Sally's 徒然草

Aug 2
I miss Shanghai!

Richmond is not as prosperous as Shanghai. Even in the downtown area, we have not seen many people or many restaurants or malls. To some extent, City born and city brought up, I am not quite used to the life here. I love seeing busy people, hustling cars, which makes me feel fulfilled. The life does not look like real life. I miss Chinese food so much. When I chat with my boyfriend, he always boasts off the delicious food he is having, which makes me so envy. I have already considered about the top 3 food I want to eat as soon as I reach Shanghai. The final paper and writing blogs almost everyday also drive me crazy. I can never imagine that I am able to write so many articles in English in such a short period, with such tight schedules. I got through it at last.

Sometimes, I am thinking that what I will do if I am in Shanghai this summer. Perhaps I will stay in the air-conditioned room all day long, watching TV dramas, eating and sleeping. Compared with the boring life in Shanghai, it is much more meaningful to spend the vacation here somehow. However, you will find something cherish once you lose it. That is why I miss Shanghai so much now.

July 28
Home Visit

It was the first time that I went to an American family. I have some American friends in Japan but I do not know what their real home looks like. We have already watched many American dramas but we do not know whether their families are similar with those on TV. Therefore, I was very curious to go and have a look at the real American family.

The home I went to visit picked us up late in the afternoon. It was about 20-minute drive from GRC to their house. They also invited a family that has been to Shanghai. Because they were not quite familiar with each other, all of us did not talk very much. My friends like the dog in their house very much while I was afraid of it. But the dog kept chasing me because my avoiding of him seemed to be a funny game.

The dinner did not taste good. But I tried my best to finish it off. When I came back to the dorm, I found that our home visit might be the most boring one among other friends. They seemed to have had a delicious meal. Some of the families they visited seemed to be rich and took very good care of the visitors. Some were even sent to a concert. Anyway, it was really appreciated that it was so considerate of them to invite another family that has some relationship with China.

July 31
We were robbed!!!!

We were introduced to the downtown area this afternoon. It seemed to be a place that sells expensive things. We were tired and hungry after the tour in the morning. So we decided to have a meal there. We went to a restaurant which looks Western and has many tables and umbrellas outside. Then, our unfortunate meal began.

The waitress for our table really served so bad, having us wait for the meals for a long time. We were so hungry that time so that we cannot help asking her to give us the dishes more quickly.

During the meal, the waitress gave us 1 cup of water which we did not order. We asked her to take it away but she gave it to us again. We thought it was free, which proved to be wrong in the end. This cup water cost 1 dollar actually. I cannot understand that why she did not tell us in advance. Did she do that only because we were foreigners?

What is more, I was overcharged and cheated by that restaurant. The price that I signed is our meal price that is 59.51 dollars, but the bank sent a message to me, saying that the restaurant charged me of 71.41 dollars. Perhaps the 12-dollar difference is not very much to an American, but I am really angry and sad at that restaurant. I trusted them, but what they repaid me was overcharging a student without income. I will not believe American restaurants any more. They gave me a lesson that I should pay in cash.

July 27
Do I have the talent to cook??

I liked hamburgers, sandwiches, and pizza in Shanghai so much because I turned to them occasionally when I was tired of Chinese meals. But if your main meal becomes hamburgers, sandwiches, and pizza, how is your feeling then? And how about keeping eating them 3 meals a day and 7 days a week?

GO CRAZY! Yeah, that is what I feel now.

I am such a lazy girl that I will not cook until I cannot bear. I have been in Japan for 1 year but I only cooked 3 times there. I thought I would not cook in such a short month at first, but the food here changed my mind. Most of my friends started cooking on their own last week, but I only relied on the food I brought from Shanghai and the fruit here.

Today, I decided to cook for my friends, because I always boast off my own made Chaomian that I once cooked in Japan. I went back to the dorm early this afternoon and started the preparation of the meal, such as boiling and frying noodles, washing and frying vegetables, cutting and frying meat. It took me over 2 hours to finish cooking the Chaomian. My friends tasted it, complaining that it was too salty to eat. After having the meal made by me, we kept drinking water throughout the night.

July 26
Crazy coin collectors

I did not find that the quarters in USA have different types until today. This morning, the coins in my purse seem to be my burden so I changed 4 quarters into 1 dollar bill with Billy who we call him “fatty fatty”. As soon as I finished changing, he showed off his different kinds of quarters to me, which made me recognize that the back side of the quarter coin has different names of state on it and their designs are various. I began to regret that I changed 4 different designs of quarters to him at once. I asked him to return those quarters to me but he refused, which made me so sad. It is said that the total number of the designs is 47 including 2 commemorating editions. One of my friends told me that he had already collected 43 kinds of quarters, which push me to make a decision to collect at least 45 designs. I started the crazy collection in the afternoon, using the way in which my friend taught me.

I put a one-dollar bill into the automatic selling machine and push the button of “return” so that the machine will turn the bill into 4 quarters. If the quarters are of different designs, I will collect them. If not, I will put the coin into the machine again and push the return button in order to get a new design. Some of my friends found it interesting to obtain the different coins by the process and also followed me to do so. We became really coinholic today. Even in the museum this evening, because the museum is much smaller than we had imagined, we got so bored and started to find the automatic selling machine again. I believe all the machines in our dorm and classroom building will get crazy if we continue our coin collecting. But it is of great fun to get the different coins in groups.

July 25
Why Americans cannot speak good Japanese?

Today, I found the answer at last. I went to a bookstore today and passed by the corner of Foreign Language Learning accidentally. The curiosity tempted me to learn how Americans study Japanese. I still remembered clearly that how poor Japanese Americans speak when I was in Japan. The American friends in Japan always complained about the Kanji of the station name to me. At first, I was quite wondering why they could not make out the different stations. They told me that they learned Japanese in alphabets (Roman Word of the pronunciation) so that they could not understand the real Japanese Kanji in Japan. They thought their alphabets were easy to remember but the Kanji has too many different structures to remember. I could not imagine what they had said that time. Our Chinese Kanji is quite similar with the Japanese one, or you can say that Japanese imitated Kanji from China. Therefore, it is comparatively easy for Chinese to learn Japanese. Even some people who have never learned Japanese can understand some Japanese words.

I opened one book for dumpers to learn Japanese. I was really surprised to find that the whole book was written in ALPHABETS. Oh, my god! (T_T) That is why Americans cannot understand Japanese Kanji. Even their learning book is not written in real Japanese but in alphabet which they are acquainted with.