I Don't Want to Know

It has been a week since my last post. We have been super busy. Of course, that is why we came. There is so much going on here. I am still trying to find work. This week we are going to try to find a good school to enroll in. That is going to make our schedule even tighter but we need it, especially me. You would be proud of me though. I have been going out on the town alone and communicating. Because I am able to read a little, I have been communicating through text messages. It is pretty cool that I can at least communicate in this manner. Verbal communication is a lot harder but I am able to do that a little too. Today I met a guy and we talked for a long time. He speaks a little English so that helped. He and his wife took me to lunch. We had a dish called a hotpot (Amanda wrote a blog about it; big pot with boiling liquid that you drop meat, vegetables, and etc. into). Along with the hotpot they ordered jixue or chicken blood (unfortunately this is sometimes the etc). The owner of the restaurant proudly walked a big bowl of bright red blood out and set it before me. I guess they thought this was a special treat for me. I had to quickly explain to them that there was absolutely no way I was eating that, and I had to do it without hurting their feelings. Thankfully they were very understanding and did not get offended (they even took the bowl off of the table so I did not have to look at it). Something very important here is "face". People are very concerned about not losing face. This can make dealing with people difficult but it is interesting to see how it plays a part in just about every aspect of life. Anyway, I ate a lot of everything else so that they were able to be good host and not lose face. Once again you would have been proud of me. There may not have been any jixue in the pot but the rest of the ji was in there; feet, neck, and some parts that I don't want to think about (hey I think that chicken lost a little more than face and I found it). At one point I asked what something was and they told me something about duihao shenti which I think means very good body or possibly health of the body. I quickly realized that I may not want to ask too many more questions. I don’t think I want to know what it was that I just ate. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. If not bliss, ignorance at least lets one get the food past the mouth and sometimes it helps keep the food down. – Frank
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Letter to Mrs Foote, Dec. 2, 1887