taste of home

Lately I've been feeling sad about being in China during this season. I've been feeling sad about knowing that I won't be able to spend time with my family on Christmas, of course, but I've also been a little bit down because I'm missing out on the specific kind of energy that permeates American life around this time of year. I'm not just talking about the frenetic "MUST BUY THINGS NOW" energy that overwhelms you any time you walk into a mall or department store. That is certainly part of the Christmas season, but not really my favorite part.

What I'm missing is something else--a certain kind of energy I'm having a hard time describing. It's a kind of crackling in the air that I associate with absolute possibility. School is out. Offices are closed. Finally, you can do all those things you've been putting off doing, or you can take the time to lounge around in pajama pants all day, should you so desire. You finally have the chance to connect with people you haven't seen in awhile. There is the possibility that you may find yourself stranded inside your home for a day or two thanks to snowstorms, but it is okay, because you don't have the heavy weight of work and responibility hanging over your head, if only for a couple of days. It is freedom, and excitement, and hope for a crisp, clean blanket of snow over everything, at least for a little while.

I'm still not getting at it exactly, but whatever it is, I still miss it. I've been feeling lately like this energy simply doesn't exist in China in this season.

That is, until last night. Last night we were invited to the home of some friends to sing Christmas carols and drink hot beverages. After noshing and drinking and singing and chatting for a few hours, we ventured back out into the night. When we walked out of thier apartment building into the crisp night air, it was snowing! The first snow this season in Tianjin! There was something about the snow blanketing the city, muffling the sounds of cars and people, covering all the dirty grayness that surrounds us every day with a clean fresh coat, that made me feel a little charge of that energy that I associate with this season back home.

Today, everything is covered in snow, and there is a cold northern wind blowing across the city. I have several appointments that I should be attending to today, but I just made a couple phone calls and cancelled them all. Today, I'm going to spend time doing the things I want to do but don't usually have time for. I'm going to sit around in my pajama pants all day, because I so desire. I'm going to be free of work and study, if only for this afternoon. It may not be home, but it is a little taste of that energy I've been longing for.

have I mentioned we eat dumplings here?

On Friday afternoon, our class teachers threw a little Christmas party for us. I guess I should first note that Christmas as a religious holiday isn't really practiced by most Chinese people. However, the commercial concept of Christmas is being more and more widely accepted. There are Christmas trees in front of many of the major shopping centers here right now, a few Christmas decorations can be bought at places like Carrefour, Isetan (a Japanese department store) and E-Mart (a Korean supermarket). The idea of gift-giving is pretty appealing to many Chinese people.

Also, our teachers are pretty sensitive to their students missing out on celebrating holidays because we are in China, so they made a special effort to recognize Christmas for us. Our Christmas party's main events included:

1.) all of us going to the kitchen in one of the cafeterias and learning to make jiaozi (dumplings), a process that eventually and predictably devolved into a flour fight,

2.) eating all of the ill-formed dumplings we just made, and,

3.) singing karaoke for hours in a really cold room in our classroom building.

A very Chinese Christmas was had by all.

Here are some pictures. Somehow I didn't get any karaoke shots, but I might get some from others, and then post them soon.

"Chef" Miguel prepares to demonstrate his skills.

Rolling out the dough

One of the cooks shows us how it's really done.

Stuffing the dumplings. These were filled with minced pork and cabbage.


Everybody's pitching in.

The whole day was all a lot of fun, and I discovered that many of my classmates are great singers. But I have to admit: I'm really starting to get tired of dumplings. I think it's time to take a break, at least for a little while. It's going to be hard to do around here--they're pretty much a staple of the Northern Chinese diet. It's going to be even harder to break the news to Ben.

perhaps the strangest thing

I've been wriggling around in my metaphorical seat for weeks, waiting for Ben to post the pictures of our trip to Mr. Pizza to try out potato pizza, which came very highly recommended by his students. Finally, finally he has posted! Check out his entry here.

I have to say that this was perhaps the strangest eating experience I've had in Tianjin. Parts of the pizza were normal: crust, sauce, cheese, ham, onions. And I've seen enough pizza in China not to be too surprised by potatoes or corn on pizza. But mayonnaise? Corn flakes? Pumpkin in the crust? Truly, it must be seen to be believed.

When I told my sister about it, she said, "If I'd ordered pizza, and they brought me that, I would cry. Literally, cry tears." There was no crying involved for us, but I do have to admit, it was a bit baffling.

sleep tight!

I have this photograph from the first time I was in China for any period of time. It was 2000, and I had spent the summer in Dalian with a group of students, most of them from K-State. At the time the photo was taken, we were in a hotel in Beijing, where we had spent a couple of days before leaving the country, and we were getting ready to check out as a group.

(Darn it all, I wish I had a digital version of the picture, but it was taken in 2000, before I owned a digital camera.)

Anyway, there was this guy, sound asleep in one of the chairs in the hotel lobby. When I say "sound asleep," I mean it. There were about 40 of us students milling around, laughing, talking loudly, even jostling the furniture, but he didn't budge, or even twitch an eyelid. We were all impressed by his ability to keep on sleeping, despite all of our noise-making. So, two of the jokesters of the group--Jay and Jeremy--posed right next to this sleeping guy, their faces just inches away from his, while I took a picture. He never knew it happened.

