Tuesday, June 28

Today I almost had a mental break down at the grocery store, in the yogurt section. I was to the point of where it is exhausting to be surrounded by a language that I don’t understand. I went to the supermarket (imagine Wal Mart) because I wanted to get a few breakfast foods and needed a few other random items. I really dislike going to WalMart at home, it just wears me out being in the store. My first issue was in the boxed milk section. I wanted soy milk, preferably vanilla flavored but NOT chocolate, black bean or any other crazy flavor. And especially not regular cow’s milk. There were approximately 500 options, and I couldn’t read ANY of their packages. A random girl who was also in this section helped me find the one I wanted, through using my poor Chinese, her broken English and her electronic dictionary (next time, remind me to take my dictionary to the grocery).

I wandered around and gathered the other things I needed and then went to the yogurt section. It took me forever to find one that I thought was a good size, comes with a spoon and in a flavor I like. BUT literally every package I looked at had a date that had already passed. Was that the date it was package or the expiration date? In the US it would have been an expiration date, but I couldn’t figure out why every single one was out of date. I asked a lady beside me, if it was good. I could really understand what she responded with, but it seemed like confirmation. It was about right here that I wanted to have my melt down, call my momma and ask her if out of date yogurt is okay to eat. I circled around a few more times, and then saw a white girl. I asked her do you speak Chinese? She gave me a funny look, so I asked in English if she spoke English. She shook her head no and said not really. So in frustration, I gave up on yogurt.

I rode the bus, with my recently purchased goods, back to the university all by myself. And I even got off at the right stop…. success. I had some xiao long bao (dumplings with meat and juice) for dinner, which is one of my Chinese comfort foods. I have attached a picture. Our program pays to have us tutored twice a week by a university student who is studying to teach Chinese. I had a tutoring session Tuesday night as well. Another long day, but another good day in China. Oh and by the way, my roommate told me that the date on the package means the date it was produced. Awesome. I guess I will know better next time.