April 25

April 25

It is Saturday today. Finally the day came for me to go to the dinner party! In the afternoon,I planned to take a taxi to Lake and Covell Boulevard and take a bus there togo to Memorial Union, where I can take a bus to Traders’ Joe, where Simon woulddrive me to the destination. . But, after having lunch, there was not much timeleft, and so I decided to take a taxi to go directly to 437 Grande Avenue,where the dinner party would be held. To save some dollars, however, I did notask the taxi driver to come over to the Fred’s House. Instead, I asked him towait for me at 98 County Road, which is about 1 mile away from where I live. Ittook me about 20 minutes to get to 98 County Road, where the driver had beethere waiting. I like drivers from Dan’s Cab or Village Cab--they are always ontime. In comparison to the nasty driver from Friendly Cab, who was always lateand who obviously were bad-tempered, they were 100 times better.

Anyway Ifinally arrive at the destination on time. I asked the person standing at thegate if I needed to show my passport, he said no and I entered the house. I sawa woman there and I started chatting with her. She told me I could call herMary, and she worked in a real estate company in Davis. I asked if we couldpose for a picture and she just agreed.

Now the timefinally came for the dinner. We gathered in another room and were asked tointroduce ourselves. I came to know that coming to the dinner were visitingscholars from a wide variety of countries: America, China, Japan, Pakistan,India... Following the introduction, the house owner stood there starting topray. He thanked God for making this dinner possible and he said Amen at theend.

The dinnerstarted. Like the dinner I had in Andy’s house some time ago, here every guestneeded to fetch a plate and choose the food for themselves. The food was ofvariety: grape, chicken, beef, noodle, bean..... After getting some food in myplate I sat down at a table near an American boy who is now in a college studyingmathematics. He told me after earning some credits he would probably switch toUC Davis to finally get a bachelor’s degree. He said that he would visit XianChina in the near future and stay there for about 10 days... Afterwards, Italked with an American preschool teacher, who is now retired. We talked aboutmany issues: Chinese language, driving in the United States, her job as apreschool teacher...     I asked whatmethod she would use to deal with those naughty kids. “I just pat them on theshoulders and ask them to listen to me...and most of the time this iseffective...”    

After dinner Italked with another visiting scholar from Sichuan Province, which is also myhometown. He is now teaching at Sichuan Policemen College and doing researchwith biochemistry. Then Simon asked us to get together to pose for apicture....Sadly, it turned out that I was just half included in the picture...Fortunately I asked Liuyutao to send me a picture he took in which the whole mewas there...It seems that I looked good...dynamic, hopeful and handsome?

   Finally the house owner was so kind todrive me home...and in his car we talked about some issues like the air qualityin China...When I finally got off his car, I took the first step to shake hishands and say" Thank you for driving such a long time..."