Eat Slowly -- Homemade

I know I've been promising all along to do some food posts, but haven't gotten there yet.  You really cannot overstress the importance of food in this culture.  If you see a friend, you don't ask "how are you?"  you ask "have you eaten?"  And the food is delicious, if not the healthiest!  Instead of "enjoy your meal", they will tell you to 慢慢吃, or "eat slowly".

The variety is different than in Beijing, and many of my favorite dishes from there aren't here. More to explore!  Some of my favorites include Chinese eggplant, dumplings, tree ear mushrooms, BBQ sticks, and noodles (there are too many different kinds to count).

Well, with much ado I now bring you Eat Slowly!  This post is dedicated to some homemade foods, (since I've been slacking on breaking out my camera in restaurants ;) ).  I will bring you more photos from restaurants, street food, and produce soon! 

Homemade is difficult for me here, because of the limited cooking supplies and area.  I only have a hotplate and microwave to cook with and have never appreciated a stove and oven more!  Hot plates are awful as far as cooking goes.  I've managed to burn rice and noodles that were still boiling in water!  Not to mention the only sink in my apartment is tiny and I miss my disposal...  I could do more on my end for sure but I haven't decided it's worth the effort yet.  My neighbor, on the other hand, is a very adept cook.  They have a gas stove and a small oven, and she knows how to use it!  So the few home cooked good meals I've had here have come from her.  Here I've included the dumplings and crab meals, as well as my own boiled dumplings, mushrooms, and a creative East-meets-West lunch I made with Thomas.  

Eat slowly!

Homemade dumplings, of course!

Dumplings with tree-ear mushrooms

Dinner at my neighbor's -- crab, fish, beef with peppers, cabbage, and rice.

And just for fun, our most inspired cross-cultural meal thus far -- fried noodles, steamed buns, chicken wings, and grilled cheeses :D

No commercials?!

Something that can happen in China and not in the US -- commercial free TV.  This newspaper (Shenzhen Daily) is not known for its accuracy, specificity, or understandibility, but that seems to be the gist of the article.  In fact, since this article actually names the firm it is far ahead of most that I read in this paper.  Newspaper flaws aside, I know the Americans reading this will be jealous and I had to share:

Ads to be banned during TV dramas

2011-November-29  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

CHINA’S top broadcasting watchdog has ordered a national ban on all TV stations airing commercials during TV dramas. The new ban will take effect Jan. 1, and all TV stations must rearrange their programs to delete all commercials during TV dramas or face strict punishment, said the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) on its Web site yesterday. A microblog survey conducted by Sina.com showed the majority of people are in favor of the ban. About 85 percent of nearly 10,000 respondents say TV commercials are so annoying that they support the ban. Some advocates complain there are now so many commercials that sometimes it’s like fragmented TV dramas are inserted into a nonstop relay of advertisements, ruining the viewing experience. Still, 11 percent of respondents opposed the ban saying the market should not be subject to excessive administrative regulations. Some questioned whether local TV stations would abide by the ban because it would allegedly cost 20 billion yuan (US$3.13 billion) in lost advertising revenue. The ban is among SARFT’s latest efforts to regulate the country’s once-rampant TV commercials. Last month, SARFT ordered a ban on sex-related commercials on radio and TV. The administration also said commercial advertisements should not be aired under the guise of a news report, or in the form of a news interview. (SD-Agencies)

