Anyways, since she was planning to get married this summer, my dad immediately started dropping hints to my mom that we should totally go back to China during the summer to attend the wedding.  My mom, of course, picked up on these very well hidden hints (that was sarcasm) and planned a trip to China lasting almost three weeks during the month of August.  I also picked up on these hints and knew that we would be going to China mainly because of two reasons: the wedding and my great-grandma’s 100th birthday (which would actually happen in February, but more on that later).

I think I’ve already covered what happened during that trip pretty thoroughly, so I won’t go into that too much.  Just know that while we were there, my cousin and her husband (he was legally her husband, they got the papers done but hadn’t had the wedding yet) were buying all the wedding candy and buying goody bags and stuff.

By the time we went back home, we had not attended the wedding.  I didn’t say anything about it, but I was kind of confused about it.  We had celebrated great-grandma’s coming birthday, but we didn’t attend a wedding.

Why?

Because a fortune teller told them that in the three weeks we were going to China, there was not a single day that was a “good” day that was full of luck.

Yes.  A fortune teller.

Before you dismiss this as a cultural difference, know that the Xiao family just generally does not believe in fortune-telling bullshit and the like – my grandfather, who raised my dad and his sister (my cousin’s mother), was a high school principal who was jailed as a result of the Hundred Flowers Campaign when Mao Zedong was in power (but later released).  He was a very intellectual man who did not believe in magic bullshit.

On the other hand, the family that my cousin married into, apparently really did believe in it.  So they consulted a fortune teller, who “calculated” the best days to get their papers done (March 8, or freaking International Women’s Day) and the best day to have their wedding (AKA China’s Teacher’s Day).  You know what that’s like? That’s like marrying on Christmas Day and expecting that day to be special (according to my parents).

Some fortune teller.  So now my parents are (or were) extremely pissed that my cousin would take the word of some fortune teller over having us, pretty much her closest family, attend the wedding.  Also the fact that she invited 70 people to the wedding, but didn’t invite us.

What’s that? “No one could possible have so many people attend a wedding?” Oh, whoops! Silly me.  What a typo.   Sorry, it wasn’t 70.  It was 700.  Another typo, you say? Here, let me write that out again.  7*10^2.  Seven zero zero.  Jame’s Bond’s number backwards.  She invited 700 people to her wedding.

While I’m definitely not as pissed as my parents, I’m a little disappointed, but I can kind of see why she would do that.  Since she has so little family left, why would she want to alienate her parents-in-law, right?

But whatever.  It was a pretty fun trip overall.

…I bet the fortune teller would have told my parents to kill my brother, since he was born on September 18.  The day that the Japanese invaded China during WW2.  The day that sirens across China sound for three minutes straight, annually.

Whatever.

So anyways.  We went to Chongqing, relative and his new wife picked us up, we went in some taxis to our hotel, blah blah blah.  Then we went down the hotel elevator to some place.  The place – it’s indescribable.  I literally have no word that encompasses its pure insanity.

Basically, it’s like a mall, except each shop is a restaurant.  And each restaurant is about the size of my living room – not much room.  And yet they somehow cram like a dozen tables in there.  Chinese people are just really really good at squeezing large things into small spaces.  No innuendo intended.

There were so many restaurants it was amazing.  Like fifty gazillion per floor.  And there were something like eight floors or so.  Anyways, we stopped by at this small noodle shop that had 6 (not exaggerating) people cooking in a kitchen half the size of my room.  Take note that my room isn’t big at all.  So we ordered noodles (of course), some spicy, some not-so-spicy-because-my-brother-can’t-eat-spicy-food-or-any-food-at-all.

The hygiene of the restaurant was extremely questionable.  The tables were sticky with oil.  I certainly didn’t see a certificate saying the restaurant was inspected or anything like you’d see here in ‘merica.

The next morning, I discovered exactly why hygiene in restaurants is so important.  So people don’t get sick, right? I guess this is where you go Ohmigosh he got sick! Yeah, I did.  Warning: If you have a weak stomach/are disgusted easily (even if you aren’t, you’ll maybe probably almost definitely be disgusted by this), skip to the next paragraph.  You have been warned.  I woke up in the morning, took a dump, except the dump felt extremely un-solid.  Yeah, I had diarrhea.  For ~72 hours.  Shitting water.  Continuously.  F M FREAKING L.

