A couple weeks ago I published an article on a few happenings that occurred when I moved to China as a teenager. Here is part two of those years!
Episode 1. Zoom Zoom
Traffic in China was like nothing I'd ever seen before. When you're first immersed in Chinese traffic, it seems like the traffic lights, signs and lines are merely suggestions. There are hundreds of cars, thousands of bikes and mopeds, and millions of pedestrians. I couldn't make sense of any of it and was slightly afraid for my life every time I got into a taxi the first few weeks. But after a while I started to understand the the rhythm of it. Chinese traffic is like a beehive; it looks chaotic and crazy, but they have a system and they do it well.
I got pretty good at crossing a street lane by lane and would make myself sparse when two trucks were passing on either side. And I learned to bike my way through the streets of China like a bumble bee myself.
Nobody seems to like me very much when I get on a bike here in the U.S. though . . .
Episode 2. The Bargain
In China, you bargain for practically everything you buy. Even when you're grocery shopping at the local markets you have to negotiate a price for your meat and veggies. Once I got my Chinese down, I actually really enjoyed this part of my grocery shopping. It was even better when I was negotiating with a seller who liked to bargain too.
Episode 3. Now You See Me
Somehow I ended up with the opportunity to dance in a production put on by Yunnan TV. When I arrived in the city where the production was to happen, I was taught the choreography and we practiced on this giant stage that they were still in the process of building.
After lunch, they changed the dance to a different set of choreography. By the time the first show came around, I completely forgot which steps I was supposed to do. So I made it all up.
The same thing happened the next night as the choreography had been changed again. So on the third day, the day it would be filmed on TV with a live audience of over 20,00 people, I asked them not to change the choreography. They didn't, except right before the show one of the dancers came up to tell me that at the end we were going to hold hands, spin in circle and then he would hand me wrapped sticky rice. I managed to get through the dance with the right choreography, but when I was handed the rice I had no idea what to do with it. So I smelled it and smiled.
Luckily they cut that part out of the TV showing.
Episode 4.
The day after the production I ended up in the hospital. When I woke up, I found myself in the hospital bed with a few other friends; several Chinese men and women who were part of the TV production were sitting on my bed, smoking and talking to each other. Before I had even made it to the hospital, a nice lady had also tried some Chinese medicine on me by pinching my forehead until it bleed under the skin. So I had this lovely bruise right between my eyes, which my mom found very entertaining as the bruise was shaped like a star and my Chinese name happened to mean Star.
Yup, definitely felt like a star that day. . .
