Mommy wow, I'm a big kid now!

It's amazing as I'm getting older, I'm becoming less independent. When I was 24, I lived by myself in San Francisco, a solid 3,000 miles away from home. When I was 25, I planned and successfully climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. Then shortly before I turned 26, the upward trajectory of my independence stalled and took a massive dive. As readers of this blog now, when I moved to India...my independence was quickly seized, I had my own driver, we had a cook in the house who would make food whenever I wanted...servants to wash my clothes and make my room. While I wasn't always the biggest fan of having so much help...I could still be my own person, abet with some adjustments.

However, what little independence I had in India is completely gone now. Wuhan is a nice city and I'm enjoying it so far, but the fact remains...I live in a large Chinese city and do not know Mandarin. I sort of envy the Spanish immigrants you see in the U.S....in large U.S. cities, you see signs/forms/menus in English AND Spanish. In places such as Miami, Los Angeles, all of Texas, people can speak Spanish. I sort of experienced this when I was studying in Hong Kong...everyone spoke Cantonese but most people could speak English, or at least some English. If I lived in a city such as Shanghai or Guangzhou, I could probably escape with knowing just a little Mandarin. It wouldn't be as fulfilling but I could wing it. However, knowing English and not knowing Mandarin in Wuhan is like knowing French and no English in Fargo, North Dakota. Sure, some people might know French but most of the time, you're going to be extremely confused and lost.

So how am I mitigating this? As I mentioned in the last post, my co-workers essentially babysit me and I rely on them for everything. To give you a recap of my Saturday...Grace came over 9 AM to make sure the maintenance man could fix my furnace. At 1130, Ariel came over to make sure the Internet guy showed up to install my web connection. At 1230, she took me to lunch. At 200, she handed me off to Sharon, who took me check out a Chinese language school...then she took me to find an air purifier and a gym. Since I'm no longer at the hotel near the office and in my apartment, I'm inherently a bit more independent. I can manage to go to places like Wal-Mart since the prices are easy to read. However, since I can't communicate with taxi drivers, Ariel has made several index cards that explain where I want to go. I have cards to explain how to get to my apartment, the office, the foreign grocery store and a few other places. It's so pathetic that I can't help but laugh...I'm closer to 27 than 26 and pretty much a complete idiot.



How hard is the communication? Last night I went to a bar with my co-workers and I couldn't even order a beer by myself. How hard could it be? I waved down a bartender and said "snow", blank look, then I said "Budweiser", blank look, then I pointed at a bottle, got a blank look, finally I made a drinking motion but got another blank look. At the end of it, a co-worker saw me and ordered me 3 beers because "that's how many you want, right?"

Speaking of bars, last night was my first night out in Wuhan. As I've mentioned before, one of the benefits of my apartment is that I'm close to a bunch of nightlife. We first grabbed dinner (korean BBQ) but finished a bit too early so how could we kill an hour? Head to a karaoke bar of course. Now on American shows, karaoke is something you do when you've had one too many to drink, but here in Asia people take karaoke extremely seriously. You certainly can't laugh at people if they're trying their best but still suck.

I know karaoke is huge here but it's still weird for me to see my coworkers belt out song after song. They all opted to pick really sad love songs. While I couldn't understand a thing going on, I had a great time watching all the dramatic music videos play in the background. After a while, I caught myself saying "wait, is that Jackie Chan in the video?" I felt bad for stereotyping but on second view, yes, it certainly was Jackie Chan in the video for no particular reason. My co-workers wanted me to join in and sing a song, they gave me two options..."My Humps" - Black Eyed Peas and "I Swear" - All 4 One....yeah, I politely declined.

So how are the bars/clubs near my apartment? Pretty good although there is certainly some "unique" Wuhan flair. The night itself got off to a weird start because I was out with 6 women, normally this isn't a terrible thing, but 4 of them are moms in their LATE 30s. As I walked into the club, I remembered the scene from Knocked Up "You old, she pregnant - can't be havin' a bunch of old pregnant bitches runnin' around the club!"

Instead of giving a play-by-play, I'll just tell you some of the more unique things I saw...instead of girls dancing on the platforms, it was guys. while there were plenty of girls in skimpy outfits, around 11 PM, random guys started taking off their shirts. Now, I saw this happen in San Francisco at gay bars, but I certainly didn't expect it in Wuhan. The band did a 3 minute rendition of Happy Birthday to no one in particular. My personal favorite thing? The waiters were dressed in clown outfits with make-up and the funny-nose. No one bothered explaining this to me and I didn't get an entire "oh that's the novelty of this place" speech.

I've been in Wuhan for 16 days...so far it's been interesting. This is going to be just as hard as I anticipated but I have a feeling I'll really enjoy the city. In typical Vijay fashion, I am only understanding what I've gotten myself into after I'm already knee-deep in the situation. I need to work on the concept of asking more questions before I agree to things!

Before I end the post, I'll address the one thing everyone has been asking about....my hi-tech toilet. As I was cleaning the apartment, I found a remote control for the toilet. I have no idea why that's necessary. Here you go, 2 pictures of my toilet...