Sunday, April 10, 2011
A year and a half ago, Wenchao and I arrived in China with two suitcases and a backpack each. This week, it took a one-ton truck to haul all our belongings for the long drive to our new city. On packing day I came down with a feverish flu, but friends were kind enough to come help us pack and get us on the road. We left behind our comfortable oceanside apartment in a quaint but very "China" neighborhood, rented from the best landlord we can ever hope to have. We are also leaving behind clean air, mostly good weather year round, as well as wonderful friends. But as the saying goes, a rolling stone gathers no moss. So off we went…
Just before our move, we went out and bought stuff we thought we might have a hard time finding quickly in our new city. We bought mayonnaise in a bag, peanut butter, cinnamon, California raisins, Kahlua, exercise videos, etc. Wenchao got a serious "full circuit" workout video, whereas I bought "Sweatin' to the Oldies". My serious workout will be climbing the stairs to our new apartment everyday. We also both got our hair cut. Wenchao's haircut turned out well, but my cut was quite puzzling. I said I wanted it layered and long enough to pull in to a ponytail for summer. What I got was hair so thinned out my ponytail looks more like a rattail. I just don't get it. Why would they do that to anyone's hair? [Update… After a few days, I did "get" my new Chinese haircut. It's SUPPOSED to look thick at the scalp and thin out to wisps at the ends. OK, I can live with it now. ]
On Friday, moving day arrived. Wenchao was excited about the long road trip and being able to see the countryside en route. I was just grateful my fever had let up. Our hired driver's name was Xiao Fang, age 24. Our seatbelts didn't work, but Xiao Fang said he would drive slowly. He can't read, so a map was not of much help to him. He owns his own business including the truck, so he must get by somehow. Using our map we were able to direct him to our destination.
I carried Big Fish and Little Fish in a plastic tub on my lap for the entire duration of the trip. The faux-Tupperware's lid did not keep the water from splashing out on me with every bump along the way. Other than that, the long trip was uneventful. Which is a good thing. The most interesting sites were the truckload of pigs and the truckload of ducks. There's just something about truckloads of farm animals that just amuses us. (They're probably going to the slaughterhouse, but that's beside the point!)
After many hours on the road, we finally arrived. Our new apartment is on the sixth and seventh floors... with no elevator! We hired a couple of guys on the spot to carry our things up. On my first trip upstairs, I had on a heavy backpack and also carried the plastic container with my fish in it. I missed seeing a one-inch step down. The weight on my back threw me off balance and I watched my tub of fish fall in slow-mo as my head hit into a wall and the washcloth I had ended up hanging on somebody's motorcycle kickstand. Wenchao and Xiao Fang rescued the fish, which were flapping around on the cement. We survived though (see photo taken tonight in our livingroom).
On our first day in our new place, Wenchao estimates that we climbed 40 flights of stairs! We are happy with our new place. It's very quiet at night here. Everything is very convenient. There is a huge open air market a couple blocks away that has every kind of fresh meat, produce, tofu, noodles, etc., that we would want. Across the street, every evening there are women doing what looks like line dancing to Chinese music (see photo). Right on our block, there are lots of street food vendors out at night. We already have two favorite neighborhood restaurants. We are going to be OK here in our new city.
Day three: There was a little lizard in our dining room today. We have an agreement: I will kill any cockroaches and Wenchao will deal with all other critters. So Wenchao got a tupperware to chase the lizard into while I stood guard with a broom to keep him from escaping to other parts of the house. In the frenzy Wenchao sort of chopped him with the lid and his tail came off, so there were now TWO squiggly things on the floor. Being inexperienced at lizard catching, I kept yelling, "There's two of 'em!" But I didn't know the little one was just his tail. She finally got it into the tupperware, at least the main body. I said, "Throw him over the balcony!" She said no, she would take him downstairs. That's six floors! Anyway, while heading to the front door she finally saw the efficiency of dumping him over the balcony. Then she returned and scooped up his jumping tail and dumped it overboard, too. It was a rotten job, but SOMEbody had to do it!
Photos:
#1: Moving truck is loaded, while Xiao Fang looks on.
#2: With Big Fish & Little Fish in the cab, and a sackful of baozi so we don't have to stop to eat.
#3: Truckload of pigs looking very content. The pork roast you're eating today may have recently been foaming at the mouth.
#4: Truckload of ducks. They were taking turns pooping on each other. What a mess! Makes me grateful I'm not a duck.
#5: In our new neighborhood, women are line-dancing to music. Well, OK, maybe they don't call it line-dancing here.
