the waiguoren's perspective: food

Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Friday, February 13, 2009

It's cold!

I'm finally lining my jeans with long underwear, and it's still pretty chilly. But at least it's not raining! It was quite a beautiful morning outside my window today:

Compare to a week ago, when it was still iced over:

It's so cheerful now! But much too cold to use the Pitzer wifi from the office, since you need to go outside for it. I skyped last night nevertheless, at 1am, and in the middle of talking to Connor - I was shivering so badly I couldn't type - two Beida cops came by and tried to get me to tell them why I was using my computer outside and not in my room. I didn't remember how to say "wireless" so I think they left almost as confused as they'd started, but they did get that I didn't have internet in my room and that I was somehow using my program office's internet. Outside. At 1am.

We've also started dressing up in mittens and layers for tai ji, because our badass master isn't going to cut us any slack in the case of freezing weather.

Sniped while he was demonstrating "Right Heel Kick"

Last night was Luisa's birthday! We had a delicious fruity cake in the office at noon, and went out to an awesome Sichuan restaurant for dinner.

Kearney applied her Chinese-class learning and told us not to open the 1 kuai chopsticks, and we asked for the free chopsticks instead.

Baijiu shots, in honor of Luisa's 21st.

The food was full of fiery red peppers, but delicious! That's lotus root above, and fish below. It was so fresh that Abi made friends with it before they dispatched it.

For Valentine's, they had ridiculous numbers of rose-vendors, extremely pushy rose-vendors. They followed us until Luisa caved and bought a rose for 5 kuai.

The sketchy bar we ended up at after bar-hopping and bargaining for ages. Yasi bargained like a champ, but they were determined to rip us off, and did. Assholes.

Whatever. It was fun anyway :) And happy birthday, Luisa! I guess it was one type of a 21st experience.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

First rain

Before today, Beijing didn't have any precipitation for four months. Isn't that ridiculous? A snow-free winter... no rain... a freezing drought. Anyway, today decided to begin making up for it.

The day dawned exceptionally dreary, with heavy low clouds, so I slept in until eight and then read about Qi and Essence still in bed, chatting with my roommate, until nine. (Yes, I know, 8am is SLEEPING IN now. My roommate is impressed with how early of a riser I am. Perhaps I've turned over a new leaf? I kind of like the fact that 7am actually exists in my world.)

When I ventured outside it felt like England - chilly, damp, heavily overcast, depressing. But then I got a jian bing, and my day got better, at least for the 10 or so minutes it took to consume the warm, squishy thingy-in-a-bag.

First, it's a pancake. Then the lady cracks an egg over it and attacks it with the crepe-turner, and flips the pancake over onto the griddle. Then she brushes three different sauces over it, the combination of which tastes vaguely like spicy seaweed, and adds cilantro, green onions, and a crispy deep-fried sheet that softens from the pancake's warm heat and becomes pleasantly chewy.

Do not be confused by the sign, it's for something else; the jian bing actually only costs 3 kuai.

The Chinese class that followed was intense - at least the second hour - because both our program director and one of the other Chinese professors sat in on our class! Because our classroom is tiny - meant for three students and the professor - the addition of two extra, important people felt uncomfortable, especially since they were taking notes.

The program director took a look at my notebook, informed me that I had lots of mistakes and should speak to the tutor, and then made fun of my (translated) sentences! Not of my translation, but of the CONTENT, which is from the freaking text.
So that was that.

In the afternoon we had a two-hour class about Chinese history through the lens of Peking University. It was actually fascinating - the lecturer was a Beida professor that helped start the International Studies and Journalism departments, and he was brilliant - and I learned a lot about the early 1900s, which I'd never really studied.
I didn't realize that the Paris treaty after WWI tried to screw China by giving the German holdings to Japan... or that the May 4 protests were about that, and so very strongly anti-Japanese... or that they were successful!
I guess the later fiasco makes a lot more sense in light of the May 4 protest, since they were successful the first time and had hopes of success the second time. But of course, the government was so much more paranoid and suppressive by then...

We also talked a lot about Confucius, and about the Chinese mode of learning through imitation (of classics) versus the Western mode of learning through invention and creativity. It's so true... and it's so woven into the culture, down to the writing system and art and music and everything.

Since it was raining, our Tai Ji class was indoors. Today I realized I'd be dead scared of our professor if I met him in a dark alley. He could be a total badass thug in a kung-fu movie; he has the face, the physique, the skillz dat killz... but he's very nice.
I was right in front of the windows of our building, and I saw a lot of people stop (in the rain) and point and laugh at us whiteys trying to Grasp the Sparrow's Tail...

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Uh-rebels in China

On the little train in the Beijing Airport, the voice announcing the stops kept stating: "T-103. Uh-rebels, transfers, and baggage claim please get off here."
It took me a second to realize that she was saying "arrivals"; three iterations later, the Australians next to me got the joke too and made a big fuss about it.

Since then, it's been three days, and it feels like at least two weeks. I've met our little 9-person program, with its assorted local affiliates - teachers, roommates, the program director, and (I think) a tutor. I've seen Mao laid out in his waxy glory, stolen wifi in the hallway, and dipped an oily dough-twist in burned soy milk. The fireworks have never stopped (literally! Except they sound like car-bombs now). Class starts tomorrow, but here's a pictorial recap of my time so far.