What A Semester

Did you two know you were selected for a Beijing Municipal Scholarship? Congratulations--you're making us look good!

Scott Galer

 

Two days later and ¥1800 richer, we are eating cake and enjoying a little celebration party. Picking up that cake this afternoon we were a little surprised: “I don’t remember asking them to put those girly flowers on top… Didn’t we ask for a budha?” All well. This kind of thing just happens in China and you just don’t make a big deal about it. After paying the man, Josh pulled a few extra yuan from his wallet:

Me: “Oh, and here is your tip.”

Man: What tip?

We lay the tip down on the counter and run, while he yells at us to stop and chases us to the door. We’ve realized that Chinese workers don’t expect tips and usually try to refuse when you offer them. (Which makes us want to tip them all the more.) What a day! Was buying a self-congratulating cake a little over the top? Yeah, probably… but this is CHINA!!

To top off the evening, we decided to have a slumber party. You know those security cameras in the hallways you’re convinced nobody actually watches? They do here in China. (An incidence of my roommate riding a bicycle in the halls told us that.) I thought it rather cleaver the way we blocked the view of the hallway camera during the four second window it took to smuggle a mattress down the hall into our bedroom. We have fun!