Woke this morning just before 1000AM. I needed to do some laundry and saw that Feng Yao Feng had already did his, as was evidenced by clothes hanging on the bars outside our windows. There was a bucket with white, cloudy water setting in the wash room, so I dipped in my hand to smell the contents. I concluded that the cloudiness was from laundry detergent that had been mixed in. Maybe FYF hadn’t finished his laundry, so he left the water there so he could complete the task upon returning from work? But he’s a nice guy, so I figured he wouldn’t mind me using his water.

I washed my clothes and hung them outside the my room. The clothes line was dirty, so I had to re-wash them all and clean the line. Just as I was finishing, around 1130AM, FYF returned from the company to pick me up for lunch. I asked if he minded me using his water. No, of course not, but it’s dirty, he said. We had a laugh over the ordeal and I was content to have my clothes relatively more clean, knowing that the heat I would encounter soon after I wear them wuld create such an outpuring of sweat from my body, that it didn’t much matter if I used clean water or not.

I took a quick shower and we headed to the company. All the employees, with the exception of Li Yang, who stayed back to answer the phone, and I went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. After lunch, Eva accompanied to some stores, where I bought supplies for the apartment ( e.g. plates, bowls, broom, toilet paper, clothes hanger, etc.). We surprised everyone with ice cream for a mid-afternoon snack. CH and Eva excorted me to the ATM and then dropped me at the apartment to unload the supplies.

After 6 weeks of letting my hair, and with the sun beating down on me everyday, Eva and I ventured across the street to a hair salon - “Tiger, Tiger, Tiger”. I’m pretty flexible when it comes to my hair style, especially since I’m travelling. And being The People’s Champ that I am, I excpeted that there might be some micsommunication between myself, Eva, and the hair stylist and, in the end, I would, more likely than not, walk out of the salon with a Chinese style cut. Well, the stylist had different thoughts and he gave me his version of an “American” cut - think Zack Morris from ‘Saved by the Bell’.

It was bu hao (not good), so I told him shave it all off. At that point, all eyes were really on me. The hair hit the floor, but my confidence was through the ceilign when Eva said how handsome I looked with my new cut. 20RMB and we were outta there.

Back to the office and after some travel research, myself, Chun Hao, Qi Yu, and Chun headed to a restaurant that, not to be outdone by the coffee shop named “Good Wood Coffee”, boasted “Big Bones”. It was a meat fest and we had to where protection in the form of a plastic glove. We crushed and dropped the others at the company.

Qi Yu drove me to meet Li Yan, who was having dinner, drinks with her co-workers, clients. We drove with her manager, Mr. Dong, to a KTV spot. Everyone was welcoming and the clients (as translated by her) said, “We don’t understand English and you dont understand Chinese, but just relax and enjoy yourself. We can can communicate by drinking and singing. And so we did.

As older gentleman, government workers, and I presume, CCP members, they belted out old Chinese patriotic songs praising Mao ZeDong and the Red Guard, while I showed them that ‘Backstreet’s Back’ and Mariah has a ‘Hero’. In the end, as Li Yan told me, I adapted well to them. But, to be honest, I don’t believe it is as much my ability to adapt as it is their openness and warmth that allowed us to have a great time together despite our cultural and language differences.

We took a stroll, a woman and a boy stopped us. Caught a taxi home.