Birthday Excitements

I like to dedicate a lot of time and excitement to my birthday, so I took myself on a trip for it this year. I’ve been wanting to hit Sichuan and decided to skip sports day (actually 2 days in which all the freshman have to compete in track and fieldy type stuff, as do the teachers. So no classes those days, but we have to make them up on the weekend before and after, so it’s not really time off per se) and go. When I told my assistant Sandra, of my plans, she said I had to hit Jiuzhaigou. As  you can see from these pictures, she was right.

 

Jiuzhaigou is made up of mineral lakes and in the mountains of Sichuan. When I got there it had snowed the night before and the lakes were all fringed with snow but the trees were all still gold and red. In this case, I think the pictures are worth quite a few thousand words.

I stayed in a homestay with a Tibetan family (there are a lot of Tibetans in Sichuan). It was ok—the one woman who spoke English was busy with her restaurant, so I used a lot of very basic chinese with the grandmother, who knew 5 words of English: yak meat, barley wine and honey, all of which she tried to sell me. It was cool staying in a traditional Tibetan home, and the little 4 year old was a cutie.

 

He and I had a good time playing with my kindle—he loved the different pictures on the screen savers. We named things in Chinese (I have an excellent 4 year old vocabulary, even down to being able to make a joke about birds not being airplanes, that we laughed at for hours). There were some chinese people staying there as well who observed all this and told me (in very quick chinese) that my chinese was really good. To which I replied “ting buo dong” (“hear not understand”) because she said it too fast. And then I figured out what she’d said and we all laughed at me.


By the way, the first night I was in Juizhaigou, I stayed in a hotel with a very enthusiastic Tibetan desk guy, who took me to my room, insisted on holding hands with me on the way there, showed me this very exciting feature of the beds:

And then, I believe, he suggested through sign language that he could spend the night in the adjoining bed. At the very least, I had to hug him 4 times before he would leave the room.




Jiuzhai is 10 hours by bus from Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital. I flew one way, but it was pricey, so I bussed back. It was a wiiindy road. I nearly puked on the Flemish guy next to me (Jiuzhai is little known to foreigners, so the 6 of us there got to know each other. He and I had met in the park the day before and walked together for a few hours) then I took two phenergen and slept for about 8 hours straight. I think that rather disappointed the Flemish guy who I believe also would have liked to spend the night in an adjoining bed. Well, I did at least sleep with him.



Chengdu is a pretty neat town. It looks like I expected China to look before I came here: lots of old wooden buildings, red and gold, and dragons and lions

It also has tons of great parks, which were filled with people doing karaoke, dance lessons and sing alongs—I love public life in China

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Of course, the big draw of Chengdu is the pandas….

I like pandas because they never move, so they’re really easy to take pics of. We were not allowed to take pics of the baby pandas who were freaking adorable. There were about the size of puppies and there were 5 of them lying next to each other in a big wooden crib, rolling over each other. Precious. Red pandas are harder to take pictures of because they move:

One thing I did not enjoy about the panda park were the hordes of western tourists—loud, annoying western tourists. I slunk around trying to make it clear I was not with any of those groups and looking as Chinese as possible.

When I got back, I taught a class, and then joined my favorite girls in China for a birthday dinner. We went to a seafood place on Tian Yi square, the main plaza. We had crabs (because emily, after 13 years of vegitarianism is crab mad now), shrimp, some sort of fish, broccoli, fried pancakes, a stew with chicken and mushrooms, another chicken dish...i think a few more veggies. I insisted on paying because that's the tradition in China and it's practically impossible to get anyone to let me buy my own meal any other time. Here we all are after dinner and enjoying cake that we bought at a bakery and then ate at starbucks:

she started the frosting fight. also, she insisted i feed her the lacy chocolate part off the cake and then bit my finger. That's our yellow bear.

What did I do today?

