Its been an interesting last couple days

On Friday night one of my students, Sun Fuji, wanted to take me and Sunny to dinner because he was the one who won the English competition on Wednesday. So, he took us, along with his mom, 2 aunts, uncle, another teacher, and his brother, Fu Shing Jin, to dinner at this super fancy restaurant that we got our own private room with a huge round table, a large flat screen TV with sofas, a bathroom, a computer with internet, and of course a Majiang table for gambling. Evidently everyone no matter their age knows the exact custom for hosting a dinner. So, it was really funny to have my 19 year-old student bringing wine to dinner for Sunny and me, and toasting to us, lol. Its also the Chinese tradition for the host to serve the food for the guests. And even though the food was amazing, the atmosphere was slightly uncomfortable because everyone was speaking in Chinese the entire time and a few times when someone would start to speak to me in English Sunny would just interrupt or answer for me but in Chinese, which meant the conversation went back to Chinese. Then a lot of times I heard them saying "Mea-guale" which means American, or "Ying yu lao shi" English teacher and looking at me, but instead of translating for me when she needed to she just said "ting bu dong" Don't understand!!! Grrrr so frustrating!

Then after dinner Sun Fuji taught me how to play Majiang, and even though he tried to explain everything about the game which is too much all at once, it was much better than a few weeks ago when Sunny tried to teach me, while gambling... and then forgot about me to let me loose money until I said forget it and they thought I was being a bad sport...
And I don't know for sure but I think Sun Fuji must have paid at least 1000 Yuan for the entire dinner which is a crazy amount of money, especially here in Tongzi! And Sunny told me he was paying from his own money! I would never have agreed to this if Sunny wasn't there and acting like all this was perfectly normal...

Then Saturday, I had agree to play basketball with the Sun Fuji's 9 yr-old brother, Fu Shing Jin, who is such an obedient and smart little gentleman. So, when I came down from my apartment to go to the school to meet him, he was already waiting for me outside the gate of my building. And so I gave him the orange I brought him and he walked me to the school just down the street, but we couldn't play basketball there because they had classes. So, he started to walk me to his primary school but he figured it was too far, so he waved down a taxi, opened the door for me, and paid for the taxi!! This little 9 yr-old boy! But... then his school's gates were locked because there was no school, so we walked out of town to one of his aunt's home at another school. And of course... she wasn't home so we stood outside the gate while the little boy tried to yell across the school yard to convince some workers to open the gate for us, which they wouldn't. Finally, we found out the gate had been unlocked the entire time, so we just helped ourselves inside and the workers never told us to leave so we played basketball in there. Lol, it was just me and this super respectful little boy, and he seemed so excited the 1-in-10 times I actually made a basket. Then we played ping pong a bit, and he's so good at it I was embarrassed. After a while he decided I needed some water, and took me in his aunt's home, but there was a dog tied up out front that didn't know me so it bit me on the back of the leg. And even though it didn't hurt or rip my pants I guess the skin is thin there and it bled a bit. The poor little boy looked so upset that first he had dragged me all over town to play basketball and then the dog bit me. Then his aunt and uncle showed up and his uncle drove us back to his home where we ate lunch with his surprisingly huge family in their cafeteria like dinning room. And Sun Fuji was home from school so Fu Shing Jin told him all about what happened and then everyone got all concerned about the dog bite and wanted to look at it, help me wash it, and take me to a doctors... oh man what a scene I didn't want to make!! So I went outside to clean it up on my own!

Then after lunch Wang Kaiwei, the 2 boy's aunt (who is already my friend and also an English teacher), wanted to take me to climb the mountain at her mother's house in the countryside. I agreed, but first she insisted on taking me to the doctors and forced me to let her pay because they felt bad that their family's dog bit me... grrr. And the doctor never even looked at the bite or asked any questions other than my name and age (I guess Wang Kaiwei told her what she needed to know), she gave me a shot (I figure it was a rabies shot) and I need to go back for 4 more shots in the next month and in this time I can't drink any tea, beer, or eat any kind of herbal leaves... This will be hard seeing that the Chinese drink tea all the time and almost every dish has something I can't eat in it. Then we picked up some more little boys and another teacher friend of Wang Kaiwei and went to 2 different little villages, where all the little kids of the village gathered in the house's windows to look at me, lol :) After, we went back to have dinner at their home where there were even more people this time. And I found out Sun Fuji is something of a musical genius, holy cow this kid can sing opera, I think the whole town could hear!! and he can play classical music on the piano and Russian folk music on the accordion (all from memory of course)!! And I think I'm getting used to all the Chinese telling me to go here, do this, eat this, sit here...because it doesn't matter if I say yes or no I end up having to do it anyways so I'm just doing what they tell me to do most the time. So, I ended up in Wang Kaiwei's home eating these sweet little fruits, Pi Ba, I've never seen before and then helping her put up curtains. Then around 9 o'clock at night Sun Fuji calls me to tell me he's playing with some of his friends and they want to talk to me so Wang Kaiwei tells me I should go with him... but he ends up taking me to a club... an American style club, which I knew then I was definitely crossing the line. I was glad that the doctor told me I can't drink beer. But I called Wang Kaiwei and she sounded like she didn't understand what my problem was and told me Sun Fuji just wants to show me Tongzi. It was just me and a bunch of Chinese boys, some of them are even my age, but they don't speak English... Soooooooo awkward so I asked to go home after only a few minutes, I should have felt bad he took me all the way there and I didn't stay but I didn't feel bad!

Then today a girl, Michelle, who used to be a student at my school wanted to talk to me and practice her English. She's the same age as me and just finished University, so you'd think I'd be happy to find a friend, but this girl is a little clingy and doesn't have a long enough attention span to understand anything I say. I also have a few students like Michelle. Even though I'm glad for them to be so excited about practicing their English its really hard to spend time with them because they like to hold onto my arm so close like I'm a handbag and when I walk anywhere with them I feel like they're walking on top of me! It was slightly annoying because in the 3 hrs I spent with Michelle she first took me to her home for a small dinner, corn stew, and showed and explained to me everything in her bedroom, and showed me off to her entire family. I felt like an award or something she had won at school... Then she walked me around town and basically stopped by every shop that she knew someone at so she could be seen with me in front of her friends. And she was talking non stop, which I could understand only parts of what she said, and she wanted me to try a million different Chinese foods, when I was already full, and she wanted me to see everything in Tongzi as if it was my first day here. Oh man!! She a really friendly girl but just too much for me, I can't be dragged around like that anymore. So, when she asked me if she could show me some things next weekend I was so glad to tell her I had plans to go to another town for the May 1st holiday!!
These past couple days were really strange... I really don't understand all of the Chinese customs... and I wish I could understand more Chinese language to know exactly what everyone is saying. Maybe I'd feel more comfortable then.

Anyways, I have a 6 day holiday coming up, beginning on Tuesday. Not that I don't love Tongzi but I'm glad to be able to travel and get a small break!