苏三起解 sū sān qǐjiè

In our Beijing Opera (北京京剧）class, we are learning and memorizing a portion of a piece that tells of a famous Ming Dynasty love story. The story is about a beautiful woman named Su San (苏三) who despite coming from a poor family and later sold into prostitution, had a kind heart. She met and fell in love with a client, Wang Jinglong, and helped him attend a prestigious medical university by selling jewelry. They were soulmates, but once accepted to the university, he left for a long time, and she heard from him little. In the meantime, poor Su San was sold to a married businessman as his concubine; this man's first wife tried to feed Su San poisoned noodles, but instead murdered her husband when he accidently ate them! However, this wife sent Su San to trial and later to prison for the death of her husband. After some time, Su San was sent to Tai Yuan for a retrial, where she discovered her beloved Wang Jinglong was an officer. With the help of kind people, they fell back in love and lived happily ever after. 苏三唱 （西流水：） 苏三离了洪同县，将身来在大街前。 sū sān lí le hóng tóng xiàn, jiāng shēn lái zài dà jiē qián. 未曾开言我心好惨，过往的君子听我言。 wèi céng kāi yán wǒ xīn hǎo cǎn, guò wǎng de jūn zǐ tīng wǒ yán. 那一位去往南京转，与我那三郎把信传。 nà yí wèi qù wǒng nán jīng zhuǎn, yǔ wǒ nà sān láng bǎ xìn chuán. 就说苏三把命断，来生变犬马我当报还。 jiù shuō sū sān bǎ mìng duàn, lái shēng biàn quǎn mǎ wǒ dāng bào huán.

"I want to be so old that I have to be scooped into a dustpan." - Zach

Well, it's been quite some time since I last posted, but I only now have enough events about which to tell. I spent this past week sick, being attacked on multiple fronts, and spent the night before our exam enduring a fever and chills. That said, last week was spent either in class, doing homework, eating, buying groceries, or napping. Thanks to antibiotics, I'm pretty much recovered, but I still have congested lungs as a result of pollution and second-hand smoking. The weekend before last, the entire group followed Zhao laoshi to a nice restaurant, where we experienced the splendors of the traditional 火锅 dish (huoguo - "hot pot"). The meat was lamb, and the little bit that I ate was very tasty. Of course, tofu pieces and vegetables were also included. It was overall a delicious dinner! Following dinner was the usual trip to Scarlet, and I went shopping the next day with enough success to keep me browsing for hours. My feet are a little big in comparison to the average Chinese woman, so I eventually gave up on that errand and returned to campus. Then, I got really sick, but there's nothing to that except the fact, and it isn't at all interesting, so I'll skip ahead to this past weekend. Friday was very laid back- all of the classes watched "活着" (huozhe - to live), which is an amazing movie once banned in the early 90's for its subject matter; I suggest everyone should see it. Following "class" was Nankai University's Olympics, or really big Field Day. John/Steve/Shi Lifu put his big American flag (which before this event was hanging on his wall) on his shower curtain rod, and waved it proudly as we approached the field to meet our opponents. I wouldn't say people were intimidated, but I do think our group of mostly non-athletic nerds surprised most. In most of the events, we placed either first or second (either overall or in specific heats), and I in particular participated in the jump-roping, basketball dribble, tug-of-war, soccer (which was really just penalty shots, so I didn't help much), and baton relay competitions. The latter was a lot of fun- the runners were me, John, Fred, and Trey, and we placed second overall! Our prize was a fantastic little Chinese phrase book each, in addition to having our picture taken repeatedly. Saturday wasn't as much fun- I felt dizzy because of the Cipro, but was quite productive; I wrote and mailed many, many postcards (which was a slightly embarrassing experience, given I had to glue every single stamp onto the cards), and finished homework so I could spend Sunday buying things. I had some great finds at our favourite bootleg DVD shop, including: Wall-E; The Tudors, Season 2; Queer as Folk, Seasons 1-5; The Piano; The Fifth Element; Death Race; Blue Velvet; Final Destination 1-3; and three Chinese movies. Again, this all cost me around $15 altogether. Richard accompanied me to a cultural shopping district in the afternoon, which was in a really neat area of Tianjin about a 20 minute taxi ride away from Nankai's campus. I spent a lot of money- a lot. I bought some souvenirs, of course, and other things for myself, including an old doughnut shaped jewelry box and two qipaos (旗袍). With some encouragement from Richard, I finally took a whack at bargaining: a certain item I bought (which I can't talk about, because it's someone's special gift) was priced over 300 kuai, so I suggested 175 kuai. The women running the store laughed at me for about three minutes and then proposed 180 kuai as the final price. As in, I got about a 50% discount. I was dumbfounded that it actually worked! It was also fun getting to speak with a lot of different salespersons and what-not, and explaining that no, I am not Richard's wife, and yes, we're looking for Mao uniforms! I kind of promised some people that I'd be back next weekend...which isn't a lie, because I loved the variety of neat trinkets! And that about wraps up the past week. I'm (finally) getting used to the culture and am really enjoying myself! I am also used to the teaching style, so am now enjoying class much more. We have two weeks and one weekend left here in Tianjin, so there's a lot of activities to squeeze in!