Today I met one of my host students at UIBE named Shan and went to lunch. We ordered shrimp that was deep fried with the shell still on. I started to peel the shell off but I received awkward glances by Shan. I decided to just eat the shrimp, shell and all, and accept this as one more part of the culture that was different. It wasnt too bad but would have without a doubt been better had the shell been pealed.
Shan's english was pretty decent and he dove right into deep conversation with me about politics. He wanted to know how I felt about Obama as well as Iraq. He seemed to know more about the US than many Americans. I decided to take advantage of this situation and see how much he knew about his own country and if he had any idea of the censorship that takes place. When I Asked him if he trusted everything that the media printed, he said definitely not. But when we began to talk about Mao it was clear that he held a high level of respect for the man. We talked about many other controversial issues that I cannot write about here because the government will shut down this blog but we talked for atleast an hour about many political issues.
I want to tutor some chinese to help them learn English. I was told about a website: thebeijinger.com where there are listing for people interested in tutors. As I was looking through the ads I found one that I liked and called. Im supposed to meet up with her tomorrow for lunch. This seems very random but apparently this is pretty typical here.
I should be studying for my chinese test tomorrow so I'm going to sign off. Today overall was not too exciting but there have not been too many boring days here and I'm sure tomorrow will be interesting.