Gifts

If your love language is gifts, you would feel very loved here. (Or if it's words of affirmation, but that's a topic for another day).

My love language, however, is not gifts.  So, though I feel loved when I receive gifts from people to an extent, mostly I feel awkward and confused.  (This is, of course, excepting birthdays and other holidays where gifts are expected).

I can't even tell you the number of times that I have just been walking around campus and a student I even vaguely know sees me, runs over, and shoves a small gift in my hand.  Usually, it's food.  One time I got off a bus with another teacher, and my student saw us and shoved bottles of juice into our hands, smiled, and said goodbye.  Another time I was in the cafeteria.  I saw a student, waved hello, and then sat down at my table.  Next thing I know, she comes up from behind, hands me a bottle of milk tea, smiles, and walks away.

Chinese people also bring gifts when they come to your house.  I'm usually better at handling this one since I expect it.  Fruit is a very common gift.  Here's what I received from some students who came over last night:

A bag of tangerines, and a box of milk

I am also frequently given gifts in class.  When I walk around at the beginning of class to talk to students, often someone will say, "Here, Teacher!  Take this!" and a piece of candy, or bread, or tofu strip seasoned with zi ran will be shoved into my hand.  I always try my best to refuse the gift, but inevitably it gets put into my hand, or my mouth.  Today in class I was given two pieces of candy, and was made to take a bite of a roasted sweet potato (which was delicious, by the way).

Culturally, I am almost always confused when these things happen.  In America, students don't just randomly give you things like this.  What student after class goes up to their teacher and says "Here, have this chocolate" and then walks away without even waiting for a "thank you"?  No student, that's who. 

My initial response, as an American, is to thank the other person profusely for the gift (as we like to say "thank you" a lot).  Chinese people do not say thank you nearly as much as we do.  So I say thank you and get the Chinese version of "you're welcome" which is "no thanks", or "it doesn't matter".  Culturally, from my perspective, they're not looking for thanks when they give a gift.  That's really difficult for me.  I never know how much I'm supposed to say thank you, if at all.  I often am oblivious as to what to do or say, so I just hope that I don't offend anyone by any action or inaction I do when receiving a gift, and can play the "dumb foreigner" card if I do.

I dare you to randomly give someone (like a teacher or coworker) a small gift this week.  Don't plan the gift too much.  Think in the moment.  Let me know how that goes.  I'm betting they'll be pretty surprised.

Noodles

Last night we watched Kung Fu Panda.  I have to say, that movie has whole new levels of meaning for me after living in China for 3 months.  One of the things that resonated with me most was the line from Po's father, "We are noodle folk.  Broth runs through our veins."

Since coming to China I have eaten an overwhelmingly large amount of noodles.  I love noodles.  I eat them cold, stir-fried, and, my favorite, in a soupy broth with vegetables (of which there are about a bazillion different varieties).  There are cut noodles, pulled noodles, rice noodles, potato noodles, and any other kind of noodle you could imagine.  I gladly and willingly eat them all.

Eating noodles is not for the fainthearted.  Have you ever tried to eat a super thick, 2-foot long noodle with chopsticks?  It's a challenge, and it can be really time consuming.  I still am trying to figure out how Chinese people do it without getting splatters of broth all over the table.  Perhaps I shall never know.

All that to say, I really like to eat noodles.  In fact, they are now pretty much the only thing I eat in the cafeteria.  I usually only get rice when I go out to restaurants.  However, the portions of noodles that are served here are, in my opinion, huge.  I have never been able to consume an entire bowl of noodles in the 40 minutes I have for lunch every day, and most of the time I'm eating as fast as I possibly can, and am usually pretty full by the end of the meal, and yet there are still enough noodles for a whole meal.  (I'm currently eating a bowl of leftover noodles as I type).

This all changed last weekend.  Cathy and I walked hungrily to the dining hall for lunch.  We traipsed on up to the 3rd floor where I knew they had a dish I wanted. "he ye fen".  It's kind of like ma la tang, if you've ever had it, but more peanutty, and without the "it is very bad for you" warnings from students. 

