Shanghai American

You've gotta understand something. For the last year, I've mostly associated with Brits. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't enjoyed it, because I have (mostly) - normally I can figure out what they're talking about and I quite like their dry sense of humor - but there are times when I've felt a little outnumbered, and even though I know what THEY are talking about, the reverse often proves not to be true (how can you not know what a cougar is? Or how to teabag?) A typical Friday-Thursday in RAK would be me, Socrates, our married friends, and the school drunk...who are ALL British, and actually all of whom have degrees in one science or another, so while they were nerding out on things like gravity I sometimes found myself wishing for someone who would understand why the joke about Toulouse-Lautrec and the prostitutes* was funny.

Oh, how the tables have turned! Last night was myself, Socrates, and two musicians from Minneapolis. It was nice to have someone laugh at my "your mom" jokes and to not have to translate. I could get used to this!

We went to see them play last week - they had a gig at one of the restaurants on Hongmei walking street. This is the "scene" in Hongqiao/Gubei, if indeed such a thing exists. You can get just about any kind of food on this street - Mexican, Indian, Thai, Japanese...not Korean, actually, but I've got enough of those on my street - and there are plenty of bars as well, many of which have life music. It's also a little artificial, as this is whitey central and you will bump into any foreigner in the area, if you wait long enough. Michael plays guitar and Joann plays cello and they both sing, so it was quite different from the electronic shit we suffered through (for all of ten minutes) the week before.

Before we went out last night I needed to make a run to the bank and Carrefour. The bank closes at five and I didn't want to waste money on a cab, so as soon as we were allowed to leave school I was off like a rocket. Uhh. A bicycle-powered rocket. In fact, I was in such a hurry that I ran over someone. Yep. Well, he wasn't at the crosswalk and he was crossing against the stoplights, so what did he expect? It could have been worse - I only hit him because he hesitated and I slowed down, so it was not enough to throw me from my bike or get more than his foot. If you're thinking that this did ANYTHING to the way I ride, the answer is no. I continued weaving in and out of the traffic like a drunken bat out of hell, and in fact, discovered that it is just as fast to pedal to the intersection of Yan'an and Hongmei roads...one of the families I teach left the school at the same time I did, and we kept passing each other, which the kids thought was pretty hilarious. I lost them at Hongmei.

Anyways, I made it to the bank, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a LOT of money left (possibly enough to afford that spontaneous trip to Beijing my partner in crime suggested last weekend), and went to Carrefour, where I wandered for a half-hour before I remembered what I wanted (as I was next in the checkout line...grr) - a mosquito plug-in. I am declaring mosquito jihad on the little bastards as they've kept me up twice this week. I always found it a little troubling when my Dark Lord and Master used to set them on fire while we sat on the smokers' deck at GDA talking, but after two months in Shanghai, I've learned. I am still trying to figure out what else to do to take the fight to them - for now, decorating the stairwell in the gym with their splattered bodies and getting a good night's sleep is enough. But I'll keep you updated.



*Q: What did Toulouse-Lautrec used to say to the prostitutes at the Moulin Rouge?
A: Got time for a short one? Get it?!?

Funkadelic

It's Friday night. How do I describe the last 24 (give or take a few) hours? Let's begin at the end. I just finished watching the first season of The Office, which I downloaded off iTunes this week, in solace. I tried doing so earlier tonight, but I was pretty tired. I know this is going to come as a shock, but I had yet another late Thursday night...I came home around 1:30, but didn't go to sleep until 3. The difference between this week and most others is that I didn't go to church...I volunteered to do a belly dance workshop for the BRI'ISH SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE EAST FES'IVAL OF THE PERFORMING AR'S. Except we're calling it "middle eastern dance" (the preferred terminology by a lot of dancers, anyways), because the concept of belly dance may just be too challenging for the conservative parents (and possibly our patron, the sheikh), who will be coming tomorrow to watch the performance.

Never let it be said that I'm afraid to start trouble.

