Happy Thanksgiving!!!

In Denver, the Thanksgiving Holiday is always engulfed in our Fall Break...meaning we have the entire week off from work and school to enjoy cooking, eating, being with friends, shopping, watching football, etc.  In Beijing...there is no such thing as Fall Break...or Thanksgiving!!  What this means is that I had to teach all day today :-(  However...I had plans to make it a special day even if I had to teach for 10 hours :-)

The day started out pretty normally with tons of last minute prep and office hours with students coming in to ask all sorts of questions.  Several also were aware it was Thanksgiving and made sure to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving (although it was clear they did not understand the holiday).  Before teaching I made plans with my office mate Rob to make the most of our Thanksgiving and do something special.  We both have to teach from 2-4 and then again from 7-9 so we decided to have Peking Duck at the restaurant on campus in celebration of Thanksgiving.  With the plan in tow I headed down to start my walk to class.

On the way out of the building I was met by three different students (two of whom I didn't even know) who came bearing roses and cards wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving (all of the students here at ICB show such great respect toward their professors...even one's they don't have!).  How could this not be a great day?  I got to my classroom and decided to start class by explaining to the students a little about Thanksgiving.  Hmm...well...o.k.

They certainly did NOT understand the part about parades...yeah...not at all.  Oh and everyone LINING UP and WAITING IN LINE for half a day EVEN ALL NIGHT to go SHOPPING...they didn't even laugh...they just couldn't comprehend.  Remember, there are really no such things as waiting lines here...so the fact that they could see pictures of people lined up for miles around stores was just beyond comprehension.  They understood the 'be thankful' part and had somewhere along the line been told a story about pioneers and Indians that vaguely resembles our Thanksgiving holiday.  But...what they really grasped onto was my description of how in the States everyone usually eats something delicious.  They could certainly get on board with that. 

After class I walked back to the office and received 4 more roses...wow!  I also think it is funny how EVERYONE knows I'm a professor here...students I've never seen...but I guess I do kind of stick out like a sore thumb.  Anyways...it was a very pleasant day so far and our dinner hadn't even begun!  I went to the office and found Rob and then went down the hall looking for others to join our festivities.  I found one of our English Faculty Christine in her office and talked her into joining as well.  Soon Christine, Rob and I were sitting down to a huge feast of Peking Duck, Absolutely wonderful sow-thistle salad (seriously delicious), spicy tofu, spinach greens, and these other seriously delicious treats called cereal dumplings (although they are not dumplings and do not contain cereal...you will just have to come visit me in China to find out their true deliciousness!).  We had a wonderful feast and great conversation and it was truly wonderful to be with such kind and wonderful people on Thanksgiving.

Dinner wrapped up and Rob and I both had to teach at 7:00 so we were soon on our way.  I had one last mission to accomplish before class.  Patrick (unfortunately) introduced me to the most wonderful, delicious, incredible cream-puff stand.  I decided as a Thanksgiving treat I would buy my students cream puffs.  I go up to the man and order 10 RMB worth of cream puffs.  Not a lot of money...but a WHOLE LOT OF CREAM PUFFS!!!  I'm half running to class because I think I might be running a little late when I start hearing 'PROFFFFFESSSSSSOR'.  It is one of my students from a different class.  She is running to catch up with me and shaking her finger at me and scolding.  What did I do?  What is wrong?  I finally begin to understand her.  'YOU CANNOT EAT ALL THOSE CREAM PUFFS!'  'Professor...no!!  You will get so sick...they are bad for you!'  Oh I get it now.  I try so hard not to laugh.  She is so concerned and scolding me like a mother would do her 2 year old child who is getting into the cookie jar.  I try my best to explain to her they are for all of my students...not myself...that I am bringing them a Thanksgiving treat.  She half-way believes me and lets me go on my way.

As I'm running into Building 3 I get to the elevator just as two of my students are climbing in.  They both gasp in unison at my bag of Cream Puffs!  'NO!!'.  'Too much cream!'  'Professor...you will get so fat!!!  You cannot eat all those!  No!  Do not buy so many...they are bad for you...professor you cannot eat all those!'  I'm just about dying of laughter and this makes them more concerned.  We are to the classroom soon enough and everyone else is soon tuned in to the large bag of cream puffs...the look of awe is too much.  I yell out Happy Thanksgiving and it takes them awhile to understand and then everyone gets it and they begin to enjoy their delicious treat.  Several mentioned that we should have Thanksgiving more than once a year :-)

All in all, there was no turkey, no family, no soup and games Friday, no Black Friday, no It's A Wondeful Life, no week off from school, and no football...but it was a pretty incredible Thanksgiving.

