这几天

On Sunday night, I went to a party with one of my dad's former students. The party was another kid named Joe's birthday party. Understandably, I had some difficulty answering the "How do you know Joe?" question:

"Well, I AM Joe, but - uh - my dad's former student, whom I just met tonight, somehow met Joe... - sighs - I don't know Joe."

The party was actually pretty fun. It was definitely the most multicultural event I think I've ever been to: I met people from France, Lithuania, Italy, Germany, Japan, US, and - of course - China.















On Tuesday, I went to Zhouzhuang with my neighbors and their friends for the day. Because this week everyone in China is off of work for the National Holidays, Zhouzhuang was ridiculously packed. Chinese traveling is something I'm not sure I will ever get used to: you're led by a fast-talking tour-guide with a megaphone through hot, crowded tourist attractions, which mostly exist as places for humorous photo-ops (i.e. sit down at this ancient wealthy Chinese person's desk for a picture).

We all had our fortunes read by monks at a temple we visited. This was very bizarre. You "donate" some amount of money to enter a big room lined with people waiting to talk to one of the 7 or 8 monks reading fortunes. They give you one of about 12 possible pieces of paper with Chinese writing that the monk reads to tell you your fortune (mine had the character 上 on it - my neighbor tells me this is good). If you buy a gift for a monk you can go to the front of the line in front of all those who merely "donated". When the monk finally got to me, a lowly donor, he told me in hushed, fast Chinese that I had a stubborn personality and needed to open up to my friends more. I thanked him and wondered how many of the hundreds around me would get the same advice.