Valentine Date

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Valentine’s Day is pretty big here, one of the girls in the office got a big bunch of red roses, which caused all of them to giggle all day. Another exhausting morning being manhandled by miniature people, and being thrown up in front of two classes, completely unprepared. We sang “head, shoulders, knees and toes”, and “B-I-N-G-O”, and asked the colours of every single item of clothing in the classroom - I just couldn’t think of anything else, and the two classes were basic English, not the Immersion classes. On the way back to the apartment, Jun - the teacher who drives me to scholl - passed me a piece of paper on which was written the Chinese and English for Valentine’s Day. I nodded enthusiastically, as I am wont to do when Jun tries to talk to me. He then passed me a piece of paper that said “Will you partake of our simple repast?” It was too good an offer to pass up, even though I was completely unsure of the etiquette, or even what was going on. I tend to look very foolish as I wander around the city, grinning inanely at everyone, reading signs that I have no idea what they say (I’m just trying to familiarise myself with the shapes so things start to look less alien). We drove around to the East Gate, picked up a friend of his who had some English, then drove almost back to school to indulge in some ‘water sheep noodle soup’. I am the only waiguoren (foreigner) who has ever been in the place, the guy making the fresh hot bread and his wife who was standing over an enormous pot of soup didn’t look very impressed with me. But Jun and his friend were delighted with my chopstick prowess, as I slurped noodles, picked up pieces of bread we soaked in the soup, and hustled big pieces of meat into my mouth. I think the three bowls came to about 30 pence, but I won’t be returning and bringing the guys unless my Chinese gets a lot better.

Andrew works in the Bell Tower Youth Hostel, and was asked to work in the bar this evening. He and Bill trotted down there, even though Andrew was quite insistent that he would call us later to tell us how busy it is, but Bill is a member of the Youth Hostel Kingdom of the World, or something, and wanted to go and show his card off down there. We got a telephone call from the brink about 8 o’clock, so went down (on the bus - we are getting so intrepid) to rescue Andrew. Tuesday night seems to be party night in Xi’an, after a few beers in the hostel, Joe, Alex, Richard and I ended up in House Club again. I got a rose as I went in, and we were greeted like returning heros by the manager and the barstaff. Joe and Alex got kidnapped by a gaggle of Chinese people, who were doing shots of beer every time they lost a dice game. Or won a dice game. Or watched someone else win or lose a dice game. We stumbled home at 3am, feeling on top of the world, as I did at 7 when I had to get up to allow small noisy people to shout at me.

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Comments

[Lesley]

Fantastic
Erin, your journal is fantastic, I really can see everything you are doing through your writing. It made me laugh out loud a couple of times, watch out for old Americans, they have a problem with accepting their limitations. Love.