Start at the post below this!!

I saved a post I started a month ago, but I couldn't figure out how to edit it (I also had to sign in in Russian today-- censorship blockers have their glitches) so this is the continuation of the below. Sorry again for the lame postage. I've been busy! I'm thinking about continuing this after I get back and we'll all just pretend I'm still in China. But with, you know, better toilets.

Hmmph. I also just realized that my picture doohickey isn't working. OK, well, quick summary of the rest of Wulongtan. If the censors let me post pics again at sometime in the future, I will post a montage. maybe with accompanying perky music.

So we, along with 8000 of our closest Chinese friends, climbed up the many steps to the almost top. Along the way, we crossed a suspension bridge that everyone thought would be hysterical to jump up and down on. This involved a lot of lurching and a 4 foot tall Chinese grandmother grabbing my chest in an attempt to stay upright. We also stopped to eat our KFC at a little pavilion where a man sold tea and sodas. There was a dog there, and they were going to throw him the bones--when I said Chicken bones were bad for dogs and explained why, they listened seriously and said, "well those are American dogs. Chinese dogs are tougher."

BTW, a few people had asked me about the KFC quality here. In general, it pretty much tastes like KFC (i.e., it's no Bojangles) and I haven't seen any biscuits, but they have AWESOME fried Chicken wings. Also, they offer a side of the most disgusting corn, pepper and carrot chunks bathed in mayonaise. I know this b/c when Tony was here we ate at KFC (and McD's and Burger King)and got the delicious corn-aise. Also, completely not what we thought we ordered. Somehow we ended up with one chicken sandwich, one corn-aise, one chicken leg and a bright orange drink. Since we were pointing at pictures, I'm not sure how that happened. Also, speaking of mayo, the Chinese are oddly fond of it. They'll make salads with just mayo on them (the Chinese don't really get the concept of salad--eating raw veggies is kind of gross to them) and I would swear that sometimes the cafeteria serves seafood with a heaping side of mayo)

We were going to go all the way to the top and see the "ancient temple," but somehow we got turned around and started down the pah. But Jane and I really wanted to go to the top, so we left Nina and Professor Wang (he's an older guy who they are friends with. He's really interesting: he was a championship runner and ballet dancer during the cultural revolution and has taught english and gym for many years. Oh, he also now has a labrador puppy (dor-dor) who is the cutest thing ever)and booked back up the path we had just gone down and up, up, up to the ancient temple. Which was a big pillar made of concrete. Yeah. Apparently it had been restored about 7 years ago. It was still pretty neat, though. There was a big candle holder set up in front of it for prayers/messages to the gods and the usual cushions set up in front for kowtowing. There was also a great view of the surrounding mountains, all terraced for farming, and down into the valley of the river. Pictures would be exciting here, wouldn't they?

My birthday was last last Monday, and frankly it was completely pre-empted by the early arrival of Anna Rose West, my best friend’s daughter, who came at 33 weeks. I was hoping that April could hold out till my birthday, but selfishly, she decided her life threatening preeclampsia entitled her to ignoring such niceties. Let me tell you, do not plan on being half way across the world when people you love dearly are in danger. Not only do you have to deal with time differences (and may I just say, thank goodness for how cheap skype has made calling to international land lines), but something can delay email arrivals—apparently the words placenta and umbilical cord set off all sorts of alarms in emails, which would be delayed up to 12 hours. Both baby and mom are doing wonderfully, though. Anna is 3 pounds today!!:

My birthday was a little pushed away by all of this and let me tell you, I’m a person who makes a big deal out birthdays—other people, and mine. I had, 2 weeks before, announced to my class that my bday was coming up, so my sweet babies got me a cake!!

This also involved them getting into an epic frosting fight. That’s why, if you look carefully in this picture, half of the kids have white smears all over them.




Chinese birthday cake, by the way, is a take on western traditions. The cake is a nice light sponge cake with preserved fruit between the layers, and a thick layer of whipped cream. The top is covered with various fruits. In china, tomatoes are firmly classified as a fruit (let me tell you tomato-strawberry-pineapple juice? Not good) so it was my first birthday cake with tomatoes on top.



Afterwards, I’d arranged to go out with Nina, Jane and Maggie to hotpot. For the uninitiated, hotpot is like a fondue, though no cheese of course. Instead you get boiling broth, either spicy or plain. We get a dish shaped like a yin-yang sign with spicy on one side, not spicy on the other. It’s called two ducks pot because ducks mate for life and stay together. The first time Jane, Nina and I went we ordered so much food that the waitress yelled at us—and the Chinese can seriously eat. The Chinese for big appetite is “dai wei”—big belly—and when I told Jane who weighs about 18 pounds and can eat me under the table that by American standards I had a big appetite, she looked at me in shock and said, “Americans must not eat anything.” This time we toned down our ordering—“just” lamb (oh, and also 3 orders of lamb skewers to start), fish sausage, Chinese “bacon” which pretty much tastes like bologna, seaweed, spinach, a zucchini like melon, tofu skin, rice noodles… -- here we are after dinner.

Nina and Jane had also ordered me a cake—what a thing of beauty!

The horse (yes, that is a horse), by the way, is for my Chinese zodiac sign. This is not common for bday cakes, but last week we were hanging out watching Jane Eyre (apparently loving it as a trans-cultural nerd girl trait) and eating an epic lunch prepared by Jane and Nina (one more food listing! Spare ribs, turnip and beef broth soup (we sucked the marrow out of the bones), stir fried broccoli and carrot, bok choy and mushrooms, shaved cucumbers with ginger and garlic, salad, and two shaotsai or small dishes—pickled veggies and seaweed bought premade) and I was showing them pics including my bday party last year and the moose cake Tony designed for me, so I think they thought animals were de rigueur on western bday cakes. I also got a lovely birthday crown.

