Week 2: Food adventures continue and the the university bubble starts to dissolve

Art!

First, I will quickly recap some of the food adventures I’ve had. I’ve learned that Chinese rice porridge is not for me. The porridge itself isn’t bad, but the insistence of putting fermented vegetables into the porridge has officially ended my trial. That, plus a serving of fish I attempted, have been my only ‘rejects’ – I consider this to be very good.

Better view of those windmills.

                With Bai’s help, I have become more adept at ordering my own food within dining cafeterias. (Number) of this, that, yes, good, no, bad, thank you. Very good for me and even better for Bai, I think. This independence is 100% removed when I am faced with a menu ordering situation of any kind. Unfortunately for me (and those with me), dinner often involves menu reading/describing. Maybe soon, I will be able to do this independently as well. Likely not. Earlier in the week, I desired another smoothie, strawberry this time, but Bai was not able to assist me directly. So she left me a note with how to order one. Ma Jing had earlier alerted me that he would compete in a swimming competition, so I decide to check it out, find myself in a familiar place: The pool. It was a brutally hot day, so I took my note in my pocket and headed to the smoothie bar en route to the pool. I dropped my order on them without trouble – but there was confusion over my actual order. Sure, I had told them what I thought was a decent order, but now I had to clarify it for them. Can’t say I was really prepared for this part. 

First strategy: repeat what I already said, twice. Initially confusion, but a 3^rd employee was able to clearly decipher my order. Strawberry milkshake, yes! But no! I want a large one! I said I wanted a large one! Strategy two: Point at the large one and make signals with my hands for large while repeating in Chinese what I believed to be ‘large order’. Yes! Success! No! One! I want one! How did we get to me ordering two? I didn’t motion 2 or order 2. Ok, great, they’re making me one, problem solved. Why is this guy giving me $15 dollars with the smoothie? Oh, I was double-charged.

I wish I had that umbrella.
Imagine if I was on the lower bleacher? No view.

               

This is a very poor effort.

 Smoothie in hand and smoothie bar employees fully frazzled, I went to the pool. Man, was I glad to have that smoothie. I would have melted into the bleachers. There was no shade anywhere near the pool. The competition seemed to be 100% individual. Maybe 45 people showed up. Who knows what the events were. I don’t. Ma Jing netted a 3^rd place finish in one of them, I guess. I congratulated him and then he told me I’d have to wait 1.5 hours for the next race and suggested I leave. I heeded his advice on the account that I probably would have died in the sun had I not. My smoothie was no more and the heat was too much. Turns out he got 3^rd in that race, too. His prize were two red velvet-bound certificates and mouthwash, soap, body wash and laundry detergent. Quite a haul!
                Later that night the Jings, Bai and I played some table tennis and billiards. Ma Jing proved a good match in the table tennis. Something was different, though. The ball was dancing like a knuckler for both of us. I attributed this to a much tackier table and paddle that you typically see in America. You simply could not get the ball to bounce true on either surface. It was wild. Ma Jing took 2/3 close matches from me, but Bai and I evened the score in 8-ball, with Bai learning for the first time how to play. I predict more nights involving casual competition at the Worker’s Lounge on campus. Dedicated to the country’s laborers, this lounge had games, recital rooms/hall and karaoke rooms. A very neat rec room on campus.

Honestly - this is all starch.

                During other evening walks around the campus, I tried two Chinese favorites: Bubble Tea and Grass Jelly Tea. I found that the tea itself was pretty good. ‘Milk tea’ or ‘red tea’ was the actual liquid part, and was pretty good! I even liked the jelly in the Grass Jelly Tea – it tasted like the tea itself. Where these drinks lose me is at the inclusion of potato starch ’bubbles’ that fill 50% of the cup. I am not sure a human body can even process that much starch and I was certainly not willing to find out.

Endless fun!

                The Jings were also kind enough to take us out to watch ‘Now You See Me 2” at the new (last year built) mall 20 min drive away. The movie was in English with Chinese subtitles, so no issue there! After the movie, we walked around the mall. There were 4 floors above the parking garage, the first two were dedicated to clothing stores, while the top two were filled with restaurants, food bars and the theater itself. There were also toddler playpens and the biggest kid trap in a mall I’d ever seen. They even had helmet on hand and 6 workers to ensure child safety during the romping. At 9pm, though, the 6 employees for 2 kids looked like overkill. I could only see myself in there, playing around forever. Alas, it was time to go home, so I was not able to.

