Stephen

Ramblings of a seriously bored person in Hainan, China

China's Four Most Beautiful Women?

Mista "P"

For my Oral English class, I decided to try and see if I could get more of the students talking by asking them questions about China. It's also a way for me to learn a few things as well.

It worked! Most of the 34 students contributed by telling me something about their country. Man...was I happy!

I asked them several different questions but one question that I got a lot of feed back was; "Who are the most famous men and women in China?"

To my surprise, they only mentioned men; openly that is.

While everyone was leaving class, a female student hurriedly passes by my desk and drops off a note. I stuck it in my bag and headed to the bus stop. Once I got to the bus stop to head home, I pulled the note out and read it.

Her question to me and to you is:

Do you know who the: Si(4) Da(4) Mei(3) Nu(3) or Four Big or Most Beautiful Women are?

So, who are they?

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:57 | link | comments (2) |

Sacrifice of Becoming Taller

Mista "P"

People nowadays will do almost anything to enhance their appearance. Cosmetic surgery, as you all know, is definitely a booming business. It's true even here in China.

One very popular method is accupuncture. Believe it or not, for some things this really works. If you want to lose weight or tighten up certain muscles, it'll do the trick.

However, one method I heard about is tragic. A young man wanted to be taller. No, he didn't buy the rack..though maybe he should have! He found a doctor that could make him taller by cutting both of his legs in half then insert metal rods between the halves thus making him taller. He would also stretch the tendons and muscles in each leg.

Needless to say, it didn't work very well. He couldn't walk. The surgery had distorted the position of both legs...a crow foot position. He was in terrible pain and had returned to see the doctor again even though he followed all of the doctor's instructions.

The doctor then put his legs in a cast in the attempt to realign his legs. It didn't work. The man now lives in constant pain and will probably be like this forever!

It's really sad!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 11:32 | link | comments |

Babies and Spirits

Mista "P"

The other day I heard a very unusual story that you might be interested in. A young man sees a dead body on the street. He stops and joins in with the other onlookers trying to find out what had happened and who the man was. After a while he leaves and goes to visit a friend.

He enters his friends house and the baby begins to cry really loud for no apparent reason.

The baby's father asks the young man where he had been. He told the man what he had seen. The father tells him that reason the baby was crying was because he had brought the dead man's spirit into his house and that a baby had the ability to detect this!

The father had a short prayer and immediately the crying stopped. The spirit had left the house!

What a story!!!!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 16:07 | link | comments |

The Rack

Mista "P"

In the States there have been quite few "studies" on being short, as in stature. Shorter people are discriminated against when it comes to jobs, dating pretty girls, sports, etc.

For some reason, people here must either think the same thing or else marketers are trying to create a need to be taller. Maybe it's the impact of basketball and everyone wants to be as tall as Yao Ming.

Personally I don't know why they would care, they're all basically the same height, at least here they are. And that's not bad!

But I guess t.v. ads and marketers think it is bad, so in order to take care of this so-called "problem", they're running a t.v. ad on how to be taller - "the rack", at least that's what I call it.

It's a table you lay down on, attach a chin strap, put your feet up under a brace at the end of the table...and then...start cranking away on a handle located on the side of the table.

They then try to show all of this clinical stuff to try and prove it works by trying to convince you that the rack will pull the spine apart along with every other joint enough to allow the cartilage to expand thus increasing your height; permanately!

By the way, they do show a team of basketball players using this on center court at a school gym (to be like Yao Ming I guess)and older people using it that have back problems (watch out for that bad disc slipping out).

I guess the elixer, Short Happy, that was being aired didn't work so now we have "The Rack"!

Wanna get taller?

posted by: stephenthegreat at 19:37 | link | comments |

Praise the Napkin

Mista "P"

Cloth napkins are so handy, especially at a restaurant. You can use it as a shield or a layer of protection; especially if you're not up to the task of using chopsticks. Man...can I drop food on my shirt and lap! My clothes, after a hearty meal of chinese food, used to look like a bombing run! But not anymore...thank you napkin.

You can even wipe the drippings off of your face and around your mouth. Man...they are so useful.

But wait....not all restaurants use cloth napkins! Yes...it's true!

There are the tissue's. Small packs of tissue paper are strategically placed on the table for the customer to use. However, some places charge a little fee to use them (you have to buy them).

