on such a winter's day...
this post will be dedicated entirely to a sample of the dreams i have had while in the Chinas. Usually i'm not a rememberer of my dreams; they may shock me awake or cause me to have an odd deja vu later in the day but i rarely remember them in detail. the Chinas is different. i have had some of the strangest dreams of my life here, and what's even more strange is the fact that i can remember them with such vivid imagery. Thus please enjoy, and try hard not to think that i have gone completely insane (this second part may be difficult):
so the first really strange dream involved a large, almost anaconda sized snake and me. i was a man. a man of color. i can't be sure exactly what ethnicity, because i never saw my face, but from my vantage point i could tell that i was very muscular and enjoyed wearing short shorts. i was floating down a river with a large group of people. the scenery around the river was very beautiful, covered with mountains and trees. for some reason our group was not in a river raft or boat, we were instead, merely floating down the river with our heads barely above the water, no life vest, no nothing. it was kind of like sitting, but there was no chair. i'm not a good swimmer so this should have been scary enough, but to add to the stress a giant snake appeared in the water. it swam through the river and slithered amongst my muscular body. for some reason i thought it was a good idea to grab its head, like i've seen so many times on the Discovery channel, to expose its large, poisonous fangs. i think this was to prevent it from biting me, but i can't be sure. i then was overcome with fear at the fact that i had no idea what i was doing and promptly let go of the giant snake from my strong man hands. it continued to swim around me, narrowing in on my spine and going in for the bite... i woke up. throughout this dream i was very calm in my man body never speaking outloud. My mind was racing with thoughts like, "i'm not a man" and "this snake is going to bite my spinal cord", but outwardly i was a rock.
The next dream was somehow more terrifying and involves betrayal. i was in a house at night, just a random house, not my house. i was in a victorian nightgown and the window was open letting in a cool breeze to the bedroom where i was about to get in bed. My mom was already in the bed, asleep. On the nightstand next to the bed was an assortment of food: bags of mixed greens salad, a small and a large loaf of bread. On a table in front of the open window was a mouse who was, of course, talking to me. We were discussing how to keep the demons from escaping from their food prisons. The mouse told me i had to win one of the demons over to ensure that it would help me with the other ones. So apparently, all the western food that i miss so much, like salad, was possessed. So i got in bed after making a pact with the smaller of the loaves of bread. But for some reason, as soon as i lay down, i began goading the loaf of bread. it was not happy. when i looked at the table again the food was all missing. it had all dissappeared. i woke my mom "the bread dissappeared, we've got to get the demons back in the food or they will eat us!" we both got out of bed and went down the hall where the bathroom was occupied. i remained in the hallway while my mom went to the living room to turn on the radio. Out of the bathroom emergred an old, skeletal woman demon. She was kind of like a banshee, or the female Mummy with the giant mouth that unhinges... she was walking towards me and i was yelling for my mom. But my mom was oblivious and dancing to the mellow showtunes eminating from the living room. The last thing i saw was a giant demon mouth about to eat me!... i woke up.
i can't make this shit up.
Two more. I had a serial murderer/mystery dream where i was sort of floating among the cops and victims and trying to figure out who the killer was while they also put the clues together. Maybe the killer killed me and i was a ghost seeking closure, i don't remember. But the cops finally got a break and knew the killer was going to strike again at this old house where an attractive, single lady lived. They tried to storm the house but the killer was already inside! Guess who it was? If anyone has watched Scrubs, it was the old senile guy who only said "pickles" over and over again. He was dressed as a woman, complete with lop-sided wig and really frightening makeup. There was a giant, ancient wooden door with one of those tiny doors for seeing who it is. And in the "pickles" guy's killing euphoria he actually opened the little door all crazy-faced with lipstick all over himself. My full field of vision was of his scary/clownish face. He was of course cackling. The cops busted open the door. i woke up. i'm not sure if he had killed the woman already or not...
