0010 7-19-10 (but talking about 17 & 18)
So yesterday we had a full day of classes which meant I really didn't have too much to talk about so… I didn't BUT one ironic thing did happen to me. So I was sitting there in the class room eating my lunch playing on my laptop (thanks grandparents, I would have been in a real bind without one), when all of a sudden one of the Chinese girls came up to me and wanted to know if I was Christen. Of course I politely informed her that my name was not Christen, it was indeed Kevin. Now this seemed a little odd because I talk a lot in class and pretty much everyone knows my name.
But she looked rather puzzled and looked at me again and then back to another Chinese girl sitting behind me and repeated her question to her. They talked for a moment or two and I happen to catch the other girl saying "Christian," and of course then it snapped. So I explained to her that no I was not Christian yadda yadda yadda. She then asked how I could tell if someone was Christian just by looking at them and I explained that you really couldn't, but if they were wearing a cross or a fish symbol there was a good chance that they were.
Then she further puzzled me by asking what denomination I thought she should be. Well of course this launches me into an explanation about the fact that there are many different denominations and there's no way I could simply tell her that this is the one she should be etc. Turns out though, after about half hour what she really was looking for was what type of Christianity was the most popular in America, of course there really isn't an answer to that one two but I listed off a few I knew. Anyways I just thought all of this was oddly ironic, but it made me smile, and no, I didn't take the opportunity to try to convince her to join the Dark Side or anything like that. I did find out why she's Christian though, apparently her grandmother was Christian but her mother wasn't until one day her mother got a really bad tooth ache and the doctors couldn't fix it, so she went to church and asked Jesus for help and then the pain went away. Go figure.
By the way, apparently there's a different branch of Christianity here in China then there is in other parts of the world. If I had more time here I would be really interested in hearing how the story has changed.
During class though I actually gave a presentation on the various risks I think China is facing which I gathered from China's own book of statistics. The big one was economic disparity between West and East, gender ratios, over population, environmental concerns, use of cars, and lack of funding in education. Of course there are others that I would like to have mentioned, like the housing bubble, but I had to use stats found in this book. The reaction from the class was pretty good; one of my classmates even mentioned that he thought I had "a better understanding of China then most Chinese," I guess you can't get a better compliment then that.
Let's move on to today. Today was my last Risk Management class, compounded with the last dinner with the French. In class one of things we discussed was starting a non-profit consulting company within ECUST, I actually really like this idea and think it could be applied to universities in America (German universities are already doing this) sadly I'm not sure Hendrix would be a good fit, but maybe we could our Accounting and CompSci students could be the consultants. Something to think about. I then got to have the joy of taking my test an hour after the class was done. I think it went alright though, so I'm not too worried.
Then I relaxed in my room for a bit and soon found myself heading out with the French kids, and Charlie for dinner (Sophie and Nathan would join us afterwards cause they were on a dinner date). We went back to the Korean place that we went too last time where you got to grill your own food. Clement touched my meat… it was then that I came to an understanding that Americans and more specifically Texans, do like people touching our food without permission, certainly not our meat. I think this was compounded by the fact that this was the closest I had gotten to cooking in five months and it was almost like a sacred ritual for me. Luckily I got over it pretty quickly.
Once we had consumed our food we headed out to the bund was last time. Once we were there we posed and took photos with about three Chinese families and generally just had a good time. Nathan and I discussed video games, moding video games, and how in the world can you screw up a game about Star Wars or D&D. Then on the way back we talked about the stagnation of Japan, what would happen if America was invaded, and aliens. We are Geek.
Father should now be on his way over here, tomorrow I'll meet him at the airport, but until then I really should get some stuff together. I intended to do it tonight but then dinner thingy came up. Night.
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