August 27, 2008 5:45 AM
Xièxie
I'm Jewish, and when I was a kid, my family used to have Friday night Shabbat dinners. There was one staple of every Shabbat dinner at the Oshinsky house: at the end of the meal, we'd go around the table and give thanks for something that had happened that week. We'd seen a few family friends do it at dinner one time, and my parents liked the tradition.Particularly, they enjoyed the response that our friends' eldest child provided when asked to speak. I'm thankful for the toilet, he'd say. That always got big laughs.
Here in China, though, I do want to give thanks for a number of things, and weirdly enough, the toilet is on that list. Trust me when I say: compared to the holes in the ground that pass as public facilities here, the "Western-style" toilet in my hotel room is a post-gastronomic sanctuary.
In two months on this blog, we've posted nearly 250 entries and north of 50,000 words. We've received more than 125 comments, and if we hadn't accidentally blocked the commenting feature for the first six weeks of the blog, we might have even heard a bit more from readers.
The people who've made this blog possible are almost too numerous to list. So, briefly:
Thanks to The General, Julie at the visa office, Evander Holyfield, Mike and Dan at Club Bud, Abe for the Sanlitun adventures, Sam for showing me the best meatball sub in town, Becca for finding me that pop-a-shot machine, whoever the tailor at CCTV is, the Nigerian cheering section, Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post for the pop-a-shot contest, the Brazilian swim and dive team, Tim Hilbert, Cameltoe and the rest of the Hashers, Jim Boyce, Paul Astephen, Steve Schwankert, Will Smith and Flight of the Conchords, the entire nations of Holland and New Zealand, Grandmaster Qi, Matt Schrader for lunch, the Chicago and Washington, D.C., consulates, John at the BIMC, the entire Fitzgerald family, Lisa the Jamaican roommate, Ken Tremendous, Allen at the English Corner, the marvelous tailors at Beijing Ya Xiu Silk at the YaShow Market, the kind salespeople at Li Ning and Anta, George Wang over at Silk Street, whoever makes the dumplings at the Renmin University Foreign Students Canteen and anyone and everyone who offered me assistance on the street when I was lost and confused.
To all at the Rocky who've helped make this possible: thank you.
And to China, for all of the hurdles you put me through, let me say this: Liu Xiang didn't make it over all of them, either. I guess that's consolation.
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