10tonfunk

At least a year back now in a class trip to Shaoxing. Outside the liquor ‘factory’ where I sat out the tastings with the two serious muslims on the trip. I spent a lot of time talking to one of them, a stout guy from Tajikistan who had the entire Qur’an in audio form on his cell phone and suddenly started playing a section for me outside a cave full of Buddha’s until the teacher told him to give it a rest for a while. He didn’t actually speak Arabic himself. In the parking lot groups of Chinese tourists took turns taking ultra-embarassed photos with some of us laowai. Herds of them would push one of their friends into the frame with us and then snap away until their friend managed to escape. It was like trying to force a bunch of 9 year olds to dance with each other at a school dance. Cooties galore. Giggles for days. Glorious cross-culture bridge building moment.

this is beautiful hangzhou, home of the stinky dofu. this place was beautiful and our guides blared at us through their hip mounted speakers. because they spoke mandarin with heavy southern accents we – this was a week-long school trip – had a hard time understanding some of their explanations. our guide bid us goodbye by singing a chinese pop song into the buses loudspeaker as we rode to the train station on the last night.