It's the year of the Dragon.

Right now I am sitting in my bedroom at the baby blue and white desk that was placed here by one of my predecessors. Looking out of the window is a little difficult at the moment due to the grime that has accumulated from the terrible air quality of Jinzhou. What I do see though is a man with a broom that looks to be made of limbs of a bush and he is sweeping the grass. He is piling up all of the dog waste, firework casings, random garbage, and of course dead grass onto the sidewalk then preceding to light it on fire. This is why I pay 39 yuan a month for "property management". Seeing this has made me wonder of all of the other things that I encounter daily that I have just written off as.... well, normal. Of course I didnt always think of the lifestyle here as normal but after being here for a year and 4 months, it just becomes that way. I can go to the run of the mill corner store outside my building and buy a bag of chicken feet if I were so inclined. (they actually aren't so bad if cooked well) A couple of shops down, you can buy processed and packaged dog meat. That, I haven't tried, for a few reasons. The first reason should be pretty obvious but second is because I've heard from a few people that dog is actually delicious. I don't want to become a dog addict. Another thing that I've just thought of that I have become totally desensitized to is something we all wish we could do without consequence...... yep,I'm talking about public defecation. It's mostly youngsters engaging in this act of public ploppy time but on occasion you will see the adult that just couldn't quite make it to the squatter. In case you are wondering (and im sure you are), no, I haven't applied the concept of "when in Rome" as far as matters of rear evacuation are concerned. But hell, pee wherever you want! Those are just a few of the goins ons that I encounter on the regular here in the PRC, and ya know what? I dig it. We recently went through my second Chinese New Year. It is now the year of the dragon. It was pretty similar to last year. Same stage, different cast. On thing we made sure to do right this year was the fireworks. My friend Tim and I headed up that mission (more Tim than me). It wasn't hard to acquire boom booms due to them literally being on every street corner in the city. Well had no reservations on spending what needed to be spent to fulfill our need to blow shit up. Tim bought a box of which the size would normally be used to move apartments but in this case it was one huge system of fireworks that needed to be lit by 2 people simultaneously. I was very proud of him on this purchase. Of course this monster would be reserved for our grand finale. The other works we bought would by American standards would cost you an arm and a leg and cause for a massively wide birth when setting off, but here, they are pretty damn cheap you can basically put theme wherever you wish. We did actually got asked to take the big box away from the apartment buildings due to its size which made us all the more giddy. Good times were had even though it was incredibly cold outside (beer freezing cold) and by the time we were ready to set off the big box, our camera batteries had succumbed to the cold and died. The fireworks in the city lasted for over a week and began at 7 in the morning. Poor Cooper is not a fan of Chinese New Year. I cant imagine how loud everything must be for him. taking him for a walk last week was a gamble because you never knew when someone was going to be setting off their stockpile of fireworks. I tell ya, there were some sounds comming out of him that I've never heard before. I think he actually liked the visual aspect of the whole festival because he would look into the sky and watch the explosions, its just his sensitive ears couldn't handle the rest of it. There were a few times where he would be watching through the windows with my hands over his ears and his head would tilt as if he was actually enjoying what was going on outside. That didn't last very long though, he'd soon continue barking at the booms. We are both glad that it's over for this year. Time to wash the windows.

Tryin to hop back up onto the writting horse....

Whew! My greatest appologies on the amount of time between blog posts. Being in China, blog sites and social networking sites in general are blocked. If one wants to do some face booking or blogging they must acquire what is called a "virtual private network" or VPN. This basically tells the internet that you are logging on in someplace other than the PRC. The commuter that I came with and had been previously writing these blogs on had a VPN but it sadly bit the dust and is now sitting around collecting what it had bitten. I now have an ipad (dusting my shoulders off) and it has a VPN but the keyboard on it is not to my liking for longer writings. But now! my lovely mother purchased an ipad compatable keyboard as a Xmas gift and here I sit. Damn, where to begin. So much has happened since May. I've hit my year mark in China and have decided to sign another contract. I came to this decision pretty easily considering the economic distress America is currenly in. Its easy to save money here and I a good at what I do, so why the hell not? My family is healthy, im single, and I have no debt. If not now.... when? I have come to the decision that this lifestyle is for me. Not teaching english in china per say but traveling around and living in different places, doing different things. At this point in my life setteling down in one place for the rest of my life makes me kinda sick to think about. I suppose if I find a place where I can continuously grow I could consider it but i've yet to find such a place. Oh China! My beautiful, smelly, confusing, gigantic, infuriating, consistently inconsistent home. Cooper and I have grown to become pretty attatched to this small city. People in our appartment complex know Cooper by name and he has a few doggy friends (an enemy or two also). People still don't understand Cooper yet, they are terrified of him for some reason. One night I was walking him and we came to the front door of our building. About 30 feet away from the door was a woman walking to her home. She saw us and stopped dead right where she was standing, petrified. She stood there and stared and once she felt it was safe, she took off running as fast as she could. Sprinting as fast as a woman in heels could sprint she made it to what she thought was a safe diastance between her and my killer American canine. I was trying to open the door but I just couldn't, I was laughing way too hard. I hollered out in my best chinese "he is friendly!" but she didn't seem to care. Only the other dog owners seem to have no fear of the beast they call Cooper. If i've said it once I've said it a thousand times, if Cooper ever bit a person, I would walk up to that person and punch them in the face as hard as I could. Reason being, whatever that person did to get my dog to bite them, they deserved. So now they have a dog bite and maybe a little red mark on their face since i probably have the punching strength of a 7 year old. Friends have come and gone since my last entry which make me sad but thats the nature of this beast. It sometimes works for me since I have a hard time attatching myself to anyone anymore. Most recently one of my closest buddies took off back to America. He had been here for a few years and it was just his time. He came to China to be with the woman who is now his wife (she will be joining him after her visa interview) and I was fotunate enough to be the best man in their wedding. It was a pretty amazing experience, being in a chinese/american wedding. There really wasn't too much of a difference in the ceremony. My friend took pride in how little chinese he knew considering he had been ther for years so I had to hit him in the leg when it was time for him to say "I do" in Chinese. The ride to the reception and the reception itself was the interesting part. For some reason it is popular to be taken to the reception venue in a red convertible with someone hanging out of the back of a minivan filming the whole thing.. Once at the reception, it is tradition for the bride and groom along with the maid of honor and best man had to go to every table have have a toast with them. This involves drinking a small glass of booze, not just a sip. They had 10 tables of guests. Needless to say I had to pass a few times or at least stand behind some people and pretend i was drinking. That was the first thing we did! I had the whole night ahead of me. Remember the "music group" I had mentioned in previous posts? CrewesiFreed? Well that ship has obviously said dues to Crewe moving to Moscww but not to worry! A new group has been formed. Its a 3 piece comprised of my friends Ricky, Tim King, and myself. Our name is "King Richard the Freed". Good stuff. any who, the bride asked me a while before the wedding if I would sing a song at the reception and I agreed. Thankfully Ricky and Tim were there to go up there with me. Ricky played guitar, Tim played the bass, and I was on the mouth. We played "Crazy Love" by Van Morrison and it sounded really good. Our first gig was a success. I wish I could say the same about our second........ to be continued.