Free American (*Purchase Required)

Haimen is now offering a new special. One free American to stare at with the purchase of a bus ticket to Shanghai. People literally changed seats so that they would be in a better spot to watch me the entire two hour bus ride to Shanghai.

By now I'm used to being the entertainment. In fact, I'm almost positive that some places that I frequent in the village, like Starbucks and a few other restaurants, are using me as a marketing tool…

If you stop by our restaurant, there's a good chance you might see a foreigner! Come to Starbucks for a coffee and a glimpse of an American girl reading a book!

Shanghai is different. I'm still a bit of a novelty here, but definitely not to the same degree. In Haimen, everybody stares and says hello. In Shanghai, it's basically just little kids that find me fascinating.

I'm not sure whether I love the anonymity or if I'm disappointed about temporarily losing my celebrity status.

Crotchless Pants.

In this blog, I would like to explore the phenomena of crotch-less pants for children. They're all the rage in China. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a visual.

The concept for these beauties revolve around potty training. Let's play pros and cons.

Point one. Crotch-less pants are good for the environment. When you live in a country with well over a billion people, what to do with your trash is a serious concern. These pants theoretically replace diapers for a certain age group. However, this leads to a large quantity of poop and pee on the street. And on the sidewalk. Basically, anywhere outside and a lot of places inside… and no one to clean it up. But hey, if you've got to go, you've got to go.

Side Note: The thing that I really find fascinating, is for a culture so concerned about the spread of germs, hygiene, doesn't seem real high on the list of priorities.

Point two. Crotch-less pants save you money. Diapers are expensive. If you don't have to buy diapers, perhaps you can take an extra trip or two to Starbucks. And Starbucks is delicious. I'm just saying.

Point three. Crotch-less pants make it easier to potty train your kids. Maybe. True, you don't have to worry about pulling your pants up and down, but you've still got to be concerned with aim… It seems a bit too easy to "miss." It probably does help with technique for the squat toilets, so maybe I'm being a bit xenophobic with my aversion to this particular fashion statement.

Point four. With crotch-less pants you're ready to go at a moment's notice. But isn't this just a bit counterproductive? An adult (with a few notable exceptions) wouldn't just whip it out on the sidewalk and answer nature's call… Why would you encourage your kids to? Plus it weirds me out a bit to turn a corner and come face to face with a child's genitalia.

I searched the Internet for some statistics and information regarding potty training using diapers v. crotch-less pants, but I couldn't find anything concrete, so the debate remains open.

The consensus amongst the village foreigners is that diapers are still the way to go. Of course the conversation then segued into a discussion on ass-less chaps. But really, aren't all chaps ass-less?

You Can Fit Anything on a Scooter.

I have just about 2 months of anecdotal proof that you can meet all you your transportation needs with a Vespa.

Need to carry a new door home? Easy. It's all about balance.

Grandma needs to go somewhere with her wheel chair? Clearly the most practical solution is to keep her in the chair and tie it to the back of the scooter with a bit of rope. Hang on Granny.

It's raining? No big deal. Cover yourself with a trash bag and take to the streets.

 

Family of five out for an outing? Dogs? Chickens? Furniture? You are limited only by your imagination.

Now combine this with the fact that there are no apparent road rules and the knowledge that nobody in the village has had a drivers license for more than 5 years. Cars are that new here.

The result. Chaos.

Here's a picture of the evening traffic from my bedroom window. Can you tell which direction traffic is supposed to be heading? I didn't think so.

I NEED A SANDWICH.

Its official. I'm having borderline pornographic thoughts about American food.

 

I have this fantasy where I'm eating a Publix sub with Boar's head turkey, mayo, American cheese, lettuce, onions, salt and pepper.

 

That's the whole fantasy.

 

If you follow me on Pinterest, you will have noticed that I've been pinning a lot of food pictures. This is a direct result of how hungry I am for western food.

 

It's not that the food here is bad… It's not. I've had some really delicious meals, but I miss being able to cook for myself. And the food here is just so homogeneous. You can go to 5 different restaurants and the food at them is all basically the same; the quality varies, but not really much in terms of the menu.

 

Also, the kitchen that I have access to, and I use the word kitchen loosely, really only has one burner and a sometimes broken microwave. A few weeks ago I finally broke down and bought a knife, cutting board, a wok, and some Tupperware. Now I'm going to have to start being creative with my recipes.