It actually says “Happy Bistday.” The card my kiddies got me is another great piece of chinglish btw—it says happy bday and has a poem in Chinese, but up in the left hand corner, it also, perplexingly, says “best wishes on your retirement.”



So it was a good birthday. The next day I went out with some Americans here and had a hamburger…a good one…yum. I also had my triumph of directing the taxi home completely in Chinese. I mastered the name of the school last week, but no taxi knows how to get to our residence, so you always have to direct them from the gates of the school. I practiced ‘turn left” ‘turn right” “go straight” the entire mile walk home the day before with Jane and Nina, and, lo and behold, it worked!!



This weekend, Jane, Nina, and I, along with a friend of theirs, Professor Wang, went to Wulongtan, or 5 dragon pools. The legend is a sort of Leda and the sawn, with dragons, and the dragon impregnated mother and her 4 children (can’t understand why they wouldn’t believe her story about fire-breating conception after the third time!) were shunned and all turned into dragons, each of whom got their own pool. Anyways, it’s about 30 km away from Ningbo, but we took the bus, which involved taking one bus downtown, stopping at KFC to get food for the picnic (here’s Nina looking excited about the future lunch!)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Walking around till we found the other bus which proceeded to barrel through villages and around windy mountain roads with the usual Chinese high speed and disregard for other cars and niceties like watching the road. I wish I had a picture of the driver casually turning his head to chat with a passenger as we took a hairpin turn. In a bus, people. But we got out to this:

Shaoxing Sight-Seeing (A Continuation of the Previous Post)

However, we went to none of these places. Instead we went to Orchid Pavilion, or Lan Ting. It was the home of one of the most famous calligraphers in China: legend has it that he assembled many of his poet friends around a stream where they played a drinking game—he floated cups of wine (Shaoxing is also famous for its rice wine) on a stream and when a cup floated to someone he had to drink and compose a poem, which this guy then calligraphied into a famous book.

The grounds were beautiful—they were on the slope of the mountain and we actually had beautiful blue skies, which have appeared now that “fall” (ie, only getting to 80 or so most days) is here, and the cream and brown buildings and green trees and bamboo really stood out against it. In addition to the famous stream, we saw the calligrapher’s house, which had a neat central pool with a little bridge to a pagoda, a pond that I’m pretty sure was black with goose poop but, according to legend, had been blackened by the ink of the calligrapher, a river with a flat zig zagging bridge and, of course, lots of calligraphy, including a giant slab that is famous because it has (allegedly) writing from different kings on each side (I didn’t quite catch the story, but it was in very early China and about warring territories). Here is an assortment from Lan Ting:

this was a shop just outside of Lan Ting-  I love the line up of Marx, Lenin, Commie who I have blanked on, Papa Joe and Mao at the top.

Back to Blogging!

I am finally recovering from the swine flu of colds, which has held me hostage for the last two weeks. I didn’t spike a fever and did produce lots of phlegm, so it was just a cold, but I think the air pollution here had already done a number on my lungs, so I sounded like a consumptive in her last gasps. Actually, I even went and looked up the symptoms for whooping cough, though I’d been vaccinated for it. So that’s why there has been no bloggage—I hope I haven’t lost all my readers with my long silence!

The cold did give me a chance to hear lots of Chinese theories about health. The Chinese take herbal medicines and the properties of food very seriously. I swear that every food has some particular property—you’ll be innocently eating your chestnuts and someone’s like, “oh that’s excellent for a woman’s right toenail.” I think the Chinese could even come up with the health benefits of rancid fat—tonight at dinner, my friend Nancy was talking about wine and she said, well, it’s not very good for you, but a little is good fro you because it helps the circulation of blood.”



So here’s what I’ve learned about colds. Despite the name, colds result from an excess of fire in the body—I have been suffering from Shang Hoa-la, or fiery organ discomfort. So I should stay away from hot foods, of course, and seafood (well, I have a split jury on that one—Lotus, who was our liaison during the conference told me I should stay away from seafood, but my friend Maggie, who knows Lotus from school and says I shouldn’t trust her because she is an awful cook who always makes things too healthy swears that seafood is just what I need.) Cold drinks are the devil—people really looked at me as if I were mainlining heroin—and juice is not good, though fruit is OK. Pears are the big winners because they are supposed to be good for lungs. My friend Jane made me stewed pears (which must be made with crystallized, not granulated sugar) and quizzed me every day on if I was eating pears. She and Nina also took me to the campus doctor who prescribed a Chinese herbal medicine. It didn’t seem to do much good—nor did the Robitussin, Sudafed, or Benadryl—but it did taste quite pleasant and I got about a gallon, for 40 yuan, or $6 (which included a consultation with the doctor). Jane and Nina were scandalized by the price.



By the way, I realize I keep typing “my friend…” which is redundant and makes me sound like a four year old telling about her day at school, but I’m just trying to indicate that these are newish people is my life who I have been hanging out with. By the way, all of the above are Chinese, but I call them by their English names.



D.C. (during cold) I went to the “First Sino-USA Forum on English, Web and Education.” It was being held by a school that UIndy is establishing a relationship with, so we were honored guests. Let me just say this. At American conferences, you get a muffin. At The Sino-USA Forum, you get this:

yes, that's a pearl necklace. And they're real. I'm a jewish woman--I know how to check!
 
The flowers by the way, were presented to us by students at the school. The Chinese participants got to take the bus in to where the opening ceremonies were actually being held, but we “American experts” had to stop at the gate and get assigned a student who gave us a boquet and then followed us around for the rest of the weekend. Several years ago, I had a student, in her resume for W231, write that she went to some student conference where she “discovered white privilege.” I can only think she attended a conference thrown in China. (To be fair, the president of the school that organized this is known for really liking to put on a show—I don’t think this conference was typically Chinese. We have one coming up at NIT, so I’ll report back). I actually gave a keynote there—my qualifications for being invited were, I believe, the level of melanin in my skin—and as a result, got upgraded to dignitary for the closing ceremonies, when I had to sit on the stage with the vice Mayor of Shaoxing, the president of the University and assorted professors, and nod inanely at speeches in Chinese.




