Dinner and another day exploring

I went out exploring again yesterday. This time to one of the shopping districts for a more thorough investigation. What I had before thought was a mediocre pedestrian underpass lined with clothing vendors/stores turns out to be a vast underground city jammed packed with women's clothing, women, and the occasional mens clothing or leather jacket stall. I spent about an hour wandering around in search of a t-shirt vendor in hopes of purchasing some chinglish keepers to no avail. When I emerged it was still daylight and I was very far from where I started. After finding my bearings, I reentered the labyrinth the the intent of underpassing a large intersection. I emerged a few minutes later further away from the intersection, but on a different wrong side. I normally dont have trouble with directions or navigating, but the womens clothing underground city is packed and very confusing, as every hallway looks the same, and there are many turns, twists and strange stairs. After a second attempt I made my way under the intersection.

On my way home I found a "tasty dog" restaurant and a dumpling restaurant which will be explored in the coming week.

Last night was the final dinner for the students on the summer program. They one week of exams left, then they return to the states leaving tony and I here until the new crop arrives in September. Dinner was an all you can eat hotel buffet, not that interesting, nor that tasty. I did get to eat something labeled as 'quail' and some silk worms. The 'quail' was a small bird no bigger than a baseball cooked whole. After the dinner we(3 americans and 3 chinese) went exploring harbin we found some super fun exercise machines and some more insects to eat. Conversations were varied, but topics included remote sensing, public displays of affection, long distance relationships, the 2005 benzine spill (nytimes,iht, bbc, wikipedia) racial discrimination in the US, obama, and homosexuality in the US. Overall it was really interesting talking the the chinese students and getting insights into chinese perceptions.

For example, one student mentioned that in the interview process to be a roommate with one of the american students he was asked whether he minded living with a a gay american. He didnt mention his response, but he did say, before that interview he had never thought about the possibility of sharing a room with a gay man. Homosexuality isnt visible in china. This student said he had never met a gay man and asked if we americans had. Thats sort of a strange question. My college had a queer resource center, complete with a director, student staff, and numorous 'mentors' to assist incoming students integrate with the queer community and explore their queer identity. Of course I had met some gay guys, they are a large contingent of metropolitan american cities. There are even tv shows based on not much more than being gay and living in a city.

I should probably mention that the program here has a language pledge. It wasnt a big deal, i just scratched my name at the bottom of a page with some rules one it. Either way, all of my interactions are in chinese, whether they be with the other american students or the chinese students. The chinese students signed a similar pledge promising not to speak english with us. My chinese is improving. Remote sensing is a pretty advanced topic to be talking about in chinese, at least i think so.

http://picasaweb.google.com/xisphias/Food