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Apparently juzi have dropped in price.  Remember a week ago when I bought 5 kuai worth of this tangerine-type fruit, and surprisingly went home with more than 20?  Today my 5 kuai turned into 50 juzi.  Oops.  That's gonna take me a while to eat.

My other new favorite fruit to eat here is something I just discovered: dragon eyes.  (Seriously, that's the name.)  If you've ever eaten a lychee, you'd understand why I like these dragon eyes.  They are very similar, except that the outer peel is thin, smooth(esque), and light brown.  Okay, so from the outside they don't look anything alike.  But inside, they both have that juicy translucent white fruit around a big smooth pit.  Mmm.

The Japanese claim to be a homogenous people.  The Chinese have never claimed such a thing, since officially there are 56 ethnic groups across this vast, diverse country.  Understanding that, can anyone explain to me why every Chinese person gets their hair cut on the same day?  Really.  It's a holiday.  And to make it even more official, it's even based on the lunar calendar!  So, everybody mark your 2009 calendars... the second day of the second month on the lunar calendar we have to all go get our hair cut.  (If only I knew when that day will be...)

Speaking of hair, let me just say that it is incredibly strange to get more compliments on my hair on the days that I don't wash it than on the days I do.  Creepy.  In the U.S., if I don't wash my hair on a specific day, people just think it looks greasy and gross (which is what I think).  But apparently here it's the preferable style.  I get more compliments those days.  But I won't complain; it means those mornings I get no hot water in my room (or even no water at all, which is even more exciting) I don't have to be too self-conscious going out.  But note to self: don't forget to revert back to washing your hair every day when you get back to the States.  Greasy hair is not okay there.

One of my English classes on Monday was telling me that they often play soccer matches against the other classes here at LiaoDa.  Despite the ridiculously cold weather, they apparently play at 8:00 a.m.  That turned out to be great timing for me, though, because I got to go watch them for a few minutes Tuesday morning before heading to my Chinese class at 8:30.  Can I just say, it was so much fun to have an entire soccer team stop in the middle of a game to wave and say hi to me!  I think it made their day that I showed up to support them, even if it was for only a few minutes.

Yesterday was marvelous.  A Korean friend of mine asked me recently if she could give my number to her Chinese friend who wanted to meet an American.  Of course I said yes, that I'd be willing to meet him, even if I might not have time to tutor him or whatever.  So anyway, yesterday we met up.  I'm not entirely sure why he wanted to meet me, because I had imagined it was to practice his English.  Turns out we ended up spending 2 full hours talking (with a second Chinese guy there as well), but 95% of the conversation was in Chinese.  Sweet!  It was awesome to be able to practice with interesting native speakers.  The only down side was that some of the things they talked about, I really really wished I could have understood better.  They were giving me their perspectives on certain issues in international relations and politics, as well as on various cultural differences between the East and the West.  While I understood enough to follow along generally, I really wanted to understand fully.  Oh, to speak this language fluently!