The Mind of Mubarak: September 2011

It’s being almost 2 weeks since I’ve being in China and nobody has asked me for weed yet. Thank God for that J. Hopefully it never happens. I was tired of people asking me for that crap in Sweden. I had promised to smack the face of the next person who did. Then maybe, I will be writing this post from jail. Haha. Hmm, that will be an interesting post, wouldn’t it? I am not soft, but definitely not the jail type either. First of all, I have a small butt-hole. That’s all I think about, If you guys know what I mean.
COME ON, AGAIN?? This is the third time I have told these Vietnamese dudes in the opposite room to keep their music down. Guess what artist they are playing right at this moment: CHER. Really guys? really? What is today..1975? Who plays Cher in 2011? Turn that mess down and upgrade guys” I am gonna tell them that. Hold on !! ...I’m back J. They turned it down. Now where were we!

When I got to Beijing, this lady came up to me and offered to help me find the gate to my next flight to Chengdu. After she did, she told me straight forward “Can you give me some money for my service”. Yes she was Chinese. I had some Swedish Kronor, so I gave her 200 from my wallet. She said “Give me the 500 I just saw in your wallet”. I said “HUH, you want 500kr for showing me a gate?" Luckily she had a phone so I told her to call my friend in Chengdu and tell him my flight had changed so he should leave home early, and after, I gave her the 500 kr. I couldn’t spend that currency in China anyway. That wasn’t what pissed me off. This did; she said “I will give you my number so when you get to Chengdu, you can call me and we will become friends”. I said “Hey Lady, Are you here for business or pleasure ? If its pleasure and friendship you want, give me my damn 500 back, then we can start this relationship over”. Who the hell takes all your money for some cheap service, acts like its all love and opts for friendship after? Man, this lady done pissed me off.

You know China has around 1.4 billion population. I have heard lots of reasons why they are so many. Some say, they anticipated world war III, hence they decided to have lots of children to fill up their army, others say differently. In my opinion. I think they are so many of them because old Chinese people refuse to pass away. There is a big basketball place, a football and a track field area just near my dormitory and school. I love basketball so I am always there when I get free time. I see really old people, I’m talking 90, 100, 120 year old men running tracks, playing basketball, pingpong, doing stretches..etc. things I can barely do and I’m only 20 + years . I saw a 100 year old man running track and field in clutches while his wife was speeding next to him in her wheelchair. I said “Come on y’all, that’s just unfair, stingy and selfish”. They say one has to die for one to live. I bet the babies on the other side waiting to come in are mad as hell, hoping these old folks get knocked off their wheelchairs. To be honest I thought of knocking some off myself. Can you believe one old lady came to stand right in my face and raised her leg to the top of her head? I swear this ain’t no joke.. and she was looking directly at me thinking “I bet you can’t do this young man” Well, I can't old lady, but I bet I can crack chicken bones with my teeth. Now try that and see if you don't swallow all your teeth in your mouth. I couldn’t even get mad at her because honestly, I couldn't stretch like that. I will mess around and tear all my thigh muscles down if I tried.

In a new country, It usually takes some time for everyone to get adjusted and start feeling at home. There is always that transition, that feeling like “OMG, what I am doing here, why did I come here?” How long it takes depends on the individual. Mine took a day or two. Now my dormitory mates call me the “MAJOR OF CHENGDU” I told them to suspend that title for 6 months, after I start to speak some Chinese, I will be major for real. Man I like this place, I like everything about it, well except the English L. China has two sides, the ghetto and the flashy, just like any other place. You can see that China is a country in serious transition: they are milestones ahead of a lot of countries and also backwards like most poor countries. In a lot of countries, ghettos are secluded from the cities, but in china u might see a state-of-the-art building and right next to it, a torn up building. The old structures are all being torn down to make room for new structures, even though there are still a lot of old ones around. Since there is a ‘poor’ side, the people are really nice. From experience, I believe people from across the world who cherish human relations as a key to making a society are from underdeveloped, developing, or early developed countries. You can be in a room with 500 Chinese and still feel 'comfortable'. As an African, the settings and culture is almost the same so the blend-in is easy and effortless. I made more friends in 3 days than I have made in years. Now I got a schedule on places to visit since each of them want to show me something new. AWESOME, right? The Chinese are intrigued by my ‘color’. Of course they’ve seen black people on TV, or in person and know how we look like. But they want to look up-close, they really like to stare which I am not bothered by; most of them want to know why my hair is different from all other races. A couple of people have asked me “Why is your palm our color, and your skin, your color?” meaning why is my palm 'white' and my skin 'black'. I told one girl “I don’t know, but I can give you my number, when you find out, please let me know”...and yes she actually did call and said she hadn’t found out yet and still looking. HOW COOL IS THAT? J

