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!