Hey again, this is Zoe, back with your extremely rare and usually excessively long update on my life...

Last weekend I went back to Suzhou with my host family, this time for Angel's great-grandfather's 90th birthday. In China, like the US, ages with 0's on the end are a big deal, so they went all out. The family owns a hotel and the entire ground floor was filled with tables for the banquets (yes plural). The guest list was 200 give or take.

We got there in the evening had dinner and went to visit with the family before heading to bed. They have a two year old daughter who is absolutely adorable and sosososo much fun to play with. She also thinks that my existence is really fascinating which is also fun. She calls me "美国姐姐" "Měi guó jiě jie" which roughly translates to America older sister.

I don't think any of the rest of the family remembered my name from the last time I came to Suzhou, so they decided to go with the flow, and use the name the two year old picked. So now all of my host family's Suzhou relatives call me America older sister, no matter there age. I had to work not to laugh when I was talking to Angel's 70 year old great aunt, and she called me big sister.

The food was amazing, but I thought that I might explode I ate so much. We got up the morning of the birthday party and went out to breakfast. About halfway through a pretty hearty breakfast my host father looks down at his watch then looks up and announces "two hours until the lunch banquet" I think I choked on my soy milk.

Two hours later, as promised we went down to the hotel dining room. There was a huge table set up in front with massive heaped plates full of different things, each of which had a symbolic meaning at birthdays. I think I caught the meaning of about half of them. There was a massive amount of mien, or noodles. They make special noodles for birthdays that are extremely long. You are supposed to eat them without biting the noodle. The longer the unbitten noodle is the longer the life. There were also peaches, which also symbolize long life. There were also fish, ham, tangerines, rice cakes, candy, nuts, and a statue.

We sat down to lunch at 11:30 and we ate until 1:30. It was absolutely delicious, but I could probably have not eaten for another month and been just fine.

We then went back to our rooms until 5 when we reported back to the dining room for dinner. When we got down they had rearranged the room and instead of the table filled with birthday foods there was a small table set up with incense and a statue on it. In front there was a large cushion on the ground. Every single person who came did a 叩头 "Kòu tóu" (traditional Chinese bow) before the table. That was the only overt sign of religion that I have seen from my host parents since I came to China. And, in fact, one of the first signs of religion period, that I have seen outside of a temple.

Next they took a family photo. The photo only included people who were directly related to Angel's great grandfather, but by the time there were done there was a wall of probably 40 people smiling for the camera. This just brought home again the idea of how important family is in China.

Finally we sat down to dinner, which was another 3 hour mean. Although again, it was insanely delicious. Suzhou has great seafood, although I guess it is lake food, but I don't think there is a good word for that. We had individual crabs, lobsters, and assorted shellfish, all of which were amazing.

We were sitting at the main table because with Angel there it made for generations of the family at the table. Every dish that they brought to the main table had a beautifully carved fruit/vegetable sculpture on it. I know that sounds odd but the were incredible. The soup was served in a hollowed out watermelon peal with Chinese poetry carved into the outside. There was the traditional Chinese god of old age carved out of what I can only assume was the biggest sweet potato to ever be seen on this earth. there was also a peach tree, and fish swimming around a rock, all carved from vegetables.

After dinner there were a bunch of balloons left over, so I ended up playing a huge game of balloon volleyball with all the kids in the immediate family, which was really really really fun. And, this being China, about halfway through our game they set off a ton of fireworks and we ran outside to see them.

The next day we headed back for Shanghai. First we went out to lunch with the family. We went to the "Eastern Lamb Restaurant" which made me really happy, because I love lamb. However, eating with people outside of my host family broke my usual law of food in China: don't ask, don't tell. I don't ask what I am eating, and you don't tell me what it is. It is a really good policy, since I promised myself that I would try everything while I was here.

So I was eating along, and a new dish came out. It looked like flan, so I decided to think of it a s flan. When I tasted it, it even tasted like flan. Then my host uncle leans over and asks "would you like more of the lamb brain and eggs?" I was NOT happy. I was already well into eating it, and I finished because, well, it was good, but some things I really just DO NOT NEED TO KNOW.

The great grandfather had grown up and lived his entire life in Suzhou, so he spoke 苏州話, Sūzhōu Huà, the Suzhou dialect. It is only since the Communist party began to push for it in the 50's that Mandarin became the official language in China, and although most people in major cities and a growing number in the countryside can understand when they hear mandarin and speak fluently it is still no where near what English is to the US or French to France. Most people still know their home dialect and speak it frequently.

