Back With The Sickness

I arrived back in Harbin last night, and yes, it’s bitter cold. I was only back at our apartment for about 10 minutes. Long enough to change clothes and put on a swipe of deodorant. My wife informs me that we are going out for dinner, to see one of her close friends off , as she is leaving for Beijing tonight and she might not get to see her for a while. So, I down a handful of Vitamin C tablets, try to blow my nose as many times as I can, then I bundle up and hit the streets.

It’s bitterly cold outside, but inside the restaurant is nice and warm. Here I am introduced to everyone, and aske to sit over on one side of the room with all the men. There are 4 of us. The women all sit together on the other side of the room, chit-chatting and gossiping away. My father in law is there, and he’s a good guy, so I sit with him. He doesn’t speak any English, but we have sort of an unspoken bond. We sit together, smile, and drink beer together on occasions such as this. What more could you want from a drinking buddy? We doesn’t talk my ear off, and he always fills my glass for me! Plus he has excellent taste in beer.

I was thinking that I probably shouldn’t drink afterall, but what the heck. You only live once! I think that saying is sort of strange. You only live once. You only die once too, but you don’t hear people going around saying that. Maybe that could be a new sales pitch for coffin salesmen, you know for upselling people and convincing them to buy the solid gold underwear to be buried in. Hey now, let’s not get Carat-away. Oh, I love a good pun.

Anyway, back to the dinner, and back to the Chinese moonshine. Since they have the “every male older than you is your uncle” rule here in China, it was my duty to toast these guys, who I of course have never met. Mother In Law insisted that I toast everyone in the room, including herself. I was kind of put off by that, you know being forced to toast someone, but I did it anyway, and I think I did a pretty good job at it. My wife of course translated it, so if I screwed up, she probably covered up for me. I’m afraid if I tried to use any of my so-called Mandarin, I would end up telling the lady sitting across from me that I enjoyed her scent of rat feces, and I think the food tastes like a weather balloon. You might say I have the gift of gab.

I spent the rest of the night drinking beer with Father In Law, so it wasn’t half bad. My wife and her friend were having their “girl talk” and went to the bathroom together & stuff. It’s amazing how girls can coordinate their bladders like that. It seems pretty efficient to me though. That way they can keep the conversation going, while they’re going.

Once dinner was over, we went home and I pretty much went straight to bed. I wasn’t feeling too hot, and neither was my wife. I think she was starting to get my cold. We both dozed off and I actually had a pretty good sleep. That was until the sun rose.

I guess it’s tradition in China to keep the fireworks going for 15 days after New Year’s. Pretty much everyone takes a week off work and they have nothing to do other than set off fireworks and blow stuff up. Sounds like a good holiday to me, just not at 7:30 in the morning. I actually jumped out of bed at one time, because the string of firecrackers must have been right outside our window. Jesus, I thought we were under attack! I must have been having dreams about WW2 again. I do that sometimes. I actually had a dream the other night that one of my best friends from High School was killed, but there was a rumour that one of our own soldiers killed him. Being a sleuth, it was my job to find out who done it, and send him off to jail.

After I got out of bed, I had some delicious food, which was cooked by my wife’s sister. She’s not actually related to my wife, she just calls her sister. Another one of those Uncle situations I think. She’s more of a live-in maid, but she’s a fantastic cook. She made me soup and peeled about 15 mangoes for me, which have made me feel 100 times better. We mostly ate at roadside cafes and seafood joints wile we were traveling, so it was good to taste a home-cooked meal once again.