Home Town

I stayed in my hometown for 2 weeks.

It is such an interesting place. It will always have a special place in my heart and yet I will never want to go back and live there, ever, again.

The reason I am still trying to go back is because my 82 years old grandma is still kicking and well. She is awesome. Despite the fact that she had a stroke 3 years ago, and became half paralyzed, she is in fine shape. She eats three times a day, and poops at least once a day. Doctor said she has a heart of a 30 year old and all other vital organs are always working properly. Her skin is good too. At age of 82, her face is tight and no sagging whatsoever. Oh the irony. I mean she barely uses lotion and the only means of clean her face is to use a hand towel. Yet, compared to my friends who are in their 20s her skin is like a flawless jade. She lost her ability to speak already and she is too embarrassed to even try. I actually think that if she really tries, she can get it back again. Ah grandma, she is so sweet.

I have to mention my aunt too. She is probably the best daughter anyone can have. She cooks the three meals a day that my grandma eats and every meal is different. In addition my grandma is a faithful Buddhist so she can't eat any meat. Despite the difficulty of cooking up different recipes, my aunt keeps the menu fairly diverse. Also, my grandma needs to pee, a lot. So my aunt can never leaves the house. During the day she has to take her to the bathroom numerious times and it doesn't stop at night either. For that reason, my aunt has to wake up 3-5 times a night to help my grandma pee. Luckily there are two other aunts who assist her to take care of my grandma. They do it in turns, like the old traditional family would for their elderly members. It touched me tremendously and definitely made an impact on my behavior as well.

On the other hand, my other grandma, my mom's mom, has become insane. I mean medically insane. She became insane when my mom was young but luckily her condition was stable. She wasn't going around stabbing people, rather, she just walked and sang weird songs a lot. My favorite uncle and my mom would hold my grandma's hand and walk with her, you know, to just make sure she doesn't wonder off to far away or kill herself. She was known as the crazy in the community, ah, my poor mom and uncle. Even though people would know that she is the crazy person in the neighborhood, no one was afraid of her since she only does her own thing. However, this time I realized that she is much more than just a bit crazy and her "own thing" affects tons of people in the family. For some reason, she feels that she can die at any moment and believes that my mom and my uncle have infinity amount of money. In her own words, "my son prints money!" So, she goes to hospital whenever she has one of those panic episodes. Everytime she goes, she demands to stay there in observation. Of course since it is China and it is my hometown, where hospitals are like hotels, and some doctors are no better than butchers, they are more than glad to admit my grandma till they hit the capacity of beds, only then they kick her out. She, on the other hand, without realizing her own craziness, is so grateful that those doctors are saving her life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are wasted like this and my mom is so helpless. After closely examine her, my grandma in fact is a healthy person. She has diabetes but only to a small extend. Doctors already prescribed her insolent and other medicines to keep her blood sugar level in check. She is much healthier than her children in some aspects. So, my mom has talked to my uncle and decided that they can't fuel her bank account as if they are printing money. The funny thing is if she doesn't have money she will demand it from her children. Soon enough she has figured out who really has money. Then she will focus on that person, using irrational shouting, calm guilty attacks and some tears and hysterical non-sense talking to make the richer children to give in. See, even a crazy mother can master these conventional means to make their children's life miserable. Oh mothers, we love and aren't we helpless. She has four children and only my mom and my first uncle gave in a long time ago. My grandma, with this information has seized asking money from her other two children altogether. If the per month payment to her bank account is slow or little, she will give a verbal beat down with a long distance phone call whenever she can. Isn't she sweet. But the nanny told us that despite the fact that she is crazy, she is not stupid. If the bank account doesn't have enough money in it, she will not go to the hospital. So now my mom and uncle decided to limit her per month allowance and spend that money on insurance because you know the real expensive expenditures will come later, when she is ACTUALLY sick.

See, isn't my hometown just the best place haha.

Also this place has so many memories. Good and bad of course. I had the most fun when I was little here. In the winter, which lasts more than 5 months a year, snow will cover just about everything. Ground will be frozen and form an inch thick icy shell. Cars are forced to wear chains to operate and salt trucks will never stop working during that time. Back then people's living standards weren't high so we didn't have the snowboard and ski resorts. So all we could do was ice slides, sleds, skate, and making snowman everywhere. It was simple yet it was the best as I know it. Compared to how I am today, I am always amazed how easily kids could back satisfied back then.

On the other hand, hometown is also the place where I started to realize that I love the cock. I actually taught a friend of mine how to jack off and then we would have jackoff sessions. Then I proceeded to suck his balls, hmm.. as an eleven year old kids and I was already not that innocent lol. He was clueless though. He is straight and I kind feel bad now. When I visited two years ago he was supposed to come to my dinner party. I actually thought, oh man, awkward... But he never showed. I guess it was a bit awkward. haha.

