From Grits to Chopsticks

We’ve heard that the northeast US is digging out from a blizzard and that the Atlanta area still has snow on the ground from a very rare white Christmas.  So depending on where you live, 46 degrees might sound pretty balmy.  But not for those of us who live in the unheated homes south of the Yangtze river.  A few days ago, we took this picture of the guest room clock/thermometer INSIDE our apartment:

Although our city is pretty warm for most of the time, the winter can be pretty brutal in our unheated, concrete-walled home.  For the last month, we’ve been wearing long underwear and sitting in front of space heaters (and Susan wears her “grandmother jacket”):

For the Christmas weekend, we were very blessed to be able to spend time with our sons in Lijiang, a beautifully preserved old city in the western part of our province.  We stayed at the Wang Fu hotel (not your normal Holiday Inn) that had been decked out for Christmas:

It was a nice place, and unlike our apartment, actually had heat in the rooms from 8PM to 8AM.  We were able to walk around the old town and eat delicious food at Pizza Hut (twice!).  One of the highlights of a visit to Lijiang is to climb “Jade Dragon Snow Mountain,” a nearby peak that rises to over 18,000 feet.  Here are the intrepid explorers nearing the top:

Fortunately, “climbing” Snow Mountain actually means riding a gondola most of the way.  But it was still quite high, and we gladly shared breaths from the disposable can of oxygen we bought for 70RMB (about $10) at the bottom.

Our school year is drawing to a close and final exams will begin next week.  After they finish exams, most of our students will head to their hometowns for spring festival break (about 6 weeks long!).  Today, we held our final English Corner of this school term.  This time, Angie volunteered to lead the lesson about Christmas.  After reading the Christmas story, she asked each student to draw a nativity scene – on their heads without looking:

The winner received a prize: an apple pie, baked in the shape of a star.  We played another game, sang some traditional carols, and discussed the meaning of Christmas symbols.  Afterwards, everyone gathered around the table for snacks and candy canes:

From our side of the world to wherever you may be – Merry Christmas!

We’re thankful our son, Stephen, chose to visit us this month.  He arrived after 11:00pm on the 7th, and in spite of jet lag, joined us for lunch with students the next day.  He was just a “tad” taller than they were:

He then went to Mark’s school and attended his afternoon class:

Over the next few days, Stephen learned about waiting (and waiting) for a taxi or bus and also learned about riding on them:

And he learned about walking (and more walking):

He learned about the meat we eat:

And he learned about our English Corners:

He saw our busy downtown:

And he visited our famous tourist sites.   The Bamboo Temple:

The Stone Forest:

Western Hills Park:

And the not so famous, Kunming Zoo:

At mealtime, Stephen also learned about sitting on short stools at very short tables:

We want to mention one more little detail about our visit with Timothy.  One night while we were sleeping in his apartment, we had a guest who helped himself to a bite of a banana that was left on the table:

It was a rat!  How do we know?  Timothy has seen their tails and two days ago he actually captured one in his bedroom!

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a special day for “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father.”  In his proclamation, he invited all Americans to give thanks, including “those who are sojourning in foreign lands.”  We were privileged to travel an hour north by plane and join other sojourners around a wonderful table of thanksgiving:

It was so good to spend this time with Timothy who is finishing up his first semester of Chinese study.  Based on the fact that he was able to safely get us around town (chatting with cab drivers and restaurant staff along the way), it appears that the Chinese classes are paying off.  On Friday morning, we were surprised to see an Israeli juggler and unicyclist at Tienfu square:

He wasn’t the only “unique” rider of the weekend.  Timothy had the opportunity to try and teach this monk how to ride his cycle:

This guy could really impress his friends if he could ride smoothly down the street with unicycle hidden under his robe (like he was just hovering along).  After the obligatory photos in front of the giant Mao statue in the square, we went into the adjacent science museum.  Inside, we took the opportunity to joke about Darwinian pseudoscience, giving a more accurate view of humanity’s “actual” prehistoric ancestor:

Early the next morning, we travelled to the Chengdu panda preserve.  It was misty as we wandered through the grounds and watched the pandas eating breakfast.  They have a unique style of eating, one that was inspirational to Timothy:

In typical Chengdu fashion, we never saw the sun during our visit.  But it was certainly good to see our son!

Based on historical accounts, it is very possible that the “fowl” on the table during the first Thanksgiving in 1621 was actually a duck, not a turkey.  In order to accurately re-create this first Thanksgiving experience for our students (also, because you can’t get a turkey in our city yet), we had a Beijing Duck on the table this week at English Corner:

The duck was a gift from one of our students who has been studying in Beijing this semester.  Before gathering around the table, Susan took some time to teach the students the history of Thanksgiving.  Each student practiced their English by talking about something for which they were thankful.

Susan prepared a number of traditional Thanksgiving dishes for the students to sample.  Our good friend Angie also provided some homemade pumpkin pie:

Hope that each of you have a Happy Thanksgiving, wherever in the world you are!

