I woke up this morning at 1pm, and everyone besides my roommate in the hostel room was a sleep. We had a brief conversation and some tea, then I excused myself and quickly made my way home.

My dormmate, 中黄远 (a name easy to remember since the characters are all simple) was curious about me, my country, and my thoughts on China. These conversations happen again and again. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them – there’s usually a lot to learn about the other person based on the questions they ask and what they want to say. For example the two “brothers” I met yesterday and went to the bar with last night always asked about money, wages, costs, and more serious and heavy topics. This makes sense since they’re both over thirty and one is married. The younger one (I’ll call him “glasses brother” as opposed to “fat brother”) travelled to America and Chicago and knew a lot about the country, like which companies were where (he knew that Wisconsin is home to Miller, PBR, Harley, Kohler, and the Bucks), positions of national parks, and plenty of other things. The only problem is that when I talk about states, parks, cities and all that, I don’t always know the Chinese name so he’ll say something and I’ll say what I think it might be in English but we end up having to translate it on our phones or find roundabout ways to describe it. This happened with “Yellowstone,” “Wyoming,” and “Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

With the two “brothers” and my dormmate I went to a bar last night. It ended up being an Ellen’s, a popular chain which has a couple branches in Nanjing (of which I’ve been to three.) The “fat brother” was learning against the wall of the booth we sat in seemingly unconformable with the loud music, but we had fun after some drinks and bar dice. Surprisingly none of them knew the game too well, so I had to explain it to them.

With these late nights at bars I typically feel guilty about a waste of money and a morning, but I spent the whole day and night really only speaking Chinese so it was at least practice and good company.

The ride train was uneventful and shorter than some long subway rides, being only 30 minutes. It’s a matter of getting to the subway station and checking online to see what tickets are available or asking the ticket attendant. In this case I didn’t see any fast train tickets available for the day to get to Nanjing online and subsequently asked the ticket seller if there was any. In these instances the Chinese behind be already crowd up because they’re afraid this foreigner is going to waste a bunch of time having translation troubles and misunderstand things, but I got out quick with a ticket to leave in 20 minutes. A KFC chicken sandwich and train ride later, I was back in Nanjing an hour from when I bought those tickets.

Arriving back at Nanjing, I found a blanket of thick snow covering the cars and construction equipment which haven’t moved since the beginning of the holidays. This was the first significant snow I’ve seen in China. A walk around campus to see the beautiful campus covered in snow was in order, and I saw some people maybe my age or younger throwing snow at each other, laughing. In that moment I realized I haven’t been that fun in years and was nostalgic for high school.

That evening I worked in Man Coffee to update my resume, apply for a bunch of companies (many in Chicago this time), and submitted a pull request to translate some Chinese documentation for a Chinese web framework’s (beego) recognition of environment variables in config files. I got back home at midnight after the cafe closed and watched chess videos until I was in the mood to write some more fiction. Also I got a bit of the way through Bird by Bird which is a book about writing fiction. That’s probably why this is more long-winded than usual entries.

It’s that or the mania that creeps in when I stay up too late, as is the case since I’m writing this at 7am with the morning sun shining on the snow out the window. The reason to get out of Nanjing was to escape this sleep schedule since my dormmates would be waking up earlier, but a night at the bar last night led to a late wake. Now’s a good a time as any to finish drinking my concoction of sliced lemons and ginger steeped in hot water, brush my teeth, and get to bed.

Things I’m Liking

• Winter Anime 2019 in a Nutshell: I was curious what anime is up to these days since I used to be a big ol’ weeb back in middle and high school. I googled “Winter Anime 2019” and found this video which happened to be uploaded the day before. The style of music, how he talks and jokes about things, makes me nostalgic for those days. I might pick up watching Run with the Wind which is a sports anime about running that started in October 2018. It’s that or Zombieland Saga which is about an idol group made up of zombies.
• Chuck Palahniuk: “Thought” Verbs: This website while having a strong paywall has some good content about writing. This one is a bold claim by the author of Fight Club: “From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.”
• My Anime List: Wanted to mention this here to bring the number of items to the usual three, and because it’s arguably the most comprehensive site for anime. Consider it the IMDB of Japanese animation. One thing that intersects very well is anime and technology, so this website is robust. Look up your favorite anime!

Misc

Stores and restaurants are still closed around Nanjing but slowly coming back to life. I’m looking forward to my usual places opening up again since I’ll have a very standard conversation starter with the owners: What did you do for new years?

It’s really really cold. The air here is more wet than Milwaukee and that makes it feel colder. So I’ve been bundling up when going to bed and turning the heat on. But here in Nanjing I don’t have a heavy comforter like in that hostel so it will be a cold night.

The hostel had no heating and the hot water wasn’t that hot, so I haven’t taken a shower or changed underwear since Thursday morning – about three days now. It’s interesting the kind of smell I have and it makes me wonder how smelly everyone from the Three Kingdoms period were as I listen to my podcasts. This is definitely my record but I look forward to a wash and fresh clothes tomorrow. At least it’s probably healthy for my hair to get some oils back or something like that.