Thanksgiving with Chinese Characteristics

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. Justin and I were going to host a big Thanksgiving meal, but we realized we didn't have the resources (the only traditional food we knew we could find was potatoes) or the time (we both had a full teaching day). So my Thanksgiving passed with classes where we watched a Thanksgiving episode of Friends and discussed the PG-rated history of the Pilgrims and Indians. My dinner included a grilled cheese sandwich with some of the precious cheese I brought back from Chengdu, and by the end of the day when my Thanksgiving was over and the one in the US was just starting, I was feeling a little sad. Until I got a call from one of my freshmen.

I am thankful for my students. A few of my freshmen were calling to see if they could bring over Thanksgiving presents cause they realized I must be missing home. They bought me sugar cubes, gum, lollipops, and a traditional Chinese incense holder that is supposed to bring good health. Not quite the same as turkey and stuffing, but who doesn't love sugar candy? Their thoughtfulness and gratitude remind me that I am lucky to have this opportunity.

my Thanksgiving gifts

That being said, this weekend was the first time I felt really homesick. It was hard being away from my family knowing that they were having our annual nerf-gun contest and choosing between fifty different desserts on my grandma's special "Dessert Table" without me. (Although they did make me feel included by Skyping me in.) It gave me a taste of how hard missing Christmas is going to be.

Miss and love you all!

But I want to say how thankful I am for friends and family back home (and abroad) who have been so supportive during my time here. It definitely hasn't been easy, but it would have been impossible without all the Skype sessions, email updates, and care packages. Thank you! I can't wait to see everyone over winter break.

Oh, that reminds me... I'm coming home for winter break! See everyone in January!

Chengdu in photos

Last weekend I got out of Hechuan for the first time in over a month. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province and only about two hours by train from where I am. It is especially well-known for having the largest Giant Panda Research Base and Breeding Center in the world. Close proximity + pandas = top of my travel list.

For anyone finding themselves in Chengdu, I highly recommend the Mix Lazybones Hostel. It is one of the nicest, cleanest hostels I’ve stayed at, and I’ve stayed in hostels all over Europe. They had a comfy lounge to meet travelers, free Wifi, a bunch of group tour options, and a kitchen that served Western food. (French toast! Pizza! Milkshakes!) I was in heaven.

As is usual whenever I stay at hostels, I also met some great people. After an easy train ride, I did some quick sight-seeing on my own before coming back for a Dumpling Party hosted by my hostel. I love the backpacking community; something about traveling cheaply brings out the friendliest, most open-minded people around. I latched on to some Canadians who had come down from studying in Beijing, but also met up with Germans, Dutch, British, Irish, and of course a few other Americans. It was great to meet new friends to make traveling solo more enjoyable.

The Chongqing-Chengdu bullet train. This little boy shared an orange with me.

Wenshu monastery

the hostel's dumpling making party

The next morning a group of us went to see the pandas. This was by far the highlight of the trip.

I'll let the panda photos speak for themselves:

After the pandas, the Canadians and I went out for traditional Hot Pot. As you know, I am now a Hot Pot expert. There were no English menus and no one spoke English, so we ended up just walking around from table-to-table pointing at other peoples food to show what we wanted. The whole restaurant got a kick out of this and dinner was delicious.

Hot Pot!

On Sunday, a group of eight of us (two Canadians, two Germans, and four Americans) hired a car to drive to the LeShan Buddha. I hadn't been surrounded by so many Westerners since orientation three months ago! It was great to be able to speak at full speed again without worrying if I was using words that were too big.

The LeShan Buddha is the largest stone Buddha in the world and about a two-hour drive from Chengdu. Anyone who has driven in China knows that those two hours are a harrowing mix of swerving in and out of "lanes", narrowly missing being hit by buses, and lots and lots of honking. We luckily arrived in one piece and had a great time exploring. Although as usual a lot of people seemed more interested in us than the Buddha. When else are they going to get eight foreigners in their picture at once!

They rate their toilets in China. This one was not Three Stars, as advertised.

One of the many groups who wanted a picture with us

The Hostel Group! Thanks for a great weekend.

The LeShan trip took all day, so in preparation for an early train the next morning, that night I settled in to watch the hostel's screening of Into the Wild and enjoyed one last milkshake and a hamburger. Overall, it was a great weekend with delicious food and good company.

From the mouths of babes...

Last week we talked about the pros and cons of the American education system. I then asked my students to write a letter to an American student explaining the Chinese system. In a country where negative comments about anything Chinese are rare, their candid responses were very surprising. See for yourself:

"I feel I haven't enough time to do other funny activities, such as play the instrument, draw Chinese traditional picture and so on. Particularly during the summer or winter holiday, children aren't feel happy and lots of pressure. I want to say children haven't a really happy childhood."

"As a student of China, I feel tired. In middle school and high school we must pass the examination. I wake at 8am and must study until 10pm. It is bad for health."

"Students who are bad for study will be leave out in teacher's eyes. It doesn't mean there is fair."