Hometown is also a place where I got critically sick. That was the darkest time of my life. It was an autoimmune disease which still lingers today. The disease hit fast and hard and made my body a permanent host. I was sick then dying and it developed extremely fast. My parents didn't realize its severity and that made me hate them for a long time. Especially my dad. But everything is ok now.

Everytime I go back, regardless for what reason, all the memories would find their way back to my heart. It is the little detail that makes my mind tingling all over. I would sometimes smirk, flush, or laugh out loud without myself even knowing it. I guess something can never be forgotten.

For those of you who can barely see snow in your life, this is how my hometown looks like in the winter. It is peaceful, quiet and yet the calm whiteness that envelopes city comes with a bang every year. I love it.

Brokeback lamb

One thing that we Chinese do really well is food. If we could, we would eat our way to world conquer. If it is possible, we would cook rocks and make them tasty. If the resource permits, we would make eating a celebrated natural sport. Well, actually that has already happened, lol. The freaking crazy food that I had was absolutely insane.

The restaurant we went serves some kind of delicacy from southwestern china and the main scheme is BBQ. It differs from American BBQ. What they do is to chop off an entire chunk of raw meat and roast it on an open fire. Basically they cook everything the way they make rotisserie chicken, but with a much stronger open flame and the finished product would inherit the quality of the wild animal and untamed flame. It is incredibly masculine and it feels raw and wild. It is very sensational and it makes my mind wander off to the highland deep in the southwestern region, dream about herding, humping, and eating like an animal. Lol, a bit brokeback mountain. Well, maybe that is why I like the food so much!! hahaha.

Because of our late arrival, we had to order the back section of a lamb. The more common leg and chest meat are gone. The waitress told us that the meat is manageable, basically small enough for three even though it means that we are pushing it a little bit for us. I thought pssh, whatever, I could eat 1.5 lb prime ribs I could eat the back of a lamb. I swear that it looked small on the picture too.

Was I wrong. The thing was carted out by the chef and the whole thing spread more than 2 feet wide. It looked like a B2 bomber model made by lamb meat. It was definitely a sight to behold. Apparently, this feast item was usually ordered by a party of six. The waitress tricked us!!! So they have a special little something for this item. Before we realized what exactly it was, a singing crew of 4 people came out of nowhere in traditional southwestern Chinese costume. Forget the girls, I mean they were cute, but the dudes, apparently they were southwestern natives. Their muscles were bulging out from their little white open chest leather vest. Their voice was thick and masculine. Even though the long lasted like only 1 minute, I was mesmerized. Anyways, the food was good but overwhelming. I mean for people who indulge lamb before, you should know that lamb fat tissue crystallize on the surface very fast and it becomes extremely greasy, so half way through, we were literally battling with this piece of meat, fighting a lost battle against the fat tissue and never ending meat and bones.

I don’t think I would ever eat this again, at least not in this fashion. It was good nevertheless and I wish that LA eatery could be a bit more daring in this direction.

Omg I am finally back

The trip was pretty long. In fact it lasted much longer than I expected. Lots of things have been handled, private and business. There is a lot to write about hehe. But as for now I am just gonna take a break because I am so tired and everything feels so swollen on me beh....

Blogger is fucked, well maybe my internet is fucked

I can't read any blogspot blogs anymore. It is weird considering the first two days I could still read most of them. But it's been two days that I can't load any blogspot blogs anymore. However, I can still log on blogger and post!!! Talking about being frustrated. Also, I can't read any comments either.

The trip has been quiet. I mean, it is interesting to see how people's mind works when you are in a different environment. Here with the family, the goodie goodie kinda strict family, all I see is the traditional family, the a good kind of Chinese middle class family should be. In this environment, I am very calm and I "gasp" read "gasp" during the day. I am on my second novel by Chuck right now.

The weather is so nice out today. Big fancy clouds are resting in the sky. I don't know. I think fat lazy clouds make people lazy too. It's been raining for the past three days so today is the first day that I see blue sky. I really want to have a jog in a park or a hike on the mountain nearby. But since my cousin is busy with her studying and I don't really know the direction well. I am gonna just keep myself busy at home I guess.

Yeap, as you can see, all I can talk about is the fat clouds and sky, it is how uneventful each day has been. It is just kinda nice, quiet, and calm here. I was talking about drinking and partying with my cousin and it is funny how distant those things seem to be right now in this kind of chill environment. So far so good. It is chill I like it, but if it never changes, I will go fucking nuts.

Academic prison

This is no shocker in China but it is just almost unbelievable for me. I personally do not think I have the capability of doing this but I guess once a person is locked up in this academic prison, he/she can do a lot more than what seems to be impossible.

