Adventures in Guangzhou!

I thought that I had more or less been to all of the major sites in Guangzhou after last year but David, my good friend and coworker, proved me wrong on Tuesday. He invited me to play basketball with some of his friends which I gladly accepted. I figured we would play where we usually do when we go off-campus (a court in a health club down the road) but I was wrong. It just goes to show that anytime you expect something or depend on something to be the same in China, you are mistaken. But I digress.

We headed off on to the highway to the outskirts of the city (which I sometimes forget is ginormous) and lo and behold I see a massive stadium rise up in the distance. My fellow passengers informed me that this was the athletic stadium and training complex which was built three years ago for the Chinese olympics. If I understood them correctly they have a big competition around the country every few years that serves as a national championship of sorts. In true China style, this facility was over the top, graying from air pollution, and looked sorta bizarre.

Since we arrived a little early we drove around the whole area and saw the provincial training facilities for all of the top athletes. I learned that anybody who is truely a top level prospect for any sport is pulled from school and trains full time. This includes young and old and means that the kids either make it professionally or are kind of screwed. I pointed out that the lack of education for those who don't make it is devastating and they just sort of shrugged. Sure, it's less than ideal, but I guess it's just one less kid competing with their kid for a spot in one of the better universities.

The basketball itself was pretty unexceptional (we got worked around by a bunch of high school kids) but the experience as a whole was well worth it. And speaking of new sports experiences, I had a fun adventure with my football buddies after we played this past Wednesday. China was playing Singapore in a qualifying game for the 2007 Asia Cup and the captain of my squad decided to have people over to watch. I went over to his apartment once last year but left after a little while because I really just couldn't communicate and was tired. This time it was a *completely* different experience.

For the first time I saw my teammates as what they really are--good friends who like to sit around telling jokes. As we waited for the game to start we sat outside the flat just chatting and enjoying the early evening breeze. I think these guys' idea of paradise is to play football as much as possible and sit around afterward making wisecracks--a concept that I must admit appeals to me in every way.

The game itself was only noteworthy in that China missed about half a dozen golden opportunities, but what was noteworthy was that I felt like I really belonged. As usual I couldn't understand everything they were saying, but I could follow quite a bit and managed to contribute some commentary of my own during the game. In some ways it's depressing to think that my Chinese is still closer to not understanding a word than it is to being fluent, but I have made progress. And I'll continue to improve, even if it's only slow and steady.

After the match (an embarassing 0-0 tie) I went out with four of the guys to get some dinner. I figured that we would just grab something quick but once again my expectations were wrong. We went to a little hole in the wall joint that served seafood and ordered up this porridge-like creation in which you choose what goes in the broth. I went with Mr. Huang to view the possibilties and tried not to act surprised when he chose. The shrimp swimming around in the bucket didn't freak me out, but the frogs did--once we chose them and the guy slammed them down on the sidewalk to kill them. Yum!

I got over the shock though and it tasted great. I thought that we'd take off right after we finished but that's when they ordered beers. Hmmm. Being a Wednesday night I figured that we'd have one or two and then had home but once again, it was not to be. They told me they were going to teach me a ppopular Chinese drinking game and without letting them finish I told them I already knew how to play. I was betting on the fact that they were going to play the dice game (pretty much the only game they play in bars here) and I was right.

The dice game is a basic drinking game where each participant gets a cup with five dice. Each person shakes the cup up and looks at his or her dice without showing anyone else. Someone then starts the "bidding" in which you wager how many of a certain number there are (e.g., nine 4's in total). The next person either has to up the number of dice or the number being wagered (e.g. nine 5's or ten 4's) or call B.S. If someone class B.S. then everyone shows their dice and the person who wagered has to drink if wrong. If the number on the table equals (or is greater than) the wager, the person who called B.S. drinks. I'm making this sound complicated but it's about as basic as it gets.

Anyhow, it's a fun game and not all that difficult so it was easy for me to wow them with my skills. About two hours later it was time to go home so we had to end the game. The way they decided to do it is that if you were wrong on a wager or call you stopped playing, survival style. With a bit of luck I ended up being the last man standing, after a standoff with Mr. Huang. This was pretty satisfying both because I like winning and because it won me that much more "street credibility" with the guys. On the way home they told me that I was fun to go out with and that we needed to do it again. I can't even imagine what adventures may lie in the future with these guys.

And to top off the week of new experiences, we had our school banquet yesterday to celebrate the start of the year and Teacher's Day. While this was not my first banquet it was definitely a new experience. While last year we had the banquet only with our school, this year the powers that be decided to have it together with the three other schools that are loosely affiliated with ours. As far as I understand it our Hua Fu is the main branch and the top school while the others are almost like satellite campuses for those that weren't good enough to get into our school.

Whatever it is, there were a ton of people at this thing. They had to move the banquet to a restaurant in Foshan, a neighboring city, because there was no establishment in the GZ that could hold so many people. In all I'm told we were a party of over 1000 people with hundreds of different tables. The restaurant we went to was just as big as I anticipated and the food was pretty decent. I also enjoyed it because this time I knew exactly what to expect and went around toasting all of my friends and coworkers, as is tradition. I drank enough cheap red wine to get a whole table of Chinese people drunk but walked away at the end of the night with only a small buzz. I love this place.