Kong Pao Chicken and Beef Kebab Dinner

Before my brief hiatus I mentioned that I wanted to show you guys some of the food I eat during my day. After all, food in China is one of the most diverse and unique cuisines of any country.

Here is a what I had for dinner tonight, Kong Pao Chicken and Beef kebabs. In Chinese the characters for Kong Pao chicken is 宫保鸡丁 pronounced "kung pao ji ding". For beef kebabs the Chinese character is 牛肉串, the 牛肉 is beef and 串 means literally stick and it actually looks like a stick or kebab. It is pronounced "niu rou chuan" or if your in Beijing "chuar". Most Beijingers have an “er" accent on many of their words and so if you say "chuan" no one will understand you but if you say "chuar" you will be perfectly understood. Here are the pictures.

Getting Back to Blogging

Hey everyone, sorry for not blogging in almost a month, but for those who don't know the last month, since the flood in my apartment, has been really difficult. I was either unable to live at home because of the flood or locked out from my landlord because he wasn't happy that I was planning to leave at the end of January. In the end, I just didn't feel like writing anything because anything I would have written would have been negative things about China and it would not represent my true feelings of the place.

So, a long story short, to recap what has happened the last month; I have moved out of my old apartment and into a new one. I really like the new one for a few reasons; one its cheaper and from what I found out the average cost of an apartment in Beijing, but also because it is just as good as the old apartment with only a little wear and tear. The thing in my opinion that makes it better is the view, I live on the 19th floor and look south into the center of the city! And the fact that the landlord isn't crazy and I that I now have heat (I actually have to open the window a little because it gets so hot).

Here are a few pictures from my apartment. In the third picture, in the upper, middle-left of the image you can see a large bright light. That is the Dragon Building and the Olympic Green.

The Great Flood

I mentioned in an earlier post about the heating situation in China, and since the heat was turned on in the building Novemeber 15th, I have, despite much effort been unable to get my heat to work. After my wonderful Chinese Thanksgiving, I came home and tried for the third time to get my heat fixed. The guy came to my apartment fiddled with things and declared everything fixed. For the next hour my apartment seemed to be getting warmer. Then I started to hear a trickling sound but didn't think anything of it until I had to use the bathroom and walked across my apartment and into a giant puddle of water in my apartment. As I found out later, when they built the building they didn't seal the water pipe to the apartment heater correctly and it leaked through the dry wall all over my floor.

It now appears that they will have to tear the drywall down and fix the piping this week. So my apartment will be come a work zone until Wednesday.

I went to McDonald's for lunch today with my friend because I was sick of Chinese food. As it turns out we arrived during "special time." Special time is what the girl at the counter called it and I can only assume it mean that it was just a happy hour of sorts were all the food is discounted. I ended up getting a Big Mac meal with a large fry, two chocolate milkshakes and a water for 24 RMB, which is a little less then $4. The other thing was that because it was "special time" many Chinese students were at 麦当劳 (McDonald's in Chinese, pronounced Mai Dang Lao) studying. I wish I had gotten a picture of it but it took us 15 minutes to get a seat. I am not sure how anyone could study in there for hours with that greasy smell, but it is China so....

In other news, my one classmate is looking to move off campus next semester, so we have to decided to look for apartments together next week. I hope that by getting a roommate, I can reduce the cost of rent by almost half. Any chance to save money is a good thing I think. Plus it will be nice to have a roommate. The other cool part is that he is from Kazakhstan. He also doesn't speak English that well, so we usually have to communicate in a mix of English and Chinese, which is great for both of our Chinese.

One last thing, my school just decided to post an emergency exit plan for the students and so I thought I'd share with the three emergency exits! Also, if you live on the top floors and their is a fire, there is no way in hell your going to survive because their is only one stairwell. Anyway, here is the picture:

Chinese Thanksgiving

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't terribly miss home on Thanksgiving. I did however miss the food. So my thought was if I can't be home for Thanksgiving, I might as well go eat my favorite Chinese food, hotpot! For those of you who don't know, hotpot is the greatest thing to come from China, better then gunpowder, fireworks and whatever else has come from China.

Hotpot is literally a pot of boiling soup placed at the center of your table. The pot is generally split between spicy and not spicy broth. You then order all of the ingredients that you want, vegetables, meats, noodles etc. You then put all of what you ordered into the pots and let it cook in front of you. In addition to the flavoring that comes from being cooked in the broths, you also prepare your own dipping sauce by taking things like peanut sauce, onions, garlic, MSG, spices and what-not.

The hotpot restaurant that my friends and I went to is considered the best in Beijing, and so when you go around dinner time, there is generally and hour to two hour wait (its worth it). So what the restuarant does is set up little tables for people to sit at, they provide popcorn and other snacks. Many people will bring cards or other games to play while they wait.

Also one thing that is common in restaurants in China particularly hotpot restaurants is for the restaurant to give you a plastic baggie to put your phone in because all Chinese people leave their phone out when they are at the table.

Here are some pictures from hotpot:

One thing that I will try and focus on in the next few posts is food in China, because I haven't discussed it much and I think it is a very fun and interesting topic.

I also hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Top Down Society

One of the things that makes Chinese culture very different from Western culture is how we view authoritative structures. In the US, we are very much anti-authority, always questioning those above us and around us, I think a bottom-up society. China, on the other hand, is very much a top-down society. Whether its from the national government or your boss, Chinese people view those above them with a sense of respect. This respect for authority sounds great, but in reality it makes things very to get done, leaves very little room for flexibility and reduces peoples choices.