It was nice to meet other teachers though, both Chinese and English speaking (Yuexi, the university that hosted the conference is a foreign language college and has a lot of Australians and Brits teaching there) and hear some of the work others were doing. The banquets each night were also the bomb. I’ve described one banquet, and frankly there is so much food at any formal meal that the mind boggles. Here’s a picture I took from the banquet on night 2:




 
I may be somewhat blurring the meals, but that night, as always, there were cold plates on the lazy susan when we arrived: always sliced roast duck (with its little head staring at you), seaweed, tofu, cucumber slices, dried fish, and chicken’s feet, and often pickled radish (Chinese radishes are huge), maybe pickled eggs...that’s just the starters. This restaurant also had a big basket with roasted corn and sweet potatoes in the middle. Then the hot dishes start—whole fish, stewed with veggies and chicken’s feet; crabs stir fried with ginger and scallions; whole shrimp; a whole fried fish with a sweet and sour sauce; turtle stew (it’s so funny—I learned the word for turtle—uhgway—when I went to a temple and saw a bunch sunning themselves, cemented it in my mind because I spent a class teaching about the turtle in a chapter of The Grapes of Wrath and then cemented it by eating turtle, which is tasty and surprisingly beefy); chunks of beef stir fried with ginger; several soups, chicken, and one night with fish bellies (yum); stir fried vegetables, heavy on a sort of sweet tuber; lobster; chinese greens; an absolutely incredible custard made with some sort of shellfish; tiny little bivalves with soy and ginger….I know I’m missing a few dishes. You know the meal is finally ending when they bring fruit—which you should be way too full to eat. Oh, in Shaoxing, they also always ended the meal with a noodle soup, which I have no idea how anyone managed to find room for, though I guess by Chinese standards we hadn’t had a meal yet since we hadn’t had a starch. We also had a Shaoxing specialty each night—wu gan cai, or black preserved vegetables. It looked like a fungus of some sort to me, though I was later told it was bits of bamboo. The bits were indeed black, salty, a bit sweet and chewy—they were served with steamed wheat buns, and you ate them sort of like a sandwich.




After dinner that night we went on a cruise. Shaoxing, a 4000 year old city, is filled with canals and bridges, and is the Venice of China. Except that Suzhou is also the Venice of China, so there you have it. And considering that these cities way outdate Venice, shouldn’t Venice be the Shaoxing of Italy? Just saying…Anyway, we got into a long, flat bottomed boat and wended our way down the canals. Apparently the vice-mayor had specially ordered the lights to be turned on—all the bridges have different colored lights strung along them and trained under them—so it was quite the sight. As a side note, I love how the Chinese light up buildings at night—big buildings all have light effects like the ones from Shanghai, and lots of smaller places are lined with strings of light. Here are some pictures from our cruise—the first one is actually just outside of the restaurant where we ate—it was in a park with lots of streams and bridges, and buildings edged with lights

On Sunday they took us sight-seeing. Shaoxing is famous for Lu Xun, China's greatest twentieth century writer. This is a statue of him from Ming Ren Wang Chun, or Famous People square.

 

Shaoxing is also the birth place of Zhou Enlai, who played a major role in the founding of New China (he was prime minister for a long time) and who many Chinese really admire as the real intellectual and philosopher of the movement. This is from the wall at Ming Rem.... 

Further  back in time, Shaoxing was the homeplace of Dae Yu, the third king or so of Ancient China.Dae is notable for his spirit of self sacrifice: he didn't see his family for over three years when he worked to save shaoxing from flooding (he apparently moved huge amounts of land from the mountain). Here he is on the wall and as a huge statue at the top of the local mountain:

I

Ok, this window is getting grumpy, so I'm going to end it and continue my sight seeing in another post.

Dumpling Party!

I apologize for the laxness of my blog posting. I’ve actually been pretty busy, which is good, because it means I have things to write about, but bad because I have no time within which to write them. All of which sort of assumes that people are sitting around with bated breath awaiting my blog posts, which is super narcissistic.




So last week was both the lead up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China (ie, China becoming communist) and the Mid-Autumn festival. Usually Mid Autumn is justa 2-3 day holiday, but we also got 2 days for National Day, so we had Thursday-Thursday off. On the big Chinese Holidays—New Years, Spring Festival and, to a lesser extent, mid-Autumn—everyone in China travels. Apparently the wait at airports and train stations can be over a day. So I did not take any big trips, but explored Ningbo and got to get to know people better.



Sunday night, before classes let out, my students invited Mike Milam, the other English teacher, and I to a dumpling making party. I’m sorry, but how cute are these kids? Can you imagine American College juniors a) spending a night making dumplings and b) inviting their professors to join them? I talked to my assistant later and she said one of the kids had asked her if it would be appropriate to ask me to make dumplings with them . The party was in one of the cafeterias, and the staff had prepared big vats of dumpling filling and stacks of round dumpling skins. When we got there the kids were all hard at it.

in this picture I've joined them. Now, none of them actually knew how to make dumplings. Firstly, dumplings are actually more of a Northern thing, as in any wheat based food item. The South, where I am is rice based. There is plain rice, of course, and bunches of variations of rice noodles. The fried noodle vendors have maybe 10 different kinds of rice noodles ranged in front of them from thread thin strands, to the big dense ovals I mentioned before—I just love these. In fact, I used them to make chicken and dumplings tonight and I think, they may even have been better than Mama Dipp’s dumplings. I’m looking around the room waiting for God to strike me down, now, but I think I’m in luck because China is a religion free country.