I have found that this type of napkin has a few more advantages over the cloth napkin. First, I don't have to worry about how big of a mess I make while I eat. I think there's something inhibiting about the cloth ones. You try too hard to keep them clean. After all, you don't want to leave the napkin on the table looking like you just wiped down the floor do you! Or you eat like a hog at the trough! Of course not! But the tissues - who cares...I bought them. The second advantage - I can blow my nose! I've never done that on a cloth one! The only draw back I've found with this is that you might wind up buying so many of them only to discover that your meal was cheaper!

But my favorite of choice is the toilet paper napkin. Yep..that's right...hands down, this is the best. Why? Think about it. Think about what you can do! Blow your nose, wipe your face and prevent some of the bombs on the lap and shirt. Granted it's not thick like a cloth napkin,,,but hey...the restaurant doesn't have to wash them and you don't have to buy it like the tissue napkins. And of course, if the meal didn't settle well...you've got the PAPER to handle it! Right there on your table. Is that convenient or what?

So, if you go to a restaurant and see a pink, white or blue plastic holder on the table and find that's it toilet paper don't get on a rampage and start complaining....REJOICE! Remember, it's cheap for the restaurant which in turn means you get a lower price on the menu and it's multi-functional (bathrooms are lacking in the PAPER department).

Napkins....I luv 'em!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 14:43 | link | comments (1) |

Wooooahhh..

Well.. it's Stephen..

Wow.. it's been a month since i've posted anything on here.. it's amazing how busy you can be just as a sophmore in high school, school all morning and till 3 in the afternoon, piano from 3:00-4:00.. and then basketball from about 4 something till 6:30... then eat.. homework.. and start all over again.. just not as much time to do other stuff.. like the interent!

Well, life's here hasn't been all too interesting lately, there is one thing though, there is a guy we play ball with at this school.. i guess you could say he's a big guy.. i'd average 6 feet, and rougly 240 pounds or so, the man has nice moves playing basketball, he has one simple problem, he can't get around people to get down low to the basket where he plays, so he resorts to force, in the past two months he has broken one guys nose, and another guys arm! I still can't figure out why when he comes to the basketball court every afternoon, most everybody leaves, except some extremely brave souls!

If none of you have been through the torture of going to 'English corner'.. you should all go once just to say you've been through true Chinese torture. Because of my extremely great looks.. haha.. i usually get surrounded by mostly college girls.. on average all the people who go to english corner surround the 3 single guys that go, me and two other, just to find out if any of us have girlfriend's... if we say yes, most will just walk off to the next person and ask him, if you say no.. they will bug you for your phone number the whole night.. besides that.. you still have to go through the usual questions. "Can you use chopsticks?" "how long have you been in China" "Can you speak Chinese" .. and all those greatly overused questions .. AAAAHHHHH!!!!

Well.. that's about all that's happening now.. i'll try to write some more later..

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 10:49 | link | comments (1) |

Injured....Don't Eat Meat

Mista "P"

I've been trying to learn how to order foods at a restaurant so I got a menu from a nearby restaurant and translated it.

Now I know what I'm getting BEFORE it comes to the table.

Anyway, I had a few questions about my translation and asked a friend of mine to help fill in the blanks. While this was going on, she warned me about eating meat and scrambled eggs with chives. These were on the menu by the way.

My first thought was "Oh man, not another contagious disease!" She then tells me that if you've been hurt..say in an accident or had been badly bruised, not to eat meat and or scrambled eegs with chives. She said that this prevents the healing process.

I had no idea!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 19:08 | link | comments |

English Class a Bust

Mista "P"

This afternoon I was all cranked up for my one two hour long Oral English class. I was ready to get them talking. I walked into class only to find the students with their heads on their desks. Man...whatta bummer!

I tried everything I could think of to get them stirred up; but no such luck.

Finally, with about 40 minutes left of class time, I tell them that I have a lot of American friends that want to know about China. I ask them to tell me where they live, why my friends should visit their province and what would they see.

At least that got about half of them talking and a few more writing about their hometowns! Plus I learned a few things about their provinces.

Sometimes you'll have days like that where it seems like having all of your teeth pulled would be more fun than trying to get students to talk.

It's frustrating at times, but then again, that's what makes teaching a real challenge!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:47 | link | comments |