I've never taught belly dance before. Well, I've showed a few moves to a close friend or two, but never to a stranger, and never to adolescent girls. I was sort of uncomfortable with it at first - I introduced the basic isolations, which are not as fun. Once I showed them their first combinations, though, we all started thinking how cool it was, and really got into it when we started the choreography (four combinations, all told, taking up about 40 seconds of our allotted five minutes' performance). One of the girls was quite good, the other two did well enough and enjoyed themselves, and that's all I really want. Well, that and not offending anyone tomorrow...I can positively say there are NONE of the even slightly provocative moves in the choreography, but if any of the kids start singing "go bananza, shake ya body like a belly dancer" (gee, thanks Akon) tomorrow in front of the parents like I heard in the corridor today...I just see potential for this to bite someone in the ass. Probably me. Probably during a hip circle when my booty is sticking out behind me.

There was a drumming performance and free dinner tonight, and I texted a few people to see if they wanted to join, but everyone was still too hung over from the previous night's debauchery. And I couldn't be bothered with flying solo amongst the BC (British curriculum) staff, although they made me feel very welcome and never took the piss out of me once (which sort of made me miss OUR British people). Then - after my nice long nap - I ended up at Melissa's (one of our British people) apartments, and remembered that even MORE, I miss having conversations that meander around lots of different topics and don't focus predominately on one person. After I was there for a while, Socrates came over, and had to go and ruin the new potential to have a more interesting conversation by bringing up her camera.

Let's have a little flashback to earlier this week. Tuesday was silly staff day in secondary - the kids had to raise money to get the staff to dress up in silly costumes. Well, Melissa brought her expensive camera with her, and during the course of the day, it managed to transfer ownership in one way or another (it's unclear whether she left it in her classroom and it got lifted, or whether it fell out of her pocket when she went to change for her staff photo). It is suspected that it ended up in the ownership of some of the Emirati kids, that apparently are disliked by the rest of their year group (read: grade), but there is no evidence, and when they were questioned, nothing was gotten out of them. Well, she wants to drag the police and the parents into it, and Paul, who is head of that year group, was explaining to her that without any evidence, the head of secondary didn't really want to take it any further. To which my friend was adamant that if the head didn't have the balls to do it she'd go over him and get our principal involved, that they'd lean on the kids and they WOULD get her camera back.

And at that point, I opened my mouth and started going on about how it's not fair to do that to the kids (I don't particularly think it's fair to do it to the principal, either, he has enough to deal with and I think he deserves a break from our traumas), that you shouldn't turn them against each other, that even if these kids aren't liked, that WE are the adults and we have to act like it and set the example, and that using them against each other and encouraging that sort of discord is how shit like Columbine happens. And I was told that I'd sing a different song if it was MY 400 euro camera. Not true. I'd be pissed and feel violated and I'd store it up to bring out at a later date...but I'd - in essence - let it go, because at the end of the day, that's all you can do in a situation like this. And when I asserted this, I was told that she wasn't in the mood for it tonight and that I could leave. Which I did, a few minutes later, but not because I can't agree to disagree. I left because I was sick of hearing the Emiratis villianized, which was the course the conversation took after I was told I could leave. Don't get me wrong - khaleegis are not my favorites of Arabs, but recirculating the wrongs of the last couple of weeks is no healthier than recirculating air on an airplane. It stops you from seeing the good, and it's hard enough to see the good as it is.

But I couldn't help but feel a bit of a funk over the dismissal. In spite of the fact that I was a little bored, I played the part of Wing Girl admirably last night, and coached her with the advice that seemed to make sense from Why Men Love Bitches, which I finished earlier this week. She asserted that she owed me big time at one point, so to have her get cross with me so easily...

...admittedly I was being a little confrontational. I have been this week...

...was a bit of a slap in the face. And so I came back over to my apartment and watched The Office alone, appreciating the variety, the witticism, the many shades of American humor at its finest, missing Babysis, Tori, Evil, Sara, Bronte, Azhaar...basically those people who have been to the mattresses and back with me, those who let me get a word in edgewise and would actually care enough to ASK about my belly dance workshop at the other RAKESS, and who, in spite of my propensity for total bitchiness, or possibly because of it, love me all the more. Emptiness is NOT loneliness, Billy Corgan, it beats it anyday, but can't hold a birthday candle to the friendship I have with you guys. Love you :*