NingBo Hold-overs

So there were two gems from the Ningbo Hat Tournament that I forgot to add to my last post.  The first being a wonderful new song, a real pump up beat.  Enjoy...




Next time you're having an outdoor dance party crank this up and wonder about why none of us can make money writing music.

The second was an analysis of the movie Avatar.  One of the guys from Beijing had his Chinese students watch the movie and then discuss it is in class.  To anyone from America or Europe the sometimes overbearing theme of colonization and the oppression of indigenous peoples was obvious.  To one of this guys students however it was not, presumably because China does not have such an extensive history of colonial rule.  His conclusion? If you can get a big bird you'll get a girlfriend and be important and successful.  "Big bird" or 大鸟(da niao)...think about it.

Dave Plays Frisbee

  Yesterday was the Chinese Qingming Festival, where you go to the graves of your ancestors to remember them. It's one of the more important holidays in China so everyone gets a day off, from school and work, all across the country. Due to my job only being half a real job, we get Fridays off, this holiday gave us foreign teachers a little vacation. Some of the other teachers decided to go down to Hong Kong to indulge in some comforts from home, see the ocean perhaps, and in general take a break from the monotony that Taigu can sometimes be. A couple weeks ago Nick let me know about an Ultimate Frisbee Hat Tournament in Ningbo that would be happening Saturday and Sunday. I like frisbee, I wanted to go somewhere warm, so I decided to tag along.

  We decided to first stop off in Shanghai on the way down, catch some friends of ours on Friday, hit up the tournament Saturday and Sunday, spend the holiday back in Shanghai and get some good western food (I've been craving Mexican, we settled for Tex-mex), and then get back to school Tuesday.

  Our preferred method of travel? Train! It's cheaper than flying, you can get an overnight and arrive in your destination with just as much time to putz around as if you flew in the night before annnnd you don't need to get a hotel, + + and +. Plus the soft sleeper cabins are plush, little mini-TV, reading lights, and the ever scarce western style toilets.

  Anyways, we got into Shanghai at 9:30 or so in the morning and began our attempt at meeting Dan (our Shanghai friend). To those who don't know, and I think this should be most of you, Shanghai is hosting the World Expo this year and the Pavilions will open on May 1st. So, just like Beijing for the Olympics, the Shanghai Municipal Government has been encouraging citizens to be extra helpful and courteous to travelers who will be visiting Shanghai in huge numbers next month. We got to get a little taste of that hospitality firsthand.

   This gentle old Chinese man standing in the picture with Nick was our own personal tour guide of the Shanghai Metro system. At first, when he very loudly asked us, "where are you from!" on the street, we were kind of apprehensive. On a separate occasion we were asked the same question by another old man, who admittedly was much more poorly dressed, only to discover when he walked away that his ass was hanging out of his pants. So we kept our distance, but to our benefit he was quite persistent. He squeezed "Meiguo (美国）" out of us, which means "American," then what we were looking for, then which metro line, then our final destination in the city. Eventually he made it his personal duty to escort us into the metro stop, onto the metro, and see us safely on during our transfer from line 1 to 2. But before we departed we had to have a picture with him. I remember a time when my family went to New York City and my brother got stuck on the subway while the rest of us got off, my Mom got quite upset. Well this time I failed to get on the train after Nick because I was too busy putting my camera away. This old man, who we had just met an hour or so earlier, had almost the same reaction as my Mom. He didn't pound on the doors at all but I did have to reassure him several times that I would be fine before he settled down. When the next train showed up we shook hands, smiled and he most likely went off in search of the next pair of un-interested by ultimately happy foreign tourists.

  From there it was off to buy cleats, meet Dan, eat good food, buy costumes, eat more good food and then jump on the Party Bus with the other Frisbee players down to Ningbo and the 2nd Annual University of Nottingham Ultimate Frisbee Hat Tournament. The bus ride was a riot, a couple shirtless shotguns, some "Shanxi Famous Brand" fenjiu cocktails, lots of beer and a general disregard for the next day's games. 

  We saw this guy on the walk to the field Saturday morning. You could honestly create tomes of photos of overloaded trikes in China (see the trike in Shanghai from Gerald's video, posted in early March).

  I can say with certainty that I felt more sore after the four games of ultimate on Saturday than I have in a very very long time, it's gotta be the whole "not in college anymore" thing. You know how if you run for a long time without stretching properly your calves tend to feel like rocks afterward, kinda pushing out on your skin but unwilling to move, forcing you to walk flat-footed. Well that's how I felt from my knees up to my belly button, plus a bit in the calves too. Diagnosis: Out-of-shape, another "round and fleshy twenty something" as my old high school phys. ed. teacher used to ever so eloquently put it. 

  And I plan on going to more of these in the future because despite the aching it was a ton of fun. I got to meet a bunch of cool people, play in some really fun games, see some cool places etc... etc... On the con side however, this tournament has ruined Lady Gaga for me. What was once a stable and enjoyable guilty pleasure has been beaten to death. Between repeating songs on Saturday during the games, to more repeating at the club that night, to an entire neglect of playing anything but Lady Gaga on Sunday at the games I think I've heard Poker Face, Bad Romance, Just Dance and a couple other songs, such as Tik Tok by Ke$ha almost 30 times a piece.

  Here are some choice photos courtesy of yours truly from the tournament.