Weddings, Qiezi, Aerobics, and Hot Oil

Update

So, firstly, warm and love imbued birthday wishes to my Grammy Edna (April 1st), my mom and dad (April 3rd), and my step-dad Mike (April 5th). Our family certainly is good at birthday clusters. If all you birthday-folk were here in China, it would be appropriate (and expected) for me to cake you in the face with some highly fluffily frosted pineapple filled birthday cake. Of course you eat the cake, too, but the having cake in the face is just as essential (I had mine in September). So, in Chinese, Shengri kuaile! Zhu yiqie shunli! (“happy birthday! All the best!”).

Weddings and the like…

So, my past week has been great—busy, busy, busy. In my oral English classes, I’m having my students do two types of group presentations. The first is a play that has to involve the assigned speech act for the week (i.e. encouragement/surprise, disappointment/regret, etc.). The second presentation is a discussion that they have to lead the class in about a cultural topic (American and/or Chinese) of their choosing (last semester these classes expressed interest in having more discussion about American culture, so this was my way of integrating their requests.) So, last week, the first discussion group went, and they blew me away! I had brought my camera just because I want to start documenting some of the great group presentations my students do, and I was so glad that I had this day. The group’s chosen topic was weddings. So they did a full demonstration (costumes, props, and all) of both Chinese style and American weddings. They embedded the demonstration with commentary on both wedding styles and then followed up the demonstration with interactive questions to the class. Then they called on me to talk a little more about American wedding styles and to answer questions from the class. The students were so interested in the topic that we continued through the first class period and through the whole 10 minute break talking about the different aspects of American weddings. My students suggested that maybe someday I should try out the Chinese wedding for myself with a nice Sichuan man. Later in the week on Thursday, my culture class also had the first group presentation which was on Irish culture. The group focused on St. Patrick’s Day and even brought freshly picked clovers for every person in the class (110 people—that’s a lot of clovers!). They acted out the history of St. Patrick’s life (his birth, his capture and enslavement, his escape, his discovery and interpretation of Christianity, and his eventual missionary work). They followed up the presentation with a trivia game (which I also use frequently in my culture lessons) where the winning team got a big pack of candy as well as the person who answered the most questions (I think this is an idea that I should adopt, too). Then, Thursday night I went for another intense round of Fight the Landlord which lasted until 11:30 p.m. We began the evening by having me help Xue Qiang (my friend Jeff who is in so many of the posts) with his TEM4 exam preparation (working on grammar and vocabulary cloze and dictation). Then his girlfriend, Wei Jun, spent about an hour teaching me new Chinese words and coaching me on my Hanzi writing. She is a fabulous and enthusiastic teacher. She really enjoys it. Then we started playing our favorite card game and didn’t realize how late it had become until we heard the 11:30 p.m. playing of “What Child is This?” coming over the campus loudspeaker (this song is played every night at 11:30. My only quam with the song is that it is the version that uses a sharp instead of a flat note). So then I hurried home before the small gate between Shiling town and the campus closed.

Qiezi round 2…

On Friday, I got up early in order to get to the Carrefour and back without taking up the entire day. I had to go get the ingredients for my second round of preparing eggplant parmesan—this time for one of my culture students. After having done so, I think that I can officially say that I certainly don’t feel the need to have this dish again any time soon…very good, but very rich and I think there’s a limit to how many times one should eat it within a month. I arrived a bit too early to Carrefour, however. I left at about 8:15 a.m. from the university and arrived at the doors of Carrefour at about 8:45 a.m., but it doesn’t open until 9. So I waited with all the older women who were pushed up against the door waiting to go in. I passed the time watching the workers in the “Fun in USA” store arrange the new brightly colored spring attire and dust the shelves. Finally the doors opened and we all rushed in. I found out that the big rush for the older women was to buy huge bags of rice (perhaps there was a special discount on rice that day). Anyway, my major accomplishment at Carrefour was acquiring the ingredients for eggplant parmesan at a cost substantially lower than at my first go round. Granted, the last time I also had to buy a host of serving dishes and I also bought a dessert mix. This time I still had parmesan cheese left (a significant expense) as well as butter. So, this time, totaled the cost was a mere 85 RMB (included getting additional serving dishes for the salad this time, too) as opposed to the near 300 RMB from the first round—so I’m getting more savvy. Last time, I bought the huge can of American spaghetti sauce. This time I bought a small packet of Chinese made spaghetti sauce as a flavor base and then added fresh tomatoes, mushroom, onion, garlic, and seasoning to it myself. I think it was actually better! This time, I made a salad (served with McCormick Thousand Island dressing—highly popular in China) to go along with the eggplant parmesan. So, the meal went over very well, especially the salad, which isn’t something that Chinese people have unless they go to a Pizza Hut. However, there, you have to pay an exorbitant price and can only go up once with a very small bowl (however there are entire websites devoted to how to stack the most salad in your bowl, layering strategies, etc.). So, now that I have exhausted my fervor for eggplant parmesan, the next American dish I’ll do will be tacos.

