Jinzhou

Jinzhou is a tiny little town, but I love it.

 

In these past few days, my cousin's g/f, Qianqian, (who's practically part of the family already) took me around to show me the town. We went bag shopping and I got a nice little black bag that's a tote, yet folds into a cross body bag -- only 45 RMB, but ngl, it's kinda really crappily made. I don't expect it to last more than half a year. But whatever it's less than $7. I also got a pair of little Asian earrings: a black rabbit face, and a smaller rabbit face to make a pair. We then went to an arcade to play. It's interesting to note that even though the arcade games are in China, a lot of the normal arcade games, House of the Dead, Suzuki racing, etc are still in English. Therefore they're still hard to understand for a lot of the kids here... it's funny that they dont' understand the concept of a hostage situation and that you're supposed to SAVE the hostages :) I think the best part of the day for me was going to get our nails done. Manicure, nail polish, and the cute little snowflake designs on my fingers -- only 15 RMB a person (~$2 a person!)

 

However, the entire afternoon was still a little awkward for me. The Chinese have very strict social practices: since I'm younger than my cousin and since I'm a visitor to the area, I cannot spend a single penny -- not even on taxi fare. I find it incredibly frustrating b/c throughout the day, with lunch, my cousin's girlfriend spent about 250RMB, which to her is a lot of money (like spending $250 to us), yet to me, it's not even $40, which I would happily spend in her stead since it all means so little to me. Yet in the Chinese tradition, they have to "save face" and be able to spend the money on me to show that they can take care of me, etc.

 

It's kinda really frustrating. Qianqian explained to me that if you first take someone out for dinner is $100, then you have to return with taking them out and spend $120, and then the return has to be more thatn $120, etc etc. Such a frustrating process -- so much easier to just go dutch. Maybe this is where my belief of gender equality of the girl paying for her half comes from.

 

P.S. I think my English sucks now. I'm literally thinking of everything first in Chinese and then translating into English as I type. Sorry if my grammar sucks, but I kinda like that I can stilli think in Chinese -- even if it means that my English sucks while I'm here... not like I'm going to run into anyone >.<