Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you!
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2008
1
19
21
Trip End
Jan 25, 2009
Shaowu,
China
Sunday, September 14, 2008
So, how have I spent my holiday weekend? Well, each night there's been a good ole Chinese feast. Some generous soul, usually the parents of students from wealthier families have treated their kids teachers to a giant meal. The food's great, and a bit unique. They have some surprisingly European dishes - pot roasts, what basically amounts to black pudding, duck and chicken frame soup
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. That good hearty sort of German, Polish, and English food. When I'm eating out on my own, I've established myself as a regular at this great little noode place a few minutes walk away. There's a little back alley intersection where four little walking streets meet and on each corner corner is a very similar noodle place. This one place has some very firendly, curious kids from my school hanging out at it, an extremely nice owner, pretty good dumplings for south China, and the best fried noodles. Some people are just better businessmen. O and people are always playing some pretty intense Mah Jong right outside. I just wished more people played Chinese chess around here.A quick note on formal dinners in China. Somehow, Chinese civilization has managed to make drinking at formal occassions and drinking games basically the same thing. Strangely reminiscent of such games as "Drink the Beer" and "The Greatest Game in the World." Everyone uses the itty bitty 3.5 oz. glasses. Basically, anytime someone wants to take a gulp they propose a toast with someone else. And China being the capitol of face, politeness, and honor, it would be extremely impolite not to partake. So "ru xiang sui su" (their version of "when in Rome"). These dinners are a raucous affair, with much spicy food, yelling, backslapping (in a more metaphysical sense) and heavy drinking. If anyone at the table feels like getting drunk and can hold their licquor, everyone elseis going down with them
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. This is kind of a circular tradition: drinking and holding your drink is important because business in China is conducted over such dinners, so a good tolerance is a respectable trait. It makes sense in that circular sense. it's important to hold your licquor and drink heavily to show your uprightness because responsible activities are done while drinking. Basically I walk home a bit tipsy after each of these affairs, but I'm glad college has prepared me well for my time in China. My counterpart, Basem, is not much of a drinker at all and can't stand beer. So he usually ends up pretty stumbly near end of the night. He thinks it's hell, I think it's kind of fun. Maybe it's the age difference.So on Friday night, after one of such dinners, one of my assistants showed me a pool hall and set me up with a friend of hers to play pool. Well, I haven't played pool in about 3-4 months, and the drinks definitely didn't help because he ended up clobbering me the first few games and won the last 4 by a ball or two. I guess that's something else I can practice while I'm here.
Yesterday morning I did some biking in the opposite direction from the usual, very pretty, I followed the road that runs along the river. Unfortunately I have no pictures of this
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. Today I went out and took advantage of the Mid-Autumn Festival sales and picked up some new stuff. Mostly to be given as gifts, but I got a shirt or two as myself. I'm sending some gifts to friends in the Gambia, so I got the buying of those taken care of today. Should send them out some time this week. Funny thing happened though - Mohammed asked me to pick him up some "Nike gear." I told him that there's no Nike here, but I could get him one of the Chinese famous brands that make pretty nice stuff. He's really into shoes, so I picked out some Li Ning sneakers I thought he'd like. I told them size 11, but when I got home I found they were European size 41 (US size 8). Again the 4, 10 thing. 11 is said the same as 4-1. Those were not gonna cut it for Mo's feet, so I took them back and explained the mistake, expecting a simple fix. Well, I was promptly told with a laugh that "Oh, Chinese feet are not that big." So after about 15 minutes of digging in the back, the shopgirl comes back with the only pair of shoes bigger than a size 10 in the store - big black basketball shoes in size 12. I figure Mo doesn't really have any of these, not that they'd exactly be his favorite, but if I didn't want to waste 30 bucks, I didn't really have much ofa choice. Hatab and Baboucarr were easier - cheap Chinese-style shirt and a cheap mp3 player for hatab and 2 nice shirts for Babou. I just hope they fit Baboucarr, he's got a few pounds on the average Chinese guy. I did realize today that I will not be getting my largerand taller friends and relatives shirts as gifts from Shaowu
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. There's always a ton of stuff that fits me, but I just realized that's because I'm the upper end (XXL) of how big most Chinese people get. Like there's always 50 XX's in American stores but no Mediums when you find something you like.This coming week should be good. Got another meal with parents tomorrow for lunch, and prolly for dinner too. Plus, now they've added on 2 hours to my schedule since the other teacher they were expecting didn't end up coming. O well, the more the merrier I guess. It will give me more time to mingle I guess. It just might be problem with watching art classes. O well, I'll make it clear that that's an important part of why I'm here if it's an issue. Plus, I'll theoretically be starting Chinese class by the end of the week, so I can't really argue with them. Planning on another bike ride tomorrow morning, so goodnight, good morning, go slowly, whatever.
Bryan