The delicious dish is served to you in the huge black pot it's cooked in.  The yummy broth is absolutely filled with about 5 different kinds of noodles, cabbage, seaweed, tofu strips, black fungus, and other leafy vegetables.  My favorite part is that you can have a little bowl on the side for sauce to dip the boiling hot noodles in to cool off and flavor.  I use the peanut sauce.  It's delicious.

So, this day, I was very hungry, and kept eating and eating away.  I hope I talked to Cathy, but I honestly don't remember because I was so absorbed in the noodle-y goodness.  Before I knew it, I dipped my chopsticks into the broth to grab a noodle and to my absolute shock, I couldn't find one!  I gleefully ordered Cathy, "put your chopsticks in my bowl!", which she agreed to with a look of confusion on her face.  After her, "wow, you've eaten a lot" congratulations, I practically shouted, "no, you don't understand, there are no noodles left!" Cathy graciously rejoiced in my achievement with me.  I then found one last little noodle.

The Last Noodle

 And then I ate the last noodle.

The face of a full and happy person.  Don't be deceived by the amount of broth.  The pot was overflowing with noodles when I started. 

All in all, it was a good day.

Sound of Music

Can you perform on Wednesday, October 24th?
Okay.  What should we perform?
Something like singing, and dancing.
Okay.  Who will we perform for?
The freshman English majors.

The above is essentially all of the information we had to go on for our "performance".

We had to decide on a song.  When you sing, you should always begin with do re mi, right?  We certainly did.

We put together our song and dance for Do Re Mi from The Sound of Music a couple weeks before, practiced a couple times, wore our coordinating outfits, and walked over to the main building on Wednesday.  We walked in to see students dressed in suits directing us to our seats.  We were in jeans.  Shoot.  The auditorium was absolutely filled with glow-stick-waving students.  These were all of the students in the foreign language department.  There were flashing lights.  The emcees came out on stage in suits and evening gowns.  We squirmed anxiously in our seats as the performances began.

As groups came out on stage to perform, we began to realize that this was something of a talent show.  There was a band who sang Green Day, some traditional Chinese singing, choreographed dancing, skits, and more.  We became less anxious as the time wore on.  In spite of the fact that we could understand almost nothing, it was really entertaining, and occasionally completely hilarious.

Then the student who was assisting us brought us backstage.  As we were waiting in the dressing room, someone on our team decided we needed to have a cool way to come out.  This, of course, required me to do two things in front of about a thousand people that I don't really feel comfortable doing.  1. Last minute changes, and 2. "Beat boxing."

Adrienne told me, "Erin, there will be some times as your leader when I tell you to do something, and you just have to do it.  This is one of those times."

Awesome.

So on stage we went.  This is what happened.  Enjoy!
Watch Here!

Um...what?

So, in China, there are, believe it or not, things written in English all over the place.  Seeing things in English makes it almost seem like you're in America, until you actually look at them and realize that it makes no sense, or it is not what you expected to see.  Some of the English is Chinglish (English in its directly-translated-from-Chinese form).  Some of it is an attempt to look cool because there's English on your product.  And some of it is just hilarious. 
Here are a a few examples taken from my own belongings.

Instructions on how to use a tea pot.

 If it's too small for you, it says "Place the suitable amounts of tea leaves.  Add the suitable amounts of boiling water.  Cover the kettle lid, then you can drink it.  The teapot's lid can isolate the used tea leaves in designs.  Easily cleaning & washing it."

A little flashcard book

This is actually pretty grammatically correct.  I just don't understand why it's on here.

My pencil case.

 It says: "Junior Dream
When I was a lonely teenager who accompanied me?
 Kite?  a dog.  or book bag?"

I think it's incredibly thought-provoking.

Slippers

You're probably thinking, "Oh, Nike!  Why is this on here?" 

Please look more closely at the picture.

