三inSEA

It has begun.

Back in May teaching in China and traveling Asia was just something two of my friends and I talked about. Last week one of those friends, Donald, met me in Zhengzhou where we were lucky enough to join in one of my co-workers pre-wedding celebrations. From there we traveled to Kunming to enjoy the hospitality of another Fordham classmate of ours and meet up with Nicole (the second friend). After a brief sampling of Kunming, Nicole and Donald, and I made our way to Bangkok. 

Despite its wild and crazy reputation and recent splash in international news with the protests, our time here has been rather laid back with boat rides, temple visits, and alleyway cafés. Maybe it's cause none of us want to spend our overnight train ride north hungover that we've been so conservative, in any event our time here has been more pleasant than party. Later today we'll begin our journey to Chiang Mai to explore some of the Northern Thai jungles. I'm hoping to get a close look at some elephants and stay off the radar of the Mosquitos! 

If you want a more visual account of the journey of us 三朋有 (three friends) in SEA (Southeast Asia) check out Instagram and look for our hashtag #三inSEA (there's a pun in there in you think about it hard enough). Thanks for reading! 

Here is the link to a photo in the hashtag collection (http://instagram.com/p/jo25QYuzjS/) 

"Worth A Thousand Words" (updated)

3rd(eye)'s photostream on Flickr.

I got a camera! I also went skiing (more on that later). Here is a look at life in Zhengzhou through the lens of my new camera, if what they say about pictures being worth more than a thousand words then these should more than atone for my lack up textual updates! (hopefully this time the link works)

"Dumplings for Days"

I love dumplings. When people asked me why I was going to live in China for a year saying, “because I want to eat a lot of dumplings” would’ve sounded weird, but it would have been pretty true. I have not been disappointed. 

China tastes good...

A little over a week ago was the winter solstice. The Chinese have a tradition of eating dumplings on this darkest day of the year in order to make sure their ears don’t fall off. Which made complete sense to me and I wan’t going to take any chances. I was lucky enough to be treated to absolutely delicious lamb dumplings by what has become my adopted Chinese family. They run a small local restaurant that I frequent regularly.

Beautiful People

 Whatever my complaints about plumbing or smog, I cannot but feel tremendously grateful for the warm and generous hearts of the Chinese people. If there is some link between smog and/or leaky pipes and people this nice or gracious I’d say the would could use more of both. My night of dumplings was the closest thing to a holiday dinner that I had for Christmas and New Years.

Definitely one of mine...

My friends at work have also noticed my appetite for dumplings and this past weekend I was invited to my friend’s home to make dumplings. There is clearly an art to making good dumplings and it is also clear that I don’t have it yet. I was able to learn the broad strokes and was close to making dumplings that looked almost like they were supposed to. After eating everything on the table, we played Mahjong for hours. I felt pretty Chinese and very happy.

Mahjong

"Give Your Plumber a Hug"

Our lives are full of people who touch our lives in indirect yet important ways. Your plumber is one of these people. Do you wash your hands? Flush a toilet? Take a shower? Wash your clothes? These may seem like only little moments, but they can become pretty slippery operations that soil your day. 

At first, I treated the moments when my sink or shower flooded my bathroom as character building opportunities. That lasted about two weeks with the added side effect of me showing less. I had never really given plumbing that much thought before. At home it’s all hidden in walls or floors and works pretty well, well enough for me not to think about it. However, stepping out of your shower wet and naked onto what was a dry floor but is now a puddle water coming from a rather unappealing hole in the floor which bugs have crawled from on more than one occasion makes you think about the business of plumbing pretty quickly (cue mouth-breathing escape to the bedroom). In short, plumbing is much more visible here, but more as an after-thought. 

As I try to adjust to living in a different part of the world this has honestly been one of the biggest puzzles for me. My school is a good example. The toilets and sinks are motion activated but the pipes are not fitted properly and often leak onto the floor which leaves me scratching my head. I keep thinking I’m missing something, some part of where this makes sense on some cultural level and that could help me dismiss my concerns as childish first-world complaints. The bizarre truth seems that to be that people here really just don’t care. It’s not a cultural issue, it’s just simply not an issue at all. I still don’t get it. I did however get duct tape and did some DIY plumbing of my own. So count your lucky stars if you have a good plumber and give him/her a hug next time you see them.

Metal + hose + rust = : (

DIY handiwork.

Drain in community bathroom.