Zaijian,
Gary

Needing an 'American' Day

Today I woke up bound and determined to get ahead on my grading before the weekend officially starts and to enjoy some American pleasures that I have resisted for so long here in the 'Jing'.  I can only be talking about one thing...going to Starbucks to grade!

Yes, there are Starbucks in China...lots of them...and there is even one decently close to where I live.  The only problem is that it is extremely expensive (o.k. it is probably only a little bit more expensive then in the states...but it seems like it is so much more expensive then the states because relative to China prices...Starbucks is ridiculous!).  So I have held out...until today :-)

And it was...glorious!  Oh the coffee was delicious...I ordered something like an Almond Cherry Latte...mmm (for about 37 RMB or something like that...which is a little more than 6).  With coffee pumping through my veins I was able to get all my weekend grading done and catch up on my lesson planning for the week.  Hmm...maybe I should come to Starbucks more often :-0

Zaijian,
Gary

A Dinner Party (Finally!)

So if you know me at all...you know I love to cook...and have people over.  The lack of a kitchen and entertaining space was KILLING me in the guesthouse where I previously lived so I figured now that I've been in the new apartment for 2 weeks it is by far time I've had some people over.  The only real question...what am I going to make???

I went to the farmers market(ish) bizarre this morning and came home with some great spoils:  tons of green chiles, red onions, potatoes, carrots, fresh garlic, lettuce, cilantro, tomatoes, pumpkin, chicken bouillon (of all things) and salt and pepper (all for about...oh $4).  I brought them home and frantically cleaned my apartment (to have official guests over) and began planning a menu.  I knew I wanted to make a nice salad since those are hard to make in the guesthouse and aren't common to be ordered at the restaurants around.  I also decided on some roasted pumpkin with a little olive oil and honey, a spicy meatball soup, breaded chicken fingers (since I had chicken to use up), and roasted asparagus.

Giving the Asian sign for excitement!

Cooking in China has been a little difficult so far just since I haven't fully decided to 'stock' my kitchen yet.  That means that I really only have a wok and a very small sauce pan to cook in (although I do have a rice cooker and a blender as well...wohoo).  Beijing also doesn't have ovens...but Rob lent me a little toaster oven so that will have to make do.  Everything actually came together quite nicely with the only real challenge being that the soup I made was a smaller pot then I usually make for 4 people.  It did turn out DELICIOUS though!  I originally wasn't sure what type of soup it was going to be.  I was thinking potato (ish).  But I kept adding to it and then eventually decided to make some meatballs to go with it and...boom...it was was a winning combination.  At 7:30 on the dot (even though we planned on eating at 7:00...lol) Chris, Enoch and Brenda showed up at the door hungry and demanding food!  So we all sat down to eat :-)

My first dinner guests :-)

I soon realized the other slight challenge I have in this new apartment...dishes and utensils!  Oops...I only really have enough for 3 ish...but we made do!

Chris giving Brenda the Googely eye.

Chris enjoyed the soup and Brenda enjoyed the pumpkin!!

Afterward Chris went home because he wasn't feeling well (it wasn't from the food...I swear!!!) from a cold he caught the night before.  Then Brenda, Enoch and myself sat down to watch Freakanomics with a few pots of tea and some leftover ginger taffy from PingYao...mmm!  What a great night.

That's all for now,
Zaijian,
Gary

Why I Won't Be Eating Turkey on Thanksgiving

So today I came across my first turkey since coming to China...

And from a different angle...

Now does anybody question me for giving up my hopes of a turkey dinner here for Thanksgiving?  Yeah...I didn't think so.  In fact, the only question I think we really should be asking is, "what exactly is wrong with these turkeys?"  Any guesses?

Zaijian,
Learn Chinese:  Neo Rho Mian-Beef Noodle Soup (The pinyin is Gary spelling of course).
Gary

A Trip to Zhong Guan Cun-Think The Electronics Mall of America

Today Chris, Bobby (English teaching Irish guy with an accent so thick I only understand about every 3rd word he says) and I ventured out to Zhong Guan Cun.  This is a 'legendary' portion of Beijing which I had heard much about.  It is the electronics mecca of China and has everything Apple/Best Buy/Amazon could ever even imagine to sell (and all their clones :-)

Chris really wanted to go but I told him I had no idea where it was...so I was not confident in going out just the two of us.  So we knocked on Bobby's door and luckily he was up for a little outing (and he also speaks quite a bit of Chinese...which is useful).  We headed to a cab and Bobby simply says 'Zhong Guan Cun'...well...I guess that was easy, well as long as you know how to pronounce it correctly that is.  As we pull out I begin to wonder if I've actually been to this place.  Eventually the cab is taking a route which I am very familiar with and he ends by pulling in front of a subway station which I am very familiar with.  The place that I go on Sunday mornings is near here and the taxi drivers will never take me all the way there...instead they always insist I want to go to this place.  I never had any idea what it was or why the taxi drivers always dropped me off here instead of at chrch.  But now I get it...this place is a huge attraction so they just always assume the 'tourist' will be going here.

