Here in Beijing Christmas is still in the air, along with excessive amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants. I’ve spent my first holiday season overseas and I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that it has been one of the best Christmases of my life. (NOTE: As usual, click on any of the pictures below to see my complete photo album from Christmas with lots more pictures and details.)

Of course, China being a communist-ruled country, the state is officially atheist, and, officially, so are all of the people. Practically it doesn’t quite work that way, as I’ve met plenty of Chinese who identify as Christian, Buddist, etc. But you can forget seeing and stars of David, nativity scenes or crosses around town. As for peoples’ homes? Well, lets just say that there are no rows of houses that are so lit up that people drive from miles away to see them. Look at the typical apartment building and you won’t see multi-colored lights filling any windows.

Christmas is conspicuous here only by it compartmentalization. That is, you can expect to be assaulted by gaudy displays in front of modern office complexes and malls, but forget about it anywhere else.

There is no mad rush of shopping. The city doesn’t shut down as people trek home for family gatherings. The highways are as crowded as ever.

Every culture has some sort of seasonal holiday celebration. In the West we had pagan solstice festivals that were appropriated by the Christians 1,700 years ago. Here in China they still set their winter Festivus by the lunar calendar. As a result, the “Christmas Season” is a cultural curiosity here rather than a reason to actually celebrate anything. It’s a time to hang pretty lights (which the Chinese love anyway) and listen to some cheesy and cheerful Western music.  Check out this blurb from a recent article in the Globe:

Although many Chinese have come to love Christmas, decorating trees and windows, piping the ubiquitous Christmas carols into elevators and stores, one thing they don’t do is shop. The big consumer holiday here is the lunar New Year, and parents buy clothing and shoes for their children, not toys.

 

“All these toys we make are for the foreign children,” said 40-year-old Long Sunjun, who runs a small shop near the closed Smart Union toy factory. She says that even the children of the toy factory workers seldom were given toys other than squirt guns or balls. “Chinese kids can make their own toys. Besides, they should be studying, not playing with toys.”

Practically it is just a regular day. Everybody goes to work. The banks are all open. Restaurants tend to be a little more crowded, but that’s just because Westerners like me all go out to eat, and we tend to drag along some of our Chinese friends with us.

I was surprised at how much of a relief it was to be in this environment. Sure, we as humans tend to need some seasonal excuses to re-connect with friends and family. This is valuable. And I’ve been socialized to recognize the winter solstice as my time to pine for this affirmation of life, so I won’t lie: I was looking for some stuff to do. But over here you are forced to strip away all of the “normal” accoutrement of gift-buying, excessive home decorating, card-sending (try finding Christmas cards here) and hosting/visiting etiquette, leaving you with a simple proposition: Let’s hang out.

So that’s what we did.

For myself, it was a 3-night celebration. On Christmas Eve, my friend Alain organized an outing for several of us (1 Chinese, 1 French, 1 Quebecois, 2 Americans & 1 Filipino) to have dinner at the Ritz Carlton.

It was really nice- the camaraderie was warm and comforting while the food was wonderfully varied. Ironically, the turkey was the worst thing they had, so I “settled” for some curry, some barbeque chicken, amazing stuffing, ham and dumplings.

My friend Catherine went for the crab.

It was a great time. Unfortunately for me, I had to work my regular overnight shift so I was not able to stay with the crew for the drinking and dancing that followed but I made up for it later.

Through a quirk of my work schedule, I actually had Christmas Day off and planned a much longer outing. My night began with a wonderfully eclectic group of us gathering for dinner at a fun Russian restaurant in Dongzhimen. The countries represented this time? India, China, France, Scotland, the US and the Czech Republic. Awesome.

There is really great food here so the restaurant was packed; there was a line to get in (we arrived early enough that we did not have to wait) and the decorations were obnoxiously gaudy.

There was bad live “jazz” complete with a Russian in a cheesy, sparkly jacket that some lounge player from 1970s Vegas was probably missing.

And there were incredibly rich, typical Russian dishes that were unbelieveably bad for us, like this bowl of beefsteak covered in carrots, potatoes, cheese and mayonnaise. An “Aorta Bomb,” as an old friend of mine would have called it, accompanied by imported Russian beer. It was delicious.

