Moon Cake Roulette

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Today is National Day in China. There is a week long break from school and the village is bustling with activity. People have been launching fireworks non-stop since 7 am.

 

This is not an exaggeration. I've timed it.

 

The longest stretch of time that I couldn't hear fireworks so far today has been 22 minutes. And while I applaud this display of enthusiastic patriotism, I fear that I will never understand the point of launching fireworks during the day. You can't see them!?!?! Also, the random explosions scare the crap out of me.

 

I'll just add this to the list of things that will forever baffle me about China.

 

Besides the time off work, the coolest part of this holiday is the abundance of (mostly) delicious moon cakes – basically a little round pastry consisting of a pie-crust like exterior and some type of mystery filling.

 

I was gifted an assorted box by my school, and several random moon cakes from my students. Most of them are delicious, however, there have been a few malevolent surprises.

 

There is nothing more terrifying than the first bite into a moon cake.

 

Really. You don't know if you're going to get something delicious and fruity or something horrifying and unidentifiable. I call it "moon cake roulette"…

 

So far my luck has been decent. I've only needed to spit out a few bites. Thankfully my students realize that foreigners are partial to the more non-traditional flavors (think fruit and chocolate) as opposed to some of the fermented bean paste and unidentifiable substance filled cakes.

 

I have about 12 cakes left to try. Wish me luck.

The Spice Girls Concert

Have you ever done that thing where you forget that you have your iPod in and other people can hear you so you sing out loud and embarrass yourself?

 

I did that today. (Actually I do that a lot). And while I very much enjoy singing, I do not have a particular talent for it.  Tone-deaf is the word you're looking for.

 

Have I also mentioned that people here stare at me when I walk down the street? Singing aloud in English really doesn't help me blend on the streets of the village.

 

Yeah.

 

So I'm walking down the street singing 2 Become 1 by the Spice Girls and I'm overheard by a group of students. Great!

 

"Julie! You sing beautiful! What a lovely song!" "Yes! So beautiful! Like you!" "Please sing a song in class!"

 

Apparently I'm unable to resist the pleading of adorable Chinese teenagers who worship me.

And that's the story of how I ended up singing Spice Girls a cappella in front of fifty students.

The Weekend Has Been Cancelled (Riots and Protests Update)

This is just a brief update about the protests and riots I wrote about in my last post.

Right now I'm sitting at my window watching the protesters march down the street. It's all very organized and civil here… the police are directing traffic and there looks to be only a couple thousand people in the demonstration. It actually seems a bit anti-climactic.

 

The interesting thing is, even though it's Saturday, school is in session. The government doesn't want the kids participating in the demonstrations, so they decided to hold classes. School will also be held on Sunday.  As a foreign teacher, I'm exempt, but all of the regular teachers must skip their weekend and hold class. Which sucks for them… it doesn't appear that the weekend has been rescheduled, just cancelled. School resumes as usual on Monday.

Can you imagine how pissed students and teachers would be in the USA if the government just decided to randomly tack on a few extra days of school whenever they felt like it?

Riots and Protests.

In case you live under a rock or the American news outlets are still too busy talking about Kate Middleton's topless photos to report actual news, there has been some pretty intense anti-Japanese protesting and rioting going on in China these past few days.

 

The protests turned riots began due to a dispute about some tiny, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. When Japan purchased the islands from a private owner last week, the Chinese got pissed. Apparently the area is thought to be rich in oil deposits. The ownership of these islands has been disputed for quite some time, but not much has been done about it because China and Japan do a great deal of commerce.

 

All over China Japanese owned businesses and Japanese branded items (like Toyota), and Japanese restaurants have been boycotted, mobbed, and even burned down. Nothing says, "'Those islands are ours!' like burning down a Toyota dealership." I've noticed some anti-Japanese sentiment (left over from WW2) since I've moved to China but not like this. Thankfully, I have been isolated from the protesting and rioting here in the village, but I have seen some of the effects.

 

Today, some of my more charming students decided that they were going to create tiny Japanese flags and stick them to the backs of their friends to make fun of them. Lovely. The biggest insult you can think of today is to call your friend Japanese.

 

It's best for me as a foreigner to just play dumb and stay out of it, but it's a bizarre thing to witness.

