So today I went to lunch at my favorite Jiaozi place, and whilst eating Jiaozi's my lip ring ball fell out on rolled under many tables (or so I thought I heard). Well, you see, lip ring balls are nearly impossible to find in China, as many people do not pierce themselves at all (unless they're the cool hip Chinese people I've heard rumors are in existence but have never really actually seen...)

So, that was my last lip ring ball, and I refuse to take my lip ring out, because I like it to dang much. So what do I do? I ask the waitress for a broom, and I decide to FIND that lip ring ball.
The two waitresses wanted in on the action, so there are four of us searching high and low for my lip ring ball which is the size of an ant of course in a room with so much other crap on the floor that it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

It was a funny thing watching us four looking for this thing, and we swept that whole room CLEAN. I'm telling you the place has never looked so good....

but, in the end it turned out that it had fallen directly underneath my chair and hadn't actually rolled across the room. I felt bad for like three seconds, until I thought....I'll bet that's the first time the place has been swept in a month.


Because of the intense fear I have of having to take this lip ring out if I lose that thing again, I decided to go searching for lip ring balls to buy at the largest difang you can buy dongxi there is. (I love my chinglish)

So, I find this lady selling piercings, and it looks promising. As I'm looking through the stuff she's trying to get me to buy what she thinks are the coolest earrings ever, she shows me an example of just how great they look by showing me the ones in her ears...Lo and behold the woman has the ring for a belly button piercing in her EAR hole. "Hao kan, Hao kan" she says. "not really, not really" I say.

I laugh.


China, how I love thee. Your innocence... :)