Still not much to say...

Hey folks. Me again. I'm really just writing to let those of you following this know that I'm still here and still alive. My days are otherwise not all that interesting. Let me introduce you to my little routine:

I wake up, go to breakfast, eat alone, come back to my room, read emails from folks in the US who were awake and active whilst I snoozed away, get some sciencey reading and writing done, read my book for awhile, doze off again, go to lab to process embryos that were collected the previous day, go to lunch, then come back to my room to read again while the rest of the team naps all afternoon. Finally, when Shaoyuan wakes up enough to help with the rodent killing and dissecting, we process the animals for the current day. Then it's dinner time, and I come back to my room to read some more before falling asleep again. Rinse and repeat.

It is nice that after a week and a half here, people are finally starting to warm up to me. Shaoyuan is the only person in our group who speaks English well enough for a conversation. The masters student and our driver speak about as much English as I do French (stop laughing, Patrick and Jerome :) The semi-retired professor doesn't speak any English, so we communicate through smiles and head nods. I guess this is a good opportunity to introduce you to the crew. There's Shaoyuan, who many of you know or have heard of. He came with me from Boston and is a graduate student at Harvard. Then there's the masters student, Shutao, who is a funny kid. He has an awkward habit of laughing at things that one wouldn't find appropriate to laugh at. I think maybe it's a nervous thing. And when he laughs, his mouth gets big, and his eyes squint shut, so he looks kind of like an anime character. I know that the driver's family name is Ma, but I don't know his given name. He and I were never formally introduced, but he's been very nice. He's young - early 20s - and is one of those guys who is so skinny it's like there's a black hole in his belly button. I think he's actually concave. He plays a cool eclectic mix of music in the car, so that's fun. He and Shui Tao brought me flowering cutting from some desert shrub yesterday. It was very sweet of them, but the thing smelled so strongly that it gave me a headache, so I had to carry it outside and get rid when they weren't looking. The retired professor who is an "expert in rodent ecology" is Dr. Zhang. He kind of reminds me of Yoda - very smooth skin, loose jowls, and hooded eyelids. And he's the wise master. He seems to talk very prophetically and with emphasis but quietly. And he's funny. Or at least he seems to be - I can't understand a word he says, but he seems to get everyone else in stitches.

So that's the team - five of us. Add to that another two dozen people who are working at this field station. Only one of them has been able to speak to me. I don't know who he is, presumably a professor somewhere. He speaks pretty good english though, and he came into the lab the other day while I was working. But I haven't seen him since - he appeared one day and seemed gone the next. I think more people speak english than they let on. Every once in awhile, I hear someone say "sorry" or "you first" when we're jostling around in the kitchen, but no one has had the nerve to come up and talk to me. Chinese people are very very shy with foreigners. I think it's because the schools here teach English reading and writing, but not speaking and listening. So a lot of people know a fair bit of english but don't have the practice and the bravery to approach a native speaker. So when "the guys" are out in the field and leave me here by my lonesome, I usually go to the cafeteria for my meals and sit alone, feeling like that kid in the school lunch room who has "cooties" so no one want to sit with them. At least I've moved to the smiles and nods with most people. They don't ignore me but don't quite feel comfortable enough to join me. I understand. So I take my book with me and try to read while maneuvering chopsticks and do my best to avoid slopping meat grease all over myself and the pages of my book.