Bu Yao Go Back!

Last weekend I was invited to have lunch at the home of one of my students from my adult class, Bruce. His wife wanted to cook me Chinese food. The food was some of the best that I've had so far and it was nice to see inside a Chinese apartment building (which was very nice inside – their home was obviously newly remodeled… the outside kind of looks like a prison).

 

The best part was playing with his kids though. He has two little boys, 4 and 9. His nine year old has bad asthma, so when I got to his home, Bruce had to rush his oldest son off to the doctor. That left me with his wife and the four year old, neither of whom spoke English.

 

The four year old immediately loved me though and we did some coloring and watched an episode of Dora the Explore in Chinese.  He then led me from room to room by my fingers showing me all of his toys and the vegetable garden on the roof. It was adorable. He loved hearing me speak English so he kept pointing at things and asking "Zhe she shenme?" "What is this?" I would answer and he would giggle and then drag me on to the next room.

 

Bruce and his other son soon got back from the doctor and it was then a competition for my attention between the boys. "I do not like to watch television. I prefer to play table tennis and study. Are you able to play table tennis?" For a nine year old, his English was awesome and quite proper. I played a few rounds of ping-pong and he showed me his English books. It was absolutely adorable.

 

After lunch we took a drive down to a little park area at the mouth of the Yangtze River to watch some of the barges pass by and climb on the rocks.  Finally, Bruce asked me if I was ready to go back. The oldest boy immediately responded, "Bu yao go back dad!" (Bu means no.)

 

All in all it was a lovely afternoon.

 

The point that I'm really trying to make with this story is that the Chinese are extremely hospitable and generous. They are very interested in foreigners and more often than not they are willing to open their homes and make prepare a home cooked meal for a stranger. When's the last time that you did something like that?

Street Food Secrets

When traveling in foreign countries, one of the best parts is to experience the local food. In China, that means street food. There are thousands of little shops and stands here offering fresh and delicious pastries, breads, dumplings, barbeque, fruits, veggies, and more. The problem is trying to sort out the good ones from the bad ones.

 

My secret to finding the best street food possible? Look for the stands with the longest lines and order what the people in front of you did. There's a reason for the wait and the locals know what each shop makes best.

 

It hasn't failed me yet.

Julie Johnson’s Series of Unfortunate Events.

Okay, so two things don't really qualify as a series, but the events were quite unfortunate.

Event One: The Cafeteria Fake-out.

Lunch in the cafeteria is always a gamble. You peer through a tiny window and point at something that you have no idea what it is and hope for something delicious. Or edible. I pointed to rice, tomatoes and eggs, some other celery like vegetable, and what I thought was pieces of beef in a brown sauce. Wrong. Very wrong. I mean really, really wrong.

As soon as it hit my mouth I knew I had made a serious error. The "meat" was basically cartilage over bone cleverly disguised by the sauce. Upon closer inspection there was still little bits of hair attached to the outside. My best guess as to what I gnawed on for a bit was pig's feet. I managed to spit it out discreetly as I gagged. Let's just say this event will probably put me off the cafeteria for the rest of the week.

Event Two: Groped in Dongzhou Park.

After my afternoon class, I was a bit hungry, as I did not eat much lunch. See event one. I headed for KFC, grabbed a spicy chicken sandwich and a coke, then took my food to the park to enjoy the last of the sunshine and beautiful weather. I ate my sandwich on a bench by the water and soaked up the sun. As usual, people came up to say hello and take pictures with me. No big deal.

 

So finally this older guy comes up to me. He speaks no English. I speak (basically) no Chinese. So after the usual convo – I'm an American English teacher, blah, blah, wo ting bu dong – this guy wasn't giving up trying to talk to me. So finally I stood up to say goodbye and this dude decides he wanted a picture with me. Sure. We get someone walking by to take a picture of us. To pose for the picture he proceeds to wrap his arm around my waist and slide his hand up to rest on my boob. Look closely at the picture - you can clearly see his hand is in dangerous territory.

I decided to write it off as an accident and proceed to try to leave again. Dude starts walking with me and tries to hold my hand. After a couple of firm NO's he got the hint and walked away but not before he threw in a butt squeeze for good measure.

Not the best day I've had here.

Paging Milton Friedman.

Several of the local supermarkets are apparently unfamiliar with the concept of supply and demand.

 

In case you failed economics, demand refers to the quantity of a product desired by consumers at a certain price. Supply represents how much product the market can offer. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand. Pretty simple.

