a good feeling. The asked me why I cut it and I told them about hair donation in the US and that this was the second time ive grown my hair out to donate and bla bla bla. After the class, the teacher came to me (who spoke pretty good English) and asked me more about cutting my hair and what I was going to do with it. As I was telling her, her eyes welled up with tears and I could tell that it was taking alot of work for her fight them back. She begins to explain to me that something like that is absolutly unheard of in China. That being: doing something so drastic without expecting something in return, and helping others in general. In China, your appearence is EVERYTHING and changing that so someone could have a better life just doesnt happen. The Chinese are a very selfish people. Im not saying that in a bad way, they just dont think about the people that need help. Anywho, she then tells me that she has a friend that is a TV reporter and that she talked to her and she wants to do a news story on me and my hair donation. I say sure! So on one of my days off I go to the highschool where there is a reporter and a camera man waiting to me. I bring my Chinese friend Elaine with me to let me know if they translated my message correctly. The talk to me and film me walking around the streets with a bag of hair in my hand. Then they ask me to walk into a post office like im going in to mail my hair away. The also ask me to kiss my hair as i'm walking in..... I say "no thanks, but I'll wave to it!". So that was my 15 minutes of Chinese TV fame. The kicker is that the interview was aired last night and I didn't even get to see it.
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