Read between the lines

The scene: my apartment
The time: last night, 1:30 am.
The quote: "Okay guys, as I see it we have two choices. We go on a beer run, or we go out for barbeque."

Let's parse all the ways that sentence is awesome.
1. You can buy beer at 1:30 in the morning! In fact, half a block from my house is a 24-hour convenience store, and as far as I can tell, there is not a single liquor control law in China.
2. You can get barbeque at 1:30 in the morning! Delicious, life-giving barbeque.
3. Nobody works on weekday mornings! It is totally kosher to stay up late drinking after class and then wake up late the next day. In fact, as soon as Dan gets out of the shower, we're headed down to Macao for the day.
4. Advanced analysis: drinking in my apartment is way cheaper (and sometimes more fun) than hitting a smoke-filled western bar where you end up desperately trying to figure out what Australians are saying.

We ended up with barbeque, because it's hard to resist the lure of hot dogs, tofu strips, beef, and chicken. We also got my favorite thing - I only know the name in Chinese (jiu cai) but it's sorta like chives or green onions, lightly spiced and shoved on a skewer - as well as mushrooms and cauliflower (literally "flower vegetable" in Chinese). All things considered, this is a pretty great country.