Then we have shao guo (hot pot)- a type of soup with meet, noodles, doufu (tofu), other types of bean curd with different textures, small eggs, sea weed etc. There is a big type of hot pot that ends up being something like fondu - with a big pot in the middle and you just throw everything into the soup and let it cook right in front of you. Its pretty fun, and is great for a big night out to eat, as it usually lasts 2 hours or so.
There are all types of noodles, in soup, “dry” with some type of sauce, fried, with all types of extras (pork and onions/peppers, egg and tomato, mushrooms n pork with bean sprouts etc...). Then there are the local noodle dishes, one that’s as wide as your belt, its got to be at least an inch and a half, and maybe 3 feet long. Its actually one of the 8 strange things about Shaanxi province, though I don’t remember what the others are. Another local noodle is about as wide, but cut into squares swimming with oil, with chunks of pork and fat. Those are really good, but luckily it is normal to spit things you don't like out onto the table – I end up doing that with much of the fat. One local dish I really like is yang rou pao muo - mutton in a soup broth with tiny chunks of a dense bread, rice noodles, and maybe something else - mushrooms, doufu, or the like. It always comes with pickled garlic and la da, spicy salty pepper sauce, and is good to eat in the winter when it is cold outside as it warms you up.
Dumplings, they have all kinds. I prefer the jaozi - boiled dumplings with various fillings, meat and veggie. Then there are the baozi - steamed dumplings with various fillings, not quite as good. They’re too bready - but I do like the guang tong bouzi, more like jauzi but with a soup broth in the middle. There is also a fried type of jauzi, but I've only had those once and they weren’t so good at the restaurant we were at, so I will leave further judgment to my second taste.
There are always different customs when it comes to food. For example, today we had the first real snowstorm here in Xian, called a da xue. So I get to school, and immediately they ask me how many jaozi I want. Huh? Oh, well that’s cool – I’d rather not have my ears freeze off, which is what would apparently happen if I didn’t eat any dumplings. I was getting a little worried that it might end up happening for a while later when our food arrived they had forgotten to bring mine. Luckily my friends at work didn’t want to see my ears freeze off, and each gave me a jaozi or two.
In fact, I really enjoy all of the people I work with at school. A few of the other foreign teachers have told me that their work environment is so hostile, but at Kid Castle school 5 everything is great. Teaching has been one of the best, worst and hardest things I’ve ever done. Kid Castle is an English school for children ages 3-12. Its pretty expensive (~4,000 RMB/year) compared to the average salaries of the Xian population (~25,000/year). Thus the school is only for the rich, and that combined with the one child policy makes for some pretty spoiled kids. And some of the parents are crazy – one student stomped on another girl’s feet, kicked a teacher in the butt and when he and his mom were confronted about it, the kid started crying and said he forgot he promised his mom he would be good that day. The mother told him everything was all right, she wasn’t mad, and gave him a piece of candy. “You have to be nice to him,” she said, “or else he gets mad.”
There have been great times when classes go well, and the kids love you, but at other times trying to get the attention of 15 3-4 year olds makes you want to curl up and die. I thought I was beginning to get the hang of communicating with the kids, and then got a new student who doesn’t pay attention and just wanders the classroom and now I’ve all but lost hope. I’ve been really enjoying my junior classes though, with kids age 7-9. One is able to interact with the older students a little more and play games that I find a little more interesting. Though it doesn’t happen so often, one of the best feelings I’ve ever had was to have the attention of 17 students and see that they’re really enjoying learning because I thought of a good way to teach them. I do take some issue with the content of the courses, but I think the method of teaching is good – play a lot of games, keep things high energy and fun. I just feel bad for the kids though. Another effect of the one child policy, and Chinese culture, is that each child must excel, and thus they not only have English lessons 4 hours a week, but also maybe piano, dance, calligraphy or something.
