citrus surprise

A recent trip to Costco brought back an exciting China memory from - was it springtime? That whole life feels like it didn't even happen, so the timeline is a little foggy.

The produce section at the supermarkets was always a surprise because the offerings rotated so frequently based on the season (imagine that! Eating food from where it's harvested, when it's harvested!) and if you liked something, you had to get it while you could and enjoy it while you could. (Strawberries started appearing in small batches of packages for 18RMB (~$3, really steep for fruit) and then as they became more widely available 6.5RMB (just under $1) and then they started showing up less red, less enticing, and then - they vanished.)

Anyway, at some point, small oranges flooded the produce section. They were so dainty, so pretty, so easy to peel, like a clementine, but like nothing I'd ever tasted before. Everyone loaded up on kilos and kilos, and they showed up in the classroom as kids snacked on them between classes. After a few days of devouring at least two at every meal, Megan and I once again asked each other, "What are these things??" and, then, in a flash of enlightenment from above, it came to us...

MANDARIN ORANGES

Omg, we said, MANDARIN!, liiiiike Chinese oranges! Mandarin oranges are from China! Have you ever seen or eaten a mandarin orange not in slimy, fructosey, canned form? Neither had we. Please, please do if you get the chance.

Which you might, because, as I started to mention, Costco was selling bags of them. Not nearly as thrilling as 'discovering' them fresh in their homeland, but almost as delicious, and you too, can stock up on kilos of them.

Mandarins, by the way, were officials in the Chinese empire. Mandarin oranges are possibly named such because the mandarin humans wore orange robes.

Also, by the way, as I have just learned, clementines and tangerines are types of mandarin oranges.

wǎngbā

Unbelievably, it's been a year (and one day) since Megan and I arrived in Huai'an. We arrived to two one-bedroom apartments in the same building, despite our adamant request to live in one two-bedroom apartment together. We'd also been told the apartment would be well-stocked and that we should pack as if going to a hotel. Unfortunately, we followed that advice, and slept poorly, me in my cocoon and Megan on her yoga mat (yeah, it flew across the Pacific), together on top of the one double bed in the upstairs apartment. No sheets, towels, soap or toilet paper to be found. (After informing the school we'd like to live together in the upstairs apartment and we'd need another bed in there, we slept in that same double bed for two whole months before the second bed showed up. Ohh, sister bonding.)

When we woke up and collected the courage, some hours later, to step outside into our new neighborhood,we embarked on a search for an internet cafe. (Because the computer in the apartment was not yet equipped.) The guide book glossary indicated anything having to do with internet looked like two Xs in a box: 网

We made it to the main campus gate, retracing the path of the car the night before when we'd been dropped off. Bicycles rolled by, bells dinging; cars careened, horns blaring; people walked, people sat, people pulled carts, people pushed carts, people, people, PEOPLE. This is what one billion feels like.

It's funny to recall how we marveled at crossing that street, wondering which of us would die first and when; how baffled we were by the intersection, picking out landmarks and remembering which way we turned and how far we walked. It's amazing how adaptable humans are: we quickly learned, and liked, to play chicken with the traffic and soon recognized the regulars at that intersection, crossing and recrossing it every day to catch the bus or get noodles.

Around that corner we did find the box with two Xs. With no attempt at verbal communication by either party, we plunked down some cash and the wǎngbā/网吧/internet cafe attendant turned on two computers for us, behind a cluster of gaming Chinese boys. While we sat waiting for the machines to get going, I tried convincing myself we didn't get swallowed up by an alternate universe on the opposite side of the planet. This tiny speck of a town teeming with humans was the center of the world. I'm not lost! my inner self cried out. I'm right here! I still matter, right?! Just look for me on a map, you'll see! Through the jet lag, exhaustion, overstimulation, fatigue, and yeah I'll say it, fear, something popped. Not metaphorically, something actually made a popping sound down the row. One of the computers had caught fire. It sparked and smoked, and flames licked the jumble of wires.

OhhhhMG..........do computers explode?!?

We didn't want to find out. We pushed our way through chairs and back out to the sidewalk. A small cloud of smoke billowed. Some of the gamers had escaped with us, but others farther from the fire carried on. We had read that some internet cafes don't allow foreigners because of the high incidence of fires. Huai'an didn't see enough foreigners to have rules about them.

Just a few shops down was another box with two Xs. We downloaded Skype.

We made it.

impressions of the US

Cleaning out my teacher drawer and came upon some students' impressions of the US that I had them write at the beginning of last semester...

