I have been studying Japanese for a few years now. Haven’t had too much progress. The rate of acquiring new kanji 漢字 and vocabulary is low, but the progress is steady and I’m slowly learning more. Meanwhile, I have a friend who got really good at Chinese, even got his master’s degree at it. I’m impressed he got so well into this totally different culture and language. So last week, to renew our bonds, we had a Chinese night out with him and another friend.
We had some food and beer at a Chinese restaurant that he is working for. Surprisingly, another of my old acquaintances was working there as a waitress. It kinda made me feel sad and nostalgic, that I’ve hung around with like a 1000 different people in the past, and now I don’t even remember their names anymore.
My half Chinese friend told us some stuff about Chinese culture – explained that the way you know someone is a real Chinese person is that they are spitting, farting and burping loudly in public. He added jokingly that this was exactly why he got into Chinese culture – because he felt that you should be able to do these things freely.
To finish off the meal, we had some shots of Chinese rice vodka. The guys warned me it would be horrible but I thought it was nothing too bad, so we continued the evening by going to a bar in town that actually specialized in that Chinese rice liquor and got some more shots of it there. I initially thought it was weird we have enough money in our small town that a bar as specific as that can function, but the place was actually extremely nice so I ended up getting why it can stay in business.
Finally we went to my place, it was sort of my house warming event for them since I moved a few months back. On the way, the half Chinese guy farted loudly, which confirmed that he is a real half Chinese person.
My whole life revolves around video games, so of course when we arrived here I instantly whipped out some controllers and put on Puyo Puyo Tetris. That game is a sort of a tradition for me, every time someone comes over I gotta play it with them. I win every time and feel ashamed that I put them through that, but traditions must be continued.
I felt like the half Chinese guy was not all that impressed with my videogameyness, but the other guy kinda saw the appeal in it. Overall it made me rethink my life for a moment – should my whole identity consist only of games or should I rather do something else with my time? But that thought faded soon.
I think that the best format to write blog posts is to end it with a surprise, a punch line. Otherwise it ends up feeling like the ending is abrupt, the post unfinished. But I didn’t manage it this time. So therefore, to make this more of an educational article than an entertaining one, I’ll give you, the reader, some more insight into Chinese culture – here is an illustrative picture of the booze mentioned before:
