Friday night hot pot and Walmart shopping for baby bottles...yes that is what I said

Sorry I have been behind on posts but today I will try to pick up where I left off...

Friday: Went out to dinner for hot pot with 10 other teachers at No. 11 school. When leaving the school and debating whether or not I should bring my computer back to my room, I was notified that the teacher whose name I still can't remember had a car and we were going to go to the restaurant in her car. I don't think I have even been so excited to ride in a car before. I felt like she was the coolest girl ever and I was cool too because I got to ride in her car. When we were driving he phone rang and she pressed a button and it was connected to the car so we could hear the conversation through the speakers. Now I'm sure this is not that cool of a feature, but I have never seen someone do it and really everything is much cooler because it is China.

At the restaurant the teachers were pouring bai jiu (pin yin spelling?) which is really strong and not tasty liquor. They asked me, well poured me then asked me if I wanted some and agreed because it is the polite thing to do. Of course they drank shot by shot and I sipped mine so it would last half of the 15 toasts they made throughout the dinner. I know the first few were to welcome me to the school and to Yanqing, but truthfully I have no idea what the remaining 13 were for. I just smiled, clinked my glass with theirs and smiled.

Observation: I embarrassingly enough did not get the memo about doing toasts and the importance of making sure when you toast with someone, if they are your superior or and elder to make sure your glass is lower than theirs, to show respect. My roommate gave me this helpful tip just in time to not make a fool of myself. As I am everyday, I am so thankful for such a kind and welcoming roommate to guide me through living in China.

Observation 2: Just because you have eaten a lot of beef already during the meal, it doesn't mean that every time there is meat in front of you that it will be beef. I realized this through trial and error--by eating meat that I thought was beef, thinking it had gone bad, then realizing that it was definitely lamb,which I found out I am definitely not a fan of. Then I had another opportunity to try mystery meat and it tasted really good. I then found out it was lamb. I laughed to myself at this discovery--I do not like boiled lamb because it is too strong of a taste. I do however like lamb on a shishkabob. (I know how excited you must be to be learning this about me, but whatever I don't care.)

Observation 3: One of the teachers brought her daughter along to have dinner with us. She sat next to me and I noticed she would often deny any food that people tried to give her. She literally just sad there and dipped her chopsticks in the sesame sauce (which I was taught by my mother to NEVER do that because it is bad taste) and licked it off. I was thinking to myself that if she was trying to lose weight, it would probably be best to just eat the vegetables and not drink fatty sauce. But alas, my views on weight loss are much different than the Chinese ones here. I have also noticed that many girls I have talked to will tell themselves it is okay to eat something because its not really fatty, and I just run it over and over again in my head and try to wrap my head around their logic that just doesn't  make any sense.  Like my roommate with the fried chicken...yes, chicken is not really fatty, but she chooses to ignore how fattening the grease it is dipped in is. I guess this isn't that different from girls at home, just the environment and foods change. The twisted logic is all the same.

Observation 4: If you don't want to eat anymore, just saying you are full does nothing. They will proceed to put food in your bowl regardless. If you want to stop, you must say "wo xiang jian fei" (I want to lose weight.) in order for them to stop giving you food. It's so crazy. One teacher literally stopped in his tracks, took back the food he was going to give me, and apologized for trying to give me more food. Its like magic words that really don't work at home. Maybe it's because they think I need to lose weight? I don't know, but it works and I'm all for it.

After dinner my roommate and I went to Walmart, as we do at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. As I pushed my cart past the baby section, because why would we linger in the baby section if we both do not have babies? I soon heard my name being yelled 50 feet away for me to come look at baby bottles. May I also add that because it was Friday night, everyone and their mom (literally because everyone shops with the whole family) was there, making it more embarrassing than it already is that I am the only American in the store. So I go find my roommate, only to realize she is actually looking at baby bottles...for purchase. I think to myself, hmm well I know her brother has a daughter, but the daughter is definitely 4 years old. Do they still use bottles when they are that old here? I don't think so. So I asked Si Yu why she would want to buy a bottle and she proceeded to tell me how much she envied her niece when she saw her using one (not sure if this was yesterday or 3 years ago). The bottle was going to be for her. I asked once more to make sure I heard correctly and she replied with, "Don't laugh at me! My boyfriend laughed at me too!" Si Yu is so cute. She looked for about 10 minutes before deciding on a bottle which included all the necessary tools for cleaning and maintenance.

Observation 5: Jackie Chan is everywhere. He is in so many ads I can't even keep track. It's like everywhere you turn, there he is, holding something new to endorse. When I mentioned this to my sister she told me that people are actually angry about all his different ads because what he endorses breaks or isn't good. This is very interesting because when students have been asking me who my favorite actor/actress is (I know they don't know Cameron Diaz or Richard Gere) I always just say it's Jackie Chan because they know who he is. I hope that is not a bad answer because he is not liked at the moment. : /