When you sound out LEOPARD in the Chinese accent you get...

LEPORDA! That's great...! Good try :)

Look at this teamwork!

1300 Chinese Kids

Look through the pictures first, do you see how cute these kids are?!!? Man they're fun, I can't stay mad at them for long. I don't even think this kid can speak any English but he is literally the cutest child I have ever seen in my life and he just sits in the very front very calmly and quietly all class!

I am teaching 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders and their English level is definitely higher than I was expecting. Of course, there is a lot of variation in skill level within each class but for the most part all of the kids can form simple sentences. The education system is obviously very different here. From what I've seen, a lot of the English instruction is straight up memorization. We have these really silly British English books (for whatever reason they teach British English but they prefer American accents) that use simple dialogues and pictures to demonstrate concepts. The teachers make the kids memorize some of these dialogues by themselves! They could at least let them memorize it with a partner so that it is an actual dialogue. One of the funnier ones I heard went something like this

"Hello, welcome to the restaurant, what would you like?"
"Hi, I'd like a cola and a hot dog please"
"You'd like a cola and a dog?"
"No, not a dog, a hot dog!"

And it just went on and on like that! I am amazed that the kids are able to memorize it all, it must take a while. They also teach them to write our letters in this very stylized, impractical script. I will probably mention something about that to one of the Chinese English teachers, although I doubt anything will change. Some of the vocabulary is a little weird for me too since it's British English- naughty, crisps, Mum, clever, film star, etc. My friend told me that her kids say "Don't choose that boy, he's not clever!" Very weird and mean!

One great thing for me about the schools is that they have free lunch! The lunches are actually really good and nutritious, not like the junk we have at home. Most lunches consist of a meat (which is usually in a sauce with vegetables or peanuts), rice, bread, a green vegetable dish (which sometimes has meat too) and a tofu or soup dish. There's no desert ever and I've only had one dish that was fried- this yucky fish that was completely whole, and very bony.

Each class has about 50 kids in it and I have 26 classes so I have about 1300 students all together. Needless to say, I don't even know half of their names :( Today one of my students saw me outside of school and said hi but honestly I had never really seen him before, I felt bad. Considering how many kids there are in each class I think they are much better behaved than American kids. My 2nd graders are especially wonderful- I could hear a pin drop in most of my classes with them. Some of my students sit up very straight with their arms behind their backs and raise their hands very politely by propping up their right elbow on their left hand (it's sort of hard to explain but American kids don't do it). Other kids are not so well-behaved and they jump out of their chairs and shout "TEACHER, TEACHER, MEEE!". Some kids shout this at me with such urgency that I'm almost afraid not to call on them! The worst is when they yell laoshi at me, which means teacher in Chinese. I told them if you're going to shout teacher at me at least say it in English! Either way, the kids all stand up when I call on them which I actually really like because I think it focuses attention on the student speaking and allows the student to project their voice so that the other students can hear them better.

I have had a few discipline issues but the Chinese English teachers have helped me deal with them. I had one boy in the fourth grade bring 7 water guns to class and he was squirting the other students. At first I thought he only had one and I took it away from him but when I turned around I heard some giggling and a student told me that he had more. Since I had already taken one, I figured he knew what would happen if I saw the other ones so I didn't bother with it. However, later in class, he was punching some kids in the back. Keep in mind, this boy is in the 4th grade but he's bigger than I am so he was doing some serious damage to these little kids. That was the last straw for me so I talked to the teachers and they kicked him out of my class for the next 2 sessions. Now he is very serious in class. I don't blame him- some of the teachers here are downright scary. I'm honestly terrified of a few of them. The total mood of the class can change when I'm in there by myself and when the Chinese teacher is present! I've had classes go from perfectly well-behaved to absolutely bananas after the Chinese teacher left the room. Now, I definitely don't condone some of the discipline practices they use here in the schools (I have seen some of the teachers hit the kids) but these kids show some serious respect to their Chinese teachers. Most of them show me respect too, but it's not the same. I think this one student seriously thought I was going to clobber him one time though because he was being very bad and I was trying to pull him out of the classroom and he looked absolutely terrified.