#6: A storefront on our block: Freshly killed rooster hanging up while his not-yet-killed buddy looks on. "George..? George..? Talk to me! Was it painful?? Tell me!!"
#7: Eery looking street scene was actually our apartment complex tonight at 8 pm.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
"Wenchao, ni xihuan he pijiu ma?" ("Wenchao, do you like to drink beer?")
"Xihuan. Weishenme ni wen wo?" ("Yes. Why do you ask?")
"Wo kan le," ("I can see that") said the young Chinese girl as she patted Wenchao's belly. Can you say…pijiu duzi (beer belly)? That's the risk of wearing babydoll tops, Wenchao!
* * * *
While conversing with a taxi cab driver, Wenchao put on her glasses. "Uhhh…bu hao kan!" said the driver. ("Uhhh…looks ugly!") "Zai shuo yibian." ("Can you say that again?") asked Wenchao, who thought for sure she had heard wrong. "Bu hao kan. Ni dai yanjing buhao kan. Meiyou yanjing hao kan." ("Looks ugly. You look ugly when you wear glasses; without the glasses you look pretty.) Nice save, mister. At the end of our taxi ride, Wenchao asked for a discount in trade for the insults. He laughed. I think that was a "no".
* * * *
Wenchao was climbing a mountain with a bunch of Chinese people. Some people from the countryside rode by on bicycles and one of them mumbled, "Waiguoren." ("Foreigner.") Wenchao asked, "Ni zenme zhidao a?" ("How did you know?") As he pinched the bridge of his nose, he said, "Bizi hen da!" ("You have a big nose!")
* * * * *
Yes, Wenchao is quite the anomaly here in China. From the moment we leave our house in the morning until we step into our doorway at night, she gets stared at continuously. We will see a young guy, for example, who has the funkiest hairdo, wearing really girly crop pants, and carrying his girlfriend's pink purse on his arm. Yet, he stares at Wenchao like SHE is the weird one. It's hilarious! Or there will be an old guy with his hair dyed black with about two inches of white roots screaming for a touchup…yet he will just about fall over as he cranes his head to stare at Wenchao like SHE is the oddity. Then there are the groups of young guys who not only stare at Wenchao the whole time they are walking past us, but they will all make a U-turn and come back our way for another look. This kind of thing happens pretty much everyday here. I've got to hand it to Wenchao for taking it all in stride. I don't get stared at since I blend in here, and I don't receive the insults she does. But if I did, I can only hope I could react as well.
OK, it's been two weeks without a blog post and this is the best I could quickly come up with. At least we had a good laugh recalling these China moments.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Recently I had been going to various aquarium stores to look at goldfish and whatnot. The other day around noon I was walking with two Chinese ladies whom I didn't know well. I spotted a whole window display of about a dozen aquariums with amazing looking fish in them. I said, "Yu shangdian!" ("Fish store!") The ladies apparently thought I wanted to go in, so they went in and I followed. I quickly realized it was a restaurant, but I didn't know how to say in Chinese, "Oh, never mind, I thought this was an aquarium store." It was a nice restaurant, so I was a bit embarrassed that I had accidentally steered them in there.
Immediately, they started selecting live sea critters for our lunch. I kept thinking, "Pick the calamari", but I thought it best to let them pick. We ended up with these small white fish about four inches long that looked like fat worms except with the face of a fish. Yes, fish do have faces, as that and the little tail fins were the only reasons to call them "fish". They were cooked with scrambled eggs, green onions and red chili peppers. I had to make myself eat fish that looked like fat worms, but they were actually delicious like mild white fish.
The next dish was a shellfish, a small long mollusk. The shell is long and skinny and most of the critters had slipped out of their shells. I had a little trouble keeping a polite face as I ate those. They wouldn't have been so bad except for two fleshy hornlike fangs on their heads. They reminded me of a miniaturized version of the creature in the movie Tremors. They tasted like oysters, which are OK, but mentally it was a challenge to eat and enjoy them. I did eat about four of them though. The last dish was greens cooked with garlic, a safe dish. The lunch overall was good.
Then the two ladies suddenly got up and went over to the clerk to fight over who was going to pay for the lunch. I was still at the table searching all through my purse for my wallet. By the time I found it, the lunch had been paid for, and I had no clue how much it cost. Then it was time to go. Awkward.
Later that night, Wenchao and I went to eat at an Italian restaurant, which had a Chinese flair. Wenchao enjoyed her ham and pineapple pizza. However, she was most excited over the drink bar, which cost 6 kuai (under a dollar USD). She could choose from lattes, cappuccinos, milk teas, sodas, flavored milks, etc. She tried about four different drinks. What a deal!