The other reason no one really knew what they were doing is this is indeed, women’s work. On holidays, Leo, who’s the departmental vice something, told me, women will sit around, chatting and making tons of dumplings. These kids had obviously not yet been initiated—I got the impression that this may be a dying activity—but they were having a good time trying out different shapes and putting peanuts into random ones—it’s good luck to get a dumpling with a peanut. My favorite was Eric, who’s sort of the class clown, who was flitting from table to table, occasionally attempting a dumpling. He’d then throw it down proudly on the tray, announcing “wonton” or “eggroll” or whatever shape he thought he’d approximated. One of the cafeteria workers came and showed us how to actually make them. Winnie, one of the students, very studiously worked at it and then showed me how. Here I am with my first successful attempt:

Now I’m doing a thumbs up because I’m proud, but here’s something you should know about Chinese kids in picture: they all throw a peace sign. No idea why. Some of the kids wanted to take pictures with me, so here we are:

and here I am with the whole class, again with the peace signs. I'm just surprised there were no rabbit ears.



Apparently this trait is engrained very young: here’s a picture I took at a wedding a few days later (that story is to come). The man in the pic, btw, is Ron, the accounting professor from UIndy:

So that was my Sunday night. Once we had assembled enough dumplings, the cafeteria women whisked them off and returned them boiled in broth; we ate lots of dumplings, we went home (This arty shot, by the by, was taken by one of my students, John, who loves photoography and wants to work for "The Chinese National Geographic." He can stalk dumplings with the best of them.)

.
Oh, wait, we also ate mooncakes. Mooncakes are the traditional mid-autumn “treat” The scare quotes are quite intentional and this is not just a Western thing—most Chinese aren’t crazy about them anymore, though I hear haagen daz makes a fine ice-cream one and the Satrbucks was selling its own, Starbuckified, version. Anyway, the traditional mooncake is a very dense, multigrain cake with a sweet or savory filling. I can handle the ones with just fruit fillings—think like a fig Newton, but many have delicious things like preserved egg yolks tucked in as well. Yum. However, they are the traditional gift of mid-Autumn and the boxes they come in are beautiful—you also get a nice gift bag in red with lots of golden decoration. I got a box at the foreign teacher’s lunch that I wrote about and my students bought me a box as well, so I am stocked for life. I also think that mooncakes, much like fruitcake, last forever, so I can regift them at some point.




After that we did head home, and I got a chance to know Leo a little better. We were talking about the Chinese’s attitude toward foreign language study as opposed to American—it does make you feel embarrassed that pretty much everyone in China can speak some English—not just the university kids, who are required to take a few years, but even the street vendors know enough to haggle in English. And, when you think about it, in a sense, all Chinese have two languages from birth: there’s Mandarin, the official language and also the dialect, or fangyan. While the written language is the same all over China, the spoken dialects are so different that people from different areas will not understand each other—that’s why all Chinese movies and most TV shows have subtitles in Chinese. Leo was talking about how his wife’s family was from a different province and spoke a totally different dialect and he called himself the family dog—the only words he understood from his wife’s mother were “come,” “sit,” and “eat.” To some extent I think the dialects are dying out as people travel more and there’s a greater need for a standardized language, but Leo is careful to speak his family’s fangyan to his son at home so he does not just learn his maternal line’s, so they may hold on for a while yet.



By the way, it is very common for the in laws to live with a family and care for the children. While the Chinese talk less about feminism, the majority of women do work outside of the home from necessity and the kid are raised by the extended family. Because of the one child rule (though a large amount of families have found a way around that, esp in people my age, when the policy was just going into effect) grandkids are a hot commodity. I think it gives the daughter in laws a lot of power—if you’re not nice to her, you’ll never see your only grandchild, which is nice considering how badly daughter in laws were traditionally treated in China.



Another interesting fact about child-bearing in China (I’ve gotten these last few paragraphs of info from my Chinese friends Wang and Yang, or Nina and Jane—we’ve taken to going out, ordering way too much food, and chatting about Chinese and American life): women are supposed to do nothing after giving birth. They stay in the hospital for 7 days and during that time are not even supposed to wash themselves or brush their hair, just eat lots of chicken and milk. The point is to build up strength and encourage lactation, party by returning to a primal state. Even after returning home, the mother is supposed to lay in bed for 3 more weeks: guess it’s good that all those doting grandparents are available!

Shanghai Sight-Seeing

Besides scams and selling, what does Shanghai offer? Well, Shanghai is a lot like…Shanghai. I can’t really compare it to any city I’ve been in, though it reminds me a lot of pictures of Hong Kong I’ve seen. There’s a bit of a feel of London—the wide, tree-lined streets and the bright lights at night kind of remind me of Piccadilly Circus—

(this, by the way is Nanjing street, the main shopping drag--I think this night pic is coolest, but imagine about twice as many people during the day and about a third of them selling something--purses, postcards, little pigs made of some sort of goo that splats when you throw it and then reconstitutes into a pig. The Chinese LOVE these for some reason--I saw about 10 people stopping to watch them today in Ningbo)

and along the Bund, which is the old trade part of Shanghai built up by foreigners, there’s a definite feel of Chicago: the building were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, so there are lots of heavy stone and cement neo-classical and baroque style buildings

By the way, I splurged a little and stayed in a hotel on the Bund built during the same time period. It’s got a pretty cool history—the first electric lightbulb in China and Einstein stayed there amongst other things—and while the room was nothing particularly special, the whole hotel had a sort of gloomy, fin-de-siecle, decayed glory, Shining like vibe. Here’s a link if you want more info: http://www.pujianghotel.com/

The Shanghainese will tell you that Shanghai is “Little New York.” Actually Shanghai’s population is about the same as New York STATE’s—the city has about half as many people. But New York’s skyline has been basically formed for the last few decades and Shanghai’s is constantly changing. All of Pudong, or the part east of the Haungpu river, has been built in the last decade or so, so the buildings are all ultra-modern and innovative.