 

The great thing about the United States is that we have access to such a huge variety of foods and ingredients— American food, Mexican food, Thai food, Chinese food, Italian food, Turkish food, Indian food, any kind of food you want really, and the ingredients to cook any or all of those things…

 

You may have to hit up a specialty store for some ingredients, but you can generally find what you are looking for. Actually, not only can you find what you are looking for, you get a variety of options of that one thing to choose from. Publix brand. Kraft. Sargento. Some Organic Brand. Something really cool that I haven't even heard of yet.

 

In China, not so much.

 

The message here: Americans, appreciate the diversity of your supermarket. It's a beautiful thing.

Hablas Español?

Last night I had a really good conversation with a Chinese man. Entirely in Spanish. Yes, Spanish. I was walking down the street to meet my friends and this random guy says "Hello" to me. The usual…

 

I say "hello" back, he asks me where I'm from, and if I speak Spanish.

"Poquito."

 

He then launches into conversation in fluent Spanish. It turns out he lived in Chile for 5 years. I was impressed at how easily I was able to speak Spanish and how much I actually remembered from college. Maybe I was just in shock from the incongruity of speaking Spanish to a Chinese guy on the street of a tiny village in China, but the words just seemed to flow out. It turns out he owns the restaurant he was standing in front of and wants to trade English for Chinese lessons.

 

I walked away to meet my friends laughing to myself. Life is so strange.

Vocabulary Suicide

I'm making a lot of new Chinese friends, which is awesome. I'm learning so much about Chinese culture, about how the Chinese perceive Americans, and I'm getting an inside look into life in rural China. I've always got somebody to hang out with, to take me out to new restaurants, and to show me cool things in and around Haimen. It's fantastic.

 

The one downside; my vocabulary is committing suicide. I find myself speaking in very short and basic sentences. No words over two syllables. I've never really been overly loquacious in person – I've always expressed myself better in writing – but now I find I have to stop myself from mimicking my Chinese friends English patterns. Even to other native English speakers.

 

We go restaurant, yes? I very like this.

 

Speaking like that is obviously not going to do any of us any good. My Chinese friends want to learn proper English, and I don't want to go around speaking like a toddler. I'm finding I must make a conscious effort to keep speaking like myself – not something I thought to be concerned about before I moved to China.

Learning Chinese. (Well, attempting to at least...)

I've been heavy hitting the Rosetta Stone lately trying to get a solid foundation for my Chinese skills, but it's a tough language. It's not so much the words as is the pronunciations. I can recognize a fair amount of vocabulary in pinyin (and characters!), but actually spitting that out into a word that others can recognize is difficult. So is finding a Chinese person to speak slowly enough for me to understand them.

The major issue for me is training my mouth and ear to discriminate the infinitesimal differences between sounds and tones. For example, the words: shī, shí, shǐ and shì mean different things but sound quite the same to me. Combine that with, speed, dialect differences and accents (Hello Haimen-hua?!), and background noise (China is loud) and you've got yourself a complex and chaotic language situation.

My fellow teacher Sky has agreed to tutor me.

A common conversation during any session might go like this:

Sky: "Try to say rénmen"
Me: "Rénmen"
Sky: No, that's not exactly the sounds I'm making. Try it again. Rénmen"
Me: "Rénmen"
Sky: "Almost, you're getting a little better." (She is just being nice here.)
Me: "I can't hear the difference. What I say sounds exactly like what you are saying in my head"
Sky: "Hmm...maybe you need to practice more."

I admire her patience.

On the flip side, I am now a master of charades. I can mime like nobody's business.

3 “Large” Pepsis and 3D Glasses.

Wednesday night I went to see Titanic 3D with some friends. It was absolutely amazing for so many reasons.

 

First of all, if you like the movie, I'd highly recommend going to see the 3D version. There's really nothing like seeing it on the big screen. That being said, you're really missing something if you don't see it in China.

 

The movie is apparently a big hit here and the theater was packed. As we walked into the theater there was a tiny concession stand. The Chinese aren't really big on beverages. They generally think drinking cold liquid is bad for you, so the large Coke that you get at the theater at home is just not going to happen here. I was resigned to the fact, but Peter wasn't about to give up his movie traditions so he ordered 3 "large" Pepsis to start – the equivalent of about a medium in the States – and went back for one more during the movie.