Ganbei! It's Teacher's Day!

China is way into celebrating frivolous holidays. Women's Day. Children's Day. Teachers Day. Not that women and children and teachers are unimportant, I just think that having a whole day set aside to celebrate something that we should be appreciating every day is pointless.

 

Regardless, Teacher's Day in the village was commemorated with an all school meeting followed by a huge banquet.

 

The meeting would have been boring, even If I could have understood what was going on. But I couldn't. So I sat respectfully in the audience with the other foreign teachers for an hour and a half listening to people I'd never seen before give speeches in Chinese, applauding politely with the crowd at random intervals.

 

After that we headed to the banquet. Every table was served a ton of food and as much beer and baiju as you could drink. As I'm not one to turn down free alcohol, I poured myself a beer.

 

Before I noticed that I was the only woman drinking something other than hot water. Oops. I guess that it's just the younger generation of Chinese women that drink in public. So I figured I'd discretely sip a few beers and escape the baiju fueled party that the men were having.

 

Chinese people love to drink. It's actually quite ritualistic. You fill up small shot-glass sized glasses full of beer, toast with somebody, down your glass, and then repeat with EVERYBODY within a 5-mile radius. Ganbei! Cheers!

 

Here's the thing. When you're drinking beer out of little tiny cups, it can be difficult to keep track of how much you are drinking. And trust me, little shot glasses full of beer add up quickly.

 

Not to mention that it's considered horribly rude to refuse a toast.

 

So I toasted. With the principal of my school. With the principal of the sister school. With the guy that founded the schools. With everyone at my table.

 

No problem. I figure the first round of toasting was the equivalent of one beer.

 

However, the table next to ours, a table of all men, was toasting with baiju instead of beer. Baiju aka strong wine, is the equivalent of drinking floor cleaner, and it's really strong. So this table was getting pretty rowdy.

 

A few of the men at that table decided that me drinking beer was amusing and thought it would be fun for me to start chugging beer like the men. I was brought a slightly larger glass and began to chug beers with the gym teacher. THE GYM TEACHER. Who is a big guy. Tall and muscular. I think the first glass was supposed to be a joke… but I chugged it in one gulp… and that started a bit of a competition.

 

According to Sky (my Chinese math teacher friend) my ability to chug a beer is "very cool". I'm even more of a celebrity than I was before.

 

Thankfully I was able to bow out gracefully when the gym teacher wanted to switch to chugging 40 oz bottles of beer. The other foreign teachers took over the drinking competition, and I was able to leave the meal mostly sober with my dignity in tact.

 

Plus I got a free Slanket (a blanket with sleeves) and 200 RNB gift card to the supermarket as a bonus. It turned out to be a highly successful and entertaining evening.

Cuddling Giant Pandas in Chengdu

The motivation behind visiting Chengdu this summer was to get a chance to check out the Giant Pandas. I love Pandas. They are precious.

 

The thing about Pandas is – they are just as dumb as they are adorable. And they are really freaking adorable. Sadly, this also means that they are dreadfully stupid and dying off pretty quickly. Enter the Giant Panda Research and Breeding Center.

 

Because Pandas are just so cute, humans can't let them die. There's also probably some residual guilt about destroying their natural habitat and thousands of acres of their natural food source and a tiny bit of concern about how their extinction would disrupt the ecosystem. But mostly they are just really, really cute.

 

Thus, for a $200 "donation" to support the center and its work, you can cuddle a Giant Panda. For about three minutes they plop a baby panda that's high out of it's mind on your lap so you can cuddle it and get some of the most epic photos ever, while the handlers distract the Panda with a little bamboo stick covered in honey.

 

It was worth every cent. While this was undoubtedly the most expensive thing I did this summer, it was awesome.

Spice Up Your Life

After Kunming, we headed off to Chengdu via an 18 hour train ride. Surprisingly enough, the train was quite pleasant. When we got to Chengdu, we were starving so we set off in search of food.

 

No trip to Sichuan province is complete without at least one hot pot experience.

