Yesterday we went to Starbucks after cleaning the apartment, found a park and spent an hour sitting and reading and studying Chinese. We were surrounded by Chinese people. This park had a lot of people in it. But we only really know a few words of Chinese that we can actually use on people in general situations. Linda is much better than I am at trying to communicate with individual words. I want to be able to string a few words together first. I at least want to learn to say that it's a nice day and my name is James, what's yours? I can tell people I'm American. The Chinese people generally love Americans now. One elderly gentleman (elderly is currently anyone who looks older than me) told me that he love America, America is good. We couldn't communicate much more than except to laugh that he knew a little English and I know a little Chinese. But we parted on friendly terms.
On the way home I had an encounter with another Chinese person when we almost wiped out when I cut him off on my bike. We were going down a very narrow street and a car wanted to get around us, I moved over just as he moved over and started to pass me. He ran out of street and would have run into the curb but just at that moment there was a place where the curb comes down to streete level (I don't know what that's called) so he could ride up on the sidewalk. I appologized as best I could and we actually had a little laugh about it together. I realized that I had gotten the first rule of riding bikes in Tianjin, never look behind. Now I have to work on the second and third rules, never look to the right and never look to the left. I hope I can master them soon.