After dinner a bunch of us headed on over to Nanlouguxiang hutong, an ancient alley filled with small, fun bars that the Chinese flock to (unlike the big dance clubs in Sanlitun that cater to mostly Westerners). There, we hung out with the locals and enjoyed the pleasant, welcoming atmosphere. There was karaoke on display from drunken, over-enthusiastic Chinese,

And we played my favorite Chinese drinking game, Dai Wa Sik, or “Liar Dice.”

I didn’t fare too well.

Overall, it was one of the most fun Christmases that I have ever had, namely because I wasn’t busy running from place to place or wrapping (or even buying) gifts. I wasn’t a slave to tradition. Everybody just wanted to have a great time and it didn’t matter how we accomplished our goal. At one point, I turned to Deepesh and said, “What the hell is going on? It’s Christmas and I’m eating in a Russian restaurant in Beijing with an Indian guy?!” So surreal and so much fun. I had thrown my old holiday rulebook out and I was reveling in the freedom that I never knew I had been denied by my old habits. There were no seating arrangements to cause the least amount of friction. No planning to arrive late enough and leave early enough so as to spend the minimal amount of “acceptable” time. No having to listen to racist jokes.

Luckily for me it didn’t stop there. Due to another scheduling quirk, I only had to work the afternoon shift on Boxing Day, so I was able to rally a large group to go out for a night of drinking and dancing.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a “normal” Friday night out, but perhaps with a little more thankfulness at the chance to be together. The hugs that I got from friends -both old and new- were a little tighter and longer than normal.

It was a wonderful stretch of days, a wonderful holiday season. Of course, there was a wistfulness at some moments for the familiar trappings of Christmas back home, but it felt like the same kind of pining that you get for an old pair of shoes. I had these great new ones, but my feet really were used to the familiar, worn pair that I just shoved into the back of my closet.

No matter. I’ll survive -and thrive- in the new shoes that I’ve got.

I went to a really interesting event a couple of Sundays ago. Over at Yugong Yishan, there was a showcase of 3 North Korean films and a pretty large crowd showed up, filling the venue. The organizers seemed pleasantly surprised at the turnout, and it was evident from the mostly-western crowd (though there were a fair number of Chinese in attendance) that the sheer novelty of gaining a glimpse of what life is like in the secretive country that is just a 90 minute flight away from us was a huge draw.

As for myself, I was fascinated by the things that I saw. I am always amused by government propaganda; the more absurd and strident, the better. And it doesn’t get much more militaristic and anti-Western than North Korea. Also, the depictions of daily life -even when you know that they are glamorized for the screen- help you to understand what life must be like for the average person there.

The first film was a short “documentary” by the DPRK government. It told the story of the USS Pueblo, an American spy vessel that was captured in North Korean waters in 1968. It was a pretty amusing, and a lot of the westerners -me most definitely included- couldn’t help but chuckle at lines like “The damn criminal [President] Johnson,” and “The entire world rallied to [the country's] cause, condemning the aggressor Americans’ illegal action.”

I won’t recount the entire “film,” but to get a good idea of what was in there, just check out the website maintained by the veterans of the incident here. Basically, what I saw about what went down during the capture of the ship and their subsequent 8 month captivity was the exact opposite of what is written there.

The second film was “The Schoolgirl’s Diary” (Here is a nice piece written about it from Starpulse).

This was a splendidly awful film. The acting was poor (though the lead actress, Pak Mi Hyang, is strikingly beautiful and had a few moments where some acting talent shined through) and the story is difficult to relate to. It is not an overtly political movie, but as with all films, it is a reflection of the society that it was made in and the ideology of the totalitarian regime is clearly evident.

The movie tells the story of one girl’s struggle to honor her often absent father when he fails to achieve success in life. How is this success defined? Her greatest wishes are to have her father earn his doctorate in science and, through this achievement, she and her mother, sister and grandmother will finally be able to move into an apartment in the city. This alone says a lot about the state of affairs in North Korea.

