A Hug and A Kiss
Sitting in the park, drinking yogurt, and meeting Royal.
The cutest 7 year old Chinese kid I've met and I parting ways in front of the restaurant.
Farewells are never complete without a kiss.
And of course another hug.
I slept in today! Instead of waking up at an ungodly hour as per usual, I woke up at 7:45 am. I felt a little guilty indulging myself in the whole extra hour and forty-five minutes of precious sleep, but it was 100% worth it. After another delicious breakfast and a quick study session, my host family and I headed to the biggest park in Suangliu. It was about an hour away because my host family lives in a different district. When we got there, my host mom rented two of those shared bikes. A little while later, my host mom’s cousins and their kids arrived. There were three kids: two boys and one girl. The girl was twelve, and the two boys were ages 7 and 10. The little 7 year-old’s mom kept telling him to call me big sister. He was incredibly cute, being this tiny boy with Snoopy sandals and a purple Nike shirt and matching shorts. He informed me that his English name was Royal. At the park, we walked, biked, talked, and ate yogurt and bread. They even had this really cool portable hammock we swung around in.
Around one, we headed to this fancy restaurant for a delicious feast. Normally when you go to a restaurant in America, each person individually chooses what dish they want to eat, but here in China, when you're with a group/family, practically every meal is served family style with lots and lots of dishes of different food. There's usually always rice, different meat dishes, different vegetable dishes, possibly porridge or buns, and hot water or tea. Also, unless it's soup or porridge, there aren't typically serving utensils; people around the table just dig in with their chopsticks. Any who, I ate fish, cauliflower, water spinach, cucumber, tofu, celery, and even a bun with a sweet, yellow filling. Everything was of course doused in varying types of oils.
During lunch, the husband of one of my host mom's cousins kept talking about me and asking questions about me. They talked about how I use chopsticks, what I eat, how much I run, what I drink, and the differences between me and 吴璨. I don't think they thought I understood what they were saying because one of my host mom's cousins tried to tell me what a potato was. My Chinese is definitely not the best, but I can understand what people are saying if it's a familiar topic. After lunch, the cute little boy gave me two hugs and a kiss. All I was missing was a nice high-five.
After a nice lunch and a friendly farewell, my host mom and 吴璨 rode the subway to Chunxi Street, which is a very commercial area in the center of Chengdu. There are tons of clothing stores, souvenir stores, and tons and tons and tons of people. We looked around a few clothing stores, and ended up at Yishion, which is a Chinese clothing company. What I found really interesting is that all of the clothing that had words on it had words that were in English. Some shirts said New York and American phrases. I've found that Chinese people tend to wear more clothing with English words than Chinese. I honestly think Chinese characters look cooler than English, but maybe it's just me.
After roaming around for a while and stimulating the economy, we headed back home for a light meal of spicy vegetables and noodles and tofu, and then a very large bowl of grapes and plums. Just to note, my host parents asked me a little more about America today. They asked me how old you have to be to be able to drive. In North Carolina, it's 16. In China, it's 18. They also asked me how old you have to be to get an arm's license. In America, it's 18 at least. In China, it's never, unless you're a police officer. They also asked me if my parents are from North Carolina, but neither of them are from North Carolina. My host dad is from Xi'an, and my host mom is from the Sichuan province.