Tuesday evening, I went to a hotpot restaurant. It was very different from the one I'd frequented in Beijing. The one in Beijing was a biggish, fancy place, with Western toilets and hand soap, with a picture-menu, and with a hundred or more choices of soups, meats, veggies, tofus, and noodles.
This one, on the other hand, was a little 12-by-15-foot room into which about 20 could be seated - 25 with a squeeze. Its back wall was mirrored, to make it look bigger. It did not cook on hotplates but on little, individual gas stoves set into the tables - water was poured into the bottom, to keep it cool, and then the gas was lit with a lighter and kept on with a little dial on the side.
But it was tasty. The menu was short - one single page of blue paper, thin as airmail paper, upon which you marked your choices of food. There were about 7-10 choices of meat and veggies, 5 each of noodles and tofu, a few mushrooms, a few starches. My friend and I ordered, and, within a few minutes, were served. We ate, sharing a liter of Harbin beer.
The food was good, and apparently the place was popular. It was talkative inside, and around the middle of our meal a table of partiers stood and escorted a very drunk member of their group outside; he had to be puppeted, since he couldn't stand. My friend looked at the table and said "baijiu", and then I saw it too: a small, clear bottle with the familiar red label and the familiar red box. No wonder he was drunk: every country has its super-strong, paint-stripping, one-sip-and-you're-floored alcohol, and China's is baijiu. This bottle was empty.
But the food was good, so we kept eating. Filled up, finished our veg and our meat and much of our soup. We were just finishing up when a girl came up and leaned on our table.
Leaned on our table with a cup full of beer. Uh-oh.
"Essacuse me," she said to me, and then switched to Mandarin, "you're an English teacher? and you know English and you teach English?"
"Uh, yeah..."
Back to English: "Oh my goooddddd! Woulda you teachme English! You speak -" Chinese again, "you speak Chinese? Do you speak Chinese?" English again, "you teache me English! Okay?"
I stared at her.
She switched back to Chinese. "You are a teacher, you teach English, I heard your English is very good, you speak Chinese? You speak Chinese, I teach you Chinese, you teach me English, okay? I want to learn English." The effort of standing became too much and she pushed my coat aside and slid into the booth next to me. English: "you teache me English, okay?"
I didn't want to harsh her buzz, so I said, "well, my schedule's a bit full-"
Chinese: "But you're an English teacher right?" English: "oh my god! Oh my GOD you teache English right?" Chinese: "you speak Chinese? So I can teach you English, I mean I you teach me English because you're an English teacher," and she leaned close to me, five inches from my face, and, thankfully, put her full beer down on the table.
I tried my schedule excuse again. She would have none of it. I said I spoke Chinese, yes. She was delighted. I said maybe, we'll see, I needed to check - and "OOOHHH THANK YOU! OH MY GOOOODDDDD THANK YOU" and she took my hand and shook it and then kissed it and became quite incoherent and entered my cell phone number on her phone and got my name wrong five times and thanked me again and kissed my cheek and got up and drank her entire beer down in one gulp and wove her way back to her own table.
"We're leaving," I told my friend.
"Quickly," she agreed. "I think the guy behind you's getting up."
Friday, March 4, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
arrival in Beijing
So! I am in Beijing.
That feels so weird to say. it feels so weird to think about it: I'm back here. I may not recognize the neighborhood, but I'm in Beijing. The city air proves it.
I feel like such a noob, though: like I've regressed in my China-knowledge. I remember, sure, how bad the air was. But I marveled, during last night's drive, how no, that wasn't fog. (It looks, outside, like the haze of a bar an hour after the party's over. You can't get rid of all the smoke and it just kind of fills up the air lightly. But you can smell it.) I felt the need to comment on the driving - the driving! As though I were a first-time tourist, newly shocked by the "whatever works" style of driving they have here. I was !!! when our driver, at an intersection under two concrete bridges, opened his door - the car still running - and hawked a loogie out onto the street. Then proceeded to drink some tea and nearly run into two trucks, but he didn't run into them, right? so that was okay, right?
...right?
The scary part is, I know his driving was moderate. He was, for Beijing, an okay driver. He used his turn signal, if not his seat belt.
But man, Beijing. I am all over about being here. I'm surprised, I'm pleased, I'm amazed that I'm back, I am unsurprised that despite construction, it hasn't changed.
The plane trips were good. There were huge piles of setbacks, hang-ups, surprises, unforeseen delays, unexpected et ceteras. There is nothing to complain about, which rather shocks my Eastern European sensibilities.
I think that, did I feel the need to condense my 14-hour trip from DC to Seoul with Korean Airlines into 2 main points, they would be these:
1) Food.
2) Mountains.