 

Hot pot is kind of like it sounds. There's a big pot in the middle of the table filled with boiling broth infused with spices. A lot of very spicy spices. At least in Sichuan. I've had hot pot before, but never this spicy. And if I think something is spicy, it's actually spicy - none of that fake out crap at restaurants where they warn you it's spicy, and you get all excited, and then it turns out they consider a few shakes of black pepper spicy. So basically, what you do is order a bunch of raw food, toss it in the pot, wait for it to cook, the fish it out of the pot and eat it. I think it's kind of fun because it's an activity and a meal all at the same time.

 

A group of people from our hostel decided to go to Fat Mama's Hot Pot, a recommended restaurant nearby.

 

When we got there, there was no English or picture menu… So Mallory and I headed off into the kitchen to order for our table of 8. They literally let us go through their refrigerators to point to the items we wanted… The poor guys that were preparing the food were looking at us like we were insane. Two blonde laowai poking around a random kitchen in China.

 

I picked out some lotus root, which I love, and I managed to get all the others addicted to it. Towards the end of the meal, it was an all out battle to see who could find the last bits of lotus root in the pot.

 

It was delicious. If you ever get the chance, eat Sichuan Hot Pot.

Stone Forest Scandals

The Stone Forest is pretty much what it sounds like. A big forest… but instead of trees, it has a bunch of really tall stones. While that description leaves something to be desired, it's actually really cool. A few hours outside of Kunming, in Yunnan Province, the stone forest is set up a bit like a national park, so basically you can just wander around, have a picnic, do some hiking, enjoy the weather, etc.

 

As soon as you walk into the park you are accosted by little old Chinese women offering to dress you in ancient traditional costumes and take your pictures in front of the stones.

 

Normally I avoid this type of activity as it's a good way to get ripped off, but the costumes were really fun, and I was with someone who speaks really good Chinese so I figured it was a good opportunity to take some crazy photos. The other girls were down, so we had Mallory ask about prices. The woman said 10 RNB for each person (about $1.50 US) for three photos with the three of us in it. Cool.

 

We confirmed the price. 10 RNB each. For everything. Ok.

 

By the time we agreed, I was pretty much already dressed in the ridiculous costume, and seconds later the other girls were too. Of course we were then swarmed by Chinese people wanting to take pictures of us. 20 minutes and several thousand pictures later we took off the costumes, paid the women, and received the pictures. 3 happy customers.

 

Until… we go to leave. Surprise! The sweet little Chinese woman morphs into a monster. It was like watching the Incredible Hulk transform. She starts yelling at Mallory in Chinese. Of course the other girl and I are just super confused at this point – my Chinese sucks.

 

"MONEYYYYYY!! RWARRRRR!!!!" Hulk Smash. Of course she wanted more money. Now she's claiming there is a "costume fee." She wanted 10 more from each of us.

 

Uh huh. Sure. So we roll our eyes and try to walk away. This isn't our first Rodeo sweetheart. The Hulk then proceeds to throw a fit and grab Mallory and physically try to drag us back to her station. "MONEYYYYYY!! RWARRRRR!!!!"

 

The argument went on and the Hulk wouldn't let go of Mal.  Tourists were taking pictures of the confrontation. More arguing in Chinese. Now the Hulk only wanted 5 RNB each.

 

Great. So now we're bargaining on how much we're getting ripped off for. Ohhh China. You almost had me fooled. We actually were about to pay the 10 kwai just so we could go, but then the lady lowered it to 5 and changed the game.

 

So we conference amongst ourselves. We really didn't want to pay the extra money. It was the principle of the thing.

 

Finally we just decided we were going to ignore the women and hopefully they would go away. After about two minutes of them listening to our discussion, in English, on what we were going to do that evening when we got back to the hostel, the Hulk transformed back into Bruce Banner, became rational, and walked away, realizing we weren't going to pay.

 

We walked away without getting ripped off. But it was a good way to get the adrenaline pumping.

 

Here's what you should take away from this. If you are being hassled in China over money, just ignore them. Pay your fair price and walk away. It's like negotiating with terrorists. Don't do it.

The Sun is Setting!!! Time to Go to the Beach???

After Guangzhou and the Macau gambling marathon, a nice relaxing week at the beach was just what I needed, so Mallory and I took a short flight to Sanya, a resort city on Hainan Island, known as China's Hawaii.