• The United States is a democratic country. The American advocate freedom. In my impression, the American like to eat fast food and they are very white. The United States is a developed country.
• I like to see American moive, in particular the moive made in Hollywood. They're very perfect and cool.
• It's a young country, for China. It's democratic country. Most of Americans thinking are open. Many Chinese people want to American. Because they thought many chance in American.
  
• rich
• The United States is located in the middle of North America. Canada is in the north of America it's capital is Washington. There are about 30,000 people in America in 2006. American people are friendly, humble, romantic, general and easy-going. Compared with Chinese people, American people are independent especially pursue equality
• America has 50 continents
• I haven't been to America, but I think they are rich and friendly. One day if I have chance, I will go and have a look at it. That would be a nice thing.

"sports meeting"

Yesterday we had no class because of the "sports meeting," an event you may know as a track meet. We missed the "most wonderful part!" which was the opening ceremony, including a parade, dancing and singing, because it occurred at 7am. But we rode our bikes out to school a couple hours later in the first warmth and sunshine we've had here in months and spent the day reliving our youth as tracksters.
It was so typical that there was a teachers' race we weren't let in on (they knew we would win I guess), but we had a chuckle at the men's and women's 50 meter dash.

Above, Elvis (one of my fav freshmen) jumped so far and so fast that my camera totally missed him. But here he is after, with fellow fans and classmates, Rocket and Will.

she posts

Please see what she gleaned from our Saturday evening dinner guest because I cannot compose a more illuminating recap.

All I can add is that we cooked a box of our Shanghai purchased pasta, of which Lin Qiang ate 5.5 bites since he was so busy talking. "I am very excited!" he explained. Had we not subjected ourselves to the hell of Club Seven the night before we probably would've been more excited too. As it was, he was thoroughly enjoyable and educational company, one of the most vivacious Chinese I've met. The majority of Chinese have a somewhat irritating habit of modesty: "You know my English is very poor," "No, no I am not very beautiful," etc. Lin Qiang is refreshingly very candid: "See?! I am a good teacher!"

We'll be having him over again.

you know you live in china...

when a toddler at the campus track is toting nunchucks.

lucky

heh, to counter the bitter supermarket cultural misunderstandings, here's another supermarket episode that's a bit sweeter:

On a recent evening trip to the store across the street I picked out a bunch of bananas, and took it over to our smiley fruit weigher friend. (You bring your bag of fruits and veggies to the respective weigh station and have it priced and sealed up.) She printed the sticker, clamped the bag and then showed it to the darling old man standing next to me. All I could understand of his commentary was "pretty" and he looked up at me, said something, and I had to reply with a hopeless smile, "听不懂," [loosely translated: I know you're talking to me but I have no clue what you're saying!] which is my automatic response to almost any Mandarin tossed my way.

I heard the fruit lady say something about "three" but I definitely had more than three bananas. I just shrugged apologies for being in their country and not speaking their lengua, took the bananas and left them smiling and chuckling.

It wasn't until I got back to the apartment and unpacked everything that I realized the bananas cost 8.88RMB, and the lady was showing the man the price tag with the three eights. In China people pay extra money for phone numbers or license plates with 8s because they're "auspicious" (their favorite word). The Mandarin for "eight" is "bā" which sounds like the word for "prosperity", "fā." So they believe eights are blessings of fortune. How lucky were my bananas! The Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony began at 8:08pm on the eighth day of the eighth month, in the year 2008.

I'm bummed I didn't try a little harder to figure out the circumstances at the fruit stand. But I guess it's called a language barrier for a reason... Too bad I couldn't have hurdled this one with a display of gratitude at my great fortune. They must have thought I was a terrible waste of 8s!

resuscitation

finals, visitors, travels, visitor, start of semester, excuses, excuses.

We're already a quarter of the way into second semester. My freshman class has shaken the dust off their atrophied English skills since vacation and my 9 sophomores have solidified their hatred of the language. I have one writing class with them, which I really enjoy thanks to the writing textbook Jeff & Claire left behind for me to use, and my other five classes are all Listening & Speaking, four times per week with the freshmen and once with the sophs. (I should have two writing classes with the sophomores but they hate it, and usually me, and I don't love them, so I dropped one and am waiting to see how long it'll be until someone "important" confronts my liberties with the schedule.)

Everyone came back to school with new shoes, new coats and freshly sculpted anime hair: curled, swooped, frizzed, straightened, black, purple, or "blonde," which, properly translated, is "orange." The magic of having a foreign teacher has worn off for most of the students, except the ones who aren't actually in my classes, and only see me in the dingy hallway of the writing class building, grabbing their friends' attention to stare and giggle or call out, "Hallooo! Nice-tew-mete-yooh!"