And that, as I mentioned above, was the draw of the film. Nobody knows nothin’ about what’s going on I North Korea, save for a few hearty souls who navigate the bureaucratic maze to actually take a trip as a tourist down there. I’ve met a couple of those people here in China and even they will tell you that what they see is a carefully-choreographed presentation. There are minders and you can’t exactly wander off to explore the back roads of Pyongyang just to see what you can see.

So we gleaned what we could from the movie. Some of the most revealing moments were:

At one point, the main character’s youngest sister is thrown into a rage and runs away from home because her mother forgot to pack her a “special lunch” for her school’s field trip to some picnic grounds. It is merely the most emphatic example of the importance placed on food in the movie. Over and over again, food takes a prominent place in scenes. The older women were always cooking. Scenes in the home would often take place during meals and there was always plenty to eat.

These things really stand out when you know that the country is currently begging the world for shipments of rice and that at least 2 million people are malnourished due to persistent famine.

Some great moments that got laughter from the audience:

When the main character confronts a schoolyard bully who has been making fun of her father’s lack of professional success, they get into a slight shoving match. The camera angle shifts to a wide shot and the two girls square off against each other with a small crowd surrounding them, egging them on… Just when you think that there will be a serious throw-down, the main character yells, “Let’s race!”

So the fight is resolved via a foot race around the playground, with the requisite drama-filled power chord background music and slow-motion shots. Hilarious.

Several musical interludes, where people sing songs about “The General” walking with the soldiers at “the front.” The song also included references to how “The General” loves children. (Wow, this General must be a really great guy!) It was like they were channeling The Sound of Music. These scenes were completely incongruous with the rest of the film and were very amusing.

The final montage showing the father’s unexpected success creating an “automated production system.” (For what, we never learn- enriched uranium, perhaps?) The main character’s voiceover tells us that she is very proud of her father now because even though he has been away from her for most of her life, he has achieved something for the state and he got a picture in the newspaper with the Great Leader! Everything is OK!

 
After this laugh fest, the evening wrapped up with The Game of Their Lives, a foreign-produced documentary about North Korea’s 1966 World Cup team that unexpectedly made it into the Quarterfinals and won the hearts of soccer fans in England. It was interesting, serving as a nice window into the minds of North Koreans, but it was longer than it should have been. And since I hate soccer, I had a hard time getting into the footage of the games. The best part for me was the scene of the teammates, nowold grizzled men in the present day, standing in front of a statue of Kim Il-sung, weeping as they remembered meeting him. So thoroughly is he loved there that they mourn his passing to this day.

I had a great time that night and, honestly, I can’t wait until there are more films shown. Heck, I may even try to take a trip down to North Korea myself one of these days to check it out.

Just wanted to post this evidence of my coolness/mad skills. I was playing darts at the Goose and Duck sports pub a few weeks ago when I totally nailed this shot:

I hit my first dart dead-on with my second dart, impaling it. The odds on this? I have no idea, but it’s gotta be pretty astronomical.

Needless to say, I started shouting to all of the people in the bar to come and see what I had done. And I would not get out of the way of the people waiting behind me to play until everybody in the bar had come over to check it out and I had a chance to take some photos.

Full disclosure: I wasn’t actually aiming for that dart, or even in the same area that the dart was in on the board. It is yet another example of my amazing good luck here in Beijing.

I should’ve bought a lottery ticket right after it happened.

There was an interesting piece in today’s Boston Globe. Writer Christopher Muther was bounced from a nightclub because he was wearing sneakers.

Dress codes in Boston, according to the article, can be restrictive:

Boston’s dance clubs can be a harsh place for a guy who tries to wear something besides the standard thick-soled shoes and untucked dress shirts that are the nightlife norm. Most of the city’s dance clubs have a list of verboten clothing, which usually includes sneakers, baseball hats, work boots, and team jerseys.

The piece goes on to say that the dress code is really just a tool that lets bars control their crowds and to maintain “the ambiance of the place.” This is code for “we don’t want trouble-makers or people who aren’t pretty/stylish enough.”

