Tiananmen, Terracotta, and Towers

Well, I'm back in Lin'an. I'm not sure why, and I still can't believe it, but I'm here again. Within an hour of being here my phone was ringing and I was getting text messages. I haven't answered or responded to any of them, but they keep coming. Absolutely no concept of personal space or privacy.

Anyway, I won't bore you with vacation details. I know I hate reading a grocery list of activities that people did on vacation. I'm not interested, and I'm sure none of you are. But I did galleries in Beijing (I may have briefly caught a glimpse of Tiananmen in a cab ride), Terracotta Warriors and lamb in Xi'an, and more art galleries, towers, fabulous food, etc in Shanghai. It was really, really good. I got job offers, I lived large, it was a fun time. I accomplished more in the past week then I ever did in 3 months or however long I've been in Lin'an.

But I think I'm leaving here in about 3 weeks. I just can't do it anymore, and now that I have a job offer that isn't with the devil (close, a French-Canadian firm), I really have no reason to stick around. It really is a terrible, terrible town, with way too many Chinese. I really can't believe I came back here. If I had my computer with me, I don't think I would have.

But anyway, here's the story: As I was walking back to my hotel on the last day in Shanghai to get my bag for my bus ride back to Lin'an, two guys on a bicycle ran into me. Here's what the situation looked like. The guys on the bike are BG and I'm N:

BG
__BG
___BG____| (they start shouting out "HELLO, HELLO" here.
___BG____|
___BG____|
____ _BG_|
____ __BG|(these are to indicate a wall)
_______N|
_______N|note: although very unusual for China, there was
_____N__|nobody else on the sidewalk. This wasn't an accident.
___N____|
___N
___N
___N

So anyway, they ran directly into me, right into my right leg. Needless to say, I was fucking pissed. So I pushed them, pretty hard. Hard enough that the guy in front that I pushed, shoved against his friend behind, and the friend fell off the bike and stumbled back a couple feet, and I say, in Chinese of course, "What is your problem?" Nothing. I repeat, "What is your problem?" Just a blank stare, and so I just marched off and left them sitting there looking like idiots on the sidewalk. I was so mad. I mean, who are these people? What kind of person, runs their bike into someone just because they're clearly foreigners? Fucking terrible human beings, that's who. I'm not a violent person, but I don't feel bad about pushing them. They could have bruised me, hurt me, ripped my pants, and they fucking drove their bike right into me. I wish I would have spit on them as well.

Clearly, I haven't gotten over this event. Anyway, I was so mad that I almost ended up on a plane to Southeast Asia. I was seriously considering just going into my savings, buying a flight to Vietnam. living off 10 bucks a week, around nice people, who aren't Chinese, but I didn't. I came back to lame ass Lin'an. I still should just go.

Just robots with little hands, to make our consumer goods. I need a t-shirt of that in Chinese(小手机器人) to wear every day here. Oh, and my brother, Mark, wants to be credited that comment.