Being now rested and awake, I thought I’d think a few thoughts about the holiday and share them with you all. Why? Because I’m so kind and generous.
I don’t like handling asbestos. So far as I know (please don’t feel the need to correct me if I’m wrong), the health risks of asbestos are somewhat similar to smoking, so I see no need to get overly paranoid about having helped put asbestos shingles on a roof. But still…..
Roubaozi and I consumed a hell of a lot of beer.
Al Jazeera English is pretty good, but just as repititive as any other 24 hour news channel.
Despite a wealth of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi TV channels, I was surprised by the complete lack of English-language programming from the sub-continent. Sure, I expected a lot of programming in the multitude of languages spoken on the sub-continent, but I was expecting to come across a lot more than just plain no English language programming.
I was also surprised by the lack of cricket on all those South Asian channels. Again, I saw none.
Did I mention we got satellite TV? And it seems to be legal, too, or at least officially tolerated, especially when you consider the package: Al Jazeera English, Bloomberg, Deutsche Welle, France’s TV 5, a multitude of South Asian channels that probably nobody in Yanqing can understand (not counting tourists passing through the county, of course), and a huge stack of Chinese channels. And a few other channels, like Now, which is some weird American “alternative sports” channel which, in between various x-games-type sports, shows computer games and fishing. Computer games and fishing?! On TV?!?!?!? And then there were all the channels, like Arirang, Star Sports, æ„?大利å?«è§† (Italian Satellite TV?) that were present but had neither picture nor sound. Note to the satellite company: There’s no point in broadcasting a TV station unless you broadcast at least the picture and preferably the sound too. Then there were a couple like 西ç?牙å?«è§† (Spanish Satellite TV?) that was actually one of Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV channels. Ah well, you get what you pay for, and we didn’t pay much. But I was really hoping I could head up to Yanqing on the weekends and watch rugby.
It would be really cool to sit back in a farmhouse in a village in Yanqing, cracking open a beer, and sit back to watch rugby.
Did I mention Roubaozi and I consumed a huge amount of beer? We did. I’ve never seen him drink so much before. At least, I’ve never seen him drink so much without either falling on his arse or splitting his pants trying to kung fu kick me, or both.
Yes, I do have a friend who is named after a type of steamed bun stuffed with meat. There’s a story behind that. I’ll let him tell his own story. Trouble is, he doesn’t have a blog or any other kind of website that I can send you to. Yet. So for the time being, at least, I’m going to leave you wondering how my friend acquired such a name.
