Worst Kept Secrets

YES, vacation. It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday night, and I’m not beginning to worry about preparing for classes on Sunday, or about trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour so that I don’t completely throw off my sleeping schedule. In fact, I went to bed at eight o’clock this morning, after drinking some whiskey and sitting in my pajamas listening to music for about eight hours. It was great. I love time off.

Predictably, it’s been a pretty lazy day that began around four o’clock in the afternoon. I had dinner at the French restaurant, and then we braved the storm of Jin Run Fa in the name of toilet paper, toothpaste, popcorn, and laundry hampers. Jin Run Fa is my Wal-Mart. I’m extremely thankful that it’s here, because I can get almost anything I need without needing to know a word of Mandarin. But going there is absolutely hell, especially the weekend before Spring Festival.

I can get extremely enochlophobic, which was my number one concern about moving to a country where billions of people live on top of each other, and I’ve been really proud of myself for how well I’ve been tolerating the crowds. But the second you move that crowd indoors, turn on some fluorescent lights, crank the super obnoxious advertising jingles, and give me a shopping list, my heart rate sky rockets, I start feeling sick, I break out in a sweat, and get an urge to frantically call everyone I know to be sure they know that I love them. I hate Jin Run Fa, and yet I need it. I guess its saving grace is that it’s a great source of funny English translations. The sign over the shopping carts says, “welcome for shopping. Take me please.” There are also directions for using your membership card, which advise you that “crazy items are for members only.”

Anyway, the end of that story is that I finally got a laundry hamper. Exciting times, let me tell you. And just for fun, here’s a scary naked mannequin!