I was seriously delighted by Korean Air's airplane food. They had bibimbap! Bibimbap! I couldn't take a picture, as my camera was way under my luggage under my feet and my tray on top and my knitting on my lap and untangling this would have been rather like untangling this, but:
Bibimbap on an airplane!
They served it so: there was a bowl with ground meat, sliced cukes, sprouts, pickles, and shroomies in it, and there was a little sealed packet of heated-up rice . You put the rice into the bowl, poured on the sachet of oil, squeezed on the tiny tube of Korean hot sauce, and then mixed everything all up with the spoon and ate it. Much like on-the-ground bibimbap, just with reversed proceedure and fewer ingrediants.
and SO GOOD.
The mountains, on the other hand? Well, I'll let the mountains speak for themselves.
The lights came on briefly around 8 hours into the flight. People woke up, pulled their windows open, and marveled: we were over the Kamkatcha Peninsula, and everywhere under us was just white-snow mountains and frozen water. The ice extended a few miles off-shore, and there were few clouds, so you could see perfectly.
(Dork that I am, I immediately thought of Caradhras.)
In short, though, those mountains were amazing. That geography was amazing. I zipped from one emergency-slide-window to the other, taking pictures. Only when the stewardesses shut the curtains for a Secret Important Stewardess Meeting did I stop and reluctantly sit back down.
Other than mountains and food, the 14-hour trip was pretty uneventful. Read, watched movies, slept. Knat about two shaftments of a scarf I'm making to go with my Big Harbin Coat. (God, that wool! 30% silk, 70% merino, softer than anything and with gorgeous colors! ♥!) Spoke sometimes to a friendly Philipino couple next to me. Watched the rest of the pasengers.
(On Korean Air, it seems that any time that is not turbulent and seatbelt-worthy is automatically Airplane Cocktail Party Time. That is, whenever we were not strictly required to be sitting and belted in, people were just standing about, among their seats, in the aisles, or in the bathroom-areas, just talking to each other. Like the plane was a great big mingle-party. Interesting for me to see, since on European flights people stay seated to talk, and don't get social with various people around the plane, just for the chance to talk. Interesting!)
We had 50-mph headwinds, and so despite having left on time, we got into Seoul a little late - two hours. Transit was fine: I'd had some sort of difficulty with my ticket back in DC, but the young man at Transfer Counter B just took my explanation note and passport, printed me up a ticket, and smiled me away. I got back to my gate just in time to board, and after that? After that it was a 2-hour flight with me sitting next to a particularly talkative vascular surgeon. Nice guy who told me all about Chinese schooling, what to expect from students, what they like doing, how they view Westerners. An absolute gold mine for a new teacher like me, and also a good person to talk two hours to.
(I got reacquainted with a tendency I noticed in China: people like to talk to Westerners. They are curious and interested, and when they find out you speak their language they become more curious and interested still. Sure, not everyone's exactly the best conversationalist, but people want to know about you, and how you see things. I know I'll be seeing a lot of that attitude again here.)
Note also that the vascular surgeon gave me a whole bunch of useful Chinese phrases, one set being "委婉" (wei wan - a complimentary word for talking indirectly), "话中有话" (hua zhong you hua, lit "speech in the middle of speech" - that is, nuanced speech) and one more I can't remember, which was the perjorative of nuanced speech. He talked a lot about how Chinese tend to be 委婉 - indirect speech - and how it Westerners are more zhishuan - (直拴? (maybe a different "shuan")), which he said meant "direct" and he noted was seen as a good thing. I have heard the opposite viewpoint expressed in the West (how "inscrutable" them Orientals are, etc), and so I found this very interesting. I shall make Chinese friends and try to understand the matter further.
So, this is an enormous entry. I can wrap up soon.
I'm in Beijing. I still haven't gotten over that. I'm still completely amazed. I mean, Beijing! Beijing.
I want to visit some places I remember. Maybe see my old school, look at Xidan, eat at an old favorite jiaozi place, maybe go by 798, the art district. We'll see!
So, here I am. Jet lagged but with six hours of sleep, in a friend's Beijing apartment, with a day of reacquaintance ahead of me.
Oh man, China. :)
That feels so weird to say. it feels so weird to think about it: I'm back here. I may not recognize the neighborhood, but I'm in Beijing. The city air proves it.
I feel like such a noob, though: like I've regressed in my China-knowledge. I remember, sure, how bad the air was. But I marveled, during last night's drive, how no, that wasn't fog. (It looks, outside, like the haze of a bar an hour after the party's over. You can't get rid of all the smoke and it just kind of fills up the air lightly. But you can smell it.) I felt the need to comment on the driving - the driving! As though I were a first-time tourist, newly shocked by the "whatever works" style of driving they have here. I was !!! when our driver, at an intersection under two concrete bridges, opened his door - the car still running - and hawked a loogie out onto the street. Then proceeded to drink some tea and nearly run into two trucks, but he didn't run into them, right? so that was okay, right?
