Hi,
On Saturday I went to a great dinner party with about 15 Americans, mostly older than me, who were working in China as teachers or business people. It was very enjoyable and I got to eat lots of American food.
On Sunday Shelley and her daughter Sophie met me and took me to lunch at the Cloud 9 mall. We went to the 8th floor and ate at a great Hong Kong restaurant. This is on the ceiling of the passage between the subway and the mall. Pretty flowers.
They worry many places have all meat, so they chose this. All the food was good. Shrimp, bean seedlings, steamed buns in the shapes of pigs and mushrooms, and swans filled with duck or something. White pigeons were also on the menu.
That was Sunday. I probably watched movies the rest of the day.
Monday I worked out, then met Yaping for lunch. She took me to a nearby mall and we ate at Jack Birmingham’s favorite restaurant. Din something. Small dishes, great service, kind of pricey. The dumplings are probably great, but all pork. There is one veggie dumpling. You dip it in ginger, vinegar and soy sauce and then it’s good. We had some Chinese veggies, shrimp fried rice and eggplant.
Then we walked around the mall looking at expensive things including the new Tesla car for $80,000. Then we tried to get a Starbucks drip coffee. Yaping thinks they try not to sell drip because it doesn’t cost as much. They had to start a new pot when we asked for it. Still, it’s 19RMB for a tall drip, which is $2.80! Geez! And I still could not get cream for my coffee. They tried to give me milk, then two kinds of whipped cream. But Yaping reached over the barista’s counter to get something and I noticed that was where they were keeping the cream in small packets. Geez people! I have to carry that thing around so I can ask for it next time. I guess they mostly sell green tea Frappuccinos and Grande lattes and such. And Starbucks seems busy, like they are probably doing well here, even though there is a coffee bar every 3 blocks here.
I got back to my room just in time to meet Guanyu. We were going to go to Pizza Hut for dinner. So we walked right back to the mall where Yaping and I had been, about 1/2 mile from my hotel, and went to Pizza Hut. It has lots of big panda bears decorating it, and it sells all kinds of food. Some Chinese-style chicken and soup, pasta, escargot, salads, and pizza. They actually had a veggie pizza. Yeah! Normal except it has corn on it. I ordered it sans corn. I cannot tell you how great it tasted. Just perfect. Deep dish pizza with cheese. That grease was so good. Sadly, not even as greasy as the street buns here. I savored every bite.
Went home and worked that evening.
Got up at 6:30 to get ready to catch the 7:30 bus that leaves at 7:20. Took about an hour to get to school. I listened to a Ted Talk Radio Hour. These are often somewhat inspirational but also guilt-inducing. I am not doing enough with my life to make other peoples’ lives better. Oh, but this morning it was about choice. Too much choice not only paralyzes people but leaves them unsatisfied with what they did choose. Moral: keep your expectations fairly moderate. Then you will be happy with what you choose.
I hang out in the Foreign Languages building coffee room and library until my 10 am class. I run into lots of people and chat. Taught my class 10-11:40 with a 10 minute break. Only had 20 students today. Guess the others had something else today…
They chatter through a lot of what I say, but seem to be interested in the content. Today I had asked them to come with a summary of the article from last time. Only a few had done it, I think. One guy read his summary to us and I typed it for us to see. It was phenomenal. Then I showed my summary and discussed how they were similar, different, and both correct. We then discussed American references to quarterbacking, gambling, the rust belt, populism, and angry American voters. Then we discussed the meanings of a title like “Winter comes for the Dakota Pipeline protesters.” They were really on the side of the protesters. I thought someone might think the government had a point, but no.
Then I talked about American style essay writing which counts for academic and article writing. We looked at introduction, thesis, topic sentences and conclusion in an article. For homework I asked them to find those in an academic article. We’ll see if they do it.
I also showed them some books I got from their library. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of an Part-Time Indian, They Say/I Say by Graff and Birkenstein (Lonny must have given it to them), How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Factory Girls by Leslie T Chang (just listened to her on Ted Talks this morning!) and a collection of Mark Twain’s writings The Bible According to Mark Twain. Some is for me, some is to share with my students. It was all I could carry since I walk everywhere.
Lydia (Wang Yu) picked me up after class and drove me to Marco Polo, an on-campus buffet run by the on-campus hotel. If you pay $35-50RMB, you can get good, healthy food. We ate and caught up. She asked me when my family is going to come. Everyone says I will be busy once my family comes. They don’t want to plan anything with me after Paul and Ben come. It was great to see Lydia. We will meet next week and she will show me old town of Minhang area. We will see if her husband can join us.