explain THAT.

This'll have to be quick.

We've had about 12 hours with our first visitor, L. I must say-- things are off to a great start! He is very easy to talk to, curious, helpful, and kind. There's been nonstop discussion ever since we picked him up, and I suddenly feel like I'm uneducated (or at least, unable to formulate coherent thoughts and explanations) about basically everything in America! In case you were wondering if there were any social, cultural, or political differences between China and America...let me be the first to tell you: there are. And if you want someone to really explain those...I'm probably not your girl. But I'm trying anyway!

Topics we've hit on already:

(Oh, and please note-- none of these were remotely contentious or 'debate'-ish, just very civil discussion/question answering. Lots of laughing and smiling throughout!)

1. Differences in educational systems/philosophies of China vs. USA. (I did okay here, give myself a B)

2. The 'gun culture' of/in America, including questions about how hard it is to get guns, where you get guns, how much they cost, and what kind of guns people are allowed to have. Oh, and why it was so important to the country's founders that they put it in our Constitution. (I struggled here with trying to present a balanced perspective. D.)

3. Related to #2, but slightly different: Hunting. Primarily: how do hunters not all kill each other accidentally. Thankfully I have a lifetime of living in Georgia and a redneck brother, so I was a little better prepared for this topic. A-.

4. Slightly related to #3- wild animals, and are there any in the woods in our backyard? (A+. Nailed it.)

5. Homelessness in America- why are there people sleeping on the porches of buildings, can they get jobs, does the government help them, will the police make them leave? (C, but since I'm pretty sure my bleeding heart was visible through my shirt, I'll bump myself up to a B+)

6. What does it mean that UGA is a "party school", what are parties, how do we feel about that reputation? (B.)

7. Population density of various places- for example, L said that he comes from a 'small town' in his province in China. Wikipedia reveals that his 'small town' has over 1.5 million people. We explained that that is larger than most of the 'big cities' in America. Then he wondered how many people were in Athens: 119,000. For giggles, we looked up how many people live in the city WE live in: a few over 2,000. He was dying laughing. I helpfully added that there are also 2,000 cows, so let's not discount that. (A+, since most of this discussion was aided by Google and Wikipedia)

8. Beaches of the East Coast, Florida, Mexico, and the Gulf- how far away from Athens they are, how good the beaches are (A+ I WAS BORN FOR THIS CONVERSATION) (except for when he asked WHY the beaches of south Florida/Mexico have clear blue water and the north FL/GA/SC beaches tend to have murkier, non-blue water...totally failed there. Magic was the best I could come up with, which isn't really impressive to people getting their PhDs in physics. F.)

All in all, we're off to a great start. Obviously I need to do some more research about...you know, everything in America, but other than that we're good. On the plus side, he declared both Matt and I to be 'warm-hearted,' complimented my cooking many times (it is the best food he's had in America!....so basically, I just beat out airplane food in a competition. YES!), decided that Lola is very smart, and said that the bed was very soft. I can only hope that those things count for more than my explanations about gun control, homelessness, and the fact that his cell phone bill will be 8x more expensive than it was in China ($6/month!!!!).