You see some of the craziest things printed on tee shirts in our town.  We often laugh at the mixed messages and confused “chinglish” on the shirts, most of which are probably not understood by the wearer.  While walking to a meeting a few months ago, we saw this girl wearing a shirt that spoke some genuine truth:

This is definitely a culture where brand names mean something (usually, something else).  We were recently shopping at our favorite store when I picked up the box of baking soda on the right:

Even though they seem to have done a pretty good job of altering the front of the box, the “Products Trait” statement on the top panel still (accidentally?) uses the “Arm and Hammer” script signature:

While shopping in our local market, I picked up the following two tubes of toothpaste:If English is your native language, it’s easy for you to figure out which one is the copycat.  But imagine how hard it can be if you use a totally different writing system.  For instance, if you happen to be fond of a particular clear, sparkling soft drink, which of these two bottles would you select?

The genuine article (locally known as shui bi) is on the right.  If you’re a foreigner and don’t make the right choice based on the slight difference in the first Chinese character, you’ll figure it out when you open the bottle and take a drink.  And if you want some fast food to go with your soda, you can stop in at the new restaurant on the corner of our residential district for a “humburger” (which is really sort of a gristly chicken sandwich).  It will be served in this box:

Even though the capital “M” doesn’t have rounded edges on the top, it’s pretty obvious where the slogan on the side of the box came from.  But I must admit – I’m lovin’ it too, especially since I needed a few examples for my recent International Business Law class dealing with Copyrights and Trademarks…

When my dad went to work for the DuPont company over 50 years ago, he joined a “safety culture” that did everything possible to avoid on-the-job injuries.  That culture found its way home in 1963 when he drilled holes in the floorboard of our old Studebaker and bolted in some seatbelts, adding a new measure of closeness to our family of seven.  So when I started with DuPont in 1979, I was already steeped in that safety culture, ready to find and fix a safety problem before an injury might occur.

Our current culture is at the other end of the pole.  We often take crazy taxicab rides through unbelievable traffic, but I’ve never found seatbelts in the back seat.  There is quite a bit of give and take on the highway, but our “harmonious society” can quickly break down in traffic.  While riding on a bus last month, my driver came a bit too close to this car:

As I’ve said before, construction projects abound in our city.  And where there are tall buildings, there are people one step away from a long fall with a hard stop, often without a safety rope:

We occasionally find that some words do not translate well into the local language.  Three words that most people here would not understand: “child safety seat.”  Of course, if you had to use one on a scooter, you wouldn’t be able to get the whole family on-board:

I’m not sure who came up with the expression “If you don’t like how I drive, stay off the sidewalk,” but they must’ve lived in China.  While walking downtown yesterday, we had to be very careful to avoid being run over by the steady stream of scooters, honking and weaving through pedestrians on the sidewalk to avoid road construction:

I would estimate that about 80% of people here wear eyeglasses.  But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone wearing safety glasses, including the folks running the chop saw at this metal working shop near one of our favorite bus stops:

I’m also not sure if I’ve ever seen any of the road construction people wearing eye protection, including these two guys that we walked by on Sunday using a concrete saw and a jackhammer:

As I said when I started this blog (or is it a rant?), safety culture is probably something that you learn as a child.  When we see someone blindly walk in front of traffic here, we often wonder if their mother told them “Now Johnny, whatever you do, DO NOT look both ways before crossing the street.”  As we walked out of our apartment complex last week, we walked by this little guy whose mom was caring for her baby in the background.  I can hear her now: “Johnny, I’m busy with the baby.  Take this meat cleaver and go out to play next to the highway.”

Since some of the girls at our English Corner were interested in learning how to cook American food, our friend Angie invited them over to her apartment to cook lasagne.  While it’s probably not technically “American food,”  it’s certainly more American than the “squid on a stick” that we saw at the park yesterday:

But I digress.  Chinese and American cooking tools differ greatly.  Here, the girls get an orientation to an oven, something that is rarely used in China.  Our ovens here are usually small, stand-alone units:

Angie showed the girls how to make the lasagne by following the directions on the package.  It seems that most Chinese cooking is done by word-of-mouth teaching and the “taste-and-add-more-of-something” method, not following a recipe:

After chopping and mixing ingredients, everyone worked together to make layers of cheese, sauce, and foreign noodles:

While the food was baking, Angie told “the pumpkin story” to the group.  Our Chinese pumpkins are a little different from those back in the States, but the story is the same: we all need to have someone clean out the yucky stuff inside and replace it with a light.

Picture perfect results!  The cooking is done and it’s time to start eating!

Our students here are very friendly and seem glad to help us.  Last Saturday, three came to our apartment to fix a traditional Chinese meal of dumplings, fish soup, and fried eggplant.  Growing up in China, most guys and girls are trained to cook.  They all seem good at chopping with giant meat cleavers:

The dumplings are stuffed with a mix of ground pork, cabbage, spices, and salt – a lot of salt:

Of course, oil is essential to everything Chinese – locals regularly carry home two gallons at a time from the market.  They usually use pork oil, not the foreign Wesson Canola oil in our kitchen:

My first-ever dumpling making lesson!  There’s an art to folding the shell:

Mine is obviously the one on the far left.  Thankfully, I improved after making several dozen.

Showing off our dumplings!

Almost everything gets cooked in a wok, including the soup.  Yes, the carp was alive when the students brought it over this morning:

After the soup was finished, the dumplings were boiled and the eggplant was fried in oil with an assortment of local spicy things (and salt):

The finished meal.  It took three hours to make, but it was quite good, and we were grateful for the time spent with students!