Snacks and cell phones

Yesterday, I spent the day with three of my sophomore students. They are three of my bolder students, and while some of the time I'm not sure we entirely understood one another, they are incredibly sweet.

The tradition in China among close friends is to have one “host” for the day who pays for everything when you go out. The host assumes the next time someone else will host to repay them. This meant I spent the entire day trying to pay one of the girls back for things she kept buying me, to no avail. It is apparently the person who does the original inviting and planning that does the paying. Throughout the day I was given red dragonfruit, red beans, Chinese jello(?) and several other "snacks" they wanted me to try, ranging from good to downright weird. Just wait until I host, these girls aren't going to know what hit them with all the candy and chocolate I'm going to buy them to show what true American snacking is like...

They took me to a local restaurant for lunch where I told them to order me their favorite dish. I think they instead ordered what they assumed to be the most American because while they all had funny looking meat dishes, mine was sweet and sour scrambled eggs with rice. It was still delicious, so I appreciated it. Next they took me to a nice shopping district of Hechuan that I previously did not know existed. The stores were on a pedestrian only street which was a wonderful break from dodging traffic, and had lots of clothes, shoes, and trinkets. They helped me get a cell phone which was incredibly helpful. I had been feeling cut off from the world since I could previously only be reached when I was in my apartment. How did people manage that in the olden days?

So now my four day weekend has almost come to an end and I'm looking forward to keeping busy this week by (hopefully) actually teaching all of my sophomore classes. *fingers crossed/knock on wood*