Fool

I haven’t been here a week and I’ve made a fool of myself.

So during the game we played in class today, one of the questions was “Can you do the splits?” Well sure, anyone can do that, right? Well, I guess that some of the Chinese participants understand the English language better than me. THEY thought (and probably rightly so) the splits were ALL the way down… I didn’t, so I signed my name next to that question.

So , today at dinner, I had just had one of our new friends order dinner for me. Before I could sit down, I see Michelle, one of our team members (who has a second Chinese name that means “naughty, mischievous”), come in and say, “Tyler, we have some girls out here who want you to show them that you can do the splits. You told them you could!” Oh man… so I tried the very Chinese response, “Oh, I have another matter to attend to!” This is the polite way to say, I don’t want to. Michelle, however, is NOT Chinese. And she’s mischievous. So, finally, she says, “Just do it. They’ll love it even if you can’t.” No matter of explaining or digging myself out of a hole (or deeper) would work. So I conceded and walked outside, not believing I was going to make a fool of myself in front of three Chinese women, my roommate (who had is camera out and took a video that might make it online someday…), and one of my colleagues.

So I went out and did the splits as far as I could (not very), and said that was all I could do. Ohhh, but those Chinese ladies were upset! I had said I could do it!

“Anyone can do that! I can do that better than you!” Their English was very good.

Meanwhile, not wanting to get killed by three perturbed Chinese women, I was saying no a lot and that I misunderstood. Finally, after lecturing me that I could NOT do the splits, I ran back inside to eat my food.

My roommate took a video on his camera and I might just pull it and post it somewhere… it’s probably really funny trying to watch me dig myself out of the hole.

Meanwhile, there is a huge thunderstorm going on. Flashes and thunder two seconds apart… this is awesome.