圣诞节快乐！

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you're having at least as much snow as we :) And in case you haven't been following - that's not my living room in Nanjing, it's in Montreal. The scroll has been hanging there for two years already.

I arrived here half a day late because I got stuck in Chicago overnight. At least they put me in a hotel. But I didn't make much use of it, because I really wasn't tired. I had managed to sleep on the plane from Shanghai to Chicago. So there I was in my fancy hotel room (without mini-bar! argh) and a $10 dinner voucher that I couldn't spend anywhere. Not that I would actually want the dinner you can buy for $10 at the Chicago airport. The 80yuan coupon I got in Shanghai, on the other hand, was thoughtfully invested in dumplings. So when I finally got to Montreal (funny aside - my plane neighbors on the last leg of the trip had also come from China. Everyone seems to live and study there these days. If you aren't yet, you're missing out on a trend) I was pretty jetlagged and had no concept of time whatsoever, but I had the most pleasant immigration experience ever. I was apparently the first new permanent resident of the day :) The rest of Thursday was spent as usual - planning a dinner, going shopping and ending the evening at BU (our favourite wine bar). Ok, I admit, without a three hour power nap I wouldn't have pulled through this day. Friday evening we had some friends over for Christmas dinner, which involved - of course - a roasted honey-glazed duck (with orange-chocolate stuffing) and, a first-timer for us, pan-seared fois gras. I think we did pretty well, although we got better and better when practising with the leftovers. I have to say, finishing a whole liver is quite a formidable task. I suppose I could also mention the scallops with quince chutney and orange-endive salad or the ginger-honey parfait with rosemary figs, especially the latter one was quite interesting. The figs were caramellized and the whole thing came with a drizzle of pepper-rosemary-honey syrup. The syrup by itself tasted rather awkward, but turned the parfait from nice into surprising.

Anyways, getting to bed at 3am when having been up since 5am (thank you, jetlag) is quite rough on a rapidly aging woman, so I pretty much collapsed after that and spend all weekend doing nothing. Worst of all - my stomach rebelled and I can't really eat anything anymore. Maybe the first two days with above mentioned dinner and a lunch that involved oysters and braised rabbit was a bit too much. It might also have been the cheese, which I'm really not used to anymore. So, we found the perfect cure and that was our Christmas dinner:

Just kidding.



The duck wings, pork tongue with spicy cucumber and steamed dumplings were our lunch. If you are in Montreal, you should definitely check out the new location of Qing Hua on 1676 Lincoln (close to Guy Concordia). The interior is not really authentic Chinese anymore, it's now spacious and cozy, you don't have to share tables with strangers anymore and the waiters are really courteous, but the food still is.

True gems

Sorry for posting so many new entries at once. You see, the reason I haven't been writing much is not that nothing has happened, but that I can't access blogger.com from home and I haven't been frequenting my favorite cafe as often anymore. Too busy and I also like my home quite a bit these days...

But I had an amazing Sunday afternoon today and have to let you in on my story. Again, it is thanks to Liu Xing that this day was special and right now I am filled to the brim with warm and fuzzy feelings for the Chinese and I feel really privileged to be among such amazing, kind-hearted people. But first things first. I had mentioned to Liu Xing that I wanted to buy some Jade as souvenirs and she offered to take me to a store a friend knows the owner of. All the much better, we would also go for lunch together. So, we get to the store this Sunday and my jaw drops to the floor seeing the price tags. Holy shit, I knew jade was expensive, but this was more than I had expected. This must mean the earrings I bought last time in Beijing are fake :) Anyways, we agreed to meet her friend there, so we start browsing the shelves and I learn to appreciates the different shades of green and get an idea of what makes certain pieces more expensive than others (the intensity of the color, the translucency, the clarity of the stone, but also the craftsmenship in carving). Liu Xing's friend arrives and delivers some poisettas to the store. The price drops by 20%. Finally, her friend calls the boss. We wait for him. I get offered more pieces that they had been keeping in store. Just as we are being served hot water, the boss arrives. He is a Nanjing University graduate, probably in his 50s, looks more like an engineer to me than a jewellery store owner. After a little chatting, he's very pleased to hear I am studying Chinese and working at Nanda, the price drops to 50%. I am extremely happy, but also a bit embarrassed because I bought some of their cheapest stones. They are really pretty though, just not dark green but more white with a green tint. But honestly, you can easily leave 10k there for only one little green pendant.

So, it was time for lunch, and the boss suggested a noodle place nearby. I thought we were just taking Liu Xing's friend, but the boss also joined us. The noodle place turned out to be a Shanxi (a province in north-central China) restaurant. Wen they said "noodle" I imagined everyone of us to get a bowl of noodle soup, but the boss is friends with the owner of that place, so we got the chef's recommendation. And, well, there were noodles, three different kinds actually - long, rather thick egg noodles in a soup with peppers and beans, short irregular shaped egg-noodles fried with carrots and bacon (a bit like "Spaetzle") and some buckwheat noodles, that looked like short cannelloni and came standing upright in a steamer together with a sauce for dipping. Everything was drowned in garlic :) But that wasn't all! No, there were spicy wood-ear mushrooms and fried sausage as starters, garlic greens with chicken stir-fry, cabbage and the best - lamb chops with cumin. Wow, that was good lamb. Not the old mutton one gets most places, but really young and tender, delicate flavour lamb. We also got a corn-chowder as a side (could have used some salt for my taste, but I followed the others in spooning sugar into it). I had never had Shanxi food before, so that was definitely an interesting experience. And I could tell from Liu Xing's grin that she was just as happy as me to be treated to a nice, expertly chosen lunch. Because it turned out - the boss paid! I tried my best to take over the bill, thanking him profoundly for coming over to the store and giving me a discount, but he didn't want to hear about it. So, at the end of the day the lunch bill wasn't quite as high as what I had paid in his store, but he cannot have made much of a profit from me. I am really deeply embarrassed now for having stolen the time of three people to buy a little souvenir, but none of them seemed to mind terribly. That's what I mean when I say I feel really privileged to be among these people. I feel like I'm no longer just a 老外 Laowai (foreigner).

Chinese climate politics

Nowadays the German media is surprisingly China-phil. What's behind this new found love? Do tagesschau and Zeit believe they can actually influence the public opinion about China's climate policies and that in turn the (German) public opinion will push our politicians to reach out to the Chinese in Copenhagen?

http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/solarstadtrizhao100.html

http://www.zeit.de/2009/50/Regierungssysteme?page=2

For the less fortunate among you who are not fluent in German (ts, where is the time of Goedel and Wittgenstein, when every half-way intellectual learned German as a little child, along with Greek and Latin and French and... nevermind), one of the articles praises the town Rizhao in China that runs almost entirely on solar power (I assumed it to be a desert town; picture my surprise when I found it to be on the coast, about halfway between Beijing and Shanghai), the second one (from the Zeit - sorta the German version of le Devoir ;)) discusses China's dictatorship, pardon my language - strong central government is what I meant to say, as a benefit for climate change - only with a strong government, they argue, can you impose inconvenient rules and force your citizens to save energy and care about the environment. America and Europe i are apparently too democratic to save the planet. China certainly isn't the big planet saver yet either, but they might have a point. Incidentally, the article from tagesschau (the biggest German news show on public TV) comes out pretty well in google translate, while the Zeit is apparently too intellectual to be understood by a simple translation algorithm. Aren't we something? :) I can't help but be a bit bothered by the absolutism in both articles - not too long ago all you would hear in the German media was criticism of China's lack of openness and democracy and its terrible environmental track record. So, lack of personal freedom is a good or bad thing depending on the phase of the moon? Sorry, but that's not quite up to the standard we claim to impose on our unbiased media.

Thanks to IKEA I'm enjoying Gloegg (hot mulled wine) and ginger bread cookies and it's not even too cold at the moment, so life is good. Next week I have my Chinese final exam and although I know I don't have to care, having scored so well in the midterm, my ambition has been awakened... it should be possible to also score the best grade in the final, no? Wanna place bets? :P I'm not sure I will get my grades though, as I'm already leaving next Wednesday.

And in totally unrelated news... Washington DC's city council has approved a gay-marriage bill!!!! Yay!!! Who would have thought? It still needs to be signed into effect, so there's still the chance for some mormons to stage a protest. But even if they manage to pump enough money into a counter-movement as they did with prop8 in California... DC is not a state and therefore doesn't have a state constitution one could amend to make gay marriage unconstitutional! So, what would they amend then? :P

Food! Foodies! Duck!

