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b'This week\'s podcast will focus on the remakable differences in social behavior I have noticed in my now three weeks here in Zhuhai.\\n\\nI was standing in a supermarket, the one near the bank I use here, a couple weeks ago. I was looking for a few things, including a cheap pair of chopsticks for your room, some peanut butter and maybe some bread. I wasn\'t totally sure where peanut butter might be kept or even if I would find any at all in China. I knew it is not a friendly taste for many people outside of the united states, but wandered around trying to find it anyway. Suddenly, right as I grabbed a 1 kuai pair of chopsticks, I noticed a student standing next to me, staring at me.nbsp;\\n"Hello," he says nervously, and looking almost starstruck, "where are you from?" he asks.nbsp;\\n"Mei guo," I replied, noticing the smile on his face.nbsp;\\n"You go to UIC?"nbsp;\\n"Yes," I told him and then asked, "do you?"\\n"No" he responds, and struggles to find the words to tell you which of the three\\n\\ncolleges in the area he attends.\\n\\n"BNU?" I offer.\\n\\n"Yes, yes, BNU. Year one?"\\n\\n"No, I am year three,"\\n\\n"You in Zhuhai, three years?"\\n\\n"No, I have been here only eleven days, I am an exchange student, here until January."\\n\\n"Oh, ok, see you later," and he departs, off to continue his own shopping adventure.\\n\\nMy interaction with this BNU student is a prototype of my social interactions here in Zhuhai more genearlly. It seems like everywhere I go, people are excited to see me, almost overly excited, to get to know me, learn about me, my home country and what I am doing in China. How long have I been here? When am I leaving? What is my major? Do I play sports? Which question is always followed up with "Basketball?" regardless of how I answer. A whole barrage of questions come down upon me with nearly every person I meet. A high school student this week bumped into me at a restaurant, and did a double take when he noticed I was definitely not chinese, rather I am a 6 foot 4 white guy, probably from America. "SORRY" he almost shouted at me, and the proceeded to leap up and down comparing his height to mine.\\n\\nEarlier this week, I ate lunch with a contingent of first year students from Yunnan Province. There were probably about twelve of them, all around 18 years old, and were standing in a pack at the bottom of the driveway leading away from campus to Stadium Road. I met my friend Rhea at the library and walked over to this group. When the students saw us coming it was as if they had seen the most spectacular sight of their lives. Many of them hid behind their umbrellas they use to shield themselves from the sun, and some of them averted their gaze away from us, and when Rhea introduced us as her friends, a hushed "woah!" could be heard from the crowd. As we walked to the Guandong restaurant Cynthia and I led the charge-even though we weren\'t entirely sure where, exactly, we were going-with the crowd a good fifteen feet behind us; as if getting too close would in some way be taken as a sign of disrespect. It\'s hard for me to imagine why these particular students are behaving so much differently than everyone else we\'ve met thus far. Perhaps it is because of how many of them there are, the crowd creating a groupthink mentality that the Americans are best left undisturbed. Maybe it is just the awkwardness of being 18. Regardless of the reason, the whole situation carried an unexpectedly high level of reverence toward the waigouren, the foreigners.\\n\\nI know many international students at Gustavus, but find myself trying to recall any that are given this kind of instant celebrity status back home. Are there clubs that actively seek out international students because they think they will be more popular to everyone else? Looking back on your experiences, it seems like the international students at Gustavus just sort of fade into the background, as if they are just like any ordinary student on campus. Gustavus easily has more internationa...'