In the few bad classes that I have, there are always a few students who sort of act as the stand-in Chinese teacher during my lesson. Chinese kids are NOT afraid of tattling on each other, in fact I think they love it! When I was having discipline issues with the big 4th grader I asked a student to write his Chinese name down for me and about 8 students gathered around her to make sure that she was writing down the correct name! I have one particularly awful class where one boy gets up in the front of the room with me and starts writing 'be quiet' and things like that in Chinese on the chalkboard and then he writes down the numbers associated with the kids who are being bad (I'm not sure if this is because the teachers only know their kids as numbers or what- I have heard some teachers beckon a student by just calling them 'haizi' which means child so who knows). In another class, I told the students that if they were not quiet that we wouldn't play the game. Well, they didn't quiet down much but I got to the point where I just wanted to move on and play. A little boy from the back came up to me and basically said "But teacher, you said if the class was loud that we wouldn't play. The class is loud, so we shouldn't play". I looked at him and I was like you know what, you're right! So I told the class we wouldn't play the game that day and we read silently instead. I don't really mind taking suggestions from them- another girl showed me how I could hit the desk really hard to silence everyone and it's pretty effective.


If you ever need a major confidence boost, you should definitely consider teaching Chinese kids. I get told almost on a daily basis by my kids that I am beautiful and very nice. When they see me in my sunglasses they tell me that I am very cool. Sometimes they make me so happy that I just start the class by telling them that they all look beautiful that day! Whenever I see them in the hallways they all scream "Ohh, Miss Church, Miss Church!!". I love it! They also will make little things for you, give you fruit/food, and little trinkets like erasers and charms. I have one little girl who speaks almost literally no English but she makes me all this origami and other paper goodies every class. One girl this week tried to give me a Disney princess notebook this week but I wouldn't let her- that is just way too much! I think I may have insulted her though, whoops.

The kids can be extremely funny too, sometimes I'm not sure if they even realize how funny they're being. Today in my 4th grade class we were talking about the past tense and I asked them what they did yesterday. This one boy raised his hand and said "Yesterday I bought some scotch-whiskey." I couldn't believe what I heard so I asked him to repeat it and he said it again. I just about died laughing, I asked him who taught him to say that but he couldn't understand what I was asking him. Often times when I show the kids a cool picture they scream "Oh my God!" which in the Chinese accent comes out as "Oh my Godduh!" I met with another American this week who runs a tutoring business where some of my students go and apparently they told him that I broke my arm by falling down the stairs at school. Hahah I can't believe they made that up to him!!!




For the most part the kids are very supportive of each other- they will help each other out if I call on someone and they don't understand me or know the answer. However, if there are stickers involved, then they definitely keep their mouths shut if they think they have the answer! If the kid trying to answer even hesitates for a second, the pounce on the opportunity to try to get my attention so I will move on to them, but I always let the kid think for a second. Today made me a little sad though because I started a new thing called 'The Student of the Day' to reward the student who was the most behaved, participated the most, gave the best answers, etc. So far it's worked out really well and I even had a boy writing down all the criteria to become the Student of the Day, haha! In some classes though I am grasping at straws to find the best student of the day, but in others I just have too many. Well in one of my very smart classes today I chose this one girl and this other girl started bawling. I was like crap...well I didn't feel bad for long because we had been talking about occupations that day so I asked the class what do you want to be when you grow up? I noticed that the girl who cried was thinking for a while and finally she raised her hand and said "I want to be a headmaster so that I can hit her (pointing at the girl who had won Student of the Day)." Wow, what a great answer for a 4th grade ESL student, but how terrible!!! I told her that she was very mean to say that and she looked down. The Student of the Day girl handled it very well, she told me that the other girl was just upset to have not won. After class I told the girl that was upset that it was just for fun, and that it could have easily been her or other students in the class. I think she understood. Then I talked to the Student of the Day outside and asked her if she and the other girl were competitive with each other and she said "No, we're friends!" Sounds like a strange friendship to me but whatever!

