Život jednog Kineza

Četvrtak, Jun 14, 2007

Sheng Ri Kuai Le - Happy Birthday!

The 30th of May, except being my birthday was also the last day at the company, which brought both good and bad things to me. Eventualy, big surprise party that my friends organized erased all my tension and seems to me like the best thing that could happen to me here! This is a tribute to all of you my friends, all over the world from Colombia to China for being part of my unbelievable experience in China. I'll try to keep my original writing "style" and if I make you feel just a little bit like my friends and family when they read my articles in Serbian, I will be very happy. For you my friends...

This morning was quite usual. Yesterday night I've got few greetings, one even one hour before my birthday, because my friend didn't count for daylight saving time in Europe. I must say that I didn't announce to people here that today is my birthday (except to few of my closest friends) because I don't want people to feel obligate to give me some presents or something. I packed my laptop like every day, took a shower and went to work. Past few days I don't try so hard to be there before 8:15. i think this is Shubham's fault, because of his "flexible" style and time of coming to work. Without a hurry, I stop to by "Chinese pancakes" (I think Xiao Bin told me once the name of this food, but I've forgot). I used this opportunity to record a video of the guy making this so simple, yet so tasty food! And just 2 yuans!

I arrive a lttle bit late to the office... holding my pancake and backapack with laptop in one hand and locking the bike with other. After few tries I succeed to pursuade the fingerprint machine that I'm number 7181 - Bosko. I get into office late - everybody is in their places already. I eat my pancake and read mails like every morning. Lao Zhang asks me if this is my last day in the company, and after replying afirmative to his question he says that I have to leave my laptop today in the company. This leaves me in surprise, because I was hoping to have my laptop until my last day here - two days more. I was writing an application form for asking financial help from the European Union for organizing students' exchange in Belgrade. Now I send incomplete form to my friends in Belgrade to finish it... but they are not so much into this, and I am concerned if everything will work out fine, and how much effort will they have to put in for this. I spend my whole time before lunch walking around the company from one office to another, finishing some papers before I leave. Lao Zhang helped me a lot with those stuff (like usual). After this, I ask for DVD burner from my colleagues, and they even give me two blank DVDs... they have always took so much care for me. I plug in the burner with "Samsung" logo on it and Burner is recognized in my computer as "TTS Corp" or something simmilar. It was always funny to me how big company like Huaxin can take chances with cheap copies of electronic products of famous brands, instead of buying original equipement. Simmilar to this are copies of famous brand "Pioneer" speakers that I saw in public transportation busses... everuthing is the same: shape of speakers, font, layout... just it is written "Pioner" or something like that to discover fake brand. Anyway... I explain to my colleagues that burning DVD using USB 1.0 interface that I have on my computer can take like... 2 hours or something. Anyway, I give it a try. I leave DVD drive burning first disk, and I go to lunch with my friends. Katia told me that she, Shubham and Wang Jin Jiang want to take me out for lunch. Lou Jin wnats to eat in the company, so we'll meet her in the cafeteria after lunch.

We went to place about 20 minutes on foot from company, where we went to have dinner after famous "West Lake Challenge" when many of my friends became officially certified heroes. I ordered one of my favourite dishes - Hun Tun (even that I know it's not so good like in the place on the corner near our appartments). We ordered something that we thought Shubham will like - rice, pork and fried egg, and it was a success, and it put a smile on his face. When we came back to the company, i had an icecream as a desert after lunch. Lou Jin told me that tonight whe would like to take me for a dinner to some place, and I said it's ok. When I came back to my office, the DVD disc that was burning was nearly completed, so I waited a little bit to try if everything is ok with it. And... I was almost desparate when I saw that after more than 2 hours of burning this DVD was unreadable! Lucky for me, my supervisor Lao Zhang offered his help because he has a DVD burner in his laptop and I can share my files for burning over company's network.

Somewhere around this time, Wang Jin Jiang appeared with a tin can of cold herbal tea to ask me if I want to go with him to check out some MP3 player that I planned to buy as a present for my bother. He wanted to buy a camera, so we could go together. I left my files to Lao Zhang, and together with Lao Zhang and one more his colleague we went buy car to the electronic stuff market. Time was short, because I had also one more thing to do this afternoon. I had to buy tickets for train T796 from Ningbo to Shanghai, passing through Hangzhou. This was good because it takes just one and a half hour to Shanghai and ticket is just 25 RMB! On my way to Pudong Airport I planned to go (together with Lou Jin, Katia, Shubham, Wang Jin Jiang and Mr Wang Hong Wei) by this train to Shanghai South Station, then take two subway lines, and then take a Maglev train to the airport... the point is that this way is much more fun than simply taking a bus from Wu Lin Square straight to Pudong Airport... and it's also faster and cheaper! I notice that I don't have my usual bunch of keys (home, bike and office locker), but I keep saying to myself that I probably left them in my desk in the office. So... we spend like one hour walking around the electronic market, and I'm constantly checking the time. I give up on the idea to buy some MP3 player at the end because I doubt the quality and I'm not sure what to do with it once that built-in battery looses it's capacity after many times of recharging and emptying it. Wang Jin Jiang bought some nice camera so I told him that I should go because I need to buy train tickets. He said that his friend will take us by car to the ticket office in Wu Lin Road. Agin... I constantly check my watch because I think about the thing that I had to give back my laptop until 4PM today, and I still don't know what's happening with my DVDs that Lao Zhang is burning. After circling the streets of Hangzhou for some time, finding the way in to a one way street, we managed to find the ticket office (again, problems... the address that Lou Jin gave me from the internet was not ok, and we had to look for the office in other part of the street). At the end, we have our tickets, and I'm relaxed now. I tell to Wang Hong Wei that I have the tickets, and we head back to the company. It was 4:15 more or less when I came into my office, and I was very lucky too see Lao Zhang holding two DVDs burned properly! Now things seem to go in good direction! If I could jut find my keys somewhere... but nothing! Now I'm becoming nervous... it is so easy for somemeone to see me riding a bike and dropping my keys out of my pocket, then... everybody in our neighborhood knows where foreigners live. Hm... maybe right now someone is in my appartment taking my stuff away!