Spring is at winter's back door with fickle temperatures and mostly gray skies sagging with showers, but Megan was lucky to get 68 degrees on her birthday a couple weeks ago. Simon and I came to her class to play shark pit and "the circle game" (that's what I'm calling it anyway) outside, which was a lot more fun than when we repeated the event the following week with my class, who, true to form, cheated. The freshmen boys are bedazzled by my new and awesome iPod; Jack pointed and said, "How much," and Martin held out his hand and demanded, "Give to me." Jack had the same question-as-statement last semester of my running shoes that I brought in for show and tell (hard to believe, but I do teach college and not kindergarten) which was followed by Martin's charming show of his pack of cigarettes, and tell, "I like smoking. That's all." Boys.

Hopefully we'll have some committed spring temperatures by next weekend for Easter/Qingming Festival aka Tomb Sweeping Day (interesting coincidence) when we get Monday off (and don't have to make it up!). Some of us are thinking of getting a bus down to Hangzhou, the lovely city near Shanghai where Megan and I started our winter vacation travels. Loreta's stipulation is a church and Tim's is beer, and thanks to Google (.com.hk, mind you) we know Hangzhou has both. All I need to do is figure out exactly how much I overspent by on our travels -oops- and see if I have the funds to go.

shèng dàn kuài lè!

Merry Christmas!

Friday the 18th, Megan and I had a Christmas party for our students. Megan had to regulate which classes she invited since she has over 300 students (freshmen got denied) and I invited all three of my classes, knowing the one that hates me wouldn't show up :)   Luckily, the CET exams (China's national English test) were being given over that weekend so we lost a lot of attendance to test prep and had probably 70 students trickle through our tiny apartment. Let me amend that and say 70 girls showed up, because not a single male student came over. What-ever, boys!

We purchased Santa hats for the occasion (see picture) but over the course of the evening and following week, ended up with a total of 7, including one with white braids (a Mrs. Santa hat) as they were bestowed upon us with the Christmas wishes from various students.

This other picture is some of my freshmen (my favorite class).

"everything's cheap in china"

-- Loreta's observation upon hearing about this awesomely horrendous Chinglish

This sign is hanging above a row of lockers at Times Extra, the large supermarket in downtown Huai'an. You can't bring in other shopping bags or parcels, so lockers are provided to stow those items while you shop. These are the bilingual instructions for operating the locker system.

bus 22

I know I owe this thing some updates, but here's a snapshot of a bus ride home from school one night last week...

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I have my freshmen class from 4 until 5:40, the last period of the day. It gets dark midway through, and now that we're getting closer to winter, this class period is more and more miserable. (No heat in the classrooms, no heat on the buses, s-p-o-i-l-e-d American alert.) Last Monday was particularly miserable, with a steady assault of sleet pelting down on all of us waiting for the bus back into town. At least four #22 buses passed in the opposite direction, and three #23 buses passed going in my direction in the 40 minutes I had to stand waiting for the #22 to go home. When it FINALLY careened towards the shivering crowd, all much more patient/used to Chinese inconsistency than I, we clambered on to the tune of club music pumping throughout the bus. A group of men stood smoking near the front, shouting at the driver/d.j. to turn it up. A couple stops later, the smokers got off and were replaced by a man toting propane - wonderful. I had another spoiled American attack: is this legal? Are we going to explode? Should I get off and wait for the next one? and decided I'd just be Chinese about it and sit back and let it happen.

The sleet's still pelting, the music's still pumping, the bus gets fuller at every stop. Enter a glossy-eyed trio stinking of baijou, and this has turned into the strangest bus ride of my entire life. (Actually, just the strangest of my Chinese life, because the one in Milwaukee when the two guys started beating each other with umbrellas is still probably the strangest, and all the #30 rides with The Maniac were up there too.)

downtown huai'an

Decked out for National Day. Can you spot Wal-Mart in the distance? Far left.

We had many discussions on the attractiveness of the Chinese lantern.
Some are charming and tasteful. Others, like these, look like
jellyfish. Not so charming.

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ditched

Megan's first piece that she left on the side of the road after the rust, the unidentified clunking noise and the flat tire got to be too much. What do you want for $14? This picture was taken a few days after she left it -- still standing there, all alone. It was so bad no one wanted to steal it.

It has since been replaced by a sleek, operable black number called "Feng Huang" -- phoenix.

freedom

having a bike makes life so wonderful

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These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google.
Try it out here: http://picasa.google.com/