Sunday, January 21, 2007

How do you say 'come mierda' in Chinese?

Saturday night my wife and I attended something called a "Chinese Gift Exchange." It was hosted by some friends of ours and it's the third year that we attend. The basic idea is that each person is supposed to bring a gift. Not just any gift but a gift that you received for Christmas that you just don't want. It might be tacky, it might be a gadget you'll never use, etc. etc. If you don't have something like that then you are encouraged to buy something. Some people bring gag gifts. All the gifts are brought in brown grocery bags so nobody can tell who brought what.

Then the gift exchange begins. Each person draws a number. The first person has to pick a bag from the pool of unopened gifts. He/she then opens the bag and shows the gift to everyone. The next person has a choice of "stealing" the gift from the first person or selecting from the pool of unopened gifts. If the person whose turn it is decides to steal a gift from one of the people who already has one, then the person whose gift was stolen must pick from the pool of unopened gifts. At the end the first person gets a chance to keep what he ended up with or steal a gift from anyone.

It was a night of interesting coincidences. The guy that picked first ended up having his gift "stolen" by one of the people immediately after him. Now I should mention that this guy was on a Mexican soap opera about 10 years ago. So when he went to pick a replacement gift from the gift pool everyone began to laugh when he opened the brown paper bag to find a picture frame with a publicity photo of him from the soap opera in it. There were something like 40 gifts in the pile and he picked the one gag gift that was intended to make fun of him specifically.

I was number 30 and so when it was my turn I decided that I wanted to "steal" a gift from someone else. It was a big coffee table book about wine. So I was happy with my gift until a few minutes later someone came and "stole" my book. I begrudgingly went back to the pile and picked from the handful of gifts that was left. When I opened the paper bag I saw it was a t-shirt. I pulled it out only to realize that it was Che Guevara T-Shirt. My instant reaction was disgust. I grabbed the t-shirt and I jammed it down the back of my jeans and literally wiped my ass with it, to the howls of the party guests, many of whom knew that I have a web site denouncing the murderous come mierda that was Che Guevara. I then went to the citronella tiki torch and tried to burn it. It didn't burn. But I made my point. When the gift exchange ended the poltical discussions began and didn't end until 3:30 in the morning.

I don't know for sure who brought that Che shirt, but I have a good idea.

No comments: