Colombia!

Colombia!

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Zhong Qiu Jie Kuai Le!

The title above, literally translated is “middle autumn festival happy”.  Also known as “the moon cake festival” or simply, “Moon Festival”, this occasion was very different for me last year.
 
Last year I went with two guys from my intake (training) group—we’d known each other only a couple of months by that point—and one of the guys’ friends, another woman.  One of the guys lived close to the center where I worked, and had done some exploring.  He’d found Daxue Lu –daxue literally means “big study” and actually is used to mean “university”--Road.  Modeled after University Avenue in Palo Alto, California, this street was full of cute little shops like Sipping in Time CafĂ©, a cake shop, several little bars, a Pancake Day, some fancier restaurants and boutiques, and a place called Togo Taco, where we did lunch. 
 
Later, three of us got cans of Asahi (the fourth not being a drinker) and wandered up and down the street at a pace one only uses on holidays.  We took a few silly photos, ate a few moon cakes the woman had stashed in her bag, shared a horrid cigar, and strolled aimlessly until the full moon came out.  Before the metro shut down, we hopped a train for the French Concession and ended the night with dinner and a couple of drinks at Shanghai Brewery.
 
This year was different because one of my students invited me to her home for a real Chinese celebration—a unique opportunity to see first hand how a typical family might celebrate this important traditional holiday. 
 
Although my student lived near the center, and it would’ve been easy enough for me to take the subway and meet her somewhere, she and her husband braved the 20-minute road trip (in Shanghai holiday afternoon traffic) from their place to pick me up—then made a u-turn and took me to their place! 
 
I feel, in all of my complaint-filled blog posts about pushy Shanghainese, that I’ve failed to mention one thing about Chinese culture:  when they get to know you, they are the most kind and polite people ever. 
 
Their nice car, a VW SUV, reminded me of my mom’s Subaru, with its GPS display screen and tan leather seats.  On the drive we listened to some old school U.S. music—I’m talking about easy-listening country my parents had grown up with—and then some Elvis:  “Are you lonesome tonight?”  Apparently, Elvis is not just The King here—he’s The Cat King—as in, Mao Wang.  Hilarious!
 
When we arrived, my student’s parents said “Qing jin”—please come in.  I offered my gift with both hands—a gift bag full of five apples (because four is an unlucky number—luckily, I’d unknowingly covered all the members of the family as well); cookies from Costa coffee (two different kinds, eight each, because eight is a lucky number); and an American eagle silver coin my mother had brought from the U.S.
 
I also saw a familiar face—Jack, the English name for my student’s son, a young man of about 13 who’d been to the center for some activity (it was either the Halloween party or the Christmas party last year).
 
The first thing they wanted me to do was sit on their couch in the living room.  I was used to this after my stint in the Peace Corps—being a guest, being waited on.  As an independent American, this is sometimes hard for me, but I was chill enough to handle it today.  Cubed watermelon sat on plate, a few pieces with small plastic forks poked in them.
 
Almost right away Jack sat next to me with Yeries (his mother, my student) and took a deep breath.  He began, in careful English, to tell me the story of their trip to Wuyi Mountain, near Fuzhou (south of Shanghai) for his mother’s class reunion.  The trip was two years ago, but it seemed that Jack had rehearsed the story, possibly for some kind of class presentation.  On top of river rafting (which sounded familiar to me, being from the Pacific Northwest), the group had visited a famous cliff face where only three oolong tea trees grew.  This tea, called Da Hong Pao (long red robe), is worth more than $35,000 (yes, USD) per ounce due to its incredible uniqueness.
 
As I asked some easy questions and Yeries looked on with a proud smile, Larry, her husband, carefully added boiling water to a fistful of wet black tea leaves in a small lidded cup.  “Gong fu cha,” he said.  “Kung fu tea.”  He let it steep about a minute before pouring the tea into a tiny teapot, and then into our four tiny cups.  The flavor of this tea was exquisite.
 
I learned later that gong fu cha isn’t a kind of tea, as I’d thought, but a kind of ceremony that means “making tea with great effort”.  Had we in fact been drinking da hong pao tea instead?!  I’m dying to know, because the tea was fantastic!
 
When we’d had a couple of cups of this tea, Larry and the grandfather got out a huge piece of white paper.
 
“Jack will show you his…ka…kagraphy?  His writing homework,”  Yeries stumbled.  This was rare for her, as she was an upper level student, and I quickly reminded her:  “Calligraphy.”
 
The men stood at the table, starting to fold the paper and then one stopping the other, arguing softly.  Yeries shook her head.  “Men are the same everywhere,”  I started, smiling.  “`Do it like this, man!  No, no, no, like this!’”
 
“My parents majored in German,” she answered.  “And my husband is a mechanical engineer with a German company.”  I rolled my eyes, nodding in a knowing manner.

 
 
Finally the men agreed on the folds, and Jack began his writing:  a vertical column of characters, top to bottom on the right, followed by a second column on the left—writing in a way no one writes anymore.  The finished product said something like, “If you intend to study well, you must work hard and walk the narrow path.”  I thought it was beautiful, really, the whole thing, from the meaning to the strokes of the brush, but Larry looked at it later and shook his head.  “Jack could do better,” he said.
 
Afterwards, it was time to make jiaozi, my favorite Chinese dumpling.  Jiaozi are made with round wrappers and boiled.  Huntun (wonton in Cantonese) are made from square wrappers, and baozi are steamed.  There are many more dumplings in Chinese cuisine, and we discussed the sad fault of English in expressing these different types.  I told them that my family simply used the Chinese words, since we’d lived in China before and were familiar with each.
 
One of the tricks with making jiaozi (similar to making tacos) is not to overfill.  Next, you wet the outer edge of the wrapper (the entire circle) with water on the tip of your finger, and close the wrapper tight, pressing hard with your fingers—as if to make the seam invisible.  The other trick involves holding the horizontal fold downward, each corner in the web of your hand (between thumb and forefinger), interlacing your fingers, and squeezing.  Most of mine looked a bit clumsy, of course, but none of them exploded in the water!

 
 
Later, the table was full of steamed Indian corn, boiled peanuts, and edamame; lotus root stuffed with rice; Peking duck sliced to go into small pancakes, with shredded cucumber and onion and the thick brown sauce; chicken; and Chinese kale.  It was hard to control myself, knowing that the jiaozi would be served last, especially as Larry and I drank our huang jiu (yellow wine—the rest of the family had apple juice).  Repeatedly we toasted all across the table, saying “Proust!”  Another international experience in Shanghai!
 
The jiaozi, steaming hot, were as fabulous as I’d hoped, with two different kinds of fillings and three different sauces.  There was also xilanhua, broccoli, steamed, with a dipping sauce made by Jack and his grandpa.  It was made of avocado, lemon, and honey, and was fabulous.  I could also imagine it being good on tacos, or tortilla chips!
 
If I’d been eating like this on a daily basis, instead of eating fried dumplings, KFC, and tons of rice or noodles (not to mention beer), I doubt I’d have gained as much weight as I had in the past year!  Real Chinese food is fresh and full of vegetables, with lots of flavors, from garlic to ginger, from salty to sweet.  This is one of the reasons why the teachers at my center will go to Wai Po Jia (Grandma’s Home) on the 6th floor of the mall anytime we get the chance!
 
Off and on the whole afternoon we’d been playing Go Fish, a card game that had actually been the focus of one of our classes at the center.  Mother had taught son, and so we all played a few rounds, as well as Crazy 8s.  Jack turned on the Tivo (or Chinese equivalent) so we could watch “The Voice of China”.  I found myself rooting for a man from Xinjiang, who almost looked like Russell Crowe’s cousin, if a bit rougher.  He played guitar and had a rough country look about him.  Apparently he’d had quite the difficult childhood but had traveled and performed all around Europe.  I was impressed by the singers—Mandarin, Cantonese, and English (with varying levels of intelligibility) were the common languages used. 
 
Between TV, card games, a bit of wine and feeling stuffed, it almost felt like a holiday with my own family.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Bathroom drama


I overheard this story in a bathroom at the summer party a couple days ago:

 

“So my friend and I are waiting in line at our center’s bathroom.  There are three stalls, right?  The one on the far end opens up, my friend goes in.  I wait a few minutes, and then my friend comes out.  I go in and do my business.  I come out.  Neither of the other doors have opened or closed this whole time, but suddenly my friend says she can hear music coming out of one of the stalls.  It’s very faint, but we listen and can hear it—soap opera music!  The two ladies who are supposed to be cleaning the bathroom are hiding in the stalls watching Chinese soap operas on their smart phones!”

 

I had to laugh at this, because it’s a weekly occurrence at my center, too, and probably is common everywhere in China. 

 

When my family lived in Qinghai Province in the late 1980s, my mom often mused that people spent an extra long time in the bathroom simply to get some privacy.  Listening to my students even now, I’m sure it’s true:  many of them are in their late 20s or early 30s, married, and still living with a set of parents.  In a country of a billion people, privacy is not a common luxury.

 

Being an American, I find this all highly disturbing. 

 

The bathrooms themselves are pretty disturbing, too. 

 

DISCLAIMER:  If you are squeamish about bathroom stuff, do not read any further!

 

The toilet seats in the ladies room are, 98% of the time, un-sittable, if that’s even a word.  When you’re in a culture that still has “squatty potties” most places, people will still squat, even over a seat, sprinkling it with urine or whatever else.  Sorry, but it’s true!  It’s very common, also, to see footprints on the toilet seat—that instinct to squat is still prevalent, even if it means you’re squatting a couple of feet off the ground, balanced precariously. 

 

Toilet paper is not thrown into the toilet (plumbing is not something the Chinese are known for), but is tossed into a small plastic garbage bin on the floor next to each toilet.  Toilet paper has just become available in the bathrooms, by the way:  there is one dispenser near the door to the bathroom.  You pull off what you need and take it with you into the stall.  Each stall does have an ashtray, though, so you’re covered there.  But one cannot count on the dispenser being full at all times, so it’s still best to take your own with you from the office to the bathroom.  Yup, students and coworkers all know where you’re going and what you’re going to do when you get there, unless you have deep pockets.

 

When the cleaner ladies aren’t busy watching soap operas on their smart phones (occupying stalls while a line grows outside on the busy first and second floors), they are plucking used toilet paper and unwrapped sanitary napkins out of the trash with old black tongs.  These tongs look like something you’d use to move logs around in a fireplace, or to flip brats on a grill.  This trash goes into a larger garbage bag, to be disposed of later.

 

They also mop daily, sometimes more often, although that mop will also be slopped up onto the sinks after it’s used to clean the floors around the toilets and urinals (this is coming firsthand from one of my male coworkers, who tried to explain cross-contamination to the lady in Chinese—she didn’t get it, even when a Chinese man translated).

 

China is impossible to dislike for long, though, it really is!  Yesterday after washing my hands, one of the cleaner ladies pulled out a long roll of toilet paper from the dispenser for me, holding it out with a so I could dry my hands.  The sweetness in her smile made it hard for me to be angry at her for watching soaps on her phone.  After all, if I cleaned stinky, disgusting bathrooms all day long for a living, I’m not sure I’d be able to smile at anyone.  But she can.

Shanghai Update September 2014


A word of warning:  There are a lot of complaints in this post, everyone.  If you need a pick-me-up today, I suggest reading something else!

 

The bank

Never walk into Bank of China without your smart phone.  This past Monday, a MoneyGram that routinely takes 45 minutes took 90.  Without my smart phone to keep me entertained with Sudoku and Kindle, that bank might’ve learned a few words in English they weren’t expecting.

 

I got my number (2009) at 10:41 am and settled in for the wait.  Usually it took about 15 minutes or so before my number was called, but today the two windows where I normally went to send money home were closed.  That was my first clue.