I am talking about a local boarding school. The school is located in a somewhat remote area near the city. It is about 40 mins drive from my uncle's home. The school is literally built at a corner of the city since it is surrounded by a very big mountain from 3 directions. The one open direction faces a newly built road. We went there last night to pick up some review material for my cousin. The school, which was still under construction in the front gate looked like a black gaping hole that would devour everything and store its prey in its mountain belly. It looked almost like mythical creatures and the mountain eerily stood behind the school and watching over the little human beings passing by. The whole thing was just creepy and the place just felt chilling despite the fact that the air was warm and humid.

I got bit like 3 times by mosquitoes. The bugs here were skilled and persistent. They wouldn't back off or give up just because you strutted your arms like a chicken and hope that they would leave you alone. No. That is not going to happen. They would learn your strutting pattern and find a place that you apparently neglected and bite the shit out of you. Now they are itchy. I am scratching, hard. ARggggg...

Anyways, this is how the school works.

It is a high school. High school means a three years grueling journey toward college. In addition, high school also means National College Entrance Exam. There is a committee setup every year and the members of this committee are usually locked up for several months to design the problems in this exam. The exam covers 5 main subjects, literature, English, chemistry, physics, and combination. Combination is a mix of geography, history, political science, common chemistry and physics. Tests are spread over 3 days period and lasts about 2 hours each day.

Unlike the American system, your future here solely depends on the entrance exam. So, you have to know the questions, answer them fast, and you can't be nervous. Otherwise you can just kiss your future and your dignity goodbye.

Given the crazy condition, special measures have to be taken in the preparation of this exam. For this reason, local boarding schools come into existence. The students are literally locked up in the school 5-6 days a week and only be allowed to go home on weekends or just Sundays. 99% of the time school sends its students back to their homes using their school buses so that the students would not be able to go to any other places. For safety measures of course but also it helps to discipline weak parents who would tempt the students with delicious food or extra home time etc. School provides four bedroom suite, 3 meals, and a snack store on campus for its students. Even though it is co-ed, girls and boys are separated in their dorms. All students are required to wear uniform as long as they are on school premise.

Here is the schedule for the students at least for the Seniors since they are going to take the big test soon theirs is a little bit tougher than others:

6:30am wake up
7:00-7:30am morning exercise
7:30-8:00am breakfast
8:00-8:30am arrive classroom and study on their own
8:30-9:30am 1st period & 10 mins break (always 10 mins between each class)
9:30-10:30am 2nd period & break
10:30-11:30am 3rd period & break
11:30-1:00pm lunch and free time
1:00-2:00pm 4th period & break
2:00-3:00pm 5th period & break
3:00-4:00pm 6th period & break
4:00-5:00pm 7th period & break
5:00-6:30pm dinner and free time
6:30-7:00pm TV time, according to my cousin they watch political news.
7:00-8:00pm 8th period & break
8:00-9:00pm 9th period & break
9:00-10:30pm 10 period and study
10:30-11:30pm back to dorm
11:30pm lights out

You can petition for 12:00am lights out if you need to study more but you have to submit your petition beforehand.

This is how these people study and they have done second year college materials already. Because lots people's parents needed to work while they were young, their parents would fake their birth certificate dates in order to let them go to elementary school one or two years earlier. So a good % of these super kids are only 16 years old.

The school is literally out of no where, surrounded by mountains and the community has nothing but poor people who have no education or good jobs, is imprisoning these people according to their will. The prisoners are determined. Some of them are happy and driven to be here some of them are apparently forced to be here. Either way their emotions do not stand in the way. It is their revolution. Imprisoned, yes, brainwashed, maybe. But it is their choice. It is what it takes to be on top I guess.

It is overwhelming. I don't know if it is sad since I can't criticize it based on my environment. That won't be fair. But I am speechless nevertheless. I really do not know what to think.

Flight part 2

Well. More crying freaking babies on the flight.

That is like a given already.

It's been raining outside like crazy for a while already. The southern heat in China is pretty sneaky. The moist and heated air always consistently creeps into every room whenever there is an opportunity, a opened window or a loosely closed balcony door. Of course if we don't turn on the AC, the warm and humid air will just gradually materialize. It is disgusting. I don't mind the heat at all; I just hate the humidity.

It's good to see my uncle's family, especially my cousin. I think I haven't seen her for roughly 13 years. That is pretty long by any measure. She has become a young lady who doesn't resemble the little screamer that I used to know. She is young, energetic, beautiful and very smart. Apparently she's done sophomore university level of chemistry, physics, and math at age of 18. According to her, this is not so much of an accomplishment since her friends have done the same at age of 16.

I have battling the jet lag ever since I arrived. But everything has been worked out just fine. We've done some shopping and lots of talking. We've caught up and reconnected. It feels great.

There were many things that I wanted to talk about when I had those conversations with my uncle's family, my mom's friend etc. But I decided not to because a lot of them are very culture and political dependent subjects and I think it is rather dull to talk about and not to mention how long the post would be and now hard would it be for me to type it up and proof read. Yeah I am a lazy ass lol...

