blueburningbabies:

shenyang, china

when i left work i ate food and drank beer at a korean restaurant with coworkers. we had steak, clams, kimchi, bibimbap, all for some insanely low amount of money. when i left i smoked hash in my apartment and watched Planet Earth and imagined being crushed on the ocean floor by the pressure of the dark cold water. in the morning i tutored a 10 year old girl and taught her clothing vocabulary. I asked her what she was wearing so that she could use the words… she was wearing a yellow dress with pink polka dots. it was hot in the room so we fanned each other. then i went to my office and listened to Pj Harvey and wrote lesson plans about ‘bathroom’ vocabulary. i left and bought cabbage, a potato, peanuts, cucumbers, cilantro to make for lunch. when i got home i watched my turtle eat 7 or 8 food pellets after i changed his water. i washed clothing and masturbated in the dark.

later i went to the same korean restaurant and ate a coworker’s birthday meal with 5 other people. while we ate a family of mother, father, son and grandmother ate nearby. the mother came over to me with her son and told him to speak English with me. his name was Mark and he was 6 years old; he said i was beautiful and i told him he was beautiful in Chinese. he had a top, a really popular toy here, and i told him to spin it in my open palm. it didn’t work as well as it usually does. then i spun it on the floor and it weaved its way under a few chairs. the mother introduced herself, Jane. she said she wanted to study English more, I told her my Chinese was not good. We agreed to spend time together and teach each other. Mark walked around the table and mostly stood nearby the others at the table, staring at their faces with a kind of mock-curious look, although he may have been very very curious. my coworkers asked his age and told him they were 200, 300, 500 years old. Jane and I exchanged phone numbers and we held one another’s hands and looked into each other’s eyes and excitedly talked about spending time together.

we left the restaurant after the owner brought us all ice cream bars and a big bowl of noodle soup for the birthday boy. he was meant to swallow the noodle whole but he chomped through it. we went to a bar and drank beer and vodka. we went to another bar and drank beer on plastic furniture outside the bar. i bought beer from a store next to the bar and asked the clerk if what he was eating was delicious. he gave me a taste of his stew, it was salty and incredibly tasty. i took a cab home and woke up with dirt on my bed, in my underwear.

shortly after waking up i met a friend and walked with her to an office building where she taught English to city planners once per week. i observed the class as i would be taking it over the following week. we were in a large immaculate conference room, she and i facing the 5, then later 4, students and ‘the boss’ Andrew. we sat facing each other at long tables that intersected a huge screen which we read from. they were incredibly nice; we all shared a laugh when discussing the meaning of 'hang out’ after someone brought up suicide by hanging. it would be an easy way to make 300 yuan but either way i was desperate to teach adults and have a break from the 4 year olds that populate my normal work week.