Awkward

Ok, I'll admit it...occasionally when I'm having a conversation in Mandarin I nod even if I don't completely understand what the person is saying. If I have no idea what they're talking about I usually tell them, but if I feel like I have a vague idea I just try to ride the wave of conversation....occasionally this causes some awkward fails though...enter recipe for disaster:

-me, having worked from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and exhausted/a bit stressed and distracted and having just taught an English Corner on politics and the American legislative system (hard enough to teach to Americans!)

-cute barista, who looks so cute that I have a mini panic-attack every time he opens his mouth...

Setting: nighttime in the coffee shop after English Corner

I am going to pay for my dinner. Usual exchange of pleasantries and payment, and I turn to walk away.

"Julie!" He calls after me. "I want to ask you..."

I walk back over. "Erm..." he looks slightly awkward and then proceeds to ask me about something. "Do you know...*something*" Now for whatever reason I cannot understand him very well (he speaks a sort of locally-influenced version of Mandarin anyway). However, I think that I have the jist of what he is saying. I answer what I think he is asking. I say, "I have a friend who should know." He says something else. I pull out another conversational trick, which is to ask "Why?" As in, "why do you ask?" Well, that failed because whatever he was saying, when I said that (with my best attempt at a cute grin) he turned red, grinned, and said, "No reason, I just feel that they're better to look at than the Chinese ones. Nevermind." At this point I was totally lost. I thought we were talking about cell phones, I really did. It occured to me later that I have no idea why he would ask me about cell phones. Fail. It turned out later that he was talking about design. sheji. not shouji. Listening fail. I still have no idea why he was asking me about design. But whatever. I salvaged the conversation by inviting him to eat Mexican food.

Intimacy I Didn't Want?

The saga of the cute barista continues...

A few weeks ago I told him he should drink chamomile tea because he said he couldn't stop sneezing. Well, I guess he decided to return the tea advice favor?

When I'm working on projects he usually brings me surprise drinks to try....last night he brought me a new kind of tea...I couldn't quite place the flavor. "What kind of tea is this? It's really good!"
"Oh, I'll bring you some more!" *comes back* "It's blueberry." Gives me a knowing smile.

I promptly google blueberry tea's uses in traditional Chinese medicine..used to recover strength annnd....for urinary issues/overactive bladder.

Does this mean that he noticed that I was getting up to pee every twenty minutes? I guess so....

I would like to offer my services to the businesses of China...just as someone to serve as an ear to run things by before opening a shop called, for instance, "LSD Cafe" (Little Sweet Dreams Cafe, but the abbreviation is LSD), or, this:

It certainly did lead to an interesting conversation with my local friend when I burst into laughter. Unfortunately she now looks at me and says this phrase whenever there are males she wants to demean around.

Swimming

If you have seen the movie "The Green Hornet", you may remember a scene where
Seth Rogen, as Britt Reid, and Jay Chou, as Kato, fight…the fight ends when they fall into the pool and Kato reveals that he can’t swim. To many people, that would be a “huh?” moment…a martial arts expert can’t swim? Really? But to any who have lived in China, you will know that it is actually extremely common for adults to not know how to swim. It’s becoming more common as a hobby, but many of my friends can’t swim, and their parents never had them take lessons because it was dangerous. If you don’t live around water, I suppose that makes sense, although it seems more dangerous to me that if you potentially ever fell into water you would die.

I have been attempting to teach a friend to swim in the evenings after she finishes work…I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit humorous to watch her attempts…but she is learning. (a young boy we met last time was not as polite as me and did a rather mean but hilarious imitation of her flailing her
arms in the water). Slowly but surely she is getting to where she can at least sort of keep her head out of the water though, so I am happy that she potentially could survive in water without drowning. We'll keep it up, it's good for me to practice as well! I didn't want to go initially, after all, that pool is not heated and I am a subscriber of the Chinese philosophy "don't get cold, you will die", but I'm glad I have been going.

Another highlight of experiencing swimming as a foreigner is that you get to have the naked in front of a bunch of Chinese people locker room experience, which, surprisingly, I have become completely comfortable with. More on that another time.