Getting my feet wet.

"Figuring it Out & Giving Thanks"

So it turns out being a teacher and living in China is more tiring than I anticipated. For some reason whenever I thought about what it would be like to a teacher, I always imagined myself in a classroom being creative, witty, caring, authoritative—basically the guy/gal in one of the TFA promo videos (yes, I'm bitter they didn't let me in). What the promo video doesn't show is what goes into making that happen. 

Syllabi, lesson plans, vocabulary lists, and a host of other things that seem about as mundane as they are vital to conducting an effective class; these things are hard. That might not make that much sense and maybe they're not for other folks, but I've been having to make them up as I go. It has definitely been a very unglamorous struggle too; involving copious amounts of google, textbook reading, and staring at the blinking cursor of a depressingly blank word document. Two weeks into my teaching debut and I'm starting to figure it out, but it's going to be a long process. 

Changing gears, I would like to say Chinese people are great. Obviously someone reading this is going to be like "oh yeah? what about…" I don't care. I have been consistently moved by the hospitality shown to me not only by my friends and co-workers, but by strangers and shop-owners. This hospitality far exceeds ogling the hairy white guy on the street, or snapping a not-so-discrete photo of him with a cellphone. I'm talking about inviting me to sit and join them for tea, while they go about their business. No nagging questions, not asking for money, or sticking me with the bill later. I'm sure that I'll have a bad experience sooner or later, but it will be an exception to the rule. 

This was the sentiment that guided my decision to spend thanksgiving with my Chinese friends and travel to a nearby town, Luoyang, rather than go to a local expat meet-up. I wanted to give thanks with the folks who have been giving so much. Before this post gets too long / emo-esque or preachy I'll stop. 

Thanksgiving Dinner. Turkey was Cow Stomach. 

White Horse Temple, Buddhist Temple in Luoyang.

Luoyang Snack Street and our local host. 

Accidental trash-stick sculpture. I'm artsy. 

This is all over China, I mean everywhere.
So much construction is going on. 

"Good Old School"

Aside from a rather inappropriate portion of donkey meat over last weekend, I haven't eaten anything particularly unusual recently. In fact, this past week on the whole has been pretty straightforward. Not in such a way as to be boring, but rather in a way that is steadying. It was my first full week in the class room; and while I am continuing to make up my syllabus as I go, I feel like things are coming together. Classes are productive, students are behaving (and hopefully learning), I'm falling into a rhythm—the ebb and flow of life in Zhengzhou. 

With some money in my pocket from my most recent paycheck and some free time early in the week, I bought a bicycle. I could've purchased a much cheaper/run down bicycle as there is no shortage of those for sale, but I chose to solidify my friends and family's suspicions that I am indeed a hipster. I bought a fixed gear bicycle. I've been using any chance I can get to cruise around ZZ and am starting to not only get the hang of, but also to appreciate the simplicity of life on a fixie. Admittedly, it's not all milk and honey and I've had a few close calls (definitely glad I got a front brake). Still, I'm glad I bought it and my students and coworkers think it is pretty cool too, so it's become a conversation piece. 

Beanie + Black Skinny Jeans + Fixie = Hipster

My other adventure this week was to the Henan Regional Museum, which is only a few minutes down the street from where I live and work. It's free for foreigners and I'll definitely be getting my money's worth during my stay in Zhengzhou. It's not very large, but the exhibits are well done and informative (and more importantly have English translations). It'll take several more visits for me to appreciate the grand history of China, but a more immediate pleasure was the ancient music concert. Everyday the museum has a short concert where performers use actual ancient instruments (one of the drums is 2,000 years old) to perform traditional music. It was well worth the visit. 

Ain't No School Like the Old School

Similar scene minus the red light. 

"Dino Eggs"

My Chinese tutor back in the states told me about 皮蛋 (pi dan) before I left for China, and it sounded pretty cool. It's a chicken egg that by some traditional Chinese magic/trade skill is caked in mud and tea leaves and then cooked in such a way that it becomes like a hard boiled egg that is translucent. Sounds kinda cool right? I mean just look at the thing, it looks like a dinosaur egg!

 As it turns out it is a very acquired taste. The taste is best described by the color. I ate the first one and then offered the second to my Chinese coworkers, all but one of whom said they don't eat pi dan. I can understand their decision.

I can now add pi dan to my growing list of strange eats in China. 