OK, moving past indigestion, we went to see the parents of the relative who picked us up.  There, we had our first home-made non-breakfast (because breakfast is freaking lame and is definitely not the most important meal of the day).  It was really good! Of course it was.  It was Chinese food.

Anyways, the mom of the relative (I’ll call him Bob from now on and his wife Sue) was telling us how Bob and Sue met.  Bob’s mom went to a gathering of moms of singles in the neighborhood carrying a sign.  On the sign was listed the requirements that each mom set for their child’s future spouse.  So they waved their signs around vigorously, and if they found a mom with a possibly suitable candidate, they would be all “Hey, your child looks sexy.  I think my child wants a piece of that.”  and they’d exchange phone numbers.  Then, the parents would interview the child of the other parent to see if they actually were good enough for their tastes.

If the child was deemed suitable, the children would then talk to each other and bond over the phone.

China's version of online dating.

And then, they would finally meet.  And then they would marry like two days later or something.  I don’t even know.

Also, did I mention that Bob was easily six feet? Yeah.  Definitely the tallest Chinese person I have ever met in person.  So.  Freaking.  Tall.

Besides Bob though, I felt pretty tall in China.  =p

So you know that Java class I took over the summer? College courses… it’s like 5 chapters a day.  OK, not really.  It goes at the relatively reasonable rate of 1 chapter per day.  So it’s a lot of reading.  I got through it with a good grade, and I asked my counselor, and she told me I would get Applied Arts credits for taking the course.  That’s good news, because now I don’t have to make space in my senior year for that.

Two days after I took the final for the Java class, we went to China.  We took Asiana Airlines which is freaking awesome.

What’s with comedians and airplane food?

That image is not mine.  Someone else made it.

It’s like hating on airplane food is a rite of passage for comedians or something.  Because they will hate on it at least once in their career.  And people will laugh about it.

Maybe it was just the airline I was on, but the food wasn’t bad.  In fact, it was pretty good.  I’m eating food a couple miles up in the air.  I had a steak with smoked salmon.   Granted, there was very little steak (about the size of my palm) and even less salmon (not even enough to make a baby full), but what was there wasn’t the assault upon my taste buds that comedians are always claiming it is.

Anyways, Asiana Airlines is the most freaking awesome airline ever because they have a TV on the back of every chair.  Every single freaking chair.  And they have movies that are relatively new: Kung Fu Panda 2, Sucker Punch, Limitless, Source Code, Thor, Harry Potter 7 1/2, Fast Five, Battle: Los Angeles and a lot more.  I watched a lot of movies I didn’t get the opportunity to watch back on solid ground in theaters.  I didn’t get a blink of sleep during the entire flight because I was so busy watching movies.

Asiana being a Korean airline, we transferred in the Incheon Airport in (or near? I don’t even know) Seoul.  We stayed for 3 hours or so.  The Korean airport security is a lot stricter than our ever-beloved NSA.  You have the X-rays and metal detectors to go through just to get near the terminals, and right before you board the plane, they have a checkpoint where they hand-search your bags and stuff.  Took forever to get on the plane.

So we finally touched down in Chengdu in the Sichuan province (we took a smaller plane that, sadly, had no TVs, so I slept the entire time) and I saw some relatives I hadn’t seen in freaking forever.  I also saw my cousin’s husband (she got married not too long ago, but hasn’t had her wedding yet), who told me his name was Jeff.  My cousin later laughed at me because apparently he only told me to call him Jeff because the Chinese phrase for “cousin’s husband” is jie fu, and that sounds like “Jeff.”

We ate a lot.  Like, a freaking ton.  Since we hadn’t been in China in forever, there were a gazillion relatives inviting us to eat at a gazillion restaurants.

