Day 5: Rain, Rain, Go Away

So as you can see I did not succeed in getting the pictures up. Oh well. When this is over I will put them up on Flickr, and then I can embed a slideshow on this site. Or you could just see me in person.

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, it rained today. All day long. Suffice to say we got zero work done. We met with the principal of the local primary school this morning, to discuss a schedule of teaching the children English and mathematics (incidentally, there is a sign near the school which is the only one in the area which I can read in its entirety; it says, "Happily go to school and peacefully return home."). From now on we will be doing a half day of labor on the park and a half day of teaching. Progress should remain swift though, as we will still have the few local workers on the job all day.

In the afternoon, we decided to go have fun in Tonglu, which is a suburb of Hangzhou. Tonglu is much larger than Gaoxiang, and I'm sure I am not the first American to go there, but I was more acutely aware of my race today than I think I have ever been. People stared unabashedly at me, and would stop what they were doing to look. It wasn't terribly bothersome, just a little bit jarring.

I learned a few things about Chinese culture today. First of all, if you wear a green hat in China, it means that your spouse is being unfaithful to you (I have no idea why; it is the equivalent of horns in the West). Also, you should never give a Chinese person a clock or a watch as a gift, because when they receive it it means that "their time has come" (i.e. to die). These I learned through conversation. I also went to Chinese karaoke for the first time today. You are put in a room with a large television and brought drinks, and you have a certain amount of time, during which you may select songs and sing to your heart's content. And yes, they do have American songs. I must confess that I felt a bit uncomfortable at first, but it was actually pretty fun. There were at least five songs in a row by the Backstreet Boys (not my choice, I swear). Then, we went out to dinner, and a very delicious meal consisting of a wide variety of meats and vegetables, including bamboo shoots, which I tried for the first time (I also ate salamander back in Gaoxiang, and that was quite good actually). Chinese dining is buffet style, and they have a turntable in the center onto which they place all the dishes which have been ordered (usually only one person orders the food), and then you spin it to get at the food you want. Quite efficient, although I still feel slightly awkward with chopsticks.

Work should resume tomorrow, provided that the weather cooperates with us. I added two new things to the site today: a reading list and a blog roll. I feel like this site is relatively bland and boring, so hopefully this makes it more worthwhile. I recommend everything that goes on there, unless I say otherwise.

I'm going to bed, but most of you should go make yourselves some lunch. See you tomorrow.