 

In other words, if you own a store, and you are selling quite a bit of one thing at a certain price, the logical thing to do would be to stock more of the product and perhaps raise the price a bit.

 

Not at the local supermarket, Auchon. Here, if they sell out of something, they seem glad to be rid of it.

 

Sold out of all the cheese? Initial reaction here? Glad to be rid of it… Might be a better business model to consider the reason they are sold out is because the village laowai are desperate for some comfort food and would keep buying it not matter how expensive it is.

 

As of now, we seem to have made our way through the village supply of Stoli and Svedka vodka, almost all cheese and butter, tortilla chips, lemons, and avocados.

 

Some of the guys have complained about the absence of vodka though, so I'm hoping the buyer will get the hint to restock and keep us lowly laowai happy.

Wo Ting Bu Dong.

Just about every weekend I go shopping at the cute little open air market for some bread, fruit, and some crispy duck with spicy chili sauce.

 

There are several people who sell the duck that I like and they are all virtually identical so I shop at the stand that is the friendliest.

The woman that owns the stand that I shop at is hilarious. She is always super happy to see me – it's likely a combination of bragging rights that the laowai shops at her stand and the fact that my Chinese isn't good enough to bargain for the price. She also completely ignores the fact that I can't speak Chinese and rambles on to me anyways. She doesn't seem to care, or doesn't believe, that I totally don't understand.

I was able to answer a few of her questions at first… Where are you from? Wo cong Meiguo lai. What are you doing here? Wo shi ying yue laoshi. Do you want you duck plain or spicy? La de.

 

This apparently led her to believe that I could speak Chinese. Ha. Now every time she sees me she starts nattering on about who knows what. I feel bad because mostly I just respond, "Wo ting bu dong." I don't understand.

Turtle Power!

I ran into a few of my students while grocery shopping today (read: buying liquor). They caught me just as I was loading the bottle of Captain Morgan and diet coke into my ninja turtle backpack.

 

"Hello! Julie!"

 

"Hey guys!"

 

"We are your students at Dongzhou Middle School!"

 

"I know! How are you?"

 

"I am fine thank you, and you?"

 

"I'm great! What are you doing?"

 

"Shopping. I must buy some soft drinks. What must you buy?"

 

"I'm buying soft drinks also."

 

"And strong wine! Goodbye"

"Bye! I'll see you at school!"

 

"Bye-bye!"

 

It's going to be all over school in a matter of days that I drink "strong wine" and shop at Auchon. Joy. The shopping habits of the foreigner are just way too interesting.

Staxxx in My Jeans

Getting paid here feels suspiciously like doing a drug deal.

I get paid every month in cash. On pay day, I'm ushered into a dimly lit office at the end of a dark hallway and discretely handed a large wad of 100 RMB notes bound with a rubber band. I then take my wad of cash to the corner to count it as quickly as possible so that no one sees me. I'm making more money than the Chinese teachers, so I'm encouraged to keep my pay secret, plus it's pretty awkward to carry around that much cash. Side note: as an avid credit/debit card user, it has been particularly strange to make the transition to an all cash lifestyle; more on that later. I then take my wad of cash and scurry back to my room to hide most of my paycheck in a shoe in my closet because it would be nearly impossible to spend all of my meager paycheck here in the village.

 

Overall it's quite shady but thoroughly entertaining.

 

Even though I'm barely making any money by US standards, it's more than enough to get by in China, especially with most of my food, my housing and utilities, etc. being paid for by the school. The only thing that I really have to buy is Starbucks, alcohol, the occasional toiletry, and dinner on weekends. I'm really only spending about 25% of my paycheck. There's not much to buy here.

 

The village is an interesting place to live. There's a distinct polarization between the rich and poor and consequently a large range of prices. Things in China are, as a whole, much cheaper than in the USA… The notable exceptions are western products like Starbucks and Apple merchandise (all electronics really).

 

Everything else is dirt-cheap. I can eat a large dinner for around 10 – 20 RMB*. A case of 40 oz bottles of local beer is 34 RMB. A diet coke (luxury!!) is 2.5 RMB. A chicken sandwich from KFC is 12 RMB. A half of a roast duck with chili sauce from the open air market is around 15 RMB. And I'm definitely getting ripped off with the duck. You're supposed to bargain, but my Chinese isn't really good enough to get me the best deal possible. A bus ticket to Nantong is 18 RMB. A cab there is 100 RMB.

