bored in foshan

i'm so bored i started a myspace page. i know, i know, believe me, i know. my little cousin has a myspace page and she thinks manga is a literary genre. but if you're bored or juvenile enough to do the same thing, go add me as a friend. right now i only have 2 so i'm feeling lame.

back in foSHAN. about 30 km away from guangzhou. still working on getting back to SH. other than that i don't know what to tell you. when the highlight of my day is the DSL in my hotel room, you know you need help. tomorrow my uncle's 'friend' david is taking me to see Furniture City, about which i'm skeptical. i think i told him that i used to buy furniture for a living; either that or foshan really doesn't have much to offer in the way of sightseeing and their one attraction just happens to involve my former livelihood. i think i'll take my camera so i can report back. i am also unsure as to how i communicated this to david if i did, because my chinese is so dismal and i'd venture to say his english is worse. maybe i performed charades.

having your own hotel room is pretty cool. it's like having your own little apartment. i live by my own schedule and can even take a bath in the middle of the night, like i used to do at my apartment. i'm luxuriating in having my own space right now, after being a houseguest in a small apartment for way too long.

it was kind of weird leaving hong kong. i have all of my luggage with me because the word for now is that i'm actually going back to SH this week. (i'll believe it when my plane touches down at PVG.) i think i started getting settled in my odd nomad life in HK. my little room jam-packed with the fruits of my shopping labors, the folding mat i slept on for 6 weeks, having to coordinate a shower schedule with 2 other people, using stuff that wasn't mine all the time. it sounds nightmarish but it was actually oddly comforting to be around family and play the little kid for a while. people serve you at dinner, you feel trapped and hemmed-in, but strangely pampered. cosseted. i realize how much freedom my parents allowed me as a child. privacy, namely. my mom would naturally want to know where i was every day, but i didn't need to regurgitate full reports on every movement like it seems my relatives do. my aunt calls my mother every 3 days and gives her the rundown on what i've been up to. since i only saw my aunt about once a week, i can't imagine there was much to talk about, but then again, i know better. my cousin will tell my aunt what i ate that day, what i liked and what i didn't out of what was ordered, what i was up to at the moment, what i did all day, whether or not i had showered yet, and a random tidbit of something i'd said or a mistake that i'd made or something. i'm sure my mom was briefed in full.

i do have one adventure to report - i tried absinthe (in its weaker, modern form) the other night. i also retched violently for 6 hours afterwards, so i don't recommend it. additionally, it tastes like complete shit, so i don't understand what all the hype is about. i could eat tainted meat for the same effect, and arguably enjoy it more. i took the retching as a sign that my body needs some rest, so i'm abstaining from sinful behaviors for a while. i've been toying with the idea of abstaining permanently from several things. my body reacts violently and unpredictably at times, so occasionally i wonder if there are biological explanations for the inconsistencies. if i'm not born to be a drinker, so be it. but don't be ok with me consuming 10+ drinks one night with little to no effect, and then a mere 4 on another night and become indescribably ill. i'm beginning to suspect that there's a fairly obvious answer out there for me to notice.

listening to the cure now. i should go to bed soon because my entertainment committee has to be summoned tomorrow to drive me around the delights of foshan. another day filled with me picking at my nails and trying to decipher a few words here and there, carefully guarding my facial expressions so that i don't appear bored or grumpy (as i've been told my normal face looks) even tho i kind of am. i appreciate the efforts that david and company are exerting on my behalf, but despite insisting that i am more than happy to stay at my hotel chained to the dsl all day, my uncle and his friends feel deeply compelled to ensure that i am thoroughly amused. maybe being a loner is considered strange in china. i find it exhausting to interact with people i don't know well with all day long for several days in a row. tonight i just gave up and completely disengaged during dinner, and openly started an sms conversation with cynthia while everyone else was talking. no one seemed to notice. my uncle started falling asleep at one point, so i took this to be a good sign.