Bu fang rou

Bu fang rou. That's about all I can say in Chinese after my first language exchange class with one of the customer relations staff member, Ray, today. It means "no meat" which is a very important thing for me to say. I can also barely say "I'm hungry," "restaurant," "I want to order food" and "porridge." I'm not going to learn any of this quickly. Chinese is spoken from the front part of the mouth and most Americans speak from the back of the mouth, so it's pretty hard for me to just repeat. We went to a porridge restaurant for lunch and the people around us gave me a few amused looks as I tried to talk. Ray speaks English fluently, but would like help with some of her grammar and writing and is interested in American history, so I will be teaching her a little bit about those things. She has the harder job of this language exchange, for sure!

I spent the rest of my day off at the gym and cleaning up my apartment. My landpeople showed up tonight to collect my rent. They enjoyed saying "Hello" to Bartholomew again.