Public sleeping is an artform in China. I am amazed at Chinese people's ability to sleep in places where I can't even concentrate enough to read a book. I've seen people sleeping in markets, on buckets, in wheelbarrows next to construction sites. Everywhere. While messing around online today, I found a site that captures the unique ability the Chinese people have to sleep when- and where-ever the urge may strike: www.sleepingchinese.com

It is incredible some of the places this guy has photographed Chinese people sleeping. If only I were so relaxed . . . .

Tianjin strikes again

Well, Tianjin has brought another man down. Or maybe it has just brought the same man (me) down . . . again. I have spent most of the weekend at home with another cold. I really don't seem to have any defenses against Chinese germs and viruses, despite my best efforts to drink lots of water, eat lots of vitamin-C rich fruit, get plenty of rest, and take my multi-vitamin every day (or at least most days).

The bad news is that I really needed to spend this weekend studying diligently, because on Tuesday I have my third-quarter test. With this cold, I haven't felt much up to that task. I pretended to study for a couple of hours last night, while actually watching episodes of House, M.D. Ben bought four seasons of the show on DVD at the main market on Nankai campus a few weeks ago, and it has provided hours of mindless, American entertainment. Needless to say, lacksidasically scrawling characters while listening to House's sarcastic retorts is not the ideal approach to studying.

The good news is that, while I've been under the weather, I have had plenty of time to "do research" for our upcoming travels. Both Ben and I have about two months off for winter holiday, almost all of January, and all of February. We plan to spend some time with our friend Jen K., who will be here for a couple weeks in January, and then we want to spend two or three weeks traveling with one of my classmates, seeing (some of) the sights of China. We know we want to go to Shanghai and Xi'an, home of the terra-cotta warriors. I really want to go to Guilin to see some of the famous mountainous landscape, although I've heard it can be kind of a tourist trap. We would also love to go to Hong Kong. We just need to figure out where else we want to go, and how long we can afford to travel, both in terms of time, and in terms of money. (It will be vacation time, but Ben has some serious PhD work he needs to attend to during the holiday.) I envision this trip being a fairly open-ended one--we might have a general idea of where we want to go, but not necessarily a set-in-stone plan for how long we may stay in each place. All I know is I want to go south--it's getting far too cold in Tianjin to want to spend an entire winter here!

In the meantime, it's time for me to buckle down with my kleenexes and textbooks (and no House in the background) and get ready for this test. The next few weeks are going to be pretty intense study-wise, between this upcoming test on Tuesday, and my final exams coming up in just a month. I'm just hoping Tianjin won't throw any more monster germs my way.

some cultural experiences

I learned a very important lesson about living in Tianjin today: riding a bike in winter can sometimes really suck. Today was the first time the temperatures have stayed below freezing all day, and the wind was blowing really hard most of the day, too. Riding my bike home, against the wind most of the way, wsa one of the least enjoyable experiences I have had since I've been here. Unfortunately, the temperatures are supposed to stay right around freezing for the next few days. Yay for me.

Another lesson: today, I went with my friend Juana to one of the libraries on campus to study for the big test we have coming up next Tuesday. In the process I learned something very interesting about the way study rooms work here. Apparently, students can put their stuff--books, pencil cases, etc.--on a table and reserve their own study spot all day. It's really crazy. We went into this study room to study, and there were about three spots in the entire big room that were not occupied by people's belongings. However, there were many spots that were not actually occupied by a person: not when we arrived, and not when I left about an hour and a half later. Juana said that every time she has been there it has been exactly like that. If a student did that in America, their stuff would either be stolen, or turned in to the front desk, and their seat would probably be taken. On the other hand, there probably wouldn't be quite so many students studying that hard at the library in the middle of the day in the U.S., unless it were the middle of finals week.

something that isn't food

I realized as I was writing my last post that 5 out of the last 6 posts on this blog have been food-related. I guess that tells you a little something about what I think is important. Or maybe it tells you what I associate with the holidays. Or maybe it just tells you that, right now, food is my primary window into this culture. That's probably the nicest way of putting it.

Anyway, I wanted to write about something that isn't food. And this is the perfect time to do it, since we have a very recent new addition to our family:

My new bike!

We were eating dinner with some of my classmates on Monday night, when Juana mentioned that there were some people selling new bikes at very low prices just down the street. No, not stolen bikes; just new, relatively low-quality bikes. But hey, what do I need a high-quality bike for, anyway? And at $25, who cares if it's quality or not. Actually, having a low-quality bike will probably help ensure that it will be some time before it is "lost." (Of course, it will probably also ensure that I build up some massive leg muscles--this thing doesn't pedal so easy.)

Ben and I engaged in a little christening ceremony after we bought the bike. First, we took some steel wool and tried to scuff up the paint as much as possible. We especially scuffed up around the bike's logo. Ben even took a little time to scuff up my seat. Then we took handfuls of dirt, and rubbed them in all the places where my hands and behind won't be touching. The goal was to try to make the bike look at least a little bit well-used, less shiny and desirable, to try to deter would-be thieves from taking it. I tried to capture our artificial "weathering," but our efforts didn't show up so well on film. Anyway, it seems to have worked so far--two days later, and my bike isn't lost . . . yet . . . .