"Open Close, Near Far"

开封, Kaifeng, is a city just outside of Zhengzhou. It is a smaller more traditional town that is famous for its night markets, snacks, and expositions of traditional Chinese culture. Having met up with some fellow AYC-ers the week before, we decided to travel to Kaifeng this past weekend. Theoretically it was a simple affair to get there. Trains leave several times every day and make the trip in less than an hour. Buses are a slower alternative but a bit cheaper. I was all for the trains, but as a foreigner you need your passport to buy a ticket and most of us had turned ours in to get our residency permits (we'll get them back in 15-30 days). So busses it was, expected travel time 2-3hrs.

I left my school at 2:30pm. We did not arrive in Kaifeng until 9:30pm. In the seven hours between: our group got lost in Zhengzhou, found the rubble that used to be a bus station, stumbled into a Chinese drivers ed course, took a very sketchy rickshaw ride, bought over priced food, walked around,then went back and drank beer, finally got a bus, made new friends, got off the bus, drank more beer, ate dinner at the now winding down night market, and collapsed at our hostel. We also somehow managed to thoroughly enjoy ourselves (the beer helped). 

The following morning we were greeted by some less than ideal weather and a friend of mine from work, Michelle. Kaifeng is Michelle's home town, and she was nice enough to serve as our guide for the morning and afternoon. She brought us to a muslim neighborhood, where we enjoyed some scrumptious lamb stew for lunch. We then took to our feet and tried to take in the sights. Michelle offered bits of history and insight along the way. Kaifeng, it turns out, means "Open Close." This was an appropriate name, I decided, as it described the paradox of its being so near and taking so long to get to.

Abandoning the idea of paying 100 RMB to enter one of Kaifeng's famous parks which may or may not be putting on the shows that made them famous due to the bad weather, we retreated to a tea house/ cafe and warmed our bones for a bit. Here another friend from my school, Jessica, met us (She is also from Kaifeng) and arranged for a private van to take us back to Zhengzhou. No travel troubles this time...till we hit the worst traffic jam I have not only seen, but pretty much ever heard of. If it wasn't for our drivers disregard of anything resembling a traffic law we could still be at that intersection mashed between buses, cars, e-bikes, bicycles, and pedestrians. 

It was our first attempt at traveling in China and it was certainly a learning experience. The takeaway points: attitude is key, beer is very important, take trains.

Tour Guide Michelle

Rose Tea and Me

 

Try the lamb stew

Troy vs Cicada

Cicadas in their glory

*Photo cred to Percy Baker, iPhone photographer guru. 

"If It's Soft You Can Eat It."

If that looks like a bowl of cooked chicken heads...Well that's because it is a bowl of chicken heads, and I ate one of them. When I asked my Chinese dinner hosts how I should begin the process of eating this rather head-spinning Hors d'oeuvre, I was given some very practical advice that captures a very fundamental tenant of Chinese cuisine, "If it's soft you can eat it. If it's not, spit it out."

 So with these instructions I used my chopsticks and a spoon and popped one these in my mouth and went to work. With a distinctive "clink" the beak and various bones fell from my mouth into my bowl. It was not my most distinguished moment. I wasn't even that hungry and here I was acting like I hadn't seen a chicken in so long that even the head looked appetizing.

 Still, it wasn't even all that bad. It tasted like chicken, just with a texture I wasn't all that familiar with. I mean what really makes the head of the chicken any less edible than the rest of it? We suck the heads of crawfish after all. It's more of a mental block than anything I suppose, but in a country as populated as China there isn't much space for mental blocks at the dinner table. 

"Electric Thing Vehicle"

Electric-thing-vehicle is the literal translation of the Mandarin 电动车, diàn dòng che (1). In English these things are called E-bikes— and they are crazy. They take various shapes and sizes ranging from more mo-ped like, to standard scooter, to electric motorcycle.

 You don't need a drivers license to drive one as they are classified as bicycles (motor cycles are illegal within the city limits). They seem to only follow the traffic laws when it suits them, switching from driving in the street like a car or using crosswalks and sidewalks like pedestrians.

 It also seems like you can carry pretty much anything on them. Everything from a family of four, to a mobile petshop, or even a set of living room furniture. I can only imagine what the traffic police officers in the states would say if they saw one of these cruising around.

Obligatory guy in Asia riding a bike carrying way too much.

Everything but the kitchen sink.

Guy curbing his dog (and his birds). 

Three people. Two wheels.