Xiamen University official welcome

Don't you just love the "pile of books" fountain near the gate to Xiada? It is so perfect for Michael. We actually spent part of the day in the Xiada bookstore perusing the availability of English language books -- there were some classics and best sellers and way too may Danielle Steele. The children section had a fair number of picture books with pinyin (that's Chinese written out phonetically using the Roman alphabet) and characters, also a poster of the beginning characters that Thomas will be learning in Mandarin class, which we acquired.

The purpose of this walk was to digest the enormous lunch we were served today at the faculty restaurant on campus. It started out that we were late because I was giving Thomas the business for teasing Helen for the 11th time, but everyone really behaved well and the food was delicious and the conversation lively. In attendance were the two contacts from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange who are in charge of our accommodation and adjustment to life here, Tian (who travelled with us from Beijing and is already a great favorite of the children's) and Cherry, who has been handling logistics like arranging for Internet service, drinking water delivery, visa updates, etc. The professor from the Philosophy department who is Michael's contact person was also at the lunch and acted as the host. We drank some toasts with a very smooth red wine from a Chinese vineyard. For those who are curious, I'll tell you what we had -- sorry I didn't take any pictures of the food. We had batter fried shrimp (with the heads still on BTW), a Sichuan fish hot pot, steamed baby bok choy, clear seafood soup, a tofu and fish dish which Thomas ate a ton of, stewed beef, fried rice (not at all like we get in the US, mixed with lots of lightly cooked veggies) and assorted pickled stuff. For dessert we had a karo root "soup" with tapioca in it. The kids all like it -- we had some in Beijing at some other official dinners. Helen gets a kick out of all the little dishes at her spot at these fancy dinners and the turntable with all the food on it -- she was a source of amusement b/c of her willingness to try everything. On our first night in Xiamen she had eaten the head of a fish, including eyeballs when Tian told her it would make her smarter and have better eyesight.

I had an interesting conversation with Cherry and Tian about China and Japan. Since Japan is the place where I first encountered Asian culture during a summer program in high school, I inevitably make a lot of comparisons. I am finding that in general, Chinese people are different from the Japanese, and in fact seem to have more in common with Americans in manner and style of communicating -- they are very direct, even nosy - quite opposite the Japanese who are very private and restrained with new people. Tian pointed out that Americans think big and that is more similar to the Chinese as well.

One more shopping update for those who are wondering -- I did find Parmesan cheese today at Metro, which is a big buyer's club like Costco or Sam's Club. Although it was very expensive ($3 for a skinny can) and 45 minutes away, it still felt like a victory. It was also nice to get a little cheese and fresh milk. And we finally found coffee, and discovered that we don't need filters -- the post has one of those gold cone-shaped ones in it. I don't think we will shop there much -- just too far and it feels ridiculous to pay triple what we could pay if we chose more local dishes and ingredients. But its there when we get homesick.