To compensate for the holiday we should have had classes today, should have had, and I never would have thought that I would find Dutch souvenirs in a shop in China.

It is Sunday today but that doesn't matter for the Chinese students. Student life goes on 24/7 over here. I don't mean the Western student life, but Chinese people study as much as they can. Lately I was advised to go to the library early in the morning, otherwise it will be full. And they meant very early. At 5 a.m. there is already a line in front of the library to get in, every single day. So yes, student life here is slightly different. For that reason they also don't care that they have classes in the weekend. I have classes every Saturday and this week also on Sunday. Consequently I was sitting in class at 8 a.m. waiting for the teacher. Yes, waiting. And yes, again.

After a while the teacher still didn't show up and Victoria called him. He answered the phone and said that he's not coming to the university today because it is Sunday and we have classes on Wednesday. I guess he didn't know about this change either, just like the other teacher. In other words, we could go back home again.

While going home to wait for next class, I met a few of the students who are taking the voluntary English class. They were just going there so I joined them. I spent about two hours talking to Chinese students and later with one of the teachers, who's American. We talked about the program and which classes are coming up soon and when and which one I would be able to teach. Probably next week I will be teaching for the first time, which will be two times a one hour class.

On the business street there was one souvenir shop with hand-made souvenirs. They had a lot of stuff there, mostly plates, cups, mugs and so on. Surprisingly I found two pairs of ceramic 'wooden shoes with windmills' and two of these ceramic figures of a boy and a girl kissing. Both of them are typical Dutch souvenirs and I wonder how they got here. I guess the souvenirs at home are 'Made in China'.

Right before lunch I received a message from the International Office that the next class is cancelled because the teacher is on a business trip. Also tomorrow afternoon's class will be cancelled. So in the end we ended up not having classes on Sunday at all. It is a bit strange that so many lectures are cancelled already the first few weeks. But well, there are worse things.

In the evening we had a situation again during dinner. We went out to eat hotpot, got the table right in the middle on the hotspot and we communicated via a Chinese-English hotline. After we ordered our food, the hotpot, we were given the table right in the middle of this small restaurant. Of course we got stared at from every angle. It got even more interesting when the waitress and later also the cook tried to start a conversation.

After some initial firing of Chinese questions, they eventually understood that we really don't speak any Chinese. They had an idea to call someone and let her do the talking. The woman on the phone translated the questions from Chinese to English and the answers from English to Chinese. This also didn't work very well, because she didn't know all the words. We tried our best to speak clearly and with easy words, but in the end we all gave up. So also tonight we experienced something new and learned a new way of communicating to people.