Yesterday, I got a visit from Li Jie, the deputy dean of the international program. I was curious as I followed him to his office; maybe my Chinese is so bad I'm being kicked out? But no, he actually wanted to invite me to dinner.
Tammy's (a friend in Washington who grew up in Jinan) father and mother, Li Jie, another woman from the school, and the deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office in the Shandong Provincial Education Department and I went to a fancy hotel restaurant for dinner last night. I'm not really sure why. I think Tammy's parents wanted to thank me for bringing some items from Tammy to China and also just to show their hospitality. They were both teachers at my school some time ago, and more recently, Tammy's dad was the president of another local university. I felt nervous hobnobbing with these well-connected people, but they were very warm and kind, like everyone here. Fortunately, Li Jie speaks English, so he helped me, but I was mostly in the dark.
The food was delicious, very fresh, lots of seafood and vegetables, some things that I had never heard of. The wine was also delicious and there were lots of toasts. I just smiled and did what everyone else did. Eventually, the dean of the college showed up as well. Strange. And tonight I'm eating instant noodles in my room because I caught my roommate's cold and I just don't feel like going out into the sub-freezing weather.
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