English with Rambo

So a couple days ago (June 24), I arrived in Guiyang by train from Huaihua. It was a night train - always the best option when travelling in China, but this one was pretty miserable. I was surprised to find that I had a soft sleeper ticket. This was a first for me - I always go for the hard sleeper because they are cheaper, and I'd heard that soft sleepers weren't that much better. This is true. The soft sleeper compartment has four bunks, and you have enough room to sit up completely, which is nice, and it is closed, so you don't hear the people going by. As the name implies, the bed is also softer. So I was pretty happy - the only thing that was wrong was my company. One of the people snored. REALLY LOUD! I left Huaihua at 11pm, and we got into Guiyang at around 6pm, so I was already going to get a little less than 7 hours of sleep, but the snorer made it so I probably got around 3. I thought he was going to choke on his tongue. Furthermore, because you are sleeping in a booth, the door is closed, making it so the sound stayed in the little booth. Not a fun trip.

Anyways, so I got into Guiyang, feeling a little fried. I found a good hotel for a good price in a great location - the Youzheng Hotel (Postal Hotel) located at the intersection of Ruijin and Zhongshan Roads - I'm very satisfied with this hotel, which was very clean, had a sit down toilet (you never know how nice those are until you don't have them) and was 110 yuan a night. Anyways, I went walking around the city to look at some of the parks and such. As I was walking, I passed some people doing an anti-drug campaign thing, and they stopped me, and gave me a large calligraphy piece - but guess what it says - "Treasure your life. Don't do drugs" in ancient Chinese characters - hilarious! I think I'll put it up in the house when I get home, and then people will ask what it says, and I'll tell them "Don't smoke crack." Excellent!

Anyways, around 2pm, I was exhausted, and I came back to the hotel and slept until 7pm. This would have been great if it was a week later, and about to head back to the States, so I could adjust to American time, but a week early, it just put my schedule off track. So that night, I naturally couldn't sleep, and stayed up watching Chinese tv.

After flipping through the tv for awhile, I was excited to find that Rambo 3 was on. I don't think I've ever seen any of the Rambo movies, but I imagine that they generally follow a similar plot line as this one. For this one, Rambo went to Afghanistan to rescue his mentor from the Russians who were fighting in Afghanistan at the time. Naturally, it was a one-man mission and he had to kill an incredible number of people to rescue him. It wasn't until I had been watching it for awhile, that I realized it wasn't dubbed into Chinese, and the only subtitles were in English - not Chinese! I was wondering how the Chinese could understand it, and realized during a commercial break that announced that it was a program that they broadcast once a week so the Chinese can practice listening to English. So once a week, they show a movie in English with English subtitles for English practice. I can't think of anything more hilarious than learning English from Rambo - it makes a great tagline though. I suppose that English with Rambo can help the English learner discover aspects of the English language that wouldn't be covered by the standard English textbook. For example, what should you say if you are in the middle of the Afghan desert and half of the Soviet Army shows up from nowhere and surrounds you, and they say that they will not hurt you if you surrender completely? Answer: "**** you!" Then you turn to the other guy and say "if we're going down, let's make sure we take that ******** with us!" (I should point out, that against all odds, Rambo and his mentor guy managed to wipe out the entire Soviet army - but not alone. At the most critical moment, an Army of American-loving Afghan rebels appeared from the desert and saved them from certain doom). English with Rambo could also teach important aspects of American culture, such as how to operate artillery, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, grenade launchers, rocket-tipped arrows, as well as how to kill people with random objects that just happen to be handy, or lacking those, your bare hands. Just the thought of perhaps millions of Chinese intently watching Rambo 3 to practice English cracks me up.