International Culture

---

First day of lectures today.

We talked about religion, philosophy, and cultural influences on China. Then we covered about 5000 years of Chinese history. It only took six hours. I think information started spilling out of my ears.

We have different lecturers everyday. A lot of them have worked for USF at one point as a guest professor.


If you ever wondered what a classroom looks like at a Chinese University, I can tell you it looks exactly like a classroom at an American University. But they write in Chinese!




And look, they don't eat dogs here! They have them for pets!



During our lunch break, I wandered around and found this:

Then I took a picture and a lady started yelling at us in Mandarin. Whoops.

Later on we met with our new Chinese friends and they took us out to go Karaoke. They also took us to a local student hangout that makes baozi. Baozi happens to one of my favorite Chinese foods. It cost me 17 RMB for all this, which is about $2.50. 10 students were fed, with leftovers.


Then we went out for Karaoke. Asians are obsessed with Karaoke. They sometimes even take singing lessons to improve their skills.



Unfortunately for them, Americans can't sing. At one point we noticed that every time the Chinese students handed us a microphone...they had turned down the volume on it. And turned up the volume for the original singers on the speaker system. LOL.



No alcohol was involved in the picture above.

What I really liked about the karaoke bars here is that they have a wide variety of drinks. Most bars in the US focus on alcohol. The Karaoke bar had fruit smoothies, icees, juices, coffee, and a whole variety of teas.

Unfortunately there are no indoor smoking laws here, even on campus. I think I may return with black lung.

---