on odd one

Well, Mike and Mark aren't around. They're in Zibo which means no Ziboys either. So we have to step it up a bit this weekend to make things entertaining.

Well lucky for us the two Newish New Zealanders came out to dinner with their adorable and fun children. Also Our Taiwanese Friend came around on her China tour (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Qingdao, Suzhou and uhhhhh Dongying, yeah me neither).

Our Taiwanese Friend gave the kids too much Future Cola (Future Will Be Better!) and The Girl had to chase them around the circular banquet table until they got tired. Except that they didn't. She did, but they didn't.

After the kids went home we went to an old watering hole, Kasibulanke. Which, I think, means absolutely nothing in Chinese but sounds rather like Spanish for white house.

Now the last time Our Taiwanese Friend came around we all pretended that she was Our Singaporean Friend so that there would be no problems. Our Taiwanese Friend is not notoriously political, but the residents of Dongying have a way of drawing nationalism out of people as though they were violently milking some sort of nationalism udder.

But, for understandable reasons, she did not feel like being Our Singaporan Friend this time. That meant that she was going to speak in her Taiwanese accent. Or rather, her Taiwanese imitation of a Beijing accent. She was also going to answer "ni shi nali ren?" and all related questions with "Taiwan ren."

That lead to some tense moments. The taxi driver was totally flummoxed by her combo accent, and had never heard of the bar. So he was told to go to Qingdao road. When he asked what place on Qingdao road, he was told, "Qingdao, like the beer."

The driver looked like the earth had lurched sideways and attempted to throw him off. Two foriegners and one Chinese person in his cab and he couldn't understand the Chinese person. To add to it, Our Taiwanese Friend was fabbed up, and could have passed for a pop star of some kind. I'm sure we seemed like an outtake from a strange movie to him.

At Casablanca a man noticed the foreigners and wanted to see if he could learn some English from us. I doubt he learned much English but his foosball defence certainly improved. (Irish Mark told us that in a similar situation he taught some children "fuck!" and "own goal!")

When he came to sit down with us the stranger was flummoxed by Our Taiwanese Friend's looks and good command of English. He asked her what country she was from in English. She answered him in Chinese. He was confused. I think he thought he was hearing English. So he asked again. She answered again. Still confused, he asked in both languages and she answered in both languages. Then she repeated it a couple times and told him that " I don't like [something] " I don't know what something was but I bet it was bad. Our Taiwanese Friend got up and walked off.

The stranger asked us if she was unhappy. He then explained that he was confused and thought she was a foreigner.

He seemed like a rather harmless nebbish. He was drinking tea in a bar. Good thing, too. Half of Dongying would have been in a fight at that point.