The star pupil in one of my classes asked me to go out with her family, and a couple of days ago I went. After accepting her invitation I felt a little weird, as I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hang out with my students, and she is only 12, so I wasn't really sure what we would talk about. I ended up having a good and interesting time. I went out with her mother, who is an internalist at Qingdao university medical school, her father, who works in the local tax department, her 9 year-old brother and her 15 year old cousin. Her family picked me up in their car and drove me to a plaza near number 1 beach. There we ate at KFC, because her family wasn't sure if I liked CHinese food. The meal was a strange combination of fast food and Chinese hospitality: the family ordered almost half the menu for me, and kept putting more and more food in front of me. In total, I ate a chicken burger, some chicken wings fried and baked, french fries, corn, pepsi, and ice cream. And that wasn't even all of the food they kept trying to give me. It was somewhat embarrassing, the mother would take food away from the children and offer it to me. When they heard I didn't have a cell phone, the mother offered me her old one, and even though I refused, she still said she would give it to me. After dinner, we went to Zhong Shan park, or "Yat sen" park named after Sun Yatsen (he is "Sun Zhong shan" in Mandarin). Currently there is a latern festival, I don't know if it is a local holiday or nationwide. The park was full of displays made of silk stretched over metal frames lit from behind with lights. Many elements of Chinese traditional culture were represented, like dragons, pheonixes, flute players, (although no erhus). We spoke a random combination of English and Chinese, both the parents actually spoke a fair amount of English given that both said they didn't speak any English at all. We talked a bit about religion, and traditional Chinese culture, especially the Zodiac. IT's funny. I'm never sure what questions are polite to ask people, but almost the first two questions people seem to ask me are "what's your religion?" and "how much money do you make?" The second is a little embarassing for me, considering I make more than most people in Qingdao. For example, my student's mother makes 3,000 yuan a month, 2,000 less than I do, and she is a doctor. I also served as a walking Chinese-English dictionary. It was good for my self esteem to realize that I knew so many words, sometimes I even surprised myself by saying the word. Of course, there were the words I didn't know, and sometimes some funny charades or explanations so I could try to think of the word. Some words I guessed on, I hope I am right. THe best was when my student asked me how to say "qi li" in English. I asked what it is, and she said it was an animal with the head and body of a dragon, fins, and the feet of a pheonix. I told her that there wasn't a word in English, let me know if I'm wrong.
We walked through the park and the parents took pictures of us in front of almost every single display in various combinations, one combination always being me by myself. When they send me the photos, I will put them on the blog. We went going even after they turned off all the lights, because the mother found that the silk reflecting in the flash still looked nice. We were not the only ones doing this, it seemed like everyone in the park had come there for the sole purpose of photographing their family in front of various different lantern displays (and often pushing other people aside in the process). I suppose I can never complain about the picture taking at a family function again, given that our picture taking routine pales in comparison. One really amazing display was one of a fish, dragon and pheonix (the three lucky animals) made entirely out of dishes. Plates were scales and feathers, and spoons made the legs, etc.
All in all, I had a surprisingly good time with the family. Now in another class a boy (who is actually one of the worst students in the class and constantly acting out) invited me to go to Lao Mountain (a famous small mountain nearby), so I'll see what happens with that.