Last week I did a culture lesson with my students on the Beatles and I played "Good Day Sunshine" and we sang and danced to the song! Can you imagine 50 kids singing Good Day Sunshine? It was glorious! They didn't get all of the words but they were really good at singing the 'good day sunshine' part. They all kept singing that part afterwards :) This week, I am doing my culture lesson on Lady Gaga because they are always talking about her and whenever I'm playing a game and I ask for a team name I will inevitably have at least one Team Lady Gaga. I played "Telephone" for them and they love- they all clap along to it!

These are not even all my stories on my students and I'm sure that I will have more to come...

A Boring Walk

On Wednesdays I get off work really early so last week I took a long walk down my road. I went the opposite way of the city center which is the route that I usually take. Man, it was the most boring experience I have ever had in China!

After I walked about 2 or 3 blocks I immediately noticed that the population density really started to thin out. It felt pretty weird not being surrounded by Chinese people! In the horizon I saw a bunch of nice-looking, cookie cutter high rise apartment buildings. Even so, these buildings retain their Chinese identity I suppose with the huge white rabbit and dog statues you see in the picture there. How charming, lol. These buildings were either relatively unoccupied or everyone in them had a 9-5 kind of job because the whole area seemed pretty much deserted- no markets, no gambling old men, no cars flying at you as you cross the street. Not even a hair salon- the things that make Dalian great! I hope that this is not the future of Dalian :(

I do think this area is probably very valuable real estate though because it's right on the water and there is a ton of development going on around it as you can see in the pictures. So we'll see what happens...











This is the first and only stop sign I have ever seen in Dalian. And of course it's not even in a busy part of the city....sheesh.

















Finally some Chinglish just for fun- this housing development was called "Mountain Central of Rare Value" and below in the small letters it says "The leisurely life of the Spanish Garden we'll go hors".

Taxi Drivers

The taxi drivers in Dalian are awesome! Just like trying new restaurants, every taxi ride I take is different and they can be very entertaining if you get the right driver. Sometimes I try to practice a little Chinese with them and they are almost always game and very patient with me. Sometimes neither of us can understand each other but they are just so friendly that they have big smiles on their faces anyhow. A few memorable rides--

• I had one taxi driver tell me I was his best friend in Dalian in English! He spoke the best English of any taxi driver I've ever had.
• Last week a taxi driver offered me one of his cigarettes after I got into the car. Keep in mind, a ton of men smoke here but I have only seen one woman smoking since I've been here, so that was a strange offer I think. Also, all of the cabs have a sticker on the dashboard with an X through a cigarette, so you're not supposed to smoke in the cabs anyhow. That's a joke though because all of the drivers smoke! Another teacher told me that what the cab driver will sometimes do is offer their best cigarettes to their passengers (that they like?) but smoke the cheap ones themselves. I still don't think that applies to girls though. At any rate, I did not accept the cigarette.
• One driver I had would not stop talking to me in Chinese. I told him over and over again that I didn't understand him but he just kept trying to ask me questions! He wasn't even talking slowly. Finally I just started saying a few things to him that I thought he might be asking me about, like what my occupation was and where I was from. Even when we got to my apartment and I got out of the car he rolled down the window, leaned over to the passenger side and was still trying to chat. Finally I just had to say zai jian (good bye) and walk away!
• Other drivers don't really talk to you at all. Sometimes I think this is because they don't really care about you and sometimes because they are just a little shy. With the shy ones, I can usually tell that they want to talk but are afraid to or something. Like last night, my driver waited until the very last minute before we reached my destination to ask me where I was from and what happened to my wrist. At first I couldn't understand him and he seemed embarrassed but I just got him to repeat it. Maybe I should just break the ice next time!
  