The latest dream, about a week ago was my first, and hopefully only, zombie dream. i was in a strange city and me and some friends were attending a huge party that was being hosted in a mall. The stores had been cleared out and the different shops were just rooms with party-goers drinking and dancing. Everyone was dressed up like it was prom or New Year's. For some reason there were giant sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling, signaling some kind of check-point within the party. At some point in the night it became clear that something was terribly wrong. Everyone started to run around, trying to get out... some people were infected. With what i don't know. They weren't the normal dead-looking, disgusting zombies, but there was something about there eyes that you could tell they were infected and wanted to eat you. So the giant plastic sheets kept the zombies at bay for a bit while healthy people ran for the exits. i lost my friends somehow but also managed to get out on my own. i was then in a small cobble-stoned alley where there was a cute clothing shop and i went in. it appeared that this part of town had not been infected, yet. i think i tried on some clothes. then i heard the proprietor and and salespeople plotting their escape from the city and i asked if could come along. As soon as this happened though, some of the shop people's friends came in and i could tell they were zombies, the shop people did not seem to notice, so i ran out. i was then on a strange college campus that had a large garden in the middle. in the distance i could see Jackie, Nicole, Yesenia and some other people i haven't talked to since high school. They were studying and seemed unworried by the recent zombie attacks all around the city. i walked toward them but ran into Josh Short! (a boy i haven't seen since high school graduation) i asked him what was going on (he was our valedictorian, and very smart) and he of course knew. he had been working on some research with a professor and they found that pumpkins were emitting some kind of fume that turned people into zombies. Yes, pumpkins. He showed me all these notes and we happened to be sitting right next to a pumpkin patch. then suddenly i realized that we should then, logically, be infected. i grew fearful and realized that Josh was lying to me, when i looked at him again i realized he was actually a zombie himself. i woke up.
what's weird about this one is that of late i have gained a new found appreciation of pumpkins as food, and can now say they're one of my favorite vegetables...
last note: i'm not the only one. My friend Nellie has had some strange dreams involving me while in the Chinas too. One in which my mom came to visit us here. She's never seen my mom but in the dream my mom was Megan Mullally, (Karen from Will & Grace) and we were bickering. she kept trying to talk to me and make me feel guilty that i wasn't paying attention to her and i was on the phone telling her to shut up, "i'm on the phone!". Other than my mom being Megan Mullally, this dream is surprisingly accurate.
The other one involved another foreigner here, her name is Ellis, she's only been here a little over a month. In Nellie's dream Ellis and i were getting married. We were wearing victorian-era, lace wedding dresses and getting married in the park. Nellie was frantic because she didn't know what kind of gift to get us...and because she was shocked to learn that we were lesbians.
So, in conclusion, China is giving me a serious case of the crazies!
Noodles also help combat the cold. There's a great halal noodle place right near our school that we often frequent. They make the noodles right in the tiny shop on a counter in the corner. As i slurp up the broth i hear the familiar slapping noise as the guy beats up the dough and strips the noodles into a boiling pot. Here's hoping i don't get frost bite, or become a solid human block of ice, so that i can no longer go to class... wait that might not be a bad idea.
and who knows where their mouths have been! So each patron is given a nice foam cover for their microphone, as shown in the diagram, slip it on and it keeps oral herpes at bay. However, i wasn't surprised that after examination of the package it's actually Japanese.
Halloween in China, much to my surprise, was a lot like previous Halloweens of y'or, my costume was wack (i was Jem, from Jem and the Holograms, the '80s cartoon), some people are always resistant to dressing-up, and drinking & dancing are generally involved. We went to Shanghai for the blessed occasion, to a club called Candy and got our dance on! Huzhou had nothing going on and most people have never even heard of the holiday here, in fact they tend to confuse it with Thanksgiving (speaking of which if anyone wants to send me a can of cranberry sauce now would be the time to do it...whole berry is preferred, but at this point i can't be too picky, or can i? it is me we're talking about...) i digress.
also i wore a bright pink wig to class and gave them skittles, am i good teacher, or what?
