Pirates of the Dream Space

The school handed out some free movie passes for Teacher's Day (back in September). Although I had opted for the karaoke session, one of my colleagues gave me her ticket. The Canadian and I decided we wanted to use them before they expired (today), so we set about planning a trip to the movies.

First, we had to figure out if any English films were indeed playing at the movie theater. I had done some Google Chroming, and it appeared that  "Pirates of the Dream Space" was playing in English at our local theater. Of course, it's hard to Google Map things when you really don't know what the street names are (road signs are often written in pinyin, but Google Maps uses Chinese characters). I thought I had our movie theater, but when you rely on translations done by a Web browser, all bets are off.

I asked my Handler to confirm, and it turns out that it WAS playing at our local theater, but only in the IMAX theater. Of course, the tickets weren't valid for IMAX showings. It was also being shown at the movie theater in the CBD (across town) on a regular screen. (The Chinese use the English acronym for central business district for some reason.)  Woo-hoo. The tickets even had the address of the theater printed on it, so we could give that to a cab driver.

We briefly considered taking the subway, but decided against it. (Big mistake.) We would leave around 5pm. Grab some dinner. See the 8:00 showing. Simple.

The main reason why we didn't take the subway is because we didn't really know where the theater was. I knew it was in the CBD and it looked like it was on the main thoroughfare, but I didn't know which subway stop it was at. There is nothing quite so frustrating as wandering around a city looking for something specific and missing it because you're a block off.

It turns out what is even MORE frustrating is sitting in a taxi for an hour and forty-five minutes because of traffic. Oh yes. Crossing Tiananmen is a big mistake. Sometimes they shut down the road (the main road through the center of the city) because of ceremonies or big wigs or whatever. At rush hour. Of course. 

Fortunately, taxis in China are cheap. CHEAP. Almost two hours in a taxi still totaled a mere $9. However, it did trash our plans for dinner.

We walked around briefly looking for food and saw a Subway. I've eaten a lot of Subway, but I really don't consider it appropriate dinner fare. We found the Wal-Mart and decided to try our luck at Wal-Mart bathrooms. (Did I mention how long we were in the taxi?) I can say they are better than many restrooms I've been in in China, but the woman squatting in a stall with the door open in front of the mirror was a bit disconcerting. Trying to look away while checking your reflection in the mirror is a tad difficult.

Off we went to the theater to at least get tickets. Oy. Vey. Everything was in Chinese! Somehow, the idea that the film was shown in English made me think that the English title might have been listed somewhere... Not so much. It was all Chinese, all the time. We waited in one line, but that was for the V.I.P. card, so we had to get in the other line. Then I remembered my Handler. We got the front of the line, I called my Handler, and... we were told to go to a third line to use the vouchers. So then I could hand the phone to the woman and he could ask for our tickets for us.

I do a lot of things on faith in this country. I assume he said what I asked him to say. I assume she did what he asked. I have no idea, though, because everything is written in Chinese. I can read a few things in Chinese (beef, chicken, alcohol), but I can't read "Pirates of the Dream Space". 

By now it's really dinner time. The Canadian is not going to live on popcorn alone. (I have often made a meal out of a bucket of popcorn with butter-flavored topping.) Off we went, back towards the Subway. We decided to walk around the block, and if we didn't see anything better, we'd have a sandwich. 

And then we saw it. Kungfu. Oh yes, the restaurant is named Kungfu. I don't think we really had an option but to eat there. It was a fast food joint selling things in bowls. We both ordered the chicken and got a bowl of boiled chicken, a plate of steamed broccoli with sauce, and a bowl rice with a scoop of peanut/meat topping. It was pretty decent, all things considered. It cost about $4.50 and the chicken was real chicken (on the bone with feet floating in the broth -- yes, I said feet) and the broccoli was  al dente. Not as in-your-face-awesome as you might hope from a restaurant called Kungfu, but our chopsticks were flying as fast as lightening. It was a little bit frightening.

We went back to the theater. We got a bucket of popcorn that was actually pretty good. No butter topping (sadly), but it was caramelized. The Chinese love things sweet, so they serve caramel corn at the movies. Not bad, not bad at all. 

Then, we were pointed to a theater. In China, you pay your money (or the school's money, as the case might be), and you take your chances. Would we really be seeing a movie in English? We were the only two English-speakers in the place. It would have been perfect to sit in a cab for almost two hours, just to use our tickets to a movie dubbed into Chinese. Ten minutes worth of commercials in Chinese later, and the movie started... with Chinese subtitles! Success!

I must say, Inception is a great film and definitely worth seeing in the theater. Worth being totally out of your element just to get in the door. I especially loved how true the homages to and reverberations of other popular movies felt. Of course there were echoes of Star Wars and Total Recall and The Matrix because it is a film about shared our consciousness and dreams. What else does Hollywood do but provide fodder for our dreams?