Intro to Chinese

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Haaaa-ppy New Year!

Just like that, its 2006. A clean sheet of paper to start afresh on. If only I could draw a comparison between that paper and the newly fallen snow here in Jinan, but alas the snow is overwhelmingly dirty. And smelly. It looks white and innocent enough from the window, but once you venture out into the apparent winter wonderland you encounter a murky slush. The previously described dirty, oily sidewalks are covered in a dirty oily sludge impossible to avoid.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "If only I had a high pressure hose."

My Dad has this hose that hooks up to a pump and the water surges out at around a million PSI---give or take. It can cut through your leg like a million tiny daggers if you step into it's furious path. Sometimes I have these fantasies of giving Jinan's streets, sidewalks, allies and storefronts a nice hardy pressure wash. I could get some suds and really go to town...

Last night, we hit the town for New Year's Eve. We went to a club called The Pyramid owned by two brothers from Iran.
I spent my 1999 New Years Eve sleeping on a bridge in Sydney next to my Mom and brother while they celebrated with millions of raucous and disorderly Australians at the Harbour. Ever since, I have not been able to keep my eyes open to see in a new year. I call it the Y2K jinx. Last night, I asked Josh to provide some serious enouragment to keep me awake if I were to show signs of fatigue--like curling up in a corner of the dancefloor and using my (fluffy down) jacket as a pillow.
And guess what? I made it. After we counted down with a very worldly bunch, we looked at each other and I said, "Ready?" Josh said "Yup." We grabbed our coats and were in a taxi not three minutes into the new year.

No napping, its almost midnight!!



Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Fun with rehydrated food

Do you remember those little neon dinosaurs you could buy at the Dollar Store? You drop it into a sink full of water and watch it grow into a spongy T-rex. And the fuzzy little bricks that turned into washcloths--those were fun.

I found the adult version: rehydratable (sic) food. Check out the before and after on these woodear mushrooms. A backpackers dream, I think. Jake, are the astronauts onto these things?
I know they're not much to look at, but they take on the taste of anything you cook them with and I like their gelatinous consistency.













They look like something that might wash up on the beach... but trust me, they are truly enjoyable just as long as you are not picky about the texture of your food----or the color---or the appearance.

They're in that dish we call "MooShoo Pork" (Mooshoo is similar to its pronunciation in Chinese: muxu (that's the pinyin)) and countless other dishes around here.





The enlarging mushrooms were really the icing on the cake to a top notch day. ("Mushroom" and "icing" in the same sentence?!) After giving my final exam this morning, I met Josh and Phillip for lunch at our favorite BBQ spot in the Muslim district. Muslim BBQ is lamb or beef skewered onto bicycle spokes cooked outside over some hot charcoals by a guy called WeiWei. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, WeiWei shakes hot spices onto the meat and twirls the spokes over the grill outside. The grill is maybe 25 feet long and 10 inches wide---with enough room for 6 or 7 characters like WeiWei to stand side by side spinning spokes.
The Muslim district is lively-- a hubbub of shouting, laughing, squealing and squawking. Like one big family, really. There is a row of women sitting next to their individual blankets piled high with all sorts of animal parts for sale while the men wheel carts full of hind legs and minced lamb to and fro. Grillers call out trying to entice you to come and eat at their BBQ. For us, always a distinctive invitation: "Helllooooo? ...helloooo?"

Lastly, I thought I would take this opportunity to show you my festive finger nail art before I scratch it off. Snowflakes, flowers, golden glittery stripes... always good times at the beauty shop.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Christmas Lunch

This was a lunch of all our favorite dishes.

From left to right:

dumplings filled with pork and cabbage

(what we call) "potstickers" filled with lamb and carrot

basa digua (sweet potato pieces covered in melted sugar--is that called "candied"?)

The soup is a sweet egg corn soup





green beans fried in salt, chillies and garlic (no longer nutritious--but oh so delicious)


Shredded firm tofu stirfried with some herbs and greens.

Hard to make out is a dish with peanuts and onions in Chinese vinegar.