Aerobics…yi, er, san and again, left side

So, last semester, I went to the gym religiously with my friend Sam (a Swedish student here studying Chinese). But, as the weather got colder, Sam went home, and my business increased, my visits to the gym dwindled, and they were replaced by more high-intensity time-effective runs around the campus (the temperature was still cold, but the running heated me up so that when I returned to my freezing apartment it felt comparatively warmer than what I’d just been running in). So, now, the weather is balmy and I decided to renew my gym membership. There’s just something about weights that really I really like. Additionally, many of my students go to the gym, and since they’d seen me there last semester, many were nagging me about why I wasn’t there this semester. After only a couple visits to the gym, my student Prince encouraged me to try the aerobics which start at 6:30 p.m. on weekdays. Many of my girl students do the aerobics, and last semester I would just watch the sessions as I continued with my weight lifting. Despite the fact that I was a graceful ballet swan in my childhood years I am now quite uncoordinated with organized dance steps, so I had avoided the aerobic gym routine. However, faced with much pressure from my students to try it, I caved. And what fun! The first round was a little rocky (there are a lot of quick movement switches, and the commands are all in Chinese, of course), but in every session, I get better. I stay in the back with the folks that are a little less sure of themselves as well as Prince and my other student Drizzit (who, by the way, is an exact Chinese duplicate of my brother Noah!!! Uncanny, I swear! The resemblance has also been confirmed by Prince, who now swears that Drizzit is my Chinese brother—they even dress the same, break into a smile in the same way, and have similar sense of humor and body lanuage). Doing the aerobic routine is cool for me for a variety of reasons. Of course, at a full hour long, it’s a good workout, but the community aspect of it—doing it with all my students—is also very rewarding. Additionally, hearing the commands in Chinese is good for my continuing Chinese language acquisition. So, the addition of aerobics into my workout regimen has made my gym sessions quite hardcore. I usually go at around 4:30 or 5 p.m. so that I have time to do the bike, treadmill, and weights before I do the aerobics which end at 7:30 p.m. I can tell already that my running endurance has improved from the addition of the weights and aerobics. Prince has been really cool at the gym, suggesting different weight lifting routines and helping to spot me when I do heavy weights. He even asked the coach for some specific training tips for me and pointed out my trouble spots, saying, “You have some trouble spots, maybe you know? Your waist and legs…and butt.” I agreed that these were indeed trouble spots. So, my prescription? More time on the bike and treadmill as well as added repetitions on sit-ups. So, I will let you know my progress (although I feel that the progress I would normally be making at the gym is hindered a bit by the oil-laden Sichuan food—but my goal is an equilibrium between fully integrating into the Sichuan food culture and keeping fit; I’m sure it can be done).

Speaking of oil…

Last night I went with Xue Qiang, Wei Jun, and her brother and his girlfriend for Wei Jun’s birthday hot pot (in Chinese hou guo) dinner. I had actually been looking forward to the hot pot (which I’d dreaded in the summer when I’d first arrived because of all the oil). I was convinced that at this point, my stomach being a veritable oil-processing machine, that I would have no adverse reactions to the bubbling pot of spicy oil. And I was right. For those of you unfamiliar with hot pot, here is how it works. You go to special hot pot restaurants. The tables are made specially with a burner inset in the middle in which is placed a pot of hot spicy oil (you can also order a double pot, which has a non-spicy bubbling broth pot inset within the hot oil). Then the server comes round and gives you an ordering sheet with the lists of all the things you can order (many meats and also vegetables). You put a mark next to the item that you want to order. Then the server returns with your items and you start putting them into the bubbling oil. While the items cook in the oil, you prepare your own oil dish. You are given a bowl of oil to which you add minced garlic, something akin to parsley (but different in flavor—very good), salt, MSG (served in it’s own little dish), another kind of oil, and vinegar if you wish. Then you stir this around with your chopsticks, taste it, and adjust it to your liking. By this time, some of the items in the hot pot are probably ready for tasting. The items we ordered included many types of meats (some kind of bologna, brain, meat on bone, wrapped meats, baby chicken wings, and some unidentified meat) as well as many veggies for me (kelp, two kinds of mushrooms, tomato, cucumber, “ou” (a potato-like vegetable with wholes in it…like Swiss cheese meets potato I guess) as well as two kinds of tofu and a noodle like item (although not made with the same ingredients as noodles…very good though). To drink with your hot pot you can have tea, beer, or other soft drinks. Wei Jun’s brother had beer (they joked that he could drink a lot of beer and maybe that is why he is a little fat), and the rest of us had tea. There were also dried peas in a little basket as well as deep-fried pumpkin cakes that came midway through the meal. All of the items aren’t put into the hot pot at once (they are often brought staggered and often more items are ordered in the course of the meal as favorites become obvious—for us, the long sheet tofu was an obvious favorite). You eat slowly so that you can eat a lot. The funniest part always comes at the end when everyone is full but there is still a bountiful amount left swimming in the oil. Then people fish out items and pile them into your dish encouraging you to eat more and not waste the good food. I wasn’t a victim of this this time (most of the veggies were gone), but there was a surplus of meat, so Wei Jun piled more and more into Xue Qiang’s bowl, met by simpers of protest and giggle from us around the table. It was a wonderful time. And, like I predicted, my stomach is now a seasoned soldier.

After the birthday hot pot, we took a walk around Shiling town and did some window shopping. Then we all retired to my apartment (because Wei Jun and Xue Qiang live together off-campus but this is a secret from their family who is still a bit too traditional for that) to play cards and socialize. Since we had five people, we couldn’t play Fight the Landlord (only three can play that game). So I taught them how to play “Crazy 8s.” This was an all-time favorite of the Dodge family back in the day, and it’s relatively simple and fun, too. So, once we got the rules translated into Chinese, we were all good. Like our family finally did, we had to limit the drawing rule so that you only draw three cards and then stop if you cannot play. The first couple rounds we tried to play the traditional way (draw until you can play), but this resulted in near disaster—with so many people playing, one person drawing until they can play led to having only about three spare cards in the deck. So, we adopted the draw three rule, and then the game progressed well. They all really enjoyed it, and had a fun time ganging up on each other, changing the suit with the 8 when they knew what the other needed. So, the evening drew to a close, and I walked back with them to the gate and said goodbye. An evening is simply a recipe for success if hot oil and cards are involved.

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