 

Silence is also not a big deal during the movies here. There was quite a bit of chatter during the film. I'm guessing it's because it was an English language movie, and most of the people were just reading the Chinese subtitles (which were in 3D!), and you don't need quiet for that. However, much to our amusement, the people in the row in front of us were using the movie as a chance to practice their English pronunciation. At timely intervals, they would repeat the sentence that the actor just said. The best one was when Jack was about to draw Rose naked wearing the diamond (which was censored here… definitely not as much nudity.) The theater was basically silent and this Chinese man loudly repeats after Rose, as she undresses:

 

I want you to draw me wearing this. Wearing only this!

 

I nearly peed my pants laughing.

 

Finally, for an epic conclusion to our night, Peter, Sky, and I accidentally started a theater-wide sing along to "My Heart Will Go On" during the movie credits.

Typical Lǎowài.

On Tuesday, I started a new part time job. A Swiss pharmaceutical company in town was looking for an English teacher for some of their employees for once a week lessons. Now every Tuesday night from 630-830 I get to teach a small class of about 12 adults some conversational English. It's going to be a fun experience. They are a great group of people; most of them have Masters degrees or PhDs in Chemistry and they can mostly read a write English fairly well, but need help with speaking and listening, so that's what I'll be helping them with. And I'll be making some extra cash for traveling!!

 

I have also been asked to give an oral English exam to 6 of their employees to help determine which of them will be promoted. The instructions: Ask them questions. Each person 10 minutes.

 

Fantastic. Not vague at all. I mean it's only for somebody's promotion. No big deal…

 

What kind of questions…? Tell me about yourself? What's your favorite color?  Explain the impact of quantitative easing in pre-recession United States on the Chinese derivatives market? Seriously. Just a tiny bit of direction would help… but that's not how things are done here in China.

 

Most of the class is pretty shy but I think a few of them are going to be hysterical. They have already told me that I am the typical lǎowài (foreigner), but I think that it was a compliment? Foreigners fascinate the Chinese... It's kind of cute… They all giggle at me and want to be my friend. They all e-mailed me after class. The two best are below.

 

Hello, Julie

         

 It's Jessica, How are you! I want to make friends with you if you don't mind! I like you style, and you are a person of great honesty to others, otherwise, I can teach you chinese too! You can come to my house in the weekend and I do some delicious chinese food to you! or we can do some shoping nearby haimen! I can take you to pick strawberry, very delicious! aha! I have a likely and lovely daught, It's three years old, you would become her friend too!

                                                                     

Jessica

 

 

 

Dear Julie:

               My name is Arnold. I am an employee of [Pharmaceutical Company] and see you on tuesday on class. You impressed me as a typical american.I write the email to check if your email work efficiently.Scine I knew you major in international economy, I am very interested in collaborating in some business.
   Haimen was famous in bed necessaries, such as sheets and blankets.
I knew the field clearly and several relative work in it.
   what is you opinion?

Best regard

Have a nice day

Arnold

Bizarre Foods with Julie Johnson



So I wish I could write an epic blog telling you about all the strange and interesting things that I have eaten. I've definitely eaten some pretty weird stuff since I've been here. The problem is that most of the food is unidentifiable.

It's freaking weird. I just don't know what it is.

For example today for lunch I had rice, an unidentifiable green vegetable, a giant mystery meatball, stewed tomatoes and eggs, and a bowl of broth. For dinner I had rice, beef parts in a brown sauce, something that was possibly tofu with spicy chilies, a different unidentifiable green vegetable than from lunch, and more stewed tomatoes and eggs.



Typical School Dinner.



Nothing to drink. There's no big glass of water or unlimited refills of Diet Coke here. Maybe at a nice restaurant you'll get a pot of "tea". Tea is in quotes because I've yet to encounter any actual tea leaves. Tea is code for hot water. At school, you just get soup to drink with your meal.



Chicken Feet.



The Chinese don't waste any part of the animal, so even if you order chicken (ji rou) or beef (niu rou), you still could be getting any part of the animal. 

Chicken neck? Sure, why not? Pig tails? Why, yes please, I'll take two.

All meat has bones and fat on it, so you have to be careful to gnaw around the bones and fat and then gracefully spit them back onto your plate. Also things tend to appear drastically different in person than in the pictures on the menu.