Phillip from Australia and Maggie-- a beautiful Chinese woman he hopes to make his girlfriend.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

The 11 minutes of Christmas

This morning marks a first for me. I completed my normal weekend morning routine--wake up in a quiet apartment, check my emails, make some toast, watch some English news...but its Christmas--a morning that is usually unusual. Normally abnormal. Ordinarily extraordinary. I am careful not to use the a-word (alone) because this is not a pity party, it's Christmas... and I have learned a valuable lesson this season: Christmas is what you make it.
Allow me to explain:
When you are surrounded by your family, familiar Christmas ornaments and comfort foods, you are on the Christmas escalator. Around here, there is a lot of talk about Christmas----with your students and other foriegners, but you can't see Christmas. And you definitely can't smell it. So you don't really know what is going to happen when that big day comes. And then it hit it me, if you want a special Christmas so far from home, you have to walk up the stairs. Are you still with me? There is no escalator to take you there, so you best start walking or you will still be on the ground floor come Christmas Eve--and you will probably just be cold.

We consolidated all of our Christmas accouterments to create a Christmas scene where I can sit by the light of the desk lamp and have a cold bag of milk. Last night, we went out for Peking Duck and tonight we will attend a party where hot buttered rum and fudge is promised.
Along the stairway, there have been some nice surprises. Less than an hour ago, I was buttering some toast when the phone jingled. On the other end my family was singing (!) and what followed was eleven minutes of concentrated Christmas bliss by way of speaker phone. Mom, Jake, Aunt Terri, Uncle Randy, Uncle Gary and even Tui painted a picture of Christmas at the lake and as the seconds on the phone card curtailed I hurriedly tried to drink in the experience. And when the last goodbyes were sung through the waves and wires, I stood with the phone on my ear for a few more seconds--my heart still leaping and bounding and my mind sifting back through the joyful cloud--I believe antlers and twice baked (or double stuffed) potatoes were somehow involved.

When Josh gets home from work (in thirty minutes), we will lean up against the wall next to the Christmas tree and open presents! His phone-call Christmas is scheduled to take place shortly after his homecoming.

So I guess you could say that this year we made our Christmas from concentrate. Its not as good as homestyle or extra pulp, but its slides down pret-ty nice.

And then, of course, there will be French toast. And most likely (okay, definitely) some dark chocolate too. Can't complaaain.........can't complain.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Chinese lesson--Beauty session

Classes are over and its time for exams! Ordinarily, I would be making colorful note cards and outlining potential essay questions, but it appears the tides have turned and this time I will write and administer the exam. Next week is oral exam week. Each student will come in for five minutes and discuss a topic of my choosing. I dreaded my Spanish oral exams and I really liked the idea of being the teacher in that situation until it occurred to me that I would have a five-minute meeting with 250 students! On the week after that, I will give the listening and writing portion of the exam. Merry Christmas!


As for the studious side of me, I have found a magnificent (and terribly indulgent) new way to practice Chinese. There is no shortage of hole-in-the-wall beauty salons around here, each with two or three older women out on the front steps trying to entice passers by to come in for a facial treatment or foot massage. Months ago, I slowed down and looked in the direction of a beauty shop to see what would happen. Sure enough, within seconds, three smiling women came over reaching out to touch my hair and my hands. They pulled me into the shop where other young ladies were in white coats and white masks, and then they all spoke Chinese to me at once. On my first visit, I was still an overwhelmed newcomer around here and when people spoke Chinese to me I would repeat Chinese for “I don’t understand” over and over until they gave up on trying to communicate. But nowadays, the trick is to keep pretending you understand so that they won’t stop talking. Twice now, I have gone into the shop with my Chinese textbook, notes and dictionary and when I lay down on the cot for a facemask, I place the books on top of my stomach. Initially this was for my reference, but now three or four of these friendly young ladies pick up and pass around the books. They flip through searching for questions to ask me (“Do you like to sing?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “What do you like to eat?”). I learn some new vocabulary and get a chance to work on my pronunciation. In addition, they offer to massage my hands, head, shoulders and even feet! What could be better? As a final touch, two young ladies will apply some makeup to my face and I get a great review lesson of colors and parts of the face. Granted, when I leave I have bright purple eyelids and red orange lips…but it’s completely worth it.

Friday, December 16, 2005

An entry by Josh......

