People, it's official. I could put myself on one level with Melissa McCarthey or Johnny Depp. People keep staring at me on the street, in stores, they come over to say Hi to only giggle totally ashamed as I reply, they come up ASKING FOR A PICTURE! No kidding. It seems like Kaukasians are some sort of exotic specie to the Chinese and as soon as they meet on they have to make sure to capture this moment for eternity. Haha, it's hilarious. A whole group of teenage girls, maybe about 6 or 7 of them, came up to me as I was riding a totally silly bike in a theme park I visited together with my hostfamily and friends yesterday. Together with the housekeeper I was strolling along all the rides and eateries when those girls all greeted me overexcitedly. If I would allow them to take a picture of me. Looking totally exhausted and sweaty from riding this heavy bike around for already 2 hours, oh yes, please have my pretty picture! Those girls were totally into it - each one wanted a single picture and for sure a group picture, but please with the own Iphone so it can be shared immediately. They were really cute though and I had fun posing with them for some pictures. Asking them why they wanted to take a picture of me one (whose English was pretty poor but still by far the best of all of them) replied - because you are beautiful. Aww. Let me give you a hug for this! What a push for the ego.
Now, the second time I was strolling around a huge shopping mall in Chengdu close to the central Tianfu Square, when 4 ladies from a cosmetic shop on the right came up to me complinenting me on how beautiful I looked and how pretty and big my eyes were. Then I started to realize. Maybe it's really the eyes that Chinese keep admiring so much at Kaukasians. As the typical Chinese have narrow eyes, people with what I would consider as with "normal sized" eyes, are really special to them. So this might be the fame factor. I guess I found it. But I will keep asking all the people asking for a picture. I will present you my statistic on the Ronja fame factor in 6 months :-)

Okay, hands down. The part of Chinese culture I was most excited to learn about is the food. Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan Province, which, even in China is known for its excepional cuisine. There is a lot of flavor, most of the dishes have a ton of spiciness and hotness to them, which can occasionally knock you out for a minute trying to get your mouth back under control (hint: I found out having a piece of tofu after something crazy spicy helps!)
There are some things traditionally different when it comes to meal time in China. Eating at home, Chinese people don't have drinks at the table. No water, no glass of wine, nothing. So you gotta gulp that food down by itself. Luckily most of the dishes are swimming in a sauce of spices and other things I couldn't disguise yet, so it goes down quiet well without the help of water. Still I was used to drink almost half a liter at every meal, which I now split up on 1/4 liter before and 1/4 after dinner. That way I still get my liquid input for the day :-) my family really only uses chopsticks, which makes mealtime a real adventure for me. It's like going on a hunt, sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not. But I definitely see improvement! But honestly, I want to see you trying to fish those crazy long Chinese noodles out of the soup with chopsticks! Special fun with 8 other people watching. Thank you Nainai for coming to the rescue!
But the real fun is that you could ask me after almost every meal about what I ate, and I could maybe tell you about 2 dishes I was able to recognize, but the other 6 dishes - hey, it was delicious, but no idea what I just ate there! It get's especially flaky when it comes to meat when it gets served in this massive sauce. Trust me, you can't tell which body part of the animal once held this meat. It could literally come from anywhere. So I bet over the last week I've been eating pieces of meat I would have never touched back in Germany, but to me there is no way to disguise them. And grandma telling me the Chinese name of it doesn't really help yet ;-) but just so you get an idea, most of the meat that is served here is on the fatty side, wabbly and chewy. Haha, luckily the Chinese don't have a hard time spitting out food pieces they don't like. I can adapt pretty good to that ;-)
Eating out at the restaurant you do get served a drink though. But it's no water, it's no tea (teatime is not til 3pm), and definitely no alcohol. It's freshly pressed fruit juice. In my case watermelon juice, served in a huge wine glass. And I have to say, with the temperatures here these days it's exactly what you want.