The next morning I went down to the old city, which has lots of classic Chinese architecture—tiled, curved roofs, cramped streets—but the same jumble of people, and commerce.

The big attraction there is YuYuan, a garden constructed during the 1600s. It’s relatively small—about 6 acres—but with the walls around it and trees lining the area, the noise of the city is blocked out, and you only occasionally catch a glimpse of a skyscraper peeking over the edges of the dragon wall. Also, with all the twists and turns, you can spend hours wandering around. There are multiple pavilions, pagodas, and pools (the Chinese are so alliterative!), a giant rockery made of hundreds of tiny rocks carefully pasted together to give the perspective of a big cliff, and lots of carefully constructed walkways and archways that make it feel like the garden stretches further than it really does.

By the way, I learned many of these important facts by stalking the tour guides everyone else had hired. I would innocently stand around, pretending to take pictures, and listen in to what they said, and then wander off to another group. Just a little money saving tip.

One of the things I liked most was the amazing detail—elaborate woodwork in the pavilions, engravings on the walls and stone walkways, wooden carvings set into the walls, and lots of tiny statues and figurines set into the roof. I think this is part of what I like most about Chinese design and architecture—the way it forces you to keep looking and reassessing.




As a little side note, the Dongli village’s women’s chorus was playing in the garden. They were set up on a stage where opera used to be performed—it was framed by a peaked roof, covered in gilded details and hanging lanterns—and wearing traditional qigongs and playing traditional instruments. I sat there transfixed for a few minutes, until they started playing jingle bells.



The ride home from Shanghai was a lot less stressful than there and I got to enjoy the scenery. The area between Ningbo and Shanghai is mainly farmland: lots of raised fields with straight lines between them, farmers squatting in them, straw hats covering their faces and holding hand carved tools, water buffalo grazing in the fields, surrounded by ducks. Occasionally there would be a storage shed of some sort thatched with grass: the older ones had little trees sprouting from them.

Thus ended my trip to Shanghai: next installment, a dumpling party with my students.

Pictures! Beautifully photo-shopped by Tony.

This is some sort of crane that is all over China (Dad, I'm sure you can properly identify it). One day, I was walking along the canal that runs through the middle of the campus, which is lined with stones and filled with water lilies and one of these cranes came flapping out, it's neck fully extended and its legs trailing behind. It was one of my "I'm in China" moments.

This is the cathedral downtown. It gives me a wow, I'm in Europe kind of moment:

Below is Moon Lake

and here are people washing their clothes in it...

and a keyhole opening framing a smaller pond and rockery

a bridge zig-zagging across a lily pad infested pond...

And, finally, some spectacular wedding outfits and poses:

Shanghaied!

Travelers to Shanghai need to know two words: bo yao. “Don’t want.” You will use them constantly, because the sight of a white face (and there are plenty of them) seems to evoke an automatic reaction to sell to the Shanghainese. I can’t count the number of times I heard “Lady-watch-purse” all said in one breath—then they show you a picture of designer purses and watches. If you go for it, you get led to some back alley shop (you’re totally safe physically and they won’t take your money from you—Shanghai is safe until you open your wallet) and show you an amazing array of “designer goods.” To bargain keep saying bo yao—you can intersperse it with a few bo haos (no good) and zai tians (see you later)—and they’ll keep lowering the price until you yao. Which is why I now own a large leather Jimmy a-Choo purse purchased for the princely sum of $28.




To get to Shanghai, at least if you’re me, you need 3 more words: za ma dao: ‘I want to go to.” Mix this with a sheet of the names (in Chinese) of the popular places in Shanghai, torn out from your guidebook (with a somewhat pathetic map of Shanghai on the reverse side) and you’re cooking with gas. I taxied from my apartment to the bus station, said a firm “Dao Shanghai” at the ticket center and received a somewhat incomprehensible ticket with some numbers and a lot of Chinese (the Chinese are so stubborn about wanting to write everything in Chinese). Then my moment of horror occurred. I’d pulled out money from an ATM 3 weeks ago and not needed any since then—a few hundred goes a long way here. Well, after purchasing my ticket, I went to the ATM at the station and….no money emerged. I got a “please contact your provider message.” I had, with the exception of the money to get back, about $14. And China is a cash only society—very few places take cards. But I was so focused on getting on the bus that I didn’t think about turning back; instead I spent the three hours on the bus turning over in my head how to contact an American bank with a 12 hour time difference, no access to the internet, and no money to make a very long distance phone call and how to stretch my money. As it turns out, I just needed an ATM that recognized my card and I was fine—it’s somewhat random which ATMs I can use and which I can’t—some that say Visa are fine, others refuse me money. But it made for a less than relaxing bus ride—I couldn’t sit back and enjoy the movie they showed (all the busses—even the intown ones—have flat screens in them). The movie, btw, was Shanghai Knights, which I thought was pretty hilarious (the fact that they showed it, not the movie itself). Owen Wilson speaks excellent Chinese.



Once I got the Shanghai bus station, I took the metro into the tourist part of town. Shanghai has 18 million people and I think half of them were in the metro station. The place was teeming with people and, while the subway map did have English translations, they were in about 5 point font and the sign was posted at the eye level of Yao Ming. But I stood in line and used my trusty “Za Ma Dao” and pointed to the characters for people’s square and the guy behind me punched the right stuff into the machine and helped me get my ticket. I might have felt like a bigger dumbass if the Chinese man in front of me also hadn’t been able to work the machine (I think he kept putting the money in at the wrong time) and about 1 million of the 8 million people at the metro station gathered around him to yell, offer advice, and yell some more. It wasn’t quite fish ball level, but it got close.



