Ho ho ho (in Cantonese that means 'good good good')

Today was delightful.

I taught 5th grade this morning and it went surprisingly smooth considering that the holiday starts next week for the students. This afternoon, our boss took us out to lunch at a fancy Dim Sum restaurant. It was delicious--even the tripe, and I ate far too much as I often do with these sorts of settings. A kind Chinese coworker continued to add things to my plate as a courtesy. I learned a few interesting tidbits about Chinese culture and dining today from our boss. First, when doing cheers with a tea cup, it's a formality in the northern part of China to put your tea cup at a slightly lower level than the other person's cup to show a sign of reverence/respect. Since they in return would make their cup lower, it's a strategy of doing it last second. Our boss told us that some officials will try to cheers and then end up with their cups all the way to the floor fighting to have the lowest cup.

Also, when someone fills up your tea cup for you, you can tap on the table to show a sign of thanks. Refilling someone else's cup is a common courtesy that should be done before refilling your own tea cup in traditional culture. Macau seems to be such a mix of cultures, and we rarely eat with local people so I haven't seen this much here. For lunch we had a nice mix of Pu'erh and Chrysanthemum tea. I'd never had them brewed together before, but the high quality tea and the mixed flavors were delicious. Interestingly, the fresher the Chrysanthemum tea (picked within a few weeks), the better the tea is, but the older the Pu'erh tea, the better it is. Mao told us there are bricks of Pu'erh tea from the Qin Dynasty that sell for millions of dollars. Tea... Forget stocks, you now know what to invest in.

We have a Czech and German staying with us as couchsurfers tonight. They are both nice. The German is extremely friendly, having just returned from a trip to the U.S. She was telling me tonight that she loved the place but that the people were very surface level nice, as in they weren't willing to build relationships and invest in people. I tried to explain to her that America is a very big place and that cultures can vary even across a 20 minute drive, but also that Americans are somewhat reserved and suspicious (as a generalization and stereotype--not true for all) sometimes because of the media, the lack of foreign visitor interaction in some places, and silly liability issues. I told her about the McDonalds coffee lawsuit when she told me a couchsurfing host in the U.S. was concerned for their own good in case she got hurt hitch hiking. Obviously, I love America, but there is a high focus on valuing time as money which bothered her. It was interesting to hear the different perspectives from someone who seems to be a very pleasant person.

The picture of the day today is of a card that one of my 5th grade boys gave me..Ms. Ho. haha. And it's Pokemon. Fantastic. It has a sweet note inside and provided a chuckle from having my name wrong.