Post 10

For Peter the only main problem with his father when he visited was figuring out a way for his father to sleep better. Like Peter his father ran a lot. They had run intensely for two days and his father slept soundly but then his father had this continuous runny nose and sour throat. Then he coughed up coal dust and his father decided he did not want to run anymore (328).

Since Peter’s father had come before Adam’s parents he was able to learn from Peter’s mistakes but had still repeated some of the same mistakes Peter had done. However, during Adam’s parents visit he had asked if his parents could give a lecture on American agriculture. He was denied by Mr. Wang, a man who Adam and Peter found very slippery. After giving Mr. Wang many different times that his parents could give the lecture. He then decided to secretly give the lecture during his class time. He even offered the students the decision of staying or not for the lecture. They all stayed and asked many questions (335).

Peter goes into more detail about the Chinese constantly denying them and people from their department from really letting them to get to know one another. There had been an incident when to female Corp teachers, Sunni and Noreen, had be invited to one of their tutor’s house. However the invitation was revoked when there tutor had said the road was dangerous and that they should not come. The two teachers told Peter of what happened. He went to where the teachers were going to take a bus to their tutor’s house. The bus driver said the roads were fine. Peter knew the true reason of this lie. “…more likely the command stemmed from the same shapeless paranoia that had shadowed us from the start—the sense that waiguoren were politically risky and should be kept at a distance (337).”

However, there were times when Peter did not have to worry about this “shapeless paranoia”. On his father’s last day of his visit they had been in invited into a farmer’s home after their hike to Flag Mountain. They talked to farmer and the his family. After their visit Peter’s father was more relaxed and was amazed that they had just gone to peasant’s house and just talked. He then said “If I were you, I’d go up to that place every week.” At first Peter was tired with China but with that one comment he was thankful for the reminder of how open a majority of the Chinese were (333).

Mimi Zycherman