我爱中国

I tried to go shoe shopping today because I realized that my black tennis shoes looked pretty tacky with my brown dress pants but when I asked for a size 40 the lady laughed at me. Chinese women have very small feet. Must be all those years of foot binding. So I wore the black tennis shoes anyway. I'm going to get stared at no matter what I do, so I may as well give them something to look at. I also had an uncommonly large number of complete strangers taking my picture today at the dam show. I don't know why you would want pictures of someone you don't know on your camera, but apparently I was more interesting than the performers. Seriously I saw more cameras pointed at us, than at the stage.

Tonight the 三峡大学 (Three Gorges University) took us on a special trip to the Three Gorges Dam, where we got to see a dam performance with lots of really talented singers and dancers and some who were very obviously not the ones singing but still pretended to, and some who made me want to shove toilet paper in my ears. Which I did. They took us to the International Hotel and fed us a fancy banquet, which as I've already mentioned are considerably inferior to street food in my humble opinion. At our table were two Chinese, two Australians, and two French people in addition to the three Americans. Here's where things get interesting. The French teachers knew very limited English but were fluent in Spanish. Elizabeth majored in Spanish in college, and I know a decent amount, so we spent the majority of the time talking in Spanish. Talk about a mixture of cultures! After eating we got to watch Jian and most of the Aussies and a few others drink baijo until they were laughing at everything and feeling really good. That's always entertaining.

After dinner we went down to the river where we got VIP seats to watch the fireworks show. If you didn't realize that the Chinese invented fireworks, rest assured that they will inform you. They are very proud, and rightfully so. It was the closest I've ever been to a show of that magnitude, and one of the better shows I've ever seen. If only I could have ignored the horrible singing they were blasting at us, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the evening. People here set off fireworks randomly all day and night, just for the heck of it. At first I thought I was hearing the freshman military training, but nope, it's the Chinese being proud of their invention. Usually it's during the day though, and I can't see them, so this was a spectacular show.


"At a time ago I am not fond of English because my English is very poor. But now when I meet you. I believe you can help me improve my English. From now on. I began fond of English and fond of you."
-one of my lovely students

P.S. I got to watch the new Office, so Josh don't worry ;)