Well, I guess I haven't written lately.

I thought it was odd that only as I'm starting to write this I looked at the date and realized it was Sept. 11. Nobody even mentioned it today; no memorial stuff here obviously either. Just weird considering how there's no way to avoid all the memorial stuff in the U.S.

All us laowai look alike
So, as suggested by my parents, I thought I'd talk about being a tall, skinny, white guy in a place where tall, skinny, white guys are less common.

• Foreign looking people (ie of European descent) are politely referred to as waiguoren (literally foreign people), but more often referred to by the impolite/rude term laowai (literally, it doesn't make much sense). My roommate explained it as calling Russians ruskies, or British people limeys, but I'm unsure of the exact level of offensiveness.
  

• Lots of people don't seem to really look at me or care, but a good chunk will stare as I walk by. It's way more common to get stares if there is a large group of us are walking somewhere.

• Coming back from Lianyungang, our bus was in heavy traffic and came up alongside a bus filled with Chinese. Lots of them stared, and when I looked back at them, some of them would look away all embarrassed. It's apparently especially embarrassing if you look back and smile, but in a situation like that, I couldn't help but smiling because it just seemed funny to me.

• As for clothes, people here dress very similarly, and I was surprised by how many fashionable people there actually are.

Food and studying
I seem to spend most of my time on school nights either eating, study, or watching the sopranos. I guess I talk to people too. But still, nothing exciting.

I've been increasingly eating baozi and guotie, which are different kinds of dumplings. I don't know the specific name of the baozi I was eating today, or even if it really was that or something else. Whatever it was has meat of some type and soup (probably mostly grease) inside of it. I ate some today and the soup squirted all over the place. Since most restaurants don't seem to believe in napkins, I got my hands and arms covered in grease.

Tonight, I had Indian food at a Punjabi restaurant. It was really good although really expensive. 80 kuai, in all, but it would have been more like 60 without a drink. I was thankful to just have a little variety in my diet. I ate lots of nan, and some things I also don't know the names of. One of these days, I'll order things myself and know what things are called.

I eat a lot at a place called Laodifang, roughly translates as old place. Stuff is relatively cheap, tastes good, and nobody from the program has gotten sick off of it yet. That restaurant is pretty much our dining hall--on any given day, at least a few people will eat there.