I guess that this is fair, but since I have no real desire to be “stylish” and I have never cared to be out amongst crowds of people who seem to be pre-occupied with such concerns, I tended to shun the bar and club scene back in the States, save for a few regular hangouts in Boston & New York where the concern over style was never trumped by the concern for having a good time.

In China, the concept is completely different. I don’t own a pair of “nice” shoes. I have a pair of black sneakers and a pair of brown sneakers. I’ve been out to some of the top dance clubs and bars in Beijing, and I have never been denied entry. Many times, I’m just in jeans and a t-shirt. Frankly, my passport into almost any club is my white skin. Obviously, I’m a foreigner and I must be rich. (It’s sad, but racism is alive and well here, and I’m a huge beneficiary.)

The only place that I have ever walked away from without entering was a place called China Doll in Sanlitun. They have a sign on their door that stipulates a dress code and a regular cover charge. No dice for me… even though I’m “rich.”

(To be fair, this club sits on a street lined with identical bars that cater almost exclusively to Western tourists. Its sister location is around the block and does not have a dress code or a cover. I’ve been there several times and have always had fun.)

Here in Beijing, when clubs want to weed out “undesirables,” i.e. poor Chinese, they resort to a cover charge. This is usually something cheap to a Westerner (50 RMB at China Doll translates to a measly $7), but will keep poorer Chinese away. Of course, the fee is waived for pretty girls.

But even this practice is rare. Food and/or drink prices inside the hottest, trendiest places can often be deterrent to “regular” Chinese all by themselves. The end result is a class of bars that cater only to Westerners and the nuveau riche Chinese. I tend to stay away from these places because I’m more interested in hanging out in thoroughly mixed crowds of people than just with white folks.

The style thing just isn’t a big deal here and I’ve never seen it be the determining factor as to whether or not somebody gets access to a club. Outward displays of wealth are frowned upon and seen as wastes of money, not to mention not in line with Communist ideals. I have hung out with some rich people here -VERY rich people- but you would never know it by looking at them. They don’t wear flashy clothes or jewelery. Their cars are sensible and if we go out to eat, it is always at a “regular” restaurant that anybody could afford.

This is one of those cultural differences that really suits me and is yet another reason that I’m having a blast here in Beijing.

I mention it often, this CouchSurfing thing. If you’ve ever bothered to click on the hyperlink embedded in that name then you know what its all about. If you haven’t, then do it before going on, because if you don’t you might get a little lost. (NOTE: Click on any of the party pictures below to jump the complete photo album from that night. Believe me, there is a LOT more to see that did not get posted here.)

I first got involved with this community last October. I created a profile and offered my services in Boston as a local know-it-all. I gave walking tours of downtown full of stories that you won’t find in guidebooks, as well as a local’s perspective on the history that my home city is so rich in and proud of. I didn’t attend any meet-ups in those first months and my experiences were limited. It is one of those very first experiences that illustrate the amazing connections that can be forged via this website, and how, last weekend, it ended up helping me have one of my most fun nights out since arriving in Beijing.

Back in November, I met my second CSer, Marie-Line. She’s from Belgium and was working as an Au Pair on Long Island so that she could live in the US for a couple of years and travel around a bit. I gave her a tour of downtown Boston and took my baby brother Nick along for the ride. We all got along famously. On a whim, we ended up going to Blue Man Group (which I had never seen), and we had am awesome time. We hit it off so well, that when new Year’s Eve time rolled around Marie-Line decided to come back to Boston to check out First Night with me.

At the same time, Christine was a new resident in the city attending graduate school. Her best friend from college back in Buffalo, Liz, was coming to visit her for New Year’s and she posted an inquiry onto the CS Boston message board: What is this “First Night” thing all about, and what, exactly, should we see?

I replied with some basic info on what was going on and my recommendations on which events would be best/easiest to attend. There was some emailing between us, and we eventually decided that Christine, Liz & I, along with Marie-Line and another CSer that she was bringing, Darren, would all go out to First Night together. We would hop between art events and bars and have dinner at a really nice out-of-the-way restaurant to avoid the crowds.

It was, quite simply, one of the best New Year’s Eves that I’ve ever had. All of these disparate strangers had come together with a similar mindset and a willingness to meet new people and learn all that they could about their backgrounds and experiences. It was very welcoming and affirming. But even more, from it sprang a whole new path of life for one of the attendees.