Some bizarre things I've eaten that I can identify:

• Chicken feet
• Spicy frog legs
• Cow's head (I had some cheek I think)
• Fried beef that was strangely sweet. It also happened to be covered with frosting and rainbow sprinkles. The picture did not have the sprinkles. I highly suspect that they saw two Americans sit down for dinner and said to themselves, "American's love rainbow sprinkles. Let's toss some on this beef just to mess with them." That or they thought the dish needed color.
• Baked/steamed quail eggs in brown sauce
• Bone Marrow
• Lotus root (delicious!)
• Kumquats
• Steamed pumpkin
• Sugar Cane

I'm pretty proud of myself because there has only been a few moments when I couldn't choke down the bite of food I just tried.

Mostly I think I just don't want to know what I'm eating. I was at a restaurant the other night that "luckily" happened to have English translations along with the pictures. Unfortunately, some of the food that looked best in the pictures had names of organs next to them. I'm going to try not to think about it.

Yes, Mom. You would starve here.



Crispy Duck and Flatbread.



Now that I have you all thoroughly disgusted, there are a few delicious things here that I'm addicted to. Here are the top 5:



1.    Crispy roast duck with spicy chili sauce. You can buy a whole duck for about $3 USD. It is really, really, really good.

2.    Chinese flatbread with green onions and sesame seeds. For 50 cents you can feed an army. It goes great with the duck.

3.    Street food skewers. Chicken, mushrooms, potatoes, beef, pork, duck, vegetables – all delicious and either fried or grilled.



4.    Milk tea. So many delicious options.

Street Food.



5.    Spicy pork and rice thing from this AMAZING Korean restaurant. Actually spicy (not like when they "warn you" things are spicy in the USA) and it comes out in a sizzling bowl and the rice gets all crispy. So good.

 

Do you have a rubber?

Saturday is my birthday, so today in class I was shamelessly fishing for my students to sing me happy birthday or make me cards, so I made sure to tell all of my classes. I explained that I'm going to have a party and go out for pizza and drinks with my friends.

So just after that explanation, a sweet, shy, 13 year old boy asked me, "Do you have a rubber?"

I just about went into heart failure. I must have looked confused or shocked or something odd because a girl a few rows over held up an eraser.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! British English. Translation: "Do you have an eraser?" Gotcha.

He was drawing me a Birthday card and needed to erase something.

The English books that the students have here are all of the British English variety. It's been hard to train myself to say cinema and film instead of movies, football instead of soccer, etc, so that the kids will understand me.

I think they are starting to pick up on some of my Americanisms though. Already I've got a bunch of them mimicking my speech patterns (because I'm just so cool!).

By the end of the year I'll have an army of 900 Chinese teenagers speaking just like me.

I'm drunk with power.

Only in China...

… do you see a man in an expensive suit get out of a 7 series BMW carrying a live chicken.

… do you see a child riding on the back of a scooter doing homework while their mom weaves in and out of traffic.

… is it normal for your cab driver to pull into oncoming traffic to go around someone driving "slow".

… do random strangers want you to pose with them in their pictures.

… do you get seated in the middle of every restaurant you go to so the other patrons can stare at you as they eat. (This is especially true if there are multiple foreigners.)

… does the term personal space mean absolutely nothing.

… do you hear and see fireworks go off at all hours of the day for no reason whatsoever.

… do you see impeccably dressed women in heels and Chanel shades launch a snot rocket on the street.

… do you get served a tiny glass of hot water at every meal, regardless of the temperature outside.

… do you get excited when the pastry you just bought is actually filled with chocolate instead of red bean paste.

… does a cup of coffee cost more than a case of beer.

… do grown men and women say hello to you, then run away giggling when you say hello back.

… do you use Kleenex for table napkins, toilet paper, cleaning, wrapping food to go, etc.

… do you play eenie meenie miney moe at a restaurant, because they only have a Chinese menu and you've already committed by walking in the door and getting seated.

… do you see nothing wrong with standing on the center stripe in the middle of a 4 lane highway as cars and scooters zoom by at 50 mph.

… can you find just about any food on a stick.

… is being served dog when you go out to eat no longer your greatest culinary fear.

… do you see children with crotch-less pants peeing on the sidewalk.

The Hunger Games in China.

I've been dying to see the Hunger Games. After scouring the Internet I have determined that the movie is supposed to play here in China, but no reference to when. Bummer. I enlisted my new Chinese friend Sky to help me try to figure out when it comes out here but no luck so far…

 

This, however, prompted the discussion, what is "The Hunger Games" about?

