Abandon hope all ye who enter here

Sunday nights in Zhanjiang have a bad reputation with Janet and me. They seem to become a weekend rush hour as most of the students in the city are returning from their homes to their schools for the upcoming week's classes.

The streets of Zhanjiang quickly become filled with cars, motorcycles and bikes. The air is full of a sense of excitement, a last hooray of the weekend before returning to the grind. As the city becomes bogged in a frantic insanity.Sometimes it is not a good place to be out for a foreigner. Leaving your home in the best of moods, you risk coming back weary. Leaving in any lesser mood - your mental health can quickly deteriorate.

With that said, this past Sunday, we found ourselves out and about looking for Christmas decorations at the onset of the evening rush hour. Needing nourishment and a place to relax for a moment, we headed to KFC. There we found neither.

I should have taken it as an ominous sign when right outside of KFC we were greeted by Michael Jackson on the speakers, "this is Michael Jackson of the Jackson Five wishing you a very, Merry Christmas."

Through the doors, we entered into the outermost circle of Hades. It was a packed house; the Colonel could only hope to turn out so many at his restaurants back home. Approaching the cash register, we entered the disorderly mob that substitutes for lines here. The chaos and the noise were deafening. Parents trying to scout out an empty table to hold while shouting orders to their spouses at the counter. Children screaming, giddy at the sight of a few chicken wings and the side cup of corn on the trays in front of them.

As time passed, we descended deeper. There was the girl at the table across from us, who clearly spent more time looking at us than her own food while eating. Then the greatest insult of all, Christmas songs in Mandarin from what seemed to be a Chinese kindergarten choir on the radio. It just sounded bad. The music was sort of an Alvin and Chipmunks meets the Far East kid's choir and the resulting sounds were grating on the ears. Adding to the fact that it seems very few people have any understanding of the true meaning of Christmas, it was enough to get on my nerves just a bit...

It was not one of my better nights at the time. Luckily, after reaching the safety of my home, it is something I can laugh about now.

Just remind me to avoid KFC on Sunday evenings in the future.