Five minutes of fame

So I sang in this "performance" on my campus this morning. They always call the whole program a "performance". I'm not really sure what this program was to commemorate but it was the biggest one that I'd ever seen at this school since I've been here. It was outside on the playground which is really a small stadium. Anyway, there were some stinkin great dances performed by some Mongolian students and your usual really high pitched traditional local singing. I was way impressed with the dancing. I don't really understand why they were so good because they are medical students, not art students. The organizers asked my language tutor to get me to say something in the local language so of course she got all excited and taught me some stuff I was gonna have to memorize in a day. I was kind of excited about showing off whatever linguistic ability I could muster for the occasion. The excitement lasted shortly because during the whole program until my turn I was so nervous about forgetting what I was supposed to say.
Well, its finally my turn to take the stage and I walk up and say "Hello everyone" (in the local tongue), but then the music starts so I gotta start singing. I figured I would just finish the language show after the song. I must inform you of a thing they do here during performances. While someone is up on stage singing (whether it be a huge concert with a big pop artist or your local program) people will run up on stage and bring either flowers, a garland to go around your neck, a communist flag, or some balloons. OK, I hadn't got into the first verse good before people began rushing the stage with ALL of the things I mentioned before. Not only that but if they really like the performer they wanna hug him, so all these people didn't just hand me there stuff and run away but stayed to hug me and throw up the two finger 'victory' symbol that's so popular here. I was afraid I would lose my composure a couple times as this went on well through the chorus and second verse of the song. It was wild. What was even better than that was that there were students with huge concert size signs that said "Curtis we love you" (one word on each sign). It was great. I felt so loved. I've always wondered what rock stars feel like. I thought to myself for a moment "this is what I came here for." Then I came back to reality and remembered I was not actually a superstar anywhere else in the world except for at this small med school during this program for 5 minutes. It was a sobering moment. After I finished singing I did finish what I was supposed to say in their language and they ate it up pretty well. I didn't try to say it all from memory though. I had my cheat sheet in my hand. It's pretty funny to think back on them running up on stage with all their goodies to give to me. I felt bad after a few because I had to just drop stuff on the stage as they handed it to me because there were more people waiting behind them to give me stuff and I had run out of hands. Can you imagine all this going on while I'm trying to sing a song about the love of my Father. I wish they gave money;)

(Re-Post) Great Educational Site

This website has been passed on to me by a dear friend and when I visited and looked around a bit, I found myself laughing out loud in my apartment in the middle of the night. I knew that I had to share it the way my French buddy Beth shared it with me. I must make a disclaimer before I invite you to share in the laughter. This was only funny to me because it's totally satirical and I've found myself in most if not all of the situations that are quoted by the friends you will read about. Not too many people are so blatant with their weird curiosity of other cultures but there's always those few that just blow it. Please, as you read through the site and chuckle a bit, remember to think back on situations that you have been in and ask yourself if you are guilty of making some of the same ethnically insensitive remarks or innuendos.

