xia wo le yi tiao!

"you scared me one jump!" She said as I offered her a chair from my table to pull to another table.

I was outside sitting in an open courtyard reading my children's story. I'm a slow reader right now, that's for sure, but at least I'm trying! A woman was standing by a table that had all four seats taken, I was only one person at my table, so I offered her one of my table's chairs in Chinese. She was taken aback. The Chinese don't often expect to hear Chinese come from a laowai. She refused to take the chair, but then a middle aged woman at the other table said I should come over. I put away my elementary story about a boy very ready for school to start after a long summer vacation and brought my chair over (grabbing another for the standing woman, of course).

Turns out this woman had brought several people (including myself) together at this one table. None knew each other before sitting there. There was a couple, the middle aged woman and her daughter, and the girl that was standing. I sat down and they just wanted me to speak Chinese. I could do alright until I'd use an English grammatical structure, and they would have no idea what I was trying to say. Other times I completely blanked on the word I was trying to use. 

They gave me some ideas of where to search for jobs online. I'm going to try those in search of internships. Something like that might be able to get me get a different visa. And then find my own place, though staying at Grace and Paul's is very convenient, probably not for them though! An internship should also be less hours or part time depending on what the position is for, thus leaving me time to travel around China a bit!

This middle aged woman, named Zhang Fang, the one that brought us all together, had some of us exchange numbers. One guy didn't really want to exchange, but did so all the same. Zhang Fang's daughter joked about wanting to practice her English. I'll probably get some sort of call from her. That's what most people were after last time I was here. I want to meet a Chinese person who doesn't like speaking English, or doesn't know it that well. I'll have to keep searching. And, at the same time, just stay open to whatever comes.