My First Chinese Christmas Party

Tuesday night. I attended a Christmas party sponsored by TieLing City's Foreign Affairs Office. In attendance were four foreign teachers from two private schools, the people from the Foreign Affairs Office and three overseas Chinese students (home for the holidays, I'm guessing).

I immediately noticed that one of the overseas students was cute. Very smooth skin. Nice smile. Moves with confidence. Funny. Hmm, too good to be true. He looked kinda young. I wondered if he was still in college. So I kept observing. He made perfect dumplings. I know, I watched him. We made dumplings as part of the Chinese way of celebrating Christmas (this is what they do during Spring Festival which is the Chinese version of Christmas, I was told) and I swear, he made them with such ease. It almost looked like watching a sculptor at work.

You have to understand that since coming here five months ago, I have only seen two cute Chinese guys. The first was a vendor selling sweets near AiKeMa, the supermarket I patronize. I ended up buying 32 rmb worth of the stupid sweets that I didn't even finish a quarter of (no, the sweets weren't stupid, I was). He was the second.

He was introduced as the son of the FAO boss. Oh-kay. He studied abroad! That means he could speak English! That means we could talk! Not to worry, the night was young.

One of the other students, a nice-looking-tall-thin girl, sat next to Era, another Filipino teaching at New Hope (a rival school). I don't know how exactly I got to that part of the room but I found myself talking to nice-looking-tall-thin girl. I found out that she was studying in the UK, so I asked if this was for college.

Nancy (American, also teaching at New Hope): No, she's taking her Masters.

Me: Oh ok. What's it on?

Nice-looking-tall-thin girl: Ph.D.

Me: Oh wow. On what?

She started to explain that it had something to do with the heart and the valves of the heart but I was probably too dumb to understand. Anyhow, at that point I was just staring at her with my mouth agape. When she finished talking...

Me: Oh. My. God. Wow.

Fastforward to me talking to Wendy...

Me to Wendy (Chinese friend): How old do you think he is?

Wendy: 21?

Me: Aaaaaargh. He's really cute.

Wendy: Yeah, he is.

Me (sighed): He's only the second cute guy I've seen in China. You remember the first one? The vendor?

Wendy (laughed): Oh yeah!

Wendy (in Chinese to Gao Shan, our headmaster): How old is the boss's son?

Gao Shan (in Chinese): 22.

Me (in English): NOOO!

Me (more in control): He can't be that young. You see this girl? She's already taking her Ph.D. They're friends so they might be around the same age.

Wendy: Hmm. Maybe. I'll ask him later.

Me (smiling): Great!

Later on, cute guy stood up to sing a song. Before singing, he said a little something about himself in Chinese. "I've been studying in England for three years now." Yeah, got that. "I'm here with (didn't understand)" gestured towards Ms. Ph.D. Wendy stared at me and said "He just said they're lovers." "What?" from me. "They're married. Because he said they're lovers. If she's just his girlfriend he would have said they're very good friends." Wait, too much information. Girlfriend? MARRIED? One more time. No, I changed my mind, don't say it again. 

I am cursed.

Did I mention his incredibly smooth skin? Did I mention his smile? Did I mention... Aaaargh! STOP! 

Ph.D on what? Shoot me now. And why do I have to have a damaged brain? (Oops, that's a different story. Ok, let me digress for awhile. It turned out that Gao Shan, my headmaster, knows palmistry. So one time, he read my palms and I must admit he was quite good. He was able to tell me things nobody in China could have known. One of which was that I'm healthy but I had a really serious illness when I was very young. I did! Everyone thought I wasn't going to survive. Well, I'm here :p. Anyway, this damaged a part of my brain. He said I would've been smarter. What? I could've been a genius? Aww, shit. So, anyway (again), every time I feel stupid, I blame it on the damaged part of my brain.)

Despite this (cute guy being married, not having a damaged brain although yeah, you could also add that if you want), I did have a good time at the party. And oh, have you seen the skipping rope I got? Maybe it's the universe's way of saying that if I work out... Nah!

And I did get to talk to him.

Him (going to our side of the room, smiling at me): Bye! Merry Christmas!

Me (smiling): Merry Christmas!

And this is me now rolling my eyes.

In fairness, Ms. Ph.D seemed really nice. She should be. People who have everything have no right to not be nice.