Restaurants in China, if they’re big, usually have private rooms that you can rent for 200 or so yuan depending on the restaurant (that’s a little more than 40 USD), but then you have to order the food.  I’ve no idea how much it costs since I never got a hold of a receipt, but I’m pretty sure it would have costed more than the room.

After one or two days, we went to Chongqing, which is another huge freaking city.  It’s a lot like San Francisco, if San Francisco was completely consisted of 15+ floor buildings, was ten times hillier, and had traffic that was ten times worse.

Seriously.  I cannot stress the terrible traffic in China enough.  No one puts on their seat belts.  People drive on the wrong side of the road.  People almost run over pedestrians.  There is no right of way.  Now that I’ve got my permit and I’ve been out on the road several times, holy crap is right of way important.  I swear there’s no traffic laws in China at all.  People squeeze into tiny ass spaces.  Angela told me the world record for parallel parking was 37 inches of space or something.  Any taxi driver in China could probably beat that.  I would not drive there unless I was in an armored vehicle or something.

We took a bullet train from Chengdu to Chongqing.  It took two hours.  My parents were rambling the entire time how we were so lucky, in their day the train would take twelve hours, blah blah blah.  We got to the train station and we took a taxi to our hotel.  I reached back for the seat belt, and it seemed stuck.  I tried pulling it out and when I pulled my hand back in, it was covered in soot or something.  So yeah.

Also, in addition to driving like maniacs, the taxis in Chongqing run off of natural gas.  The natural gas is stored in tanks.  The tanks are in the trunks of the taxis.  So if you’re rear-ended, you go up in a spectacular fireball that Michael Bay would be jealous of.

We took a ferry in the middle of the night in Chongqing to see all the pretty lights on the gazillion story buildings.  Yeah, it looked pretty awesome.  LIGHTS EVERYWHERE.

I would keep writing more, but this post is really long and I’m lazy.  So more on indigestion next post?

These ones.

A ton of reviewers on Amazon said that these were really freaking awesome and everyone should get them and holy shit did I mention how freaking awesome they are?

So I convinced my parents to get them.  Only after they made me take 3 SAT practice tests.

They just came in today.

Holy shit were they worth it.

Dammit, my therapist told me not to think of her.

Anyways, my parents want me to know some basic computer programming, because apparently everyone knows how to program like a mofo by college.

Unfortunately, I haven’t turned 16 yet, so I couldn’t sign up for classes at West Valley, which has a minimum age requirement of 16.  West Valley also happened to be the closest college, which is, eh, 5 minutes away via bike.  The next closest college was De Anza, but I couldn’t go there because the schedule was all weird and we’re leaving in China in August or something.

So I was forced to go to Mission College.  Mission is great, by the way, not dissing it or anything, but it’s kind of inconvenient.  It involves half an hour of driving one way, and that totals around 6 hours just to take one freaking class.  Well, actually two, if you want to count the lab portion and the lecture portion separate.

I was hoping to get my application rejected so I could then get rejected from C Programming (my first alternate) so I could get into Psychology (my second alternate), but no such luck.  I got into Java.

I wasn't happy, but at least we were going to learn how to speak Coffee-with-a-flame.

By the way, our last day of school was Wednesday last week, which means I got a whopping 4 days of freedom before I went to college in high school.  Oh, and this isn’t a class designed for just high schoolers who want to take a summer class – it’s a college course.  There were adults, some maybe as old as 40, in the class, along with a couple of high schoolers such as yours truly.

Anyways, today, I went to class.  The teacher was a black dude with a slight accent.  It sounded Jamaican, but could just as easily be South African, because I have absolutely no idea when it comes to accents.

He started off class by talking about stuff such as Java is very interesting and You will like Java and This class will be easier if you already know some stuff about programming and just in general being a very energetic teacher.  I don’t understand being energetic in the morning, but I guess when you’re teaching something with a cup of espresso as the logo, you’re gonna be energetic.

Oh, and before I forget, you can expect to have two hours of homework for every one hour of class.

Shit.

