Thursday: Today I bought a bike for 305 kuai (50 USD) with another student. His limited Chinese and my severly limited Chinese somehow made it work. I know how to say “that one, how much money?” There wasn’t very much bargaining because it was their cheaper version, but they threw in a basket and a bell for free. I tried for about 20 minutes to have them raise the seat up higher, but I guess they couldn’t find or order any long seat bars. It was definitely made for tiny Chinese people, but the locking kickstand, sprocket gaurd, and splash gaurds on both wheels are nice. It cuts down my commute time to class from 18 min to 6! And now I have a key for my dog bottle opener keychain!
I went to a restauant with three other people without a translator. We ended up pointing to pictures we thought looked good (nothing with eyeballs) but were pretty clueless all around. The service wasn’t very good, especially after we had to ask for plates twice. The first sets were wrapped in plastic supposedly making them cleaner, but for an extra charge. I was pretty proud that we didn’t fall for that trick! I think what we ended up eating was liver, but we’ll never know. Next time I’ll bring someone that can speak Zhongwen (Chinese — pronounced jong). Lesson: Don’t fool myself about ability to survive comfortably and independently at this point.
Later I ran on the university’s track and noticed the Chinese flag flying from the pole. That was really weird for some reason. I did do 4 laps in about 4 min 30 seconds … it wasn’t a US mile track, haha.
Tags: bike, Food, helpless, language, realization