(Written 8/27/06)

SO MUCH, SO HAPPY

I was picked up at the airport by three folks; my boss, a fellow teacher and a helpful man with a car whose name I did not catch. My boss is a very intelligent man whose passions include sailing in the Mediterranean and speaking as many languages as possible (as one needs to import “foreign” here, and considering the pretty penny they’ve spent on me, they can only afford an English teacher at the moment). My fellow teacher is a beautiful sprite of a woman who is so outgoing and warm that she claimed she couldn’t sleep the night before she came to get me because she was so excited to meet me. She could be the mayor of Jinyuan town for all the people she knows and she’s a fellow English teacher. Frankly, I love her silliness and look forward to working with such purely warm people.

They brought me back to my massive apartment where I met (the gorgeous) tech support guy, I took a brief shower (where I became familiar with the sulfur-scented water) while everyone waited in my living room and then we went out to dinner.

My boss made claims his English is minimal, however he seemed to be keeping up pretty well and I made no small secret of the fact that no matter how bad his English, it is far better than my Chinese. In fact, I explained that he could understand me when I spoke slowly but I could only understand him if I drank a lot of beer. He caught that and we all had a good laugh.

So much food was brought out that I thought I would pop. I sampled some of everything. My boss kept insisting that I eat more until finally all I could say was, “There’s so much! Everything is so much!”

Apparently this was the right thing to say as a great, proud grin spread across his face and his announced, “That makes me so happy!”

And this has become our code language. My fellow teacher, my boss and I all now have our own call and answer. When I am truly happy with something, I say “So much!” and they respond, “So happy!”