 

On the expensive side, a Grande Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks is 34 RMB. Pretty pricey. Avocados are 20 RMB each. Cheese, when you can find it, is also up there.

 

My point here, even though I'm spending roughly 20 per cent of my income at Starbucks, I'm still saving enough money to cover my epic backpacking trip around China for the summer.

 

I've got staxxx in my jeans, but unfortunately no Phantom up in my garage. Yet.

 

*Current exchange rate is 6.3 RMB to $1 USD.

Baby You’re a Firework!

I can't begin to count the number of mornings I've been startled out of sleep by fireworks. And I don't mean morning like 3 am morning; I mean like 6 am, it's already daylight morning.

Apparently it makes no difference whether or not it's dark out when the villagers decide to launch spectacular firework displays. Serious fireworks too… No wimpy black cats or sparklers here.

You can't always see them but you can hear them.

Fireworks are the answer to just about any situation. Everyday here is like the 4^th of July. New restaurant opening? Fireworks. Birthday? Fireworks. National Holiday? Lots and lots of fireworks. Just really bored? Fireworks.

These spontaneous firework ambushes are really cool at night. I've taken to having a glass of wine or a diet coke on the roof of my building most nights and watching whatever random firework show is going on.

They do, however, continue to scare the daylights out of me as I walk down the street during the day. I've had to restart my heart numerous times after a deafening explosion startles me off the sidewalk.

F*%& Y@^

One of my favorite students, a gregarious trouble-maker who calls himself "The Rock" after WWE Wrestler and wannabe actor Dwayne Johnson, has learned a lovely new phrase in English. "F*** You." Fantastic.

Indubitably with the best of intentions, as knowledge should always be shared, he saw fit to teach this phrase a good portion of the class.

"The Rock" sits on one side of the classroom and his best friend sits on the other; I'm confident their homeroom teacher separated them for a reason, but that's neither here nor there…

Today we played a game with teams. With the class divided into two teams this threw the Rock and his buddy into a spirited rivalry both for my attention and to win the game. Competition naturally brings out the best in people.

This is how I came to have a class of 7^th graders playfully yelling "F*** You" at each other when the other team scored a point or seemed to have any sort of advantage. Charming.

But that's not all. Not all of the students were privy to this new information. During my shocked moment of hesitation as I desperately tried to think of a way to get teenaged boys to stop practicing their new vocabulary, (while simultaneously thinking, "At least they're speaking English?"), a shy girl in the front asks,

"What means f*** you?"

"Ummm…. that is a very bad word. You really shouldn't say that. It's very naughty."

I don't think I was all that convincing through my suppressed laughter. Clearly I'm not much of a disciplinarian… I probably need to work on that.

Rivers of People




The Bund



All of the travel guides that I have seen recommend not traveling during Chinese holidays. I now know why… because this is when all the people in China travel. And China has A LOT of people.



Pudong



May 1^st is basically Chinese Labor Day, so I was given a three day weekend (Sunday – Tuesday). I didn't have to work and neither did a billion of the other people that live here… and we all had the same idea; let's go somewhere fun!





Nanjing Lu at Night



I decided to take a trip to Shanghai for a change of pace from life in the village. I hadn't really been to Shanghai without an agenda thus far, so I thought it would be nice to get the chance to just wander around a bit and see the sights.





Famous Xiaolongbao. So delicious.



Yuyuan Gardens



Apple Store on Nanjing Lu.



If I hadn't been living in China for the past few months and consequently, somewhat used to life here, I would have been totally overwhelmed. It was crazy. The bus station was a zoo. Nanjing Road, a pedestrian only shopping street in the center of Shanghai, was standing room only. Just about everywhere I went was wall to wall people. When you wanted to walk down the street or take the subway, you were literally swept into a river of people. China is not a good place for claustrophobics.



Coffee is the lifeblood that fuels champions.



Even though the city was packed, I had an awesome time. I walked Peoples Square, Nanjing Lu and the Bund, visited the Old City and Yuyuan Gardens, hit up a few art museums and ate a plethora of delicious Chinese and Western food. And to top it all off, I stayed in a hotel with a comfy bed and water pressure in the shower!!!

Summary. Shanghai is awesome and don't travel in China during holidays unless you live here.





Bus Ticket To Shanghai



Nanjing Lu (before it got too crowded)

Yuyuan Gardens

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