Enjoy!!! www.blackpeopleloveus.com

Walkin' The Dog 

Fun stuff 

I joined my little Asian grandmother for some Tai Chi in the park at the nasty hour of 5:45am this morning with her friends. It was something. I've always wondered why the old people love doing this stuff every single morning. Well, now I know that its like the best workout in this country. We arrived at the park and there were already tons of people in different areas doing various exercises and dances to music. Some with flags, some with swords and some with fans. Interesting. As we walked in we passed these two old guys doing something like squats and yelling "huh, huh, huh, huh, as they dropped. I knew I was in for something crazy then. We got to this little clearing amongst some trees and there were already some people there stretching and warming up. I thought I was pretty flexible for a fat guy until I saw these old people almost touching their noses to the their shin. I started doing some of the stretches I do before I jog and then they motioned for me to put my foot up in this branch and stretch my legs like they do. So I was gung ho about it and tried to kick my leg up there (which was about shoulder height for me). I did get my foot in the cleft of the branch but realized that I couldn't bend down and far as they were. I didn't feel too bad. After that the Kung Fu teacher shows up to start the exercises. Everyone starts telling me, "that's the teacher, that's the teacher, Kung Fu teacher, Kung Fu teacher." Granny walks me over to him and I shake his hand and we pretend to have a conversation in his language for a moment then I start to understand that he is telling me to watch at first and then join in. So I do just that. I watched for the first little segment then they breathed and he motioned for me to jump in now. I had been watching his feet and not so much his hands before so I was trying to concentrate on what to do with my hands and my feet at the same time now. It was crazy and I was laughing but not out loud because for the first time in this country I felt I prolly shouldn't laugh out loud right now. It was a pretty funny thought in my head, what I must have looked like trying to be all graceful, smooth and ninja like, as they were. Every now and then they would throw in a move from like “mortal kombat” or “street fighter” as well as a little grunt. I really enjoyed imitating that part. Soon I began to figure why this is considered an exercise. I broke a sweat fast and my legs got so tired. I kept thinking to myself, how I was young and I've been riding bikes around and taking the stairs alot so I should be able to hang with these old people. Well, I lasted for about 20 minutes, maybe. My knee was killing me, I was hot, and just tired, man. I saw that a few of the old people on the edges of the group had dropped out and my little Granny had dropped out long before them so I decided that I had given it a valiant enough effort and this was a great first try. I tried to walk away and just about couldn't because my knee hurt so stinkin bad. I don't even get that from jogging. So, the moral of the story is that the cheesy little exercises I see the local old people doing in the square are not cheesy at all. Heck, they have a Kung Fu master leading them in it so its gotta be legit, right? My little granny wants me to go back tomorrow morning at 6am again with her. She had a lot of nerve asking me to go back with her considering it appeared that she never goes there. People seemed to know her but she was horrible at the exercise. I don't mind doggin' her about that because I was horrible too but, I'm not a local. It was a lot of fun though and it was just challenging enough that I may consider trying it again. It wasn't too hard. It feels a little ridiculous to try to gyrate my hips the way I saw them doing it but it's cool to them so I didn't feel too stupid.
After all that was over we walked over to this guy playing with this spinning top thingy on a string. Maybe you have seen such things before. I don't know that I have until I got here. It's really cool. When they get it going real well they can throw it off the string and catch it again with it still spinning. This man and my little friend were trying to show me how to do it and I could do it a little bit but not near as good as he. This too was really fun. All in all, I guess it was worth a stinkin' early morning for such a great cultural experience. Stay tuned...
 

Hmmm 

One Brick At a Time 

They have a way of doing things here that is way more leisurely than western or American culture and as these pics will show, even tearing down a building is this way. Do you notice that there are no huge machines bull dozing this building. Instead all these men who are among the huge host of people needing jobs here are using all the elbow grease they have to knock down this building with sledge hammers. I've seen this around town a lot since I've been here and finally had my camera with me when I saw it so I thought I'd share it with you. Seems wild, right? Talk about incentive to go to college. Dang it!

Welcome to my Blog

Hey guys, hey! I'm a little nervous as I type out this very first Blog post. I feel like I have so much to live up to. Ok, I'm gonna try to relax and just enjoy this. I really don't have much to say this first time. I just wanted to welcome everyone. It took me a few moments to even firgure out how to get this thing going. I still cant figure out how to get my picture on my profile so I just attached this one to the post. Please don't pay attention to the bottles of liquor behind me in this photo. I thought it was a fun pic of me and I just happen to be at my buddy's coffee shop when it was taken. I have not taken up drinking over here or anything.
Things are good here, even though at this very moment we are having a dust storm and it looks like Armageddon outside because everything is hazy and orange. I think I am seriously going to do like the women do around here and start wrapping my whole head up with a sheer scarf. It is very much weird but I'm secure enough in my manhood.
OK, that's all I'm gonna write for now as an intro but stay tuned for stories about my river boat trip with Josh and the crazy train ride back home