My morning started with an 8 am call about bagpipes. Mr. Wang is one of the older professors here-- a really interesting guy who’s been a professional dancer, taught P.E. , and now teaches English. He often joins Nina, Jane and I on expeditions (his wife is a Dr., and busy a lot) and has an awesome Labrador retriever. He also has a daughter living in Ireland whom he asked to send him a bagpipe. Apparently it got here this morning in pieces and, of course, the first thought is to call the Jewish American. It took me quite a while to convince him I had neither bagpipe assembling or playing experience.




I mooched around in the morning (I only have a morning class once a week, so I have nice lazy mornings—I usually watch some illegally downloaded tv and grade and answer emails), skyped with the t-dub, and then headed off to teach a make-up class (because the Chinese semester goes through the end of January, we have to teach some extra ones now). Actually I gave a brief lecture on revising and then they took an exam while I graded career research papers (52 students. Arghh.)

I found out yesterday that I was required to attend a dinner with the department bigwigs today (which kind of sucked, bc Nina and I had a massage date, but you don’t get to argue with the administration. And you certainly can’t argue when two older Chinese women are telling you you’re going—they’re like Jewish grandmothers x10). So I hung out in the teacher office and graded. One thing I love about our office (which is just a ton of desks and 2 computers) is that we have a teacher nap room. Seriously. There’s a smaller room off the big room with about 6 lounge chairs and blankies. The Chinese are a people serious about naps—they deplore this modern business life where you only get an hour for lunch—how can a person have a decent meal and rest?

The teacher’s office, by the way, is at the end of a long covered passage way—basically the academic building is a bunch of buildings linked by outdoor passages. Mike suspects that the buildings, like college buildings in America built post-1969, prevent rapid gathering. The Chinese always tell me the buildings are so confusing bc they were built by the French. Anyway, I was crossing one covered walkway and heard shouts from the one across the courtyard, 2 floors down. It was two of my business students from last year, very excited to see me. Catherine shouted: “You look beautiful—your eyes! Your hair!” I love my Chinese paparazzi.

Anyway, the dinner/banquet was delicious. The cold dishes were laid out on the lazy susan first. There was a very nice roast chicken (without, for once, it’s poor little head staring at me), an awesome sliced lamb with a dry spice mixture (cumin, coriander, salt, pepper), eel, candied lotus root, seaweed and mushrooms, wine soaked dates, some sort of tendon-y thing, cucumbers to be dipped in a hoisin like sauce…I’m missing a few. Then they started bringing the hot dishes—a thin soup with red beans and sweet pickled vegetables; stir fried beef; a Ningbo style fish, stewed with ginger, green onions and some pickled veg; a more Sichuan style fish with lots of vinegary red chilis; scallops in their shells with vermicelli in soy; skewered shrimp, wrapped in foil and baked in spiced sal;, a big basket of steamed potatoes, sweet potatoes, chestnuts and various root veggies we don’t have in America; another soup with taro and bok choy; an egg pancake; little things that looked like pierogies made out of slightly sweet, glutinous rice flour; a hairy crab marinated in chili paste apiece, and, as the meal started to wind down, noodle soup (traditional for the end to fill any hunger left by the preceding), fruit (cantaloupe, watermelon, oranges, sugar cane) and peking duck.



I’m sure I’m missing a few, not just bc of the mass, but bc the main point of a dinner like this is drinking. You get a big cup and a little cup. The waitress fills the both with wine and you refill your little one from your big one so you can “gambei” or “bottoms up.” This, by the way, is a terrible system, since you are asking increasingly drunk people to pour red wine steadily—I don’t think that tablecloth will ever recover. There are general toasts, when we all tap our glasses on the table before drinking, and then, every three minutes or so, someone toasts someone else at the table and they stand up and clink glasses. My kindness in working for NIT, swimming and singing prowess, gift giving ability and health were all toasted. (Like a number of the other women, I filled my big glass with apple juice, and mostly toasted with it). At one point the party secretary came in, whose job, as far as I can see, is pretty much to attend fancy dinners and drink with us (he was, I think attending several dinners at the hotel that night—he sat with us for about 30 minutes and then left). I’ve met him at several other functions and though he doesn’t speak a word of English, he and I always have a nice time toasting each other.



