Hi, Friend.

Meet Zhang.

This is my new Chinese friend...and some fish.

Last week, while walking with a few other American students, we ran into these two Chinese students volunteering for the international student program at East China Normal University (handing out flyers for international students to attend the university if I correctly translated that?) -- a job that would definitely be paid in the US but since China has so many people, I guess they can find someone to do their dirty work. After stopping to chat with them, one thing led to another, and I made some Chinese friends. WIN.

So on Wednesday I met ZhangYu Ji for lunch, and my other friend John (who to be fair, met Zhang first) came along.

And some of our side dishes...

Looks pretty normal, right?


Snow peas...with bacon. I chose the broccoli.


Like most things I eat here, I don't know what this is, but it looks really cool.

The food was fabulous…and Zhang picked up the tab as his “welcome to ECNU” treat. This is part of the Chinese culture, but since I’ve read a bit about this before, I knew to try very hard to pay anyways, even though any Chinese expert will tell you that the Chinese will continue to refuse to let you pay. China is awesome.