Mike In China

The rest of my week off was actually pretty boring. I'm trying really hard to budget my money to travel and that doesn't leave much for eating out or going out. My break was thus comprised mostly of sleeping and DVD watching now that we have a DVD player. I do have a couple interesting moments however. So first, Will and I went to get our haircut and I thought, why not a shampoo also, together they still cost less than three US dollars. Then I thought, why not get a shave too. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Do not hire someone to shave your face in a country where no one has facial hair. Literally I sat there for 45 minutes while the top layers of my skin were scraped away by some Chinese girl. And she could tell I was in pain so eventually the whole staff (which consisted of 9 people on a Tuesday night at 9pm at a very small barber shop: Communism) was standing over me trying to help as I got every hair ripped from my two day old facial hair. It was seriously horrible. They realized that they couldn't handle it and asked to shave my upper lip and I said no because I know its sensitive and would just bleed so I had to walk home with a two day old mustache. Good thing I'm in China and no one knew the difference. Later that night, Will and I went out and got directed to some random bar on the Bund (which should have been a sign because that is the rich area). We walked in as they were about to close in an hour and it was the type of place where everyone immediately looked at me, analyzed how much my clothes cost and then chose to ignore me or not. Then I got the eyes from older women who were making out with their rich older husbands that they hate and were entranced by the young poor kid and the older gay men who were also entranced by the younger poor kid. I felt dirty. Too bad the bar was closed otherwise maybe I would have gotten a drink bought for me! Then the next day I almost spent the night in Chinese jail. Will and I hung out with on of the Chinese girls in our company and on the way home we walked through some street vendors. There was some granola nut thing that I have been seeing around that I ask to check out and Susy (the Chinese girl) got us a sample and then helped us buy some, which ended up being ridiculously expensive. We tell the man that it is too expensive and try to leave. The guy doesn't give it up and starts yelling at Susy in Chinese and starts getting up in her face. He tells us she has to buy blah blah blah we go get the police involved but they don't care because as we were informed later, they don't want problems and don't care who's right. The man was being very aggressive and would only get in Susy's face and try to talk to her, WHICH IS NOT COOL Picking on girls is not ok with Americans. So we were getting right back in his face yelling profanity at him in English. Things escalated and a fist fight almost broke out in some Chinese square with cops right there. Susy ended up just paying because she was afraid and I was not happy with that but I guess I didn't go to jail for punching some Chinese man. We came to find out later that it is a really good thing a fight didn't occur because all the other vendors around him would have joined in and they are notorious for carrying knifes. I guess in hind site it's not worth getting stabbed for less than 5 US dollars (which is a lot of money here). And for those of you that are wondering, yes I bought a large belt buckle that is an American flag in the shape of the United States. Don't worry there is also a bald eagle on it. Just making sure to represent.