Wo Zhongyu Lai Zhongguo (I Finally Arrive in China)

Ahh yes, after weeks of waiting I've made it from the D all the way to Wuxi, China (about an hour train ride from Shanghai). After arriving Monday afternoon at the eerily empty Shanghai national airport, I was met by a driver from Wuxi who carried me off to the school in a black sedan with 100% tinted windows...yeah, it was pretty pimp. Wuxi is a "small" city of five million people that is on the up-and-up from just a few years ago. As such, there is a sizeable contingent of foreigners in the city from Korea, the US and Europe. Were it not for the insufferable humidity, I would literally have no complaints about the surroundings, except maybe for the lack of a Best Buy. I'm over here to teach, but from being here one week I've already made a lot of interesting observations about the place. To name a few:

- Chicks dig my accent: I have been told by many of the students and teachers that they like my accent and pronunciation, they said it was very easy to understand and stopped just short of saying this was sexy. I for one was pleasantly surprised, as I had no idea that American accents were appealing per se, I guess they just like my voice because it sort of sounds like the voiceovers you hear on those language CDs.

- In Beijing, people spit everywhere and no one wears shorts, even when it's hot out. In Wuxi, practically no one spits in public and I saw a lot of guys wearing shorts and a minimal number of guys wearing capris which excites me, personally.

- I forgot how smoking hot Chinese girls can be. Fortunately, they all usually congregate in clubs on the weekend. Unfortunately, they really like keeping to themselves and drinking whiskey/green tea cocktails instead of going out and dancing. It's wierd.

- On a related note, I have a theory that every club in China is exactly the same. Pretty big, even by American standards, but a very small dance floor. Most of the club is taken up by tables where groups of people go and get bottle service. There's not a lot of dancing and mingling, which makes me wonder why the fuck people go out to them in the first place. The ambient noise provided by Hollaback Girl remixes can't be that good.

- My younger students told me they thought I was 35. I told them I was 22. They were shocked. One of the little boys in the class said my butt was big. Believe it or not, I took it as a complement, it means those dumbbell lunges have finally paid off.

- My toilet overflowed the first day. It was a surreal experience, as I was still jet-lagged and out of my element in a new city and to top it off, there was no plunger in my bathroom. This relates to the larger problem of shitty water pressure in China and hard, un-drinkable water that comes from the faucet and shower. I have since bought a plunger and also learned that toilets clog just from slightly larger than medium-size deuces.

- KFC delivers. It is neat.

- I get a lot of stares when I go to the gym. I'd like to say that it's because the combination of sweating that I do on the walk over and my low-fat diet have made me ripped to pieces, but it's actually because I'm the only person in Wuxi who wears their gym clothes over to the gym. As much as I'd love to change in the locker room, I'll take my chances listening to my iPod in public and being sweaty outside. At least it's easier for cab drivers to quickly identify me as a foreigner with money, so there's that.