So what else is interesting about China? Well, too much to list, but one thing that must be mentioned is the pollution. A friend of mine was teaching a class about colors, and asked what color the sky was. They answered him gray, white, brown – blue was the fourth answer. That statement says it all. At night, when I walk home from work I can see the street lights, and am always reminded of movies where it’s a dark and foggy night, for the very air is illuminated by lamplight. When walking around the city many times you can’t see two blocks in front of you for the pollution. Every afternoon as the sun begins to go down, even if it’s been a nice sunny day, I can stare directly at the sun, half hidden by the pollution. And in the winter it only gets worse. Coal seems to be the main method of heating, and smoke stacks can be seen belching dark coal smog throughout the city. Even the restaurants cook with coal, and walking around one can see huge guo (woks) perched atop barrels of coal fire, each one with a blower motor to whip up the flame. I asked one of the Chinese teachers at my school what type of health effect it had on the population here, and she answered that not too many people had respiratory problems. I’m not too sure I can believe that though. I saw one statistic that a quarter of the population will eventually have some type of respiratory disease, though I wonder how correct that statistic is, if many problems go undiagnosed.
As for myself, I’ve seemed to have a persistent cough for the past month that I just can’t shake. I’ve been sick twice for a week straight both times, and another two times I’ve felt bad enough to just want to sleep all day. I’d always been a bit skeptical about going to see the doctor but finally was persuaded to go one afternoon when I was feeling especially bad. When I walked up to the clinic I was half astonished to see an old woman holding her 1 ˝ year old granddaughter legs spread to pee outside the door. When she was finished I had to step carefully over the small lake inside the building. (as a side note, this is a very normal thing to see in China; the pants of all little kids have a slit in the crotch as a method of potty training, an effect of the squat toilets). Immediately when I spoke with the doctor he wanted to give me an IV, but I just decided to grab the medicine he recommended and head to bed. I had read two books in which they speak of needles collected from the hospitals, taken to the country and washed out by peasant farmers with mini hand pumps to be returned to the hospitals. They say the most expensive part of the whole operation was repackaging the needles to appear clean. Wow
We had a visit from the mother of one of the foreign teachers here, and over a nice plate of salad, spaghetti and garlic bread spoke in length about these and other cultural differences of China: the one child policy, the pollution and dirt of the city, the squat toilets and the need to keep face at all costs, even if it means the government cheating the people, yelling over who is going to pay for dinner, or spending all of your money on a cell phone when you can’t provide enough to heat your apartment or truly feed your family (a note: there are 375 million cell phone users in China, and they even work from the top of a mountain). And she asked us why we liked China and didn’t immediately return to the comfort of the States. Well, maybe that is one reason right there, to learn and grow by forcing yourself into uncomfortable situation.
But there is more to it than that. The other day I was feeling depressed and upset by the lack of heat at school and feeling that they were trying to screw me over, so took off for lunch a little early. I decided to head over to the local jaozi restaurant next to my house, and when I got there I was the only customer. The boss invited me over to have lunch with him and two of his friends. We dined on boiled peanuts, cold vegetables, jaozi and this cold meat cut into slices – tasted like corned beef. He asked me all types of questions, not that I could understand much, but we tried to communicate over the glass of bijou (white alcohol) he poured me – it was cold he told me and we had to drink bijou to keep warm. It turned out to be a great conversation trying to communicate between charades and the few Chinese words I’ve learned since getting here. After a while he looked over at me, pointed to the meat and woofed, woofed twice. Gou rou, or dog meat – now seriously, where else but in China do you eat dog.
The Chinese hospitality has to be among the best in the world. There has been a few times where I’ve had my meals paid for by an interested Chinese wanting to talk to me for a minute. It has been so interesting to meet the people here. I’ve begun dating one of the Chinese teachers at my school and she’s been giving me Chinese lessons so that I might be able to talk to some of the locals a bit better. Its must be one of the best experiences to study a few new words, and then go into the local store and be able to use them and actually half communicate.
I’ve learned so much from woda nupengyou (girlfriend) Alpha. She’s helped me through so much here and allowed me to experience so much of the real China culture, not just hanging out with other foreigners. But it’s too easy to hide behind her and thus I must learn to get out on my own and experience China on my own. It’s been a great time so far, and I believe it will continue in the same way. Take care all!
Zaijian,
Man zou,
Andrew
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