But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!

An inevitable question that I get when first meeting a new students is, "What is the difference between Americans and Chinese people?" Usually, I give a very cookie-cutter answer about something such as college life, study habits, or work ethic but the truth is that the differences are so vast and complete that a true collection of my reflections on the subject would require volumes of discussion.

During this new semester I have had the chance to spend even more time with students and friends than in the previous one. Amid this flurry of eating at restaurants, sipping on tea, gaming at internet bars, and just general "hanging out," I feel that I have gleaned even more insight into the clashing of my culture with that of the Chinese. Take the other night for example. The Baoding team was out to dinner with some new students and Ryan's camera batteries had run out. Upon realizing this, a student quietly commandeered the batteries, went into the bathroom, and came out a short while later with some severely disfigured remains of the original batteries. When questioned as to what exactly happened to alter the shape of the empty batteries, he calmly replied that of course he had bitten them so that they would last longer. The other Chinese students at the table accepted this as a general fact while the rest of us were unsurprisingly quite shocked. Not only would we never consider putting a battery in our mouth's but biting a metallic entity that contains acid was frankly beyond the scope of our imagination. I turned to my student (coincidentally also named Tim) and further questioned him about the risks involved in "battery-biting." He replied seriously that one must not bite the batteries in excess of three times or risk bursting open the dangerous interior contents. Judging by the seriousness of his remark I asked him whether this was an action that he regurlarly took with his own batteries. With joy he told me that when he was younger he used to read under his bedsheets with a flashlight so that his mother wouldn't realize he was still awake (this resonated with me for obvious reasons). Oftentimes his batteries would run out and of course he could not simply stop reading at an exciting point in the story so he would engage in "battery-biting" in order to continue his nightly ritual. Amazing.

Last week we went out to celebrate my friend Scofield's 22nd birthday. Consequently it was actually his 21st birthday if you aren't counting by the lunar calendar (don't ask me to explain that one, still trying to wrap my mind around the concept). From what little I can grasp of the subject, Chinese people count the year prior to their birth (stretching conception from 9 months to a full year??) as their first year of life. Therefore, my friend Scofield who was born in 1988 is turning 22 in 2009 in some way due to the lunar calendar reckoning. Go figure. We went out to our favorite dumpling restaurant, lovingly called The Golden Dumpling. in China, the birthday-person always treats his/her guests to dinner as opposed to being treated themselves. Not only this, but they also ridiculously overcalculate the amount of food required to feed the amount of people present in order to show their generosity to their friends. A delightful idea but also one that ends with yours truly feeling sick from overstuffing myself with far too many dumplings for this little doughboy to handle. The evening really was perfect though and one of the many times where I am just so thankful to be in such an amazing place as this. We got to see "happy birthday" in English and Chinese and they even had an electronic candle that blossomed in the shape of a flower when lit, playing a happy birthday melody for us to sing in unison to. Consequently, the cute flower got on my bad side when the melody would not cease playing for the next 30 minutes until its small battery was playing a garbled mockery of the song itself into nothingness.

I could tell a hundred stories about these funny side notes that happen in daily life here. It has been a fun and growing experience to learn to adapt to the differences that arise from interacting with people who come from an entirely different culture from your own. I relish the opportunity to be an encouraging and uplifting influence on the lives of the people I interact with here and ask for your thoughts as I continue to live life to the full with my exponentially growing amount of friends here!