Yo yo ma im in China

I apologize for the tardiness of this blog, it appears that the Chinese government looks unfavorably at blogspot.com

Dear Reader,

Even with zee visa in hand, the road to China seemed to be laced with misfortune at every turn. Here is a game called two truths one lie and its pretty self explanatory
A. I lost my passport for about 25 minutes.
B. There was a cabin loss of pressure and those air bags that no one really listens about in the stewardess demonstration came down.
C. Our baggage got stuck in Beijing.

We met Mr. Tian (our boss) outside the baggage area and he arranged for our bags to come in the afternoon flight. So for the next few hours Mr. Tian took us around Chongqing, a city populated by 35 million. Mr. Tian took us to a fancy restaurant where I got my first experience of authentic chinese food. For all you Naysayers out there I tried 7 different mushrooms that meal alone and ate them no sweat (except for the fact that they were real spicy)
At this resaurant I realized two signfigant things.
1. I need to practice my proficiency with chopsticks (not the piano piece)
2. Chinese toilets are just holes in the floor upon which you squat over.
After lunch we continued to the Chongqing public cultural museum which was MAGNIFICIENT (see posted photos). Then we got to see why Chongqing is also known as Rivertown (see http://www.neatorama.com/2012/05/26/10-incredible-confluences-around-the-world/). Fortunately we will be returning here tommrow to get a medical exam.

Getting to Rongchang was like Daunte descending through the different circles of the inferno, but in this case, China. On the plane from Los Angelos to Beijing, I was part of the 30% cacausian minoirty. In Chongqing I certainly was unusual but not unheard of. In rural Rongchang, Kassy and I are two of three white people in the 200,000+ city. It a surreal experience unlike any other to go from Sean Scullin, 24 yro jobless suburban resident to celebrity status overnight. When people catch a glimpse of me their eyes go into animated symbols ($*!). I am Billy Pilgrim on the planet Tralfamadore, I am Justin Bieber in an all female high school, if these people were Jewish I may be pronounced the Messiah (For a complete description of who I am, listen to the song Guns and Cigarettes by atmosphere). If a pink elephant and I were placed in a room, not one of these people would pay the slighest attention to the offcolored enormous mammal.

My handsome (This adjective has been unanimously voted a fact by the entire city) appearance has the strongest effect on children. I am not very good at determining ages, but there is a distinctive difference in the reactions I get from children ages 2-6 and from 6-12. To the wee little ones, I am Sully from monsters inc, and I cause just about each and everyone of them to start bawling. Ironically, these childrens parents are obssed with thrusting these terrified toddlers in front of me and trying to make them shake my hand. The older kids are still a bit shy, but are absolutely mesmorized by me and they go into an uncontrollable fit of giggles if I look their way.

The food in China is unbelievably cheap and incredibly delicious. One dollars is the equivalent to 6 Yuan or Kuai (kwhy as it is prounced here). So everything is looks like its priced in American dollars but really its only 1/6 the price. So far Kassy and I have been feasting. Something that I found very peculiar is that it is much cheaper to go out to eat then to cook at home. This is a typical night at anytime between 5-7 "awww I don't really feel like cooking tonight let's just go get chinese food." Because we dont know how to read a menu or say anything we usually have to walk around and find people that are eating food that looks appetizing that way we can walk in and say "yao niege" (pronounced yow nayga). The first time we went out to eat by ourselves we sat down where no one was eating and just gave the waitress the thumbs up until she brought something. Turns out that ignorance is bliss, for she brought us the most scrumptious meal I've had in China. When the bill came to 12 yuan (2 dollars) I thought about slipping a five under the plate leaving a whoping 35 percent tip, but no body tips here and I thought that it might be taken as a gesture of pity instead of graditude.

A couple days ago, we meet our first Chinese friend Tony, who adores American culture, although has not grasped the concept of individuality. He wanted answers from Kassy to questions such as why do all american girls only like big muscles and black men. In China, if you find something that one Chinese person likes, you have got a market for 1.3 billion people. The movie the Titanic has dicovered this niche and has struck gold here. After showing us around town he took us to a Westernized fast food place in the main town area (it was actually the only food that I didn't really like and it was the most expenisive, an unheard of 4 dollars.) Afterwards we went to a place called KTV to sing songs were we proceded do have a very happy hour singing/shouting (in my case) karokee in a private room with strobe lights. People love to drink in china, but they don't have bars. So you either drink during a meal or at a ktv, usually you do both.  

Here are some other things that I realized I should have been writing about but don't want to exert the effort to explain them in full.     

In the first 4 days we were here, the rain didn't stop. The town next to the river area became flooded for the first time since 1981.

Our apartments are huge, if anyone wants to come visit me I can easily provide housing aww hell I'll even cover your food costs too. (we luckily have western toilets)

Driving is nuts, I shall talk about this more in the next posting, it's like everyone is playing mario kart and just went through a star.
Zaijian,
Sean

(answers a and C)