Thursday, August 14, 2008

Yantai, China: July 31, 2008

It’s high time someone looked into claims that they make or believe the ones others make.

I’m referring, of course, to this bedbug thing. First of all, I’m of the inclination that there were never any bed bugs at all. The reasons why it was assumed we had cases of them:

  • The others say they could feel them jumping on them
  • The problem persisted until the sheets were changed/areas around the bed were sprayed with Raid
  • The others tried to tell me that bed bugs are invisible to the naked eye and therefore couldn’t find the individuals

My reasons for disbelieving their convictions:

  • Bed bugs can’t jump, fly, hop, or do anything other than crawl, bite, and make more bedbugs. I think you would feel something crawling on you and be able to tell it apart from something hopping on you.
  • Bed bugs are notorious to get rid of. According to the Pest Control Site of Canada, sprays are not enough, and there’s a whole procedure they have to go through. With our hotel only spraying and changing the sheets resulting in no more problems, it seems unlikely it could be any sort of infestation.
  • The guy who tried to tell me bed bugs are invisible is wrong. At hatching they’re about the size of a poppy seed and adults are 1/4inch unfed and significantly larger after a blood meal.
    • It is also true that they don’t like light and it’s hard to find the actual bugs, but their evidence can be found if you know where to look. I have looked, and so far, all I’ve found are splatted mosquitoes on the walls.

          *I have come to these conclusions from many official pest control websites*

Therefore, I do not believe any of us have had bed bugs at any point, or if we did, such a minor case it’s not worth mentioning (which seems unlikely given their nature). This is not to rule out something since we were bitten by something at least once and Jeronimo might still be. I just don’t think they were bed bugs.

Moving on to other observations, Mulan is just as an amazingly awesome excellent bundle of movie package in Chinese as in English. It’s great to be able to just understand some of the speech without subtitles (cause it’s translated weird anyway). Some parts in the Chinese version are a lot funnier than the English version just because of the way the language works. It’s fantabulous. One instance would include the moment when Mulan tells her mom, “I’m here!” [to get ready for the matchmaker interview]. In the English version, it’s just another line; in Chinese, the way those three words are delivered is hilarious.

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