After dinner I walked back with a group of professors. Pang, who is the dean of the school, was walking with me and we were discussing culture shock when we passed a bunch of retirees ballroom dancing in a park. This is pretty common by the way, and one of the things I really enjoy about China—people just live life a lot more publicly. Anyway, somehow Pang decided that I needed to dance with Liang, the chair of the department (who was soused, by the way—his job as chair at these is to get drunk—no one would let him drive there bc they wanted him to drink. His nickname, he said, is Liang doesn’t fall down). He grabbed our bags and pushed us out amongst the retirees, all of whom, of course, gathered around to watch the white person make a fool of herself. We did a basic waltz like thing, but then this guy jumped in and started making dirty dancing like motions—so Liang and I finished off disco style. Then an old lady in pink pajamas (retirees go everywhere in their jammies, to show they can—I am so adopting this plan once I join the aarp) grabbed me and we did a sort of modified shag like dance that involved a lot of spinning around and twirls. Then all the retirees invited me to join them again tomorrow, and we three headed home .

And that’s what a day in china is like.

Monkies

...yes, some of my Chinese friends do adjectivize monk this way.

So I've gotten pretty blase about temples-- you've seen 300 Buddhas, you's seen them all-- but they are often in beautiful spots:

TienTong, where we went last week, is a major center of Chan Buddhism (it's one of the birth  places of Japanese Zen Buddhism) and still has a bunch of monks around, doing monkie things

Both the expected....

...and the less traditional (monks, by the way, apparently often have killer electronics because they are sponsored by wealthy patrons)







By the way, the guy on our left led to one of the most interesting moments of the day. I don't know if you can see it, but the meditating monk has a blanket around his legs. My friends asked one of the other monks why and he explained that when you meditate your body is open to the world, so you become quite cold, Then he ushered us into one of the temple's 999 rooms (this one held a gian cooking pot taht had been donated in the 1600s so you could cook rice for a 1000 monks at once) and started a question and answer session about corporeality and existence. Of course all of this was in Chinese, so I just got the occasional translation from one of my friends, but I think that made it seem cooler and more mystic. He was very pleasant the whole time--I do like a guy who can proselytize while laughing   

Food

Here's a lunch we ordered at the small fishing village on Dongqian Lake. The cool thing about restaurants in these small towns (or maybe in toursity places--I couldn't quite pin down Maggie on it) is that, too order, you go through the kitchen to a pantry with all the vegetables and meats and still live fishies and such on display and just choose which you want. Counterclockwise from left, we have some sort of green cooked with garlic and chicken broth; cauliflour stir fried with some carrots and hot pepper (primarily ordered because I can say it in Chinese and I like to practice my words (which, by the way, I think makes Chinese people think of me as an amiable village idiot, because I go around repetaing "pear, pear, pear, pear; bamboo, bamboo, bamboo, bamboo" to myself)); boiled chicken with dipping sauce (which jeremy later threw all over the table); and fried potatoes. We also had an awesom fish head soup wit soft tofu and tons of ginger and green onions. 

this is a dinner assembled from the street carts. On the bottom is griddle cooked tofu and potatoes--i think of it as my chinese burger and fries. There's a delicious hoision-like sauce that the vendor squirts all over them. Top right is a "thousand layer  pancake" a word I can almost say in Chinese. It tastes like a cross between a tortilla and a naan-- lots of layers, but pleasantly chewy. It's cooked on a huge round griddleand the vendor cuts off pieces with a machete. Then she always wants to slather it with chili paste and I say "yi dian dian" ("a tiny bit," a ridiculously useful phrase I use all the time) and go home and burn my mouth off. Top left, I thought was flattened chicken on a stick, but turned out to be potatoes, so this was a very starchy meal. They're battered with something and deep fried them--out of this world. The same stand actually serves deep fried bannanas. And whole squid. Indiana state fair, take note.
  

