Does this country make me look fat?

I know that I'm a slender person by US standards, but being in China is enough to give anyone a body image problem. I've spent a little bit of time in Beijing shopping, and I'm a size XL by Chinese standards. Even the biggest size in some items is too little for me. Reminds me of when I had clothes made in Vietnam, and the seamstress kept smacking my behind :)

I spent yesterday with my friend Dai Chao. We met on the Yangzi River trip in 2005 when I was with Vicky, and he quickly became our friend and guide since he was the only one of several hundred Chinese who spoke English. Not even the official "English-speaking guide" who was assigned to our group actually spoke English. We've kept in touch since then, and I wrote a personal letter of recommendation (basically vouching for his spoken English skills and positive personality) for his application to be a visiting student at USC in LA. He recently found out that he will be able to move to the US in September to start his studies, and he's very excited - quite brave, too, for a guy who has never left China let alone lived anywhere else. It's going to be quite an amazing experience for him. Apparently his parents are very grateful for my advice and help, so they arranged a car and driver to take us around Beijing all day yesterday, and we met some of his college classmates for dinner at a fancy restaurant where another family friend hosted an amazing feast of roasted duck. Before this trip duck and lamb were my favorite tasty animals, but I think a month in China has killed my taste for these two meats for awhile. Michael, if you're reading this - this is the country for you, dude! I will also say that I plan to be vegetarian for the first week that I return to the US. Here if the food isn't some huge hunk of meat, it's cooked in copious amounts of animal fat - probably another reason for my body dysmorphia. I'm the same size that I was when I left, but I feel blechy from the change in my usual diet.

This is definitely the best way to travel though. I've had such an authentic China experience on this trip that I'm starting to feel like I actually live here. I've seen the most popular foreign tourist sites, but for the most part we've just wandered some of the local neighborhoods and eaten at wonderful authentic restaurants. Lunch today was on a lake in the heart of the city where a lot of the buildings have been turned into Western-style fancy bar and restaurants for the tourists. But the place that Ms. Xia took us was set back a little bit from the lake and was an older very traditional southern Chinese restaurant with no tourists and nothing in English. It was a bunch of wonderful and refreshing cold dishes with lots of vegetables!

This will be my last post for this time in China. I fly out tomorrow at 1 pm and arrive in Boston on Friday evening. I've missed everyone and can't wait to get caught up on life back home!