Today was interesting... it started with really delicious bao, progressed through adventures into the world of really gross instant coffee, continued on through the park where there were bumper cars, a motorboat with crazy Chinese children chasing us around the lake, and poorly read classical Chinese poetry.

A big group of us went and got Pizza in Hou Hai tonight, and then ended up in one of the lounges around the lake. It was pretty.... well... embarrassing actually... there ended up being a lot of sort of... stereotypical "American Tourist" behavior and we actually emptied the place of Chinese people. I was sort of ashamed to be there... I guess the owner didn't mind, since he knew one of the guys in our group, but like... I felt uncomfortable knowing I was part of a group that was so loud and rude and probably off-putting to the Chinese people around us. I guess I would just rather try to not validate those kinds of stereotypes if I can avoid it, since they represent a part of American culture that I really don't like very much.

I was in the last cab to leave Hou Hai, and Carey, Shazad and I ended up at the South campus instead of the North campus of Shou Shi Da, which isn't abnormal, since most taxi drivers don't know where or what Shou Shi Da even is. So we were walking along on the way back to the dorm when there's a crunch from down the road and when we turned around, there was a motorcycle lying on it's side. Shazad went over to see what was going on, and I tried to call the emergency number on my cell phone, but my Chinese vocab doesn't really cover "there was a motorcycle accident! please send an ambulance!" (I really only knew the word for motorcycle, and even then I was too stressed out/freaking out to pronounce it properly) and the poilceman kept asking me what I was saying. I finally had to run over to some men who were just walking up and handing one of them my phone and asking him to tell the police what happened.

What was scary was how many people in cars had sort of driven by and just looked at the guy lying there with his face scratched to hell and his leg hurt and not done anything... even as we were standing there waiting, pedestrians and cab drivers who were passing came over to watch. It was interesting to see Shazad's reactions and expectations for the situation... He kept thinking the by-standers were going to try to blame us or somehow get us into trouble. He's from Pakistan, and apparently that's a real danger there.

This was one of those times when I realized my language abilities should be way stronger. I guess it's lucky that there were ways around the language failure to make sure the man got help.