Zhe ge, xi xue gui

Our study of the Chinese language is finally starting to pay off; we're unintentionally using Chinese words instead of English words. Let me illustrate with this example:

[Those of you who have been to China/have some knowledge of Chinese language will understand this most...] We're all eating together at a Chinese restaurant. Each time we order food it's a little bit of an experiment, we're never 100% sure exactly what's going to come. So we usually debrief as we're eating...about what we're eating. This time, we get a spicy dish with some orange-colored mystery sauce.
Carley: "Yeah...the orange stuff is actually pretty good"
Lydia: "What orange stuff?"
Carley: "....From that new dish"
Lydia: ".....Yeah, what orange stuff?"
Carley: "Right in front of you."
Lydia: ".........I don't know what you're talking about..."
[Both of our brows are a little furrowed, Carley's thinking, how does she not know what I'm talking about? and Lydia's thinking, what the heck is she talking about?
Finally, out of frustration, Carley fiercely points with a chopstick to the sauce and exclaims, "ZHE GE!!!!!!!!!"

On walking street last week there was a food festival (a lot like the Iowa State Fair,...China style), we had a lot of fun with friends walking around and tasting new food:

We avoided this stand, if you can see it has scorpions-on-a-stick, tarantula, centipede-on-a-stick, cockaroach-on-a-stick....
Yes, these are scorprions for eating....they were alive and moving around........
Xiao Long,....Lydia's FAVORITE food in China.



On the way to the food fair Lydia was talking to one of her friends about movies, specifically the movie Twilight. The word Xi Xue Gue 吸血鬼 was discovered (literal translation: blood-sucking vermin, aka: vampire), which meant Lydia was practicing silently to herself so that she could remember the term better. Later, her friend pointed out how weird it is to sound out this word to the other 70 people on the bus. I'd argue it's somewhat like hearing someone sound out, "Vam....Vamp....Vampire...Vampire....." softly to themselves.

During the torrential downpour Saturday night, we found the world's largest worm near our apartment. Carley: "WHOA!! Guys LOOOK! Oh, it's so huge!!" This picture describes Keeyon's reaction:


Also this week we (well, Lydia & Carley) had our first KTV experience. We're still wondering how America has not yet discovered the awesomeness that is KTV. There was somewhat of a shortage of English songs, but we were more than okay with singing Backstreet Boys and Avril (yes, most people just say Avril not Avril Lavigne,....I wish I was on a first-name basis with her too.....). We did find "Sweet Home Alabama", but the music video was just two random people with really bad acting on a farm. Carley and Lydia found it to be pretty funny:


One of our friends is hilariously blunt, and as she and Lydia were walking out of the plaza near where we live one night, we see this cat (you might note it's a little tubby). Our friend exclaims, "is that cat PREG-A-NANT??"

Random note: someone decided to tape a pink tiara on Obama:


We were SOOO excited to get a care package this week from CStone and from our loving parents! Thank you so much!