Happy Fire-Chicken Day

I'll preface this with the explanation, your welcome.  In Chinese the direct translation of "turkey" is "fire-chicken", so it is not uncommon, I've found, that students will shout the latter when presented with a picture of the former.  If you don't know that that's why that's happening, this can be a very confusing experience.  Now that I've figured it out I don't think I'll ever say "turkey" again.
In summary, Happy Thanksgiving!!
I've been very blessed this year and have an awful lot to be thankful for.  Among these things -- the amazing opportunity to live in China again, my hilarious and poorly suited job, my loving family, my gets-me-by income, my cute apartment, my wonderful school, taste buds, the friends I've made here, the opportunities to travel around this side of the world, my French press to make coffee, etc. etc. etc.  And of course being able to blog and hearing from so many of you that you enjoying reading it and following my antics.  I'm very appreciative of feeling relevant and having so many people share in my victories and frustrations.  (In fact, the blog view count is fast approaching 1,000.  It will happen soon!)
And of course, I'm thankful for being able to find a real Thanksgiving meal in the middle of China!  A group of us foreign teachers went to a restaurant and chowed down on turkey and the fixings.  Four days later I think I'm still full!  But maybe that's from the second dinner we enjoyed on Saturday, when all the teachers got together with homemade dishes and giant plates of turkey.  I brought cans of cranberry sauce, but had some issue with presentation -- my serving bowl is silver metal and the sauce came out of the can in the shape of the can, hellooo dog food aesthetic! There was a large variety of dishes to be enjoyed, and of course some sports and games to play afterwards.  We even had the rare treat of a frisbee!
I've discovered a similarity between our countries though -- Christmas decorations are already up in the mall! I thought it would be difficult to make malls in China more flashy and lit up than they already are, but there they go proving me wrong.  Some of the decorations are questionably misguided, like a giant purple witch hat with light up "Merry Christmas" on it, but most are reminiscent of home.  Starbucks even has holiday flavors out now (^.^)
The holiday season's begun!

Fire drills in China are AWESOME.

American school kids have found memories of fire drills because we got to line up and file out in the middle of class, to stand somewhere far away from the school and wait to be let back in.  Mostly, we were happy that we missed five or ten minutes of class every month.
Fire drills in China are apparently a little bit different.
This morning I'm working in my office when all of a sudden a loud alarm starts going off.  I am less alarmed than one might imagine because the alarm is less of a shock than the air-raid sirens that went off last month (I think that was an earthquake drill?), and more just in the mood of oh-boy-what-now.
I walk outside and into a cloud of billowing orange smoke. Yup.  And children sprinting by towards the field.  At fire drills here they literally set off smoke bombs to make a more realistic effect, and the students are encouraged to get to the field as fast as possible.  It was so much more exciting than back home.
On the field, they even did a fire demo where they repeatedly lit a can of wood on fire and let the administration try to put it out with fire extinguishers.
The timing for every student to get there little butts on the field was 24 seconds.  24 seconds for a school of about 800-1,000 students (still not sure on the count) to empty out.  I was extremely impressed, but apparently that was a whole 7 seconds slower than they had done last term, so the kids got criticized haha.
So, in summary, fire drills here are awesome.

Also, thank you mom for my camera phone, without which I wouldn't have been able to capture this surprise.

Sprinting through one of the smoke bombs

Hurrying down the stairs

Fire demo on the field

TYNKWD -- Foreign women. All of them.

This edition of Thing You Never Knew Were Dangerous:

The warning signs at the metro crack me up every time I see them, because 1. they are very melodramatic 2.  I don't know what have of them are actually warning against, and 3. the most dangerous thing in the metro seems to be foreign women.

Our favorite hysteric blonde mother

I think the warning is about watching your head, but frankly as a foreign woman I think this creepy guy is the dangerous item.  

I don't even know what's happening here.  Is it the the creepy guy in the back?  The kid with the balloons that seems to be having an asthma attack, the women chatting at the top of the escalator, or simply the naughty blonde herself?

That's right.  In a country that is 95% Han Chinese, and maybe .5% foreigners, at least half of the warning signs in the metro feature foreign women.  We just be trouble makers, I guess.

More pictures of my school

To give a better visual of my daily life, here are a couple more pics of my school.  The first is the students lined up on the field, either a marching drill or their getting speeched at, not sure which haha.  The second is the view of the court yard.  Never gonna get over how cute the kids can be.

BiRtHdAy Shenanigans

The festivities were started a week early by my school, which throws a little make-the-people-with-birthdays-this-month-sing-and-eat-cake party.  We got the customary cake smeared on our faces (traditional to do to birthday celebrators) and gift cards to a local bakery to get our own cakes (I think, though honestly the card doesn't say and I have no idea).  I managed to make a fool of myself as usual by dropping the piece of cake they handed me while everyone watched.  It was cute and luckily only lasted for an half hour.

