Death defying, phone buying

Today was mostly uneventful, which I can blame on being achy from the rabies shot. Or maybe on my regular passing out on the couch at nine in the evening, in supremely awkward positions.

I noticed a funny comment today in last month’s That’s Beijing magazine, an issue on bicycles: “Anyone still riding [a Flying Pigeon] these days is likely to be a postal employee, a retiree, or French and living on Nanluogu Xiang.”

Ha ha ha. Actually, the postal service bikes are amazing – they’re green. Maybe that’s not a big enough perk to warrant becoming a mailman. But it says China Post and has sides pouches for letters and everything!

So in the afternoon I took Old Stupid (this is this loving name I would call the bike, if I had to) a ways down the street to pick up a cellphone that can text message in Chinese. It was about time to get a new phone seeing as the one I had been using in China beforehand is practically a family heirloom from six years ago. I don’t know the name of the model, but if you do a Google image search and type in “Nokia” and “Old,” look for the turquoise one.

I have a new respect for Beijing cab drivers, or at least an appreciation of their benevolence. Stuck in the middle of the road, I decided to cross two final lanes of sparse traffic. But right as I started pedaling again, a taxi came around the corner. I was going so slowly that I had time to clearly enunciate a resigned “Ohhh fuck…” as bike and I crawled across the car’s path. Thankfully I was spared. Here’s to renewed caution.

The phone buying in itself was pretty enjoyable. There’s something great about making important purchases in foreign languages. I couldn’t recognize the word for “charger,” but when my duo of patient salesmen explained what it was and what it did, I definitely understood what they were saying. There was little awkwardness and mostly just clear interaction, only in Chinese, which was encouraging.

After I bought my phone, the guys helped me register it, and asked for my Chinese name. My surname is “Fu,” I told them. “This 副？” “No…” “This 付？” “No…” “This 福？” “No…”

Eventually, I just wrote it out for them: 傅。

It’s very possible I misheard, but this is what I understood in the conversation that followed between the two guys:

“Hey, that’s a nicely written character.” “Better than mine.” “Oh, you should just study more!”

Or I’m wrong, and they were actually lamenting my poor stroke order and left-handedness. Whatevs.

Hot and Cold is powah-ing up – we wrote a new song today, in the indoor balcony of my room where we practice. It’s interesting to see how our sound changes every six months. We’ve really built off the new style we started to favour over Christmas. I don’t know how I would describe it, except that there’s a bit more of a beat. You can listen to Helen’s Interiors at www.myspace.com/hotandcoldmusic and see what I mean. I couldn’t really hear for certain, but I think the new song is about rabies.

Caitlin arrives tomorrow morning, from Montreal circa Geneva. I am really excited for her and other Plateau-dwellers to arrive. There are actually a lot of things to check out tomorrow. There’s the Mini Midi music festival at 5pm not far from here, and then later on, a toss-up between more Mini Midi, Carsick Cars, Queen Sea Big Shark and a host of other bands at D-22, and some French indie rock group playing on a boat/bar  anchored on the scum-lined Liangma canal right outside my door. Decisions!