Yes, people bargain in China y’all. I didn’t know that till I went to buy a mirror from the store. She said “Its 90 RMB”. Just when I had left, she called me back saying “but u can give me 70 RMB for it” so I did. That was a happy day because I realized I had to re-engineer my bargaining skills since its been quite a while since I used it. Now I walk around with a calculator in my bag; that’s for people who can’t speak English. They type in their price and I type in mine, then bargaining goes on, and I LOVE IT. In this computer store, the lady types in “4000”, then I typed “1500”. I knew that would never work but I just wanted to see the look on her face. She laughed really hard and told the other shop keeper to come see what I had wanted to pay for a new computer. They said something in Chinese and laughed, I bet they said “This is a cheap ass black dude right here? Where did he come from? If somebody robbed him, they wouldn’t get a dime, they would just be practicing”. Well, that’s not too far from the truth.

I just came back from saying my Fajr prayer on the 6^th floor, I am on the fourth. Unfortunately, I stuck my key in the wrong door again. This has to stop. I am in room 429; Last room on the fourth floor. I have friends on all floors so for some reason I always mistaken other floors for mine when I walk straight to the last rooms and stick my key in. When it doesn’t fit, I look up and realize I’m either on the 5^th- 529, 6^th-626 or 7^th floor-729. Funny thing, there are cameras all over the floor. I believe those people behind the cameras have noticed me and have probably labeled me as the thief in the dormitory. That's a bad label to be given in barely 2 weeks. This is not good. I've got to be more careful. I need your prayers.

I think I will bring you a part 3 of the China chronicles, still loads of stuff to say. I hope y’all enjoy this for now and yeah, more pictures are on their way Assal Del Rio. Sorry guys, Assal is a friend bugging me with pictures. I hooked y’all up with a few pics, and a little video trailer.

Hope you enjoyed reading……Peaceeee ✌ !!

At the hospital getting my physical examination

Cute Undergraduate student in her Freshmen Uniform

A view of the library in the new campus. The building is huge. The inside is crazzzzzyyy

This dude was sleeping in the library y'all. There were a lot of them. Get your ass up boy, success aint easy. haha

This is where I will be doing my research, for the SCHOOL OF ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING. yessirrrr

Tell me the man in white isn't about 500 years old :)

These guys are 80+ years old. Look what they doing just to deceive death. haha

He was the oldest, probably a 100 yrs old. He doesn't look it, does he?

The mosque downtown. Its a lot of Muslims in China, I was just as surprised. Jummah was great

Chinese Muslim couple I met. Cute isn't it. Hopefully that would be me and my wife in 60 more years. haha

View of the mosque

Opening Ceremony with Dawn and Jerry

Group picture time, after the opening ceremony

International student power: South Africa/India, Ghana, Indonesia, Poland. Who was the american looking at. Dude, the camera is this way.

Myself, Sark and Nii with a bunch of Sudanese International students !!

My boys Liang and Zhang, they have helped me settle in pretty well. Thanx guys.

I think this was a school rock band. Not sure tho. just saw them play, pretty decent stuff.

Met the man behind me in a bus. He said he was honored because I was the first foreigner he had ever spoken to. I was even more honored. Thank you sir

You know I had to bring my basketball to the limelight. All hail the KING

Thats Jeffrey y'all. We became friends this day on the court. He is got mad skills.

The army students marching behind. I had a MILK TEA in my hand. Great stuff

I hope I can post part 2 soon. With that many people in China, its only right that I have a lot of stuff to write about. :))

You see when you take a flight and just when its about to move, directions are given on a screen on how to use the air masks and emergency exits and stuff ? Good. So we get on the flight, this Swedish lady comes to stand in the center of the airplane and starts using sign language to demonstrate. Wait !! “which airline ticket did I buy? Handicap or Death people ?“ I thought to myself. Just when I did, instructions started to come from the pilot. Now my thoughts changed to “What kind of ghetto-ass “Soul Plane” airline is this?, they cannot afford flat-screens to show this?”. That was my first disappointment; and that was only my first flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm, quick 45 minute flight :)