 

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was nothing like I thought it would be… Sanya is really difficult to describe. It's basically just another Chinese city. But it also happens to have a few nice beaches.

 

To me, most beaches/ resort towns pretty much blend together. I think I was expecting the usual… Nice hotels, restaurants, and bars along the water. Women in bikinis relaxing in lounge chairs or under umbrellas on the beach. Kids building sand castles. People selling islandy crafts and shell necklaces. That type of thing.

 

And Sanya had that. But it was all VERY Chinese. I don't know why I was surprised. I was still in China after all.

 

How can a beach be Chinese? Easy. First of all, during the day, when the sun was out, the beach was empty. Sure there were a few people out and about, but not many. As soon as the sun started to set, out came the masses.

 

In general, Chinese people are very concerned about getting tan. They do NOT want dark skin, thus sunshine is avoided, ipso facto, you go to the beach at dark. Problem solved. Mallory got pretty sunburned. The Chinese people were HORRIFIED. Random people would walk by her and exclaim, "What did you do to your skin!?!?!?!?"

 

Second, Chinese people love KTV or karaoke. Love it. So why not set it up on the beach. A few tables and chairs, a flat screen T.V., and a few microphones, and you've got KTV on the beach. ON THE BEACH. In the sand. Not at a bar along the boardwalk (although I did see a couple of those). On the beach.

 

Finally, all the restaurants along the beach were still straight up Chinese. In the US, beach restaurants have a certain vibe… Most tend to be kind of laid back. The furniture changes, the décor becomes a bit more casual. In Sanya, it felt like typically Chinese restaurants were just plopped on the beach… No accommodations for being outdoors or along a boardwalk. I quite liked it.

 

Also a funny side note. Sanya is the vacation destination for a lot of Russians. I guess I look somewhat Russian… so instead of shopkeepers yelling English words out a me, they where yelling Russian… or handing me a Russian menu at restaurants. So not helpful – my Russian is even worse than my Chinese.

 

But all in all, Sanya was pretty cool. I got to go SCUBA diving, get a tan, meet a bunch of awesome people, and have a fresh seafood dinner on the boardwalk. The beaches have nothing on Florida beaches, but the cultural experience made it totally worth the visit. And lounging on the beach is always awesome

Macau. Always a Good Idea.

Macau is a two hour bus ride away from Guangzhou. Sounds perfect for a day trip right?  First bus there leaves at 7:30 am, last bus back leaves at 10 pm. Plenty of time for sight seeing and gambling.

 

Ummm… kind of. We got up early, hopped the bus to Macau, made it there by 10 am. No problems.

 

Then we saw the line to go through customs. It took us two hours to leave China and another hour and a half to get into Macau. Totally didn't factor that into our gambling time.

 

After a delicious Portuguese lunch (Macau used to be a Portuguese colony), several free drinks, and a few hours on the slots at the Wynn we came up with a "brilliant" idea.

 

"Let's stay up all night and catch the 7 am bus back to Guangzhou tomorrow so we don't have to deal with the long customs line!"

 

Genius.

 

The drinks were free. The slot machines were paying and talked to you in Chinese. You're gambling with either Hong Kong dollars or Macau dollars so you really have no idea what you are spending.  It was fantastic.

 

Side note: I found a new favorite slot machine. It is a Chinese vampire game… it gives you lots of free spins and it talks to you in Chinese – Wo shi xi xue gui!!! (I am a vampire) Muahhhh hhaaaahh hahhhha hhahah…. It was hysterical. Probably one of those things where you had to be there though.

 

Our idea seemed inspired until about 4 am. Then the exhaustion set in. We had been awake almost 24 hours. The casinos are ENORMOUS. We probably walked over twenty miles trekking from casino to casino. Just walking through the entire Venetian is a good mile or two.

 

We managed to haul ourselves back through customs – which only took about 15 minutes this time – and back to Guangzhou. After a shower and a 6 hour "nap" we managed to drag ourselves out of the hostel for dinner and shopping. For me, recovering from a long night of partying is the equivalent of recovering from minor surgery.

 

I was exhausted for the next couple of days, but it was totally worth it. Bottom line: Macau – always a good idea.