I'll have the soup with a side of DEET, please.

One of the things that attracted me about China was the food.  I feel like If you're not interested in the culinary experience of eating in China, you're only experiencing half the country.  So, naturally, I eventually found a better solution to my stomach's desires than the bag of soup from the local neighborhood, and that is the campus cafeteria.  There are actually two of these on campus, and they are both quite huge, and usually very busy.  Don't let this picture fool you into believing in orderly queues, though.  Such a thing does not yet exist in this country.   

(Edit: Thanks to Ali for pointing me in the vague direction of this article about recent humorous efforts made to change this fact!)

One interesting thing about life here is they way the free market has been so strongly embraced.  The cafeteria system itself probably contains at least 100 small, privately owned shops and restaurants, crammed into the same two buildings.  This is fairly representative of the attitude in the rest of the city.  Also, meals here are super cheap (I don't think I've ever spent more than $1 US on a meal here), and the folks are usually very nice and patient with me as I struggle to learn the language.  Especially the two pictured above, who work at the "fruit water" stand, and are helping me learn the names of all of the fruits.  I successfully named all of them today, but my final fruit exam isn't until Monday, so I have to make sure I don't forget any before then. Overall, a great place to hang out every day.

And it all seemed so perfect, too.  Nice little cafeteria, nice people, relatively comfortable access to food...  but then this guy walked in:

I'm in the middle of a conversation, nomming on a late breakfast, and all of a sudden this dude walks in with a super-loud, gas-powered blower on his back, and starts spraying chemical bug spray everywhere!  While I was eating! What?!  No warning, all over the cafeteria.  Out of control.