Not Ethan Approved

These are scorpions, grasshoppers, and silkworms. They are on sticks for easier frying and subsequent eating. Yum.

Today I was front and center for the filming of some BNU propaganda. CCTV (they run all the tv stuff in China...) was on campus today, and I volunteered. Fortunately I was wearing my (American made) 北师大 hoodie, and so they stuck me talking to a complete stranger and Austin at the front of the shot. The director, in placing people where he wanted us, called the foreigners (who were his gracious volunteers) lao wai. This is highly derogatory, and it basically means foreign devils! It's like calling a Chinese man a Chink. You don't. Technically it's a made-up term that supplants a family name with the word for outsider. It's like smiling at someone and saying, "Thanks a lot, Mr. Whitey McAmerica!" I guess I'm mainly bothered because this guy did it in front of my face instead of having the decency of the majority of Chinese in saying it out of earshot or so quickly I didn't understand.

Ah, racism. You're the same here as at home. It's nice to see a familiar face. Even if it's yellow.

In other news, The Professor went to the doctor today to get his (I'm not making this up) head examined. Apparently when I punched him in the back of the head/upper neck it might have done some damage. I didn't mean to, it was just a reaction to being head-butted in the crest of my eye-socket. We don't really wrestle that much anymore. He's going to go to a Chinese hospital to get a CAT-Scan because it's much cheaper there. The Canadian doctor recommended it. I asked the Professor on the phone whether he knew how to say CAT-Scan in Chinese. He said no. He said that he would get his tutor to go with him. I asked if he thinks she knows how to say it. He said no, but the doctor taught him the hand motions to make the Chinese understand.

I swear this is not unusual. This is how we lao wai live. (I can say it, I'm one of them.)




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