December in Jinan is a month for the senses. Leaving for work in the morning, wrapped in scarf and mask, I open the door and suck in that first breath of outside air. It’s cold enough to shock the throat always makes me cough once or twice on the first breath. At about 7:30 the sky is blue overhead, but the sun is still not quite high enough to take the edge off. Pulling the bike out the door after me is always an angry little struggle. The bicycle is difficult to maneuver in close quarters and I still want to be in bed, so we don’t get along very well. It does wake me up, and gets the blood flowing.
The bike ride to work is mostly in the shade so it’s always quick and painful. Left out the main gate of Shanda Xinxiao. Right on Minziqian Lu. Stopping at traffic lights, I can hear the little breaths of winter wind wander down Quenchan road from the west. Soon the breeze finds me and searches for any little swath of exposed skin to chill. Only two more blocks until warmth and swarms of little Chinese kids who call me Mr. Josh.
Underneath most of what I smell on these rides is my wet breath in the mask, but over it sometimes I pick up the scent of a sweet potato vendor or hit the sour cloud of stench from a manhole. If I could perceive this world by smells, like a snake or a bear, this city would probably be the most fantastic place on earth. As a human being, most of the time it is just bewildering. There are pleasant smells, exotic but easily traced to their source: a street vendor selling noodles, a jaozi restaurant, or a Muslim barbecue. By far the majority are foul ones that seem to come from nowhere. Suddenly, I’ll just get broadsided by some queer odor and as much as I look around and investigate the source is always a mystery. I’m still not a big fan of how this city smells. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by how subtly sweet a pine forest in New Hampshire smells, or the dry purity of the air in the Sonoran. Here it just smells like people, over a billion people.
Finally arriving at work, I say good morning to the Chinese teachers, fill my tea bottle, do my thing for two hours, and go home. Same smells, still cold.

There’s something other than coal dust in the air these days in Jinan. Christmas is coming in the orient as well. Personally, I haven’t sorted out what I really feel about seeing a big old white Santa Claus face on the wall in a Chinese restaurant. It’s hard to get at the root of their enthusiasm for a holiday that is so western, so Christian. Santa Claus, holly, and ornaments are everywhere. In Carrefour, a supermarket owned by a French company, the cashiers all wear Santa Claus hats. I wonder if it is just the product of a company policy that was unchanged to fit non-western nations “From November 24-December 26 all Carrefour employees (everywhere!)wear red Santa Claus hats at all time, even if Christmas was illegal in your country up until the 1980’s.” Maybe the Chinese just dig jolly fat guys, Buddha did seem to catch on pretty fast here as well. The cynical Chinese nationalist would say that Western capitalists just want to import the idea of holiday shopping to make a buck selling presents and tinsel in the world’s largest almost free market. Who knows, but it is fun to hear Chinese try to sing English Christmas carols. It’s so well-intentioned but awful it warms the heart.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Heavens to Betsy?

Last night, a routine dinner outing took an unexpected turn.
A week ago I agreed to go to dinner with a Chinese colleague of mine (ooh that sounds rather grown up… “colleague”) and a few other Shandong English teachers from around the neighborhood. I met five English teachers—two Chinese, three American-- on Shandong’s “old” campus and we made our way to a large seafood restaurant decked out with bright lights and Christmas trimmings.

In these types of restaurants, the first step is to spend some time in a section where you can view the raw material (tightly covered with plastic wrap) of each dish that’s offered. It’s all neatly displayed under bright lights on refrigerated shelves complete with tanks full of fish, frogs and some large bowls of lively scorpions. A waiter follows closely with pen and pad. You point, they record and a menu never enters the equation.

While this is a handy option for those of us who don’t speak the language, in my opinion platefuls of raw meat and wilting vegetables under fluorescent lights doesn’t a tummy rumble make.

We were seated upstairs to a private room called “Amsterdam”. At each place setting there was a small capsule of vinegar the size of your pinky that you puncture with a tiny straw to wet your whistle before the meal. The dishes began to arrive not long after we were seated; fish balls, shrimp and scallion pot stickers, fried fish pieces, beef and vegetables, and pile of chopped up taro root covered in melted sugar. When separating a bite size cluster of taro with your chopsticks, wisps of melted sugar stretch endlessly into the air. Cleverly a bowl of hot water is placed next to this dish and with a quick dip the sugar dissolves leaving no chance of having long sticky sugar whiskers dangling from your chin.

