Well, the sun has finally come out after nearly two weeks of clouds and rain. They say the weather will slowly begin to warm up, and Spring is not far off. The beautiful weather makes life here so much more pleasurable. Today I took my digital camera and the 35mm out to take pictures. After I walked around town for a while I decided to stop at Grandma's Noodles, my favorite noodle shop, for a lunch of fried egg and tomato with rice. I sat outside on the walkway near the canal. After finishing my meal, while I sat writing in my journal, an old Chinese man who could say about six words in English came up to my table, sat down, and
commenced to eat and speak with me for nearly half an hour. This is one of the best things about the Chinese, their friendly curiosity. While I "spoke" with him, the twelve people who were working at the restaurant, including the chefs and owner, all gathered around us to listen, laugh (at me) and show off their own few English words. They also
got a kick out of trying to read my journal, (the idea of personal privacy is a foreign one here). The old guy told me all his English words, then the Arabic he learned in Pakistan. I then said all the Chinese words I knew. We took turns counting to ten in all the different languages we knew. After he finished his bowl of noodles he simply got up, said "Zai Jian" (goodbye) and walked away. It was a surreal, yet common, encounter. It was exactly what I was hoping for on such a sunny day.
Two weeks ago, I woke up to find that everything had a light dusting of snow. It was the first (and only--maybe) of the winter. It was beautiful to see everything looking so clean and serine. Sadly, most of the snow was gone by the next day, thanks to the rain and all the students who went out to build snowmen. It was hilarious to see hundreds of students out playing in the snow all with their own umbrellas, which are never far away in bad weather. Again I grabbed my camera and went in search of decent photo-ops.
And just so you don't start to think that I am too well behaved while I am here, here are a couple of shots from a few weekends ago. I have a friend who works in a bar in Shaoxing. I occasionally go visit her and remain very well-behaved, but this night I decided to jump behind the bar and do a little cross-cultural bridge-building. The job of a bartender in China is not only to fetch drinks for people but also to keep them company and toast with them (which the Chinese love to do). So that is exactly what I did. I walked up and down the bar, talking and "cheers"-ing people. I even picked out the music and got the whole place dancing. It is yet another career path that may need a bit more exploration...
Well, the sun has finally come out after nearly two weeks of clouds and rain. They say the weather will slowly begin to warm up, and Spring is not far off. The beautiful weather makes life here so much more pleasurable. Today I took my digital camera and the 35mm out to take pictures. After I walked around town for a while I decided to stop at Grandma's Noodles, my favorite noodle shop, for a lunch of fried egg and tomato with rice. I sat outside on the walkway near the canal. After finishing my meal, while I sat writing in my journal, an old Chinese man who could say about six words in English came up to my table, sat down, and
commenced to eat and speak with me for nearly half an hour. This is one of the best things about the Chinese, their friendly curiosity. While I "spoke" with him, the twelve people who were working at the restaurant, including the chefs and owner, all gathered around us to listen, laugh (at me) and show off their own few English words. They also 
got a kick out of trying to read my journal, (the idea of personal privacy is a foreign one here). The old guy told me all his English words, then the Arabic he learned in Pakistan. I then said all the Chinese words I knew. We took turns counting to ten in all the different languages we knew. After he finished his bowl of noodles he simply got up, said "Zai Jian" (goodbye) and walked away. It was a surreal, yet common, encounter. It was exactly what I was hoping for on such a sunny day.
Two weeks ago, I woke up to find that everything had a light dusting of snow. It was the first (and only--maybe) of the winter. It was beautiful to see everything looking so clean and serine. Sadly, most of the snow was gone by the next day, thanks to the rain and all the students who went out to build snowmen. It was hilarious to see hundreds of students out playing in the snow all with their own umbrellas, which are never far away in bad weather. Again I grabbed my camera and went in search of decent photo-ops.
And just so you don't start to think that I am too well behaved while I am here, here are a couple of shots from a few weekends ago. I have a friend who works in a bar in Shaoxing. I occasionally go visit her and remain very well-behaved, but this night I decided to jump behind the bar and do a little cross-cultural bridge-building. The job of a bartender in China is not only to fetch drinks for people but also to keep them company and toast with them (which the Chinese love to do). So that is exactly what I did. I walked up and down the bar, talking and "cheers"-ing people. I even picked out the music and got the whole place dancing. It is yet another career path that may need a bit more exploration...
