My China Dayze : THESE PEOPLE MATTER TOO and misc.photos. (The other page is full and started to misbehave. 6.22/ 7.06.14)

Just back in Shanghai, Xuan An, her son Han Xi and his girlfriend Jing Jun invited me to lunch on this, my last Sunday and full day here. We ended up in the French Concession on Middle Fuxing Road. Lunch was delightful and we talked about everything imaginable from the good and bad of Highline to the poverty in Shanghai (or lack of it), dancing and the loud music in Shanghai to government condemnation of private property to students and textbooks and more.

They seem like such a cute couple, I couldn't decide which pictures not to post.

_______________________________________________________________________________
My last Saturday in Shanghai, Lisa He and her husband Jack picked me up with her daughter Faith and her nephew "William." Lisa taught at Highline in 2007-2008. We all went out for lunch at Yuan Yuan restaurant, which is in the Marriott just a few blocks west of the Grand Gateway Shopping Center. I've walked by there a couple times and have ridden the school bus past the hotel but never really noticed it. It should be said that they had good food, not heavily flavored but handled delicately for the most part. Here are Lisa, her husband, and the gang of us.

_____________________________________________________________________________
People in the background don't always get noticed. Sometimes they are shy. Sometimes they are so busy, they are hard to track down. Here is one of the two maids who clean my room and leave me more than the authorized two bottles of water a day (we don't drink Shanghai water, of course) and extra soap and extra shampoo, and extra mosquito repellent. We can't communicate, but somehow we do. She said something this morning, and I said, I'm sorry I don't understand, turned, realized what she had probably said and turned back and said TWO, raising my fingers. And she responded two fingers raised and gesturing over her head as if her arm were flying away, and I said yes. yes. Two more days until I catch a plane and head east.

_____________________________________________________________________________
Thank you, good bye, dinner. Eight of us got together for dinner. Four were out of town,, and were missed. Here are the wild or boisterous characters! (It's funny, but we ate and talked for three hours or more, laughing and having a good time, but to look at these photos, you'd think we were at a wake.

Kevin

Kevin ordered the food. Good job, Kevin!
I can't remember everything, but here is a partial, if not close to complete, list.

blue berries over cold white yam
sweet and sour fish
jelly fish
crab meet with vegetable
dry salted pork belly
stinky tofu (except for this; almost
         everyone else loved it. They
         slathered in in hot sauce.)
fish soup
deserts.   spring roll
   and durian pastry

It was continuous eating.
for three hours.

Fanglin

He Yan (I never say her name without using both first and last.)

He Yan, Ding Yaping, and Wenjie

Li Yi, again.

Every time I see this fish (the third time since I've been here), I think--A fish with dreadlocks!

Yaping

front to rear...Xiaohong, Xiaoliing, and Fanglin

Yaping, Wenjie, and Kevin

Wenjie

Fanglin (left); Xiaoling (right)

ONE MORE PHOTO FROM DINNER:

GRADUATION CLASS PHOTO FOR THE ACADEMIC WRITING CLASS

Ma Ying (Cece), Yu Hongyan (Summer), Zou Futai, Zhzo Huiyu, Tang Zongming (Joyce), Yu Jiying, me, Huang Cheng, Lu Yuanwen and Wang Yuxing (George)

MEET JANE ZHAO, who is coming to Highline College this fall for two quarters.