...right?
The scary part is, I know his driving was moderate. He was, for Beijing, an okay driver. He used his turn signal, if not his seat belt.
But man, Beijing. I am all over about being here. I'm surprised, I'm pleased, I'm amazed that I'm back, I am unsurprised that despite construction, it hasn't changed.
The plane trips were good. There were huge piles of setbacks, hang-ups, surprises, unforeseen delays, unexpected et ceteras. There is nothing to complain about, which rather shocks my Eastern European sensibilities.
I think that, did I feel the need to condense my 14-hour trip from DC to Seoul with Korean Airlines into 2 main points, they would be these:
1) Food.
2) Mountains.
I was seriously delighted by Korean Air's airplane food. They had bibimbap! Bibimbap! I couldn't take a picture, as my camera was way under my luggage under my feet and my tray on top and my knitting on my lap and untangling this would have been rather like untangling this, but:
Bibimbap on an airplane!
They served it so: there was a bowl with ground meat, sliced cukes, sprouts, pickles, and shroomies in it, and there was a little sealed packet of heated-up rice . You put the rice into the bowl, poured on the sachet of oil, squeezed on the tiny tube of Korean hot sauce, and then mixed everything all up with the spoon and ate it. Much like on-the-ground bibimbap, just with reversed proceedure and fewer ingrediants.
and SO GOOD.
The mountains, on the other hand? Well, I'll let the mountains speak for themselves.
The lights came on briefly around 8 hours into the flight. People woke up, pulled their windows open, and marveled: we were over the Kamkatcha Peninsula, and everywhere under us was just white-snow mountains and frozen water. The ice extended a few miles off-shore, and there were few clouds, so you could see perfectly.
(Dork that I am, I immediately thought of Caradhras.)
In short, though, those mountains were amazing. That geography was amazing. I zipped from one emergency-slide-window to the other, taking pictures. Only when the stewardesses shut the curtains for a Secret Important Stewardess Meeting did I stop and reluctantly sit back down.
Other than mountains and food, the 14-hour trip was pretty uneventful. Read, watched movies, slept. Knat about two shaftments of a scarf I'm making to go with my Big Harbin Coat. (God, that wool! 30% silk, 70% merino, softer than anything and with gorgeous colors! ♥!) Spoke sometimes to a friendly Philipino couple next to me. Watched the rest of the pasengers.
(On Korean Air, it seems that any time that is not turbulent and seatbelt-worthy is automatically Airplane Cocktail Party Time. That is, whenever we were not strictly required to be sitting and belted in, people were just standing about, among their seats, in the aisles, or in the bathroom-areas, just talking to each other. Like the plane was a great big mingle-party. Interesting for me to see, since on European flights people stay seated to talk, and don't get social with various people around the plane, just for the chance to talk. Interesting!)
We had 50-mph headwinds, and so despite having left on time, we got into Seoul a little late - two hours. Transit was fine: I'd had some sort of difficulty with my ticket back in DC, but the young man at Transfer Counter B just took my explanation note and passport, printed me up a ticket, and smiled me away. I got back to my gate just in time to board, and after that? After that it was a 2-hour flight with me sitting next to a particularly talkative vascular surgeon. Nice guy who told me all about Chinese schooling, what to expect from students, what they like doing, how they view Westerners. An absolute gold mine for a new teacher like me, and also a good person to talk two hours to.
(I got reacquainted with a tendency I noticed in China: people like to talk to Westerners. They are curious and interested, and when they find out you speak their language they become more curious and interested still. Sure, not everyone's exactly the best conversationalist, but people want to know about you, and how you see things. I know I'll be seeing a lot of that attitude again here.)
Note also that the vascular surgeon gave me a whole bunch of useful Chinese phrases, one set being "委婉" (wei wan - a complimentary word for talking indirectly), "话中有话" (hua zhong you hua, lit "speech in the middle of speech" - that is, nuanced speech) and one more I can't remember, which was the perjorative of nuanced speech. He talked a lot about how Chinese tend to be 委婉 - indirect speech - and how it Westerners are more zhishuan - (直拴? (maybe a different "shuan")), which he said meant "direct" and he noted was seen as a good thing. I have heard the opposite viewpoint expressed in the West (how "inscrutable" them Orientals are, etc), and so I found this very interesting. I shall make Chinese friends and try to understand the matter further.
So, this is an enormous entry. I can wrap up soon.
I'm in Beijing. I still haven't gotten over that. I'm still completely amazed. I mean, Beijing! Beijing.
I want to visit some places I remember. Maybe see my old school, look at Xidan, eat at an old favorite jiaozi place, maybe go by 798, the art district. We'll see!
So, here I am. Jet lagged but with six hours of sleep, in a friend's Beijing apartment, with a day of reacquaintance ahead of me.
