Jinpeng works for a non-governmental agency, called HANDA Rehabilitation and Welfare Association. The group works with individuals who have leprosy in Yunnan, China. They also do work in other countries. He has traveled in Africa and other parts of Southeast Asia while working for the group. Jinpeng graduated from high school but does not have a college education. He decided that to make himself more competitive he needed to learn English so he taught himself. He would go to English-only chat rooms and the library to learn. As a result his English is really very good as he learned to speak from native speakers. Jinpeng is not originally from Kunming but from a city in the north called Harbin. In Harbin he owned a coffee shop. He has only lived in Kunming for about 9 months. He is very involved in the couchsurfing community and is able to meet lots of people through it. Jinpeng seems to always being doing something, and he includes Matthew and I often which is nice since we are new here.
Philem works for Fed Ex. He is a manager here for the distributions. He has only been in Kunming since December. He has a wife who lives near the island of Macco. Matthew and I had no idea he had a wife to start with as there was nothing to indicate it. His wife is a teacher of biology and from what we could gather she does not want to move to Kunming. I had heard that it was common for spouses to live in different cities and only see each other over holidays but I didn't know that someone who was well off would be in the same situation. Philem works odd hours and often does not get back until after 10pm. He seems like a nice guy but Matthew and I have not spent as much time with him as he is not here in the evenings when we are here the most.
Okay, so that is about what I know about my roommates. Today Matthew and I went to the market and got some eggs. I really like shopping at the market as I can see all the fresh veggies. After we got eggs and a vegetable I like but don't know what it is named, we went to find some flowers. There is an area that has flowers which we finally found. I spent way to much time looking at flowers and then when I picked some out the guy had other customers so after watching them rejected about all of the dried flowers he had I decided with Matthew's encouragement to go to one of the other vendors. I did find some I liked. I was going to get tulips but the flowers still had the bulbs on them and I didn't know what to do with them and I didn't have a vase just a juice container so I thought it would be better to get cut flowers. I got some purple flowers. I'm not sure what they are. I'm including a picture of me with the flowers outside in the apartment complex.
Walking back from looking at the flowers we saw a puppy. It was attaching a mop. It wasn't growling or anything just biting the mop and shaking. It did such a good job killing the mop that it knocked it down from where it was hanging. The shop owner came out and hung the mop back up again. I think it was probably her dog. After she hung the mop the puppy went right back to killing it. I don't know how the Chinese can eat dog when they have puppies they watch play. Jinpeng says that dog is good. I'm not ready to try it yet, though.
I cooked a chicken, green onion, and red pepper stir fry and mashed potatoes. Mashing the potatoes was a bit more difficult than I had anticipated I used a ladle to squash them. then a fork to beat them smother. It was worth it though. Matthew and I watched Jeeves and Wooster while we ate and it was pretty funny.
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