 

 

I sat.  I read a while.  I stretched.  I got up and paced.  I’d picked up a cold bottle of Itoen oolong tea to refresh me after the 30 minute walk to the bank.  I sipped it.  I sat back down.  I read some more.  I went to the bathroom, praying I wouldn’t miss my number.  I played a few games of Sudoku on my phone.  I stretched some more.  I read some more.

 

My number was called at 12:10.  The nice-looking young gentleman behind the window was wearing a tag that said:  TRAINEE.  I sighed. 

 

He consulted the manual.  He got other employees to look at the manual with him (one woman frowned with widened eyes, looking more confused than the trainee himself).  I could see half the staff behind the window milling about doing important tasks such as checking their WeChat messages.  We were also interrupted four times by various Chinese customers impatiently waiting in line behind me.

 

The poor trainee took forever to finish my transaction.  Part of the issue was the fact that I’d written “Spokane” (upper and lower case) not: “SPOKANE” in block letters.  I suppose if he’d written traditional characters rather than simplified I would’ve been just as stumped.  He checked the spelling with me three times.  At least he was thorough and diligent. 

 

The finality of those red seals being pounded into my paperwork (all three sheets of it) at one-o-clock was a relief.

 

Surfin’

At work, Wikipedia and Hotmail are the only things working besides the EF homepage.  Bing search doesn’t work, and some of you may know that Google and China are still feuding, meaning Google is unavailable 99% of the time.  My Skype call home from my apartment got cut off, and my internet has been down at home for the last two days.

 

Ditto

The copier at work has been serviced once a week since I returned from the States a month ago.  Its favorite time to break down is Friday evening and Saturday morning—and of course, those are our busiest times.  There is one copier/printer for the entire center, meaning all 13 teachers and all 20 or so staff (sales and secretaries) use the same machine for everything.

 

The “repairman” from Toshiba spends as much time checking his phone and sighing as he does actually working on the damn thing.  Our center director refuses to budge on buying a second machine, or a new one at the very least.

 

I complained to my immediate supervisor today.  It’s really embarrassing to tell students no handouts or materials are available for the lesson they spend thousands of RMB on.  It’s bad business.  And since this IS a business, not a school, you’d think they’d do something about it. 

 

Yesterday was the annual summer party, and the company must have spent millions of RMB on food, alcohol, transportation, and venue rental—thousands of teachers and staff attended.  Clearly, the money is available.  The company is just too damn cheap to spend it on things they actually need.

 

Yeah, right

If I hear one more person telling me Shanghai is “a modern city” I’m going to scream.  At least I have air conditioning at home and at work, so it’s definitely ahead above the Peace Corps, at least.

 

If I hear one more person claiming Shanghai is “a cosmopolitan city” I’m going to scream.  Last week I went with two of my coworkers to a Mexican restaurant on Daxue Lu (modeled after University Avenue in Palo Alto, California).  On our way back, this woman (about 40 or 50 years old) stared at us for a good three minutes as we waited for the light to change so we could cross the street.  One of my coworkers is black.  Even when I smiled (sarcastically, I’ll confess) and waved and said “Ni hao!”, her expression never changed, and her eyes only flicked to me for a second.  The only thing missing was her mouth hanging open. 

 

I still get stared at regularly, even though white people are more common in Shanghai than black people.  I’ll admit that thousands of Shanghainese walk (or push) past me without a second glance, but at least every other day someone will do a double take or actually turn around on their bike, on their feet, or in their car to stare.  Some smile.  Most don’t. 

 

Shanghai is the biggest city in the world, but it most certainly is not cosmopolitan.

 

And if I see one more foreign guy who’s gay or with a Chinese girl, I’m going to scream about that, too.  I did have a small hope that I might find a guy here, which is ridiculous considering the fact that a good 50% of the local men come up to my shoulder, have long, dirty fingernails and have bad breath as well (garlic, cigs, and not brushing--ew!).  There are some good-looking Chinese men, here, though--tall and young (too young for me, usually, or with a girlfriend) and clean cut.  The foreign guys are either in long-term relationships or are a bit on the scuzzy side (they like massage parlors if you know what I mean).

 

Well, now that I’ve got all that off my chest…