Some observations:

I'm learning to read friendship dynamics here. Part of the trick for not going insane is figuring out people's intentions...I say that, only to realize that in the same vein, if you overanalyze everything you'll drive yourself completely batty and make yourself miserable. I'm vague, let me explain. Upon first look, it seems that many Chinese want to be my friend. I've gotten several emails from students stating how excited they are for me to be their teacher and they hope that we can be "close friends." While there is nothing wrong with this open friendliness (considering I will likely think of some of them as close friends by the end of this) I can't help but take everything with a grain of salt. Why are they REALLY so happy to know me? I'm skeptical because I am white and I happen to be a really convenient opportunity to practice English. I found there are some Chinese who are genuinely kind and interested in making my acquaintence, who may or may not want to practice their English. Unfortunately however, there are others who are kind of jerkish about it...they just talk at me constantly and expect me to listen while they practice their English. I'm happy they're so excited, but please, if you want to be my friend, let's have a real conversation.

Knowing a little Chinese has helped alleviate some of this feeling of always being the token white English speaker because there are a lot of Chinese who don't speak English well. Surely there are those who are just curious about a white person, but I'm finding a lot of satisfaction from friendships I have with people who don't seem to necessarily care that I'm not Chinese, who are patient and willing to help me learn and who aren't so damn eager to speak English.

It can be lonely at times because so many of my interactions border on superficial. I'm being patient though, I mean, I've only been here for three weeks. I think it would be far more difficult/lonely if I didn't speak Chinese and the only avenue for friendship was through English.

Another quick observation, the freshmen are on campus, but haven't started classes yet because they are in the midst of their compulsory military training. Required by the government, the freshmen are put into groups and marched around campus and made to yell 1234 every so often. It seemed sort of comical and trivial the first day when they just looked ragtag. That was until they started making them yell louder and learn kung fu. It's sort of intimidating to see these young, innocent looking kids all of a sudden in unison take a fighting stance and shadow box some imaginary oncoming aggressor. They've got kicks and throws and everything. I still want to see them goose step but seeing as they're not in fatigues or anything I'm thinking it's not quite as serious as that. In any case, I'll not cross them, though it is entertaining to watch from a distance.

Last night, some friends and I went to get massages at a place basically across the street from campus...I got a real Chinese head and hand massage for about 8 bucks. No way I could afford it in the states. There's a fairly large Korean population here in town and so I think at some point we are going to go and get really GOOD korean massages. If there's one reason to come to China, it's for the cheap massages.

Hope you're well!