Today I was ready for a day mostly alone, alone time to clean up the apartment, pack, get a haircut, watch a movie, read, and write. Instead a student called at 10 am and wanted to have lunch. Then at 3 pm there was a singing competition where each department's students and teachers formed a choir to sing red songs. While sitting on a 2 ft high plastic stool, under an umbrella blocking the bright sun, I listened to ten of the twenty performances awed at the sheer numbers of people singing and watching. Then it was the last night in the Tree House, a sad goodbye to three years of being part of a community that taught me so much about China.
Lately I've been eating the same meal over and over again. Students learned that I like fish so they invite me to goodbye dinners with soups, stews, and plates of boiled, stewed, and fried fish. With my sitemate, we have been eating a lot of hot pot. I love hot pot because I can mix my own sesame dipping sauce at the sauce buffet.
Tonight though we had a very different meal. If we want something new, we usually go to a more expensive Chinese restaurant that has a picture menu. We ordered two dishes. The first one was raw leafy lettuce served with a super yummy peanut sauce that contained thinly sliced red hot chili peppers. The second dish was a variety plate of steamed and boiled vegetables- potatoes, taro, corn, salted peanuts, and edamame.
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