Since it is pretty clear that everyone would have some interest in a text only blog with occasional pictures, and my sister has offered to help by uploading pictures from the U.S., it is time to start writing again. I figured that a quick listing of some of the stuff that has happened would be nice, just to catch you up to the present. If you want more detail on some of this stuff, just let me know what you would like to hear about by posting a comment.

cell phone expenditure – about 20 yuan a month ($2.50).

• China is all prepaid which makes it easy

lunch w/ Aaron, Willa, and Ivy at restaurant with a giant seal in the center

• You could go up and feed it or give it a kiss.
• other tanks with crabs, lobster, fish, eel, shark, etc.
• Dining so close to a seal was very strange

buying gloves w/ Michael

• had to get the biggest ones they had, but they were still too small
• not very thick, but only cost 7 yuan (Just under $1)

I went with Ivy to get my hair cut

• There was a funny looking Chinese guy with a leather shirt and leather pants
• He had this leather fanny pack “thing” over his crotch with 20 combs, scissors, and other instruments
• The shop was kinda grungy, but not too bad, and it turned out fine in the end
• I am usually really picky about my hair and had been worried about getting it cut in China.
• I was glad Ivy went with me to translate and alleviate my fear
• The cut took an hour, and cost 10 yuan (just over $1)

I am starting to feel a lot more confident with my Chinese

• I have mainly only learned tones and pronunciation, which may sound strange, but the same word pronounced slightly differently or with a different tone is like saying horse instead of small and makes no sense, even though in English both would mean the same thing.
• I am finding that the grammar is much easier than I would have thought, but the pronunciation and tones are much more difficult
• At one point, I wrote nine Chinese words on the board, and the 70 Italian “words” that you needed to express the same things
• I can say many basic things now, and pronounce everything in Chinese if it is written in pinyin
• I am able to have very long (but simple) conversations with Chinese people that don’t speak English if they speak slowly
• Now that I am able to pronounce the language, I need to start to “learn” the language
• I know about 35 characters at this point, but don’t really care about learning the characters as I mainly want to learn how to speak

popcorn vendor

• It is very common to see popcorn stands on the street where they make different types of popcorn to order
• Flavors: chocolate, butter, strawberry, apple, pineapple, etc.
• got strawberry flavor, and chocolate with butter which was my favorite – it tasted more like marsh-mellow than anything else….mmmmm….marsh-mellow popcon

flute concert

• I went to a flute concert at the university with a Chinese girl named golden and two other American friends
• When we walked in, everyone stopped talking and stared at us. We were more of an attraction than the performers
• People were taking tons of pictures and running up to the stage and flashing the performers
• There were two guys who played beautiful music, but the speakers were way too loud for the room
• The audience was not respectful at all – talking and making noise, going in and out
• after every song, people would run up to the stage and give the performers flowers, and sometimes they would put a flower lei around the performers while they played
• After the show, we got to go back stage and meet performers, try the instruments, and take pictures

Bath house insanity

• I spent 20 hours one week getting massages
• for $10 US, I get 3 hours of massage, dinner, unlimited tea, and use of one of the cleanest spas I have ever seen
• I get an hour long foot massage every day, and an hour on two other body parts (feet + arms + legs, feet + head + shoulders, etc.)
• It is great because it is 3 hours with a native speaker who has to sit there and talk with you. This serves the same purpose as a conversation class, but costs less and includes a 3 hour massage
• I have the stupidest conversations (IE what is you favorite color, what color is this, etc.), but doing it every day has REALLY improved my Chinese

Xmas in china

• It is very common to create log cabins in entry halls, so when my bath house got theirs, they wanted me to decorate it with some American things.
• I decided to write my name, and draw a few Jewish stars and a menorah
• My buddy Aaron and I also bought Santa Claus outfits from the states to wear around town
• Everywhere we went, we got mobbed by kids
• At one point, we went to buy something in a large supermarket and a circle of 50 Chinese people could not stop starring at us
• I spent Xmas with my friend Leo and his family at Jazz Island Coffee.
• Leo asked me what I typically ate for Xmas and I didn’t know what to say so I just said Turkey. Leo than decided to have a Turkey flown in special from America just for us. It cost him 580 kuai (about $125, and more than a typical monthly salary here) and led to some hilarity. You see, Turkey isn’t common in China so they don’t really understand the difference between chicken and turkey. A lot of the time, they say Chicken when referring to Turkey. They also don’t learn the word chicken, but are more often taught the word cock, and use this to refer to Chicken. Anyway, I asked Leo why he had to have a turkey flown in from America and why not some place closer like New Zealand or Australia, and as he doesn’t speak English very well, he thought I was asking about why he just didn’t get a Chinese Turkey. He struggled with how to form the right sentence for a few seconds and then started to scream at the top of his lungs so that the whole restaurant could hear him “Chinese cock is very small, American cock is very big!” Now this was sooo funny for me and my American friends as Leo is a big Chinese guy and was banging his fists on the table screaming this repeatedly
• The Xmas story is also very different here. There is a lady who wants to get married but doesn’t have enough money, so Santa Claus, AKA a generic old man, puts gold in a stocking she hung over her fire place