there had been weeks of build-up to Christmas. bizarre mixes of both sacred and secular Christmas music have been on the office’s playlist. I also cameoed as a santa claus with gender issues (no mrs. claus suit). I feel this warrants slightly more than an aside. during the first Christmas party, for our really really young students, we had only planned for 1 santa. when that santa was bombarded by kids asking for gifts, it necessitated an impromptu, emergency santa. that’s where I came in. so I had these big red pants, sans drawstring, with a gaping hole in the crotch. tucked into my cowboy boots. yee haw! I think I looked pretty silly and conspicuous. the second party was the not-as-young kids’ party. I was scheduled to be a santa. I worked my way up the ranks. there was a drawstring. there wasn’t a crotch hole (heh heh). but I still had the cowboy boots, dark hair and less-than-subtle earrings. so all the kids who I actually teach kept yelling at me. it was just funny because in America it’s a big deal when kids finally realize santa claus is fake, but here they made no effort to hide the fact that it was just a foreign teacher (and a chick, at that) in a costume, who really made very little effort to conceal her identity. and holy shit, can Chinese kids eat. I’ve never seen kids eat that much food.
so yes, Christmas came, saw and conquered. probably the most fun I’ve had abroad for a holiday. and it definitely beat last year’s shenanigans (feel free to reference my Christmas blog of 2008. a skinned dog, the set of hero and southeast asian midget kickboxers).
Christmas eve began with the most boring vip student in the world. again, I was reminded why I hate doing vips. particularly with soulless teenagers. after the vip, quickly changed into my retardedly cheap mrs. claus outfit (a mere 10 rmb) and headed to tepanyaki, where I was met by other like-dressed merry goers. so we ate tepanyaki. I seem to recall eating copious amounts of salmon sashimi. always a good base for a heavy night of drinking. I tried not to do sake, but it’s sort of inevitable in an all you can drink/eat “forum.” at one point there was an actual pitcher of sake. the steam coming off the top of the plastic pitcher only added to the magic of the night.
after the ‘yaki, headed to my favorite bar, maya, where we were met by several more santas from other schools. the ringleader of that group was george. george has been dubbed “him with voice of angel and mustache of pedophile.” so now seems like as good a time as any to rekindle my love affair with the term “molestache.” george also tells great jokes. just worth a mention. anyhoo, george had song sheets of Christmas carols for everyone. he stood on a chair and directed us as best he could. ‘twas magical, indeed. after that we headed to a few more bars in the general vicinity. I was remarkably sober and bored at about 3 am. I’m not sure if I find that fact depressing or pathetic, but I have the sinking feeling that it’s a combination of the two. why bother to stay up that late if you have no hangover to show for it the next day? is this the wrong attitude? Maybe it just reflects a certain lack of resolve on my part. I’ll try harder next time. that day/binge will come soon, I’m sure.
Christmas day was met by the promise of a buffet at the Shangri-la hotel. courtesy of the school’s investor. so that was nice. I believe I ate 3 plates of just turkey. with gravy. I believe my last plate of turkey also included gummy worms. it was a whole brown/earth tone motif I was going for. I also don’t recall seeing ANY chicken feet on the premises. that’s how you know it’s a fancy deal. there was a whole cheese section. Camembert, edam, some other expensive-looking (and extremely white) cheese. holy crap. with some fancy bread—not crackers purchased from the convenient mart—and olives. it was inspiring. free-flowing wine, champagne and beer topped it all off. if there’s ever a time to indulge in some excessive comforts, Christmas is the time. that’s what jesus was all about, yo.