Just a few examples of this:

In the US, when you have a home or an apartment, you pay for your electricity each month when you receive a bill. In China, when you rent an apartment you are given an electric card. To get electricity in your home you must go to a state-owned bank, wait in a long line to load with money. It can be really inconvenient because you may run out of money on your card in the middle of the night and the electricity gets shut of (like what happened to me) and because the only way to pay for electricity is to wait in the electricity line at the bank, which is usually 20 people long.

I went to see Harry Potter today, and unlike in the US where you can sit anywhere you'd like, in China you are given assigned seating. I think I like this way better, because you don't have to rush to get to your movie but it is another example of someone else making choices for Chinese people and not leaving it up to the individual.

On public buses in China, their are usually two or three doors. Each door is for either entering or exiting the bus. I am sure many cities in the US are like this but in China, there are no exceptions to this rule. If you are next to the entrance door and you need to get off you MUST move to the exit door because the bus drive will refuse to let you off through the entrance door. The only exceptions I have seen for this are the elderly.

During my exam week, I had my grammar exam in the morning of one of the days. Both of the classes that day were grammar, so I had the same teacher. I figured we would have the 2nd class free since we had just had an hour and half exam. Turned out I was wrong, my teacher said her boss told her we are supposed to have class all day, no exceptions. So despite her being tired, the students being tired, and only 4 out of 17 students staying for the second half, the teacher decided to push on with the lesson.

I know there are many more examples of the cultural differences but these are just the four that came to my mind now, since they happened recently.

On another fun note, here is a picture I secretly took of a 50 year old man and his man bag. No lie, I didn't fake this picture.

Learning Chinese

Sometimes I have to ask myself, why am I studying Chinese? Why did I have to pick maybe the hardest language in the world to learn? I feel like I have made a lot of progress in 2 1/2 months, so much so, that I have gotten to the point where it is getting really difficult. I've never had to study much to do well in school but recently the two hours of studying a night that I have been doing is quickly becoming not enough to keep up with everything (that doesn't include my two hours every Mon, Wed Fri that I have my tutor). So, next week, I am going to have to kick everything up a notch and really buckle down.

A few things of note about Chinese:

Chinese grammar is considerably easier then English grammar, however, I have found that since I don't know anything about English grammar it is hindering me in learning Chinese grammar and Chinese. In fact, my Chinese tutor knows English grammar better then me, granted she was an English major in college but still. So, I have begun a quick crash course on English grammar to help me understand it.

Also, when you speak your native language you don't realize how many words there really are. That changes quickly when you study a foreign language. For Chinese particularly, and why it is one of the hardest languages to learn, is that you don't just learn the a word, its meaning and pronunciation but you have to learn the character, how to write the character (which is different from recognizing it), its meaning and its pronunciation. The pronunciation is also different from most languages because Chinese is a tonal language. What that means is that one word like (ma) can have many different meanings depending on how it's pronounced and the context it is used. Chinese has four tones and a neutral sound. So for example Ma depending on the tone can mean: mom, horse, hemp, to scold or be used as a question particle. Of course, each of them have different characters which makes them easily distinguishable but in spoken Chinese its all based on the tone. 

For those who don't know much about the Chinese language there is just a small taste of what I have to deal with...lucky me!

Stalker Story

I told the story of my stalker to my parents the other night and so I totally forgot to post it on here. Alas, here it is.

My Chinese friend and I were on the subway, and were talking about Sino-American relations because this was right before the G20 Summit in Seoul and the Chinese media was busy blasting Americans Quantitative Easing policy and he had asked me what I thought and as many of you know, this is a subject that I have a lot to say about.

Anyway, I was right in the middle of talking about the next step of the Chinese economy, in terms of moving away from cheap manufacturing, and towards an ideas-based or knowledge-based economy, when my friend told me a story about how is journalism teacher doesn't let students talk about certain subjects and how he will openly and in-front of the class criticize students who don't "believe" a certain way.

It was at this point, that a Chinese woman interrupted us and started to belligerently yell at my friend in Chinese, in front of a packed train of Chinese people! She accused him of being un-Chinese and not loving his country for criticizing China and some its policies in front of a foreigner (there is a belief among Chinese people (I wonder why...cough cough Propaganda Dept), that foreigners only hear negative stories about China and that Chinese people shouldn't add to this by telling more negative things to foreigners). Essentially, this woman was making the exact point my friend and I were saying, and that is, if China wants to move to a knowledge-based, service economy you need the freedom to express creativity and your own views...that doesn't happen when you get yelled at on the subway.

The exciting part though only began. While the woman was yelling at us, my friend and I missed our stop on the subway, so we had to get off and double around, then switch off and transfer to another line. While we were doing this I got this weird feeling like we were being followed, and no not by PSB. As we were walking to through the transfer tunnel, I noticed a guy following a little behind us, listening to our conversation and then he continued to follow us on the subway platform to were we stood waiting for the train. After we got onto the train, he spoke to my friend in Chinese and then turned to me and said, "so what do you think of China?" We then got into a discussion about how I viewed China and many of the issues regarding the freedom to criticize the government etc. Basically we talked about all the is wrong with China. He then asked me what I think will happen with China, and I responded that I don't know but that whatever happens it will be because the Chinese people either stood up and said enough is enough or they don't. He agreed with that, but then went on to say, that it is his great hope that people like me come to China and aren't afraid to tell the truth and that because he met my friend and I he has even more hope for China.

On a side note, to give everyone an understanding of how sensitive of a topic Liu Xiaobo is in China, it was the one thing he refused to talk about and when I asked about Liu he looked around before he even refused to discuss him.