day 2 of orientation

I am already starting to settle in. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought some necessities (fruit knife, tea, water bottle, hangers, etc) and this morning I joined a local gym. This morning I went to the gym and picked up some fresh fruit on the way back (4 nectarines, 2 plums, and 2 mangoes for $2!).

Then the group went to the Chinese Academy of Science, a government agency that is a partner with NSF in arranging this program. We got the standard power point presentation and were told about the cultural differences between the US and Chinese- for instance the way that we address envelopes- and how that will help US and Chinese scientists learn from one another. They treated us to a banquet meal for lunch that was pretty tasty - interestingly we were served red wine and salmon sashimi.

After an afternoon at the Chinese Museum of Fine Art and a rest in my room, I joined the entire group for a dinner with traditional Chinese performances. We went to “Da Jiao Men”, a newish building styled as if it were old with beautiful décor. I sat down to a sumptuous meal with between 15 and 20 different dishes.

About halfway through our meal the performances started. The beginning was kind of lame, some cheesy (definitely catering to tourists) martial arts, a mask dance, and a bit of Peking opera. The highlight of the show was definitely the acrobatics although I find this to be visually disturbing as it just doesn’t seem right that one can contort their bodies that way. We were all discussing how the girl’s anatomy must be pretty distorted. There was some heavy drinking that continued for some in front of our hotel. In any case, the party moved to the basketball court on campus – with some surprisingly good shots for the state of drunkedness – until two security guards called an end to the ruckus..




forget bending it like beckham, can you bend it like this???!!!