a nice lunch

i sat down to lunch alone in the cafeteria. it was 12:10, 5 minutes before class got out, and the place was empty. when class got out however, a few people sat down. first was an art teacher i met a few weeks ago. he set his students' drawings on the table as he went to go get food. while he was gone, hiro came by and sat down, and then a student i met a few nights ago. i felt like the most popular girl at the dance.

so we sat and ate, and talked about march madness and sports terms in chinese. the yuen dong, the art teacher, asked me what i was doing after lunch in chinese. sadly, i didn't understand him the first time, even though that was the exact same question i was asked 30 times the day before in our weekly chinese class. luckily, i got him the second time.

i said resting, which was one of the responses from class, and he offered to show me his classes' paintings and drawings. we walked into the gym--first time i've been there--and looked at the easels and the drawings. pretty good, in my opinion. while we were checking out the art, his phone rang, and he motioned for me to follow him.

we went out to the street, where the vendors are. we stopped by the fish vendor, which is a guy standing next to a modified motorcycle with a pick-up truck for a back filled with a tarp, water, and fish. most of the fish were this boring bottom of the river black, but one was a bright orange koi. gorgeous. as dong pointed to the orange one for the fishman, i worried about the future of this delightful fish.

after dropping it on the ground only once, the fishman got the koi in a plastic grocery bag. dong paid him 20 kuai (2 and a half dollars), and we walk off toward the condo development north of my school. i've never been past the menacing guards, and boy was it nice. we walked through a nice little park, and to a condo, which dong yelled up at. a woman peeked out quickly, then disappeared.

a nice old lady answered the door, and we went into the largest house i've seen so far in china. to be honest, i've not been into too many houses. she took the fish from dong, and the went out into the backyard, with me following behind. outside there was a gorgeous patio and luckily, a nice koi pond. phew. the fish got dropped in, and li bobo--at least i think that was it--gave me a handful of fish food. so i fed the fish, and then we walked back to school.

on our way back we talked about cars, and i learned the word for gasoline, and i told my first wittisicsm in chinese. (it was about how these giant suvs often have tiny people inside them). eliciting laughter is always nice...but i guess i shouldn't be too happy about it.

what a great day!