Zhu ni sheng ri kuai le

Hey everybody, I hope everything is going great back home in the U.S. I have been really busy the last week. Leewen has started their summer session of classes, which means that I have been extremely busy. I have been working seven days a week on top of 10 hours of Chinese language lessons. Don't feel to sorry for me though because I am not working very many hours every week, they are just spread out through seven days.

Thursday, June 22nd was my birthday and my roommates threw a party for me. We bought a keg that cost a grand total of 60 yuan, or $7.50. They also made some mixed drinks for the people who do not drink beer. Qingdao is a city that draws a wide array of individuals from foreign countries. Most of these foreigners tend to go to the same bars and hangouts, resulting in the establishment of a nice sized clique. For my birthday my roommates invited several of them. A fellow teacher that I am taking my Chinese class decided that it would be a good idea to sing happy birthday to me in Chinese. There were several Chinese people there so they helped us foreigners to the sing the words correctly. So we began "Zhu ni sheng ri kuai le, zhu ni sheng ri kuai le." This was pretty funny, but then there were two girls from Russia and they volunteered to sing the song in Russian. Then a Chinese person that knew Japanese sang the song to me in Japanese. Then a Korean girl sang it to me in Korean. This continued around the room until it got a little ridiculous. I had the birthday song sang to me in ten different languages including English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, German, Rumanian, Russian, Hebrew, Spanish and Australian. Now I am not an idiot. I know that Australian is not a language and they speak English in Australia. We all decided to count Australian because they sang a different song. "For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow! So say all of us." It was all a good time. One of my roommates bought me a birthday cake, I put the picture at the top.

One day last week during my free time I went and toured the Tsingtao Brewery. Tsingtao is the most widely drank beer in China and it is the beer that is most widely exported out of China. However, it was recently bought out by Budweiser. I have noticed it is almost impossible to get to far away from home. Especially considering that I have met four people from Missouri since I arrived in China. One of which knew where Macon was and had been there before. Below, I have put a picture I took of an old Tsingtao beer advertisement. Notice the Swastika that was used as a symbol for the beer. Before anyone gets all excited and remembers back to Nazi Germany and their use of the Swastika, try to remember that the symbol was used by Tsingtao prior to WWII. The Swastika was originally a Hindu symbol representing the sun, without which there could be no life. It also is facing in all four directions which symbolizes stability, and groundedness. Adolf Hitler took the symbol from the Hindus, which would result in its use being taboo through most of the world.

Thanks to everybody who sent me emails and facebook messages for my birthday. I have been having a great time. My classes have been going great. I am going to take a few pictures of one of my classes and put them up sometime so keep an open eye. I will probably wait till Saturday because that is my favorite class.

Quote of the Week

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."
Oscar Wilde