So I’ve spent all this time describing my somewhat frazzled state of mind, because I have to admit something embarrassing: I got scammed. I’d even read about this scam, but I still fell for it. Basically, some friendly kids approach you, strike up a conversation, offer helpful advice and then mention they’re going to a tea ceremony and gosh, would you like to come. At the tea house (which is tucked into some nondescript mall) they either disappear before the bill or take a cut of the hugely inflated bill. Well, there I was, confused, worried about money and frazzled and as I was enjoying the pretty fountain and masses of people, these nice kids with excellent English asked me to take their picture and…well, you see where this is going. As we entered the tea house I realized what was going on, but I think I was just too embarrassed to back out, though I certainly kept an eye on them so no one was running anywhere before the bill was paid. Here’s the part I’m sort of proud of though. These scams usually run people at least 1000 RMB—the least I’d seen in reports on the internet was 700. It only cost me 300 RMB. It might be because I spoke a few words of Chinese so they weren’t sure how much I knew was going on, or maybe that I really firmly said I was a poor teacher without much money. But I’d like to think they liked me and gave me a discount. They even insisted on giving me their email addresses and walked me to Nanjing street (a major thoroughfare) and explained how to get to my hotel. Then, after very seriously warning me to keep a tight hold on my purse and not have any valuables in my backpack, they sent me on my way. So I got directions, some tea and explanation of a tea ceremony, 20% of which I’d wager was actually true, and found an ATM that worked, all for under $50.



Shanghai sight-seeing in the next post, though pictures may take a while—the blockers are making my blocker blockers work overtime and things are very slow.

Ningbo's Finest

Having recovered from the Walmart incident, I decided to play tourist on Saturday. Ningbo’s best known site is its 16th cent library, the oldest in China (here’s a link with more info: http://www.nbtravel.gov.cn/pub/nbtravel/en/Visit_OC/200803/t5677.htm). It’s located on Moon Lake, which is surrounded by lots of bridges, water lilies, and gorgeously landscaped trees and rocks.

To get there I walked down what must have been wedding row. All of the shops had to do with weddings; dresses, photographers, florists, salons. In Chinese weddings, brides change dresses 5 times—one of the women at the Foreign Affairs Office said that this was because there are a lot of toasts at weddings and all the clothes changes gave the bride a chance to avoid becoming completely soused! Well, judging by what I saw on wedding row, these dresses are quite the fashion statements—picture the worst (best?) 80s prom dress you can, throw in some belly dancing inspiration, and you are ready to get married. And the tuxes weren’t far behind: my favorite was white with gold flower print. Remember ¬True Life: I’m Getting Married and Jersey “ I will gut you like a fish” guy? He would love this tux.



I didn’t actually go the library this time (I’m holding out for going with a Chinese person who can read me the information cards), but wended my way along the path along the lake. I passed 2 or 3 people washing their clothes in the lake—I’m not sure if they were homeless—the clothes looked quite nice—or just taking advantage of free water. There were also people fishing and paddle boating. There was a walled in garden, with a bridge leading to a keyhole entrance, framing a small pond and twisted trees. Another “I’m in China moment.” I wandered around looking at pagodas and water lilies, along with lots of couples and photographers. This must be where everyone goes to take pictures—I saw a little kid and several sets of brides and grooms—none in white floral tuxes, unfortunately. I had some ice cream by the lake side, and was excited to discover that Chinese people have the same cheesy tourist photo opportunities as Americans do: Tony and I collect these, so I’ll have some nice ones to add to our collection.



As I was wandering, I got accosted by two Chinese kids. There’s nothing unusual about this. Because pretty much everyone studies some English, and westerners are sparse, everytime I walk across campus I get a spate of “Hello, how are yous.” Then, if it’s a girl, the kid always giggles in excitement/fear of having practiced her English and runs away. Just that morning I had been chased down by a group of girls who yelled ‘we are freshmen. We would like to talk to you!” Then we talked for about five minutes. They told me that I was the first foreigner they had ever spoken to and then looked me over and said “you are very beautiful.” What could I do but agree? Anyway, these two kids in the park had maybe 10 words of English, but they were excited to talk to me. They said “American?” and I agreed, “Meiguoren.” Then they asked “New York?” and I shook my head. Next they said “Obama?” at which I nodded enthusiastically. They followed this up with “George Bush”: I shook my head and said “bo hao.” At this point we’d pretty much used up our vocabulary—the more talkative guy said Kung Fu and showed me some moves and then we counted to 10 in each other’s respective languages. Anyway, before I left they grabbed my camera and insisted that I take a picture with each of them.



I finished up the day in the old market, which is a covered area with stores selling every imaginable tcotchke. I really need to learn the Chinese word for tcotchke, because they have a lot of it: bobble head figures, cell phone charm, giant stuffed animals, jewelry, note pads, carvings, etc. (By the way my vocabulary—especially about beverages— is growing by leaps and bounds: I can say orange juice and lemony and sugar and know how to ask for a waiter in the standard polite way and the more informal Ningbo way (you just yell mister, or lady, which will get you some angry looks outside of this area, according to my students). Today I also learned the word for lion tamer—long story involving a made up chosen career for the resume class I’m teaching—which I’m sure will come in handy). I found some makeup at amazing prices (Chanel mascara for $2 anyone?) and just enjoyed the crush of people.



