ER BAI WU!! ER BAI WU!!!

As I discussed in my last post every year Qingdao hosts an International Beer Festival. Tourist come in from all over the world for this glorious occasion to honor beer. One of my Chinese friends Samuel got us all into the Beer Festival for free because he knew someone who worked at the door. We went with him to the Asahi tent where we hung out for awhile. Now, there are lots of great beers to drink at this place and you might ask "why did you go the the Asahi tent?" Well, because Samuel knew people that would give us free food and drinks all night, and it would be considered very rude for us to refuse. The Asahi tent was probably the least populated tent in the entire festival with only around twenty people there. There was lots of cheesy Chinese pop performers that are keeping us mildly entertained. After drinking a few Asahi beers I decided that paying for beer would be better than drinking that stuff. However, right when we were walking out they took a break from the bad performers and had an auction. The people in Asahi were auctioning off a number of wall tapestries. That were around four feet in width and seven feet in length. We all decided to stay and watch the auction. Most of the pictures I didn't like. There was, however, one that caught my eye, it had five tigers. Considering that my University's mascot was the Tigers I decided to make my play and bid for the picture. I started the bidding at 150RMB which is around $19. Another person bid two hundred. I decided that Two hundred and fifty was not out of my price range, so I shouted out "ER BAI WU!" Which is Chinese for two hundred and fifty. At this point everyone in the entire place started cracking up laughing. I thought they didn't understand me so I shouted again "ER BAI WU!" And for some reason the person on stage wasn't listening to my bid so again I said "ER BAI WU!" This time it all seemed to work out and I won the picture for 250RMB. However, I wouldn't find out till the next day but there is a cultural joke in China that I was unaware of in which 250 or ER BAI WU means idiot of foolish. I discovered that the reason all of the people were laughing was because I was basically yelling out on the top of my lungs that I am an idiot. I figure that the only reason I got the picture for 250RMB was because all the other people were laughing so hard they didn't try to out bid me. So hey, I still won in the end.

Anyway, everything has been going great so far here. The summer classes are now over so I am working far fewer hours than I was before. In my spare time I have been focusing on my Chinese. It is coming slowly but it is coming. My goal is to go home and be able to have a conversation with Pauly, the lady at the Chinese restaurant in my hometown. However, I think she speaks the dialect from Hong Kong so that might not actually work. Maybe sometime I will put up a post about all the different dialects but it is a little complicated and isn't that interesting.

To think all the teachers for working all the extra hours this summer my school, Leeween, took all the foreign teachers out to see Mount Laoshan. I had a great time although I could tell I had been in a classroom for to long because my legs were very sore the next day. That night they took us out to a nice restaurant in a five star hotel. Which was, oddly enough, a Best Western. The restaurant was on the top floor and rotated around so you should see the coast and a large part of the city, very beautiful. If any of you come visit maybe I will take you to eat there.

Also on the top of Mt. Laoshan the school took a video of each of the teachers. They put the video on their webpage if you want to check it out. http://www.leewen.org. On the top left if you click number four and then click the picture that I am in it will take you to the right page. The movie should play on its own. If it doesn't then you probably need to download real player. You can do this at www.download.com and just search for real player, and click on real player version ten. It is free and easy to download. I am the last one to talk and I even try to speak a little Chinese, but I got nervous and messed it up. Anyway it's always great to hear from you all so send me a message or comment or email, it doesn't matter. MISS YOU ALL!

Quote of the Week:

In Kilkenny Ireland, they don't have anything American over there, it's very cool. But they did have a Subway sandwich shop. That was the one thing they had American, and that became the American Embassy to me. I would go out to a bar and piss off an Irish dude and have him chase me to the Subway. I said, hey Dude, I'm sorry, but your out of your jurisdiction. But you can have a cold cut combo to go. -Mitch Hedberg

This is like the Beer festival because the Budweiser tent became the American Embassy to me.