The Start of Classes

I have now had all of my classes at least once. Chinese language still looks like it will be extremely easy. My literature professor seems very interesting. She is very into classroom discussions instead of lectures which I guess is good. She also asks a lot of abstract questions which definitely are not my forte, but I'll survive. History class was pretty boring. The professor wasn't always clear as to what time period we were discussing. The class also focuses on modern history too much for my taste. Chinese culture looks like it could be interesting except it is three hours long and I tend to get restless after about an hour.

On Monday, me, Victor and Peng went to a more upscale Cantonese restaurant in the west part of town. I tried some Dim Sum which I had heard was very good but I was disappointed in it. The outside is covered in a gooey rice thing. However, the meat on the inside was very good. They also had a Cantonese version of bao zi with meat wrapped in a fluffy bread made out of rice. It was even better than the bao zi I've had near campus. After dinner we got in a cab and headed back to campus.

Last night I was invited to go to dinner with one of our language partners. It was a very good experience because I got to see how a typical Chinese citizen lives. My friend, Huang, lives in the basement of the building my classes are in. As far as I could tell they lived in one room about 2/3 the size of my dorm room. They had a separate public kitchen down the hall and used the public restroom upstairs. The food was good I had sated fish some beef and some chicken. As I was eating my host kept piling food into my bowl. I guess in China the host wants to make sure the guest has plenty to eat. They also apparently drink their beverages from a bowl. I however drank my beer straight from the bottle which they said was also fine. I'm very glad I was invited to this meal. I feel I learned a lot from the experience.