If someone tells you they are learning Chinese, my current opinion is that that is pretty much a lie. You can learn Mandarin, which will allow you to get around China, but there is nothing you can learn that will allow you to communicate with everyone in China.

At this point I can pretty much make myself understood in Mandarin, although pretty much without tones. I can recognize 上海話 the Shanghai dialect when I hear it spoken, but can't say anything besides good bye. So when you throw me into a room full of people speaking suzhou hua I am absolutely hopeless. You mind as well send me to Tanzania and ask me to converse in Swahili.

I am actually very interested in Shanghai hua. I have heard it described as the strange child of Japanese and Cantonese. It has pronunciation similar to Both Cantonese and Japanese, but no tones, as in the case of Japanese.

As I try to learn Chinese I, like the other students, have come up against not only language differences, but basic cultural differences. At one point there was a fill in the blank question in class that said "the two men could not lift the sofa because________"

We answered "the sofa was too heavy" Which was incorrect. The right answer was "they were not strong enough" Which I thought displayed a very interesting difference in mind set.

In the United States we tend to assume the cause of something hinges on factors out of our control, while in China they have a very deep belief in individual responsibility. I think that it stems largely from the sheer amount of competition there is for everything. If you can't get a job it is your fault for not being able to beat out all of the competition.

Another example of this happened just a few days ago. One of my classmates mentioned in the teachers hearing that a test had been "hard" My teacher turned around and told him that "no test is hard, one is only unprepared for it."

During the course of a small group discussion Megan and I found out that one of our classmates, another American from Indiana, lived in the complex across the street from us with his wife and two sons. So on Thursday he invited us over for dinner.

It was absolutely amazing. It felt a little odd the be in an American household again though. First of all their house was HEATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Energy is extremely expensive here so one of the things that people do to conserve energy is not heating their houses. My room for example is currently 52 degrees according to my bedside alarm clock. Their house on the other hand was nice and toasty.

Then we had dinner. We started with Salad with vinaigrette, bread and cheese. Then there was oven baked chicken breast fillets (with spices I could name), and sauteed potatoes and bell peppers. That might not sound that impressive, but after three months of straight Chinese food (which I love don't get me wrong) it was MIRACULOUS!!!!!!!!!

After dinner there were BROWNIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Real live, baked in an oven, warm and fudgy, brownies. Our home stay houses don't have ovens because the Chinese don't use them, so baked stuff was amazing.

Afterward we played Scrabble, which was also a blast. Though it did bring home to me the fact that my English is getting a little bit rusty. It took me a while to think of words.

They have two sons one is two years old, one is two months. They are both incredibly adorable, and I had a lot of fun playing with them.

Overall it was a lovely break from my usual routine.

I just took a break to go to lunch with my host father and had one of those priceless moments that just need to be recorded. I am living in China, so for lunch we went to get Japanese food, where the waitstaff were all wearing Santa hats, and Britney Spears singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" was playing on loop. It was just to priceless.

We had our usual weekend party at Nate's house last week. Him host family is friends with the man who is the head of the Shanghai paper cutting guild and "The Master of Shanghai Arts and Crafts" according to his business card.

He deserved the title. The sat down with a piece of paper without any markings and a pair of scissors. He then proceeded to cut one of the most intricate paper horses I have ever seen without ever once lifting his scissors. It was incredibly impressive. He told us that to learn to cut paper he would practice for 6 hours a day.

Tuesday we had an early morning culture class and went to Jing'an Park to learn Taiji. It was incredibly interesting and fun. One of Eric's (our teacher's) friends has studied Taiji for 9 years and he took round to meet some of his teachers. Watching them practice was amazing. If I had as much control over one muscle as they have over every muscle in their bodies I would be happy. Their movements were incredibly beautiful, but at the same time so strong and controlled.

I had never really thought of Taiji as a combat art, although I knew it was, until I saw one group of people practicing Chen Style and one of the teachers came over and talked to us. She showed us what a few of the motions meant, and after that I could see that every motion served a purpose either as a blow or a block.

Friday we had our last culture class of the semester. Our teacher had a friend in town who is a Muslim Chinese or Hui. He is also a photographer and he came to do a presentation for us. The dynamics between the largely atheist Chinese population and the Muslim Chinese that he discussed were fascinating. I would really like to go out to the very far west of China and see for myself, but it is so far from Shanghai and so difficult to get to, that I don't think I will be able to.

We took a class picture last week and I will try to post that picture and a few others soon.

再见！ Bye!