Liz was fascinated with Marie-Line’s choice to become an Au Pair as a means to living overseas. She peppered her with questions about the job and her experiences throughout the night. Eventually, after some subsequent back-and-forth, Liz decided to take the plunge herself and she moved to Geneva, becoming an Au Pair and taking every opportunity to travel all across Europe.

While in Geneva, Liz has, of course, made many new friends, and one of them, Rafaella, took a trip to China recently for her job. Liz told her that she knew me, figured that we would hit it off, and told her to look me up when she arrived in Beijing.

Boy, was Liz ever right! Raffy & I clicked immediately and it was an immeasurable joy to hang out with her. And here the miracle and tragedy is illustrated most clearly: I never would have met Raffy had it not been for Liz and Marie-Line, two people that I never would have met without CS. But now that I have met her, she is gone just as quickly as she arrived.

I still keep in touch with both Liz & Marie-Line, as I am sure that I will keep in touch with Raffy, and I consider both of them to friends. Marie-Line has moved back to Belgium and Liz has visited her there, and I hope to be able to see them both when I take my hoped-for trip to Europe next year. Now, hopefully, I can add Rafaella to the list.

I hadn’t really given it too much thought to this whole social network thing until a fellow CSer back in Boston posted this article on the site. Its quite illuminating and I was interested to read that what I am living right now is a pretty new and evolving phenomenon. Nobody is really sure over the long run how our newfound ability to forge and maintain connections with so many people all over the world will effect us as individuals, within societies, or if we are seeing the first stages of the creation of a new kind of society.

Its all very exciting. I mean, this weekend I met with this crazy cast of characters who were all different sizes, shapes, colors and creeds and we all had an awesome time…

…We were all pretty much strangers, with only the Beijingers knowing each other, but we got along like we were an established group of friends. We vamped it up with each other.

We took embarrassing photos.

We demonstrated feats of strength.

And we most definitely danced together.

Some of us even danced with an old guy.

I really hope that I’m able to keep in touch with as many of these great folks as possible.

Anyway, I guess that what I’m saying is this: This whole social network thing -and CouchSurfing in particular- is pretty awesome. This really is a great tome to be alive… and it’s a great time to be in Beijing.

Since the Games have ended, my status here has officially changed. I have gone from a tourist/spectator to alien resident/expat. In America I’d be reviled and assumed to be an illegal immigrant, but here I feel welcome. As the Olympics drew to a close I had my first experience interacting with the expat community that I am now a part of. Elisa, one of the fine folks that I met when I went to Tianjin to see some soccer, was leaving town. She wanted to have one last night out with her friends and she was gracious enough to invite me along for the fun. (NOTE: Click on any of the images below to jump to my complete photo album from this night with lots of additional details.)

It’s a funny thing, this expat business. Jonas, the guy who first invited me along to that soccer game, mentioned to me that a significant portion of an expat’s social calendar is made up of going away parties. There are tens of thousands of foreigners living and working here in Beijing and there is so much turnover that every night there are groups of friends marching around the city’s bar streets bidding farewell to somebody. As excited as I was to go on this first outing, I was also certain that this would not be my last goodbye pub crawl.

The night began with dinner at a very good restaurant at the other side of Dongcheng district. Here I met some new people: Xiaoye, Pierre’s girlfriend Ana, Vincent and 2 other friends of Elisa’s (I am ashamed to say that I forgot their names!). I have always loved the Chinese style of eating dinner, as it makes meeting new people very easy: You sit at a large, round table with dishes that everybody takes helpings from. There is a constant interaction that Western-style dining just doesn’t foster in the same way. Having to help people spin the Lazy Susan around, pass items back and forth, and reach over people to get at what you want pretty much eliminates your ability to sit quietly. If you’re not talking to folks, you’re still bumping into them.