"American education have more free time to students to learn some new things. It makes they become creative. Chinese style is different, this style make student only pay attention to the study not society and theyself think. Although every student can learn, this is not point to a man who want to be creative. As far as I'm considered, I like American education more because it can make people open they mind and not have so much stress like China education."

"I think our education system is bad. When we begin studying in primary school we have too much homework to do and we only learn the knowledge on book and never to practice. So Chinese students lack the creative thinking and is inflexible."

"And in high school, every students want to get a good grade. So they have to study harder and harder, even they usually sleep very little time one day. Surely they don't have enough time to rest and have a good health. They don't have freedom."

(There was only one hold-out:)

"In China being a life-long learner is common for us. So our country has a perfect education system. And everyone can learn wherever they are. Do you think our country set an example in this area?"

I am very pleased with how open my students have become with sharing their opinions with me, something that didn't happen at the beginning of the semester. It definitely makes my job much more interesting since they never cease to surprise me with their views.

Anyways, I'm off to Chengdu (aka the city of pandas) on Friday. Looking forward to a weekend of cuddly animals, sight-seeing, and hopefully some Western luxuries like cheese...

LiT Pt. 4

As my friend Lauren pointed out, I am long overdue for a new Lost in Translation post. Luckily, I stumbled across the perfect addition in the supermarket this weekend.

Yes, those are Strange-Taste Horsebeans! If that name isn't enough to turn you off, the description on the back lists one of the ingredients as "Chinese prickly ash." Not one to pass up weirdly labeled food when it costs less than a dollar, I bought the horsebeans and had a try.

They were disgusting. Maybe the mistranslation wasn't so far off for once-- a combination of Strange-Taste and ash was a pretty spot on description.

A day in the life...

After more than two and a half months here, daily life has become very routine. Don’t mistake routine for meaning normal, I don't think I could ever classify living here as normal. But for the most part my days follow a certain schedule, so I thought I would lay out a typical day. Let's take Wednesday...

6:30-7:00am: Wake-up call and stretching exercises. This is the least favorite part of the day because the Bugle Call is played at full strength over the loudspeakers of my school, followed by half-an-hour of Chinese "calming" music for stretching. It is not calming, but infuriating, and there is no sleeping through it. The only upside is that one of these songs has helped me learn my Chinese numbers since it just repeats “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8” over and over again.

7:01-8:30am: Relief that the musical torture is finally over, followed by an attempt to fall back asleep that is generally unsuccessful.

8:30-9:45am: Shower, breakfast, review of lesson plans for the day. I know it’s going to be a good day if I have hot water.

9:45-10:15am: I head to my classroom. Although the walk to my class should only be five minutes, it takes me ten to get there since every Chinese student on campus (all 6,000) are moving between classes. I stand patiently in line for the stairs and manage not to get trampled. When I get to my class, which is all freshmen, they are already sitting and waiting attentively even though we still have fifteen minutes until class starts. This leads to an awkward period where, after I write the day’s plan on the board, we have nothing to do but sit and stare at each other. Five people pull out their phones to take a picture of me.

10:15-11:00am: The bell rings and the lesson begins. Today I start with a brief lecture describing the American education system. After examining some differences in other countries in small groups, the students write letters to a fake American student explaining the Chinese system. One of my students who speaks absolutely no English asks to “go to the bathroom” and never comes back. When I go through the letters at the end of the class, I have two letters that are identical down to the handwriting. One miraculously has his name signed to it.

11:00-11:10am: The bell rings again, signaling break. During break a student from my Thursday freshmen class comes in to tell me that our class is cancelled tomorrow. She is a bit unclear about why, something to do with the whole group having a mandatory class. Used to last minute schedule changes without reason I just shrug and enjoy the thought of a shortened Thursday. Although this means I will probably be asked to make it up on Saturday or Sunday.

11:10-11:55am: Class resumes. We talk in groups about what qualities make good and bad teachers, then do an activity that involves analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of several candidates for an English teaching job. Despite my pushing for the other more qualified fake applicants they choose the guy who is a Chemist at Harvard. He has never taught and has no relevant experience, but I guess the Harvard name carries weight here too. We end the class with a game of Simon Says because they love it.

12:00-2:00pm: Lunch time. I grab food from a street stand or my bakery on the way back to my apartment. Then I spend a few hours reading, revising lesson plans, practicing Rosetta stone, or watching TV.

2:30-4:10pm: Second class of the day, this time sophomores. I only have five people on my roster for this class. However, only once have all five students come to class on the same day. My average is three. Today is a great day because four have shown up. We do a slightly more sophisticated version of the Education lesson I had planned for my freshmen. During break, one of my students informs me that Monday I have to be a judge at the annual English department’s speech competition. She has no more information on a specific time or whether I need to prepare anything.

4:10-5:45pm: My second break of the day filled with reading, walking around, or watching TV on my laptop.

