An Update?!

It's been a long time sine I've decided to sit down and write some sort of update on what is going on in my life, and I feel like a lazy piece of shit because of it. Granted, the problem started because in honestly didn't have a whole lot to write about. I'd wake up, teach class, go to Chinese class three times a week, go for a run, dink around the Internet and go to bed. That was my life here for about two months, and you can imagine that it didn't really give me much to talk about, much less to write about, so I developed writer's inertia, I term I just made up. The thing is, my routine has changed for the better, but I've maintained that inertia until now, and I'm done with it. I'm here to tell you what has changed.

For one, we found other ex-pats, and as it turns out, they're a great group of people. Every Friday we get together at a restaurant near the local university and drink beer and talk. Their students will show up to practice their English, and it's generally a good time for everyone. The group is a wide range of ages, from Dave, who's a New Zealander somewhere north of 45 years old with a Chinese wife named Catherine, to folks our age. Actually, the story of how we found out about this group is pretty good. The four of us were wandering around Fuzhou looking for a restaurant, and Vang happened to see Nic in a drink shop. Vang said ”I think I just saw an American”, and we all froze, completely unsure of how to approach the situation. Fortunately, Nic saw us as well, and was equally amazed. We exchanged phone numbers, and now we have people to talk to. We were invited along for Catherine's birthday last Saturday, and I think she took a certain delight in ordering the weirdest dishes possible. I had duck and pig stomach, snails, and congealed pig's blood. The blood actually tasted like tofu, which is odd.

I also had an “oh well, what the hell” moment, and asked one of the teachers out, a 22-year old woman named Pansy. I think she's purdy. This turned out to be a completely different experience than I thought it would be. I asked her out to dinner, and made it clear that it was going to be just the two of us. This seemed like a date to me, and I thought I had done a decent job at communicating this to her. Apparently I failed, as she invited along her friend and her friend's six year old son. Whaps. We went to a pretty neat restaurant, though. Picture a buffet, but instead of cooked food, it was just cuts of meat (They had bacon!). You pick out the ones you want to eat, and then take them back to your table, which has a skillet in the middle, where you fry whatever you want. Also, all you can drink beer is included in the price. I have to go back when I'm not trying to impress someone. Anyway, once her friend and the kid left, I asked if she realized I was asking her out on a date. She had no idea. I laughed it off, and we had a great time walking around town and talking. At the end of the night, she invited me to lunch at her house... with her mother.

Lunch turned out to be completely alright. Her mom can cook, and the 9 students that she rents out her apartment to were very nice during lunch, and it only took twenty minutes to get photo time over with. After all the students had left, we spent a long time sitting on the couch and talking about relationships in general. As it turns out, she's firmly focused on marriage, and not just marriage, but marrying a man of means. This is the norm for China, unfortunately. The good news is that she's really cool, and I really like hanging out with her. Friend made!

There's other little things that I could talk about: our fast food disaster tonight, making Chinese kids argue about what art is, and any of the other stories that get lost in the bustle of my day, but I honestly don't feel like it right now, as I would rather talk about baseball with Jimmy, so I'm going to leave it at this, and leave on the note that I'll write up my trip to Guangzhou when I feel like it.

See you all in less than two months,

-Cooper