• On that note, if nothing else, my driver usually asks me what happened to my wrist by pointing at it. I had one guy ask me if I broke it when I was drunk. I didn't understand what he said but he acted it out by pretending to guzzle alcohol and then fall down. hahah
  
• On one of my first taxi rides I had no clue what I was doing but I was late for school and I had to take a taxi. It was a huge mess- I didn't even know how to say school then, so I was just saying the name of the school which is also the name of a very long road. Well, somehow he got me there and I didn't understand how the meter worked so I just threw 15 kuai at him (about $2) which was the wrong amount, it probably only should have been 8 kuai when I think about it now. He definitely could have taken advantage of the situation and just kept all the money but he really quickly threw my 5 kuai bill back at me as I was racing out of the car. I am always grateful when I find someone honest here, not because I think there are many dishonest people here but because it's just so easy sometimes to take advantage of a stupid laowei (outsider).
  
• Not all of the cab drivers are super nice though. One time this guy jolted off when I was half way in the car and I was so mad at him. I literally got thrown inside and the door slammed behind me because of the change in speed. Well, this guy wasn't going anywhere fast- about 2 seconds later he had to come to a halt because it was rush hour traffic and the cars in front of us were at a stand still. I was like is he for real, was that really necessary to drive off like that? Boo on him. At least he's an aberration, and I made sure to give him my 'Victoria is very angry at you' look.
  
• Another driver I had couldn't say anything in English except "very good!" and "let's go!". Hahah, I loved it when he would say let's go. He would even do a little fist pump in the air when he said it!
• For some drivers here it's like the Outback Steakhouse motto- no rules, just right. One time we were a few cars deep at a red light and instead of just waiting a minute for the light to turn green my cab driver drove up onto the sidewalk, made the right hand turn, and jumped back off the sidewalk. He really did it like it was no big deal. They park on the sidewalks here sometimes, so it probably was no big deal when I think about it.
  
• Way back when I first got here my cab driver had a bunch of coins taped to his dashboard that he kept pointing at and saying something about to me. At first I thought they were Chinese coins and he was trying to tell me the price of the cab ride or something with them so I was just like okay...but then I looked at the coins more closely and realized that he had a bunch from different countries so he was trying to see if I could add to his collection. I looked through them and noticed that he didn't have any American coins but unfortunately I didn't have any with me. I felt really bad, especially since I couldn't explain to him that I didn't have any. Now, I always carry around a quarter in case I see him again!

That's enough for now!

This is a KFC sandwich, Chinese style! It has shrimp in it, and a ton of mayonnaise. They really love their mayonnaise on their sandwiches here...sheesh. It was pretty good though. I really cannot remember the last time I went to KFC in the states but it is a big hit there. So is McDonalds, even though I think some kids pretend they don't like it as much. There are always a ton of people in there! They try t0 make the fast food places more like restaurants so you don't have to throw away your leftovers and put your tray away like at home, they bus it for you! Look at the McCafe below, can you believe how nice it is?! It's like a little Starbucks or something...

Trying to leave school in the afternoon can sometimes = complete insanity. If I accidentally time it right, I am stepping out right when a ton of the younger kids are being picked up by their parents. If you saw how crazy the public buses are here and what it is like crossing the streets, you wouldn't let your child go alone either. But the buses are for another post!

It's just ridiculous though. First I have to navigate through a sea of children who are supposedly lined up behind their teacher and a child holding up their class sign. It looks like a blob to me. I hear a few cries: "Miss Church! Miss Church!!" but I am too far in to the depths of the blob and can't stop now. After I push my way through I usually end up in a line of haizimen (children) who are narrowly filing out to the street so then I have to make a right-hand nose dive through the parents (I've become Chinese and the kids are walking too slow for my taste). They of course don't really move, probably in part because they are staring at me and also in part because they don't want to lose their vantage point. But after I make it to the street it's like a rush of fresh air to my lungs. Maybe I was holding my breath for good luck, I don't know. Sometimes I encounter a student on the other side and their parents want to see them talk to me so they push them over and I have a silly conversation with them for a little bit. Then it's sweet freedom, and honestly nothing feels better than putting on my Ipod and turning it up to full blast! I think next time I will have "We Will Rock You" ready to go.

