March 23; breaking barriers

Day 47

In my comparative literature class, everyone is expected to introduce themselves through a presentation. It was my turn today and ahead I went  to talk about myself and Scarborough with my very hoarse voice. After class, a classmate approached me and said she was too kei jia (Hakka Chinese). Apparently, in her 2-3 years at the university she had never met another Hakka person and she was so excited to have finally met one. I was pretty darn excited too!! I never thought I'd meet a Hakka person so soon, let alone meet a group of people who actually knew what Hakka was (well actually, someone in my class was nice enough to translate Hakka in putonghua. I guess Chinese people know what Hakka is if I say kei jia instead of Hakka...).

We discussed some differences in terms of how friendship forms in Canadian life and Chinese life. In Chinese culture, it takes more than a few classes to invite someone out for lunch. Friendship is a slow process. In Canada, it can take as little as one meeting before someone invites you out for lunch. We don't need to like-like someone before hanging out with them. I guess North Americans are pretty chill when it comes to these things. Personally, I like the North American way of doing things. 

The girlies were planning to go for hot pot and as they were inviting professor out, I took my chances and invited "my friend" to join us. With great success, we had our professor and two new friends joining us for lunch. Yay, we're breaking barriers!

warm soy milk

beef, fish, and my favourite -- leaves!

It was a sponge-y cake sort of thing. Pretty flavourless actually.

bean curd - you drop this beauty in your soup. Unfortunately, it tends to unravel when it's ready to be eaten.

at the end of the meal, you have a choice of either popsicle or gum. I couldn't eat cold things since my throat was bleeh, so I took the stick of gum.

We went our separate ways after lunch. While they went back to school, we went shopping to a new place. Xidan is a huge shopping district downtown Beijing full of designer things. Although things are expensive here, I'd definitely make another trip here to wander around the lively streets.

Heeey, it's J.Leto!

now that bag looks familiar....

Inside the market, there was a K-City =)

After a day of breaking boundaries, we ended up within our usual boundaries in WDK with our wonderful foreign teacher friends. What can I say, China keeps getting better.