您可以叫我"陈"吗? (You may call me "Chen?")

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The past week has been busy and a bit hectic, with the end result being the above title.

I spent the week testing my students' oral skills. Someone decided they should have a final grade for last term. In February. I handed out the papers, they had a few minutes to prepare, and then all 500 of them read me some variation of the same thing. Let me know if you'd like a demo--I have it memorized. "'You want this?' Roy asked, holding up a bike wheel..."

Settling back into the weekly routine, too. Game night is back (unlike my winning streak), as is the time to study my Chinese. If you don't use it you DO lose it. Luckily my friends also want to study before classes start, so we're forming study groups every week. Classes don't start until March, coinciding with the new term at the university.


On Saturday after a cool and breezy morning at Tai Chi class, I got together with Carrie. She thought we were having lunch and spending the afternoon together, even though I had told her I would be eating before I came home. The neighborhood where I take classes has lots of little inexpensive restaurants and I'm always hungry before class is done. Yes, Mom, I am eating breakfast.

So Carrie and I got ice cream at McDonald's, which always tastes good, and had a successful day of shopping. By sucessful I mean neither of us bought anything. We tried out those fancy massaging chairs at the mall, too. She asked the thrilled-to-see-customers saleslady lots of questions and I nearly took a nap. Between Tai Chi and the massaging of the chair I was VERY relaxed.

We walked back to Carrie's for dinner. Last time I was there her grandma told me (through Carrie, Grandma doesn't speak English) that she was leaving on the 22nd and that if I would like to come visit her in Hainan she would love to have me. I had jokingly asked if I could wait until it's warmer. Carrie's grandma is very kind and welcoming, like my grandma always was. She's always gesturing to me to sit down on the sofa, or by the food, or bringing me food, and smiling at me. Her face lights up when she sees me.
We've been joking now about how I now have a Chinese mother, Grandmother, etc. Carrie says that she's happy I consider them my family. Sat she also says Grandma is hoping to see me again so we can take pictures before she leaves.

We walked down the sidewalk, single file, because for some reason someone decided to build a wall next to new construction, cutting the sidewalk in half. I yelled to Carrie that I couldn't hear her and commented on the lack of planning with regard to the wall. Carrie yelled back that it didn't matter, she would just follow me to my Chinese family's home.

Grandma was thrilled to see me. As was my Chinese mother. And Carrie's daughter (the dog). Carrie's husband's father is also visiting, as is her husband's grandmother. Everyone came to visit for the Lunar New Year. Before dinner I posed with both grandmas while holding wine glasses. Carrie's grandmother is pretty quick, healthy and young looking, I'd say around 70. Carrie's husband's grandma looks much older: she very thin and has a stooped back and her mouth curls inward, making me curious about her number of teeth. She's always straightening things, like the tablecloth or fabric on the sofa; I must have seen her do it 10 times in the course of the evening. When we were done with pictures, my Chinese Grandma went and changed her shirt--she had changed it before I arrived so she would look nice for photos with me.

8 of us crowded around a table built for 4 Americans, filling our bowls with fish, 2 kinds of tofu, duck, soup, green vegetables, and rice. There was some toasting to Grandma, filled with smiles and laughter, but mostly just the sounds of chopsticks against bowls, quickly shoveling food into mouths.

After dinner we all watched TV. There's a mini-series on centered around WWII. I couldn't understand any of it, but Carrie says her family hasn't missed an episode. It was addicting--I loved the costumes and the sets. Grandma was in her room packing for her 36 hour train ride back to Hainan. My Chinese Mother is going with her. She promised that when she returns she will make me vegetarian dumplings. I can already taste them.

By 9:30 I was extremely relaxed, content, and yawning, so I headed home. I wanted to get to bed a bit earlier than usual so I would be well rested for Tai Chi the next day. After a few rounds of hugs I walked home in the chilly night air.


Sunday morning I awoke, ate, and headed out. It was chilly, but not as windy as Saturday. In a few hours I would be hot and sweating. I would wish I'd worn sunscreen. Our teacher is actually just the top coach I found out. But she's really good and she taught us a lot of moves. I felt like it was too many. I remember most of them, just not in order.

After class we walked back to the office so I could finally pay for my 4 months of Tai Chi. It was a beautiful sunny day and I felt great. Harry explained that we are learning the Chen style of Tai Chi (there are styles all together) and that the Chen style is the hardest. From what I could learn online, its movements are deeper and bigger, for lack of a better word. But it's the original form from the 1600s. And our teacher (not our coach, the guy above her) is a 19th generation Chen, a direct descendant of the man who started Tai Chi. Harry informed me that Tai Chi Chuan is also a form of Kung Fu--I had no idea--but don't call me Kung Fu Kris.

After I paid and picked up a brochure (so I can show my parents pictures). We filled out paperwork and my coach asked me for my Chinese name, which I can write in English but have trouble forming the charaters. She wrote it on my form and told me to bring a picture next week for the file. The Chinese put people's pictures on everything.
We all drank tea and ate biscuits, some sitting on wooden sofas, some on tiny plastic stools just inches above the ground. I learned more about the proper way to hold the itty bitty tea cup and the proper way to slurp hot tea. If it's not scalding hot, and you can just throw it back into your mouth, then "the tea has no flavor." We laughed about that. Then our teachers invited us to join them for lunch. Of course we accepted.

We went upstairs to the local restaurant and got the table in the back room. There were 12 of us all together. Me, Harry, our coach, 2 teachers who kept insisting the other take the chair of honor, and some other people I'd never met but had seen. We feasted on the best duck I've ever had, eggplant, cucumber with garlic, green vegetables, soup, fish, and some foods I couldn't eat. Like any good hosts, they also had a bottle of baijou and some beer. Traditionally, Chinese people either toast with wine or baijou. Baijou is about one half-step above rubbing alcohol and I've been avoiding it until this point. It smells terrible. Harry said I should try it at least once while I'm in China and I decided this would be the time to do it. I figured I could get away with just one shot of it, unlike most times where they make you take more and more.

We did our toast, I threw back the baijou like one shouldn't throw back tea, and received looks of amazement and delight. They were impressed that I drank the whole thing. I have now won the admiration of my teachers. I immediatly switched to beer to cover up the flavor.

China is a hosting culture. If your host can get you drunk and make you eat more than you've ever eaten before they gain face. Especially if you're from the west. You don't lose face for eating like a pig or drinking more than you should have. Actually, in fact, if you don't eat a lot and barely drink at all, your host loses face and looks like a bad host. I'm happy to do my part.

While we were eating most of the converstation was in Chinese. It gives me a chance to practice my listening. Sometimes I was able to follow the conversation, sometimes I had no idea. I'm thinking that my Chinese is bound to get better just by spending time with these people. At one point we were talking about how students of Tai Chi usually take the name of their master. They jokingly told Harry his name was now Chen. I commented, "How come you get to be Chen and I don't?" We wondered if it was because they have trouble with Harry's English name. I soon found out it was because they didn't think I had a Chinese name, to which my coach corrected them: "No, she does! She is Sun KeTing!" "Ahhh," said my teacher jokingly, "Now she is Chen KeTing!"

I certainly haven't earned it, but you can call me Chen.

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