Day 28

The Last few days have been interesting, from the mouth numbing oil, to the Moon Man, to the Chinese Zombie film I am watching right now.

I found a great blog about business in China. I also decided to build a PC for my apartment, and have been investigating the prices at the computer Market.

It is really cold today here, but I went to the shoreline this morning. The beaches are pretty nice, and there is great paviolion that lines most of the main beach. Three students escorted me by bus to the beach, where we strolled accross the sand on our way to the Moon Man, our final destination. Apparently this is a good year to be married in China (the year of the Rat). The numbers 6 and 8 are good numbers for Chinese. So, because it is 200"8" many Chinese will marry this year. With that in mind, there are black Audi sedans decorated with red flowers and ribons all over Yantai. The Moon Man is a steel statue of a moon sliver with a face on the inward side of the crescent. My students love me. The two girls offered to make me dumplings and peanuts/celery snacks next week. So, they are hosting a party at my apartment next Saturday. They are going to cook some food, and invite other students to come hang out, eat and talk. It should be fun. The girls also offered to find me a girlfriend. Hmmmmm. Well that is tempting, but I really should not date any students. Two weeks ago, Steve mentioned a "former" teacher who got into some trouble dating a student. That's all he said. So, maybe dating students is out of the question.

The mouth numbing soup was really my fault. John and I stopped to eat at a restaurant yesterday, while checking computer parts prices at SanJiang market. We ordered beef noodles, but they were really bland. The waiter stopped by and pointed to some spices on the table. John knew what they were. I added some spices I knew: hot peppers. He recommended some of the oil in a cask on the table. I happily poured a great big swath of it atop my noodles; I love oils. After a few bites my mouth started tingling and my tongue and lips became numb. Wooooo. Wierd. I couldn't taste my food very well, but I was really hungry from all the walking so I made sure to eat it all. Apparently, as John later told me, Chinese have used this numb oil for a long time; traditional Chinese love it, and so does John.

This is the second time John has stumped my very wide and open palette. Last time it was some noodles that tasted vaguely like watered down watermelon and dirty water, but apparently that's how it was supposed to taste. I didn't eat that, because I could taste it and it tasted gross. The numb oil was different, I had already tasted my beef noodles, before adding the oil, and some damn numbing oil was not going to stop me from eating my tasty noodles.

The Zombie film is just an experiment. I thought that, while all the american films I have been watching are nice, wouldn't it be nice to watch some really awesome Chinese director's Kung Fu movie. Well, the answer is yes and no. The Kung Fu and martial arts in the film are great. However the plot is well.....zombies, ancient warrior, prison break, zombie lord, ancient beauty, business men with giant (I mean really giant) assault rifle, cooky GQ guy with mad karate skills and a crew of eccentric yet many talented fighters of all kinds: think Mortal Kombat meets the A-Team.

In the end, one of the prison escapees, and not the other, is some sort of reincarnation of an ancient warrior, who was killed mercilessly in an ancient battle, and although he has no reason to know this: he is out to settle the score with the nearly invincible, bullet grabbing, well bulletproof, head zombie dude, who is not a zombie at all. The businessmen and the A-Team crew don't really have any reason to be there in the woods. They just want to cause trouble. Alas, they are soon coopted by the sombie lord to do his bidding and defeat the spirit of the fallen warrior.

In order to get the strength to defeat the zombie lord the prison escapee number two is in need of the beatiful warrior maiden's drop of blood hitting the ground, but he cannot do it himself, he is too noble: upon the drop of blood hitting the ground he becomes an unstoppable badass. After almost dying from a sword to the gut, we realize he is become a zombie after being bitten in the eye, and he can handle that because zombies are hard to kill.

When the blood hits the ground, he is a new man, and he basically dominates the zombie lord, scoring his neck with a blade and then kicking off his head in trademark kung fu flying kick style. It was a good movie!