The other big excitement this week was the university brass threw a lunch for foreign teachers—besides our group there is one brit and two Americans, who teach English and American culture, and two Japanese professors (I felt bad for them—they had minimal English and I’m guessing not a lot of people in China speak Japanese). The lunch was all typical Ningbo dishes and the food was delicious and beyond bountiful. When we came to the table the lazy susan in the middle was already loaded up with dishes—soft tofu, roast duck, roast chicken, greens, some sort of preserved looking fish. After they served us a seafood soup, the waitresses just kept adding more and more dishes: crab, shrimp, steamed fish, steamed lotus root (very tasty—a cross between artichoke and corn flavor), beans with chestnuts, chinese cabbage with preserved shrimp, pork and greens in a spicy sauce, clams, fried beef strips with Mongoloian seasoning, pickled radish, something called Chinese yam which didn’t taste at all like ours—a crunchy, slightly watery texture and faintly sweet and earthy. A scallop dish—big slices of insanely sweet scallop served in the shell with vermicelli and some peppers and a slightly sweet sauce got special attention: the waitresses came by and put one on each of our bowls. As soon as one dish got low, the waitresses whisked it away and added three more. Towards the end they began to bring sweeter dishes—corn in a sort of fritter and hot dates stuffed with sticky rice and glazed with sugar syrup. Then, came a second soup—sugar water with dumplings stuffed with black sesame paste and watermelon. That was all. We axtually never got rice—according to a Chinese woman we had dinner with (who disdained Szechuan cuisine as wimpy because the peppers in it were whole and could be picked around, as opposed to her province, where they grind them up fine and put them on everything) it’s considered rude to serve rice while people are drinking (beer is another of my words for the week, btw), I think because it would soak up the booze. So, no rice for us. The director who was hosting us promised he could get more food if we felt the need, but I could barely roll home as it was!

Here's a view of the table (and guests!) eabout mid way through--that lazy susan would get far fuller! Look how happy my back looks eating all that yummy food. I have pictures from moon lake, but somebody named Mr Tony Wilson is supposed to be photo-shoppinng them. It's been so grey here that all the pics look a little gloomy.

Soup and a Sandwich, Chinese Style

I walked down to the collection of street vendors outside of the college for dinner last night. I have one criteria: lots of people around it. That way it's a safe bet that the food is good, and I can watch them and figure out how to order. Generally, they assemble the food there, so I like to see if you put the food you want in a little basket and then hand it over to them to cook, point at it, or some combo. I also like to see what combos people order so I don't to mix things that shouldn't go together.

Today I was attracted to what might roughly be called a pita purveyor. They roll out a hunk of dough into a thin circle and then slap it on the griddle, adding chopped green and red peppers, an egg, some sort of hoision like sauce, siracha and some grilled meat. Then, right before it is done, they add lettuce and a cucumber salad. It looks like this

and tastes like heaven.

The soup vendors beckoned to me as I was heading back, so I decided to go crazy and spend another 80 cents. Basically, they have a big vat of boiling broth and they dip in a wire basket with what you want cooked—greens, your choice of about 8 different kinds of noodles, from ramen to thin rice noodles, to the dense chewy ovals of rice noodle I choose, and 2 or 3 different meats—chicken wings, pork, beef. You also flavor the bowl they pour it into—garlic, hot sauces, some sort of pickled fungi, cilantro. Then they dump it all into a bowl and ladle some broth on and you end up with this:

(this is my own bowl-- the cardboard one they gave me was looking dangerously limp by the time I got home.)

By the way, this has nothing to do with streetfood, well I guess it does in an ancillary way, but I'm digging the icons on my toilet paper package:

The blue guy in particular seems troubled and hysterical, perhaps apt for his future.

I went to Tian-Ye square and Moon Lake today, so I'm putting together another monster post--just consider this an appetizer!

In which I teach some classes, destroy a woman's dreams, get lost, and take a taxi

So my first week of classes is over. I’ve been really impressed with the students. I was warned that they would be very uncomfortable with speaking in class, but I think this group has learned that crazy American professors want you to talk. They definitely are slower to speak than American classes, though sometimes that is a translation issue. My poor kiddoes—they not only have to take classes in English, but they get stuck with me, the fastest talker ever raised south of the Mason-Dixon line. I’m really trying, and also making sure to get questions and instructions clearly up on ppt. At the end of class today, my English students, who have had me 3 times this week, told the assistant that they were starting to get used to my speed and style, so I think we’re off to a good start.




My first class, business research, is about 40 some students. The class itself is the usual business nonsense, but the kids seem very nice. I was demonstrating how to define a business dilemma and trying to draw them out, so I grabbed one kids iced tea out of his hand and said, ok, we’re going to sell this iced tea—by the way, how do you say that in Chinese? After they all had a good laugh at me trying to say “bing ho cha,” they loosened up. The class is very close to 231, for my IU peeps, and I had them starting brainstorming a campus problem, which gave me some interesting perspective on their campus life. Several groups wanted to work on getting individual toilets in the dorms. Frankly, first I’d work on getting TOILETS: Chinese bathrooms have drains, and flush, but they don’t have an actual toilet—you squat over the drain. And put your toilet paper in a basket next to it. Let me tell you, in a hot climate with no air-conditioning, the classroom halls smell delightful by the end of the day. But I digress. Several other groups wanted to work on getting hot water for bathing—apparently some dorms have hot water heaters that work intermittently, while others have none. H-ee-N-ee as they call it here (yi is the Chinese word for one) also was a big contender. It’s interesting that most of them are interested in creature comforts that I think wouldn’t have even occurred to a Chinese student a few years ago—but then, Zheijiang province is one of China’s richest, so these kids are the spoiled rich of China. Can you imagine American students in a dorm with no hot water?



The English cohort is 16 kids, with 3-4 repeaters from last year. I only have one really interesting English name—“Event”—although “Jimmy” said he’d like to be known as “NBA guy.” There are one or two really bright kids who are pretty willing to talk—the class monitor even came up to me during the break in Shakespeare class to talk about The Other Boleyn Girl and ask how it fit in the whistle stop tour of 16th cent British history I’d given them. Shakespeare will definitely be a struggle, but we got some good discussion going about the creation of family in Little House.



