I took a taxi from my hotel. It took about half an hour and cost about 80 RMB. Leng and the others were waiting for me at the front gate. When I saw Leng running towards me, I realized that he was going to pay for the taxi. So I hurriedly handed a 100 RMB to the driver and got out of the cab. Even then, Leng ran to the driver's side, collected the change, and then proceeded to force me to take his 100 RMB note. We Americans are ill-equipped to defend ourselves against such aggressiveness, and I was eventually forced to take the money.
I gave a short talk discussing some connections between information theory and convex geometry. It was a relatively short talk, and I spoke as clearly and slowly as I could. But, except for Leng, the audience looked completely bewildered and lost the entire time. But afterwards there were one or two students who asked me some good questions, so I didn't think it was a total loss.
Afterwards, 7 of us had lunch together at a university restaurant. Leng kept telling me that the food in Shanghai was not as good as in Hangzhou and that the food at the university was not as good as elsewhere. I kept replying that it was still better than anything I could get in the US. It really was a delicious meal. We also drank "Shanghai Lao Jiu", which means literally "Old Shanghai wine". It is a Chinese wine that tastes somewhat like sherry. Following Chinese custom (which Stephen had to explain to me), I drank only when toasted or when I toasted someone else. Luckily, I had come prepared and swallowed a Pepcid AC before the meal. This reduces the effect of the alcohol.
After lunch, Leng suggested that we go hang out in his office. I said OK. Then he had a better idea. How about we go get a "foot washing"? I said, "Sure!" So He, Leng, and I took a taxi to a foot washing place. So here you lie back in a comfortable lounge chair, while an attractive young woman takes off your shoes and socks and puts your feet in a wooden tub filled with piping hot water. After a while, she comes back and carefully washes your feet. After that, she gives you a very thorough and enjoyable massage of your feet and lower legs. The whole thing takes 60 minutes. During that time, He, Leng, the girls, and I chatted. They are regular patrons, so they knew the girls. Leng told me that he often goes in the evening with his wife.
I also asked Leng which of his other past visitors he had taken to the foot washing place but to protect the guilty I will not reveal his answer. Another amusing thing he said was that in general the local Shanghai population did not frequent such places and viewed them as a waste of money but in Hunan where Leng, He, and Mao Tse-tung are from such places are quite popular.
I find it difficult to imagine how non-Chinese speaking visitors communicate with Leng and his group. No one seems to understand or speak English well at all. I asked how Richard Gardner communicated, and it appears that he would write things down. I had to do the same thing when I asked Leng about the Math Olympiad which he coaches the Chinese team for. When I said "Olympiad", neither he nor He had a clue to what I was saying. So I wrote the word on the blackboard, and they understood.
I also found being able to speak only a little Chinese almost more of a handicap than speaking none at all, because Leng would speak freely to me in Chinese, and his Chinese is so heavily accented that I could barely understand anything he said. He (the other guy, not Leng), on the other hand, spoke clear unaccented Chinese.
