Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Swine Flu and Basketball

I was pumped today because I was invited to play basketball with the Goodyear engineers. Rumor had it I was slated to be a first round pick...a poor man's Oliver Miller. Unfortunately there was a break down late in the afternoon, so most of the guys had to work over...the game got cancelled. DAMN!!!! They said we might play next Monday or Tuesday...I hope to get a game in before I leave. It should be funny!

Every time I think about it, I think about the movie Airplane in reverse....when Striker and Jane join the peace corp and go to Africa and teach them how to play basketball....only in reverse.

So the last two days, every time I get in a cab the drivers look at me horrified. I couldn't figure it out, until this afternoon. They are all afraid I have the Swine Flu. They're scared to death. I have two Rockwell People with me from Shanghai today and tomorrow, so they were the ones that let me in on the secret.

We were driving along, and the taxi driver starts talking to Jennifer. She turns to me, "He afraid you have pig sick."

Mind you, we are now driving through an area that looks just about as sanitary as standing water in a landfill.

I nod, and say, "Yeah, that would be my main concern..." Very funny...we literally walk by standing piles of garbage, and they are worried about Swine flu! (I got a good chuckle about that)

I can't believe my trip is starting to wind down. I'm to a week before I come home. I'm going to do a lot more exploring of Dalian this weekend. I'm also going to visit Jerry "Bad Noodle" Wang's family in his hometown. That should be fun.

Oh! I forgot to mention a story. When I was in Beijing, Woody invited me to his home for dinner with his wife and mother. They wanted to teach me how to make dumplings.

I went there the Sunday I left. His Mom had all the stuff set out and we started by making the dough. Once you get the dough done...you mix the ingredients in a bowl. We made two kinds, pork...and my second favorite saying in China, "Some kind of vegetable".

Between hearing, "Yes" and "Some kind of vegetable", that answers about 75% of my questions.

We then had to put the meat and vegetables into a tiny piece of dough, then fold it over and seal it. Woody's Mom made one. She did it so effortlessly that I thought this might be easier than I thought....um....no. When she made hers, it took all of 5 seconds and looked like a perfect dumpling...just like at the restaurant.

So I give it a shot...mine looks like a 3 year old's creation with play dough....not so good. His Mom laughs and encourages me in Chinese....at least I think that's what was going on. I try a couple more...same result. Eventually after my 20 or 30th attempt...I get one that kind of looks like a dumpling. Woody then tells me, "You now have your dumpling certificate...would you like to go for a degree?"

"I think a certificate is all the farther I'm going to get..."

So his Mom takes them all into the kitchen and starts cooking them. Woody comes out and tells me she is cooking mine first..just in case they don't make it, we can have dumpling soup. I started cracking up! "What no faith? Those babies are hand crafted nuggets of love." I have Woody translate that for his Mom, she starts laughing! I'm proud to report that all my dumplings managed to survive the cooking process!!! they looked like used play dough, but tasted good!!!

Woody also made me try Ma-Tie..I think that's right. It's Chinese liquor. I tried one little shot glass....I'm pretty sure that someone is packaging jet fuel and pawning it as liquor. It's horrible!!! And it's stronger than hell! Way stronger than anything we have in the states...gasoline, jet fuel, ether...those are a few names that come to mind. The whole family got a good chuckle at my face after I drank that.

All in all, a really nice visit. I had a great time! Woody is good people!

Also, I saw my first movie star commercial today. There was a commercial on TV for Turkish Airlines. Kevin Costner was the star of the commercial. It was hilarious! The premise was that you'd feel like a movie star once you flew with Turkish Airlines. It's Kevin Costner the whole way through, then at the end, he looks in a mirror and you see that it's just a regular Joe. REALLY cheesy! Not disappointing at all! I'm on the look out for more, but I think that's more of a Japanese thing.

1 comment:

  1. One more week. We can hardly wait to see you again and hear your stories in person. The answer is YES and we will eat "some kind of vegetable".

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