After the lovely lunch, it was time for Mandarin class, so I thought I'd grab a half dozen of egg tarts from a local bakery and bring them to class. In my mind, it was the equivalent of bringing doughnuts to work. Who doesn't like doughnuts or egg tarts for that matter? And who doesn't like the person that brings in doughnuts? Well, I walked into class, very proud of myself that I was doing something extroverted. I plopped them on our conference table in front of everyone and said "Happy Friday!" I then grabbed my own and began to gobble it down. I looked around in the middle of eating my egg tart, relishing the deliciousness, only to realize no one else had grabbed one. I timidly finished eating mine, wiped the remnants off the table, and dove head first into my Mandarin book, not looking around for the rest of the class.
Had I done something wrong? Is bringing treats to a public gathering not acceptable? Was everyone else on a diet, and didn't want the cholesterol filled calories that an egg tart brings? (This might be a legit answer, as one of the other students is very slim) Do they not like egg tarts? Or just things that taste like eggs? (I think this was the answer for the other student).
At the end of the class, the two other students did end up eating them, most likely out of pity. Plus, the egg tarts were cold by then, and a cold egg tart isn't nearly as good as a warm one. I guess I need hospitality lessons from Drew's parents. If his mom had set an egg tart before me, I would have eaten it, because I knew it would be good, and I knew she was showing me that she cared. It takes tact, and it's something I need to learn. Needless to say, I went home with four cold egg tarts, which drew and I promptly devoured.
Ok, enough about my egg tart sob story. Few other things I forgot to mention over the past few days, and some cultural tidbits.
When we went to that UofM happy hour the other day, it was in a super nice mall. In the middle of the mall, they were having a fashion show! I've never seen a real live fashion show in my life, and I'm a secret admirer of Americas Next Top Model, so this was exciting for me.
I saw my first really tall Asian guy. Notice in the picture the height of him compared to everyone else around him. Then compare the height of his head to the height of the subway door.....
We found this hole in the wall place for lunch the other day. It was like a teenagers basement hangout that served weird food and drinks. Notice the foosball table, the projector screen and comfy couches for seating. I bet that place is swarming with teenyboppers around 12pm. They also had several large cases filled with action figures. Recognize any of them?
Cultural tidbits
1. Grand Opening Flowers. Whenever a new shop opens up, the other competing stores in the area set up a large display with some kind of "welcome to the neighborhood" sign. Seems weird to welcome your competition, but it's polite.
2. Using dehumidifiers. It's so humid here, that you have to run a dehumidifier in your house 24/7 to keep mold from growing. Yuck. We run ours continuously, and get about a gallon every 6 hours. If mom were here, she'd be using the water on plants, but I don't have any plants, and water isn't a precious commodity here. In fact, ashtrays here are filled with water instead of that gravel stuff we use in CO. Could you imagine if we used water? It would evaporate in an hour, the cigarettes wouldn't go out, sparks would fly, wildfires would start...Catastrophe. Here, they probably don't even learn the word evaporation in school, because it never happens :) that's not true, the school system here is impressively good, much harder than in the US.
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