Life with a capital la jiao!

Wo yao la jiao yi dian dian... but I always get a lot. Perhaps it's understandable, after all, my Chinese is really appaling.

When eating fish hot pot, la jiao looks like a bright red soup and more chili peppers than one dare count; enough spice to make your eyes water and nose run... if it's a good soup, you'll start coughing too. And afterward, if you survive, la jiao looks like indegestion of the uniquely Chinese variety.

When living in Lhasa, la jiao looks like a meal with some Chinese teachers that is paid for by other teachers who happen to be eating in the same dumpling shop. It looks like cups of sweet milk tea and bags of one kuai potatoes eaten with an extremely shy student and her sister in a crumbly tea house. It looks like a trip to the Norbolinka with some Tibetan friends who, out of habit, are compelled to do all the prostrations and other honorary offerings in every temple and before every god. It looks like being greeted by a friendly hand squeeze and getting to sit with the other leaders in the special seating during a school performance. It looks like text messages from friends demanding to spend some free time with you. It looks like games of badminton, if badminton were played by constantly having to pick up the birdy. It looks like eating spur of the moment meals with groups of other teachers, and sitting around while they chat mostly in Chinese as you obviously strain to pick up the spare word you might know. It looks like a hug. It looks like the fierce intensity of a neighbor forcing you to learn the characters of the Tibetan alphabet until late in the evening. It looks like being greeted by all manner of people on campus and in the street, known and unknown. It looks like students who are bold enough to use every ounce of their English skills and actually come up with something hilarious in class. It looks like non-complusory study sessions with students who somehow seem delighted to be there. It looks like the rare pan of brownies that both taste and look delicious.

In Lhasa, life looks like la jiao.

I may have asked for a tiny bit, but He's pretty intent upon giving us more than what we could ask or imagine...