Day 5: You need rain for rainbows

"Where else will we put them?"

Today we got the first real rain since I arrived. Though there are plenty of plants, trees, gardens and waterways, there was still issues with drainage. I need some rain boots! An unfortunate day to get rain, as today is also the campus mail day, where everyone’s packages are set outside (under cover) to be claimed with proper identification. Also, everyone in China owns an umbrella. They are used for sunny days in many cases, but everyone uses them in the rain. The result is hallways full of drying umbrellas like I’ve never seen. In a related issue, perhaps going with all marble floors was a poor decision by the university. I spent my day nearly falling on my face.

"Mine's the black one."

Bilin treated a party of us to dinner at a restaurant on campus. Joining Bai, Bilin and I was Fang Zhou, a student who I had met at Maine and he fellow student Luoliang, who will be visiting Maine in August for a year. I also met Jingyuan, Bilin’s new, and first ever student. I was the first American she had ever met, a novel experience for me. She is from Shanghai (therefore, Shanghainese) and is very happy to be attending school so close to home. I am doubtful she will want to visit Maine as many others do, but maybe I can work on that going forward.

The real fun of the dinner was the opportunity to try some exotic (to me) foods. Jellyfish, which had the texture of hard plastic, was fine to taste, but I probably wouldn’t seek it out. Snails, were pretty tasty, but exhausting to eat. They were so small, it was impossible for me to efficiently eat enough to really be satisfied. Bilin is the master of eating all seafood, I have determined. He just blazed through the snails and the crayfish we ordered. The crayfish was pretty spicy, but very tasty. Again, so small, I felt like I was working on a calorie deficit. Luckily, the leeks, chicken/peanut/cucumber, cucumber and garlic, broccoli in bacon broth and rice dishes were enough to overcome this problem.

When dinner was done, the rain had cleared and left a cleaner sky, complete with partial double rainbow, which was taken in by many onlookers, including myself. China is pretty good so far, you know?!

Day 4: KTV Indoctrination

Belting 

                After a Sunday at the office, the evening took a group of 6 of us to KTV. KTV is very popular in China. It is essentially karaoke, but in a private room with maracas and tambourines provided, so that the audience is only your friends. Snacks and beverages accompanied 3 hours (one too much in my opinion) of singing. The English karaoke catalog left a lot to be desired, I say, but my best performances included “And I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, and “Hotel California” (Twice, for those late comers that missed the first go ‘round). I even sang “Tonight’s the Night” – mainly for the novelty that it wasn’t censored out by the Chinese for sexual content. I mean, kudos to Rod for the metaphors, I guess. I was even volunteered for songs I had never heard of or didn’t care for, just so the Chinese could hear it sung in the proper accent. I would say I did ok, but they were very appreciative and impressed. I was struck at how well they all sang – especially the men. I think it might be due to a language that places such importance on enunciation (4 distinct for most every character combination to differentiate meaning). When our time was up, the tv monitor essentially told us to leave – and so we did.

Day 3: A Day of Walking

The stadium on campus. Make sure to sit in your
assigned university seats, denoted by color.

                Another 0445 wake up call. Finally, some sleep, though. I felt a bit sick from the day before’s food, as I had been warned. It sometimes takes the digestive system a period of time to adjust to such vastly different cuisine. Luckily, it was not too bad, and I was recovered by breakfast. Breakfast this time was a sunflower seed muffin, a ‘chocolate’ cupcake type imposter and vegetable wantons. Bai had taught me some Chinese the day before, so I decided to try it out. 50% credit. I said ‘three’ correctly, but I also added ‘weight’ after it – resulting in 15. The phrase I used is common to rice, for example, but not wantons – I had a snack for the day as a result. The server did not find this order strange, which is perhaps shocking to me. After breakfast, I went back for the 30% Juice, and went with orange this time. Also, good, but pulpy and not as good as the yellow. Come on orange, get with it. Yellow, clearly the leader at this point. Bai and I decided to go to Linggang/Nanhui New City during the day to walk around the lake (largest manmade lake in the world), as I had done a little bit the night before. $1 yuan bus ride required. The bus was full, but not crowded – but there was no A/C…luckily, I had my 30% Juice to keep me happy for the 20 minute ride. 

