Lessons from Abroad: middle of week 4

Almost halfway already. That's a good feeling, oddly enough. The charm of being somewhere exotic and foreign didn't last long...Beida is already just a place to live in. Beyond that, here are some of the things I've learned this week:

• Food from Sichuan province might be hot, but Korean food is as spicy as it gets. One evening last week, I ate at a Korean restaurant on campus. The beef dish I got turned out to be right about at my limit for spicy things; I couldn't eat more than a bite or two at a time. And apparently they make it even hotter in Korea. So I have decided to set a new scale for measuring spiciness, measured in bibimbites (bbb); one bbb is how much my tongue and the roof of my mouth hurt after one bite of that dish (which was not in fact bibimbap, but I needed a cool name). The next day, I ate Sichuan-style liver (it may even have been beef), which was about 3 bbb--that is, it took three bites for my mouth to hurt as much as I remember one bite of the Korean beef taking.
• I'm a lot less picky about food than I thought I would be. I'm still avoiding pork and shellfish where I can, but where I can't I'll eat pork. Various kinds of tofu are also getting less weird for me...and there's some spicy things I find I can eat, because I paid for them and don't want to waste money.
• Thought 1 from homestay: Elderly Chinese people are a lot like elderly Jewish people. I had dinner this evening with my homestay family, an older couple, and the wife was very bubbe-like, urging me to keep eating, making most of the conversation, and occasionally repeating something I'd said to the husband, who wasn't really paying attention. It felt familiar, and was therefore nice. The food was good too--kind of a mild beef chili-soup-thing over beef noodles.
• Thought 2 from homestay: Personal comfort doesn't really seem to be a factor in ordinary Chinese people's lives. My evidence: the beds. Living in the dorm, I thought my bed was uncomfortably hard. Then I moved into the homestay, and discovered how much less comfortable beds could be. The dorm beds now seem nice and soft, and I imagine my bed at home will be heaven. If it's not already too soft.
• The Chinese seem to have a mostly positive stereotype of Jews: they think we're especially smart, and I hope I've met my hosts' expectations in this regard.

Before I go, here's a picture of a Lucky Bird. They're as common on the Beida campus as feral cats, or (for comparison) slightly less common than pigeons in Pittsburgh. And they're prettier than pigeons.