Also, you have a midterm and a final.  Each is worth 20% of your grade.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Anyways, we started programming that very day which also happens to be today, and although I didn’t make any mistakes (I am perfect, after all (OK, maybe just lucky)), a lot of the mistakes I saw around me were very small errors – they forgot to capitalize a letter, they put a colon instead of a semicolon, their head exploded.

Hasta luego.

A tall, thin man rushed through a hallway, pushing past other men carrying suitcases and stacks of paper.  He finally reached the destination he had been searching for, and barreled into the room.  A silver-haired woman glanced up at him, obviously irritated.  ”What do you want, Smith?” she snapped.

Smith panted, “You know that top secret lightning shooting machine?”

The woman looked at him as if he were crazy.  ”What, you want more funding? We’ve given you fifty million to build the ridiculous weapon already, what else do you want?”

“No, no.  Although our security could probably use some funding after…”

“Smith, stop babbling.  What the fuck is so urgent?“

“Lara, it was stolen.”  Smith sounded oddly calm, and it seemed as though the panting had helped him regain his breath.

“What the fuck do you mean it was stolen? Did you take it out for a walk, and the Chupacabra decided the thing was his?”

“Some kid just ran in and took it.”

Lara couldn’t speak for a moment.  She looked as if she were choking on air, and Smith wondered if he should perform the Heimlich on his colleague.

“Some kid just ran the fuck into the headquarters of the fucking CIA and took the fucking weapon that cost fifty fucking million dollars to make?”

Smith decided to not perform the Heimlich.  He nodded weakly.

“THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STANDING AROUND FOR? GO FIND THE FUCKING KID AND FUCKING GET THE FUCKING WEAPON, FUCKDAMMIT.”

“Right, right… we have security cameras everywhere, we can identify him…” Smith mumbled quietly to himself as he exited the room, leaving Lara to check if her blood pressure was abnormally high and to take the appropriate pills.

Smith, using advanced programs, immediately identified the teenager thief as one Jercy Packson.  He searched up his file and found out that Jercy Packson lived with his mother and had been expelled from over seven schools in the past five years alone.

Lara walked in, a vein bulging, but otherwise looking relatively normal.  ”Well?” she snapped at him.

“I found him.  I know where he lives.”

“Great. Go get the fucking weapon then,” she snarled.

Smith looked through his copy of The Top Secret CIA Handbook to Top Secret Operations, and found the section he was searching for.  The chapter was titled “How to deal with a teenager who has stolen a fifty million dollar lightning shooter.”  He read quickly through it and dialed a number on his cell phone.

“This is Smith.  We need a SWAT team with their usual clothing, except with some kind of rubber suit over it.”

He paused.  Then he told the person on the other end of the line the address of Jercy Packson.

The next day, the newspaper’s front page article read:

“A teenager named Jercy Packson was shot and killed yesterday by a SWAT team in rubber suits.  It was revealed that Packson had stolen extremely sensitive equipment from the CIA and immediate retrieval was necessary.  According to the SWAT team leader, Packson attempted to activate the equipment and was immediately shot.  ”We were told that if the machine was activated, many lives would be lost.  We did what we could to save as many lives as possible,” the leader commented.

Packson’s mother, one Sally Packson, was devastated by the loss of her teenage delinquent son.  She was babbling about Olympus and Greek gods and demigods, and was quickly detained to prevent her from hurting herself.  She is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment for, in her doctor’s words, “being completely fucking crazy” See more on page A3“

Lara high fived Smith.  ”Now that is what I call swift and efficient action!”

As you can see, the bot ditched me after a while.  You can also see I’m not using my customary red text… I was simply too shocked at having an actual conversation with a bot to switch text colors.

Adios!

Anyways, he had this motorcycle thing except it had four wheels.  Also, it was colored red and yellow.  It had a top speed of what was probably 4.2 miles per hour.

I was so jealous.

It was basically that picture above, except without that thing in the back.

When I got to his house, he was just zooming around his backyard at 4.2 miles per hour.  I was shocked.  He didn’t have a helmet on.  But he didn’t fall, so it doesn’t really matter.

