Our friend was watching BBC television and was confused why the station suddenly went all fuzzy. This is because the government is currently censoring everything related to Libya which means searching for it on the internet results in "page not found" and any news programs covering it are cut off during that segment.
Later, when Sean and I went to a meeting with one of our supervisors, Luca asked us if we were going to return for a third year. We said we weren't and reminded him that we were getting married in August while I showed him my ring. Luca looked at it and then promptly asked Sean how much it cost which caught Sean completely off guard. This is not unusual in Chinese culture but Luca has worked with foreigners for a long time so I was still surprised (and amused) when he asked for the actual price. It was funny.
At the end of the meeting, I asked Luca to reset my internet account since I had gone over my download limit 1 GB/month. He then informed us that the school was giving us all 10 GB/month because they were sick of constantly resetting the account. Then he asked, not at all sheepishly, if one of us would give him our password at the end of the year so he could use our download limit as the school only gives him 1.5 GB/month. This is my supervisor, remember.
My favorite part of this day was when I was talking to Steve, a different supervisor, after the meeting and telling him how it went. When I told him about how Luca wanted one of our internet passwords at the end of the year, I expected him to laugh or be shocked. To my surprise (kind of) he asked, in all seriousness, "Can I have the other password then?"
Oh, China, it's good to be back.
oh boy, the password story is pretty funny. I am surprised that's not unusual in China. I was always under the impression that the Chinese didn't tend to ask questions of a personal nature (like how much your ring cost and if he can have your PW).