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Location Date Fri, 23 March 2012 
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25th Blog Post!
Hello all - it feels like this should be my 125th blog post, given the amount of time I've been here ! These past few weeks have been pretty standard in terms of teaching but, last Sunday I went to Changsha for the day. Shopping, in case you were wondering, which was v.nice. I also visited Starbucks which was a real treat! It's amazing how things like going for a coffee in Starbucks have now become almost occasions because there're no Western places like that here in Pingxiang. Although, *breaking news* I did spy a McDonald's being built at Pxiang railway station went I went to Changsha :O yes, MaccyD's is coming to Pxiang. I knew it was only a matter of time...!
We also went for dinner last friday & went to a very small restaurant on the walking street in town, courtesy of Bob (our boss.) Here, local cuisine is the flavour so we were offered snails & duck heads as examples!! I'm not a fan of snails - too chewy & then to be presented with a dozen or so severed ducks' heads on a plate, with their half-opened eyes staring at you...no thanks. Ducks' heads are eaten, by the way, like a chicken leg, so you hold the bill in your hand & then chew/gnaw at the skin at the side and back of the head. The brains were still in there too probably. Reminded me of a bushtucker trial from I'm a Celebrity...Sadly I didn't take my camera to dinner, so you'll have to imagine ducks' heads on a plate. Yum.
The Qing Ming festival is coming up which means a bank holiday-type weekend next weekend which I'm looking forward to ! Hopefully will be able to take some strange & wonderful photos then, too.
xx
- comments
Ezequiel Living in a country like China, stoemimes you unintentionally lower your standards of courtesy:So I am getting ready to go back to the US, and I decide to go to silk market (beijing) because as far as finding shoddy merchandise perfect for gifting, it has one of the largest selections. I go to the third floor electronics section, and see mini-led flashlights perfect for my father. I go to a few stalls inquiring about prices, mostly sky-high, and finally arrive at one stall with a very nice, 3 inch long mini-led light. The girl at the stall quotes me 700 RMB (110 USD). I say, in very polite Chinese, I am buying this product in China, and it wouldn't cost 1/4 of that price in the US . So the girl flips out, and 3 inches from my face begins yelling, Whats wrong with China? Whats wrong with China? Why do you foreigners think you are so much better than Chinese? I am a relatively mild-tempered person, but when someone screams in my face enough to make me feel threatened, I bite back. So I take the flashlight, and bounce it off the tabletop so it knocks down her little tower of LED lights stacked on top of each other (bad decision) and tell her that I will not be spoken to like that. It was all I could do to restrain myself from saying, If you are really that tired of your life in Beijing, go back to your village where you can be with your family and not be pimped by these silk-market stall owners. But knowing that 90% of the people working there were from a similar background, I decided on account of my personal safety I had better watch what I say. Anyways, the girl is slapping me and pushing me, I am telling her that she has no right to talk to customers in that way, and the mob of nationalist sheep starts growing larger and larger. At this point my options are scram, or wait for something worse to happen, so I pull a Barry Sanders spin move and quickly make my way to the exit.Its really unfortunate that this girl has had such terrible experiences with foreigners that she felt it was necessary to treat me in such a way. I am generally quite courteous, however I won't stand for that kind of treatment. Lets all close up shop and move to Taiwan, where people respect each other.