Just look at the pictures though, do you see how far that swarm of parents goes back?! If you look closely, you can see the security guard getting involved too! This behavior reminds me of when I first landed in Dalian though- they had like a glass viewing wall separating the baggage claim area and the waiting area to pick up your arrivee (to me that is just really funny in and of itself considering how useful and necessary it turns out to be). At first I thought someone really important must have landed because so many people were watching us get our bags...but no. Some people were seriously standing at that wall for like over half an hour! Come on people it's really not that interesting :)

It's Great to be in Gread 4

This really just makes me sad- in the main school that I work in (I'm there 3 days a week) all of the signs have grade misspelled. This is a learning institution...WHY?! I assume that the Chinese English teachers are aware of this issue so I have not said anything to them about it, although I am still debating whether to tell them or not because if they happened to not know it would really be better if they did! At any rate, it's very helpful that they have the translations for me...

A note on the classes- there are usually about 5 classes per grade, so about 200-250 kids per grade. I have seen it go up to 7 classes though!

I saw these little guys at the grocery store...I have no idea if you buy them live or what :(

A Tight Fit

So when I was trying to leave my apartment yesterday this pick-up truck full of trash was completely blocking the entrance!! At first I thought it had crashed into there...to be honest I'm still not sure what happened. I had to wait 10 minutes before it finally got itself out of there because it was stuck! So gross...

Avoiding to be Stolen

This is one of my favorite signs in the city...it's at the largest grocery store near me, Carrefour. I understand the grammar issues, but some of the spelling, seriously?

Gambling

These guys are always gambling outside my apartment. Sometimes, when it gets too cold, they move their game into the entrance of my apartment building and it's impossible to get by them because often there are like 15 of them. They are usually either playing cards or some kind of board game with big wooden puck-things, I think it might be Chinese chess? They get really into it sometimes and it can be very noisy! This one time I wanted to take a picture so bad because this really short, scowling, bad-a$$ old man was playing cards with a cigarette in his mouth and he was just slapping the cards down as hard as he could and speaking in really aggressive Chinese. He reminded me of like Joe Pesci or someone? lol.

I'll have to get a better picture sometime...it just feels rude to get up in their faces and take a picture. That one guy didn't seem to mind though, look at his smile!

A Disciplined Walk

I saw these six old men silently walking around in circles in their courtyard. It was beautiful to watch because they were keeping perfect rhythm with each other! I didn't want to be rude so I just snapped a quick pic and that's why it's blurry. There is also an old man who lives two apartments down from me who is always pacing back and forth in the hallway. If this were the US, I would maybe think that he was crazy. He's really nice though! I think it's all just for exercise and breathing some fresh air.

The Grass is Greener on the Other Side

On Saturday afternoon my friend Bell and I took a really long walk to see some tourist sites on our own. While we were walking, we saw this guy with a big hose in the middle of Zhongshan Square (it's the center of the city but it's under construction right now) spraying the grass and bushes. At first I thought that he was watering it, but then I realized that the water was not clear, it was green. I looked at Bell and I was like "what is he doing..." and she was like "oh my god I think he's painting the grass green....."

And all this time the Chinese had me fooled that I was still in Ireland with their green, luscious grass...hahah. Instead of actually taking care of the grass they just decided to cover it up with some green spray paint which is probably why the grass is dull and ugly in the first place!

Gambling Instruction

I just happened to see an English workbook lying out and looked at the page it was opened to. I can't believe that this is one of the questions they have in their workbooks. The Chinese love to gamble....

E-mail From Fairy, My Student

I have over 1000 students so I have to admit that I have no clue who this student is but look at how good her English is! She's only in 3rd grade! She may have gotten some help writing it but still....How sweet of her! :) BTW, she should know my name and where I'm from at this point though lol.

Dear teacher,

Nice to meet you.

I am a student in Grade three, Class two of Liberation Primary school. My Chinese name is Xinru Xie, and my English name is Fairy.

I am so happy that you come here and teach us English. English lesson teached by foreign teacher is our long-awaited course. We all like it very much. We hope we can learn more English knowledge and study English better.

What's your name? And where are you from?