His little bro, who’s something like 7 right now, then switched places with my cousin that was on my bike, and then he started zooming around without a helmet.  I was utterly baffled by their seeming absence of any common sense, because seriously, if you fall off of that thing at full speed, you could probably break your head and hit the ground with such force that your family jewels cease to exist.

The difference is, no one will ever try to steal your FAMILY jewels.

Then my cousin, mistaking my he’s-totally-going-to-kill-himself-at-4.2-mph face as a I-want-to-ride-that-now face, asked me if I wanted to try it out.  Without a helmet.

Me being safety conscious me, and me having the level of maturity that I have, said Hell yes I wanna ride that thing.  Y’know, that thing that probably said “For ages 4-8″ on it.

Anyways, I got on and totally had terrible control.  I repeatedly crashed it into their fence (and a concerned neighbor started throwing oranges at me) and almost ran over my brother, all while looking like a complete idiot, legs sticking out comically.  Then I lost balance and fell off.

You have to imagine all of this while listening to that music, right there.

Unfortunately, when I fell off, the bike didn’t stop moving.  Why? Because like actual motorcycles, the throttle was on the handlebar.

When I fell off, I was still holding onto the handlebar, and because I was holding it as I fell off, I dragged the throttle down to its max, which was probably somewhere around 4.3 miles per hour.  I was thus being dragged along by the freaking thing at 4.3 miles per hour.

When I finally gathered enough sense to just let go of the freaking handlebar, it almost immediately stopped, and so did I.  Unfortunately, my head did not get the memo and proceeded to smash itself on the seat of the bike.

This is pretty humiliating once you realize that this bike is designed for freaking kindergarteners. Which means that freaking kindergarteners make better motorcyclists than me.

Look at this smug little asshole. Just look at her.

And that is the story of why I will never be a motorcyclist.

However, the type of pain is usually a dull, consistently there pain.  That annoys me to no end, but meh.  Around three weeks ago, I started feeling extreme nausea along with this pain.  I never threw up, though (not sure if this is a good thing).  Then it went away until last last Saturday.  Last last Saturday, my nausea-pain came back.  I tried to ignore it until Monday night, where it just spiked.  Also, my crap was black.  By black, I mean it was tar-colored, pitch black, ink black, black as the night when you don’t have a frickin’ flashlight.

I apologize for that mental image. Here's a kitten.

But I didn’t think that black stool was any problem, just something I ate.  But keep it in mind… or not if it’s too disturbing.

Anyways, my mom, disturbed by my excruciating pain, scheduled an appointment with my doctor the next morning (Tuesday morning).  I went and nothing extraordinary happened, except for the fact that she signed me up for 3 (3!) blood tests.  She told me I might have an ulcer, and it wasn’t the old problem.

So I went to the lab to get the tests done, and they took two vials of blood.  Then they handed me a cup.  Because apparently, my doctor also accidentally signed me up for a stool test, which meant I had to gather my shit and put it in a cup.

The brown color is actually from shit. My shit.

They poked a hole in my vein.  I hate holes in my veins.  Did I mention that?

So, because my doctor specifically mentioned that the test for ulcer-causing bacteria was a  blood test, we had to go back, have the doctor print out another form, and go back to the lab.

Then I got a hole poked in my other arm.  I hate holes in my veins.

I will never take heroin.

Then I went back to school to avoid missing math (because I just love math so much!).

The next day, I tried biking to school, as normal.  I live right smack dab in the middle of a hill, which I have to go over to go to school.  I felt pretty lightheaded after I finally got over the hill, but I thought it was normal, because it’s a pretty big hill.

But the lightheadedness didn’t go away.  It stayed and got worse.  My vision blurred.  I started swerving from side to side.  Fortunately, I had the sense to get off my bike and try walking it until I felt better.  Unfortunately, it did not get better.  I felt terrible at that point and could barely stand, so I just dropped my bike, dropped my backpack, and stood around.  Then, I passed out.

Of course, safety-conscious me was wearing a helmet, so when I woke up (after probably around two seconds… contrary to popular belief, passing out for more than five minutes gives you more than a 90% chance of having brain damage or something*) I found myself staring at the ground.  My helmet protrudes from the front of my head, so none of my face was touching the ground, except for my nose, because my nose is just huge.

