Why hi, Zhuhai

Today one of the university students I help one on one, Cora, took me on an exploration through Zhuhai. This was my first trip to the mainland in over a year--that visa work earlier this week paid off. She took me to a shopping mall that is underground. The mall is seriously 50 feet from immigration. You get through customs and walk down stairs. Tourism is a big part of Zhuhai's economy, and things are supposed to be far cheaper there than Macau, so of course they are going to bank in on it as soon as you arrive.

Bargaining was necessary in the mall at many of the stores, and although I consider myself a pretty decent bargainer (with training in both the Pearl Market [Beijing, China] and in Vietnam), some believe that bargaining in Mandarin Chinese gets you better deals...who knows. So Cora was my guide and expert, and we had a delightful time. She bought me lunch, which made me feel bad since she was already helping me out so much, but it's considered an honor and paying for it would have been considered rude in this culture after she insisted. This is another one of those cultural differences where you wonder---do I push back or accept? What does it say depending on what I do?

A similar cultural idea is about opening gifts in front of people. Although it varies in American culture because we are a pretty informal culture, you are technically supposed to open a gift in front of someone when they give it to you. In Asian culture, opening the gift in front of someone would be considered rude.

We had a delicious lunch of pear juice with chrysanthemum flowers. There were actually whole flower blooms in my drink, and yes I drank them after Cora assured me that I should. Lunch was Old Beijing Style Noodles--minced pork, cucumber, and noodles.

Zhuhai was great, with the only downside being that we had to stand in 4 long lines to get in and out of mainland China. The casinos provide buses to and from the border gate for free though, so thank you Sands! It's based on this theory that if they drop you off at their casino then you'll stay...there is a free rider problem with this kid though!

It was an overall great day that ended with the movie Flipped back at the apartment. The ETAs from last year left a few movies, and I am glad I finally watched one of them. This movie is a coming of age love story, but to me it was much more. There were a lot of values it spoke toward beyond the middle school romance like the value of standing up for what's right, understanding there is a lot more to a person/situation than what you see, and that a person is more than the sum of its parts. I liked all of this. I also liked that the girl's father in the movie wore an outfit and had mannerisms similar to my very wonderful father back home. Thinking of my daddy generally brings a smile to my face.

Words discussed with Cora today: "thinking cap" (which she learned from the show The Big Bang Theory, popular in China), "nitey night" (which she learned from Gossip Girl, popular in China), and "tight knit" (which came up when I was describing my family). ...there were other words as well, but hopefully these examples make you go 'huh, never really thought about not knowing what that means...' Welcome to learning more about yourself.

Picture of the day:
This is what you see upon entering Macau--casino recruitment at it's finest. There are attractive women in tight dresses labeled Sands, Venetian, etc. and large playful monkeys that look like they might take you out on a gondola. They also have people recruiting you to come to the casinos at the ferry terminal.