Lovely water feature with terraced gardens.

This is below sea-level - who knows why

Upon arrival, I received confirmation from what I heard the night before, Shanghainese come to Linggang to weekend and get away from the crowds. As a result, there were a ton of street vendors set up along the lakepath selling jewelry, accessories, toys and a ton of watermelon/other melons. It is melon season, apparently. There was even a bit of a scene when one of the street vendors was confronted by the police for not having a permit for the location he was in. The police seemed very angry and the vendor relented, but Bai explained how it is just a big game, as the vendor will return when the police depart. I am guessing this is why they were so angry. There was also confirmation of Bai’s warning that many people would take photos of me strictly because of my race. Lots of phones out for this exotic American. There was also a very cool sunken water feature, just because. Really, it is something to walk around this city, billed as ‘the future of city living’ or something like that. Everything is engineered, even down the vegetation. Newly planted trees are the only kind of trees, it seems. As the lakepath petered out, I suggested to walk back to the university, as Tian had told me the way the night before and there was time to kill. Plus, it was supposed to be nasty weather followed by nastier 93+F heat for 5 days, and now was the time to get some exercise in. 40 sticky minutes later, we arrived back at campus and I took a nice cold shower and rested my ankles.

The center of campus - gives a good idea
of how the rest of campus looks

                For lunch, Bai and I decided on Tibetan food. It is a segregated hall from the rest of the building it is housed in, due to Tibetans aversion to pork, Bai inferred. Again, my ordering skills need sharpening, I did not receive the vegetables I asked for, but instead, more rice and chicken. Oh well, it was tasty, and I stole some from Bai, who had received too much. It is odd to me there are no beverage servings at these cafeterias. I need some fluids, people! This time, I found fluids at a separate smoothie bar, I guess you would call it. I went for mango. It was a great serving size (pretty large, maybe 500mL), cold, smooth and delicious. And also $14 yuan. That is as much as lunch cost – but very worth it. I will probably buy these pretty frequently, especially on those 90+F degree days.

                (At this point, I think the novelty of describing every meal to you, the reader, has lost its shine. I will not bore you with details of my cafeteria experiences (unless truly warranted) any further!)

Upon returning to the hotel room, Bai signaled she would be doing laundry and that I should learn how to for my own purposes. She had complained about a dryer cycle that required 8(!) hours of runtime. I couldn’t believe it, so I wondered aloud about a possible second spin cycle, and it was agreed we would run an experiment.  Science! Bai wondered if it were possible to run just a spin cycle with the machine, which had only Chinese language near the buttons/settings, but I didn’t need to necessarily read the labels, only the one that described the spin. Electronics work the same across languages, fortunately, and I was able to make the desired light come on. The second spin cycle decreased the drying time to less than 3 hours (at least). A great success, indeed. Such critical thinking brought on a nap that lasted through dinner. Science is hard.

After dinner, we headed to the supermarket. It was very busy in this area – but mostly for restaurant patronage. I grabbed a big jug of kiwi juice at the first stop and nectarines and grapes for the week’s lunch at the second stop. Something I noticed immediately was the individual plastic wrapping or many fruits, such as peaches and apples to prevent bruising. The plastic, I tell you, so much. The checkout line was also an experience. The cashier was processing orders three at a time, but not necessarily in a linear fashion. If Bai were not with me (as always), I am sure he could have named his price with no resistance from me.

The evening’s plans involved a card game that I have been trying to learn a long time. It requires at least 4 players and 4 decks and it is called “Beat the Landlord”. Besides Bai and myself, I met 3 new friends associated within our same circle. I learned the game, though holding an entire deck in your hand is quite difficult, and even won a hand. Oddly, enough, we played at the office – the place with the largest space and most comfortable arrangements. Maybe not so odd after all. 

Day 2: Brave Old World

I didn’t sleep terribly long in my first night in my new home. I thought I would! I felt like I had it all set up, but the body clock is still on US time, I guess. 11pm-2am sleep + restful shuteye until 0445am is all I was running on today. The view from my room is very nice. I looked across a lush, mostly green mall surrounding by newly planted trees and decent looking new campus buildings (everything is new, so), with some construction cranes in the distance. I could see decently far, so things were looking up.

