The Opening Ceremonies, The Chinese BBQ, and The Kitchen Rodent

The past few days have certainly been an interesting bunch and so I thought I’d share a few vignettes of some of what’s been going on. The stories are threefold: The Opening Ceremonies, The Chinese BBQ, and The Kitchen Rodent.

The Opening Ceremonies:

This Thursday through tomorrow (Sunday) is the All-School Sports Meet here at CCNU. I tried asking my students what exactly this “all-school sports meet” entails but I mostly received blank stares. What I’ve gathered is that there are various events ranging from the long jump to badminton which any student can enter and then compete in on game day. I’m not sure if there are prizes or what but all the hullabaloo surrounding the Sports Meet, to me, indicates some sort of honor given either to the individual or department the student is from if they win. A few of my students were participating in the track and field events so hopefully this week I can get more information on the award side of things. Regardless, a few of us Americans decided it would be worth it to wake up early Thursday morning (even though classes were cancelled and our four-day weekend had begun) to catch the Opening Ceremonies at 8am. By 7:45 the Sports Stadium, a building of 1980’s sterile metal architecture, was packed with viewers from age two to eighty. Huge helium-filled red and yellow lantern balloons lined the stands and a round, metal platform stood tall in the center of the field. By 8am the festivities had begun and groups of students and teachers began marching around the track to Chinese patriotic music blaring from the loudspeakers. We could not really tell which group was which or how they were even divided—it could have been by event, by department, by extra-curricular activities, or a combination of all three. Anyway, for the next hour+ these groups marched around the track, some pausing in the center of the long stretch in front of the main stands to perform a dance of some sort.

Two groups stood out in particular. The first was a group of students whose affiliation is still unknown. I’m assuming they had some loyalty to Apple because before they broke out into their dance they raised a giant picture of an Iphone over their heads. What made their performance memorable though was that as soon as they dropped the Iphone display, Michael Jackson’s Beat It came blaring over the speakers and they broke out into Thriller-esque Jackson moves. This was quickly followed by the song Gangnam Style and the accompanying PSY dance. The enthusiasm and obvious effort put into organizing this medley was much appreciated by all in the audience. The second group was what we can only assume was the Student Communist Group or Communist History Group because they came marching around the track with the front row carrying large framed pictures of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Marx, and Engels, with the group of students trailing behind the leaders holding a large sheet imprinted with Marx’s face high above their heads. Suffice to say they did not perform any sort of dance as they passed the center stands.

The Chinese BBQ

After the Opening Ceremonies, Nathan and I met up with one of his department heads to go to a BBQ for the teachers in his department. We drove over to Forest Park (about twenty minutes from campus) with two teachers, one of whom was actually a guest teacher at Augie from 1999-2000. We were excited to finally see a park area in Wuhan, since pretty much all we have seen with the exception of East Lake has been huge buildings and other typical big city fare. The park itself was beautiful (though we had to pay to get in) with fields of wildflowers overlooking the lake, orchards of bonsai trees, and lotus gardens. We drove further in, passing vendors selling hammocks resembling fishing nets and various spices and barbecuing paraphernalia. Finally we reached the designated BBQ spot, a forested area nestled into a curve of the lake. We wandered a bit looking for a space a to set up camp, but being a beautiful afternoon, it was quite crowded. As we walked, a woman who we finally deduced must work for the park in some capacity, approached us. She was dressed in long, flowing pants with a similarly styled tunic of the same deep purple linen. These garments (aside from the color) is the typical garb of street-cleaners  garbage collectors, and other such public workers in Wuhan. She led us to various sites to set up, but our department head was insistent that we found a spot with a good outlook over the lake. After much animated conversation, we finally we found a spot that was acceptable and the woman quickly brought over a small, rectangular grill. She threw a handful of flaming kindling into the grill and disappeared. Now, as our hosts admitted, BBQ is not an inherently Chinese tradition but rather one they have recently taken from Americans. As such, they are still trying to figure out the art of working a grill. Nevertheless, the experience was quite enjoyable. Before grilling we had to take all the food over to these long, public sinks located every 50 or so meters for washing, as you must do with any raw fruits or veggies in China. The food was quite different from the typical American BBQ—instead of hot dogs, burgers, and brats we had skewered eggplant, mushrooms, tofu, chicken, steamed buns, shrimp and cucumber all coated with sunflower oil and hot chili powder. Just when we thought there was no more food to be had, more appeared from somewhere. We munched on the kebabs as they were finished and conversed with each other about different traditions in Chinese and American culture. At the end of the afternoon there was (unbelievably) food left over and so we all took a few bags full of fresh veggies home with us.

The Kitchen Rodent

Well I have long-suspected that a rodent of some kind has been living, or at least visiting, my kitchen, but this has been confirmed this weekend. Tonight, Nathan and I were cooking a lovely dinner of eggplant with yellow bean curd, and Chinese cabbage with cucumber, white beans, and glass noodles. While cooking the eggplant, I reached next to the stove to grab the container of oil to add a bit to the steaming wok and I saw a gray ball of fur pop out from the side of the stove and quickly run back. I let our a yelp and backed away with a jump. Nathan looked at me and asked with concern, “What happened?” No sooner had he asked the question than we saw a small gray rat/mouse run out from the other side of the stove, around the perimeter of the counter, around the back edge of the sink, and disappear around the other side of the counter which was from our vantage point, hidden by the fridge. As we witnessed this, both Nathan and I had jumped back with various yells of shock and general distress toward the kitchen door, unsure if the rat/mouse was going to jump onto the floor and charge at us, or if he had some hole he was looking to jump into to escape. After a moment’s pause we slowly crept forward to turn off the burners on the stove. Hearing no more rodent noises, we approached the sink area to see if he was hiding on the counter previously blocked from our sight by the fridge. We saw nothing and so assumed he must have crawled down through the hole in the counter where the gas pipe snakes down beneath the sink to reach our hot water heater. After taking a few minutes to recover, we resumed cooking and have thankfully not seen him since. We will, however, be seeking a means to get rid of our little friend tomorrow. I wish this did not have to be so, but considering the diseases rodents are able to carry, I do not wish to share residence with such a creature. Never a dull moment in China I guess. At least he didn’t jump into any of our food as he ran across the counter!