Oh China...

Brr

I sit in my apartment clothed in three layers, wrapped in a blanket, a hot water bottle in my hands, slippers on my woolen-clad feet, and a mug of hot water steaming beside me. 

And I'm still freezing.  Inside.  In October.

My feet are numb.  I can see my breath.  It's really difficult to concentrate on lesson planning.

5 days 'til the heat turns on, 5 days 'til the heat turns on, 5 days 'til the heat turns on....

And good thing, too, since temperatures are supposed to dip below freezing this week.

Welcome to Harbin, folks.  The Ice City.

I hope you enjoyed this disjointed post.  This pretty much details how my brain is currently working.  I need to climb into bed under my many layers, hot water bottles, and super warm blankets.

Good night from the (almost) frozen North.

My pajamas...

Add gloves and a hat, and this is what I've been sleeping in.

Sweet dreams!

Things I Do

Since moving to China there are some things that I do here much more frequently than I ever did in America. Here's a (non-exhaustive) list:

1. Take public transportation:

I live in a city. I can't drive a car and I wouldn't want to if I could. For only 1 yuan I can ride the bus from our end of the city to the other. Sometimes I can even get a seat.

2. Sweep my floors:

China is kind of dirty. Even with taking off your shoes the dirt, hair, and fuzz of daily life gets all over everything. I have to sweep up daily life pretty much daily.

3. Eat tomatoes:

I hate tomatoes in America. I gladly and willingly eat tomatoes in China. They taste good here.

4. Wear slippers or house shoes:

Again, China is kind of dirty. Outside shoes do not come past my entry hallway.

5. Eat eggplant:

China knows how to cook their eggplant. It's delicious. There's Yu xiang qie zi (a fried, vinegary eggplant), di san xian (eggplant, potatoes, and peppers), and some delicious eggplant dumplings (eggplant stuffed with a pork mixture, then fried). That's just a few of the ways I've eaten it so far.

6. Mop:

My bathroom is a shoilet = shower + toilet. When I shower the whole room becomes flooded (even with a drain in the floor). If I don't mop a plentitude of puddles will remain.

7. Say the word “maybe”:

Americans are very direct. Chinese people are very indirect. The word maybe tacks itself on to the beginning of many of my own and my teammate's sentences, where in America it shouldn't belong. My favorite use so far was when my team leader was telling a someone about a problem that needed to be fixed. While pointing to my toilet seat that had two huge cracks to the point that the front of the toilet seat was no longer connected to the back: “Maybe her toilet seat is broken.” Yes, maybe it is.

8. Not complain:

Some things happen here that would send me on a complaining spree in America.  For example, the water was shut off in our building for a couple of days without any advance notice to us.  There was probably a sign, but I can't read Chinese.  No big deal.  I just didn't shower or wash dishes for a couple of days.  We got water back on the third day so I was super excited to take a shower.  In the middle of shampooing my hair I watched the water pressure lessen and trickle to a stop as the water to our building was shut off once more.  I ran shivering to my water cooler to put some of my hot drinking water in a bucket.  I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, dried off, dressed, and hopped into my super warm bed.  My initial response was to be upset and mutter to my empty apartment about how mad I was that "they shut off our water again".  Then I remembered the people I saw on the street that day that would probably do anything for the chance at the 5 minutes in the water I had.  And then I thought of my students that have to traipse across campus to a communal shower.  In the winter they will actually walk to their dorms with icicles in their hair.  I have nothing to complain about.  In reality I am blessed beyond belief, and I have a really funny China story to tell.

Shopping!

I went shopping today. In America this would not be a big deal. In China it was, as always, an overwhelming, though rewarding experience.

Lora, Cathy, and I went to the Fabric Market this morning with two students. (And just so you know, it's October Holiday this week so we don't have classes. We weren't being bad teachers/students by cutting!). I went into the day not really knowing what to expect, but I must have been expecting something because when we walked into this huge “mall” I had this feeling that my expectations were not met. This market/mall is a huge 4 story building crammed full of tiny shops. It's comparable to Silk Street or the Pearl Market in Beijing, though with a few less people and without the store owners yelling at you to buy things. Let's just say that the Pearl Market was not my cup of tea, so my shopping excitement level dropped a little. 

