Vanguard

Last night was grocery night. The school arranges transportation for the teachers to do their shopping once a week. We went to this place about 20 minutes away called Vanguard. One thing that I've noticed about China is a high level of conformity. Vanguard is no different. Everyone enters the grocery store on the 4th level and there is one general direction of traffic as you weave your way down to the third floor and checkout. In most stores back the the states it is a free-for-all as people enter through the door marked exit and scramble back and fourth through aisles. I guess with the dense population that China has, it would be impossible to freely move about the grocery store on a busy weekend. It's more efficient this way: like an assembly line.

I finished my shopping about an hour before the bus would take us back to campus. I wondered around outside for a while and saw a group of people doing their exercise/dance ( I really don't know what to call it). This dance thing is really popular over here. I've seen it in pretty much every city that I've visited. It reminds me a lot of the line dancing that we would do at our barn parties in Walla Walla. It was hard for me to not join in on the fun. Not only would I have been the only person under 60, but I would also be the only male. Next time.

After I watched them dance for a while, I went back inside to the KFC. I strongly dislike KFC but I only had a few options. I ordered some milk tea, fries, and a chicken sandwich. I sat in the corner and people-watched as I ate. Soon I noticed a few girls looking at me then looking away and giggling. There isn't a huge population of foreigners in Wuxi. In fact, when I see a foreigner, I usually give them the nod and they return with a nod. It's a weird sort of expat camaraderie.  Anyways, one of these girls gets up to order a coffee. She gets in one line, then as it gets to her turn to order, she gets in another line. She does this like three times. Finally she gets her drink and brings her tray to my table. I clear a space across from me and she sits down. This was an obvious dare and the poor girl barely new any English and I know even less Chinese. I couldn't help but chuckle because her eyes were facing the ground the entire time and her friends were laughing at her from their table. I was able to get her name out of her but I forgot it about as quick as she said it. I couldn't pronounce it anyway.

Finally, her friends came over and sat down with us. You would think this girl was having a panic attack by how nervous she was. We all introduced ourselves and they asked me questions about what I was doing in Wuxi. They ended up showing me a picture on their phone of the original girl, and asked me "does she, like boy?" I took this as "does she like boys?" I answered "yes" I immediately realized that they could have been asking me "does she look like a boy?" I Caught myself and said. "You are all girls, I assume you like boys." They just looked at me. Confused. They hung out for a while and mostly spoke Chinese to each other. I could tell that they were trying to come up with something to say to me but they didn't seem to agree on what it was. It was all kind of awkward and hilarious at the same time. The girl who seemed to be the one who made the dare, left first to go to school (at 8:00 at night?). And the other two girls continued to talk in Chinese for a few minutes. I was bracing myself for whatever question they had been discussing for the last ten minutes. Finally, they said "we are going shopping now" and left. I look forward to more awkward situations that are sure to come.