Cooking Adventures

My friend Tracey and I frequently cook -- teaching each other recipes from our homelands. Here she is (with her assistant Stone) teaching me how to cook qiezi & yu (eggplant with dried fish):



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And here we have huanggua chao jidan (Cucumber & Eggs):

"PAGE LOAD ERROR -- NETWORK TIMEOUT"

"PAGE LOAD ERROR -- NETWORK TIMEOUT"
Usually these words are associated with a bad internet connection or momentary glitch...but when you're in China, you know better.
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Twice in the past 2 weeks YouTube has been blocked. The first was for videos that depicted a Ti bet an being beaten by Chinese military. The second time...well, we're not quite sure...perhaps there still working on the situation.
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On March 30th the "State Administration of Radio, Film, and TV" released a notice of the new requirements for internet videos and audio. Click on this post's title for the article.
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Here are a few fun excerpts:

There shall be no "excessively frightening images, text, background music, or sound effects". Terrified by sound affects? Serious?! I mean, I've jumped when BAM! something happens in a movie, but I'm not sure that I've ever heard a...uh, "excessively frightening sound effect". Sometimes I just don't know. That's when I just shake my head and sigh -- "China".

Also, in association with religious audio-visual, "hurting the feelings of the public" is prohibited. I guess Christianity doesn't qualify under these regulations. We know that Christ was offensive -- people murdered Him because they didn't like the message He brought. But Christ's goal wasn't to spread a popular message. It was to spread the Truth.
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We'll see what happens.
At least China will be achieving its dream of a "harmonious society". (I hate that phrase.)

HAIKU!

This past week I had my classes write haikus -- syllables are challenging for them. I was curious to introduce this poetry form since it's a Japanese style of poetry and most Chinese (99.9%) hate the Japanese, but it went quite well. Here are a few:
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Tunnel through the time
See a candle in the wind
Direct us go ahead
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After a sudden meet
You will change my life, I thought
Can you leave your heart
. . .
A beautiful night
Girl dancing and boy singing
They are fall in love
. . .
I have many dreams
If I were a bird in sky
I can fly freely
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Food is delicious
Meat, milk, and vegetable
I love food so much
. . .
It's an animal
We think it's lazy and fat
We all call them pigs
. . .
The girl is charmful
Long hair, slim and wonderful
You must be careful
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Bird can fly anywhere
Blue bird I really want to be
Freedom is my dream
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Chinese girl is good
Piano, chess writing, and drawing
Let's marry with them
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Friendship is glorious
Linked by ties of fate, unselfish
Let's treasure it now
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What is a Haiku?
It is "H-A-I-K-U"
I don't really know
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China I love you
China do you love me too?
My love is hot to you
. . .
We play Warcraft games
Mountain King and Super Fort
God like if choose them

The Pressure of Chinese Education

I live in an apartment building with 7 other teachers and our fu wu yuan (housekeeper/cleaning lady/landlady/etc.) and her family. The family consists of the mom, dad, a 14 year old girl, and a newly adopted, yippy puppy named duo duo who goes back and forth between nuzzling up against us and biting our ankles. The daughter is a good student and her English is improving very quickly. I'm always surprised at her schedule: she leaves before I do each morning (prior to 7:30am) and returns home nearly 14 1/2 hours later at 10pm. This is her normal routine Monday through Friday, and on Saturday she has an English tutor come for a few hours before she starts her homework.
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And this is the normal schedule of any student. High school, a time that seems (relatively) very carefree in American education, is the most stressful time of a Chinese student. They have no social life and are constantly studying for the dreaded gao kao -- the exam that determines whether a student goes to college or not. When a student passes the gao kao, universities then select the student, and the student may choose which one of those universities he or she would like to go to.
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Once at college, everything changes. For the first time, students have the freedom and time to participate in social activities and they can relax a bit in their studies. It's interesting to watch my students, because, at times, them seem like high schoolers. But then I realize that they are just being introduced to what we call a "social life".
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To further illustrate this point, I wanted to share something one of my students wrote:
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"Nobody can deny the function of education. Education is the only way of saving a nation. But if it is carried out in a blind and narrow way, it’s negative effect can be destructive.
“What goal should edu achieve? Should it be the onlytool of getting a good job, living a decent life, or entering upper class? Should it’s objective focus on skills of earning a living?
“In my opinion, it’s definitely not! So what should be the ultimate aim of education? I think it’s first goal should be carrying forward and cultivating the free spirit, teaching next generation how to think and seek happiness of life, how to know about the world. China does emphasize the value of education, so parents push their children to study desperately at school. In China, middle school students have to stay in the classroom from 7am (even more early, say, 5am) to 7 pm (even later, say, 9:30pm). It is the truth. Students bury their heads into teaching materials – books and exercises. No activities. What’s worse is a large size of class, students’ voice couldn’t be heard in most of classes. Teachers control the class and is the only speaker all the time. Gradually, students care nothing, because nobody cares them. Even if they yell, who cares?
"Please free our students from being controlled both physically and mentally! Our nation needs real national spirit and strength. Let education be the hope of China. We need to think and step forward.”
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This week...

