I loved going shopping in China. Everything was an adventure because it was so very different from shopping in Missoula. I was watching all the people who were watching me. It was crazy! Morielle and Tim are the only two foreigners in the city. There are Han Chinese people and there are Uyghur Chinese people and when we came we made it 5 `Waiguorens’ in the city. Everyone was watching us. My mom said that is because I am so cute. I don’t know but I do know that everyone was looking at me and I was looking at everyone and smiling at them. I made lots of friends even though I do not speak Chinese or Uyghur.

One time I got lost when we went shopping with Morielle. We were in the market having fun taking pictures. I was taking pictures of the very cool Naan Bread bakery right on the street. My Mom and Dad were taking pictures and following Morielle while she did the shopping. Then suddenly I was alone, looking around but seeing only Han and Uyghur people.

I stopped and waited and waited and waited. Pretty soon, I saw my mom: she was waving at me from inside a big quilt door. I was not worried but I was very glad to see her waving at me.  I walked up the steps and in through the quilt doors into the grocery store, not as big as Costco but it was the biggest Chinese store I had ever seen.

Another time I went shopping with ZayNur and that went a lot better! She walked slowly and she walked with me so that I did not get lost. I wanted to get a haircut because my hair was in my eyes. So ZayNur took us to a very chic hairdresser. He was very friendly. I was excited to get my haircut because my hair was in my eyes. And he was excited because he had never cut a foreigner’s hair before. ZayNur was our translator. Everyone agreed that it was very cute haircut.

After that ZayNur went shopping for supper: she wanted to make `lagman’ before we said `goodbye’ the next day. We had to get some mutton which is when we saw the dead sheep and the butcher taking off the skin and cutting the meat. ZayNur did the shopping; my Mom did the paying; and my dad and I were taking the photos!

Walking home we took lots more pictures. ZayNur was much more cooperative with the picture taking than Morielle was so we asked her to take us to the English Department building because we had not seen it yet. We also stopped by the on campus market. My mom was interested in a shop for yarn and ZayNur helped with translating—Morielle never liked to do that very much but ZayNur was great. She even helped me buy a very cute Uyghur hat!