Do I need to say more? :) Seems like my prayers have been answered, finally someone has taken pity on me and made it a project to introduce me to typical Nanjing food. The saint is LiuXing , my language partner. We have become quite good friends actually, laughing about each others mistakes is kind of a bonding experience I suppose :) I guess we started off on the wrong food (now that's a Freudian slip if there ever was one :P) - me cooking pasta for her and making her taste a piece of German style cream cheese ("Schmelzkaese"), because that was the only cheese-like thing I could find and really, I can't blame her she hated that. So, after that she always found excuses to not join me for dinner (I attributed that to this "diet" she keeps talking about). I finally managed to drag her out for lunch, because we were on the way to a pharmacy. Sometimes I do really need an interpreter's help. Pharmacies here are really interesting - apart from selling also "traditional Chinese medicine," which nowadays also comes in forms of pills and syrup (and according to the Chinese I talked to are not really potent anymore because they are not prepared fresh), they sell all sorts of stuff over the counter! Like birth control or, say, anti-depressants... wouldn't you think it's generally a good idea to see a doctor for that? Pharmacies here are more the European variety, not the American drug-store type that sells everything from aspirin to cat litter; some of them have showcases with dried ginseng roots, bird's nests, seahorses and the likes. The "traditional" medicine is characterized by coming in "green" looking packages, somehow reminiscent of homeopathy. No idea if that stuff actually helps. Whenever I was sick, I would get some of that on top of antibiotics, but I was never very convinced of either one helping much. But I can say this - if you ever contemplated eating patchouli - don't!

Anyways, back to the important matters. It was so sweet of Liu Xing, she had even looked up the translation of the specialty she wanted me to try - duck blood silk noodle soup. And she was afraid I might not like it (being a disgusting cheese eater and all). It was so much better than the duck blood soup I had tried in the canteen. I'm still not a big fan of the blood, it doesn't really taste like anything and has a weird consistency (sorta gelatinous, but less elastic), but the liver in the soup was nice. And the added bonus? This place also makes a sort of pastry that comes filled with either meat or bean paste, it's like a puff pastry but instead of butter - you guessed it - they use duck fat! Yum! I think they also sell a few other noodle soups, but the duck blood soup is really their trademark dish. Everyone who came in just said how many bowls they wanted and it was understood to be that soup. A very popular place for lunch, it was packed, but also tiny. There were only 4 tables with 6 seats each. For such a small noodle joint it looked surprisingly new and clean. Most restaurants here look run down when their not totally new. Even the fancier ones... it seems after a while, neglect creeps in and they just leave the beer cases in the entrance way or never bother to remove stains. When it stops attracting customers, it closes down, something else opens and the game begins anew.

In almost related news, I recently watched "Julie/Julia", about this woman who cooks her way through the Julia Child cookbook in one year and I really enjoyed it!Meryl Streep gives a pretty good Julia Child and I certainly gathered a new appreciation of what she did for American food culture. I also want to de-bone a whole duck now...

Still alive

No, the wolves didn't get to me in the end. But with a cosmology workshop going on and the crazy Italian being in town, I didn't have much time to write. The snow has thawed, the dogs finally came back and we're on our way again...

Last weekend brought a trip to Suzhou - the, or I should say one of the, Venice of the east. Well, I'd say it's more like the Mestre of the east (the industrialized suburb of Venice). There are some canals and lots of gardens (that's what it's famous for), but it is not exactly cozy. Some pictures of the "Humble Adminstrator's garden"...

suzhou

not so humble after all. Fortunately, my friend had insisted that we go to a small village and although I think he expected something more remote, where people still stare at the foreign "white devils" and not a cute renovated river town where you have to pay 80 yuan just to get into the old city, it was worth it (well, it was worth the 2 hour train and one-hour bus ride in any case). Tongli is much more like Venice. Especially in the sense that if you stray away from the main tourist road you find yourself in a residential area without any visitors and people look at you as if to say "what do you want here?" Oh, and there are also gondolas. And yes, the gondoliere (whatever that is in Chinese) also sings. Also terribly wrong. Instead of palazzi you can visit courthouse gardens and a "sex culture museum." That was quite interesting, actually. According to the exhibition there, homosexuality was never prosecuted in (ancient) China. I wonder if that's really true. Some of the paintings at least made it clear that it was not an absolute taboo.

Another cultural experience included a trip to the "Nanjing Massacre Memorial" Hall. It was not quite as depressing and gruesome as I had expected after several warnings. The architecture is quite oppressive, dark and looming, but in a modern, stylish way. The inside is m mostly a history museum, not just about the massacre itself, but also about the history of Sino-Japanese relations. The International Safety Zone is described as rather "unsafe" (Japanese would still invade the zone under the pretense of looking for hiding soldiers and weapons). But the fact that the Chinese Republican army basically abandoned the civilian population of Nanjing is only mentioned between the lines. Japanese atrocities are of course described in detail and condemned. It's certainly a political statement, but I think you can't blame the Chinese. Interestingly, the exhibition is in Chinese, English and Japanese; I guess they are making a point that no Japanese should be able to claim to not know about it.

I've also managed to get closer to my students. They seem to have accepted me as one of their own, in fact so much that one of them asked me a question in class... in rattling Chinese! I just stared at him horrified and then burst out laughing. I even had three of them over for dinner - my Italian friend just had to cook pasta for someone :) without cheese, of course. And then imagine what happened - one of them doesn't eat duck! Can you imagine?! I was just speechless. Incidentally that was the same guy who tried to talk to me in Chinese.

Surprises come in weird disguises. Today I met with an elderly physicist from the purple mountain observatory, who wanted to ask me questions about string theory! I wasn't all that thrilled at first, but we ended up having a rather nice discussion for 2 hours and then went for dinner together. Finally someone who wants to go to real restaurants! And it turns out, this guy, who is probably around 65, has studied Kung Fu for several years! I had already given up on ever meeting anyone who knows anything about traditional Kung Fu. Dinner turned into a discussion about proper iron palm technique (if you do it wrong, you ruin your eyes! seriously) and Qi as an effective theory :) Maybe I should mention that this guy grew up in Taiwan, I guess it's more likely to find traditional Kung Fu there. I was so happy that I even ignored the mediocre dinner for 100yuan. The roast pigeon was good though.

I have to say, I feel a bit let down by the food here. Somehow I expected less mediocrity. But then, why should China be different from any other place? There are always people who appreciate good food and those who don't. And I can't blame my students for not having the money to go to good restaurants. And if a place is really cheap, it means the ingredients aren't the freshest and they use inferior fat and spices, also here. It's just that all the Chinese I met in North America seem obsessed with food! In about the same degree I am. So I thought it must be infinitely better here than in any average Chinatown in the west. But I have no luck finding the really good places. Sometimes there is the occasional lucky find like the spicy eel in Suzhou or the Sichuan style smoked tofu in Tongli, but most of the time when I go out for dinner, the food is average (if I go with Chinese) or bad (if I go with the other foreigners). The sad truth is, I have been to a number of restaurants that were worth than the campus cafeteria!

Captain's Log

Lost track of the date. Can't tell how many days it has been since the nightmare began. The snow is still blowing heavy, the dogs have all disappeared, God knows where to. For all I know they might have torn each other into pieces. Sometimes there are strange sounds at night. It seems there is no going on from here, but I have to leave a warning to those who follow...

snow

The cold has crippled my fingers, the dim light of my IKEA lamp is barely enough to illuminate the little fortress of warmth I have set up in my living room. It is dark out there, close to freezing, visibility is down to almost zero and it's SNOWING! Yes, no kidding! I'm holding the fort as long as I can, but I don't know how long supplies will last. The door is barricaded, all heaters and weapons crammed into this room. I will not let them get to me. I WILL NOT LET THEM GET TO ME!!!

The misery of cold is painfully under-estimated. It creeps through the floors, cracks in the doors, seeps through the window... there is no escape. All I can do is pile on more clothes, scarves, hats... the gloves make it hard to type though. Even if my fingers freeze off... people have to be warned!


So you thought I was joking last time. But I did actually give my last lecture in winter jacket, scarf and gloves (fingerless to not get chalk all over them). It was miserable. I have great respect for the students who showed up and suffered with me. I had to end class early because my voice was fading. I still have a cold that knocked me out flat last weekend, and speaking in my "lecture voice" (I was told I have one, ts) at zero degrees air temperature was not a good idea.