Hoping I can get more help and guidance.

Above all, I want to say thanks again to you. And thank you for your time.

Keep in touch.


Best regards,
Fairy

No Sleep for the Weary

This morning I was looking forward to sleeping in and catching up on rest...who knew that could be so hard to do when you're alone in your own apartment.

First off, around 8 am this morning I started hearing hammering noises coming from either the apartment next to me or upstairs. At first it sounded muffled like they were trying to be courteous of others but after about a minute this person really started going to town with their hammer. After about 10 minutes of mind dulling hammering I finally screamed "STOOPPPP!!!" at the top of my lungs. The hammering immediately died down and did not start again. Well that was a win but about half an hour later...

These people start banging on huge drums and blowing horns in the market right outside my apartment. The picture on the left is actually not from Sunday because this already happened another time! The first time it happened I asked a Chinese woman why they were doing that and she told me it was probably because a new shop had opened up. Well they must be really excited about this shop because they played non-stop for almost the entire day today. The hands down worst part about it was that they were playing the SAME TUNE for 95% of the day. OH MY GOD!!!!!! It wasn't even a good tune, it was really simple and short so it was cycling through over and over again. One time they changed it up a little which I was thankful for until I realized that someone was just blowing their horn as hard as they could and trying to hold the same, hideous note for 3 minutes straight. I thought maybe that was the finale, but I was wrong. The drummers then got their time to shine by just beating on them as hard as they could with no apparent rhythm over and over again for another couple minutes. And then, that wretched tune started all over again. They stopped for a little while in the afternoon and then did not stop again until 6 pm at night.

Sorry the videos are a little blurry- I took them from my apartment because I was actually sick and exhausted on Sunday and didn't leave my apartment the whole day. I honestly think this music session contributed to my illness because I thought it would never end, and it was making me feel slightly loony.

Hello from Dalian!

I finally got a vpn to work so I could get on facebook, start a blog and do other things that are banned here!

I am currently living in Dalian, China. Dalian is in Northeast China (Dongbei) between the Koreas and Beijing. I am teaching English to second, third and fourth graders at three different schools in Dalian. In total I have over 1000 students! It can be a little overwhelming :) For the most part the kids have been great so far though.

My Chinese name is Xia Tong!!

I want to share all of the things I have seen so here it goes...wish I could have started this 3 weeks ago, I'm a little late!

VIP Hot Pot Adventures

So far every dining experience I've had in China has been very different and I was not let down tonight!

There are many restaurants around my apartment so I've been slowly making my way to each of them. Well, that is if they have a picture menu right now :) There is another girl working for the company named Bell who I have eaten with around my apartment a few times and then I have gone by myself a few times. Since St. Patrick's day was yesterday, I think everyone was lying low tonight
so I decided to go eat by myself. The hardest thing about China for me is being inconspicuous. I was pretty tired from St. Patrick's day on Thursday and then teaching all day on Friday so I sort of just wanted to have a quiet meal, but alas it was not meant to be...!

I never even noticed this restaurant before but it was literally a 2 minute walk from my apartment. The windows are sort of foggy from the hot pot so that might be why I never noticed it. Well, I saw they had some pictures up on the wall and some fish tanks so I decided to give it a try. Dalian is known for its seafood so I have been trying to eat a lot of fish. Well, no dice with the fish in the fish tanks (after standing in front of the fish tanks for a while and me trying to explain that I wanted to eat one and laughing at some of the fish there this one guy finally shouts, Sashimi! So i was like oh, you're not going to cook it for me? They go no, no, no cook! They let me stand there and look at the fish tank for like 10 minutes when they had no intention of making fish for me. All they had to do was tell me not to go to the fish tank. From what I've seen and heard, withholding information like this is a very Chinese thing to do.) but I got hot pot and it was awesome! Hot pot is essentially what it sounds like- it's very hot soup in a pot (they keep it boiling) and you throw in your meat and vegetables to cook them.


