The long goodbye part V

Zhang celebration with Bob, Mary, Renji and Song

Another day, another dinner!  What a hard life! This time in an Italian restaurant and our generous hosts were Renji and Song.  Renji was celebrating his appointment as a distinguished professor and we were glad to be there to help him out!

We had a great meal and interesting conversations. Song had recently returned from visiting her parents in China where the pollution is so bad that she wears a mask when she goes out and only saw the sun once during the month she was there.  As more people benefit from increased income, prices in the shops go up.  Now Song does not go shopping without her brother or sister as she has lost track of appropriate prices to pay.  Apparently you bargain even in department stores.  She feels that her American born children will never fit back into the Chinese way of life.  Although they speak Mandarin Chinese quite well, they read and write it very little.  She also explained that you need to have contacts in China to ease your path through life and you also learn from an early age who you need to bribe.  Song had to give money to the doctor in the hospital to ensure good treatment for her father and parents also give bribes to their children's teachers.  I expect it's quite hard to learn the subtleties of this system.