Oh man, China. :)
Sunday, February 13, 2011
this is my Hello
Hello, and welcome to The Ekscursionist!
Those of you who know my name will know why I have picked this particular moniker. Those of you who don't know my name might miss out a bit, but only a very little bit, and I can make up for your disappointment by offering you a pile of kittens. Disappointment assuaged? Very good, then let's move on.
This is a blog about me going to China and teaching there. Specifically, going to Harbin Institute of Technology and teaching English to its students. Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) is a fairly well-known tech school, part of the C9 League. Harbin the city is the 10th-largest city in China, clocking in (censusing in?) at ~10 million people. I will have company.
Many places internationally are characterized by their weather. London: fog, Washington state: rain, South Africa: vuvuzelas, etc. Harbin, thus, is also known for its temperature, which is, as any meteorologist worth their salt can tell you, Cold. It sponsers an annual Snow and Ice Festival (from Jan. 5 to whenever the sculptures melt), and is nicknamed the Ice City. (Harbin's other claims to fame are its beer, its annual furniture festival, and the fact that it is north of Vladivostok (everybody I talk to seems to know where Vladivostok is, and so it has become my official meter of how far north Harbin is. ("It's up in Manchuria." "Oh?" "North of North Korea." "Um." "North of Vladivostok." "Oh, yeah!")).)
So! the purpose of this lovely, interesting, well-designed, and particularly humble blog is simple: talk about how it is to live and teach in Harbin. I've been to China before and have lived in Beijing; been learning putonghua for going on seven years, so I should be fine with getting around. I'm excited in advance to see how Harbin will be. (No, really, you have no idea. I test my Big Harbin Coat every chance I get. I am knitting preparatory scarves. I have been dreaming in Chinese.)
I think that's pretty much all the information you need. I'll be making posts, oh, once a week? Perhaps more often if I can manage, but I'm not sure of my schedule just yet, and figure once-a-week to be a good number to aim for. There will also be pictures! Everybody likes pictures. I like pictures, anyway.
One last note, for the curious: The banner picture is not, in fact, a picture of anywhere in Harbin. It is actually one I took in Wu Zhen, a canalled, historical city in which a lot of the old crafts and skills have been preserved. Indigo-dying, baijiu-making, etc. It fit the winter theme nicely, though. It will be switched out once I take a suitably-cold picture of Harbin.
So there you have it! Welcome to The Ekscursionist, and I hope you enjoy my posts!
Those of you who know my name will know why I have picked this particular moniker. Those of you who don't know my name might miss out a bit, but only a very little bit, and I can make up for your disappointment by offering you a pile of kittens. Disappointment assuaged? Very good, then let's move on.
This is a blog about me going to China and teaching there. Specifically, going to Harbin Institute of Technology and teaching English to its students. Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) is a fairly well-known tech school, part of the C9 League. Harbin the city is the 10th-largest city in China, clocking in (censusing in?) at ~10 million people. I will have company.
Many places internationally are characterized by their weather. London: fog, Washington state: rain, South Africa: vuvuzelas, etc. Harbin, thus, is also known for its temperature, which is, as any meteorologist worth their salt can tell you, Cold. It sponsers an annual Snow and Ice Festival (from Jan. 5 to whenever the sculptures melt), and is nicknamed the Ice City. (Harbin's other claims to fame are its beer, its annual furniture festival, and the fact that it is north of Vladivostok (everybody I talk to seems to know where Vladivostok is, and so it has become my official meter of how far north Harbin is. ("It's up in Manchuria." "Oh?" "North of North Korea." "Um." "North of Vladivostok." "Oh, yeah!")).)
So! the purpose of this lovely, interesting, well-designed, and particularly humble blog is simple: talk about how it is to live and teach in Harbin. I've been to China before and have lived in Beijing; been learning putonghua for going on seven years, so I should be fine with getting around. I'm excited in advance to see how Harbin will be. (No, really, you have no idea. I test my Big Harbin Coat every chance I get. I am knitting preparatory scarves. I have been dreaming in Chinese.)
I think that's pretty much all the information you need. I'll be making posts, oh, once a week? Perhaps more often if I can manage, but I'm not sure of my schedule just yet, and figure once-a-week to be a good number to aim for. There will also be pictures! Everybody likes pictures. I like pictures, anyway.
One last note, for the curious: The banner picture is not, in fact, a picture of anywhere in Harbin. It is actually one I took in Wu Zhen, a canalled, historical city in which a lot of the old crafts and skills have been preserved. Indigo-dying, baijiu-making, etc. It fit the winter theme nicely, though. It will be switched out once I take a suitably-cold picture of Harbin.
So there you have it! Welcome to The Ekscursionist, and I hope you enjoy my posts!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Testing Testing 1 2 3
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute
irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Let's see if this works.
irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Let's see if this works.
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