We (me and a couple friends) celebrated the first part of my birthday week with an excursion to Hong Kong.  We consequentially learned to never try to cross the border on a Saturday morning.  From my apartment to where we were meeting for breakfast took me a good 5 hours, where it normally would only take 2.  So breakfast became lunch, but tasted just as amazing because the Flying Pan has incredible breakfast -- and bottomless coffee!! -- all day long.  After stuffing ourselves silly, we went to try to find the Hong Kong Pride parade that was going on that day.  We knew the generally area where it was supposed to be, but not the actual place.  However, usually that would be enough because Pride parades are huge and flamboyant and very hard to miss.  Not true in Hong Kong.  We saw a guy wearing a giant Queen of Hearts (from Alice in Wonderland) costume and thought, hey, that must be it let's follow him.  So we did.  And he led us straight to... a park that looked like it was having a celebration.  That must be it!  So we went in to find... a kids Mardi Gras festival?  I think?  There was face painting (only for the kiddos, we tried :(  ), dancing talent show, booths, etc.  We hung around for a couple minutes and were given giant pink leis.  Then we headed out to resume our quest.  Eventually we ran into it, but like I said Hong Kong Pride is disappointing as far as Pride goes.  There in fact was no parade, just a march.  I saw only one or two queens, and the highlight was the group of men advocating "Sex work is work".  But we marched for a while, then casually exited and went to get cocktails.
Burgers and more drinks and quests for the last few minutes of happy hours ensued, then we crashed at our friend's apartment.  In the morning Christiane and I went wondering down to the piers then grocery shopping for delicious western foods.  Several hours and wayyyy to much money spent later, we returned home.

On my actually birthday day, we went and got Cold Stone ice cream and then happened upon a bar that does salsa dancing, which turns out is less fun when you have no idea how to salsa dance and didn't bring a partner.  I called it a night pretty early with mild ambitions to return someday and be able to dance :P

This weekend we are planning a KTV excursion, so I will have updates later.

And THANK YOU everyone who sent birthday cards/wishes/skype calls.  It was so kind of everyone to keep in touch!  I truly appreciate it.

Materialism in China

Materialism is a big thing around here.  Every time a teacher has a new dress, it's the talk of the dining hall.  If you ask a student what they'd like to do in America, they'll say "buy an ipad!"  The teachers are found of specifying things like "You have a lot of pretty jewelry and I only wear this necklace, but mine is much more expensive I think."  When a coworker and I met a guy who speaks English in line at the supermarket, her first question when he said he was a lawyer was "Oh, then you are a very rich man?" And what would the students bring if they were stranded on a desert island?  "Money!"
I realize that the U.S. tends to be seen as the mother of all consumerism, but what I see here is on an entirely different level.  I will spend money, yes, but I would rather spend money on a trip somewhere rather than a Gucci handbag.  And they cost about the same.
This morning, while reading my favorite newspaper I found this gem of an article that perfectly demonstrates my point:

Shenzhen Daily, November 15, 2011
Shopping bags with luxury brands in vogue

An increasing number of white collar workers are following an emerging fashion trend in Shenzhen by carrying paper shopping bags with designer names to indicate they had bought luxury goods to show off to their co-workers.  

The bags, with designer logos such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, or Cartier, are mostly replicas purchased from online stores, yesterday's Shenzhen ecoonomic daily reported.

This new trend was spawning a booming business for paper bag makers, the paper said.

A 24-year-old woman surnamed Gao carries two such bags to work every day, a bronze-colored bag with a Gucci logo for her lunch box and a red one with the Cartier logo for daily necessities, the report said.

She told the paper she bought the shopping bags online and the Gucci bag cost her Y120 (US$19) while the Cariter bag cost Y180.

"A few women co-workers fomr the rich families often show off their luxury acessories in the office and look down on us new graduates," the woman was quoted as saying.  "I'm not a show-off person by nature, but I feel I have to adjust myself in this environment."

To save her face, she sometimes loosens her purse strings for a few small luxury accessories, but can't afford large items like handbags or clothing.

"Now I found a better way," Gao said. "Carrying such a shopping bag to work, other people often thing I bought luxury gooss and I feel good about myself."