Now from Stockholm-Sweden to Beijing-China; a straight 8-9 hours AIRCHINA flight. As a male, I always take note of air hostess. Usually the have the hottest and nicest woman ever. NO NO, not in AirChina. Haha. Not saying the hostess in that flight weren't nice, they really were but “hot” was the problem. Anyway I got to sit with this young Japanese dude. I was happy about that because you never want to sit with old people on a flight just because you are so nice to them but they are never nice to you. They can get up every 5 minutes and give you that “I am old, my bladder is weak” kinda speech, but once you get up twice, they give you that “I am old, why are you letting me stand so much” speech, you know. Lol

So my man's name was Kikuchi Yoshihiro. He was 19 years. I didn't hesitate to introduce myself and as I had expected, he was really receptive and in no time we were talking about girls already ;) His name was gonna be problem so I opted to give him a nickname, I chose “Kiki” and he liked it. Kiki and I agreed on the hottest among the air hostess, so that was a good start.lol.. Kiki's english wasn't that good, so at some point, I had to write some of the questions I wanted to asked him, he could read better than speak. “Which country has the nicest girls ? Japan or China?” I asked. He said “I have no idea” and just when the pretty hostess we had agreed on came to serve, he said “I think its China”. I said “Damn man, you people must really be deprived of pretty girls in Japan, aren't you?” hehe

When I bought the ticket, I chose “Muslim food”. Basically that means I don't eat pork. So they come to serve us food, Kiki opens his and its pretty nicely made so I was excited about it. I open mine and it's nothing but some vegetables and some potatoes. I asked the lady “Excuse me, what is this? vegetarian food?”. Lol. She says “No, its Muslim, isn't that what you chose?”. Long story short, I was mad as hell as I chewed down some dry vegetables like a farm animal while Kiki gobbled down his chicken meat and rice. The way Kiki eats is pretty disturbing; really fast, face down, staring at the food the entire time; it was more like a wrestling match to be honest. I kept saying to myself “Thank God this dude comes from Japan, he sure cannot handle hunger in Somali”. Haha

Two more things got me a bit distressed on the flight, I realized that announcements were pretty long In Chinese but really short when they translated. They could say 2 minutes long Chinese and just say “We will arrive in 5 minutes” in English. I kept wondering if these people were planning an exit strategy and wanted to leave my black ass behind. Lol. Also, times announced were never reached exactly, they could say we will fly in 5 minutes but flew in 20. That is ghetto for real y'all. Haha !!

So after 8 hours, we arrive in Beijing. Nice and Simply made airport. After passing through the security checkpoints, I realize the Chinese are serious about security. THEY DONT PLAY. Unlike other airports, their security neither smile at you nor pamper you at all. They are mean as hell, and understandably so. There was one guy sitting behind the desk at the first checkpoint but once I got there, another one comes to stand next to me. “Oh damn, what these folk about to do” I thought. So I got my smiley face on but they still didn't grin. One guy asks me “Is this is your first time in China”, I said “Yesirr”, then he asks again, I say the same. He asks the 3^rd time and I reply “YES”. That was when I knew these guys ain't here for no games. At the second checkpoint, they took out everything liquid on you and threw it out. This really old Chinese man had water on him, they told him to either drink it all or throw it out. He opted to drink, had problems finishing it, but forced it. Right after, he started to cough and everyone in line was disturbed as to what was happening. “He was not gonna die on us, is he". So strangers in line tried to help him but the security could care less. They didn't even flinch or try to help. It was confirmed that “These Chinese dudes are SERIOUS about their security”. No wonder they blocked all social networking websites in their country; Facebook, Twitter, Youtube....etc. :((

So In all, AIRCHINA was pretty good. I think I will stick with it anytime I fly in and of China. At least they got me writing stories for myself and you guys to read :) One thing I also liked was that, I think Chinese security use racial profiling in their security checks. For example,they checked me thoroughly during passport checks BUT almost did nothing with frisking and baggage checks like they did the Asians and the white folks. I bet they knew BOMBS and BLACKS don't go together. You can't really blame them, can you? When have you ever heard a black dude bomb anything in your entire life. First of all, you gotta be on time with a bomb and thats gonna be a major problem. haha. That ain't our thing. Perhaps, they thought passport-fraud was, no wonder they hard-checked me on that side. Haha

I hooked y'all up with some pictures of my journey, Part 2 of this post will be about lifestyle in China and how Chinese people do. Hope you'd like it :))

Thanks for reading y'all........ONE LOVE !!