 

In case you've been living under a rock (or you are over 50), The Hunger Games is a trilogy of novels geared towards a teenage audience. The books are set in a post-apocalyptic USA, renamed Panem, consisting of 12 districts of people that are struggling to survive and a corrupt Capitol full of people living in abundance. Each year, two teenagers are chosen as tributes by a lottery system to compete in the Hunger Games, a televised event where the 24 tributes battle to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol. Only one person can survive.

 

The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, volunteers to fight in the games in place of her younger sister. Her male counterpart, fellow tribute from district 12, Peeta, happens to be in love with her. It's an interesting love story with strong themes of sacrifice and rebellion against oppressive governments. It's an easy read and moderately entertaining. I'd recommend the books.

 

I'm actually quite surprised that the Chinese government is going to allow a movie in which the main theme is "down with the Capitol." A book about a totalitarian regime in where the rich thrive in big cities while the masses in the outer regions are poverty stricken and oppressed kind of seems like a China no-no.

 

But while The Hunger Games is easy for me to explain to a fellow English speaker, it doesn't quite translate so well into simple English.

 

My explanation to Sky went something like this… Ummm… The Hunger Games are three books for teenagers. They take place in the USA, but it is very different from today. There was a bad war and everything was destroyed. In this new country every year teenagers have to fight and kill each other because the government is bad. It's kind of a love story. I liked the books very much. Yeah…

 

ANYWAYS… after that long and rambling explanation, the purpose of this blog – if you figure out if/when the Hunger Games is going to screen in China, please let me know.

A Walk in the Park.

Today I discovered a really wonderful park about a mile from my apartment. It's full of ponds and flowering trees and playgrounds full of adorable children swinging and flying kites. There are pagodas and benches to sit and relax. Sounds awesome right?

Kind of.

I sit down on a bench in the sun right next to a little pond full of fish and lily pads to read my kindle… and I'm immediately accosted by groups of people wanting to stare at me or take my picture or say "Hello" (because that's likely the only English word they know).

 I didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused. I finally decided on amused. I'll admit it is kind of ridiculous. I'm the only female foreigner in the village (as far as I know) and there I am in my big sunglasses, jeans, and flip-flops, looking very American, thinking I'm about to have a minute alone to read. During a national holiday. Yeah right. I sat there for about 30 minutes to oblige my fans and then decided on a nice little walk instead.

Oh the life of a celebrity.

Chinese Medicine

Germs spread like wildfire here; classes full of 50 students, people crammed in close quarters, limited hand washing facilities – it's a hotbed of infection. One person gets sick, everyone is sick.

So this past week I've been sick. Not doctor visit sick, just annoying cough sick. I visited the school nurse with the aid of Penny, my "English speaking" contact at the school, where the loaded me up with a round of antibiotics and (I think) cough medicine, no questions asked, no exam.

Those didn't seem to have any effect so I went wandering about town in search of my own cure. I wandered into a pharmacy and looked around awkwardly for a second while the workers stared at me. I coughed and they finally figured out why I seemed to be in there. One of the girls pulled out a box of something from under the counter…

This is straight from the box.

Qiangli Pipalu Lianmi

Ingredients: The prescription is composed of seven Chinese herbal drugs including Folium Eriobtryae, Pericarpium Papaveris, Bulubs Lilii, Rhizoma Cynanchi Stauntonii, Cortex Mori, Radix Platycidonis, and Mentholum etc.

Characters: A brown sticky liquid, clear, with a pleasant odor and sweet in taste. A blatant lie; It smelled and tasted disgusting.

Dosage and Administration: Orally taken .20g each time .3 times a day.

Actions and Indications: It has effects of nourishing YIN and astringing lungs, relieving cough and removing the phlegm. It is applied to cure bronchial cough in clinical.

Sure. Why not? Sounds perfect. I'm not really sure if my YIN needs nourishing, but relieving the cough and removing the phlegm sounds good.

I was feeling desperate and there is no American medicine to be found… I paid around $2.50 for a big bottle of what I have ascertained to be cough medicine. Sweet deal. It tasted disgusting but it helped a bit. Unfortunately it was not the miracle cure I was hoping for. I guess this is the type of thing that you just need to wait out.

A week later, I'm finally starting to feel better and my cough is almost gone. Yay!