No Fun Day

The govt strikes again. As declared by the Chinese govt, today was a day for mourning for the flood victims, which I had heard about thanks to my NPR news podcast. I thought nothing of it, even when my aunt complained this morning about nothing to watch on TV. I thought it meant that the shows at 10 AM were just bad.

Nope, a day of mourning in China means no entertainment allowed.

Fortunately, I was out all day shopping for the two more heavy, limited suitcase space-eating black Korean stone pots and other useless stuff that my mom told me to buy before I left Beijing so I wasn’t affected by the worse than usual options for TV. On channels [0-8, 10-95) (<--non-inclusive bracket…), you had the the option(s) of the news. Pretty much one pick, so why the “options”? Because you can pick your favorite number (CCTV 8 probly had the highest ratings) and watch the news of there! And by news, I think it was largely just a continual broadcast of the flooding (just like it was of Katrina and 9/11 on every news channel, except this was on every channel, except CCTV 9 (channel 9) because CCTV 9 is for foreigners and has the news in English, so they tell a little more than just the flooding. Surprisingly, on one channel, it was like MTV before they stopped being MTV, but I couldn’t understand a word of the music videos (which weren’t in Chinese and I don’t think they were in English either). The other non news channel seemed so boring that I’d have much rather watched the news.

My uncle took us out to eat at this really good hot pot place today, partially because he had also wanted to take me to check out the arcade next to it afterwards…but it was closed. So was the movie theater next to it…(I didn’t realize how weird it was that they were both closed until after I got home and my aunt showed me that there was only one thing on 90+ channels).

And of course, when the govt here says none, they mean it. Even the scheduled entertainment for the Expo was canceled.

I could have had abs nothing to do tonight, but fortunately, the gym was open. I guess the govt doesn’t consider the gym to be fun…which isn’t exactly surprising. I mean, it’s China…and besides can you imagine this guy exercising?

Alas, since I went to the gym today, I’ll never know if the soccer/basketball fields at the nearby universities were open today.