There is nothing too interesting so far. Mostly the family warm fuzzy things.

I already miss LA. I want to reconnect with my friends back there and also I want to keep networking with my new friends that I made this semester. These friends are really worthwhile to keep in touch since they are so smart and driven and they have unlimited potentials.

Yeap I guess I had another episode. I was on facebook and started to go through friend's profile and pictures, and then friend's friend's pictures and profiles then strangers... Online social network is a fascinating thing haha what can I say. I thought to myself, omg now people all parted their ways I really need to jump back right at the scene and stay afloat. Compared to this, my current trip rather useless. It is chilling but it is not something I want atm.

Man this post is not going anywhere. I guess it is the rain, or whatever, I just don't feel all that happy right now. Maybe I am tired. I gotta stop the rant

Flight part 1

After 12 hours in the air. I am now in Incheon International Airport in Seoul. The trip wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it’d be so far. See, I usually cannot fall asleep on an airplane. But today, I pretty much slept through the whole trip. I ate twice, no poop, and read 50 pages of Haunted and the rest was just dreamless sleep. There were two little kids who couldn't shut the fuck up. They cried through the trip. Screaming, kicking, and making a scene. The parents were utterly useless and incompetent. I am glad that I slept through the trip otherwise I would seriously lose my temper.

The book Haunted by Chuck Palachiun was entertaining. The part of how Gut-free, a guy who lost his large intestine to a swimming pool filter while he was masturbating underwater was utterly genius. I couldn't help but feel sorry for this fictional character. The entire process of how the meat whacking went incredibly well just like always, and all of sudden he realized that he couldn't swim up because his butt was stuck in the 400lb suction of the pool filter. He was about to drown. He was kicking and fighting. Eventually he kicked one leg up and started to swim upward. However he felt he was still pulled by the filter. He looked back and saw his large intestine swimming like a big sea snake and the corns, peanuts, and vitamin pills were still visible inside this moving organ. At the last second, he bent over and bit the intestine loose and survived the ordeal. However, he never gained a pound of weight since then. He was 13 when the whole fiasco went down.

At that moment, I was hooked on the book. I wanted to read more but I guess because of the late flight and the warm temperature inside, I just couldn't keep my eyes open.

It is cloudy and cold here in Seoul. Pretty much like LA early morning. But they kept the airport warm and cozy. Nothing too exciting really.

Now I am just sitting here, staring at the grey sky waiting for my next flight to southern China. It is about another 3 hours. Oh the dreary. At least, things start to gain some natural color outside. The morning grey that devours everything in its way is making its exit.

OMFG another kid who wouldn't stfu at the airport. I mean for god's sake I don't remember the parents were this incompetent before. They should just slap them cross the face and totally shock these little suckers and make them realize that it is not ok to be a little crying dwarves and behaving like an animal in public place. Ok I am just kidding about the slapping part but parents nowadays just seem to be so clueless about controlling their kids. They need to figure this shit out before they leave their house.

Well here we go

I am leaving in three hours.

Then my plane will take off around 1:30am. I am going back to China for a month. For both pleasure and business. I hope I don't have to go to the business stuff with my mom all the way because that would make me constantly moving from cities to cities for about 10 days. But then I feel kinda guilty if I don't go along with her because that is kinda selfish. But I really want to spend some time at one place where my family is at. Oh well we will see what happens.

As for today... The weather was really shitty. The shitiness finally subsided when the sun set. Now it is the common evening grey enveloped Los Angeles. It is as depressing as it gets. I am getting nervous and a bit excited. Nervous because I don't like to fly that much anymore. I don't know exactly why but I just hate the idea that every time you fly you are taking a small chance of peace out. Excited because I am about to fly to a place that is far far away. Even though I have been back once already but still it is something different and there is a certain level of mystery to it and that is exciting.

I hang out with Dodo today again. We ate a shit load of food then got an hour long pedicure. It was really good. I liked it. We bid our farewell and now I am back home again preparing my departure.

I would love to blog all the time overseas but internet connection might become inaccessible at places. Maybe I should just sit there and do lots thinking. Maybe I will have a freaking epiphany or something. I highly doubt that will happen but it is a thought. We will see what happens. This time, there are plenty objectives and lots uncertainties. It might be a good trip. I definitely hope it will turn out to be good. But I don't know.

As you can see I am rambling again. That is because I am nervous and excited. Well... I am gonna go keep packing now and hopefully I can keep the blogging up. Unfortunately, I already know that there won't be any exciting events per se. Mostly it'd be boring family stuff and most likely depressing since lots family members have serious health problems as I mentioned a couple posts before. But again we will see what happens. There won't be any clubbing or drunken nights. I hope the blog itself, would be at least interesting.

Peace.