You can thank Annie for that title. Also, you should check out her blog, Courtney’s blog, and PA’s blog. Blogging is too hippie for Brian.
The cafeteria food is growing on me. If you know me, you know I have an intense sweet tooth. The buffet line here occasionally has sweet dishes that you wouldn’t expect to be sweet – like tomatoes with sugar or boiled peanuts with sugar. I’m especially happy when there’s watermelon, which is about every other day.
The work load has been picking up a bit, with us being assigned a whole zipped folder of articles to edit each morning. They are mostly for the travel section, so I’m keeping them in case I get to visit any of these places in China!
I made a Chinese friend on Monday! If you’ve ever read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, you know that she has a language exchange partner in Italy, whom she teaches English in exchange for Italian language lessons. I knew I wanted to do this when I got to China, but wasn’t sure how until I read an article in Time Out Beijing magazine that featured conversationexchange.com. It’s really simple – just post a profile with your name, age, sex, current city, primary language, and desired language, and wait for a response or browse potential exchange partners. I posted my profile and had five or six replies within the day. Apparently lots of Beijingers want to learn English! I e-mailed back and forth with the first person to reply, a 21-year-old Beijinger called Chris. He seemed to have good written English already but wanted to practice more. We decided to meet for dinner on Monday, so I invited Annie along, and we all met up at the office. I was a little nervous – not about meeting a stranger, but more about making a fool out of myself with Chinese etiquette (Who should pay? What will he think about our typical ordering method of pointing at the menu? Is the “noodle place” even a nice restaurant by Chinese standards?). I have to say, it went really well! We didn’t share much language pointers, but we shared cultural norms for college students and had a great meal. It helped immensely having a local point out good things on the menu. Annie and I could also tell that he was happy to be talking to English-speakers, as he ate very little but talked a lot. He also paid for the meal, which was unexpected. I tried to pay, but gave up when the waitress wouldn’t take my cash, as I had read that this could cause the other person to lose face. Chris said he would like to show us around other parts of Beijing, so it looks like we gained a tour guide as well!
Tuesday night was equally eventful, but not in a fun way. Brian and I had swim practice. I might have mentioned before how we got suckered into signing up for a company swim competition, which is Friday. Let me tell you, after ten minutes of swim practice, I thought I was going to die. We also found out that we won’t only be competing as individuals, but we will also be in a team relay. Kill me now. If I don’t come down with the flu (please!!!!!) in the next couple of days, I might lose my breakfast in the pool on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment