A Few Firsts

Well I’ve had a couple of firsts the past few weeks since I last wrote, not the least of which was my first Christmas both away from family and out of the country. I don’t really want to make a habit of this, but despite my homesickness, it ended up being a wonderful day. I woke up missing my family’s usual tradition of opening stockings, drinking coffee, and eating my mom’s homemade coffeecake. But I got myself up, made myself a cup of tea, answered some emails, and waited for Nathan to get home from work (he, unfortunately, had class on Christmas morning). When he got home we walked down to the north gate of the college and got some wraps for lunch. Chinese wraps are not altogether different from American wraps in concept, but their ingredients and method of preparation differs. Basically, you pick whether you want meat, an egg, or both, and then they will fry whichever you choose while at the same time frying a tortilla (which is not actually a tortilla, but a Chinese version of the same thing). Then they slather it with some sort of sesame paste/soy sauce mixture and ask if you want it “la jiao,” or with spicy pepper sauce. Which of course, I always do. After these sauces are spread over the whole tortilla, they ask which of the toppings you want. Usually you can choose from leaves of lettuce, cucumbers, tofu noodles, seaweed, thin strips of cooked potatoes, and bamboo shoots. Then they fold it up and voila, you have a Chinese wrap! Whenever we’re feeling in the mood for something fried that is similar to a Western meal, we head to this wrap stand. Cheap and delicious. After we got our wraps we stopped at the veggie market to pick out food for our Christmas dinner which we had decided would consist of a green bean casserole (which wasn’t really a casserole because we don’t have an oven and had to manage it on the stove, but you get the idea), mashed sweet potatoes, and mashed regular potatoes. We got our veggies and then stopped at the grocery store above the market to get some milk. With all our ingredients in hand we headed home to open presents, which we did while listening to Nat King Cole and sipping hot chocolate. After opening our wonderful gifts we spent the rest of the afternoon reading the books we received from our families. Then dinnertime came around and, of course, it wouldn’t be dinner in China if something unexpected didn’t happen. Turns out the carton of dairy we had purchased earlier that day which we thought was milk was actually a slightly vanilla-flavored yogurt. Since we needed a milk-like substance for all three of our dishes and were too comfortable indoors to go back out to the store, we decided to use the yogurt. It actually turned out just fine, thankfully, and didn’t make any of the dishes too sweet. We ended the night with a nice bottle of Chianti and some dark chocolate my parents sent, watching Love Actually, with our makeshift Christmas tree of books lit up beside the TV.

The second first I can tell you now because I came through it less emotionally scarred than I was expecting to be. My freshmen students had asked me a few weeks ago if I would participate in a dance with them as a part of the freshmen foreign language student New Year’s performance. It was not until a week or so after I agreed to this that I was told that the dance was the “We’re All In This Together” dance from High School Musical, a song I had hoped to never hear again after my first college roommate’s obsession with that movie. Begrudgingly I taught myself the dance two days before the performance this past Wednesday, my only consolation being that if Phil from Modern Family could proudly dance along with this song, so could I. Wednesday night came around and just minutes before the show was to start my students informed me I didn’t have to do the whole dance with them but that they would pull a few of us teachers from the audience to join in the end of the dance with them. Thankful for this, I relaxed a bit, and when the end of the dance came along, I allowed my students to drag me up on stage and I had my first (and hopefully last) public performance of any number from High School Musical.

The last, and perhaps the most endearing, first happened this past Thursday. At noon I met up with my department for a New Year’s lunch in a fancy room of one of the school’s cafeterias. There was an abundance of good food and entertainment including the persistent insistence of the male faculty members that all of us foreign teachers (there are four of us in the department) join them in drinking baijiu, a quite strong and incredibly pungent Chinese liquor. If there is one thing I was prepared for by my reading of Peter Hessler books this past summer in terms of Chinese university life, it was the competitive baijiu drinking at any sort of meal or banquet. Thankfully only one bottle was purchased so we were saved from getting into too much trouble, but I suspect this was only because a few of the teachers still had classes to teach in just an hour. This was not a first though, for this happens at most any faculty gathering. The first came when, after this lunch, I turned on my phone to find a text message from one of my freshmen students saying that it was her birthday and she wanted to give me cake and asking where she could meet me. I said I would head to my office now, if that worked for her. About ten minutes after I got to my office she knocked on the door and came in carrying a large cake box. I said happy birthday and we chatted for a few minutes about what she was doing for her birthday. Her parents had come into town to visit her and they had just come back from lunch and would be spending the rest of the day together. She then said that she had intended to give me a piece of cake, but her mom had misunderstood this message and had bought me an entire cake. In disbelief I tried to understand, thinking I must be confused… “But it’s your birthday, Shirley, you should have this cake to celebrate!” She explained she would have another one with her parents, but she wanted to give this one to me to celebrate her birthday since I am the first foreign teacher she has had and she has really loved being in my class. At this point she said that she had more she wanted to say but couldn’t express herself fully in English. We chatted for a few more minutes and then said goodbye. I can definitely say this was the first time I have ever received a whole cake for someone else’s birthday, and what made it all the more special was that it seemed like this just seemed like the natural thing to do for her—why would you not give someone else a gift on your own birthday? I was deeply touched by her kindness and sincerity.

The Flu, a Singing Competition, and Dragon Eyes

As Christmastime nears, it continues to get colder and drearier in Wuhan, though no prospects of snow I’m afraid. The humidity has stuck around so the cold is the kind that goes straight to your bones and sticks around until you can place yourself directly under the airflow of a heater, an appliance which until this year, I have never been quite grateful enough for. I may or may not have mentioned this already, but none of the buildings here have central heating. We huddle in our coats and hats and gloves during class and at restaurants and stores and pretty much anywhere. Well, not anywhere. The Starbucks and KFC have heating, but I suppose that’s all a part of their charm. We, as foreigners, have been spoiled with three wall heaters in our apartments, but, as my students have informed me, the dormitories have no such luxuries. The students have to buy hot water bottles to warm their hands while they study and pile on the sweaters and blankets as they sleep at night. I was talking with one of my students, Crazyman (yes that is his chosen English name), about this this morning and my heart sunk thinking about trying to study and write papers while freezing in tiny, cramped dorm rooms. 

Last week was an interesting week to say the least. On Tuesday both Nathan and I came down with the flu. Thankfully it was only a 24 hour bug, but it was still terrible. I haven’t had the flu for 4 or 5 years and had forgotten just how bad it makes you feel. To make matters worse, China does not have the usual comforts I am used to having when sick, such as Gatorade and plain food, and I have not yet gotten around to making some veggie broth. Everything here is spicy and saucy, or over processed and infused with weird flavors, such as chicken feet flavored crackers. Yuck. Thankfully I had some oatmeal in the apartment, so by late that night, when my stomach was finally settled, I was able to have some of that. And Nathan got creative when he gathered enough strength to make a juice run and bought us some pomegranate juice which we mixed with sprite which was quite good. The next day we were both tons better, but still felt fatigued and a bit off through Saturday.

The day before, Monday, one of my students had asked me after class if I would be willing to judge a singing contest they were holding that Friday. I said sure, feeling like this was going to be a Chinese opportunity I wasn’t going to want to miss. It definitely lived up to my expectations. The Chinese are really into KTV, which is basically a glorified karaoke bar where you have your own private room and drinks and snacks and all this professional karaoke equipment. I personally don’t care for it—we went with a group of both Americans and Chinese earlier in the year—but I do enjoy watching the spectacle. This competition was held on campus and the room was unlike any of the other classrooms in the building. It was like a mini-movie theatre with stadium seating and cushioned seats and nice lighting and, of all things, heating! I immediately saw a bunch of my students and they giggled and waved excitedly at me. I was to judge the contest with another American student, Luke, and Nathan had come along for moral support. We got front and center seats and were given two packets full of song lyrics. There were four groups of four students each participating in the event. For the first round, the student up would pick a letter (A-D) and a number (1-6) and then the karaoke version of a song that corresponded to that letter and number in our lyrics packet would start playing. Lyrics to the song appeared on the big screen with a few lines and words left out. The student then had to recognize the song and sing all the correct words. We were to circle any mistakes in our packet and then the hosts would tally up the scores. After this first round two teams were eliminated. Then there was a kind of lightening round in the middle where I think the team in third had the chance to fight to be one of the final two, but it was really confusing and Luke and I really had no idea what was going on. We would just raise our hand whenever someone made a mistake and they were eliminated. Kind of a haphazard competition, but what are you going to do? All the Chinese explanations of the rules went right over my head.

The second round was mildly frightening. They brought out a small table and one of those little bells that you hit the top of to make ring and a contestant from each team would stand a few feet away from it on either side and if they recognized the song that started playing (again the karaoke version) they jumped forward to ring said bell. Each time I feared someone’s hand was going to start bleeding from being pierced by the bell as they would smash their hands down onto the bell and on top of each other’s hands, but fortunately, this didn’t happen. It was actually quite a painful round because they hardly knew any of the songs. This made me start to wonder how this competition was organized. You would think that the contestants would get a packet with the possible songs listed and they would work to memorize the lyrics, but it seems as though only one or two people actually put in the effort to do this. It made for some pretty easy judging though. On one occasion, a girl got up to sing and the song that came up was some Katy Perry song. The girl stared at the hosts for a second and then said, “I’m going to take myself out now… I’ve never heard this song in my life.” Alrighty then.

The third and final round consisted of one of the hosts singing the first few lines of a song and then the contestant having to jump in and finish out the verse or chorus or whatever part of the song was sung to them. This was equally as painful as the previous rounds, though there were a few highlights from this part. First, one of the hosts had a great, and very Chinese-y, outfit on. She had a big sweater with a picture of a rabbit ala the Velveteen Rabbit also wearing a sweater, a skirt and tights, and then, the best part, some high top sneakers with large, stuffed animal Hello Kitty heads where the laces should be. This was certainly not the first time I had seen shoes as obnoxious as this, but it definitely added to my enjoyment of the event. Second, one of the songs played was that Baby song by Justin Bieber, and after the contestant took away the singing from the host (she actually knew this one! Ugh) the host began dancing in the style of Michael Jackson and completely stole the show. I wished she had accompanied each of the songs, but I guess Baby just inspired her in a unique and moving way. Anyway, after that the contest was over and we presented the awards to the winners. Luke then sang a popular Chinese song which the students absolutely died over. They giggled and cheered and sang along and two girls even ran up to him in the middle and adorned him with two strands of tinsel. All my students wanted pictures with me afterward and proceeded to gawk at Nathan’s height. They gave me a beautiful Shanxi shadow puppet as a prize. It is a small—maybe the size of your average novel—flat, plastic figure, with intricately cut-out designs in the traditional Chinese clothing style. It is a traditional form of drama originating in the Han Dynasty. Here’s a YouTube video of the art form: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX71KJhbFiQ

Later that night we went out to dinner with a few professors from an organization we have been editing essays for the past few weeks. They pay us to edit the essays of Chinese students applying to American universities, which is both easy money and incredibly interesting to hear the stories the students tell. Perhaps after the next batch I’ll share some of these insights in a blog entry. Shaun, one of the heads of the company, took us all out for dinner as a thank you, which was very fun. We went to an incredibly fancy restaurant with all sorts of fancy dishes (not many for a vegetarian though unfortunately). I did, however, get to try a new kind of fruit which was really cool. In English it is called a “dragon eye”, in Chinese it is called “long yan,” which directly translates to “dragon eye.” And it seriously looks like an eyeball. It has a light brown shell, but once you peel this, the inside has the color and consistency of one of those Halloween squishy eyeballs you can throw at a window and it’ll stick to. As unappetizing as this sounds, they were actually really good! Very sweet, with a peachy kind of consistency. There is a small pit in the middle that is easy to chew around and spit out. I will definitely be picking some up at the market this week.

