My Englarging Family of Friends

Hello Family and Friends,

Each day that goes by, I have grown to love more and more.

On Wednesday morning, I invited some friends to join me on the track to run. Rob, Homer, and I meet outside our rooms at 6:00 AM. We were all half asleep as we walk down the four fleets of stairs. On the track, we all started together and eventually separated at our own paces. I ran 8 laps, Rob 6.5, and Homer wasn't far behind Rob. I had down 12 labs the previous day, but I was having difficulty breathing, so I decided to not over exhaust myself.

Together we jogged back to the teacher's dormitory, where both Rob and I spent the next hour washing up and hand washing our clothes in the bathroom sink. We then went to the SBS's cafeteria for breakfast and finally found the right combination of food for me: dumplings, hard boiled eggs, and water.

Thereafter, I went with Homer and John to their English class. In the class they are reading about inequality and discrimination of African Americans in the 1950s. The section they are reading is a first person narrative of a a young mixed African American girl's experience in Washington D.C. Well, since I am Caucasian, the teacher thought I might have been put into an uncomfortable situation. I told her I am glad to be apart of this discussion. At times during the class, I gave comments about the topic from what I have learned and related it to the present conditions. I even asked the class if they had heard of Barak Obama, potentially our next and first African American president.

I returned with John and Homer to their compact four person dorm. There I took a nap on the bunk bed that overhangs over their study desk. I climbed up the ladder onto the bamboo stringed mattress and pillow. Overhead the bed, I was sheltered by a large mosquito net.

At the same time, Homer and John were watching the movie 21. It's about a brilliant student from MIT who makes it rich in Los Vagas. Talking about movies, everything here is pirated. The most you will ever pay for a movie, any software package like Window's XP or Vista, computer games is 4 to 6 yuan, that is at most .80 cents. In the United States, it is 300 to 400 U.S dollar for Window's XP or Vista. Here in China, piracy is not a crime, it is not illegal.Most Chinese do not even buy the CD, the will just download it to their computer from the Internet. In addition, the SBS has a sever, which is constantly updated daily with new movies where students can download it to their desktop. The students here see the cost in paying for Internet access.

Basically, anything virtual in China is free or really inexpensive. However, hardware is extremely expensive. So there is a trade off.

In the United States, when we go to movie theater, we pay between 6 to 11 U.S dollars for a ticket depending on the time of day. In China, a movie ticket costs between 100 to 60 yuan depending how long the movie had been out for. That is at most almost 15 U.S dollars. For Homer, who had worked at KFC, earned only 7 yuan per hour. No wonder why piracy is prevalent. The prices in China are outrageous. This is why students here at SBS decided to download movies with one click free of charge.

At 12 PM, John, I, and Tony, and American English teacher, had lunch together on the second floor of the cafeteria. Tony was in his mid 20's and had a degree in computer science. He had been teacher at SBS for the last two years. He an amazing perspective on cultural differences to share with me including about the education system. Family, I will tell you more when I return.

That afternoon, I had arranged to meet several of my SBS friends for dinner at 4:45 to walk to Hot Pot. Four students and I ate like kings. Dinner was on me. It was absolutely HAO JI LE. At that point, I felt at home with my newly meet friends. I wanted to host because they have welcomed me in their dorm, let me use their computer, take me around the city, and of course practice Mandarin.

We took the TAXI back to the school and hurried over to the fifth floor of one of the school buildings. We came in a few minutes after it started at 6:30 PM. The English Club was hosting all the foreign students for a evening celebration. Once again, when I walked, attention was on me. It was literally all girls. NO GUYS except for the foreigners and my friends from HOT POT. Most of the girls took pictures with me and many have my email address. Some of the girls had already seen me from last Thursday. There I had given them my blog address, but this time requested my email address. I couldn't bypass it this time. They are too smart for me. On the other hand, all the girls are very friends and interested about English and America.

My time was not only spent giving autographs and taking snaps shots, but also learning a traditional Chinese dance. Wang Cheng, I, and another friend of mine attempted some quite feminine/ballet like positions. I look at as we were the only guys brave enough :). There were about 2 dozen girls in front of us learning as well. We guys stood out like sour thumbs. The girls who were watching where either taking pictures or making a video recording of us.

Then I few of us returned to the dorm and I gave a demonstration of what I learned at the club as well as preforming what Tae Kwon Do I could still recall. Alan, another student helper, taught me a little Tai Chi. Our dorm was jammed packed, just looked at the pictures. It was great. It was my enlarging family of friends in China.

Kevin