Chapter 155

I woke up at 7 and got to work. I sat in the office drinking white tea and browsing random shit on the internet. Dödsrit just released an album and I eagerly listened to it, I really enjoyed their furious mix of crust and black metal on their previous releases, but the new one is in much more of a melodic black metal vein. Still some decent stuff, I’ll have to relisten to it to form an opinion.

I had three classes with the eleventh-graders, going through some old organic chemistry multiple choice questions for their exam next Tuesday. One student from the weaker class had a stuffed llama or alpaca on his desk. He saw me staring at it while I got my stuff on the front desk. “Teacher! Look! It’s a caonima!” I talked about one of the “what are the goddamn chances?!” particularities of the Chinese language a few days ago, how they say “nigga, nigga, nigganigganigga” instead of “hmmmmm”, well the word for llama sounds the exact same as fuck your mother, which is why it’s a quite popular animal here even though it’s indigenous to South America, more than 15 000 km away.

The classes went well, and when lunch break rolled around, it meant I was pretty much officially done for the school year. Sure, I have to show up next week, but no more classes. I somehow didn’t feel as excited as I should, in the face of this near three-month vacation. I was more excited at the idea of eating my lunch and breaking my intermittent fast. I got home, heated a leftover chicken burger the girlfriend brought home yesterday, that I pimped out with an extra thick tomato slice, hot sauce and sauerkraut. I also ate a scotch egg that I got from the lady who bakes and delivers pies, scotch eggs are delicious, a good protein and fat bomb.

In the afternoon, I was pretty much free to sit at my cubicle and do whatever I wanted. Looking for new music, I listened to Choroba, a German black metal band that was pretty good but also had clean vocals that turned me off a bit, the second time the whiny high-pitched vocals came in I NOPED hard and turned it off. I then decided to relisten to albums I recently discovered and liked, or check out other albums from these bands. First I put on an album by Lectern, an Italian death metal band I listened to last week. It’s really, really good, they have a track called Fluent Bilocation that has got to be one of the catchiest I’ve heard in a long time. Then on my quest to explore Inhumate’s discography, I played their album Growth, and it was some awesome deathgrind, I really wonder why those Frenchies never hit my radar. Too many good bands out there. I rounded up my afternoon by listening to Cranial Obsession by Anatomia, the Japanese doom/death band with a tortured, slow, crushing bass-heavy sound.

I got home, made a huge gin-tonic, and relaxed for a bit. Not that it had been a stressful week by any means. I cleaned the apartment a bit, with the Clown World news on the TV. Investigative journalist Andy Ngo got attacked by communist agitators in Portland again, the footage was a bit disturbing. Those antifas are really scummy. I looked at the time, not even 6 PM yet, I couldn’t stay indoors all night, and there was no BJJ practice on this Friday. I hopped on my bicycle and went to run errands, nothing really pressing, but might as well do it now. I went to a glasses shop to enquire about prescription sunglasses, after trying a few pairs I asked the old guy how much it costs. He hesitated for a time, before writing 350 yuan on a paper. I frowned, as I expected less. He then scratched it and wrote 320. Without a word, I walked out, and he followed me, saying “I can go cheaper!” Well that’s the whole goddamn point you old twat, why did you quote me this scammy price to begin with? I hate haggling, I fucking hate it. Some of my fellow aficionados of third-world travel enjoy it and see it as a fun game that is part of the local cultures, well, I hate them too. I don’t miss this at all and am damn glad it’s not something I need to deal with often in China, in the 2021 incarnation of China at least.

Then I rode to Decathlon and got an air mattress for our summer road trip. There was a price tag on it, and on every single item in the store, which means you don’t have to deal with scumbag touts trying to extract as much money from you as possible by quoting you prices based on your ethnicity and how much of a retarded naive sucker you look. Decathlon is right by Metro, we don’t really need imported groceries for the time being, but what does need mean anyway?! Only then did I realize I didn’t bring a fayssah mursk, and the store still clings on that dumbest of policies. A fat lady outside the entrance told me to put one on, then one stationed between the outer and inner automatic doors, and three at the front counter, simultaneously waving their hands at me as I walked briskly past, ignoring them. The store was mostly empty and more than half the customers and employees didn’t have their face diapers on anyway. I got a bunch of beer and snacks and cold cuts of meat then rode the 5 km or so home. I listened to an album by François Pérusse, a cult and prolific and lethally funny Quebec skit comedian.

I made it home, and cooked dinner based on a Korean recipe I saw earlier during the day. I took the chicken breast cubes I had been marinating in a garlic, ginger, hot pepper and honey sauce for the past few hours, browned them, added rice cakes, and finished it in the oven with a layer of mozzarella cheese. It was kickass. I spent the rest of the evening watching various YouTube videos about interests of mine, whether music, jiu-jitsu, military history, politics, whatever.