I went to a town called Guan Xian with William this past weekend where he teaches a class of elementary students every so often.  After his class, we went with the family of the woman who runs the school to a local pear garden, a famous tourist attraction in China this time of year because all the trees were blooming.  The place was jam packed, and off the beaten path of many foreigners, so as a result William and I were hounded everywhere we went.  We must have taken over fifty pictures with random groups of Chinese people who were dieing to show off to their friends that they had bumped into a foreigner.  A lot of people wanted to practice their English with us as well, and after a while it got to be pretty annoying.  It felt like we were more of an attraction than the flowers, which is what the people came to see in the first place.

Just before we left, this woman came up to us and thrust her little daughter into our faces.  The little girl said, with just about perfect English, “Hello, nice to meet you,” at which point everyone in our group went into a frenzy of gasps and applause.  The little girl said it again and again, “Hello, nice to meet you.  Hello, nice to meet you.”  She was probably one of the sweetest little girls I have ever met.