I haven't actually been inside, yet.

Eventually, breakfast hour rolled around and Bai, Bilin and I headed to the dining hall across the street. I was given a brief rundown of the choices and we ordered cafeteria-style. I selected the Baotze (BOW tzuh), which is essentially a spongy dinner roll stuffed with meat or vegetables and the Qiambin (cham PING), a sesame/spinach flatbread. There was also a Yiu Tyo(?) Which is just deep fried dough (Bilin got this). Apparently it goes very well with soy milk – a Chinese coffee and donuts, say. The soy milk comes in a plastic bag (like a frozen sweet-corn bag) and you drink out of that. Related – I have already seen a ton of plastic waste that could be easily avoided, if not for convenience, I guess. So far, I have seen a conversationally-conflicted China. Plastics, smog, etc, but also windmills in the distance, a system where if your hotel card is not in a specific slot within the room, there is no access to electricity (except A/C or heat) and a sign in the elevator reminding me that taking the stairs saves energy. Given the reliance on coal in China to produce power, I can see how such a campaign against electricity use is seen as a more important issue than that of plastic use. Maybe they’ll get there eventually.

It was then on to the office, a 9^th floor room partitioned into about 8 desks, though I wouldn’t describe the situation as a cubicle. I was given a desk underneath the A/C (nobody wants this, it’s too cold, I was told – and while it was chilly, I think it is ok, especially with warmer days ahead) that came with a comfortable chair and a brand new monitor. I set up my desk as my sponsoring professor, Tian, came in and very graciously greeted me. I had met him 3 years earlier during his farewell dinner at Maine, so our interaction had been minimal up to this point. He and Bai assisted me in setting up my internet connection behind the Great Firewall before Tian showed me the terms of my position there. This included a salary of $6000 yuan/mo, which apparently is the salary of a professor there, if I am not mistaken, a meal/access card with $900 yuan, which should be plenty. This card has something in it that can be scanned for payment and access – just place on a reader and you are good! I met other faculty in the morning, whose names I will have difficulty remembering here, but everyone has been very polite. From our office window, there were boats in a water feature running through campus that were applying buckets of some sort of salt, I believe, that turned the water a chalky brown, from a deep brown. Apparently, I arrived after some pretty serious rainfall and this may have been a measure to prevent algae from growing.

It's hazy, I know, but there are windmills in the background

Looking good, guys! I'm sure it's fixed now.

For lunch, we walked to another dining hall, where professors eat lunch free (but not me). Here I had rice, some sort of leek-type water vegetable, bok choi, and shrimp. Bai describes this cafeteria as the worst on campus out of the three, citing that there must be a reason professors eat free. To me, this was reflected in the shrimp, which were not great. The Chinese serve their fish whole, as Bilin had a whole mackerel, as opposed to Bai and mine’s whole shrimp. Apparently, it is custom to eat the shelled shrimp whole, and spit out the husk, but I just peeled mine. We swung by the market before leaving and I picked up some juice. A fruit label and a big ‘30%’ is all I could understand, but it was a good choice, very similar to the Fruit V8 drinks in the U.S.

Though a relatively cool day, it was very sticky. Beyond this, I realized on my way to lunch, but the air was very thick. I hope it is due to the humidity, not smog, that it felt like breathing through a straw, or while being choked by a very weak person, or having a small child on your chest...you get the idea. I just felt as though I couldn’t get a full breath. Perhaps this, and not lack of sleep, is the reason my head feels slightly detached and in the clouds. In any case, it was a little startling.

Aftermath.

After an afternoon of work, I was invited to Tian’s farewell dinner for his graduate students. They will compete for jobs in Fiji, Shanghai and other places, I was told. Two, in fact, had interviews for the same position. A tough job market, fisheries, I think. We, along with Tian’s wife, Qing(?), went to a traditional Japanese restaurant downtown. As Tian said, “Welcome to China. Your first dinner in China? Japanese food!” And traditional it was! Taking of my shoes (I was the only one! Everyone else put shoe-covers on) and sitting at a sunken table. This table…nobody knew how to properly sit down, but everyone successfully did, albeit feeling foolish in doing so. I ordered a dinner platter with the help of English subtitles on the menus. Grilled eel, some odd egg dish that Qing loved, but I found dense and not great, tofu soup that I ate avoiding the tofu part, coconut shrimp. It was a full meal. We toasted our Sake to congratulate the graduates and there was a lot of talk about the future plans. I was often asked my opinion on something and always replied in the affirmative. One student picked up on this and said that I was ‘acting like the Romans’ which was a great way of putting the situation, I think.

