where is the toilet?

as some of you may know, china is filled with holes in the ground. some of these holes are actually used for the deposit of feces. you can find western toilets, they are around, but sometimes you just have to go. the first time i used a squatter was the beginning of october. i was in a small town, small meaning 500,000+ residents, and my stomach had not adjusted to the spicy food here yet. i was far from my homebase, so i had to use the restroom at the restaurant. luckily, it was not too dirty. sometimes they are filthy. no need to get into details, but let's just say i missed. i come out and there are two ladies who work at the restaurant in the hallway. my chinese was terrible at that time, so i try and tell them i am very sorry and i can clean it up. they don't even seem to give a shit (no pun intended). they just say, "welcome to our restaurant". so i got the hell out of there. i really believe they did not mind. this would at least give them a good story to tell their husbands, or kids, or something. "hello ping, how was your day?" "well, today i cleaned up a foreigner's poop". "a foreigner's!" "surprisingly, it looked just like yours baby."

anyway, i have gotten pretty good at using them. of course, i would like to sit down if i have the option. you know, read the paper or the back of the toothpaste. sometimes, the restrooms offer no privacy, because bodily functions are not a big deal here. but here is a photo of a clean, private one. maybe you can imagine how disgusting they can get.

holiday season

yeah, it has been awhile. if you lived in a place where there were gorgeous women at every turn and cheap booze, you would not have time to write either. they say the women are beautiful here because of the hot weather and spicy food, it does something for their skin. i could blog about the eye candy all day, but let's move on to the unusual way that two big american holidays are celebrated here: christmas and new years.

does anyone here actually know the true meaning of christmas? of course not. well some know it has to do with the jesus dude. i ask them what they know about it. "uh, he was born in a grass house". check, manger. "his mother was mary". yeah, that is right. "then he died on some wood". cross, you got it! that is about it. then i go into this spill about people who believe in him, the miracles, resurrection. one of my students said, "teacher, that's impossible". not that i would, but it is forbidden to actually preach to my students. i can give them the history lesson on religion, but if i tell them they are going to hell i would be out of here quicker than the brits when they took off with hongkong in 1898. for those who do not know hongkong has since been returned to china in 1997.

christmas time is here! yeah, another time to celebrate for virtually no reason! many of the chinese between the ages of 16 and 30 buy these inflatable bats/hammers/mace. they sell them everywhere around the holiday season. you buy these things, congregate in an open area, then proceed to beat the shit out of other people with them. i ask why is this done? the response, "it's fun". you can also spray each other with shaving cream and anything else that comes out of a can. i got drunk and got into the middle of a crowd and got beaten. in the very center of the city there will be thousands of people doing this. it actually can get dangerous. they bring out a shitload of cops for this. of course, they especially like to beat foreigners. i think the chinese just love an excuse to party. new years is no different. same thing. besides being drug out into the street and beaten, new years is not really that important. my friend kern says that this whacking does not happen in beijing, so maybe it is a southern china thing. chinese new years is the big holiday here. fireworks galore. it goes by the lunar calender so this year it is february 18. maybe i will take one of those blow-up bats and whack them on their important holiday. you know, "because it's fun".