And in case you were interested, Nathan and I made a makeshift Christmas tree out of all the books we brought along with us :)

Our day trip to Hankou and Wuhan Heaven and Earth (Wuhan Tian Di)

This past Saturday Nathan and I took a day trip to Hankou, one of the three original cities that merged to form the modern day Wuhan. Hankou literally means "The Mouth of the Han," and is at the confluence Han River and the Chang Jiang (what we call the Yangtze) River. We went to the FedEx in Hankou to attempt to deliver some packages. I am actually still in shock that we found it. First of all, it took about five or six taxis before we finally found a driver who understood what we were trying to say and said he knew where the FedEx in Hankou actually was. Then, when we were finally in Hankou, he dropped us off at this giant department store, gesturing that the FedEx was on one of the upper floors of the building. Not knowing how to argue with this, we paid and got out. We wandered around the department store for a bit before asking one of the door guards if he knew where the FedEx was. He said something about it being on the fourth floor (or at least that's what we thought he said), but after finding only kitchen appliances and bedding on the fourth floor, we returned to ask him again, thinking we must have misunderstood. This time he took us over to some elevators on the other side of the entryway (we had been taking a different set of escalators prior to this) and again, he held up four fingers and said what we understood to be "fourth floor." We pushed the up button to get onto one of the twenty or so different elevators, and got in. This elevator, however, didn't have buttons to go to floors 2-4, it went straight from 1 to 5-30 something. A few other people got on too and so we just decided to get off whenever they did and catch an elevator back down to ask a different door guard how to get to the FedEx. The others on the elevator with us got off at floor 14, and so did we. We looked around the corner to see if there were more elevators that could take us to this mysterious fourth floor, and lo and behold, FedEx was right there. I don't know how we were so lucky! Through another long and challenging process we finally got our packages packed and some paperwork filled out and hopefully, someone will be coming to our apartment on Monday to pick up the packages for delivery. 

After this adventure, we stopped at a little coffeeshop to re-charge, and then caught another taxi to Wuhan Tian Di (or Wuhan Heaven and Earth), a park and shopping area we were told by our Chinese tutor is a good place to go in Wuhan. It was really beautiful--the park area was right by the Chang Jiang river and was full of beautiful gardens and fountains and forest areas. After a few hours of walking around, we stopped in the downtown area for a nice dinner. We found a Taiwanese restaurant and had some really flavorful and spicy fried tofu with vegetables, with a side of sauteed cabbage. It was a really wonderful day. Here are a bunch of pictures:

The path from our apartment out to campus

Some academic buildings

Not entirely sure what this place is but Chinese men always seem to be repairing old chairs and tables and the like out here.

The entrance to Culture Street, an area with a bunch of shops and restaurants.

Burton's, a Western style bar/restaurant, is on the left. Al Arabi, a Middle Eastern restaurant, is on the right. 

LuoYu street, where we go to catch the bus or get a taxi. It is constantly full of subway and other construction.

You can see here the motorbiker going in the opposite direction of traffic. We have decided there are so many people driving motorbikes here because it is easier to not follow traffic laws that way by just scooting in between cars and around traffic jams. Although it is not above vans and taxis to drive up on sidewalks in an attempt to get around traffic jams.

After a harrowing visit to FedEx in Hankou, we sought out a coffee or tea shop, and this is what we found. 

Nathan's espresso and my hot honey milk.

Outside the jazz bar across the street from Wuhan Tian Di.

I would tell you what this says if I could :)

This was some kind of museum with both a Chinese and a South African flag in front, as well as...

some awesome statues.

Just a warning at the entrance to the park/beach area at Wuhan Tian Di. No strong men allowed!

Kite flying is a big part of the whole area.

There were kite vendors everywhere.

We couldn't decide if these were actual wedding photos or a wedding photo shoot. 

There were all sorts of paths through the fluffy reeds out to the river, the Chang Jiang. This is apparently what the Chinese call the Yangtze River.

Cool bridge

"I want a picture that shows how tall the reeds are in comparison to me , but also with the river in the background."

Nathan getting all artsy.

Wish we knew what this building was for...

"Water and Stone Battle Formation" You could jump from platform to platform.

Walkway over the water

Good advice!

One of the cooler kites. Giant octopus! 

The downtown area of Wuhan Tian Di

Making an attempt at Christmas decorations.

And then, on our way out, a parade of Christmas clowns, women elves with fake snare drums, and a Santa sleigh with these people dressed in silver spandex with giant silver horns... still wondering what they were supposed to be.