6:00-7:00pm: English Corner. Seven people show up, which is a huge drop from the fifty that came the first time. Luckily the group has dwindled to the students who are actually there to speak rather than just stare at Justin and me. The day’s topic is Tourism and the Environment, but no one has the ability to actually speak coherently about that. Instead we discuss food and weather. Except when one girl out of the blue suddenly announces to us that Colonel Gaddafi is her hero. Justin and I both look shocked and then try to diplomatically explain why we don’t agree. Then we quickly drop the subject for the risk of saying things that might get us deported.

7:00-8:00pm: Justin and I head to dinner with whichever of the students have invited us out this week. I have more lunch and dinner invitations here than I know what to do with. We head to a local place on campus and they order me an eggplant and rice stir-fry. Relieved that it is not something worse that I’m going to have to politely pretend to like, I discover that I genuinely enjoy this eggplant dish and mentally write it down on my Safe Foods to Eat list.

8:00-11:00pm: Back in my apartment. Wind down the day with Skyping friends and family, reading some more, making adjustments to my lesson plans for the next day, and usually watching a movie. Then early to bed in anticipation of my 6:30am wake-up call the following morning...

Just another day in China.

Hot Pot

I get several questions every time I meet a new Chinese person. I have heard these questions so many times I could answer them in my sleep. The first question is simple, “Where are you from?” Next comes, "Do you like China?" Those two I have gotten everywhere I go. Question #3, however, is one more specific to Chongqing:

“Can you eat Hot Pot?”

Hot Pot is the famous cuisine of Sichuan, the province that up until fifteen years ago Chongqing was a part of. Hot Pot is famous for being super spicy, so when someone asks me if I can eat Hot Pot they are essentially asking me if I like spicy food. Which I do, and respond accordingly, but up until Friday night I had never actually eaten Hot Pot. Hot Pot is considered a treat here, kind of like a nice steak dinner, and so whenever I go out to dinner with my students we typically frequent cheaper/faster places. But after having been asked about it fifty-bajillion times, I decided enough was enough.

Friday night, Justin, his girlfriend, and I found ourselves at Hechuan’s fanciest restaurant.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the fanciest restaurant around.

We were handed a Chinese menu and Justin and Penny proceeded to make seemingly random check marks. Then a large pot of oil was brought out. Hot Pot is kind of like fondue in that a burner on our table is used to heat up the oil so that we can cook the food of our choice right in front of us. (Side note: oil is a super important part of Chinese cooking. It is so vital and expensive that a black market has popped up where used oil is sold out the back of restaurants to street vendors who will then reuse it. More about that here.)

A small pot in the center had oil and herbs such as garlic and salt. A second larger pot of oil circled this and was filled with so many red peppers it was hard to imagine any food would fit in the oil.  Next, the uncooked food itself was brought out. Justin and Penny had ordered potatoes, seaweed, quail eggs, pork, beef skewers, ham, lettuce, sticky rice cakes, squash, and tomatoes. The bowls of food were then dumped in all at once, and I was told that whenever something started floating in the oil it was ready to eat.

Justin and Penny

While skeptical about some of their choices (quail egg?), I started out by trying one of everything. In fact, all of their chosen dishes tasted awesome. The oil had infused everything with the spices and made the food taste amazing. While I was expecting super spicy thanks to all the peppers, it was generally mild compared to some of the foods I've had here. I'm going to ignore how bad all that oil must be for me and focus on how many more vegetables I eat here than at home.

We polished off everything pretty quickly, then sat around sipping beer and enjoying the drunken karaoke that had broken out at the table next to us. While expensive by Chinese standards ($20 for all that food plus beer for three of us), I can't imagine a meal that filling and rich costing so little at home. The only downside was I managed to severely burn my mouth when I didn't properly let a tomato cool off. Once I can taste food again, which may be in several weeks, I would love to do it again. Quail eggs and all.

P.S. China does not practice Daylight Savings Time, meaning I am now a slightly-more-inconvenient 14 hours ahead of Chicago. Fun fact regarding China-time; all of China is on the same time zone. This time zone is based around Beijing, so when it's noon in Beijing it's noon in Tibet. Even though at noon in Tibet the sun is only positioned at like 8am. China, why are you so crazy?

The All-Purpose Rice Cooker

I have a rice cooker in my kitchen. Since we have already established I'm scared to death of my manual-light gas stove and ovens do not exist in China, this rice cooker is my sole means of cooking food. This means that as the weeks have gone on I have found many creative uses for it, including:

-scrambling eggs and omelette's
-toasting bread
-making grilled cheese sandwiches (with the little cheese I brought back from HK)
-cooking pasta and/or ramen noodles
-frying dumplings
-warming up marinara sauce
-stir-frying tofu
-heating water for bathing (during the horrible week my water heater was broken)

*The one thing I have yet to do with my rice cooker: cook rice.

Making a difference

My students are so great; they brought me a carved jack-o-lantern (complete with candle and lighter) to class today. Despite its horribly rotten appearance, it was one of the best gifts I've gotten because it shows that perhaps they do listen to me in class and are learning something despite my doubts. I am touched they went to all this effort! It couldn't have been easy to track down a pumpkin in Hechuan.

Students in the English Department at our Halloween Party last week