WORST GOODBYE EVER!

So I was just in Guilin for the past 4 days. No. It/s a lie. I mean, in LiuZhou and Yangshao, (I was in Guilin for 2 hours - had to change buses), to visit a long time friend. Wait wrong again. No. A friend I knew for a couple weeks last year but we just clicked; you know the 'potential boyfriend / girlfriend' click. Chemistry right? Yeah. So Alice if your reading this, don't tell Alice. Anyways its just a way to describe a friendship :). Back to the story. Yes. And Guilin is a beautiful place, lots of mountains... well not mountains more like hills, but exotic hills or even better oriental hills. Onces that make you think your the only foreigner for miles. Wait.. I was. So yeah had a great time then came the good bye. Came back to Liuzhou (the city my friend lives in right?) she came back a day earlier, when I come to her place as she is in a rush to pack, since my friend has to go to Shang Hai this saturday. So I realized that I probably don't want to take up anymore of her time since she is also visiting her parents. So after figuring out which bus to take to the train station so I can take a 15 hour ride back to Kunming, her father, she and I walk to the bus station so I can take a bus to the train station. Well as we approach the bus station, the bus just arrives at the stop. Worst possible time to say a proper goodbye. In a rush I shake her fathers hand and thank him for his hospitality... then I shake my friends hand and say.... *sigh*... "Nice to meet you".... She in typical chinese and proper english protocol said "Nice to meet you too" with a slightly confused look, but hey! Who the heck says "Nice to meet you?"

I'll tell you who, the chinese children in elementary school in their English Class, and that's all I could come up with. So endearing.... the banality of my life. I've been saying that to students all year now - so be prepared if my english has gone down a notch coming back.

Nice to meet you too!

I want to become a farmer,

That is my next career goal and if I wasn't in this internet cafe needing to go to a bathroom at the moment I would explain to you why. More later...

The marked reciept scandal!

It always came across as a strange supermarket practice to get my receipt marked with a pen mark, upon leaving the store. Was it another Chinese tracking mechanism (radioactive ink perhaps?) or just a simple way to give another one of the millions, no hundreds of millions of people in china a meaningful existence. If I for one had a work visa, ticking receipts of customers would be the very first thing that I would make sure to stay away from as a job. I do not have the qualifications. But unfortunately, as always, the secret reason for the check was revealed to me by another foreigner, continuing to prove the myth that I have yet to be able to think for myself (in logical and rational ways). He postulated that the real reason for marking the bill was to protect against would be thieves.

Here is how it works: The reason why they mark the bill is to prevent people from coming into the store with the bill(so they purchased the things on the bill already once before), picking up the items they bought that are on the bill and walk out of the store (without paying for their things) if they are stopped by one of the employee's they can claim that they have a bill that 'proves' they had just paid for it. In the confusion of a large supermarket such a scam might in fact work, and I encourage you readers from north america to try it out, and see if it does work as a proof of concept. If you are stopped just claim that you were participating in a 'proof of concept' explain the way you were going to try to rip them off, and then finish it off with a, "if you didn't catch me... then I would have told you that you have a security hole in your receipting system". Then offer your services to them by marking all the receipts with a pen after they are purchased.

Hey, Of course you can also check the date and time of the receipt... but that would be to much of a hassle.

Peace