Thursday 10/10/02            Double Tenth Day Reception

 

            No school or work today for the National Day holiday.  In the morning called Dave and we got in a big fight about things similar to the last, and he said he can’t take much longer of this, my yelling each time we talk.

 

            So my eyes were puffy from crying when Juling came to get me, but she didn’t notice or didn’t comment.  I’d asked her if they could take me the next time they went to Costco, so they were going today.  As we shopped, I cheered up a bit, seeing everything I’ve been wanting but was so expensive in Wellcome.  I got Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese, mozzarella cheese, spaghetti sauce, bread, and for presents for people, boxes of cookies and chocolates.  It all came to $80US which was about right, considering the volume.

 

            I took a nice needed nap, then met Jonathan in the MRT to head for the big Double Tenth Day reception.  I felt self conscious dressed in my long black cocktail dress in the MRT and people stared, but I felt better when he joined me since he was in a suit.  We both wore our “Dr.” nametags and he said the two Chinese words after our names meant “PhD”.   

 

We got there and walked a long time around the memorial not knowing where to go, but saw lots of important-looking people parading down a red carpet lined with spotlights and costumed marionette girls, into the memorial hall.  They were wearing nametags similar to ours so we figured we were supposed to walk on it too.  We walked on the grass looking for the end of the line and finally reached the red carpet, spotlights on us, marionette girls twirling their (batons?  They looked more like rifles), while a junior high school orchestra serenaded us with Aida.  We were psyched, feeling so important.  We couldn’t keep up the nonchalant attitude especially when we asked people nearby to take our picture, holding up the line behind us.

 

They led us inside, and we saw the president Chen Shui Bian’s wife wheeled by in her wheelchair.  She was run over by a car, twice, in a plot to kill her by the mainland opposition.  Sheesh!  Way to keep up those polite diplomatic relations. 

 

Inside was tons of food, and we were set loose to eat and mingle.  It was incredibly crowded.  I wondered how “exclusive” these invitations really were?  People were elbowing each other and cutting in “lines”, that was the strategy for getting food.  The longest line was for Haagen Dazs.  There did seem to be a lot of important people there.  We saw African people dressed in traditional garb, made-up women wearing crowns and banners (one said “[Miss Overseas Chinese]”, others were older and were “[Ms. Mother China]”).  Every so often we’d see the president, always crowded by people and servicemen and camera flashes. 

 

We found the other Fulbrighters who stood around chatting as I darted back and forth from them to tables grabbing all kinds of food.  There were tables lining the sides with drinks, one had all kinds of beer.  I tried a mango beer which was pretty good.

After a while people crowded by the stage, a man and woman were at the mike, the man started giving a speech and I thought finally, a good shot of the president!  I went way up close and got a great shot of them, hardly believing I was this close.  Then I found out it wasn’t Chen Shui Bian, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Duh, I should have realized that the wife wasn’t in a wheelchair.

 

There was a table of Aborigine food (yuk), Aborigine rice wine (2 types, both equally nasty), and in the side room, an orchestra of little kids who played the chinese lute really well.  I ran into a girl from my lab at NTU Hospital.  Just out of curiosity I wondered how she got invited here but didn’t know how to ask, “How did YOU get your exclusive invitation?”  in a polite way.

 

As we kept passing politicians and looking for famous people though sure we wouldn’t recognize them, I joked, “I wonder if people get invited to White House for events and like us, don’t recognize important people?  Are they like, “Is that the president?  Is that guy George W.?  I don’t know, what does he look like?” 

 

I was stuffed but felt compelled to keep eating, and snuck into the Haagen Dazs line a couple times (who knows when you’ll see decent ice cream again?).  As the night wrapped up we got word that we could take the flowers home, and immediately women everywhere ran about grabbing flowers from the displays and elbowing each other out of the way.  Brian was going around videotaping people with his camcorder, and a bunch of little kids saw Brian, Jonathan and Niclas standing together and begged to have their picture taken together.  How cute that white people are such a novelty to kids here.  Or maybe they thought, “These must be famous Americans, we just don’t recognize who they are.”

 

We were introduced to someone important I forget who, and nearby was a beautiful girl with a fantastic dress, accessorized and made up perfectly but with a black feathery cloth bird sticking out of her hair.  I commented I liked her whole outfit except for the bird thing.  Jonathan said she looked important and went to find out who she was, but she gave him the snub. 

 

I and the three guys went for drinks at Juke’s, where Niclas’ roommate joined us,  and I ran into Stella’s friends Lorraine and Daniel.  Niclas tried to convince us to go to Room 18 but we all scattered home, I had to study.

 

Back at home I wondered what I’d do with all these flowers in my little apartment, they were wilting fast.  I gave two to the doorman.

 

            Dave called at 1AM .  Said he came home for lunch just to call me, made me feel bad.