....

That's right.  Carrying your things in paper bags with designer logos so your co-workers will think (your lunchbox?) came from LV.  This is so ridiculous I couldn't believe it.  I admit, if these women really feel like they are looked down on for not having bought their handbag from Gucci then I feel sorry for them.  But I just can't bring myself to sympathize. 

My next obvious question being:  communism?

When life won't give you lemons, decide you like iced tea instead.

Some of you may know, and the rest of you will by the end of this sentence, I love to crochet.  My Nana taught me when I was little and my family was plagued by my new obsession, all of them receiving hand-made hats (pom pom on top, of course) for that year's Christmas.  I started an afghan for my mother-- which has yet to be finished, in my defense afghans are huge -- and many other projects.  I forgot about it for several years, found my projects again with renewed fever, forgot them again, started new projects, etc.  I actually got pretty good this last year and hand-crafted a stuffed Totoro, and made my sister a "hover bee" pillow (long story).
So here in China I recently found that I was in need of a meditation-inducing hobby again.  I decided it was time to return to my hook.  There was one little problem.  Crochet apparently doesn't exist here.  Everywhere I found that sold yarn had knitting needles, but no one had hooks.  I even found a great little yarn shop not to far from my apartment, but still no hooks.  After several dead ends, it became apparent that I had a decision to make.
 I had avoided knitting forever because I had always known and done crochet, but now I found myself in the same situation I faced as a child trying to play Power Rangers with my mom and friends in the park.  All the other girls wanted to be my favorite ranger -- the pink ranger, of course -- so I strategized and became the yellow ranger.  From then on, I owned that ranger.
Sometimes life won't give you lemons, and that's when it's time to decide you'd rather have ice tea instead.

I bought needles, a beautiful colored yarn, googled a how-to site, and buckled down.

An hour later...

Halloween

What do they do for Halloween in China, you ask?
Well, not much.
If you recall, in Beijing we had a massive party and everyone was in costume and crazy.  It was a good time.  But Shenzhen is smaller, newer, and with fewer foreigners.  That said, the holiday did not go uncelebrated.
While costume supplies were short and good parties were fewer we still managed with what we could.  The bar district was crowded to capacity.  And while most costumes were hand down and low maintenance the creative level was high.
I was also put in charge of throwing a Halloween party for my school.  Sounds terrifying, right?  Well it was up until it happened.  Because in typical China style I was given no details whatsoever.  Initially my instructions were to have a Halloween party on either Thursday or Friday after school for somewhere between 25 - 1,000 kids.  Ahh!  Luckily it turned out that what they really meant was "We want a Halloween party, but we want you to do it.  So pick a day and whatever and  make it happen."  So I was able to reign it in to throwing parties for my interesting groups.  The school was very kind and bought costumes, candies, and decorations for us.
I had a "yep, I'm still in China" moment when we were shopping for the supplies.  I of course wanted the masks, vampires, skeletons, spider webs, etc.  But my colleagues vetoed because, and I quote, "no!  it's scary!"  So we ended up with lots of feathery sequined nonsense. A lot of it looked more like Carnival than Halloween. I think the concept of Halloween got lost in translation somewhere!
The parties were pretty fun.  My costume relay race failed due to either over excitement, misunderstandings or mistranslations (Me:  "Ok,  when I say 'go', run around the circle and come back.  Then give your costume to the second person.  Then they run around the circle and come back.  Then they give it to the third person.  Ok?"  Colleague's translation: "Put on the costumes and walk very slowly, don't run!  Show everyone what your costume looks like.").  But I had a word search and pictures to draw, and at the very end right before they went home to their parents, I gave them candy.  The older kids got super whiney because only the race winners got a prize for the race, they wanted more candy, they wanted more to colors, etc.  Oy.  There are definitely some spoiled children here, good thing they're cute.  This week I'm showing them The Great Pumpkin, so I hope they enjoy it :)

Christiane and me in costume.  It's supposed to be a yin yang (get it??) but we're also accepting batman villains and black swan.  We are not accepting raccoons.

Halloween party for interesting group