To get the ball rolling in the Amer Lit class, I asked the students what their vision of America was. I got the answers I expected, but some interesting ones as well. One student said he thought America’s clean envt was a big draw—he was impressed with the pictures friends who were in America sent back with blue skies—something I haven’t seen since I’ve been here. Someone else said America’s health care system was a big draw—that the government provided healthcare for all. I figured it was just a student misconception and said, well that’s not really the case and moved on. But today I was talking to my assistant, Nina, and she said when she discussed American culture this was one of the plusses she emphasized—our benevolent approach to healthcare. So apparently while everyone in the US is screaming that we are socializing healthcare, the communists think we do a better job of spreading the wealth. Anyway, Nina explained to me that in China she wouldn’t even have health care if she didn’t work. When I explained the same was true in America AND I paid the equivalent of 12000 yuan for my healthcare, and told her what a hospital visit cost in America (in China it’s maybe 200 yuan a night—maybe $35), she looked at me with a very serious face and said “you have ruined my American dream.”



So yesterday, I decided to be super brave and go grocery shopping on my own, via bus. Cabs are really cheap, but most drivers do not know where are apartment complex is—they’ll drive us up to the university and then you have to direct them the rest of the way. But this is me we’re talking about—I can’t find my away around the 10th floor of the library, so I felt my chances of telling a Chinese cab driver where to go were minimal. So the bus seemed a good plan. The two choices for shopping—beyond veggies and fruit, which are sold on fruit stands which are everywhere—are the Walmart, in Wanda Plaza and the Metro, which is like the fancy store in town—it carries lots of imports. The Metro is easier to recognize—it’s in a free-standing building—so I decided to try to go to it. After three of the proper busses passed by the proper stop without stopping—they all waved off people trying to board and then pulled up for their break or something 50 feet down the road—I decided to walk up the road a bit to see if there was another stop past their nap area. Well, 20 minutes later, no such luck and I returned to the original bus-stop to see the same darn busses still parked down the road.



Reasonable people would have given up by this point, particularly since there are 10 restaurants 10 feet from my apartment, all of them serving very tasty meals for less than $2. But I’m stubborn. So I walked across campus (another 15 minutes or so) to get to the bus-stop that had the bus that went to Walmart. I successfully boarded the bus this time, but, as you might be able to guess, I missed the Walmart and ended up at the bus terminal on the other side of town.



While I could have ridden the bus back, I decided to retrace the bus path of foot for a bit and then catch a taxi to the Walmart. It was actually very cool. I wandered down a very typical, narrow Chinese street. Apartment buildings, clothes shops and restaurants lined the street, and several merchants had blankets spread out with potatoes, greens and oranges. One of the things I’ve noticed about the produce available is that it does not vary from cart to cart—it’s obviously all local and we get the veggies currently in season. I wonder what it will be come mid winter?



Also, because it was evening, the people were all out. I passed a group of old men playing go, kids sitting on stools doing their homework, and lots of adults chatting to each other. Dogs wandered around sniffing trash and I definitely had another “wow, I’m in China moment.” This moment was somewhat marred when I came back out to a busy intersection with a big cafeteria style restaurant blaring Fergie’s “My Humps.” Even more bizarrely, later in the evening I passed two rows of Chinese people facing each other on a street and doing some sort of Western-style line dance. Peculiar.



Well, I was ready to grab a taxi by this point, but it was Ningbo rush hour and, if you haven’t seen the Chinese drive, just imagine a giant bumper car course with lots of obstacles. I couldn’t get a cab to stop and I was starting to think that there was some obscure way of catching a cab in China and, not knowing it, I was going to spend the rest of my life on that street corner. Luckily I like Fergie.



Anyway, I was saved by the fact that Chinese school kids LOVE to practice their English on white people. I get about 15 “Hello, how are yous” every time I walk across campus—after which the kids get embarrassed, giggle and run away. We also do a lot of waving—I was passing by a school the other day and about 20 boys in uniform all stopped what they were doing and waved at me. So, just when I resigned myself to taking up residence on the street corner, two school girls came and said “can we help you?” They chased down a cab for me (well, they had to try 4 or 5, but finally got one), told the cab driver where to take me, and then sent me on my merry way. The Walmart visit is anti-climactic after that and even the cab drives--- and if you haven’t been in a Chinese cab, but have been on the Italian Job rollercoaster at King’s Island, just subtract the flaming jet of fire (not that I’m saying that won’t happen on some cab drive) and you have a good idea of what it’s like—although I was very lucky, on the cab ride home, to find one of the few cab drivers in Ningbo who actually knew where the apartment complex was, with the help of a few “taos” and “zai nallies.”

I hope everyone is doing well!

The Chinese are a nation of sidewalk merchants:

At every meal time, 30 some peddlars come to the campus gates; they drag their carts, complete with griddles or gas rings for woks, behind their bikes. There are meat on a stick vendors, create your own fried rice carts (you point at the fillings you like, they make it there), a huge thin pancake of some sort that they wrap various fillings in-- sort of a Chinese sandwich--dumplings, and many, many more things. I don't have an image of this yet (imagine the midway of the state fair, with less fried twinkies), but here's a shot of the aftermath:

That's  a big pile of egg shells, left over from the fried rice vendors. They pretty much toss everything behind them--egg shells, lettuce and boc cai leaves, plastic bags and then leave them. The first time I walked to campus I thought that there had been some epic egg fight, but then I figured out the score. Everyone drops everything on the street, though interestingly, this doesn't seem to be the case on campus. Between that and the spitting and nose-blowing, thre's a really good reason the Chinese believe wearing your shoes in the house is filthy.

As soon as lunch is over, all the bicycle guys dissappear until 4 or so. Our veggie guys also take a siesta (or the Chinese equivalent), but they don't pedal away-- they just lower the umbrellas and wander off

 Obviously, there's not a  lot of crime in China-- no one worries about leaving things unattended. What's funny is that lots of the kids do have bike locks, usually the cable kind rather than the sturdy ones, but they'll leave their bikes leaning against the bike rack and just loop the cables through a spoke of the back wheel.

Two more images:

 First, the way all the balconies look-- no one has dryers, so you see hanging clothes everywhere--I even saw a fruit and veg stall that had a rack of clothes drying next to it and finally some pretty flowers growing along the side of the road.