Ex-Patriotism

Last night, I think I saw the saddest and yet most hilarious display of an ex-pat gone loopy over his overinflated view of his own importance. I guess some people come to countries like this, where, as a westerner, you have a much higher standard of living than you would have had back home and relatively speaking you are suddenly a rich, white collar member of the upper class. Or so it may seem to you on a Saturday night when you've had WAY too much to drink.

So there's this big Halloween party last night at one of the 'ex-pat' bars and they get in a TV 'celebrity' for the night to kind of MC the night right? I don't know how many CCTV channels there are (CCTV is China C....something TV), but I know it's a LOT and I've never seen or heard of this guy before. Anyway he's a big, built, hip-hop type from New York with rock hard chest muscles (I know this because we all got to see them! Lucky us!). His sidekick was a smooth Chinese dude in an expensive suit who drank Moet from the bottle all night while standing on the stage. I'm not sure what reason he had for standing on the stage all night other than to make sure everybody knew he was swigging Moet from the bottle.

Anyway our hip hoppin' New Yorker started rapping along to the music with his mic (it was like Karaoke, only not as cool) and then for some inexplicable reason he took off his shirt and swanned around on stage without it for a while. Every now and then he'd throw in a 'yeeeeaaaahhhhhhh' for good measure. The low point came when a woman started to lick his bare chest, I quickly pointed out to her that this guy should not be encouraged to which she replied "He's so firm!"....right. The Moet from a bottle dude dude started picking out women from the crowd to give drinks to (which were three quarters Stolly and one quarter orange juice). I must have done something right because I was one of the lucky beneficiaries of his beverage generosity.

All this made for a very funny night, but the icing on the hip hop cake was the dance troupe. If anyone has seen Spike Jonze's video for Fat Boy Slim's 'Praise You' featuring the Torrence Community Dance Group, you'll know what I mean when I say these guys were special. There was about 10 guys all in white track suits giving it their all. The krumping was at times so enthusiastic I'm surprised nobody put their back out. What a night! The chuckles are going to echo in my heart for many years to come. Party on dudes.

See the photos link for new pictures! The one on this post is of a few of us just as the night was getting started.