After we finished eating, we just got up and left! The waitress didn’t bring any check, Tian just paid at the greeting desk/register as we left. It was very abrupt and strange to me, but we did leave and then wandered downtown to a man-made water feature/lake. It was Tian and Qing’s first trip to this, apparently. The downtown area was very clean and beautiful, everything is so new and modern. After some pictures (some with me, some without – at my begging, as it was an event for the graduates, not me), we headed home.

Linggang New City

Upon arrival, I promptly fell unconscious. It was 1930 and my lack of sleep finally hit me. Hard. I had left my door open, as to listen for Bai’s return and make plans for tomorrow with her. She called into my room questioning why the door was ajar and received confirmation, apparently, to close it. I cannot say I recall the interaction. 

Day One (and a half): Traveling to China

                My trip started in Bangor, as my sponsors were so kind to book my flights from the most local airport. I woke up at 0445am EST and had a standard morning with no issue, a curiosity for me, not known as an earlier riser. I owe this to the excitement of starting such a trip. The days previous, as seems to always be the case, were not very productive, as it is so very easy to look ahead. Jocelyn dropped me off without any trouble, we said our temporary goodbyes and I then immediately boarded the plane. Bangor is great. I flipped in some tunes (which I would not take out until I passed through customs) and landed in Detroit a couple albums later.

                Knowing I had a 7 hour layover in Detroit-Wayne County Metro Airport, I decided to wonder around terminal A in search of my gate (which was not displayed, that’s how long a layover I had). I Walked the entirety (1 hour jaunt), before asking a very frustrated-with-computers helpdesk person for assistance. Satisfied with my exercise for the next couple days, I sat down, ate some snacks and started to work. Airport gates are ideal places to work while traveling alone. Rarely does someone truly seek to distract you and there is very little else to do. I was able to wade through some pretty thick editing. With an hour to go before boarding, I made a few calls, including the one to suspend my cell service for my time away. Then I stood up and stretched for about 30 minutes while waiting to board. The boarding process has become a chaotic process. At least I think so, perhaps it was always like this and I was either too young or too unobservant to realize it. All boarding zones stand up at the same time and just block all foot traffic to other gates in the process. It is a natural outcome for a situation that has no penalty. If patrons were forced to give up a preferred seat when boarding out of order, that would be something, I think.

Our flight route

                I found out later that the plane I boarded was a Boeing 747-400, apparently the largest Boeing-made plane. I would guess there were at least 449 passengers on the plane with me. Most rows contained 10 seats (3-4-3), with the taper of the plane cutting the two end seats for the last 7 rows or so. I was in row 65, with 3 more behind me, so I think 450 is a pretty safe bet. However many people there were, I am pretty sure I sat next to the only Tae Chi sensei aboard the plane. If there was another, I am sure that my neighbor was the most enthusiastic. I don’t know the motivation for doing so, but Zhichang Ling of Ling Oriental Martial Arts proceeded to bury me in Tae Chi talk. Formerly of Kokomo, IN (for which I had initially assumed was Kokomo of the Caribbean), his practice had moved to the Indianapolis area. I lauded him on his business acumen to move a niche business to a place where there are enough people to fill it. He teaches around 100 students. That seems like a lot to me. All ages, up to 80! There was a lot of personal bragging happening, which I entertained, but only because I was bored out of my mind and there is really no escape on a plane anyway. He hosted an Eli Lilly event, a convention of martial arts I guess, recently with 70+ instructors. He made sure to tell me how he took down some bragging Brazilian Ju Jitsu person. Multiple times. So I bet that is impressive. I was shown every photo on his phone, many of the Tae Chi, but some of his house. Also, many 15 min videos of him throwing his students to the floor. He claims they are learning a lot, but it looks more like he is beating up senior citizens (by far his dominant demographic). The reason he was flying was to return to his hometown in China with the hope of also attending some high school reunion type thing. Last thing about Ling – I thought he was going to go the whole 14hr flight without using the restroom. He didn’t sleep the whole time (I know because I didn’t get a minute of honest sleep, either.  Being tall and on an overnight flight is an awful thing to endure) and lasted the first 10 hours before caving in. I explained it in my head as some Tae Chi mental fortitude until he broke. Anyway, as far as seatmates go, he was pretty good, even if my retinas were fried from looking at his phone.

