More Random Thoughts:

1. When people sneeze in Chinese, no one says “God bless you.”
2. Most days, I don’t spend any money and when I do spend money, it’s only about $1.
3. One evening, around dusk, I went to turn the light on in my classroom.  Then I realized that the light was already on.
4. Key changed her name to Kay this week.
5. Sun changed her name to Vita.
6. I told the students that they are not allowed to change their names anymore while I am here.
7. There are some universal expressions used on campus; “it is a pity” is a popular expression.
8. The Chinese language has sounds that I have never heard before.  So when I walk though campus, I don’t hear words, just unrecognizable sounds.  One day, I was walking with my student and she said to me, “Do you know that man?”  “No”, I told her.  “Oh, he just said hello to you and you didn’t answer him.” My own language isn’t registering with me at times.
9. My students only know two worlds: China and the USA.  They have a slight bit of information about London and Germany.  But they never heard of Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, Burma, South America or Canada.
10. My student asked me if I owned a gun.  It is her impression that every American owns a gun and she can’t understand why we need guns.
11. My students tell me on a regular basis that they want to travel the world, just like me.  I ask them where they want to go.  They want to go to the US and Tibet.
12. We have a three day holiday this week for Tomb Sweeping Day.  Students go home to their families and honor the dead.  But in order to take this holiday, we have to make up all of our classes on Saturday and Sunday.
13. On any evening, students may be summoned to a class meeting at the whim of the class monitor.
14. The foreign faculty makes $5000/year.
15. Most of the employees in the university live in the dorm.  The foreign faculty dorm is filled with small apartments.  The Chinese faculty lives in the student dorms with the three bunk beds.  They don’t have six to a room.  They usually only have two adults to a room.  But the three bunk beds stay in the room.