Day 14

I woke up groggily at 10 AM today, after a night of wonderful carousing.

Which, in Chris-speak means 6 hours of singing KTV, and loads of goat meat at a hotpot place before-hand. I do not live the most wild of lives.

Still, I was strongly feeling the previous night's activities, which included four Korean-made cigarettes, smoked in quick succession. So my vocal chords were in no state to communicate for several hours after I woke up. I also seem to have contracted the beginnings of a sinus infection, and must carefully medicate so it doesn't worsen.

We recieved a text message from Mr. Jiang at 10 AM, asking us to bring a copy of the survey with us when we met him for dinner that evening. To me, it seemed an innocent enough request. To Andy, it was a government official requesting proof of our law-breaking activities.

I decided to play along with Andy's paranoia, because, well, why not? China really isn't a country whose prisons seem particularly inviting. So, before we did anything else that day, I mailed off every filled-out copy, in case our room was searched, or something.

I didn't really know where to send it, so I addressed it to myself, care of Nick at the Lamda Chi house. I came to regret that about two hours later, when I checked my e-mail and discovered that he had broken-up with me, via e-mail, sometime while I was sleeping.

I would just like to state, for future generations, that breaking up over e-mail, especially while one party is in a foreign country for a mere 21 days, is low. Very low. There is so little closure in this for me. I don't get any objections, I don't get to make passionate in-the-moment declarations of frustration/rage/hatred that I would regret later, I don't even get to cry really, because who cries over an e-mail break-up? At that point, really, one has to say to oneself, good riddence. I was accidently dating someone who thinks an e-mail break-up is in good taste.

The only measure of comfort that was allowed to me was the appropriately electronic de-friending of him on Facebook. Ha! Take that, electronic offender! You have been e-dissed!

Well, that concluded a mere twenty minutes before I was to have dinner with Mr. Jiang and his daughter, so I collected myself and gathered up my computer cord, and together, Andy and I headed to Swede and Kraut.

Swede and Kraut is arguably the best authentic Western restaurant in Nanjing. It was started by a Swede and a Kraut, hence its name. The menu mainly features authentic German dishes, dishes that my Grandma would approve of, dishes to put meat on your bones. They are also dishes that are outrageously expensive and generally put Chinese people off.

Mr. Jiang ordered pizza, a relatively safe choice, and Ann chose spaghetti, which to her seemed as Chinese as possible. She was dismayed to learn, however, that the restaurant had no chopsticks, so she spent the evening poking the bolognaise sauce off the top of her noodles clumsily with a fork. Mr. Jiang fared no better, as he confessed that he didn't even like pizza. He attempted to eat his meal with a knife and fork, though the crust proved too tough for his blunt knife, so he was forced to fold the pizza over itself and stab it with a fork in order to eat it.

As we had just met the two of them, we were uncomfortably unable to come to their aid. Instead, we resolved next time to meet at a Chinese resturant, one that would have chopsticks.

Overall, it was a wonderful evening, and just what I needed to take my mind off of being unceremoniously dumped. Mr. Jiang told us a little about his business and we discussed Ann's schooling in relation to our own, American experiences.

I am looking forward to meeting with them again, next time under more auspicious circumstances.