After that, I was invited by some students to go out to Henan Provincial Museum, which is really close to my school and is supposedly the 7th most important museum in China (although I have no idea how that ranking was worked out). They took me out for lunch first at the same place my students took me on my first day of class. It seems that restaurant is pretty popular among the students. It's called "A-liren" and it's a chain, as I saw another one downtown yesterday. Anyway, this time I made a slightly better go of things and didn't splatter everything everywhere, though I still got tomato soup all over my face.
I actually had lunch with two groups of students: the ones who had invited me to the museum later and also a shy girl and her guy friend who had followed along in our wake. Her guy friend seemed content to just eat noodles nearby, but the shy girl was very nervous and extremely intent on everything I did. She asked me a few hesitant, tentative questions while we ate and otherwise stared closely at every noodle entering my mouth. I should say that this isn't uncommon. Apparently watching a foreigner eat is fascinating stuff. The nervousness also isn't all that exceptional. Many Chinese people feel nervous when talking to me. The others at the table were more lively, but still nervous and shy at first. I think they are mostly worried that their English isn't so great. Anyway, I felt sorry for that shy girl, because she seemed really interested in talking to me, but just couldn't make the words come out. I hope I can make her feel more comfortable in future, as I don't want my students to feel I am not approachable.
The other group of students gave me their nicknames: Li Li, Sha Sha, Xiao Hong, and Nan Nan and told me to wait for them at my apartment, where they would meet me when they were finished classes at 4pm.
At four, I came downstairs and met the girls outside, but one of the girls appeared to be someone I hadn't met, so I asked who she was. It turned out to be Li Li without her glasses on. She was the girl who was most interested in taking me out and I didn't even recognize her without her glasses! She was disappointed and I felt pretty embarrassed.
We walked the fifteen or so minutes necessary to get to the museum only to find out it closed at four. How disappointing! Anyway, we went to a nearby park and watched some elderly people dancing. My students all wanted to pose in pictures with me, so we took many photos.
After that we 逛街 (guang jie), which is the perfect way to say "strolled the streets" in Chinese. Shasha bought me some 包子 (bao zi) which are huge dumpling-shaped buns stuffed with some ingredients (mine had mutton in it - 羊肉 yang rou) and Li Li bought me stinky tofu on a stick 臭豆腐 (chou dou fu). It pretty much felt like we were grazing our way across town in a herd. We ended up at a restaurant about 10 minutes east of my school by bus that served a really excellent variety of 四川 (si chuan; szechwan) food.
The girls wanted to find a place to play cards after dinner, so I invited them back to my apartment. Apparently many people here don't know that "poker" is a game, not the deck of cards itself. So they asked me to play poker. I said sure and they proceeded to explain their rules. About 20 seconds into their explanation, I realized it wasn't poker at all that they wanted to play, but rather a variation on the game "A-hole" that we play in North America. Instead of having a president, vice-president and whatever, instead they just play neutral rounds over and over, and whoever loses has to sing a song or do a dance. I never lost, but I sang along with them anyway when I knew the song. One of the girls couldn't think of a song, so she did an elaborate choreographed dance in the middle of my living room. She's very talented.
I had to go to bed relatively early that night, but most Chinese people go to bed pretty early anyway. So after the girls said goodbye, I went straight to bed.
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