Wo de zhoumo (My Weekend)
So this past weekend was similar to the one before, minus the ping pong. Every weekend I go with Helen to stay at her house, and then return Sunday evening. After getting picked up from the school, we picked up her son Daniel (pictured) from boarding school. He is such a nice kid, and he loves yo-yos. Helen told me that Daniel had told her that he wanted me to stay for good. I think it might have to do with the fact that he is an only child. In China, there is now a law that if you have more than one child, you must pay penalties to the government. Also, it might have to do with the fact that his parents work so much. I finally met Helen's workaholic husband, Wang Changtian. (I know what you're thinking, and you pronounce it "Wong", and it is his surname, not first name) What an inspiring guy. As President of Enlight Media, he has over 400 employees working for him across China in a private media company (competing against the semi-monopoly CCTV), and is worth $62 million at the age of 40. And to think, they only have a washing machine! They just hang the clothes on these lines in the garage! Kind of funny. Anyways, when we were talking, he had just finished running, and was still sweating pretty badly. So he starts to wipe his sweat with these tissues (they don't have napkins, even for dinner, just tissues for all purposes). Then he starts fanning himself with my piano practice book that was right next to him, not that I cared. The entire time I was thinking, "Why don't they have air conditioning?" This guy's making millions, it's 90 degrees outside, and you feel sticky just walking around this inferno of a house. Luckily, my room has a personal AC unit. Believe me, that room is so cold it takes your breath away when you walk in. I guess they are just used to no AC. We talked some about work possibilities for myself in Beijing, and I am pretty confident he will be a good reference to have. Other than hanging out at Helen's, at the mall I saw Ice Age 2 in Chinese. Ice Age 2 is a bad movie, I'll give it that, but in Chinese, it's horrible! At Chinese movie theatres, at least this one, you buy your tickets a few hours in advance and reserve certain seats. It really was nice, because we wandered around the mall and didn't have to get to the theatre early just to stare at a blank screen. While we were wandering around, we decided to do rock climbing. And by "we" I mean "I". I got two feet from the very top, but this wall was much harder and taller than the Shrimp Festival one I used to scramble up. The Chinese guy running the thing said he was impressed because my enormous feet make it more difficult. The looks I got when I got down were basically blank stares of disbelief. Disbelief of what, I don't know. What I do know is that they were very similar to the ones I get when I'm running around Beijing, a skinny white boy drenched in sweat, wearing only a pair of blue short shorts. It really is hilarious: Just today, the passenger and driver of a car going down the street stuck both their heads out the passenger window--blank faces just staring, not even trying to hide it. So now whenever I see something like this, like the 15 old guys playing checkers who stopped their games just to watch me run by, I speak some Chinese. Maybe I'll comment on the weather, or tell him how far I'm running. That really baffles them, but at least then they're smiling.