Team Strangers: Dragon Boating and Podcasting

Early this morning, we went to the Dragon Boat Festival near Century Park. The three-month lockdown seems to have given me the motivation to do what I see without asking why. Who knows when the precarious new experience will disappear?

I took a taxi with sleepy eyes, and the driver was from Shanghai, very polite. After arriving, I saw a group of men beside Zhangjiabang, wearing life jackets and sun hats. They glanced at me. I went down to the basement, put my bag and came up to warm up.

Two groups of people set foot on the dragon boat. The feeling of swaying on the floating board is really long gone. It seems that the last time I went back to Shanghai from a small island in Jiangsu and Zhejiang when I was a senior, I had to take a boat and then take a bus. It was also an embarrassing trip. I was going to see the stars, but who knew that the rain was pouring and the tents were all flooded, so it was better to stay in a small hotel.

After stepping on the dragon boat, he was assigned to the left. The hand that didn't go well. The coach in the front row was a veteran student. He was wearing a yellow tight-fitting sports suit. He was called King Kong. The face, just like the Tongji boy 10 years later.

The pulp should be hit straight into the water, the left hand is only fixed, and the strength of the waist and abdomen is mainly used to pull the board rather than the strength of the arm. Easier said than done, like all sports. If I didn't exercise my limbs much, I would just skew the pulp and shovel water in.

After zipping round after round, my pants were all wet.

The sun was shining brightly and the lake water was not clear. Yili said that Binghuo Zhaoren water is very beautiful, and here it should be a weak Ren water mixed with soil, just feel hot and anxious. If I am a novice in the wrong way, my arm will be weak in a short time. Although the big brother King Kong sitting in front has the appearance of a straight man, fortunately, he has no strong desire to win or lose, and he is very patient and has a good temper. Teach me how to paddle over and over again. My rhythm was wrong, and when I hit his pulp, he encouraged me to relax and master the rhythm.

Dragon boat rowing is really a collective sport. The university emblem looks like this, and even the name is homophonic. I was there for four years with no sympathy and rejection.

We take a break every five or ten strokes, and hide under the bridge for shade, which is cooler. Just when we were resting, there was a dragon boat with all women passing by, and a woman on it beckoned to us. After they passed, another old team member behind me stood up and shouted: "Friends, the boat next to me is a special fleet. They all say breast cancer patients. We need to give them special encouragement and attention." He hoarsely said. After shouting, like an instructor in military training.

I felt embarrassed after listening to it. People are sick and don't want everyone to know and help. This is called personal privacy. This kind of "kindness" turned into a farce seems to exist in all aspects of the country. For example, the disabled are too much pity, but in fact, basic human rights are not given, so let's not talk about it. . . There are no human rights for normal people here.

After it was over, I felt sun-dried, motion sickness, and worried about heat stroke. After eating hastily, I took a taxi home and prepared for the afternoon podcast recording.

This time, I participated in a 48hr limited-time podcast. The team was also blindly selected, and four people who had never met before discussed together. The given material is more tedious, setting the tone for the discussion to escape the topic.

My experience with this podcast is that I really don't like group work, especially unpicked partners. Podcasting itself is a chat-based medium. Interesting chats are built on the basis of unity and difference, rather than diametrically opposed, otherwise there will be no communication. Partners can't talk about sensitive topics, and even when they talk about complaining about nucleic acids, they can't specifically refer to Shanghai... They were just like that after being detained for the first three months. They weren't detained anyway. One of the men said that to be self-consistent, there is no difference between changing jobs A and B, you can shield the outside world to live your own life, and don't fall into chicken soup such as comparison anxiety. He seemed to treat some of us strangers as free psychiatrists and kept talking. But saying this shows that he cares... Another person saw that I had not responded for a long time, and asked me how I felt, and I said, "These are too common and vague..."

Then we talked about the ideal life after escaping. The anxious man said he wanted to talk about flying, for example, someone in Silicon Valley wanted to drink the blood of young people to achieve immortality (doubt here).

I asked him, "Do you think immortality is a good thing? If you could live to be 120 years old, would you?"

He faltered and said, "It depends on the state of life. If you can only sit in a wheelchair behind, you won't be able to do it if you don't live your life."

Me: "Then, for example, if you live to be 100 years old and still be alive and well, will you insist on monogamy?"

He smirked and said, "That polygamy is inherent in human genes. If I could, I would definitely play as a tender model. Who wouldn't?"

Pause for three seconds.

Me: "Oh, so you can't be right. What about polygamy? It's a job rotation system, and your wife also finds other men?"

He: "It's also possible that I've played too much, and in the end I still think the previous one is better."

You see, he didn't answer my question directly at all. During the discussion, when he gave some examples like Maugham's "Blade" and the blue door, I knew that I was not a member of the road, and I disliked it.

Who knows how it will be cut out? Will I start my own podcast?

7.10.22