2 weeks...woah.

I'm down to only two more weeks before I'm back in America. I can't believe the end is this close. I have a countdown for pretty much everything I do, but I think that is just because I'm so excited to be home again. 2 more English Corners, 1 more day teaching at the primary school, 10 classroom lessons, etc. Our invitations to lunches/dinners have been increasing, but that's not always a good thing. There are a lot of traditions and customs in China centered around meals, and we don't always want to follow them. A big one is the drinking of the Chinese spirit. We went to a lunch today, some of the teachers from Laura's office kept trying to make us drink. I have a bit of a cold, and we both had lessons in the afternoon, and just didn't want any because we don't like it. It was so annoying, and they tried to make us feel so bad about it. Besides the alcohol, they also kept pushing us to eat more and more. The food was good, but we ate until we were full and stopped. All they could say was, "It is so good, eat more," "You did not eat enough," "I think you are not accustomed to Chinese dishes." They just didn't understand that we ate what we wanted and we were done. Then they wanted to get rice after the meal and when we said we didn't want any, the man looked at us like we had just shot his dog or something. I'm sure we broke a ton of "rules" for eating in China, but I'm just so beyond it now. I've been pushed around at dinners all term, and I'm done. I appreciate the invites and everything, but just let me eat and drink in peace and at my leisure! Anyways, after that, we both just hope there aren't too many more occurrences that put us off the way today did.

We did however have a lovely dinner last night with Mr. Xu. We went back to the restaurant where he took us for our first dinner in Siyang. The woman who runs the restaurant totally remembered us, and came in to show us a photo she had taken at the dinner 5 months ago on her cell phone. It was really sweet. The food was amazing, we had legs of lamb for the first time here, and they there were seasoned super well, and just really delicious. We were able to choose our other dishes, which ensured that they liked them, and we had a ton of wine, and then beer to close out the evening. Mr. Xu talked with us about the impact of having foreign teachers at the school, and how he thinks it is such a great thing for us to be there. Also, he told us that in Jiangsu (our province) it is actually against the law to hold lessons at weekends, but that our school is so competitive with the results of the students that they break the law and keep students there even when they shouldn't. He thinks this is horrible, as do we, because the students are always tired when they have time off of school and they don't foster any sort of social relationships or creativity. It's interesting to hear someone who holds such a high position in our school have an opinion like that, but it makes me happy to know there are people here who want to change things for the betterment of the students. Mr. Xu is a strong supporter of Western education, and he told us that he thinks our English is the best for teaching foreign people. He spent some time in England and said that all the different accents from there are too confusing, and hard to understand, but the mid-West accent from America is great! :)

We also discussed arranging transportation to Shanghai next Thursday, and we expressed our concern with who accompanies us (the inappropriate man!) on the journey. He said that possibly Chen would be able to come with us, and that it shouldn't be a problem to get a car to drive us there. It also sounds like our Hong Kong tickets are getting worked out with our friends in Shanghai. You can only buy tickets a maximum of 10 days in advance, and only from the station you leave from. SUPER INCONVENIENT! But, as I said, hopefully taken care of. I also am in touch with two girls in Hong Kong that are friends with someone I know in the States. They are both eager to meet us and take us out one of our nights there before we go home. We just need to figure out where to stay and the best way to get everything in order so we catch our flight on time and whatnot. Also, so that we don't spend a fortune, which I think is quite easy to do in Hong Kong. Oh well, by the end of it, I probably won't even care about the money, I'll just want to get my butt to the airport and on a plane back to the good ol' U.S. of A.