After talking to Lao Zhang and Lou Jin, I calm down a little bit and get copies of appartment keys from the 3rd floor of the company, and I plan to cut my bike lock in bike repair shop, and to get new lock for replacement. Ok... it's not so bad. I just hope that no one will jump into my appartment for two more days wile I'm here. Lou Jin is asking some silly questions about my keys and I find it hard to explain to her which keys I have lost and which copies I took from the company... hm... that is not exactly a nobel prize winner thinking, she should understand this from just one sentence! Later, I found out that she had a reason to be confused about the keys, he he he!

Lao Zhang told me that I can bring laptop tomorrow to the company, and this is like a music to my ears! I think how maybe I can still help my friends in Belgrade a little bit to write this application form that I've mentioned... After work, I go together with Lou Jin to a bike repair shop, carying my bike in my hands (of course... almost everyone on the street is interested in foreigner taking a bike in his hands, like... stealing it or whatever. So I was a kind of an attraction all the way to repair shop) We cut the lock, and in other shop on the way home I bought a new lock, much more handy than my previous one... at least I'll leave nice bike with all the stuff working properly to Lou Jin (like I have planned and talked with her earlier).

We head to the restoran where two uf us had a nice dinner some time ago, not so far from the appartments. She seemed to rush me a little bit to finish my dinner, but I didn't see anything strange in this. I was even happy to pack some of the food that we left to take home for Katia to try it.

I left my bike in front of the building like usually, climbed the stairs like usualy. Then something strange happened: Wile i was unlocking the lock of the appartment, I noticed that there is a key on the other side of the lock!! This means that someone is inside, and I suddenly focused on this, preparing myself to meet with some kind of robber or something like that. Then... few seconds later, I've heard some voices inside... fuck! There are some people inside my flat. My palms sweat as I open the door slowly... in this moment someone jumps from the dark and starts spraying my head with something, and I hear a lot of screams inside the flat. Now I realised who was inside my flat and I see that 15-20 of my closest friends prepared me a surprise party!!! Feeling was incredible... I had such a busy day with lot of concern in my head about various stuff and then something like this! I was completely unprepared. I was hoping to spend a quiet evening after long hard day, and then situation suddenly changed...

Everything was arranged... food, drinks, baloons, music... everything! On the wall it was written "happy birthday" in Chinese (big letters that I brought home to Serbia :-), English, Spanish, Portugese, Polish and even Serbian! Later I've found out that Katia was the "main organizer" :-) Thank you so much! Everybody important was here. I am leaving in a few days, and I was not sure if I could see some of those people again. Emotions flooded me so easily, and it was hard for me to hide my red wet eyes.

After taking photos with everybody, people showed me my present... t-shirt with signatures and messages from everybody. Even Ismael and Marek send something by e-mail and it was printed on the shirt! Incredible... and on the face of the shirt it was my portrait with message "asta la vista China!"... the best present I could get for my trip home.

And the time went so fast... I was talking with everybody, taking photos, and drinking beer while cheering with everyone. Then our friend Wang Hong Wei joined us, but people have already started to leave, because tomorrow many of them need to wake up early. Most strong and brave stayed longer, and then we decided to go to some club to continue with the party there. We went to "Baby Face" club (never been there before) because Bao Bao has a friend there who can arrange us some cheap drinks :-) We packed somehow into 3 taxis and went there...

Club looks like every other in Hangzhou: lot of neon lights, round tables, dancers, and so on. We've shared the price for one bottle of whiskey and bottle of vodka. We were dancing for whole night, stoping only from time to time to get some rest beside our table (and to drink a little bit of that Chinese invention: whiskey with ice tea). Just when we ran out of alcohol, we felt a little bit exhausted, and some girls were just a little bit drunk.

It was getting late into this night (or early into the morning) when we decided that it is time to go home. We spent some time outside of the club where girls whee getting some fresh air into their heads to clear their mind a little bit. After some time talking and laughing in front of the club we took some taxis and went home.

This night reminded me of time when lot of us together went out to the "Reggae Bar". Since most of the people left, until this day, we didn't go out in such a big numbers. I couldn't choose better way to say goodbye to all those briliant people. And the best thing... I didn't choose it :-) My friends made this for me. This made this night very special and I can say inforgetable. Thank you people!

Now it is 2am here... I listen to "chofercito de mala suerte" and some slow Chinese songs... It is so incredibly easy to focus my mind on my friends, appartment, pancakes, bike, company, kindergarden, colleagues, dinners, raincoat, university, chao mien, cafeteria, train tickets, Jiu Long Bin Guan, parks around west lake, boring rain, library, sunny Yun Nan... Then suddenly my thoughts float to that fast crowded train to Shanghai, long subway ride,
running to catch maglev, Shubham's trouble with backpack... It is better for me to stop with this until this gets to serious :-)

Since i have one sentence from "The Terminator" movie: "Hasta la vista" printed on my t-shirt that I've got as a gift for my birthday, I feel very happy and sure to reply with another famous one from the same movie: "I'll be back!"

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