After a fun meal we all headed over to Sanlitun. This is a neighborhood right next to Dongzhimen where a large number of bars, restaurants and expat hangouts are located. There is a main drag and several side streets and alleyways where the close proximity of the buildings is very reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans. In fact, given that you can drink out in the streets and walk from bar to bar with your drink in hand, it often functions the same way- though there is a glaring lack of roving camera crews and girls going wild. Much the better, IMHO.

We started our “crawl” in Nanjie Bar, which is famous for their cheap drinks. We were going to bounce around from place to place in the alley that we were in, but when we went outside, the crowds were all hanging out in the streets anyway, and the wait staff continued to get us drinks form the bar, so we just stayed where we were. This actually allowed even more people join our roving band of merriment and I made some more new friends: Julia and Jane both live in Beijing (Julia is an expat and Jane is a transplant from a village up north), and Amany, a CouchSurfer who was passing through town and I had hung out with earlier in the day.

We eventually moved off the street that we were on and across a wide boulevard to another section of Sanlitun. Once there, we hit Bar Blu, which was playing cool 70’s and 80’s dance tunes and had a packed roof deck.

My memory starts to get a bit fuzzy by the end of the night (and by “end of the night,” I literally mean “morning,” because I did not get home until 5:00am), but one of the last things that I remember clearly was my run-in with members of the New Zealand Women’s Indoor Volleyball team.

They were all out getting plastered and they had a bunch of guys hanging all over them. One of these fine ladies -I never got any of their names- decided at one point that it was time to start dancing on top of the 5-foot bar. This was a tall woman -at least 5′10”- and she towered over everybody. As I looked up, and up, and up to glimpse her completely trashed face she suddenly lost her footing (BIG surprise) and tumbled backwards right towards me.

My reflexes were clearly slowed by my now more-than-slight inebriation, but I somehow managed to shift my body out of the way and hook my arm under her shoulder just before she slammed onto her back and cracked her skull on the floor. Uninjured, she bounced back onto her feet, wobbled a second and then threw up her arms in triumph, screaming as if she had just nailed the Floor Exercise in Gymnastics. I put my arm back onto hers (I had helped her up and steadied her during her momentary loss of equilibrium) and asked if she was OK.

“Fuck you!” she shouted at me and stormed off back to her group of teammates and male hangers-on.

Damn Kiwis.

I got my revenge, though. A few minutes later I got the guy that she was slobbering over to bring her back my way to pose for a picture. Funny thing: When I told them both that I wanted a shot of a drunk, belligerent Olympian for my blog, neither of them (or any of her teammates) seemed to mind all that much. I wonder if the alcohol had anything to do with that?

Everything starts to blur after this, but I know that  had a great time. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

My Sunday was spent not out at games or events, but chillin’ with my friends -both old and new- here in Beijing. I’m sure that if I had wanted, I could have scored some tickets to either the Men’s basketball finals or the Closing Ceremonies, but, frankly, I just wanted to watch them on TV. I think that a part of me was kind of done with the crowds, security checks and long lines in the hot sun.

So in retaliation for them bringing me to a Chinese sports bar to watch the first basketball game of these Olympics (USA vs. China), I had Alex & Rachel meet me to watch the last game (USA vs. Spain) at the most American place that I could think of in Beijing: Hooters.

Yeah, they have crappy food in the US and they are (proudly) tacky enough to make you gag before you even try the onion rings, but I was out for revenge. Sort of. And, believe it or not, their burger is actually pretty darn good. Its quite the taste of home. That, and they’re only 3 blocks from my apartment.

The game between the Redeem Team and Spain was a lot more fun to watch than had been expected and there was a nice mix of Spain fans and Americans in the restaurant so it was a loud, energetic crowd. I had a great time with my friends and ate way too much.

Afterwards, Rachel invited me to join her friends who had reserved a room at a karaoke bar so that they could watch the Closing Ceremonies together on a big TV and get drinks brought to them… Oh, and to sing karaoke.

The Chinese love Karaoke. Love it. Their bars don’t have occasional karaoke nights. No, they have karaoke clubs. Big ones. In 4-star hotels. I’ll have to get into that at a later time, because while they sang a few songs (and goaded me into a wretched rendition of “The Sound of Silence”), we were there for the Closing Ceremonies.

