Ping pong and more sights

Update on ping pong:

We got to play today!! It was awesome. As soon as we got to class, my friend and I looked at each other and took our new paddles halfway out of our backpacks, and we were practically squirming the entire first half of the lesson. Then during break we got up and started sprinting up the stairs to the ping pong table, but as we were going all the other male classmates saw us and said “PING PONG!!??” and started running up with us. So excited. It was really good to play—that’s a great sport and it felt like a huge release. Except that after about 10 minutes, I went too hard for a slam and accidentally hit my friend’s ball out the window! Five stories up. Oops.. Felt like an idiot and apologized profusely and gave him one of my ping pong balls (the flimsy game one, though, not the more durable practice one), but still sort of a bad start. But then we laughed a lot and let some of our classmates play. The Japanese guy isn’t very good but is really funny and enjoys it a lot, and one of the Laotians is amazing. I’m starting to like these people a bunch.

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Changing topics, a couple other interesting sights, which I didn’t get pictures of because I would have felt awkward (Eric Loui, where are you?):

--Kids defecating in the street! I think I was warned about this, but I hadn’t seen it until today, when I saw it twice. Find a nice hole in the pavement, drop pants, and let loose. One of them was going into a tree planter, which I thought was a good call on the part of the mama

--Walked by a beggar yesterday as he was talking money out of his dish and cramming it into a bag under his blanket, leaving just enough in the bowl to give the impression that people are in fact giving things, so you passers-by should too. While I definitely recognize the psychology behind this, and I’ve seen it done by musicians mostly, it seems a little dishonest from a beggar who’s not performing or anything. Isn’t the idea that he’s totally destitute and doesn’t have any other options, so he’s begging to fill up his bowl so that he can buy food, and once he has enough he can go eat and be happy? This way it seems more like begging is his job and he’s got savings stacked away, just like anyone else. Idk. I guess I don’t really want to be too harsh on him.

(Sidenote: people in Philly, if you ever get the chance go to Reading Terminal Market on a Saturday afternoon. At least all of last year, there was this kid there who was about fourteen and would play amazing piano for several hours. I went there to work one day and stayed for maybe two hours, during which he pocketed at least $150. After every song he would empty his bowl and start again. Totally deserved though).

--Still on beggars, there are a lot of them here, and some of them are extremely deformed. Really sad—you have to wonder how they got like that, and I hope it wasn’t one of those horror stories where somebody did that to make them look more pitiable. They all have their own turf, too, where they go everyday and sit and beg for long, long periods.