I am not sure I have made it sufficiently clear yet - this place is crazy! Not just because a pack of 20 Lipton tea bags costs the same as a brand new 1.2 liter glass teapot, no, also because people here deal with the cold by wearing heavy down coats in their apartments! I have a good view into my neighbors kitchen and witnessed her putting on an apron - on top of her heavy coat! All the while they kept their kitchen window still open - at 0 degrees and snow?! Madness! They told me I'm going to southern China, not the South Pole! How can it be that I am freezing more here than I ever was in Montreal?! Gah! Btw, at the moment it's colder here than there, which is just wrong! WRONG!

I don't think the current weather has anything to do with the weather-experiment-gone-wrong snow storm in Beijing, but people assure me it's highly unusual to have this kind of cold weather already in November. I feel really bad for the students who live in unheated dorms where the windows don't really close. For the first time I can remember the sight of those white flurries didn't fill me with delight but with trembles of horror...

Nous sommes Canadiens!

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!! I can't believe it it! Our permanent residency application was finally approved! YAY! Long live the Queen! Or wait, vive le roi? Oh my, I am already confused. And I haven't even "landed" as an immigrant yet, which I have to do before the end of the year, so I'll be home for Christmas... dumdidumdidum. This somewhat overthrows our plans, but thankfully no plane ticket was bought, no commitments made, so we can start plan B - that is me coming to Montreal for a couple of weeks (depending on my boss' good will) and then hopefully handing over the apartment to a subletter (if you know anyone who needs a furnished apartment in Montreal for half a year or so, please let me know). I am not looking forward to such a long flight again so soon, but could there be a more charming place for Christmas than Montreal? :) I had already resigned myself to not having any Christmas at all (they don't even have the tiniest break here, I would have to teach all the way till the end of January), now I might even get snow! And I have to say, upon getting the news I was so happy that all my doubts whether I really wanted to go back to Montreal after the year here evaporated.

Apart from that, life here is going on as usual. The week just flies by with teaching and Chinese class (I got the class' highest score on the midterm :P I know, I know, I'm a total teacher's pet. But you know what?! I don't f***ing care!) and on weekends I buy household appliances :P Ok, I'm exaggerating, but I did buy heaters and did not regret it for a second. I need to be able to warm up somewhere. My neighbor (the nosy one with the little daughter) could not believe I had already used my heating. She said I wasn't wearing enough clothes! I was actually wearing three layers of shirts/sweaters and two layers of pants at that moment - I had just come from Kung Fu and had just put my street clothes over my Kung Fu clothes when the little girl came storming out of their door, grabbed my leg and basically dragged me into her apartment. I swear she must have been waiting behind the door for the sound of my key in my door lock! As if I didn't get enough of 5year olds at Kung Fu.

Speaking of Kung Fu, I witnessed a rather bewildering scene there last weekend. The other instructor (i.e. one of the guys who shows up in sports clothes and stands around smoking most of the time) - he trains the bigger kinds whereas the old Master Xu trains the little ones and me :) - got very upset at one student, I think this guy might be 18 or so. I have no idea what he did to anger the teacher so much, but he made him come to the front of the class and started to slap this guy's face. Then he said something to him, slapped him again. He seemed to become more and more angry, he got louder and started to slap harder. But the student didn't run, he just stood there, tears streaming down his face and took it. The other parents either went away where they didn't have to see it (aka the women) or walked over and talked to the angry teacher (aka the men). They didn't actually try to stop him from hitting that guy, but they seemed to try to calm him down a little. After about 30 smacks the class resumed. The boy went to wash his face and then continued the training. Wow. That was something different. Meanwhile, master Xu had continued with the little kids and told them to do their exercises and not stare at the other group. Needless to say this was the most disciplined class ever. Whereas yesterday, when it was just me and three 6-7 year olds, there was a lot of screaming, uncontrolled giggling, rolling around on the floor and playing tag with Master Xu. He carries a big stick, but never really uses it :) I will be careful to keep my distance from the other teacher though...

Last Saturday was the beginning of winter - according to the lunar calendar anyways. I managed to take Xu Feng (another one of my boss' students) out for lunch and we ate lamb - incidentally the traditional start-of-the winter dish. It's very "yang" (not just because that's Chinese for lamb) but also considered "hot" food you should feed on in winter. And indeed it was this delicious, very fatty, stewed-for-hours dish, exactly what one needs on a cold day. Xu Feng was amazed when I said "oh, this is good, and so fat!" He asked "You like fat? 90% of Chinese girls are on a diet!" (from my limited statistic I would say that's true) He says it's not because of the Western beauty ideal that girls want to be anorexic thin, but goes back much farther, maybe 200 or 300 years, when the heroine of popular novels where these fragile and sickly girls (I guess that's also what we can blame the footbinding on). Xu Feng is an interesting source of Chinese history. I also asked him about his attitude towards Japan. Apparently, the Nanjing massacre is still the number one topic in history books. It's quite embarrassing how little the Sino-Japanese wars are covered in our treatment of WWII, I think. And kind of weird how China points to Germany as a good example of dealing with their past in a way the Japanese should have - according to China anyways. Now, I wonder how the dealing would have been if the allies had decided to "denazify" Japan instead of Germany.

I have also recently worked on improving my history knowledge. I had never heard of this guy named John Rabe before my Montreal Chinese teacher mentioned him to me. He is called the "good German of Nanking" because he was the head of the International Safety Zone that was established to protect the civilian population of Nanjing (there wasn't really anyone else left since the army had abandoned the city and left its inhabitants defenseless against the Japanese killing and raping about 300,000 people in six weeks in the winter of 1937/38). There is a memorial site in his former residence, which is on the Nanjing University campus. The people who run this place (they had a seminar a couple weeks ago which I went to) take it surprisingly personal that John Rabe never achieved the same fame and popularity as Oskar Schindler, although he saved so many more people. Well, he used the fact that he was a Nazi and Germany allied with Japan to stop the Japanese soldiers. But he wasn't alone. There were also quite a few Brits and Americans involved. And how do you count exactly whom he saved? He was ordered to come home by the Nazi government and obeyed, abandoning the people of Nanjing if you want. Supposedly by then the Japanese troops had moved on or just gotten tired of the killing and raping and he had "accomplished his task" as the people at the memorial site view it. But it so happens that there are movies out there that portray him as not quite so heroic. The only proof of events really seems to be his diary, and although that's certainly an important historical document, I doubt it's completely unbiased. So, everyone has to make up their own mind, I guess. The memorial site was sponsored by Siemens & Bosch (for whom John Rabe worked in Nanjing) and Johannes Rau (former German president in case you don't know - the German president is just not that important compared to the chancellor, he mainly "represents"... and establishes memorial sites, I suppose).

Ok, that's my story of the day. Next week the crazy Italian :P is coming to visit and in about a month I'm already on a plane. Wow, times really goes by fast. Sometimes I wonder if a year is enough to really get a feel of China.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

And the fall came... although it rather looked like winter, with all those people wrapped in their heavy coats, wearing scarves and gloves. Last Saturday we still had 28 degrees, on Monday temperatures plummeted by 20 degrees! During the night it even got down to zero. It felt so frigging cold! Although I am used to much worse from Montreal, I'm freezing all the time. The problem is that there is no heating anywhere. Not in my classroom, the cafeteria, my office or apartment! So, there is no place where one can really warm up. And even if temperatures climb to 15 during the day, it feels incredibly cold. Especially since neither my classroom nor office get sun during the day - in the sun it's quite bearable - and my apartment cools down at night so quickly, because there is virtually no insulation and only single-pane windows. Now I understand why people from Nanjing complain the winter here is cold. It barely gets below zero, but if you don't have heating anywhere, that feels damn cold. The cold just creeps into your bones and doesn't leave anymore, even when you think you shouldn't be freezing anymore... I should get some of those gloves that leave the fingertips exposed so I can hold the chalk, while my students sit there in front of me huddled in their parkas... oh, it's gonna be tough. Thankfully, temperatures have climbed up to 20 degrees again, but mornings and evenings remain cold (around 10). Anyways, I guess I'll have to go on another shopping trip this weekend and buy some heaters. Consumerism just never ends, does it? And I was wondering how I would spend all the money they're paying me.

Tomorrow and Monday I'm having Chinese mid-term exams. How exciting! :) It really sometimes feels like middle school. I don't need to study extra for the exam. Just going to class is enough to pick up everything - apart from memorizing characters. That's still the hardest part. I still read terribly slowly and I have to make a conscious effort to connect a character with its meaning. I can literally see the progress bar in my brain when it's loading Chinese fonts :)

I also have brand new toy - my boss bought me a computer, a mac book pro. And I now have a couch in my office. So, I should be working like crazy with all these incentives, right? Right. Ehm.

Pictures!

Today we're having another beautiful fall day... but just in time for November it's supposed to get cold (below 15C) next week. On the down side, it's a bit rainy, but that rain was much needed because during the last couple of weeks without any drop of water it had become so dry, that it was incredibly dusty. The air quality here is really getting to me. If you look at this you'll know what I mean

my_apartment_2

But to be fair I have to say this was mostly fog, I took the pictures this morning after the rain when it was warm and wet. On some days I can smell the coal dust though. And if I leave my windows open the whole day, the floor collects enough dust to grow dust bunnies within a day or two. Oh well, I never smoked, so I'll make up for it with Chinese city air.

I know some of you must be sick of my kitchen stories, but for those who aren't here is the before-and-after photo line.

kitchen_project

Tonight I'll put it through the first real test (I only made simple things for myself so far, still need to stock up on supplies). I promised my language partner some European food. Now, I found pasta and olive oil, but no cream or cheese that deserves that name. So, it's just gonna be mushrooms and bacon with lots of olive oil I guess. Making Italian desserts without cream is also somewhat a challenge... mh, I could make Zabaione, I suppose, but what liquor do I add? I don't think sake is such a good match...

No more fear

I have started socializing with my neighbors. There is this one little girl, she's maybe 6 years old, who often runs up to me and asks "do you have time to play?" According to her mother, she wants to learn English from me, but I am not sure how much of that isn't wishful thinking from the mother's side. And my, the mother is nosy! She already walked into my apartment once and remarked what a big fridge I had! Way too big for one person! And recently I let the little girl into my apartment, she kept bringing me fruit and other snacks, and of course I also had to let the mother in. And she was absolutely not shy to inspect my furniture, test the softness of my mattress and ask how much I paid for this and that. This lack of privacy is something I have to get used to, especially after six years in North-America. I don't really mind though, I don't perceive it as unfriendly. Even in my Kung Fu class (yes, I finally found a school), where I am clearly the attraction and people come and stare at me or eavesdrop when I talk to the teacher. And it's so funny how offering a piece of information (like "I teach physics at Nanjing University") creates a satisfied murmur in the crowd :) Of course, another reason they stare is that I am making a complete fool of myself there. The students are mostly kids, with beginners as young as 5 and the majority younger than 12. Some of the older kids can do pretty amazing stuff, they are all extremely flexible, can do splits, somersaults, jumps... one guy can even jump and kick while he's flying through the air (like in the movies!), but since I am a beginner there, I have to march in one line with the 5-year olds. Well, there's not so much of a march or a line, usually they run from one end of the hall to the other or roll around on the floor. It's kind of impossible to copy what they are doing (well, I could just wave my arms like mad and topple over, but I don't think that would get me very far), so I have to send a helpless look to Teacher Xu (he's not a 师父 "shifu" just a 老师 "laoshi" which might be an expression of the fact that this is not a very traditional school, it's more a sports club, but I also find it very down to earth - I have to say I am slightly annoyed with Westerners who run martial arts schools and call themselves(!) "Sifu", even if they don't speak a word of Chinese), then he drops his bamboo stick that he uses to keep the kids at bay and shows me which combination of jump, kick and slap your foot with your hand I am supposed to do.

On weekends training gets really crowded and all the parents sit around watching their kids and me - the new attraction! Good thing I had my ego already broken, I guess :P Once I had a twelve year old showing me a sweeping move, it was quite humbling to have her tell me to keep my back straight :) But man, did she have flawless stances and posture! That this is much harder for me because I have to move about three times her weight was of course not obvious to her. So, I was pretty much dead when she was done with me. In the meantime her mother stopped by and wanted to go home saying "you've been here nearly two hours!" to which she replied "but I'm teaching her!" (and yes, I actually understood all of that in Chinese, but talking to teacher Xu I need a translator, which means I talk to someone else in Chinese and they repeat it (with the right accent) to him... oh well, I am used to being treated like an idiot by now, thankfully that doesn't hold me back from talking to strangers anymore). One of my students found out about this school and sent me the address, which was still hard to find. I biked around quite a bit in this huge sports complex; there are tennis courts, basketball courts, old ladies doing some kind of dance in a big parking lot, table tennis and badminton halls... but i couldn't find the 武术馆 "wushuguan", until someone I asked pointed upwards; then it occurred to me to check out this seemingly abandoned sports "theater" (if you're from East Germany think "Kulturpalast") - turns out it's not so abandoned at all, they are using the lobby for martial arts! well, it would be a waste not to make use of the parquet, wouldn't it? It's really funny, there are punching bags hanging from the open stairways, and below people train Kung Fu or kick boxing.

The first time I went I just wanted to check this place out, but I happened to get there just before class started and after a little chat with the teacher he agreed to let me try (I got a little speech that I have to be willing to train the basics and will not start off with forms - at least I think that's what he was saying :) so I think they are serious about what they are doing) and was apparently satisfied with what he saw. He says that I should train the basics (what they do is slightly different from what I learned before, much more about flexibility and jumping, it's a much more open style than) and in two months or so we'll see. He says he would teach me the Chinese Lohan style. They train six times a week, so this could be potentially intense, but I certainly won't go there every day. So far I went four times in one week. It's a bit weird, I haven't quite figured out what *their* style is, but when I asked one of the older students he said they all do something different. At first I had no clue what he meant by that, but then I saw that some of the adults who hang out there (and most of the time chat and smoke) from time to time take one of the kids to the side and teach them something individually. There is this one girl for example, she's learning Tai
Chi, and to me her moves already look pretty close to perfect, but they keep criticizing her. I still don't know what to think of those guys... they always show up in sports gear, but I have never seen them actually do anything! Teacher Xu, who is the oldest, runs the training with the little ones, and he's still pretty flexible for his age (I think he's between 60 and 70, not sure). He still makes a flawless split and his posture is really good. Although I am sometimes reminded of ballet by the kind of steps and jumps we are doing :)

Remember me complaining about fireworks? Well, they actually never stop. People are getting married every day and apparently close to my language school, because every day we have to pause class for a couple of minutes because of the mayhem outside. And that's not the only one of course. Sometimes I also see fireworks in the evenings. They really love them!

Kitchen Stories

7:30 - I get an SMS from my boss (they asked me for a Chinese speaking contact when I bought the kitchen) - the IKEA people are supposed to come in an hour

8:30 - I got my breakfast and am now waiting

9:05 - They're here! Three men in blue overalls (but not IKEA blue - they're contractors) invade my apartment and start to rip open IKEA boxes. Very thoughtful - they put blue plastic bags over their shoes to protect my floor. They seem very professional, brought cordless electric screwdrivers, jigsaws, a level and tons of other stuff

9:24 - All 4 base cabinets assembled. To those who complain IKEA furniture is a hassle to assemble, I say to you "that's just because you don't do it for a living!" Two of them (one is clearly the boss) are really fast, the other one seems new to this. Now they're cutting holes for the pipes into the back of the cabinets

9:32 - Oh no, one of the electric screw drivers' battery is empty! Will they make it to lunch despite this setback?

10:17 - All base cabinets sawed to fit and installed. Slow guy turns out too incompetent to adjust two cabinets to the same height. They sent him out into the hallway to unpack doors

10:28 - They're starting to work on the countertop. The blue shoe bags are seeing the first holes

10:32 - Incompetent guy figured out that there are two doors that don't seem to go anywhere. I explain to the boss I want them beneath my stove. Turns out they don't quite fit! Also, they have the hinges on the wrong side, they're made for hanging cabinets

10:35 - The boss doesn't give up so easily, he's now taken to the impossible task to get those doors under my stove somehow

10:42 - The countertop is in place, now guy number 2 is starting to work on cutting a big hole into it for the sink

10:57 - The boss seems to have a plan for making these impossible doors fit; at least he's developed activity with some leftover plinth (the board that goes around the base of the cupboards)

11:08 - Indeed, he screwed some plinth to the inside walls under the stove; now the doors would fit, but what is he going to do about the hinges being wrong????

11:18 -Ah, they also brought a circular cutter, he actually made new holes for them - the size they use to cut a hole into the countertop to install the water tab also fits for hinges! My dining room has turned into a sawdust strewn battle field, they have even taken over the hallway outside

11:22 The blue shoe bags have dissolved in the heat of the battle into rags

11:25 - Guy number two has installed sink and water tab. I am quite amazed at the almost perfect circle he managed to cut, while incompetent guy can't even hold the countertop straight - they seem to be getting annoyed with him

11:35 - Yay! It seems I can actually get my custom-made doors; maybe he could have made the ugly insides facing the bottom, not the top, but well...

11:50 - The cabinets are anchored to the walls, now the drawers are being installed. The boss is angry because someone got grout on a door

11:55 - It's past Chinese lunch time, the tension is rising

12:05 - Incompetent guy has to scrape the grout off the door

12:10 - Putting on the final touches

12:25 - Installing handles on doors and drawers while incompetent guy is sweeping the floor... someone should tell him that sweeping up a step doesn't work so well

12:45 - Done! And they're gone! And I have a shiny new kitchen!

13:45 - Sawdust is a bitch to clean! I need to go out get some fresh air and clear my lungs... wait, I live in China! Darn...

It must be fall, because most of the girls have taken to wearing short skirts with high boots... a nice sight (certainly better than the fills and laces that dominated the summer, also the colors have changed to much less pink... apart from the Russian girls in my language school - who ever spread the lie that pink hot pants with leopard print and matching suspenders is an acceptable fashion statement should be severely punished). I'd totally follow that trend (well if I had such boots, but more importantly) if it wasn't still friggin' 27 degrees out there! The Americans on the other hand are still wearing tank tops and flip flops. Speaking of which... how is it that Chinese girls wear ultra-short skirts but never show any cleavage? Most shirts are made in a way to hide whatever is going on in the chest area - buttoned up to the neck and a huge bow or some other frizzly stuff on the chest. So, when I walk around in a tank top I get lots of stares (disapprovingly from elderly women)... eliminating them from my wardrobe would mean tossing half of what I can wear at these temperatures, so... stare away!

I also found out why nobody here bothers to lock their bikes to a fence or railing. Apparently people here don't steal parts. They only steal bikes if they can pick the lock. So I was told by my students and, well, also experienced first hand... I am lucky, I've still got my bike since I invested in a good lock... but by trying to pick it they destroyed the locking mechanism and I could for the hell of it not get it to open. I had to go to one of these little bike repair shops that are at pretty much every street corner and had to have it broken. It was impressive. Even with excessive brutal force it still took a good twenty minutes to open it. Of course, this guy also sells locks... which makes me wonder if he is the one going around destroying locks so people buy his (I wouldn't be surprised if he has a spare key to the lock I bought from him, but maybe that comes in handy if I ever lose my key). This happened on the second day I had my bike! I had locked it in front of the language school. They have a guard there in the mornings who watches the bikes, but I guess he was taking a nap in the afternoon. In any case, I am not taking my bike there in the afternoon anymore, which is only once a week anyways. If I have to buy a new lock every week, it will very soon exceed the price of the bike.

This weekend I'm having my kitchen installed... exciting. First I have someone tearing out the old sink and demolishing the little walls it sits on. This guy, 王师傅 Wang shifu (where 师傅 "shifu" here means someone with technical skills, like a handyman or cab driver; 师父 - also "shifu" is respectful for teacher, like a Taichi or Kungfu instructor) is quite funny. He already drilled holes for me to hang up my shelves and refused to take any money, because he is a friend of my boss. So I plan on slipping him some money this time together with a bottle of brutal liquor (the shelves in the supermarket are flowing over with this clear 50% and more rice-schnapps, there are so many varieties, it's mind boggling). He can't refuse a gift, can he? He always treats me a bit like an idiot, I mean, clearly, anyone who doesn't speak Chinese is an idiot! Instead of talking to me, he starts to mimes things when I don't understand. It doesn't help that he has this accent where "s" sounds exactly like "sh." Many people do that here. I really don't understand how they can communicate. Chinese already has so many homophones, why add a few hundred more by not distinguishing between "z,c,s" and "zh, ch, sh"? It's insane! In the end I usually catch his meaning, but he doesn't believe me (although he even wrote it down!), so I have to call Lingfei to translate. Turns out he told me exactly what I thought he did. So, I'm looking forward to an entertaining evening today.

My Chinese is making big progress. I have also found a language partner. It's not quite fair, because her English is already much better than my Chinese (and I feel like my English has deteriorated in the last couple of months, I'm starting to use some phrases I pick up from Chinese that don't exactly have the right Grammar!) but I think it's going to help a lot. Usually I only practise speaking with the people in my class whose accent is just as bad as mine. It's easy to pronounce the tones correctly in a single word, but to string them together to sentences fluently is a challenge we consistently fail to live up to. Liu Xing, my language partner, is the first Chinese with siblings I meet who was born after the introduction of the one-child policy. So I asked her what punishment her parents had to face and she said they only paid a small fine and probably lost some job opportunities, but they didn't experience it as a real hardship. And she never felt discriminated or encountered any problems because of that. She thinks today the punishment would be much more severe though. And another interesting fact about this topic - in Jiangsu province couples are allowed to have more than one child if they both don't have any siblings. But that's not true for everywhere in China. Oh, and ethnic minorities are also exempt from this rule, I was told.

Meeting Liu Xing was fun. My writing teacher introduced us and we met in this western-style cafe. They wanted to have dinner, but ordered only sweet stuff! Apart from a salad. But in true Chinese fashion, all the food arrived at once and we ended up eating salad, cheesecake, crepes with ice cream and grilled cheese sandwich all at once :) I just can't understand why one would want to eat mediocre western style food when one can get really good Chinese food, usually for less money. And I firmly believe that me eating Chinese food three times a day is what has prevented me from catching the virus everyone else in my Chinese class came down with. Must be the soy milk :) But Liu Xing is really interested in Europe, so I guess I should cook some European food for her some day - when I have my awesome, awesome kitchen! :) Can't wait. Still need to buy a wok and a cleaver. I have been putting of this purchase. It's an important decision that should not be rushed. I mean, we're going to spend a whole year together! I don't want some cheap impostor in my kitchen...

That poor duck!

Disclaimer: Vegetarians might want to skip the first paragraph.

I caved in. After almost two months here and my not very fruitful attempts to befriend some of the Chinese Graduate students (I think they are a bit scared of me) I started to socialize with the other foreign students from my Chinese class. Oh my. I had forgotten how depressing it is to go out for dinner with people who cannot tell good from bad food even when they are chewing it! It was one of the guy's birthdays and he wanted to go for Peking duck. A noble endeavor, no question, but I should have been skeptical when he told me the price - only 50yuan for a whole roast duck? It's twice the price pretty much everywhere I had it before. And sure enough, what arrived at our table was a poor excuse of a Peking duck. The skin was not crispy at all! It was just fat. It was actually unpleasant to eat. They clearly had neither roasted it at high enough temperature nor inflated the skin before baking. They didn't even slice it at our table! It arrived half-cold. The other dishes tasted mostly like vinegar - the German version of sweet&sour. But pretty much everyone praised the food, apart from a couple of girls who were grossed out by the fat. Even the French guys who had done most of the ordering! What happened to the good old cliche' that the French are food snobs?! Well, they were from Marseilles...

So, that was kind of sad. Incidentally, I didn't really find anything to talk about with my table neighbors. Them not being foodies wasn't the only reason, it might also have been the fact that I don't have much in common with 20-year old Americans. Well, we were actually a pretty mixed group - 20 people in total (my class has only 14 students but they brought friends and friends' friends), with a large number of South-Americans (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Columbia) and North-Americans, but also some French, Vietnamese, Nigerian/British and one Chinese - our teacher. Unfortunately, I ended up at the table with the "kids." And afterwards we went to a - you'll never guess - Karaoke bar! It was like the ones I had only seen in Japanese movies so far. It's not a bar, looks more like a hotel (and yes, there were windows in the doors, thanks for asking) and you rent a room with big-screen TV and karaoke machine by the hour. It was kinda cool to see one of these places from the inside, but the party didn't really get going until the loudest girl got drunk and some of the "cool" kids showed up who had not been to the dinner. Well, I left when the girl dancing on the table started to kick over beer bottles. I am clearly too old for this. It's funny though, that I find the American and Chinese kids both immature or infantile, but in totally different ways. Ok, I might be totally off with this, but somehow the Chinese seem more innocent. Maybe that's just because I don't understand most of their jokes or because I only know nerdy physics students :) But I think I can relate to them better than to binge-drinking college kids... What annoys me most about them is that they even bring their attitude to class, so they talk loudly in the back if the teacher doesn't have enough authority. And she's this skinny little Sichuanese girl who always wears clothes 3 numbers too large and has this tiny, tiny voice... so, her class is mayhem. The other teacher (we have one for speaking and one for reading/writing) manages to excise some authority over them. It feels like middle school sometimes. Honestly, I think my high school was more sensible than that. I mean, the kids here pay a lot of money (I think 9000yuan/semester) for this Chinese course. What's the point to come to class if you are not paying attention? I swear, one of these days I am going to strangle the Vietnamese kid who is always on his cell phone during class!

It's the total opposite of my Chinese students who are so eager and disciplined. They call me "Miss A..." and "teacher A..." (I didn't bother to teach them the pronunciation of my last name, thankfully my first name is easily transcribed into pinyin) and they always thank me when I answer one of their questions :) I think it's going well. They did really well on the first homework. I think the only problem they have is understanding my English (and I don't think it's my German accent, as one American guy suggested to me... no idea what he's talking about! accent? What accent?!) and getting over their fear to ask questions in English. But they can read English alright. So, good thing I'm using a text book. Otherwise this would probably be a disaster :)

cozy_afternoon

Yesterday I had a fun day... where does a European go when she feels homesick? Exactly - IKEA! :) Isn't it awesome how it works the same pretty much everywhere in the world? Delivery always costs 50bucks... in other words it's a sixth of the North-American price here. And labour is of course cheap, so when I have my brand-new kitchen installed next week, the labour is only a small fraction of the total price. Yes, yes, I know... what does she need a kitchen for if she is only there for a year? Call me crazy, call me a snob, but if I can't cook I am not happy. So, about $500 (or 3000yuan) for one year seems like not such a bad investment. It's the cheapest IKEA version that probably millions of people have in their homes, but well... it beats the butcher-shop ambiance my kitchen has now.

Another funny story from my Chinese class... we came across the word Taiwan in one lesson (translated as "one of China's provinces") and our teacher asked us if we knew about the history of Taiwan. The loud girl said "yeah, they are those who hate all Chinese!" and our teacher got really flustered, saying "well, I don't think that is quite true" and then went on telling us about the war with the Japan and the Guomintang and the civil war with the communists, which, as far as I can tell with my so-far pretty limited Chinese history knowledge, was pretty much identical with the Western version of the story. I still ave this huge Chinese history book on my shelf, but haven't made it past the Warring States Period and the first kingdom around 0AD yet. So, my knowledge is limited to the Lonely Planet's 20page summary, but even that is more than a lot of pepople here have (apart from this one guy in my class who wants to do a Master's in East-Asian history). And even more shockingly - at least to me - some of them still take a fork to the restaurant!

Back in the saddle and random kindness

I got a bike! Yay! It even has gears, not that one really needs those in Nanjing, but I am so used to using them, I didn't want to go back to a one-gear only bike (frankly, I don't know if I ever had one since I was 7 or so), and it was less than 600yuan. So far I'm rather happy with it, but I only took it out for a ride once. Funny thing, all the bikes here are sold with stands. There are usually designated "parking spots" for bikes. Not like in Montreal, where bikes are locked to every railing, lamp post or whatever is available. No wonder there are so many bikes stolen. The guy in the store I bought the bike at looked majorly confused when I wanted the biggest lock they had. He said it would be way too big for this bike. Well, yes, if I just want to lock the tire to the frame, but isn't tat kind of retarded? When I tried to lock my bike in front of a store to it's railing, I was told off by a security guard. So, it's gonna be a challenge to start a new trend here :)

Just about time, I get back in the saddle; it's starting to get cold here (I would have thought after three Canadian winters I'd never say this again, but 22 degrees feels kind of chilly), I have even seen some brown leaves on the ground, but there's no overall foliage change. It's just that every tree decides to throw off a few leaves. That's fall. And sunshine! Today the air was so clear, I could see the TV tower close to my boss' house as if it was just across the street.

Today I had a genuine shopping experience :) Man, I can't believe I have been spending all that money in the supermarket! I went to a home depot kind of store, because I needed screws and the likes, and above it there is a real Chinese-style mall. Instead of the western open-floor concept, it feels more like a market or bazaar. Every little stand has their own 2 or 3 walls. It's kinda crammed and hard to orient oneself in, but so cheap! I got a blow dryer for 20yuan! And the kind of foil I am using to "decorate away" the worst of my furniture costs less than a quarter of the supermarket price. Also got a bathroom shelf for about a quarter of the home depot price. Sure, it will rust soon and the foil doesn't stick as well as the other one... but I am not building a home for the next 20 years. So, whatever. It was a lot of fun. People there clearly don't get to see many westerners, I was not harassed at all with "hello lady!" (unlike in the fabric mall or western style malls downtown) instead there was a lot of giggling and hand-waving in the negotiation process (actually, most of the time I was so taken aback by the low prices that I couldn't even bring myself to haggle). I now also know where to get cheap kitchen ware. They actually had woks that are round at the bottom, whereas the supermarket only sells the flat-bottom variety. I wonder why - most people do cook with gas, as far as I could observe so far.

Speaking of cooking with gas - I think I mentioned the jet-engine style burners on my gas stove? Well, it turns out they are way too big to use the little espresso maker I bought at IKEA (for an insane amount of money - 250yuan?!), it doesn't even fit on the stove. I had been looking for a metal inset to use on top of the big grid, but no luck so far. I was told they only sell these together with stoves, not alone. So when I saw one in the home depot store today, I made sad eyes at the salesperson and explained that I don't need a stove I just need "this" (most of my communication consists of pointing and saying 这个"zhe ge" (this) and 那个 "na ge" (that)) and I asked her 可以不可以 "keyi bu keyi" (can I?) buy only this. She said she can't sell only this, but - looking left and right making sure nobody hears her - she can give it to me for free (good thing my Chinese vocabulary includes the term 送 "song" (to give as a gift)! She made me turn around and stuffed it into my backpack :) I thought that was pretty awesome. And the best thing - it even fits! I can now make coffee at home (well, still need to buy espresso coffee, but I know that one can get Lavazza here). As long as I can afford it, I will probably still have my daily espresso at my favourite cafe though (it is also the only place at the moment where I can circumvent the great firewall and post this, for example). It would be sad to give up one of the two places where they know me :) The other one being the bun shop I go to almost every morning for a stuffed steamed bun (with meat, veggies or sweet bean paste) and a soy "milk," which doesn't even remotely resemble milk and has nothing to do with what they sell in the west as soy milk - it's simply delicious. Tastes like soy beans, not like sugar and additives. Also, the consistency is not as artificially creamy. I always end up buying from the same woman (people here really work every day!) and today she asked me if I am here for long term. So, I'm getting somewhere. Maybe in a couple of months I can have an actual conversation with those people.

I also got to try the German bakery's bread today, because I bought a loaf for my boss. It's really not bad. So, even if I had an oven, I wouldn't be tempted to bake my own bread here. But to be honest, I prefer the steamed buns :)

So, that was my Sunday. Tomorrow it's back to the regular schedule of Chinese class, grant writing, giving lecture, doing physics (not sure where to fit that in yet!). Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you're having some ducks instead of turkey ;)

Moved in!

Three days of endless fireworks! Man, I hope it's over now. They started at 9 in the morning and occurred all day long. Usually I only heard them and didn't see much (and yes, I'm pretty sure it wasn't gunfire, judging from all the people 22 floors down going on about their daily business... or maybe they're just really used to rattling gunfire here - who knows?). I think today was the last official day of the holidays, although classes only resume October 9th. We make up for missed days on one Saturday and one Sunday though.

And I moved into my new place! Got the water heater working on Sunday (turns out the wiring in this building isn't really made for the new 16 Amperes appliances, but they told me not to worry, many people have water heaters (so in other words - some don't and also go to the public showers like the poor students? oh my) and so far the building hasn't burnt down... what a comfort), assembled my IKEA furniture (only one piece is bent out of shape!), even got a fridge and washer. Check it out:

my_apartment_1

I'm very happy with my bed and living room (the view is stunning, especially at night), but the kitchen... man, I don't know what to do about that. The sink looks like it's made for bleeding not so small animals. I don't need all stainless steel luxury... but really, something a little bit nice? So I actually want to cook instead of eating out three times a day? This has become a really terrible habit. But the canteen is so cheap! And the portions are human size small, unlike in restaurant, where they think something is seriously wrong with you if you eat all by yourself anyway.

Had quite a freak-out today. I was about to go to bed and wanted to rinse my tea cup (good girl that I am, I was drinking tea and studying Chinese deep into the night), when a huge - I don't want to think the word, so let's just say - bug winked at me from the sink. Holy F***, that guy was monstrous! As long as my thumb, without exaggeration. And fast. But I got it, squashed it and - just to make sure it doesn't come back from the dead and creeps out of my garbage bin - threw it 22 floors into the abyss. Jeeze, that was a shock. Now I'm all hyper tense and need a beer (thanks to my shiny new fridge, it's cold - a Yanjing (from Beijing), which is kind of nice, a bit sweeter than Qingdao, but Qingdao makes so many different labels, it's hard to compare anyways). I really hope this bugger came in because I left the kitchen window open and it's not going to happen again. Man, I live so high up and the apartment has been empty for so long (I don't even have food around!), I was hoping they wouldn't notice me. Anyways, I'm not going to take chances - tomorrow I buy roach traps.

I already seem to have developed the Chinese habit of greeting people by stating the obvious :) Today when I went for a little Kung Fu on the physics lawn (yes, you can all envy me, I can still practice outside and this lawn is really awesome! It's like walking on carpet. I just have to be careful to not make a roll into one of the sprinklers, ehem) I ran into one of my students (the smart kid in the class actually, he was the only one who could properly define a vector space) or rather he ran into me - he was jogging. Not very Chinese is it? So, he said "hi" and I said "you're running" :) He also gets all the jokes I make in class, so I kinda think he's lived abroad. I have to be careful not to make him the standard, otherwise I will lose everyone else.

So far I haven't made good on my promise of talking about my class, have I? So, I'm teaching "geometry and topology" (again) and although the class was announced too late to make it into the curriculum, someone posted it on some kind of online forum (and said something about the professor being "a beauty" - at least that's what my boss claims, I haven't verified this due my poor Chinese) and my first class was packed! There were 42 people, maybe two more and they would have had to stand. In case you're used to 200 people lectures and don't get my excitement - this is a graduate course, intended for maybe 10 students. So, I gave them my usual "I'm tough" rundown :P "If you did not do the reading, don't bother to show up to class" and "If you think this is an easy course, because there is no exam, you're wrong here" Ehem. With the proper German accent - very intimidating (or so I like to believe :P) But I kinda think it fell on deaf ears, at least non-understanding ears. When I noticed all the blank faces I asked them "DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING?" and they all laughed and said yes, but when I asked "DO YOU ALWAYS UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING?" they shook their heads. So, I have to slow down an awful lot and use simpler vocabulary. Whew. It's quite a challenge. They're also intimidated to ask questions because of the language barrier. But I think I'm getting the class to a manageable size. The second time "only" 22 showed up and only 14 did the homework. Thankfully, I have a TA :) Don't need to grade myself. The most interesting experience so far was when I handed out a little quiz in the first class - I just wanted to know what the baseline of knowledge is they have. And it was kinda humorous - the last question was "what's the best food in Nanjing and where do I find it?" But still, they took it so seriously! There had been a lot of chatting and giggling before, suddenly they all went quiet and really went to work. And the best part - some tried to cheat! I mean, what kind of favor are you doing yourself if you pretend to know more than you do? And although I had said "when you're done, you can leave," I basically had to kick them out. They thought it was incredibly funny, that I just ended the class like that - let everyone leave when they want to. And nobody wanted to be the first to get up. Later somebody told me that no-one wanted to miss anything - maybe there would still be something interesting said at the end? But what about those 20 who never came back? What were they waiting for? That the promised beauty finally puts in an appearance? :) I have to say though (and yes, you bunch can feel flattered) that the level of the students' math education here is not up to Montreal's. But some of them are actually undergrads. And I think they are willing to put in a lot of hard work (and yes, you should be ashamed now for all the sloppy homework assignments you handed in!)

To end on a funny note - amusing signs I spotted

funny signs

And don't worry... there won't be as many blog updates as soon as my Chinese class starts again :)

Mooncakes and politics

Happy mid-autumn festival everyone! Fireworks! Everywhere, all the time, even in bright daylight! Today we eat mooncakes (man, they're so expensive! I think mostly because of the fancy packaging. Chinese are the masters of kitschy boxes, I might just stay here forever) and gaze at the moon as it rises over the Yangzi... Sorry my blog has been all about me, me, me lately (well, it is my blog) and not about China so much. I guess I haven't gotten out all that much yet. The commute hotel-Chinese class-office-canteen-office-canteen-hotel didn't take me out of campus apart from my occasional trip to the supermarket for water, beer and yogurt (need to get my calcium somehow - the yogurt is actually pretty decent and there are way more milk products on the shelf now than 2 years ago). Right now I'm pretty broke, but with my next paycheck I'll get a bike and hopefully get out more. It doesn't exactly help that I'm moving even closer to the office, I suppose :) My walk is now cut from 5 to 3 minutes.

A couple of days ago I managed to invite some of the students (who had helped me re-arrange my furniture, although they're all fragile little creatures; I think it's them who need a Kung Fu school more urgently than me!) out for a beer. Well, Fanta and beer, only one of them drank and turned bright red after the first sip :) But we got talking and it was quite interesting to get their view on China. It's amazing (at least to me) how critical the cultural revolution and Mao are portrayed everywhere. I mean, even on the State media. I don't think we in the west have a good understanding of the relationship the Chinese have with their past. They can perfectly well understand the cruelty and stupidity that happened under Mao, but still admire him as the father of China. And it's not just about "he did 30% right and 70% wrong." But it doesn't compare to Germans saying "not everything was bad under the Nazis" either. I don't really know how to express it, but I think there's less of a black/white attitude here. Or if there is white, there's also always black, you know, yin-yang. I also think it's a matter of pride. The Chinese know the cultural revolution and great leap forward were catastrophes, but it's not our business to judge that. I think it would mean a great loss of face to have Westerners tell the Chinese they were "wrong." I mean, think about it. Germany after WWII was certainly a humbled and defeated nation. But they inflicted mass murder on other people, the Chinese did it "only" on their own. So, I think a lot of the "not everything was bad under Mao" attitude is really a "stay out of our business." But I'm really intrigued by the notion that maybe Chinese culture is better at accepting wrong doings of the past and live with them instead of just denouncing them as overall bad. But well, what do I know? :) Maybe some of my Chinese friends should tell me whether I'm wrong?

I don't remember there ever being a negative portrayal of the early East German leaders, like Ulbricht, in later times. Well, maybe I was just too young, but I had the feeling the GDR system was more continuous. One of the Chinese students said that it's ok to criticise the cultural revolution, because Deng Xiaoping came to power later on and he had suffered from it. They seem to view the leaders of their country more as monarchs and say a lot of their governing style (like eliminating enemies, but also banning supporters) is like that of the old Chinese emperors.

Ok, enough politics for today. Gotta go enjoy the 27C and sunshine :) after a rainy spell we're finally enjoying a really lovely late-summer here. Funny aside, as I type this I'm sitting in a cafe (where I get my daily fix of Illy espresso) and the guy next to me is from Montreal! :)

I ended up spending 中秋节 zhong qiu jie (mid-autumn festival) with my boss and her family in the really beautiful (but expensive to get into) Wochou Lake Park. Then we went for dinner and had amazing crawfish. The day ended with me barely stopping the 2-year old daughter when she wanted to try my hammer on my laptop... I think I've had enough of small children for a while.

Happy Birthday!

It's China's 60th anniversary today! And there's a big parade... which I only caught glimpses of on a TV screen. No foreigner is allowed around Tiananmen square today. But I already got a whole month of parade rehearsal on CCTV, so thanks, that's alright with me. I've actually stopped watching CCTV because I couldn't take it anymore. Interviews with soldiers about their great achievement of only being 5cm off when marching a kilometer in evenly spaced paces. Dedication, discipline and hard work - that's what 60 years China is about and that's what this parade is about... ehem.

