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Yesterday at work one of my colleagues stood by my desk and moaned how she was getting old because she turned 24, and I shouted, "What! Come on! I'm 24 right now -- and I'm turning 25 at the end of the month!" because while I don't think I'm old, nobody else my approximate age can think they're old either or else the entire ruse is destroyed.
(Plus, 25 is that treacherous age where every person who has heard the joke suddenly thinks it's really funny to bust out the, "Hey, have you heard that Japanese joke? About how women are like Christmas cake?" which is annoying on multiple levels including but no limited to the fact that (a) that is bullshit, (b) I'm Chinese, and (c) shut up, asshole!)
No, but the point of this entry is to actually talk about monks, and how they lie.
When I was 20ish, I was in Beijing doing a semester and a summer of study abroad. I'm sure the Beijing CET program has completely poisonous memories of me calling up leadership at midnight to complain about a broken washer ("My clothes are going to get moldy!") and also fighting with my Chinese teacher about pronunciation, primarily because I didn't want to sound like a television announcer from Beijing, and am very fond of my Shanghainese accent. And also because I grew up in a family of people who said a bunch of terrible things about Northern China's food and climate and also cab drivers that have since all been borne out as absolute truth.
The point is, I was in Beijing, and during one of my breaks from my classes I went with two of my friends from the program on a trip to Hainan, an island on the southernmost tip of China famous for its gorgeous beaches and its mountains, and for having both subsequently eroded by small barges of fat annoying tourists like myself. In addition to having to take a super sketch beyond words car -- I will not pretend it was a cab or that the driver was not a potential rapist -- with my friend Atsuko to find a hospital at three in the morning for her ear infection, we climbed a MOUNTAIN.
It was RAINING. At the top of this MOUNTAIN that I climbed in the RAIN was a TEMPLE filled with MONKS. One of whom extorted 10RMB (about $1.50 U.S.) out of me and another of whom shook some bamboo sticks, told me I would never have to worry too much about money, and that I would meet the love of my life when I was 24.
To clarify: I don't even believe in herbal medicine. I'm not happy unless something has gone through the U.S. pharmaceutical industrial complex and is grossly expensive and has an annoying commercial showing people who clearly don't need medication that runs fucking nonstop on TV in between episodes of Supernatural and 30 Rock and House.
But for some fucking reason, I believed this monk.
I asked him, "What? No. Really?" only in Chinese, so it was like, "She me! Bu hui. Zhen de ma?" and he nodded and shook some more bamboo sticks and waved me away to the next person he was going to tell hideous lies to. And even knowing this, I totally climbed down that fucking mountain in the rain thinking, "Ohmigawd -- I am going to meet the love of my life when I am 24," which is a lie, because this is me, and of course that transmuted into, "Oh my God, if I don't settle for someone before I turn 25, I'm going to die alone." This process took about 3 seconds. The latter 2 seconds of which were used to preemptively feel shitty about my life.
Since, I have forgotten about it and then freaked out about it and then forgotten about it and then called my mom and wailed about it on and off, and now -- I am 18 days out from turning 25, I have curlers in my hair, I am drinking a Fresca at 10:43 p.m. on a Tuesday and I am probably not going to magically meet the love of my life between now and November 28.
And in conclusion: I am taking up a collection to buy plane tickets to China and another to Hainan and change for a bus ticket so that I can climb a MOUNTAIN (probably in the RAIN) and punch a MONK in the face.
(Plus, 25 is that treacherous age where every person who has heard the joke suddenly thinks it's really funny to bust out the, "Hey, have you heard that Japanese joke? About how women are like Christmas cake?" which is annoying on multiple levels including but no limited to the fact that (a) that is bullshit, (b) I'm Chinese, and (c) shut up, asshole!)
No, but the point of this entry is to actually talk about monks, and how they lie.
When I was 20ish, I was in Beijing doing a semester and a summer of study abroad. I'm sure the Beijing CET program has completely poisonous memories of me calling up leadership at midnight to complain about a broken washer ("My clothes are going to get moldy!") and also fighting with my Chinese teacher about pronunciation, primarily because I didn't want to sound like a television announcer from Beijing, and am very fond of my Shanghainese accent. And also because I grew up in a family of people who said a bunch of terrible things about Northern China's food and climate and also cab drivers that have since all been borne out as absolute truth.
The point is, I was in Beijing, and during one of my breaks from my classes I went with two of my friends from the program on a trip to Hainan, an island on the southernmost tip of China famous for its gorgeous beaches and its mountains, and for having both subsequently eroded by small barges of fat annoying tourists like myself. In addition to having to take a super sketch beyond words car -- I will not pretend it was a cab or that the driver was not a potential rapist -- with my friend Atsuko to find a hospital at three in the morning for her ear infection, we climbed a MOUNTAIN.
It was RAINING. At the top of this MOUNTAIN that I climbed in the RAIN was a TEMPLE filled with MONKS. One of whom extorted 10RMB (about $1.50 U.S.) out of me and another of whom shook some bamboo sticks, told me I would never have to worry too much about money, and that I would meet the love of my life when I was 24.
To clarify: I don't even believe in herbal medicine. I'm not happy unless something has gone through the U.S. pharmaceutical industrial complex and is grossly expensive and has an annoying commercial showing people who clearly don't need medication that runs fucking nonstop on TV in between episodes of Supernatural and 30 Rock and House.
But for some fucking reason, I believed this monk.
I asked him, "What? No. Really?" only in Chinese, so it was like, "She me! Bu hui. Zhen de ma?" and he nodded and shook some more bamboo sticks and waved me away to the next person he was going to tell hideous lies to. And even knowing this, I totally climbed down that fucking mountain in the rain thinking, "Ohmigawd -- I am going to meet the love of my life when I am 24," which is a lie, because this is me, and of course that transmuted into, "Oh my God, if I don't settle for someone before I turn 25, I'm going to die alone." This process took about 3 seconds. The latter 2 seconds of which were used to preemptively feel shitty about my life.
Since, I have forgotten about it and then freaked out about it and then forgotten about it and then called my mom and wailed about it on and off, and now -- I am 18 days out from turning 25, I have curlers in my hair, I am drinking a Fresca at 10:43 p.m. on a Tuesday and I am probably not going to magically meet the love of my life between now and November 28.
And in conclusion: I am taking up a collection to buy plane tickets to China and another to Hainan and change for a bus ticket so that I can climb a MOUNTAIN (probably in the RAIN) and punch a MONK in the face.