Dongqian Lake

Dongqian lake is just utside the city of Ningbo, but somehow I never made it last year. It's the largest lake in Zheijiang province (though West Lake, in Hangzhou is more famous) and has dragon boat races in the summer. Now though, the dragon boats are parked for the season:

First we went to an area that once belonged to Fan Li, or Zhu Gong. He married one of China;s 4 great beauties, Xi Shi, and after an impressive political career (including selling Xi Shi to a rival king so that she could be a spy) retired to Dongqian (this all took place during the Spring and Autumn period, by the way, which is my favorite period name). Basically he was known for being rich, so his temple is dedicated to making money.

Here are Emily, Jeremy and I, touching a statue that repesents old style Chinese money and is supposed to make us rich:

and yes, it rained all day, but it was a great change from how hot it's been, so we didn't mind. Well, I minded when Emily flipped my hood over my head so i would look more like Kenny (Maggie is obsessed with South Park) and all the water that had pooled there ran down my spine.

Anyway, there were a number of temples with representations of Li fan and Xi Shi and places top pray to Buddhas for money. I've gotten used to the very pragmatic aspect of Chinese Buddhism--it encapsualtes a lot of taoism and is a pretty tit for tat religion. So there were plenty of oranges on the alters and people buying incense and candles for good fortune:

I dropped 10 yuan to have my fortune told. There are a bunch of sticks in big jugs, each labeled with a different element (health, career, mind, salary, etc). I choose general fortune. You pick up the jug, toss it and then kneel down, gently shaking the jug till just one stick comes out. It's harder than it looks:

Then you take your fortune stick to the monk and have Maggie translate. i learned:

1. I was very kind to come from America to hear my fortune

2. I would be responsible for my husband's success in his career

3. I probably had been a Chinese monk in a past life, or at least connected to China in some way

4. My children would study abroad

5. I have a Buddha Face, which means I have been good in past lives

6. 2010-2020 will be my prime years

7. I should remain a teacher

and

8. I should not lose my temper when situations got trying.

Then the monk asked me for american money. i don't think he wanted more cash, he just thought american money was cool. so we gave him a buck and he was delighted.

After lunch, we went out on a boat onto the lake. Besides the excitement of getting maggie into the boat (I'm not sure em or I have regained full feeling in our hands) we really enjoyed the scenery--the rain was clearing and the mist lightening, and I think if we'd been able to stop talking and laughing for a few minutes it would have been an idyllic ride:

 

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack

....to China and to the blog. Hopefully I can make it worth your while to visit the blog; between improved connectivity (I decided to suck it up and pay for a VPN this year rather than trying to circumvent for free), less class prep time (since I've taught all but one of my classes before) and, oh yeah, NO DISSERTATION, I'm planning on far more frequent posts. So give me lots of comments to encourage me to give you lots of posts.

It's been wonderful returning. A mix of feeling utterly at home (I actually can find my way around Ningbo--a function I think, of having to pay attention to what bus stop I'm at as opposed to just doing whatever Garmina tells me to) and remembering that I'm in an utterly foreign country. From the moment we got to the airport at Shanghai, I've felt this un/heimlichness. The chinese chatter, chinglish signs, boiling temperature and mugginess? Felt like home. The 4 buddhist monks making their way through customs? Reminded me that this wasn't Kansas.

I never get over Buddhist monks just strolling through daily life--it especially cracks me up when I see them texting or something. Here are a bunch of monks just getting out of their car in Ningbo:

Also at the airport were 8 million excited teenagers--apparently some big pop star was coming in. So they were all crowded at the gate outside of customs like we were the beatles or something. I just thought they were excited because I was white.

Incidentally, the visitor's entry card in China has this fabulous distinction: amongst other choices you can check returning home or settling down. Not sure of the difference, but I find it evocative.

