Hotpot and the Chinese Minority Experience

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After basic Chinese class, I had speaking. It was super easy. We started with the fundamentals. Hello! My name is Laura. I am American... It is good for practicing tones.

Relish for lunch again. Had my favorite. 酸菜面。Sour veggie noodles.

We went back to the dorm and I did homework. Then I went to the ping pong room to do yoga. After a half an hour or so the cleaning ladies started mopping around me, which was good because the floor in there is filthy. I had black stuff on my feet and knees and hands.

Around 4, Clare, Audrey, Maria and I met Snow White, Audrey's Chinese friend from English corner, at the East gate, which is right next to our dorm. She took us to hotpot, the Sichuan specialty. The pot had sour broth in the center and spicy sauce in a donut shape around the outside. The spicy sauce is bright red with pieces of the numbing spice floating in it. This looks like a piece of pepper, but tastes metallic and makes your mouth buzz. I don't like it, but some of my friends do.

Snow White checked all of the foods that we wanted on a list, and they brought them to us on a little cart like in a library. My favorites were lotus root, tofu noodles, and meatballs with broth in the center. I refused to try the duck feet. We also ordered peanut milk to wash everything down. I have to get some of that for my room, because it is amazing.

At 7pm, we had our first Chinese Minorities/Western China/Tibet class lecture. Parts of it were interesting, but my attention kept wandering. I think the most interesting thing is that Chinese minorities have benefits in work and education, like American minorities do. Like how Native Americans get scholarships pretty easily. So some Han Chinese try to find bits of minority groups in their ancestry so that they can receive the benefits. And sometimes Chinese blame their poverty on being from a minority group. This should not have been surprising to learn about, because it is so like America. But that is exactly why it is surprising.

Part of our homework is to memorize the Chinese provinces. I don't even know where all of the states are in the U.S., so that should be interesting.

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