Amusing Misunderstandings

It has been a while since my last post and I am leaving tomorrow to go on vacation for 9 days, so I figure I should probably take a minute and check in with the outside world. I had midterm exams this week, which I am very happy to be done with. Don't worry, I did not let them get too much in the way of my having fun, as I managed to still get out and finally go boating on West Lake and also had my first lovely tea house experience. The tests themselves were stressful, because when it comes down to it, Chinese is pretty much impossible...but in a really fun and amusing way. Meaning it is funny for others when you mess up and end up saying something that is completely different from what you intended to say. For example, my friend Ande asked the gym attendant if he wanted to see his bathroom, when he really meant to ask if he wanted to see his student ID (an honest mistake), and another friend Guo An was confused when he was told that a restaurant was on the 8th floor of a building. When he asked how could this be, a restaurant so high up, PeiPei told him not to worry, there was an elevator. Neither of them understood why everyone else found this interaction so funny. It is also possible that it doesn't translate that well into English, but I think it really exemplifies the hilarity of cultural misunderstanding (which is the good side of cultural misunderstanding that allows us to laugh at ourselves and gain some sort of perspective).
Last weekend I also went to my first college dance in China. Yes, they have them, and they are fabulous. Words really can't describe. When my roommate told me about this dance I tried to get her to give me some sort of insight into what kind of an occasion this was. She really gave me nothing to work with. When I asked her if she usually went to these types of things, she said no, but if I wanted to go she would go with me. A few other Chinese students that I asked gave me the same reply. Obviously, I never turn down a dance party, and so we gathered a group of people together and after a brief pre-dance dance party we set off, having no idea what to expect. Truly, anything that we could have expected would not have come close to what a great and ridiculous time it was. When we got there they were playing games that involved blindfolded people and fruit and eventually involved blindfolded boys feeding this fruit to their female partners. Seriously, amazing. After the game playing was done, a Chinese boy who could dance(kind of a rarity) taught the Chinese students how to chacha. They focused so hard on learning and it was really, really amusing to watch and ofcourse stumble around trying to learn ourselves. Then, ofcourse, the techno music came on, and I have to admit that I have done a horrible terrible thing... I brought the Macarena to China. And a little known fact is that you can pretty much do the Macarena to any techno song ever. It spread like wildfire and soon there were far too many Chinese students techno Macarena-ing. After the techno, the DJ ( called Deep Breath Lovers Space) slowed it down and the Chinese male population found this an ideal time to swoop in on the unsuspecting foreigners and invite us to dance. My dance partner was very nice, although we had a small misunderstanding when I thought he told me his English teacher's name was Loser (it was Louisa) and I could not get him to understand why Loser would be a silly name. At the end of our dance we parted ways, and when he bravely asked me for my phone number I had to honestly tell him that I don't know my own cell phone number (an excuse that would not fly anywhere else because it would generally not be true.) Overall, a great dance experience, I would highly recommend it.
Tomorrow I leave for Kunming in Yunnan province where I will be traveling this week. I am really excited to explore around and not worry about work at all and see another part of China.