Our school had a ceremony (speeches, fireworks at the end) on Friday morning to celebrate its status change from training school to college. Up until this year, all of Xinyu College's students were 3 year students. Although I'm not sure about other departments, the foreign studies department where I teach was basically a vocational school. There were three majors: English Education, Business English, and Business Japanese. So all the students were expected to find fairly permanent jobs in those fields following graduation.

Now the college also has an English major for 4 year students. These are the students who did better in high school. And with a major in English I guess some of them might go on to graduate school instead of getting into a career right after college. So the school's reputation has jumped up a bit this year.

We were allowed to leave school without having to attend any post-ceremony lunch parties. That was lucky given the extreme likelihood that we would have been made to drink 白酒 (baijiu, liquor), the drink of choice for any lunch or dinner gathering of more than 3 people.

Later that night Bleisha, Fujii, and I went to a massage parlour just up the street where Bleisha and Laura have gone a few times this semester. I had already heard from Laura that it hurts pretty bad but that I would feel better the next day. Most of it did hurt pretty bad but I didn't really feel much better the next day. I was mostly just sore in my shoulders and lower back. But it was pretty funny, I guess. Me, Bleisha, and Fujii all in one room, lying as quietly as we could as the three masseuses slapped us and yanked us and kneaded us until one of us would say ouch or "痛" (tong, pain). All in all I might do it again some day.