I ordered calamari, seaweed salad, and garlic bread a la carte, which all cost the same as the pizza, 20 kuai ($3.00 USD). The menu photo showed two large calamari. It's a good thing I had asked how many I would receive, as it's actually only one. I don't know why they showed two in the menu photo, but there is no such thing as false advertisement here. Anyway, I got my calamari and my meal was delicious.
Last night some people took us to dinner at a famous local restaurant. The food was quite good. The most unusual dish was the fried chicken feet pads. There must have been at least 50-60 chicken feet pads in that dish. That is from a lot of chickens' legs! These were not chicken feet, mind you. It's just the pad, equivalent to the heel of your hand. There is a little bit of firm flesh and then you are supposed to chew up the hard gristle. It was cooked with hot chili peppers and peanuts…quite tasty, especially with a glass of beer.
We also were served another local specialty of tiny oysters cooked into one large patty with some flour and green onion. I tasted it and liked it. Wenchao asked how it is and I said, "It's good but you won't like it." Well, to my surprise she tried it, liked it and ate a whole bunch. Other dishes included small whole fish, sizzling cabbage and hot peppers, a hot pot dish with calamari, shrimp, cauliflower, sea fungus, hot pepper pods, etc., in a broth. It was an interesting and tasty meal.
I will say, finally, that there IS some good food in this city. We just needed the locals to show us where to eat.
GOLDFISH QUESTIONS FROM READERS:
Q: Why do you have so little water in your fish bowl?
A: It was because I initially didn't feel comfortable using tap water without the chlorine neutralizing drops we would use in the States. In the end, I decided to go ahead. So every couple of days or so, I change the water with plain tap water and wonder if the fish will live. So far, so good. We shall see.
Q: Why did you decide to get fish? Why not a cat?
A: They are readily available here and it's an easy pet. For me, watching them is like watching TV. I like vegetating in front of the fish tank. They're not very smart, but they have a pretty orange color. Cats are too much trouble and too smelly, and Wenchao is allergic. I wish we could have a dog, but we aren't home much.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Warning: Potty posts. Feel free to skip this.
These two incidents occurred within the last couple days.
The first incident occurred when Wenchao was riding on a public bus. An older woman was with a little boy about two years of age, who was wearing split pants. The child needed to pee. So the grandma went to the wastebasket on the bus and retrieved an empty soda bottle someone had discarded. Through the boy's split pants, she helped him to get himself "arranged" so he could pee into the bottle. Then she whistled, which is the cue or trigger for the kid to start peeing. (Think Pavlov.) She did scold the boy for not using the restroom before they left home, as this was "bu limao" (not polite).
Today we had friends coming to our apartment. I went down to the bus stop to meet them and show them the way to our place. At our apartment building, the elevator doors opened just in time for us to see a woman holding her toddler as she peed right onto the floor of the elevator. They left behind a puddle that we had to maneuver around. Talk about "bu limao"! One of our guests was a dignified older lady, who said to us, "Xiaoxin." ("Careful.") Buhao yisi. (How embarrassing.)
OK, now do you wish you'd skipped reading this??
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Meet the newest members of our household, Big Fish and Little Fish.
Today I bought a big glass vase from a lady who runs a plant store in our building. I asked her where I could buy some fish. She gave me two of her three goldfish. She wanted to give me all three, but they were so big. She also gave me some plants that were in her tank and fish food. I guess that meant maybe I paid too much for the glass vase (66 kuai, $9.80 USD). She half-filled the vase with water from a hose. I wondered how long these fishies were going to survive. But then, Big Fish is almost five inches long, so he's lived a good while already. China probably doesn't chlorinate their water.
At home, every time we got close to the fish tank, Big Fish and Little Fish went into a full-blown panic. Wenchao didn't want to expend any mental effort naming them yet, as she thought they seemed too stressed out to survive more than a few days. So Big Fish and Little Fish they are. They are calming down already, so I think they will live a good while. At least I hope so…Big Fish might be too big to flush down the toilet.
By the way, today the weather was just perfect…sunny, blue skies, temp in the low 70s, slight breezes, no humidity. I thought it was a good day to wear shorts and sandals, but the Chinese locals were wearing sweaters and boots. Several people have recently told me that I am in good health because I don't get cold easily. I think it's due to other reasons. Then today two Chinese girls looked at my hands and told me that since I have half moons on all my fingernails by the cuticles, it is a sign of good health. They had the half moons only on their thumbnails. Hmmm…OK.
