Western Dinner, Part 2

The past two weekends we moved our western dinner celebration to Chinese homes as some of Kevin's old friends from the Number 15 Middle School wanted to host us for dinner.

Friday night it was back to the Western-style restaurant with a bang. With eight foreigners gathered around a large table, we probably represented about a quarter of the Zhanjiang expat community.

Kevin, Jamie and Irene joined us once again and this time we also welcomed Arthur and his wife Anna, hailing from Uzbekistan, as well as the newest addition to the Zhanjiang foreign community, Lindsay.

It was quite interesting to have everyone at the table speaking fluent English but with at least four distinct accents. It was a good chance to come together and practice our English. I tend to start sacrificing some of the nuances of the language in the classroom in order to be understood. Many times, I may resort to a number of simple key phrases, such as "I'm going shopping," in place of a more elaborate explanation. Of course, If I wanted to speak true, fluent Chinglish, it would be most proper to say, "I go to shopping." By the time I come home next year, you may not understand my speech any longer!

Adding a little more color to the evening was a minor flare up regarding the state of Ukraine in the post-Soviet era, where Jamie (who had previously taught there) and Arthur enlightened the rest of us through debate on the stark contrasts between eastern and western Ukraine.

The evening was going well until near the end of dinner, we discovered that beers were 20RMB per bottle (small, 12 oz. ones) and that as a group, our beer tab for the evening was greater than our food bill! Nevertheless (had to use it since it was a new vocabulary word from today's English class), we had an enjoyable evening.