Anecdotes

A couple days ago, I took the Dalian tram from our university towards the downtown area. I found it to be far superior to the bus. It's larger so there are more seats, and it's actually air conditioned - which borders on miraculous in China. It's also quicker. And you're not subject to the whims of Chinese drivers. We've been in buses that have made some pretty crazy moves. It would be neat if more cities in the US had a light rail system. I know they are building one out in New Jersey near Jersey City (close to NYC), but it's definitely a very nice system. Smooth, clean, and efficient. Maybe $5/gal gas and we'll think about it...

C and I ate lunch at KFC today. KFC is hugely popular here. Apparently the Chinese love their fried chicken. All week we've been eating native, but after a few poor meals, I wanted a little bit of western food. The biggest problem we have is that unless a helper is with us, we can't read the menu. So we stumble through with our rudimentary Chinese and hope to get the message across. On Tuesday we ate dinner at a local place and ordered a chicken dish which the waitress said was their specialty. Well, their specialty consisted of a few vegetables and every part of the chicken you could think of, NOT including any breast meat. There were feet and ribs and God knows what else. There wasn't anything edible though! But even at the local restaurant that has an english menu, you can get surprises. At least there I was able to avoid ordering the fried pigs blood.

One of my students asked me today if "all americans are tall, handsome, and blue eyed like you".

Some other students asked me what I thought about Taiwan. I was briefly tempted to push for Taiwanese independence - kidding. I told them Taiwan and China should be come one, but only through peace. I think that placated them. The secret police can calm down.