The staff there was soooo nice and patient with me. And for once, they spoke a little bit of English! I sat down and went over the menu with 3 of them for like 5 minutes, then we went to the fish tanks for another 5 or 10 minutes, then back to the menu for another 5 lol. The staff did a good job helping me pick out my dishes though because this was definitely one of the best meals that I've had here so far. It really doesn't work just picking random things off the menu...I've had some really poor tasting food here. However, as you can imagine, there was a lot of laughing and miscommunication while we were figuring it out. They thought I wanted pretty much everything we went over so I got way more food than I was planning on. I had a spicy soup with shrimp ball things, mussels (they tasted so good), tofu, a special oyster that didn't go in the soup (it was expensive so they just let me get one to try) and a few little tasting dishes. It was A LOT! Lesson 1- go over what you've ordered with them even if you think they understand! Even with all the excess food it was not very expensive by American standards though- $12. However, that is the most money I have paid for a meal here so that is a lot of money. I didn't get upset about the miscommunication though because I learned a lesson from it, I got to try a lot of different food, and the people there were so nice I think they deserved it all! There is no tipping here so even for all that great service I was not able to tip them.


Anyways, I have been a little intimidated with some of the hot pot kind of stuff because I don't know exactly how to do everything to eat it properly, what goes with what, etc. It sort of reminds me of the first time I had Korean bbq- there are so many different little dishes and there is a certain way you are supposed to eat the bbq which you just have to learn. Well, it turned out that my only option at this restaurant was hot pot so I figured that I would just have to go with it! And it just happened that I picked the perfect place to do this at because one of the waiters literally stayed with me at my table almost for my entire meal, even though I tried to tell him to go haha. He showed me how to cook the meats and what sauces to use. He brought out one sauce from the back and told me it was the restaurant's specialty and that it was a free present :) They brought other random stuff out that I didn't ask for as well, like a small glass of hawthorne juice and a small plate of fruit with cherry tomatoes (?!?) for desert which they had stuck toothpicks in with little streamers attached to them...hahah oh my god I was dying when I saw that. I'm pretty sure those probably were not free and I didn't necessarily need/want them but I wasn't sure how to politely refuse them and figured they would be very cheap. Plus, I wasn't 100% sure that they weren't free so that could have been rude. They went to all that trouble with the fruit dish....hahah it still cracks me up. I will talk to the Chinese women in the office and see what I should have done in that situation for next time. I know they were just trying to find things that I would like or might want to try and were not trying to rack up my tab so that was another reason I didn't say anything.


Anyways, so while I'm eating the waiter is trying to talk to me and is preparing the food and serving it to me. I was there for over an hour, and he was standing there cooking my food for me almost the entire time. It was nice, but they definitely were not doing that for anyone else in the restaurant so I felt bad. I told him that he didn't have to do that and he said that it was his pleasure, he was so nice. It was really helpful though because it would have been a little hard with my hand to do all that needed to be done. I tried to get him to eat some because it was too much for me and he was just standing there but he wouldn't eat any. He left for a little bit and came back with this card and an application. He said it was a VIP card that can get me discounts at the restaurant...oh my god I was like are you for real! I love that he barely speaks English and knows the acronym VIP. They probably think I'm a big spender or something after tonight. At first I thought he was going to want me to put some money on the card or something because I know they do that to get discounts at hair salons here so I was a little uncomfortable at first but they didn't ask for any money so I think it really is just a little discount card. When I was filling out the application (all it was was name, sex, DOB and phone number) I did my birthday in the wrong order (they start with the year here) so two of the waiters died laughing because I put 02 as the year I was born...which would make me what, 9 years old? LOL. I was also telling him some English and he was telling me some Chinese so it was mutually beneficial.

In the middle of the meal a couple sat down next to me that spoke much better English than the waiter so they helped do a little translation. They were incredibly nice too and didn't seem to mind the fact that we were interrupting their meal together. The girl said that the staff thought I was very nice and very brave. I loved those people, I definitely plan on going back there!

Wow, okay this turned out way longer than I expected. There is just so much thinking and interpretation required for me to operate in China right now so I like to ponder it...more to come!