OK, so my goal is to just try to chronicle whatever happened that day when I post and not write 8 page summaries like I did last year. I don't teach on Mondays, though I did yesterday to make up for classes we are having off this Thursday (in China, holidays generally need to be made up on the weekends. So we have this Wed-Fri off for the mid autumn festival, but made up Thursday's classes last Sunday, Wednesday's next Sunday, and Friday's on Saturday's. It took my assistant 40 minutes to explain it to me). After we all taught yesterday, Janes, Nina and I had a little girls time. We may have gossiped about how hot Jane's swim coach, who is one of the PE teachers, looked in his swimsuit. Apparently I am not alone in my admiration--one of their colleagues has said she would be his mistress if he accepted. We also chatted about various random things--Nina's masters classes, the foreign students in her class, Jane's plans to teach Chinese to non-native speakers, and taking a ferry to South Korea to buy cosmetics. This morning I was delightfully lazy--I read about half of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  while eating some watermelon (lord, I've missed Chinese fruit. One of our fruit stores in the shopping center next to our apartment building has gone, but there are about 4 stands between here and the school. Besides watermelon, there are tons of bannanas, oranges, apples and grapes in season--the grapes in particular have been spectacular). I then watched some pilfered television (though it looks like China is starting to crack down on pirating--I have to download it rather than just stream it now!)

I wandered down to the street carts for lunch, as I often do (to the disgust of my teacher friends, who wouldn't touch the stuff on the carts with a 10 foot pole. I guess I have the taste buds of a chinese adolescent--I love them. and the convenience. and the fact that i can point. and the fact that I can get a gut busting meal for $1.25) Today I had soup. The soup vendor has 2 tables pushed together with baskets of all sorts of items to put in your soup. Today, for instance, I chose thin rice noodles, a skewer of cauliflower, a bundle of a long thin seaweed, oyster mushrooms, a skewer of white fish balls, a skewer of crab flavored fish balls, and two bundles of spinach. Then I handed my basket over to the vendor, who has a giant vat of broth boiling away. He puts your stuff in its own little compartment and then makes sure it cooks right, ladling broth over and adding the greens at the right time. In the meantime, he puts a plastic bag in a paper soup bowl and squirts in soy, sesame oil, several hot pastes, and a spoonful of what I assume is MSG. He ladles in the solids and broth, ties off the plastic bag and puts the bowl in another bag so you can carry bit off.

This guy was probably my favorite--what an amazing mix of cultures and styles.

This afternoon, I met Emily (my sis), Jeremy (her husband) and Maggie (my friend who teaches with them) downtown. Tian-Ye was having some sort of festival, with foods from all over China--I was proud to be able to identify the macau custard cakes, mongolian lamb skewers and Thai insects. There was also alligator and I should have guessed where it was from; guangdong, the region where they eat evrything (everything in the sky but airplanes, everything on the ground but cars, the saying goes).   

We walked down to Moon Lake (Yue-hu, one of my Chinese words for today), pictures of which you can see in one of my earlier posts. It was nice to be there as dusk fell. One thing I love about China is its nightlife--come 5 or so, the streets just fill with people living life--kids sitting at tables out on the sidewalk doing homework, parents gathered around gossiping, workeres eating--a lot more takes place in public rather than shut up in your own living room. At Moon Lake, some younger couples were canoodling, older people were chatting and playing Go, and this guy was doimg some fishing:

Emily and I, meanwhile, taught Maggie how to do the "I'm a little teapot" dance outside of the museum of tea:

We then headed off to dinner (more food porn coming): roast duck with amazing, crispy skin and a powder with lots of cumin and pepper to dip it in, potatoes and onions, asparagus cooked with a salty chicken broth, rice noodles with egg and a delicious, light sauce, and a "japanese style barbecued tofu"--the tofu was coated and fried and served with ham, ginger, onions and other savories. Jeremy tried to be brave and eat the duck's head, but mostly he poked it with his chopstick. Maggie told him to just lick it, which required us to say "that's what she said,' which required a somewhat involved explanation of what exactly that meant.

I bussed home afterwards. The night bus takes a more circuitous routes through some smaller neighborhoods, which meant we were barreling down 2 lane roads with cars parked on either side, 2 streams of traffics, bike riders everywhere and assorted pedestrians and dogs. I stopped  counting near misses after we swerved around 2 pedestrians, 3 bikes and 2 cars in 45 seconds. Instead, I just focused on the neon lights-every large chinese building has elaborate neon piping on it with lights that run in patterns--its a huge drain of energy (and Ningbo has put restrictions on it this year), but it is pretty to watch.

Good Night!