Diplomacy and Employment

This past Friday I met up with some new people and played a game called diplomacy at someone's apartment. I saw the event being advertised and thought it looked interesting so I gave it a shot. It is a type of board game based on a map of WWI era Europe where every player controls a country with the goal of taking over a much as possible. Unlike Risk, all armies are the same strength, so the game requires quite a bit of negotiation with other players to make viable moves to dislodge opponents, which is why it is called diplomacy. Each turn starts with a diplomacy phase, where it is basically just a free for all to talk to anyone in the game in secret or public, trying to listen in on others is also a viable strategy. You are not bound to anything you say so deceit is an important part of the game. Everyone then writes their orders down on paper and they are all carried out simultaneously. According to Wikipedia, this game was a favorite of some former US presidents and politicians.


Here are a few pictures to give you a small idea of what I'm talking about.

I guess this wasn't an experience very unique to China but it was still a fun night. I played as Germany and was destroyed after a joint force of deceit from England and France. Some of the players were Fudan MBA students, two were English teachers, one in Web design, and some other stuff. We had a good mix of nationalities and backgrounds to make the game more interesting.

Other than that, Saturday afternoon I had my first English tutoring/teaching job. I was offered the position by someone who attended the English TA event I wrote about in an earlier post, they were looking for someone from the US to be an English speaking partner for their friend's 6 year old daughter. They pretty much just gave me the job no questions asked. The parents did not even want to meet with me first or ask me any questions about my education or background. The first time I really met or made contact with the parents was on Saturday when I met for the first session, but only the father was there. I met the father in front of a Hotel, then he drove me with his daughter to the office where he works and I was just left alone in a room with his daughter to do whatever I could think of. It was pretty awkward, I barely even spoke to the father (his English was fine) but he seemed to be pleased with my "work" at the end of the session. I pretty much just spoke a bit to the girl, looked at some books with her, drew some, and played a game or two. She had been surrounded by some English probably since birth so she at least had some sort of vocabulary built up already. She was expectantly a bit shy at first but warmed up to me pretty quickly, I only know her English name was Melodie. I was paid 200rmb for 80 minutes, so it is a pretty decent pay rate. I do not know I will continue with these sessions though because it is at an inconvenient time and a 40 min subway trip to get there.

I spent the day exploring the city a bit after the session but do not have the pictures ready to upload at the moment so I will just have to leave it at this. I also cooked some more and will add those pictures later as well. I should probably just add a massive picture update to give my dear beloved viewers a better glimpse of the city.

I am going to try to hit some museums in the next two days and hopefully I will have a trip planned outside of Shanghai for next weekend.

That's all for now,
Good Night, Morning, Afternoon, Second Breakfast, and all that.