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...
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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"...
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!
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!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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...
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...
 |
| 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...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
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
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.
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...
 |
| 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...
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)