I...have no idea.

Anyways, I started standing up and waving at passing cars, only to fall down again.   I probably looked like some crazy guy that found some kind of maniacal satisfaction in waving at cars and then falling down onto the rain-soaked ground.  A couple of cars, probably with drivers that thought exactly that, passed by without stopping.

Finally, a truck stopped by, and a concerned-looking, buff Hispanic dude tossed my bike into the back of his truck and drove me home.  If you’re reading this, thanks!

After my brush with [what was probably not even close to] death, I went to see the doctor, who then sent me to a specialist.  A specialist that specializes in the digestive system.  Exciting!

He really just talked and talked and mentioned he was going to have to stick a camera down my throat, and by the way, I’m going to sign you up for the stool test.

I got home after scheduling an appointment to have the camera stuck down my throat, which I was told is amazing fun by the specialist.  I don’t know, maybe I was just bothered by the fact that he enjoys sticking cameras down peoples’ throats, but I felt a sense of unease.  I really don’t know.

So anyways, I went home and scooped some of my shit into a cup.  Yay.

-Fin.

*So Eragon, Harry Potter, and pretty much all other heroes that have ever passed out would’ve woken up as blubbering idiots.

PS: I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I learned that black stool is caused by internal bleeding.  To be specific, the color is caused when your blood meets your digestive juices (yay!).

So that means I was digesting my own blood.  Yummy.

I’m going out into the sun in a moment.

Uh oh!

As of this moment, I’m fine.  I do have an ulcer, but it should be (unless my body is just completely incompetent) healing, and I’m taking 8 pills a day.

I'm crying from terror while posting this.

So I went outside to get a broom because I wasn’t gonna go near that spider without a 4-foot pole/broom (WHAT IF IT WAS ONE OF THOSE FREAKY JUMPING SPIDERS?!) and come back.  It’s still there.  In the exact same spot.  I whack it with my broom, and it falls apart.  Literally.  Its body split into two, with legs sticking out.

Whimpering with terror, I took my broom and whacked it again, hoping it wasn’t one of those abominations that let loose Spider Hell on Earth when opened.  Thankfully, it wasn’t.  But its legs started falling off.  Which was gross.  So I swept it outside.

Anyways, like all the times I don’t post for a ridiculously long amount of time, I’ll give you a potpourri of my extremely exciting (and amusing!) life.

Last last weekend: A swim meet.
Actually, never mind.  You’re probably tired of hearing about my swim meets.  So let’s move on to something way more awesome.

SCHOOL SEASON FREAKING STARTED

Which is exciting because this is the first year I’m practicing on the team (albeit only the second year…) with Christian-san.  Our coach.  Who has a few distinctive characteristics and… uh… whatchamacallems.  Oddities? Habits? Anyways, Christian’s voice cracks more than mine (except when I’m imitating Shreyas’ mating call/battle cry, of course), which is odd because he’s what, 30? All I know about his age is that he’s older than me.  Which can be probably observed while looking at his beard that’s manliness is indescribable.  At least until his voice cracks.  At which point it all cancels out.

There is nothing that will ever cancel out this man's manliness.

Also, he always has a habit of telling exactly how many more push-ups he could’ve done in college than you.  And then demonstrates his Chuck Norris-ness (from now on, that’ll be my official scale of manliness) by asking you to do fifty push-ups with just your thumbs and giving no hints on how this is possible without breaking your thumbs (yeah, I did three when he told me to).

Apparently, when he’s vexed, he says in his signature cracking voice, “Girls, girls.”  As I have not personally observed this phenomenon actually happening, I cannot describe it.  No confirmation on whether or not says this to guys as well or whether he follows up with his “When I was in college…”

"...we got whacked by these if we didn't do our planks right."

However, as of this moment, our coach is recovering from a surgery, and I wish him all the best, even though his sets make us feel as if we should just break all of our bones for the purpose of never having to swim again.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year, may you gain much money from your parents this year, and may the Atheist God grant you a bountiful harvest of A’s and A+’s this year!