A half-hour into the meal, the conversation entered some unfamiliar territory for me—how each of us had accepted the Lord into our lives. Everyone told an uplifting story citing books, verses, and psalms. When it became obvious that it was my turn to contribute, my cheeks went a little red and I said that in fact I was not a Christian and I would rather listen if they didn’t mind. The conversation went on for hours. They spoke of starting a Bible Study group for their students, but all agreed that was a bad idea with the consideration that it is against the law. The two Chinese women asked the Americans a lot of questions about faith and “the truth”. They all remarked on how sad it was that young people these days believe there is no such thing as absolute truth. At one point, someone said something along the lines of art and literature not being truly great if they were contrary to “the truth”. A Chinese woman asked “How can I know if the author or artist has God in them?” I was surprised but tried not to let my eyebrows show it.
At one stage, I was given some suggestions of Christian singers who sing about people with doubts about Jesus.
After two hours of sipping tea, I went to the ladies room with my Chinese colleague who hosted the dinner. She told me she hoped I didn’t mind the conversation. I said I didn’t and that I liked to listen. Then she said “I brought you here tonight to hear this conversation. I hope you don’t mind my purpose”. In fact everyone but me had known what the “purpose” of the dinner was. “Oh…” I realized. That’s all I could come up with. I stared blankly at her unable to think of a response.
“Thank you”? “No thanks, not interested”?
On my walk home, I was a little puzzled. Why me? Don’t I seem happy enough?

Monday, December 05, 2005

An unfamiliar cold

When the temperature drops, I am usually quick to make the statement "This is the coldest cold I have ever known." I don't know if it is true, but it sure feels like it.
The time has come to retire the bike. The bitter wind on my morning pedal to work gives me an ice cream headache. And I wear so many layers of fleece and down that I perspire just enough for a thin layer of ice to freeze on me after I have been in class for about 10 minutes. I just don't feel like a professional when I stutter over my words because my teeth are chattering. But then again, I should admit that I am a big wuss in the cold weather. And with that said, I will stop whining.

The day without power and water turned out to be a day without heat and power---only until 6pm. It wasn't so bad. For most of the day I was out shopping. There is an indoor market here that has just been renovated. Its called the New World Market and has anything and everything you could ever imagine. There is an entire floor of fabrics and tailors where you can have curtains, duvet covers, dresses, skirts, wool jackets and more made to suit you right down to the last detail. What a pleasure it will be to have some pants made to order precisely in my dimensions for five dollars.

On Friday afternoon, I gave a lecture at a high school. They asked me to talk about American life, the stress of studying, pressure from parents, "puppy love" and of course the very popular "American foods and superstars". I made a few notes, but figured I would be pretty safe winging it. When I arrived at the high school, I was whisked into the teachers lounge to "have a rest". Around here, people are always asking me if I would like to "have a rest" and telling me to "add more layers".
After my rest, I went into the auditorium....where 600 students were seated!! I could not believe my eyes. As I walked up to the podium and microphone, a young girl in red warm ups ran across to the stage and handed me a boquet of flowers. The students all applauded and I was starting to panic a little. The head of school gave me a little introduction (she called me a professor and I felt like a fraud) and then she turned it over to me. Oh dear.
If you had asked me, I would have said my speech went over like a lead balloon. They laughed when I spoke some Chinese (that always gets 'em!), but otherwise it was hard to tell if they were interested. Its hard to talk to that many people. You can't do the little impressions or hand gestures that you do when you are in a smaller group or the classroom. It could be said that when you are up on a stage with a microphone (in front of 600 people), you need a polished speech. I delivered an hour of aimless ramble, but fortunately I was the only native English speaker in the room, and with any luck the only one who truly knew how bad it was.
I don't know whether the teachers really thought so, or if its the Chinese way, but afteward they laid the compliments on pretty thick and I felt a little better.
I guess, when it comes down to it, the main thing is that the English was authentic. I will stand by that. I may not be a professor, I may not be a good speech maker, but I can speak English with a thick American accent and sometimes that seems to be good enough.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Precious moments of power

The power and water are supposed to be shutting off any moment now. We will be dirty, parched and in the dark for 24 hours.
No, I kid. We have plenty of water and candl