Merry Christmas (and a belated Happy Chanukah, and Happy Solstice, Happy Eid, and Happy Kwanzaa; Happy Diwali? When is Diwali? January?)
I had to work a half day Saturday, then had Sunday off, then had to work Christmas Eve. The two days off, then work again Thursday, Friday and half of Saturday, then Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off for the New Year. Ick.
I didn’t especially mind working Christmas Eve except that I had class until 5:20, then had to rush to meet Lindsey, get to Guangzhou, and walk to the church. We didn’t get there until 7:35 (Mass at 8). We found a large crowd of Chinese people outside, taking pictures of the church. The police had blockaded the entrance and wouldn’t let anybody in. We couldn’t figure out what was going on and the police just waved me away when I tried my very broken Chinese to ask. After standing around for twenty minutes, we found another white guy who explained that the church was full, which is why no one was being let in. I was really, really disappointed. We stood around looking sad for awhile.
At 8:10 two Chinese men came up to us, and flashed some orange badges with Chinese writing. One looked around and made a quick, sneaky sign of the cross. We nodded. They waved us to the side and gestured down the street. Although we were waiting for our Chinese friend Richard, we followed them. They took us down the street, around the corner into an alley, knocked on a door to a house, and let us in. We then followed a different man up some stone steps, around the top of the building and then down again, into the side courtyard of the church. Success! We went into the side chapel to watch a video feed of the Mass in the big church.
The service was in Chinese (Mandarin, I think) and there were only a few other Westerners in the chapel. Lots of non-Catholic Chinese though, you could tell when we went up for Communion. The service was interesting, the music was nice, I liked it better in Chinese than the last time we came to the English service (the priest’s English is wretchedly painful to listen to). The only thing that seemed caught us off guard is that during the sign of peace, instead of shaking hands, or hugging or kissing, everyone bows and it’s all over very, very quick.
Christmas day we simply had a vegetarian feast at Lindsey’s and went out at night. I cooked mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, corn, green beans, eggplant marinara, apple crumble, and sweet potato pudding with orange caramel glaze. Afterwards, we met some people at a pub in Guangzhou than finished the night dancing in a massive, overly done but still fun club called Tang (as in the Chinese dynasty, not the orange drink).
In general, I’ve had quite the whirlwind of social activity lately. Lindsey and I went with David and Richard to the Mansion last Saturday, a posh gay/mixed club that David goes to a lot that we quite like as well. We had a good time, and met some good people. The new editor of That’s PRD (the English language monthly magazine for Guangzhou) was there and he seems like he’ll be good for improving a decent but not great publication.
We also got invited by the PR guy for the Mansion, Andre, to the new restaurant that the Mansion owner is opening. It’s called Wilber’s and it opens Jan 1, but they’re having some tastings beforehand to test out the menu and the staff. Lindsey and I went on Thursday and had a nice, chill 7-person dinner party. Fantastic drinks, some really great food, some just good food (no vegetarian options:(), and a generally very pleasant four or five hours. And, all free (okay, except the 200 yuan (about $25) getting there and back in a cab but still, not bad at all).
