Best birthday ever.
The school director, Mei Han, likes to make a big thing out of the teacher’s birthdays. I told her I didn’t want a big deal over my birthday so she was just going to have a cake we would share at lunch time since we would all be working at the school on Saturday. It turns out that the Wednesday after my birthday is Dragon Boat Festival. Everyone likes to have three days off for the festival so the public schools had classes over the weekend and Ivy changed their schedule to have weekend classes on the following Monday and Tuesday. All this meant that we would not be at Ivy on my birthday. Mei saw this as a chance to take the teachers to diner for my birthday. My T.A., Meg had already given me a present of a Buddha necklace. She said there are two kinds of Buddha necklace; one the guys wear to bring fortune and the one she gave me that the gals where to bring happiness. Since I look like the second, it is considered good luck. We met the other teachers at Ivy where the other Chinese staff gave me gifts. I received a toy wooden car, a boat that is also a music box, a fold out fan with four famous beautiful Chinese ladies on it, a straw pillow, another straw pillow that rolls out into a seat cushion and a drink bottle I can carry with me to classes. As we were arriving at Ivy it started to rain very hard, so we had a hard time getting a taxi to take us to the restaurant when we were leaving. The restaurant was very nice. Every time we go out to eat with Mei, she takes us to a different restaurant and the food keeps getting better. This place was just around the corner from where we live. Mei paid $10US per person for the diner. George gave me a small statue of an emperor riding a horse and I was made honorary emperor of Ivy. I was given the traditional noodle of longevity that is one wide, very long noodle. We all had a great time. Thank you to all my new friends and family at Ivy.