 

The Pearl Market in Beijing, taken from Google images

We meandered around with the vague hope of finding a teaching blouse or something. After passing shop after shop of shiny, ruffly, bow-bedecked shirts we gave up on the first floor and opted for what our students told us would be a less-crowded second floor. Then, as we stepped off the escalator, in front of us was an actual store (rather than the room/stalls). And, the store was selling winter coats! It was my original dream for the day to find a winter coat! My student told me this store sold a famous brand of coats in China. Their coats are filled with eiderdown. Hurray! A warm coat for a cold Harbin winter!

We walked into the store and I gravitated towards the rack of coats which interested me. The store clerk came over to look for my size. She pulled out a large. I tried it on. The sleeves were disappointingly short, and the coat was a little tight. Awesome. I was a sad giant standing in a store selling clothes made for incredibly tiny people. My coat dream was momentarily crushed. Then my students took me over to a different wall of coats to look for one which showed some promise of being big enough for me. We pulled a coat off the wall. It was a medium. “Uh-oh,” I thought. “No way that's going to fit!” I tried it on anyways, and ta-da! The sleeves were long enough! It was a little snug, though, so the clerk disappeared behind a curtain and brought out an extra-large.

Let's just say I'm now the proud owner of an extra-large Chinafabulous coat!

 My new coat! Super fur!

After a stationery excursion we ate lunch in what is the equivalent of a food court. Except, instead of sub sandwiches, pizza, and McDonalds, it sells fast food versions of noodles, fried dumplings, and rice dishes. It was so crowded we had to share a table with another family and buy food in turns so we wouldn't lose our place to sit. After two months in China, being constantly surrounded by hundreds of people seems normal.

Lora and Cathy wanted to look into buying new bedding (since some of the bedding left over was a bit old, dusty, and not too attractive). So post-lunch we decided to go find a place that makes comforters and duvets. We walked through aisles of curtains and fabric and settled on a shop. After a lot of back-and-forth, Lora decided to have a comforter and duvet made at the shop. She settled on batting, fabric for the comforter, and fabric for a duvet. Then over the next 20 minutes we watched these two women cut and make her new blanket. It was awesome, and it looks so beautiful!

We decided to make one last adventure through the market. In packing for China I made the huge oversight of not bringing a purse actually large enough to hold more than a wallet. My student and I traveled through tiny stall after stall of purses where I discovered that I hate making decisions about buying things. I finally settled on a purse that I liked. My student asked the shop owner the price. I heard “ba shi wu”, 85 yuan. Much more than I was willing to pay. What then ensued was 5 minutes of arguing back and forth between my student and the shop owner over the price. I had almost no idea what was going on except for the occasional number I heard tossed around. The bartering process would probably be difficult for me in English, but in Chinese, I can barely keep my wits together. I was preparing myself for walking out of the tiny store to begin the frustrating search for a purse anew. However, then my student told me the price she had bartered down to and I willingly paid. So I'm now the proud owner of a Chinese purse! Woo hoo!

Modeling my coat and purse!

And that's Lora's new bedding in the background! 

Overall, it was a successful, yet exhausting morning/afternoon. It made me realize, once again, that I am so grateful for students who are willing to spend this kind of time with us, because I could not possibly have been able to do anything I did today without them.

p.s. Update on the last blog. I was going to the dining hall the day after I met with my non-English speaking Chinese friends. As I was walking by the first dining hall I heard people yelling hello. It was these same friends. They were with some school group. I was informed through some effort that they wanted me to write things down on a sticky note about “culture”, so I wrote something about good Chinese food, and warm people. They were super excited. That, apparently, was the activity they were trying to tell me about. Okay, okay. :)