making friends in China

On my last night in China, I discovered the easiest way to make friends in China. Sit in an internet cafe with English prominently displayed on your monitor. Eventually, someone will sit beside you and start reading and making conversation. Exactly as 19-y.o. Xiaolaoshu did in my case. It was particularly fun since Xiaolaoshu speaks about 10 words of English so we had to make do with my Mandarin. In fact, we've already exchanged a couple of emails.

Having internet access also facilitates conversation. Babelfish from Altavista is helpful. Google Earth is a big hit but, unfortunately, it doesn't cover any part of China I've looked up.

I was also able to find a way to display the images that I have previously posted on my blog. Several were a source of great amusement for Xiaolaoshu, including that little paragraph in pinyin and characters that I wrote about a weekend. I was pleased that the pinyin seemed funnier than the characters. Xiaolaoshu also had a good laugh at a picture of me and Dion, although, I think he was just laughing at Dion because that is when I pointed out that Dion does not speak Chinese.