Food poisoning sucks!
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Back in a few days.

In the Studio

The vacation recap will continue with the coming blogs, but now a story from this week:
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For the past few months I've had a side job at the recording studio on campus. I come in a few times a week and read for English textbooks -- simple sentences, dialogues, monologues, speeches, stories...whatever they have. Usually I read with another American. Last semester it was Kyle from Alaska; this semester it's Kyle from Minnesota. We usually have a pretty good time -- there's always some good chinglish to keep us laughing.
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W: Andy, I will have an important exam tomorrow. Can you give me some advice? M: Sure. Are you feeling a bit nervous?
W: Yes, I feel stressed.
M: Perhaps you should try this white t-shirt. And white can make you feel calm.
W: OK. What do you think of my blue jeans?
M: It's a good idea to wear blue jeans because blue and white are a good match.
W: Anything else?
M: You'd better take your yellow stationary. You know, yellow represents wisdom.
W: Yes. That's right. Thanks.
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But this week is different. This week Kyle and I work separately and there are no simple sentences, no dialogues, no monologues, no speeches, and no stories. This week we are reading from the dictionary. Just word after word -- each one 3 times over: slow, slower, normal. I've never had to takes so many yawning breaks before. And ya know how people joke about things being "as boring as reading the dictionary"... Well, I disagree. Nothing is that boring.
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And it's even worse at 9:30 a.m. About every 20 minutes we "save file" and that gives me a chance to wake up. During one of the breaks I found a soccer ball in the studio and started kicking it around. I was like a puppy that had been penned up for the whole day. The guy who overseas the recording and makes sure we say the right thing came in and asked me if I could be "a little more excited". You're joking, right? We both laughed. But he was being serious. And so now I have to read the words as if I'm seeing them for the first time.
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"ABILITY"! Oh, and "SCHEDULE"! And "CHARACTER"! What a marvelous thing that one could comprise mere letters and conjure up such entertaining sounds!
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This is my life for 2 hours a day. But it's amazing how we still manage to have a good time. The yawning and my Seattle accent keep us on our toes. Sometimes I am requested to say words in a British accent (ex. schedule) because that is the phonetic spelling given in this dictionary, and we all get a kick out of this. So it's back to the studio tomorrow -- on to the C's, D's, and E's.

Jail Cells for Cheap: Guangzhou Pt. 3

The guys left Guangzhou for Hainan; I still had 2 days until my flight to Dhaka. Their last day consisted of meals with friends and finding a wang ba (internet cafe) to print off flight information. China is littered with wang ba's so finding one wouldn't be too difficult -- we use them all the time when we're traveling or our internet goes out. They're just big open rooms with rows and rows of PCs and comfy chairs -- mostly filled with gamers and college students who are so glued to the monitor that a natural disaster couldn't stir them. It's the quitest place you'll find in China.
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Later we had lunch with 3 chinese friends -- 2 girls and a guy, Frank. The meal was phenemonenal! There was a live seafood market below the restaurant where we picked out the fish, shrimp, and scallops we wanted to eat. The staff would fish them out of their tanks and take them straight to the kitchen where the chef would prepare them as we requested.

After the meal, we asked our friends where we could find the nearest net bar...the girls' response was: "Wang ba? maybe it's not safe." ("maybe" always means "definitely") Drew, Keegan, and I just looked at each other. We turned to Frank. "Yeah, there's one by my hotel."
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There turned out to be open rooms at his hotel. "It's not nice, but it's really cheap." That sounded fine to me. Little did I know that I was about to be charged 40 yuan a night ($5.70) to sleep in a converted jail cell. The door was metal and looked like something out of the 1940's. When you turned the key in the lock a little square door opened and your hand shot through. To actually unlock the door you had to lift up the metal bar on the inside of the door and slide it across. The bars on the windows were the added touch. Welcome to jail.
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My bathroom was furnished with a water heater and a bucket. I was a little leary of the water heater since I could distinguish the flames heating the water. It will not explode. It will not explode. It will not explode. There was also the shower head which was conveniently positioned over the squatter (also my sink drain). It was never exactly appetizing to spit my toothpaste into the squatter -- always felt like I needed to brush them again.
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The last full day I was in Guangzhou I was treated to a tour of the city by a few of my friends: Ken, Clark, and Moon. We saw the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park and the famous Beijing Lu (Beijing Street) where you could see the layers of buried roads that had been used during the ancient dynasties.

They also showed my around their campus -- the Guangzhou School of Business. "This is the only field...this is the only gym...this is the only library...this is the only park...everything here is 'only'." It looked quite big to me, but, then again, Guangzhou has a "university city" which is a city comprised of 10 or so university campuses, complete with restaurants and malls and post offices and anything anyone would ever need.
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I went back to my jail cell that night and flipped through the ear-piercing, terrible acting Chinese TV shows but I didn't even notice them, because in less than 12 hours I would on a plane out of this country -- the first time since I arrived in August.