as a few of us were finishing off the bottles of champagne, we came up with the genius idea to go bowling. but shitballs, how does one get a taxi in the early afternoon on Christmas day? maybe the country doesn’t celebrate, but there’s some innate calibration in every Chinese person’s head that they should all be looking for taxis at precisely this time. so that’s the pickle we were met with upon leaving the Shangri-la utopia. would we be able to actualize our bowling dreams? would any of us have the opportunity to pursue the elusive turkey (not the bird, the 3 strikes in a row…). so we went to try to hail a cab. a whole gaggle of drunk peeps who weren’t really to committed to movement so much as being outside, armed with the idea of trying to hail a cab. we stood there for a while, then serina had the bright idea to head back up to the hotel to just have them call us a taxi. so she literally stopped traffic by putting up her hand and standing in the middle of the street. the two lead cars coming from either direction were cool with it. but as she was waving us across, we all heard the crunch of hot, car-on-car action. she was already on the other side of the road, but she had literally caused an accident. a small one, but a rear ender nonetheless. serina had no idea what had happened until a little while later, when she realized no one had crossed the street. very funny. so we approached both cars, told them everything was okay and merry Christmas. surprisingly, that seemed to assuage any fears of real damage. whew. but here we were, still without the vehicle required to help us actualize our bowling dreams. then a shitty, small Chinese van rolled up. I have no idea why it slowed down, but it did. so we all descended upon this van and the driver. after offering him 100 rmb, he agreed to take us to the bowling alley. so this one tiny Chinese man let 8 foreigners into his van and took us to our destination. amazing. granted, he was pretty much eye-fucking serina the whole way, but we all ultimately got to where we were going. so that’s success. bowling was good. and travis actually did get a turkey. that bastard…my game quickly went downhill after that.
so Christmas was mostly good, but there was something that was instantaneously sobering. i got a text message from the seester saying that vic chesnutt was in a coma following a suicide attempt. Found out this morning that he died. perhaps it’s self-important of me to claim any emotional attachment to someone I barely know, that seems like a fair accusation, but when I read that, I just felt gutted. I don’t know why.
I feel it’s worth mentioning a bit about the man before I continue to talk about MYSELF and MY feelings about him. it’s funny, I was just trying to think of where to start and I had this very clear memory of his show at mojo’s a few years ago. I think it was a benefit show for one of the local radio stations. anyhoo, you never know what kind of weirdos free, public radio events will draw (I mean this in the best possible way), but there was this one middle-aged hippie chick who was dancing and wiggling all over the floor. the collective embarrassment for her was palpable. vic picked up on it and sure made a lot of fun of her. but she had those annoying anklets that had bells on them. anyway, Justin west, in true Justin west form said “get it, girl.” and that’s what sticks out in my mind. j. west and vic making fun of this free-loving, aging hippie who had no idea she was the butt of so many jokes, both funny and/or mean.
there was another time when he played in Austin. chris and I were given the really cool task of chauffeuring him around. he’s in a wheelchair, so it was necessary. I’ve never had any close physical contact with someone with an obvious handicap before, so I was quite nervous. and I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, but in a purely logistical sense. how self-sufficient was he? was he a self-righteous wheelchair-er? was he weirded out by people in his close personal space? I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions, so we sort of let him wheel himself around, feeling guilty and feeling it out, but feeling guilty about feeling guilty in case it was a part of his normal life. nothing to see here. but I seem to recall feeling a lot better to have him just fucking ask us to wheel him because it was hard work. that broke the ice. chris had to actually pick him up to put him into/remove him from the car, and in retrospect I’m jealous of that intimacy. it sounds weird. I’m well-aware. I don’t know how to explain it.
I remember his sense of humor. scathing, unforgiving, bitter, sarcastic. I remember him rather succinctly knocking a lead singer that I was fond of off of her pedestal. I think he just said something like “she was a fucking bitch.” and based on the previous banter, I had no choice but to believe him. I still can’t listen to this particular band anymore without thinking of his indictment of her. and I think that’s hilarious.
perhaps unrelated, but not really. there had to have been some segue in my brain. the college student I tutored last week had a Norton anthology of American literature with him. and I thought I was going to cream my jeans. except we can’t wear jeans at work. so I thought I was going to cream my corn. anyhoo, looking through it I came across a story by Raymond carver that I didn’t think of again until right now (actually a few lines ago). “cathedral.” I guess it’s shallow to find a linking technique between one very real handicapped person and a fictitious one in a story, but I’m human. the point is, it’s a fucking fantastic story. for all my hyperbole and my nationality, “fantastic” is not an oft- [mis]used word of mine.
and I think vic was a pretty fantastic human. A depressed and bitter one, but a funny man, and a man of principles. I’m incredibly lucky to have had any sort of personal interaction with him.
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