Independence Day in China

Given today’s date and the topic of this post, it’s pretty obvious that I have been delinquent in posting. For those of you following along at home, I’m sorry – I’ll try to make it up by a series of posts in the next few days about all of the antics that have kept me out of the tea bar and its lovely, almost-consistent internet access. Unfortunately, most of these posts will probably be picture-free - I've written them all and already delayed posting for a few days, but am giving up on trying to upload photos for all of them.

First up is a harrowing tale full of patriotism, hamburgers, and man’s struggle with nature. The week that ended in the 4th of July was our third full week in China, and coincided with a diminishing appreciation for the constant fare of dumplings, tea, and miscellaneous meat-covered-in-oil-and-pepper-over-rice-based-starch dishes. Up to that point, I had been pretty good about not eating any American-style food, with the exception of a trip to the local KFC for some ice cream (yes, Ellen, this is a shout-out to you on my blog). So for the 4th, the usual gang of friends and I decided to try something both novel and traditional, and made our way to Grandma’s Kitchen, a restaurant that serves such all-American selections as hamburgers, mashed potatoes with gravy, apple pie, and even Budweiser. The breakfast menu even contained a Denver Skillet, a sight that only confirmed the high regard with which people from all over the world view my wonderful home city.

With options like those, it’s hard to blame us for going a little overboard. We ordered five appetizers - onion rings, mozzarella sticks, a quesadilla (American enough, right?), chicken fingers, and French fries – after which everyone ordered themselves a beer, a milkshake, and a hamburger (with the exception of the one among us who doesn’t eat beef. The rest of us got bacon burgers to make up for it, though). It was delicious. As representatives of America - and despite it being the 4th of July, we were the only Americans in the restaurant - it was only fitting that we played the part of the overeating, English-speaking, money-spending foreigners. And spend money we did: the meal for the five of us was about 580 kuai – still less than USD $20 per person, but far more than the 50 kuai we’ve spent for a five-person meal around campus.

When we left the restaurant after dinner, the extra weight and sloth imparted by the largesse of our American spending worked against us immediately. While we had been eating on the fifth floor of an enclosed mall, the rain outside had been putting China’s drainage systems (a recurring theme in this blog, evidently) to the test. The streets and sidewalks were flooded, and while we spent about 20 minutes trying to hail a taxi, everyone else pouring out from the then-closing mall was trying to do the same . We took the subway instead, but when we tried changing trains we were forced out of the station, which had flooded. Standing in the midst of the hundred-plus people locked out of the station, we realized that we were going to have no more luck with finding taxis than at the mall, and began an hour-long walking-and-bus-hopping waterlogged trip back to our dorm. We made it back just barely by midnight – wet but content from our holiday excursion.