                Aside from Master Ling, not sleeping and terrrrrible airplane food – I should just give it up. Stuffed broccoli chicken/pesto pasta + really odd sides like bean sauce and corn…I didn’t get sick, but I didn’t feel great, either – the flight was smooth. We really did fly over the North Pole (along with Lake Baikal and the Gobi Desert) without ever seeing the sun set, but I didn’t see anything other than Matagami and Hudson Bay, full of sea ice that was just beginning to break up. This is because all the shades were drawn to simulate a sleeping environment, I assume. There were no defectors to this policy and Ling had the window seat, so perhaps on the flight back.

                As we descended into Shanghai-Pudong Airport, I recalled my last breath of fresh American air was in Detroit, and then I saw the sun finally disappear behind some clouds, but mostly smog. In fact, I could not tell if Shanghai was more than one terminal and two runways – and at the writing of this, still can’t. 30 minutes after stopping, I finally disembarked, hopped on the first bus ferry to the terminal and waited in line for customs for another 40 minutes. Turns out 450+ people on a plane means a lot of lines, even with 10+ agents processing visas. When I finally got to the customs agent, she was certainly thrown by the difference in my current appearance – summer, shaven – and the one depicted by my passport photo – winter, fur. Sextuple take. I remarked about the difference and she acknowledged the remark before stamping my visa. I was officially in China. (Quick note: My previous customs experience saw my checked bag searched or at least subject to search. In China, visitors claimed their baggage post-customs agent, a strategy I think is better). I walked to the baggage claim area (2 were dedicated to just our flight) spotted my bag, unopened (the bread tie was in place) and hauled it off to the exit.

                As I exited the baggage claim area, you must understand, again, the amount of people on the plane. The exiting ‘channel’ was surrounded by 4 rows of people waiting for arrivals to whisk away. I spotted one of my receiving party immediately and made the walk through about 300 feet of crowd. I felt like a bit of a celebrity. It was pretty funny. At the end of the channel, both Bilin (BEElin) (professor at SHOU) and Bai (UMaine student also on exchange, who was previously exchanged…it’s complicated) were there to greet me. After some trouble finding the car (as it normal across all major airports, it seems), we were on our way to my hotel.

                It was about 2000 China Time, but we were the only car on a 4 lane highway to Linggang New City (where SHOU actually is located). This highway was also broken up by signaled intersections that looked very confusing to me. If you turned left, you were met by another signal before you could complete your turn, very odd. Furthermore, there were many obstacles to dodge. Cars without lights on, scooters without lights on (and some going the opposite way on the near-empty highway), bikes without lights on, people spraying the roads with a leaky hose with no reflective clothing! China, get some lights on your transportation! There were also numerous traffic cones and barricades to signal potholes and prevent you from hitting them. Ironically, these were not marked with any signage or reflective tape, so the situation became more dangerous. Lots of these, always startling and nerve-wracking. Aside from those characteristics, the highways to me looked very much like Florida highways at night. Flat. Straight. Well-lit. Green vegetation surrounding it.

                30 minutes after leaving the airport, we arrived at the hotel. People were in the waiting room smoking cigarettes. That will take some getting used to, I think. Maybe I’ll wear the facemasks inside vs. outside. Bilin filled out my paperwork (it was in Chinese, of course) and I went up to the 5^th floor. Bai is my neighbor, which should be very helpful. I have plenty of space and a mini-fridge. The shower I definitely tall enough. A big plus. The water heater is exposed, but VERY effective. I think you could melt hard plastic with it. The mattress is a slab of marble I think. Bringing the inflatable groundpad was a VERY WISE DECISION. Bai recommended not flushing toilet paper, so into the trash it goes (in case you were wondering about sensitivity to epidemics around here and other SE Asian countries) and I have been warned often not to drink tap water. Right. There are some English speaking TV channels, but mostly not, which is fine. I don’t plan on watching TV much. I went to sleep feeling very energetic, even in the face of sleep deprivation, without any delusion. A very odd thing.