So, I was reading a friend's blog (Allison's) and she was recounting her adventure buying fake purses in China town in NYC and being trapped in a basement (almost like R.Kelly) until she relented and bought some fo-Prada or something . . . this reminded me of a wonderful experience I had in China. Some of you may know this story- but here it is for the whole world aka: the handful of people that read out blog :)
So while in China we had home visits. We had the opportunity to stay with one of our student's families for a long weekend. Maile and I were partnered up and went to Mao Yu's house (and actually he wasn't even really our student, he just went to the school where we were teaching).
(Mao Yu and his little brother)
His family was very nice and they took us all around Hefei, bought me clothes, and even took me to get some Glamour Shots- China style (maybe I'll scan some and post them later). Then they invited the entire extended family over to watch us eat dinner. Apparently we were very entertaining. No one really spoke English, except for 11 year old Mao Yu's broken phrases he memorized out of book or something.
(Dinner with Mao Yu's family)
So after dinner, on the second night we were staying with them, Mao Yu began to tell us that we were "Going to taxi. Shower". Hmmmm, we thought. We knew something was lost in translation (there was no way we were showering in the taxi, right??) But there was no arguing with him, and the family was clearly waiting for us. We grabbed our entire bag because we didn't know what to expect- and got into one of the over crowed taxis with Mao's family.
(Out on the town with Mao Yu and some of his family)
We arrived at a building and were forced to take off our shoes first and foremost. We put on some sandals and then the boys went down one hall ways and we girls went down another. So this put Maile and I with Mao Yu's mom and the rest of the women in his extended family who spoke NO English (and we spoke just a little Chinese). We soon realized that we were going to be seeing China in a whole new way. The naked truth was about to revealed to us.
We were shown into a locker room with tons of naked Chinese ladies, all staring at the Americans who were about to join them. Every eye in the place was on us as Mao Yu's mom tugged at our clothes and pointed at the lockers. Maile's eyes were huge and she was clearly petrified. Around the corner was a giant shower room, complete with bath for children. And let me just emphasize that everyone was staring at us, waiting to see what the Americans looked like naked. I don't think they meant to be creepy- they were just genuinely curious, but it was still weird. (We were in a town where there were hardly any foreigners, so we were use to the staring, but just not when we were suppose to be naked.)
We tried to turn around and explain in our horrible Chinese and hand gestures that we weren't into the whole naked group shower/bath thing . . . but Mao Yu's mom only thought we were confused and just scooted us right back to the lockers. We were handed a towel that was 3 inches by 4 inches and again had our clothes tugged and shown how to put our clothes in the lockers. Mao Yu's mother guarded the door and we both realized that we would have had to plow her over to get out of there . . . so with 50 naked Chinese eyes glued to us, I began to strip. Maile started to freak out a little and was like, "What are you doing??" I looked at Maile, and spoke the words of encouragement that would soon become the motto of our trip: "It's all part of the China adventure!"
We came. We stripped. We were stared at. We conquered. :)
