the rents

My parents arrived a few days ago from Tokyo and came from Chengdu to Nanchong where they will be until the end of the week. They're staying at the Wan Tai Hotel, Nanchong's finest four-star establishment at a whopping 198 kuai a night ($25). It's actually a very nice hotel, though at one point it took some work to get the window to close.

It's been raining nonstop the last two days, too. It was almost as if Nanchong knew my parents were coming and intentionally made the weather miserable. It's really cold and damp and like all buildings on campus, there is no heating whatsoever. It makes for an interesting classroom. I can't imagine having to wear a winter coat to class in the US, but sure enough each and every student today had on a thick jacket to keep warm.

It was really great having my parents in class. Foreigners are such a novelty here that having multiple ones in a room together interacting is a mind-blowing experience. I invited my parents to visit and present something to the class if they wanted to, and they immediately agreed. I prepared a powerpoint slide of some pictures that my mom used to talk about life in the DC area while my dad discussed a personal story and had the students advise as to how the various characters in the story should have acted. It worked great, and it was a perfect lighthearted introduction to the semester.

During the break between class periods, I mentioned to my parents that it might be a good time to ask some students if they would like to come to eat hotpot with us after class to which my parents agreed. As they were all new students from a new class, I wasn't sure of what the dynamic would be like at dinner. Most Chinese students are comfortable with spending time with a professor or teacher outside of class, but not necessarily with a foreigner, his parents, and only after meeting him an hour earlier. I asked the entire class of about 38 whether or not they would like to come and around 15 raised their hands. At the end of class I reiterated that it wasn't obligatory to come and if you wanted to go, no matter the number, it was fine. To our surprise, as class ended, all of the students got up and left the room and none of the stayed behind to go get hotpot! Then as I was planning to take my parents by myself, a group of students returned to the classroom and said they wanted to go. The dinner was an experience for them, not only hotpot, but the interaction with the students. I only regret that my parents weren't inducted into the pig brain club - kudos to myself (president), Ethan, and Sigma. They were very against eating any of the strange delicacies you can order on the hotpot menu.

Hopefully it will stop raining tomorrow...