Having Fun All The Time

It is so hot in Fujian right now you could fry an egg on my sunburned back.

It is hot enough to melt the flip flops to your feet.

Then again, it is June, which is officially a summer month, I guess. It’s hard to believe I have been here for just a few days shy of seven months, but anyway.

I am shortly about to venture out to town with a couple of students to try and find some “Western” ingredients so that we can make tacos in class next week. Which I am excited about. The students always ask me what I used to eat in America, and I invariably have to answer Mexican food, because that was the staple of my diet (after mac and cheese, which they would hate anyway because of the cheese part).

I went to the supermarket by myself last weekend to scope out the food options and found some diced beef and “cheese” that tasted like cream cheese mixed with butter mixed with flavorless gelatin. So cheese is out. But I’m hoping that with luck we’ll be able to find the necessary ingredients for taco shells and salsa, and then we can fry up some chicken or beef and make approximations of tacos.

Things have progressed pretty well the last month or so, despite the lack of posts. I got my residence permit and reimbursement for the Hong Kong trip and an offer to stay indefinitely. Which is cool. I tried to get a new apartment on campus but found that all the other apartments are about in the same shape that mine is in, and when I asked if the newest building we looked at also had rats, I received the reply that every building has rats, with a chuckle. Luckily I have gotten used to them, and they haven’t been in my apartment nearly as much the last few months (mainly because I stopped leaving the screened window open at night, which somehow they were coming in through, although I’ve no idea how).

Next week I’m giving final exams and then family is arriving for a two-week tour of the country. We’re going to get out and explore Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Yangshuo, which is supposed to be one of the nicest and most fun tourist destinations in China.

And I think I am gradually fumbling my way towards being marginally conversational in Chinese. There is still a ton of work to do, but that part of life is always interesting and exciting as it progresses.

This summer a friend and I are gonna try to teach private English classes and that will hopefully bring in enough bread to at least cover my student loan costs for the next year, if it goes really well. If it doesn’t go well, I’m thinking that it will at least be a good experiment in trying to work independently here.

And I met an American who’s been living in this town for three years, volunteering at an orphanage that is somehow linked to his church back home. He’s my age and certainly seems to be doing good work here, so next week I’m going to go to the village where he works and hang out with some kids.

More later. Off to buy taco stuff.