And what a show it was! It was as beautiful, if a little more understated, as the Opening Ceremonies, but I loved them- Right up through the very cool symbolic handoff of the next Games to London. Seeing “A Whole Lotta Love” performed live in China was pretty awesome. The Chinese that I were with ate it up.

The night ended with a whimper for me. When it was all over I took a cab ride home across town and went straight to bed. I didn’t go out to the bars to see what the after parties might be like. I wasn’t interested in the revelry that might accompany One Last Night out for all of the athletes and visitors. To me, that night was not about the ending of a festival; it was about the start of my life here.

Time to get on with it.

I finally had the time to go out the other night. (I’ll be posing a whole bunch about it soon- I really haven’t even had time for sleep over the past few days), but I wanted to give you a heads-up about an article that appeared on The Times of London’s website a couple of days ago. Ironically, it was the night that I went out.

See it here.

Basically, it talks about the huge sex fest that is the Olympics. With thousands of the most fit human specimens on the planet crammed into one small section of a city at the same time, with lots of adrenaline and competitive energy flowing, you can imagine that sparks will fly. And when you get to a place where these folks congregate, the sexual tension in the air can be palpable.

When I was out and about the other night I had occasion to see a couple of groups of athletes and interact with some fine ladies from New Zealand for a while. To say that they were on the prowl would be putting it mildly.

As I said, more on that later. I’ve still got a few more events to fill you guys and girls in on before I get to that, and the final day of the Games is now upon us. I’ll be writing furiously later today (after I watch the basketball finals at a bar with some friends) and tomorrow so that I can get caught up. I’ve got lots to fill you in on and plenty of photos galleries to arrange. And if I come across any more topical articles such as this one, I’ll let you know.

This is all very new for me. Since I have lived in Boston all of my life, I have never had to go through the ordeal of packing up my life and moving it somewhere else. (Going from Savin Hill to Neponset doesn’t count because that’s just down Morrissey Boulevard.) Furthermore, while I’ve known people who have come and gone into my life, I have never faced the prospect of saying goodbye to everyone and everything that I hold dear. That’s why the last 2 days were so fun/exhilarating/sad/scary for me.

On Friday I spent one last evening in the embrace of an old friend, Fenway Park, watching my beloved Red Sox. I worked in the stands of the ballpark for 9 seasons as a vendor (’91-’99) and while I was a Baseball/Sox fan before then, those seasons spent huffing it up and down through the rows, cheering for the team and interacting with fans, changed my ordinary fandom into what I like to call a “Field of Dreams” devotion to the game, the team and the ballpark itself. So every visit is special for me and Friday was no exception; it was an amazing night that saw the end of the Manny Ramirez era and the coming of Jason Bay. The welcome that the crowd gave Bay on his first day was astounding. When the lineup was announced (before the TV cameras were on), he was one of only 2 players warming up on the field and he looked absolutely stunned when the entire stadium erupted with a thunderous, sustained 90-second standing ovation. He got the same treatment when he came up to bat in the second inning. It was very affirming to see once again just what Boston baseball fandom is all about.

For all of the affection that I have for Fenway, the Red Sox and the game of Baseball, the thing that I will treasure the most from Friday is that I got to spend it with my new dear friend Alisa. Meeting her is one of the best things that has happened to me in years and parting from her so soon after making our connection is one of the saddest things about my move. I don’t know what I’ll do without her…

Thank the gods for Skype!

As for day #2, I held my last hurrah at my favorite bar, The Good Life. As the song goes, it’s nice to go somewhere where everybody knows your name. The owners and staff are all great people and I consider them friends. It was a night of 80s dancing (my favorite kind) and the crowd is always great there. Among them were my best bud Bry, along with several new friends that I have made this summer via CouchSurfing. They are all awesome and they have convinced me that CouchSurfing is one of the best online communities since it has it’s roots in -and facilitates- real-world connections and cultural exchange. The biggest benefit of making friends with Surfers? They are very apt to visit you no matter where you are. All of them are welcome at my place in Beijing!

My next days will be spent going through the detritus of my life, sorting out what can come with me, what must be left behind, what can be saved and what will be given away. Its all downhill from here.