When I left my hotel this morning, I couldn't help but notice how quiet it was, the streets were all empty and clean as I've never seen them before. Seriously, I think they started a major clean-up effort for the big day. And if I was thinking all those people were glued to the TV screen watching the parade, I soon learned better - they all went to the mall! Because October 1st is not only the National holiday, but also the National Day of Sales. I went to a big appliances mall (everything here seems to be concentrated in malls, which makes the shopping around easy, but it's also pretty intense, because every vendor is fighting for your attention. My boss and her family went with me (I think they're adopting me) and my boss haggled for me :) You can't really haggle in those malls, but you can always ask for a discount or a gift. When buying a water heater, I ended up with a 1,000yuan discount (almost 50%) and a free water kettle. For the fridge I had to cough up the whole promotion price of 1,300 yuan. And I will finally have a decent washing machine, after 6 years of North-American crap! I can't wait! I think I'll be doing laundry every day for the first month :) Picking out the stuff only took an hour, but paying and arranging delivery took up another hour. Fighting my way through the cell phone buying crowd was almost too much afterwards. Shopping is serious business here, not for the faint-hearted!

In case you're wondering why I'm buying stuff as if I'm moving into a completely empty apartment... well, that's because I am moving into a completely empty apartment. All it has is a stove, or rather two jet-engine style gas burners, a sink in the kitchen, a sink outside(!) the bathroom, toilet and shower. No hot water. No heating or A/C. But this is all not as bad as it sounds, because the connections are all there, even for the washing machine. It's just the way it works here - when you move out you take your hot water with you :) Thanks to the big discount I got a fancy water heater with remote control and timer... whoo. The place is the postdoc apartment I had been waiting for for a month. It turns out I could have moved in earlier. They were waiting for me to get my residency permit. But the foreign personnel apartment had told me, I should wait till I have a proper address before applying for the residency permit. So it was a hen-and-egg problem. I got the luxurious foreigner apartment, which was really built for the provincial government, but they never use it, so the university got part of the building as a postdoc residence. And the really awesome part (apart from it being on the 22nd floor with an amazing view) is that it's basically brandnew! The building is 7 years old, but nobody has ever lived in this apartment. The furniture (two bed frames, two desks, dining table, some wardrobes/shelves) are definitely used though and look like from the 70's. The hilarious part - I'm not allowed to throw any of the furniture out, because the management wants to "keep the standard" of the apartment. Well, I understand if you think IKEA furniture isn't the greatest in the world, but believe me, it tops the stuff that's in there! Oh well. I just have to paint the old furniture over or something... Nobody said I can't disassemble what I don't want and store it. The only real problem is the kitchen. It's tiny. And stove and sink are at a height of about 60cm. They must have thought whoever lives there gets a midget as a nanny. I'm contemplating to throw everything out and have a proper kitchen installed... just have to be careful I don't spoil the standard.

Last weekend I got an impression of the free housing market. My boss seemed to get worried about my housing situation and took me to check out a few places. We saw two agencies downtown (one of them was really creepy - sweaty men in a stinky office hidden in a back alley, cockroaches crawling on the floor and they wanted 500RMB before even showing us anything - we just ran) and - holy shit - that was an experience. First we saw a place for 1,300/month, which was really a hole. There was no proper floor, leaks in the bathroom and everything looked really run-down and dirty. The second place would have been 1,500/months and looked acceptable (the 70's style furniture prevailed also here), but the staircase wasn't exactly inviting - unless you're a rat maybe. I was told to keep the door shut at all times to keep the rats out. Charming. Finally we visited a place close to where my boss lives in a luxury condo building. Here are pictures of all three places (I have to say the scary factor doesn't really show in the photographs):

Apartment hunt

I would have felt a bit like cheating if I had moved there. Like "that's not the real China." But it is! Most of my neighbors would have been Chinese. Just the kind who can afford condos. And it seems there are not that few of them today. Anyways, I didn't want to live in just one room with someone else's furniture. So, when I got the news that I can have the postdoc apartment (which is almost free, the rent is 100RMB/month + electricity and gas; if I would have rented somewhere else, the university would have given me 800RMB subsidy) I was relieved. I'll probably spend all the money I save on rent on furnishing this place, but at least I can fix it up how I want. And this is what I started out with (this is already after cleaning the worst of the 7 years of dust):

My Apartment - naked

Next time I'll show you what it looks like one IKEA trip and 10,000RMB later... (I'm in serious debt with my boss, but I can pay most of it off when the university reimburses me for my flight. 1 plane ticket = 1 apartment furnishing, crazy!)

A little trip back in time

Sorry for the long dry spell. I am terribly busy with Chinese class, teaching, research (gasp!) and apartment hunt (It's not really clear when, if ever, I will get the promised campus apartment, so I started looking off-campus - fortunately we're just covering "我想租一间房子 I want to rent an apartment" in my Chinese class!)

Shanghai was quite a trip. I have to say the city failed to win me over (again), but the conference was certainly a cultural experience. Socialism is alive! At least in the opening ceremony and the hotel...



It turned out not to be the only foreigner. There was also a French dude who gave one of the opening talks. But all the other talks were in Chinese, sometimes even the slides! Agh! I entertained myself making a list of simple characters that kept popping up and I feel I should know. Most likely the way they are used in physics is very specific and has not all that much to do with their original meaning.

My hotel had really awesome service - they give you a wake-up call even if you didn't ask for one! The first at 5:20, and just to make sure another one at 6:50. Needless to say I unplugged my phone. And the breakfast... my god, that wasn't even canteen standard. It felt like prison food. Metal trays and rice gruel. Ok, there was also other stuff, but it was awful. I'm sure tis place was charming when it opened in 1980 or so. The whole area was probably in the middle of woods back then. Now it's in the middle of the most unpleasant construction site. A three kilometer walk from the next metro station (google maps put it right next to the metro stop, I think that is why the organizers chose the hotel; also, it's really big, but half of it doesn't seem to be in use anymore) and I am pretty sure all those styled girls in extremely tiny clothes sitting around bored in hair salons (with naked girls painted on the walls) weren't waiting for customers to cut their hair... Now, if you think this is just the western snob whining - the Chinese complained about the hotel just as much. I wold like to say it was a bit run down but at least clean, but also that would be a lie. I wonder how those footprints got on the wall...

The conference was kind of funny. It opened with handing out awards, where some old distinguished physicist handed over a plaque to some younger researcher, while they were playing march music. The weird thing was, that the old dude got more applause than the one who was being awarded. Then there were three opening talks (apparently, the opening session is just for show, uninvited questions are not appreciated there). There awere 1,500 participants! That then split up into 17 parallel sessions. It's clear that physics in China focusses on condensed matter, applied research, but not so much on fundamental research.

Had a nice lunch one day - this place (just some little dive outside campus) specializes in steamed food, but that doesn't mean bland and healthy. Au contraire! It was all pretty oily. There was pork belly with kale, eggplant with chilis and lettuce on rice noodles. But the tea there is undrinkable, because the tab water tastes so bad. I actually smelled worse after a shower than before! The campus of Shanghai Jiaotong University is really neat - huge, brandnew, full of big lawns you can actually walk on!!! And the vending machines sell not only snickers, dried fruit and kleenex, but also condoms! :) Still, the dorms seem to be one-gender-only. So, where are those kids supposed to do it???? On the lawn?????

My first day in Shanghai I just wandered around in the rain (realizing that my expensive supermarket umbrella actually leaks!) until I was really tired of being soaking wet and just sat in a tea house and read. Saw some fake old stuff, some run-down old stuff, some shiny new stuff and some already run-down new stuff. That's Shanghai for you. I think the only point of going there is to forget that you're in China. I didn't actually see the big skyscrapers because it was so rainy, they vanished in the clouds.

One of the other afternoons I skipped the talks and walked around the "French concession," which is even less Chinese. If I was living on a western salary I might enjoy the boutiques and cafes. At least now I know where to go when I get sick of China... no, wait. If I do, I'll just go home! Actually, the best time I had when just hanging out on Jiaotong University's new campus. Many departments haven't moved into their buildings yet, so the whole place was pretty empty. And it's so huge that you can really get lost. It was the first time since getting here when I felt quiet and relaxed.

Now I'm actually happy to be in Nanjing. Even if I moved back into the hotel. But I guess the trip to Shanghai just made me appreciate Nanjing all the more! :)

Sorry, this has to do for today. I'm really exhausted and still have Chinese homework to do. Maybe next time I'll write something about the class I'm teaching. Until then... enjoy the pictures! Here are some more from a Saturday spent with my boss' family:

Pictures!

I finally managed to upload some pictures. So, here's the

Campus

and my

Hotel

These

First Impressions

are from downtown, a little south of the campus. And here you can see my excursions to

Old City Wall and Jiming Temple

Fuzi neighborhood