Gone fishin'

I will be out of the country for a week on vacation. During that time, I do not even plan to look at a computer. That means no posts for you!

I promise to put up pics of the beautiful beaches in Bali when I get back to Beijing. I am sure there will also be a few good stories to go along with them.

In the meantime, here are a few more random thoughts by yours truly:

1. My sister Rachel just found out she is going to have a little girl. Emma Kay, as she will be called, is due June 8. This means I will be an Aunt X 4!! When and why did everybody start procreating?

2. I have found a new favorite food here in China. It is a crepe with egg, chives and onion. There are also some unidentified sauces and a big crispy thing. Cost=50 cents. Tummy=happy.

3. One of my coworkers was asked to give a speech for Premier Wen Jiabo on Tuesday. It had to be edited, I mean censored, 7 times by our bosses. In the end, they took out every valuable word and turned it into a fluff piece. They verbatim told John that his speech needed more empty words. What a bunch of bull.

4. China is cracking down on porn websites. When our reporters were writing the English version of the story, we asked them to define pornography. You might think it is self-explanatory but porn in China is very different from porn in the west. What a discussion that was! Apparently, anyone naked is considered obscene and sites with naked pictures should be banned. Guess that eliminates one of my new pastimes... j/k.

5. Speaking of porn, one of my newly married, young Chinese coworkers was very intrigued with the idea of free speech in America. When we told him that you could buy porno magazines or look up pretty much anything that you wanted to online, he was floored. He said he would very much like to visit America on his honeymoon to see this for himself. When I told him he might not want to be looking at porno sites with his wife around, he very innocently told me that he would invite her to view it with him. Who knows what they might learn, plus America has all sorts of creative camera angles. I really had to work to keep a straight face during that conversation!

6. Despite the initial excitement, I think the Chinese are beginning to get a little apprehensive about President Obama. He did mention communism in his inauguration speech. Even though it was censored out on TV and in translated versions, my coworkers were able to read the English version online. They found it insulting that he said communism and fascism in the same sentence. Should be interesting to see their reactions and feelings towards him develop over time. On one hand, he represents the idea that anyone can work hard and rise to power. His success story is what they love. His policies towards China might evoke different reactions.

7. I got a perm. Yes, you read that correctly. I actually did this last month but haven't had the time to write the blog posting this experience truly deserves. I don't know what got in to me honestly. One minute I am on my bike, riding home from work. The next, I spot this salon which was always very crowded. On impulse, or maybe I was high from all the pollutants in the air, I went in. It was obviously the first time a foreign had done this because the whole place just froze and went silent. In a normal person's mind, they would rethink this idea and perhaps turn around. I have been in China too long for this sensor to go off anymore. I sat down, was handed a picture book. I don't know the Chinese word for hair cut so I just used my made up sign language to do a dramatic reenactment. They understood. Next I had to establish a price. This is something you have to do before you make any purchases here. If you don't do it you can end up paying much more than intended. This was the hard part. They could give me a cut but oh, I would look so much more beautiful with curls, they said or should I say wrote. By this point, one of the stylists pulled out a laptop and was using a Google translator to write what he wanted to tell me. Very clever of him. We haggled over the cost and finally they settled on giving me a perm for about $45 US dollars.

I was taken back to get my hair washed to a flurry of giggles amongst the customers. The poor guy who had to do this was obviously nervous. He just kept scrubbing away until the guy doing the cut came back and told him to hurry up. Then, while in the chair, I saw the stylist grab the scissors and take a prolonged deep breath. This is when I started to think, hmm, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Oh well, hair grows back and I have had it short before, I thought. After the cut, came the hour long process of putting in the rollers. I don't think it normally takes that long but the guy was again, very nervous to be working on foreigner. He took the curlers out several times to re-wrap my hair. Since they had been so kindly filling me with tea from the moment I sat down, I had to go to the bathroom. Of course this wasn't actually in the salon, that would just be too lucky.

I was led outside, rollers, bib and all, around a building and down a set of stairs to some other building's bathroom. By this point, I just wanted to get this thing over with. Once back in the salon, I was to sit for 30 minutes with the chemical in my hair. During this time, several people tried to communicate with me via the computer translator. They wanted to know if I knew Kobe Bryant, where I was from and why I didn't also want my hair colored while I was there.

After enduring constant attention, it was time for the big reveal. I had the guy trim a bit up front, but all in all, the impulse perm was well worth it.

In fact this brings me to random thought....

8. There are some incredibly creative haircuts over here. Since everyone has the same dark hair, people try to do as much as possible to make themselves unique. The bangs are cut at different angles, perms can be very loose or really crinkly. Plus, the guys really experiment. They can have varying degrees of spikes and colors. I really like it. Who knows what other styles I will try out while I am over here. It is so nice to not have to be on TV and have your boss tell you how to do your hair...