Last weekend (basically, three days ago), my mom returned from my brother’s swim meet (he swims with Peak, ew), yelled at me, yelled at my brother, and yelled at my dad for sleeping.  She promptly yelled at me again to put on some different pants because those looked terrible, and would you kindly get in the freaking car.

Of course, I did so, not knowing what the hell what was going on.  She then drove to the nearest Chinese Bakery place, glared at me, and exited the car.  She came back with a large cake box (with a cake inside?! MAYBE, STAY TUNED – ER, READING – TO FIND OUT!) and tossed it into my lap, and yelled at me again.  She then drove like a drunken maniac (OK, not drunken, but definitely like a maniac) to someplace strange.  She yelled at me to keep an eye out for such-and-such an address.

When I saw said address, and told her so, she slammed the brakes and the cake box (AND THE CAKE?!) nearly flew from my lap into the windshield.  As she parallel parked at the curb without breaking anything, she told me to get the cake box, my jacket, and go to house said address.

My mom, my brother, and I walked up to the house and rang the doorbell.  A lady opened the door and smiled at us.  She beckoned us to come in, and I was suddenly afraid.  I thought of Hansel and Gretel and how they were nearly cooked, but my mom just rolled her eyes, pushed past me, took the cake box, and dropped the box on to the nearest chair.

An old lady (different from first lady) wiped her hands on her apron and smiled broadly at me.  She fired off several statements in Chinese rapidly, and I couldn’t understand it at all.  I heard “gao,” which means “tall,” but that was it.  As she was obviously talking about me, and she had said “tall,” I smiled back, and thanked her.  She stood there looking confused, with a “WTF is this boy smoking?” look on her face, then decided that I was suffering from hunger-hallucinations.

Wait. I think I saw an underwear troll back there.

She led me to a table laden with food (that was what, 5 feet away?), and motioned for me to sit down.  ”Eat.”  First she had complimented my height, and now she was telling me to eat! I began liking this lady.  Over to my left, my mom was talking with someone.  I didn’t notice that someone until I looked over there and I realized my grandma, my uncle, and my aunt were all sitting there, firing away at their rapid Chinese talk.

I heard something about “SATs,” “not studying,” “only 2 hours of homework a night,” and my mom kept motioning at me.  So I just sat there looking at my fried chicken, wondering about Hansel and Gretel.  I fed some to my brother, and when he didn’t collapse or anything, I tucked in.

The first lady that opened the door sat down next to me and started talking to me in heavily accented English.  I deduced from her non-Chinese accent and her non-speaking of Chinese that she was Korean (there was also a Korean calender hanging in the corner).  She asked me about swimming and drawing and school and school and studying and school.

I probably would’ve enjoyed this visit more if I weren’t so utterly confused.  All throughout this visit, I was thinking, Who are these people? Do Koreans make fried chicken? Where’s the kimchi? I really like this fried chicken.  Is there more fried chicken?

You just knew I'd put this in here.

After I was done stuffing myself with fried chicken and thoughts of kimchi, I sat down in the middle of my mom’s little talk-group.  Some older man (not an OHAM, that’s for sure) had joined in the conversation.  They were now talking about the Beijing economy and house prices (if I understood correctly), while my grandma often contributed with a vigorous nod and a “_____ is always right.  Listen to him.  He knows everything.  He’s always right,” inserting the _______ with his name, which is NOT freaking Ching Chong Dim Sum, you racist bastards.  After a bit of that, my mom opened the cake box, which, surprise, had a cake inside.  She cut it up and we all ate it.

As we were leaving, my grandma reached out to me and slipped a hong bao (red envelope/bag) into my pocket.  The old lady with the apron who complimented my height and told me to eat also gave me a hong bao.  In the car, I opened both.  $10 from my grandma, and $20 from the other old lady! $30 for doing nothing but eat.  What a productive visit!

You know what I realized? I hate buttons.  Like those buttons that you push when you want something.  Because sometimes, they’re just non-responsive.

And I also sometimes really, really hate touch screens.  For the same reason.

Have a nice second/minute/hour/day/week/year/decade/century/millennium!