Yesterday was my birthday (Dec. 2), and also Britney Spears'. She wasn't in attendance, but I won't hold it against her because I didn't invite her (she didn't show up last year so she's on the blacklist).
Thanks to everyone in real life, phone life, and internet life (including Facebook and e-cards) who wished me a happy birthday. It's hard to be "happy" when you're 24 and all of your peers are 21 or 22 - it's much easier to feel "old." The good news is that I was surrounded by 11- 14-year-old kids last night, which I suppose made me feel a tad younger.
Gareth, River and some other local teachers arranged for dinner at the restaurant (note, the restaurant). The food was really good and surprisingly void of the usual cow intestines, pigs blood, and chicken feet. There were fried eggplant slices (according to a local teacher, "Just like KFC!"), some salted beef with roasted green peppers, and my favorite potato dish, hash browns!
Gareth had to leave early for 晚自习 (wǎnzìxí), evening self study. We also call it 晚自杀 (wǎnzìshā), meaning "evening suicide" because we want to kill ourselves after it. We missed him at dinner, but even more importantly, he missed a hilarious moment with a local teacher.Somehow the topic of English swear words came up and Richard, River and I were all curious to see what swear words one of the better English teachers knew.
Although bashful at first, I eventually persuaded him to share and he came up with "Don't fuck around." He says he learned dirty phrases from expats while he lived and worked in Shanghai. "That's pretty good!" I told him. I begged of him, "What else do you know?" I couldn't have guessed his next curse: "This is my cock." River immediately burst out with laughter and, reciting one of the early English textbook phrases, asked a question and answered it all by himself: "What's this in English? This is my cock." I also learned from the local teacher a new useful English phrase: "Son of a dick."
The birthday boys at the restaurant: me, Feng laoshi, and Richard.
I agreed to meet up with my students at 8:00pm to celebrate my birthday with them, a good hour and a half after we were done with dinner. Their teacher that evening had to go to Lincang since she was sick, so they basically had a free-for-all evening study period. They came to get me at my dorm around 8, but the principal intercepted them and told them that "Because He laoshi (that's me) drank at dinner tonight, he can't celebrate with you."
Within 5 minutes, there were 10 crying girls at my room's door, holding a cake, sodas, and gifts, saying how mad they were that we drank at dinner tonight and that they just wanted to celebrate my birthday. Talk about heartbreaking. Richard, River and I were all confused because we had barely had two beers many hours prior to this point and were nowhere close to being buzzed, let alone drunk. We needed to talk to the principal. He hadn't been at dinner and had no idea what state we were in. For all we knew, he thought we were drunker than a college kid on his 21st birthday. We had to prove him wrong. Don't worry, there's a happy ending. Check back soon for part II.
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