Visitor Explained

That unexpected visitor was our landlord. This is the first we've seen of her. She's in town for a few days on a business trip and wanted to check in - she works for one of the big national banks and is based in western China. Mainly she wanted to chat about her son, who will soon graduate from college and wants to go study in America or England. So we chatted all about U.S. colleges and majors and the application process. This is the sort of conversation I have had many, many times because so many Chinese parents are trying to figure out how to get their son or daughter into graduate school overseas or, more generally, to arrange his or her life after college.

Anyway, it looks like our landlord is now eager to be friends with us. We are being taken out to dinner tomorrow night and we have an invitation to visit the beautiful province of Ningxia.