Upside down

The Chinese love their word games. No wonder, having a language with so many homophones. Many superstitions actually have to do with language, for example 4 is an unlucky number, because 四 "si" sounds to much like 死 "si" (to die; dead), although the tones are different. On the other hand, many places are selling New Year's decoration now and the most common one is the character 福 "fu" (good fortune) - but upside down. Why? Because 福倒了 "fu dao le" ("fu" is upside down) sounds like 福到了(good fortune is coming) - can you spot the difference? :) the middle character is slightly different. Nifty, eh? Another example is "song zhong," which can mean to give a clock (as a gift, 送钟) but also to attend a funeral（送终). That's why it's taboo to give clocks as presents in China - wrist watches (biao) are ok, though. I recently started to read this book by a German who followed her husband to Shanghai and, of course, had to write about her adventures - who doesn't? And she told the story of committing the ultimate faux pas and presenting their host with a clock - a cuckoo clock of all things (as if that shouldn't be a punishable crime in itself). I don't believe the story, because in every little "China for dummies" book you find this listed among the top 10 DON'Ts, so I believe she just put it in to get some laughs. Actually, most of her stories were so over the top dumb (as if she had not even opened one wikipedia page about China or picked up one little guide book) that I got quite annoyed with the book and didn't finish it (sorry, dad :)).

Speaking of faux pas - I was assured that it was not my fault that my hosts in Ganzhou made me sit down but remained standing themselves. My friend said "maybe they were too excited" :) I've been spending more time with this student of mine, Xu Feng, who is really an invaluable source of information. He even promised to find a recipe for me for cooking pork with 梅干菜 "mei gan cai" - that's dried mustard greens, a Jiangsu specialty and I really like it. It's quite salty and has a very distinctive flavour. I've had it in stuffed in buns with ground pork or stir-fried with pork, and since I found some in the supermarket, I want to try my own cooking skills.

Sadly, I must report that I will spend New Year all by myself - everyone I know is leaving. Most people are going home to their families and the two friends who would maybe have invited me to spend the holiday with them and their families are traveling. So, yeah, that's a bit of a letdown. I had thought after half a year here I would have made/cooked my way into the hearts of my students/colleagues, but my students still consider me their "boss" rather than their peer, I think. And since I have successfully resisted making friends with the people from my language class, I will be all alone :( Ok, it's not quite true. I made friends with a bunch of South-Americans, who were really thrilled when I cooked pasta for them. I even found cream and speck - incredibly expensive of course, but really not bad. There is one grocery store which specializes in Western food. Apart from parmigiano, muesli, European wines and other delicacies, they also carry bleach, shaving cream and such necessities. But the South-Americans are also traveling. Even my boss will be gone for three weeks. I didn't think everything here would shut down quite so literally. I thought, as in the west, the time without classes is when profs do most of their actual work...

And a last word of advice - if you have a Chinese girlfriend/boyfriend, never share a pear with her/him. Because "fen li" can mean to share a pear (分梨), but also to separate/break up (分离) :)