Merry Christmas and Fire Cupping!

Our class held a holiday luncheon and exchanged secret Santa gifts this week. I drew my favorite guy in the class, Michael, a hilarious Dane, as my secret Santa. I was really proud of myself for the gift I put together for him: a bucket (where I wrote "Michael's throw up bucket" in Chinese because Michael loves to drink) full of beer, candy, etc.- the perfect gift for any man. I also purchased a small fish container and a goldfish. I was saddened when I awoke the day of the luncheon to find the fish dead. So, Michael also got fish food, an empty fish container and a picture of his goldfish in my toilet.

After a long night of a Texas hold'em tournament at Michael's Friday night (I finished 2nd at my table!), I spent Saturday with Anna-Lina and a friend of her family who was in town on business. He lived in Beijing for 12 years, from 1982 to 1994, when the city was rapidly transforming itself to a modern city. He knew great restaurants, bars and a lot about the history of the development in Beijing. It was a fascinating private tour, and he paid for all of it! We went to one of his favorite Chinese restaurants located in a hutong (old Chinese community). The food was superb. Afterwards, we walked through the hutong on our way to his favorite night club in town for an after dinner cocktail.

I suddenly had to use the restroom, and the only ones available were public toilets which are located throughout the hutong. In a hutong, the community shares public toilets because the houses do not have their own.

As this was my first time in a hutong restroom, I was surprised to see two things: no doors on the stalls and a lady actually cleaning the holes in the ground. I hesitated a moment to see if the lady would stop cleaning. She did not. So, I stepped outside to ask Anna-Lina which way I was supposed to use the doorless stall. Behind out or in? (fair question, I thought). After her and her family friend had thoroughly laughed at my question, it was determined that I should go behind in. In I went. The lady immediately switched from scrubbing the hole next to me to mopping. I had to laugh because the mop actually brushed my shoes as I was going about my business. Mom, pack some Depends because you do not want to have to go through that when you are here!

At the night club, I was again struck by how quickly and drastically you can go from horrible to wonderful in China. I later used the restroom there, and it was by far the nicest restroom I have ever been in. There was only one toilet in a room easily 9x10, with mirrors all the way around, a lounge chair, dim lighting, excellent sculptures, and a western toilet with toilet paper!

I saw a sign several weeks ago over a western toilet (a rarity in itself here) that read, "please do not stand on the toilet" in Chinese and English. I laughed to myself thinking how ridiculous it would be for someone to actually think that standing on it was the proper way to use a western toilet. However, Tuesday night, I was having a beer with Michael and went to the toilet. Sure enough, there were foot prints on the western toilet seat. I couldn't believe it. Okay, enough about toilets for this week's blog!

Saturday night, I went to a 24 hour massage parlor with my friends Mike and William. For $14.78, I received a one hour foot massage, one hour body massage and 15 minutes of fire cupping. The picture is of the fire cupping on my back. Fire cupping has been in use in China since around 1,000 B.C. It's a technique where fire is lit into the glass cups, which are then immediately placed on your body, typically your back, for the purpose of helping to increase circulation and remove 'bad blood'. The cups create a very strong suction. It was quite painful, but after about 3 minutes, I had an uncontrollable urge to laugh. Mike was in the room with me and he warned me that it was dangerous to move a lot, which made me laugh even harder. They say that the darker the circles, the poorer your circulation. At any rate, I now have pink/red circles all over my back (17 to be exact). I can't really tell if my circulation is any better, but I think the uncontrollable laughter, as well as 2 hours of great massage, was worth it alone!

I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas! Anna-Lina and I will be flying to Dalian on Thursday morning and will be there through the weekend. I hope that North Korea doesn't get any crazy ideas because we will be very near the border! It's going to be weird to be away from home for Christmas, so I am excited to at least have a new city to explore!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Miss you!