At any rate we get out and are faced with two huge Mall type buildings.  We head in and we are met with floor after floor after floor of every electronic gadget/gizmo you could ever imagine.  One floor of headphones...one for computer parts...one for computers...one for tablets...wow!  This place is a techies dream come true!  Chris is looking for computer batteries and I'm sort of/kind of looking for an external hard drive.  Enoch sold me a piece of crap external hard drive for $50...which is cheap...but it only works half the time.  So I'm sort of in the market.  I take my time to practice some Chinese and even some bartering...I finally have started using the terminology for 'how much is it' and this seems like a good place to just get practice with that.  I end up bartering a few but nothing is really in my price range so I decide not to buy.  Chris barters FOREVER in English...but eventually changes his mind from 3 computer batteries for his laptop to a fancy charger gizmo that he can use to charge his zune and computer on the plane.  He is looking at getting a really heavy duty one and tries it out on his zune when...kablooy...it destroys the Zune...well that marked the end of our trip to Zhong Guan Cun.

Chris and Bobby in the background...Can you spot them? 

We leave the electronics superstores with nothing...but I have an idea...'Bobby...is Carrfour near here?'  Bobby responds, "elkj dkhe jeidh.  ejkldjfi right here."  And he takes off.  I take this as a good sign that it is close and he is leading us to it.  Carrfour is a foreigner grocery outlet with many coveted items that you cannot find in any of the markets/stores around us.  I've heard that it may even have tortillas...and real cheese!  Two items I've been craving like nobody's business!  We head in and the place is PACKED!  But we are determined.  I head out and quickly find tortillas (yes!!!!!!!!!), all sorts of real cheese, butter (score!!), a nice bottle of wine (woohoo!), and a loaf of zucchini bread (my favorite!).  I was unsuccessful in finding coconut oil...but that's o.k. I've chalked that up as an impossible find in Beijing already.  We check out (after waiting FOREVER in line...surprisingly since this is a foreigner grocery store...they actually do wait in lines here :-) and head home after the long day.

The drive home was rather interesting because we came upon a small traffic jam (not unusual for the 'Jing') but unusual because a man is outside his car YELLING at another car.  The man then reaches out and opens the car door of this car and continues yelling.  He then reaches in and grabs the man and pulls him out!  They are both screaming at each other...the man gets back in his car...and the guy reaches in and pulls him out again!  No punches were thrown but many words were exchanged...our taxi pulled on through and I'm not quite sure what came of that showdown...but it was certainly something I'd never seen before.

That night I made up a batch of pseudo taco meat and had 'tacos'!  Oh they were so delicious!  The next morning I had breakfast burritos and then tacos for lunch and supper and alas...the tortillas were gone.  What a welcome change to my vegetable and rice diet.  Carrfour...I will be back :-)

Zaijian,
(Learn chinese:  shen ma-what?  Very good one to know)
Gary

Catching Up A Bit

So it has been a very long time since I last blogged (although I'm going to make it look like it was just about a week by changing the date of this post and therefore bribing myself into trying to catch up and fill in the blogs I've been missing the last couple of months).  The problem is the internet here in the PRC.  Every time I try to post a blog I am kicked off multiple times and it just became too time consuming...but with a renewed push from friends to continue writing about my adventures I have developed a new method for blogging which will hopefully help to remedy this situation.

So here goes nothing...my attempt to catch up on the last 2.5 months of life in the PRC and my vacation back home :-)

(Above:  A picture of me with Chris and Enoch enjoying duck)

Zaijian,
Gary

Merry Christmas...Already!!

Those of you that know me are aware of the fact that I LOVE Christmas time and everything associated with it.  I'm not really quite sure as to why...but I always have.  The music, the food, the decorations, Christmas movies...especially Christmas movies.  So that is why I was especially pleased to hear Jingle Bells when I walked into Merry Mart today and saw this...

Oh the Christmas wonderland has already started here in China!! 

My students also asked me to play Santa Clause in the school Christmas Play.  That really made my day when that happened.  They said...you are so jolly...you must be Santa!  Unfortunately I will be home at that point in time so won't be able to :-(  Oh well...I think having a copy of It's A Wonderful Life and Elf will help.

Zaijian,
Gary