‘merica

I’ve acquired two cowboy hats within the past four days. One, the more ridiculous of the two, I have been wearing for the past five hours, along with a red bandana swankily tied around my neck. (If you’re wondering, I got the other hat in Inner Mongolia—that story to come in a later post).

I just got back from the U.S. Embassy’s Independence Day party and I’ve got to say it was quite the party. 

The embassy was calling upon certain scholarship recipients (shout out to the Gilman Scholarship) to volunteer to mingle with guests and converse in Chinese. The party was exceptionally impressive, although the theme could’ve been better. This year’s was “The American West.” Last year’s played up on America as a melting pot, elaborating upon and celebrating all the different ethnicities we’ve got going on over there. In October, the United States will be bringing a hootin’ tootin’ wild west rodeo to the Bird’s Nest Stadium. It’s called Rodeo China and I think I heard it was the first ever rodeo to be held in China (or at least that’s what I was telling everyone). I don’t want to know how they’re transporting the horses and bulls from the states to here, but it can’t be that humane. I don’t even approve of rodeos in the first place, but I’ll keep my animal activist comments to myself for this post, lest I rant on forever.

Anyway, this year’s theme brought cowboy hats, bandanas, barbeque and tex-mex to the embassy. I also satisfied my guacamole craving, did some major munching on the most amazing mango salsa and enjoyed some wonderful wine and microbrews as well.

There were about 600 people there from all over the world. I was pretty nervous about mingling in Chinese, but obviously a lot of guests weren’t Chinese nor was their grasp on the language conversational, so I was able to speak some English, too. I also invited Nathalie along since they allowed us to bring guests. We met a man who worked at the Kenyan Embassy whom, after her telling him how much she loves Africa and about her travels to Kenya, invited us for drinks at the embassy. So, that’s on next week’s agenda!

I’ve spent the past however many July 4ths at my dad’s near Washington, D.C. so we’d always go into town, bring a watermelon and cleaver to picnic underneath the Department of Energy and then spend the night watching the grand fireworks show. No fireworks this time, but awesome regardless. I do miss Kevin, my dad and my post-watermelon feast nap, though. 

Hoorah for independence.

And for the shmoozing politicians, more red, more white and more blue? Check out the rest of the photos here.