The Search for a Hand Machine

I think we've discovered how to have things to write about: no, not do more things! All we have to do is wait a few days between posts!

We've been writing from a nice cafe called "Zha Zha's Cafe." I have no idea who Zha Zha is, but I hope it's the nice older lady who speaks to us kindly and reads us characters off the menu when we don't know how to say them. It's a cute little place, well-decorated and homey, and they play either piano concertos or classic rock on the stereo. I'll bring my camera next time and take pictures.

The weather here has been crazy. The last two days have been sunny in the mornings. By 3pm or so, dark clouds roll in and it rains a fair bit in the late afternoons. Then, around 9pm, the skies open up, there are fantastic thunderstorms, and the streets flood. Unfortunately, this always coincides with our dinners out, so we sit in the restaurant, dejected, watching the rain flood the city. The first night this happened - Monday, I think - was the worst. Getting home was a nightmarish dream sequence: we dashed through ankle-deep puddles of what must have been acid rain, trash, and raw sewage, all the while trying to avoid being hit by bikes, taxis, and buses, as lightning flashed blindingly directly overhead.

We figured this wouldn't happen two days in a row, so we decided to clean house for Derek on Tuesday. Tom cleaned the kitchen and swept, and I mopped the floors and cleaned the bathroom. Taking advantage of the sunny skies, I did some laundry (mind you, this was no small task: I was on my hands and knees with a bucket in the shower). As luck would have it, we no sooner hung the wrung out towels and sheets to dry when it started to rain again! So now our towels still smell musty. But we put in a good effort.

Tom bought a cell phone today, and being the nice person I am, I went along to keep him company (however, don't be fooled: I ended up being nothing more than a big pain in the you-know-where). Near Capital Normal University, the school we attended in 2005, we found a gigantic underground electronics market. When we asked a cell phone salesman where we could buy used cell phones, he laughed and said nobody sold them there. But then they took us to the cell phone repair guy, who pulled several phones out of his desk drawer and offered to sell them to us. Despite the shadiness of the transaction, Tom bought one - the phone itself was 200 yuan, or about $25 - and an $8 phone card.

Still, I think we got a little bit ripped off. The salesmen, who were all crowding around and watching the spectacle, asked me if everybody in America thought Tom was shuai - handsome. Tom is quite the hottie in China. All the girls fawn over him incessantly, and even the men take notice. (Tom, I hope you are blushing. But, I tell you, dear reader, it's true.) However, whenever a salesperson tells you that you're good looking, it means they're ripping you off. Oh well.

Derek has a book called The Chan's Great Continent that Tom has been reading - and I have been waiting for him to finish so I can start. It's by Jonathan Spence, a well-respected scholar of China. I'd recommend reading any of his books, as he is academically sound and an interesting read. This book in particular documents different perspectives of China ever since Marco Polo was there (or was he?...) in the 1200s. We thought we'd share a quote with you spoken by Father Francisco Pimentel, a Portuguese Jesuit, when he visited Beijing around 1670:

"In summer the heat is excessive, and a greater torment is the dust, of which there is so much and fine that, when we went out on the street, our hair and beards looked like those of millers covered with flour. Bad water; innumerable bugs that get in one's clothing at night, and while we were there they bit many of us. The flies are infinite and importunate, and the mosquitoes worse... The streets are not paved... and this is the reason why there is so much dust, and when it rains unbearable mud" (43-4).

Hmm... sounds familiar.

P.S. Check out this link from The New York Times that Tom just sent to me: Chinese Market Awash in Fake Potter Books