Fish! Fish! Get your fish here!

In February, I went to Yunnan province with some colleagues for a week. One of the highlights was our stay in Dali Old Town and a boat trip on Erhai Lake.

When a boat trip was mentioned, I foolishly imagined something small, for maybe 10 or 20 people, where you have to wear life jackets and listen to the outboard motor juddering along. No. This was a massive cruise ship with 5 levels that could hold I don't know how many hundred people. It had it's own cafe, shop, massage room, dining hall, several decks and dozens of tour groups on board.

We three foreigners braved the brisk morning air on the outside deck and had it mostly to ourselves for an hour or so. It was heavenly to watch the sunlight on the water and breathe the fresh air off the lake. As we approached our first stop, a small temple island, more and more of our fellow tourists came out on deck to look at the approaching island, stare at the foreigners and eat their varied snacks.

The island was tiny. It's sole building was a small temple on a hill. However the entire population of the boat had an opportunity to get onto this island and be greeted by the 50+ food vendors crowded onto the flat place below the temple. Everywhere you turned, vendors were selling fish, big fish, small fish, fried fish, roast fish, as well as tiny lake shrimp, quickly fried in a hot wok, and local salty pears. We clambered over the hill and glanced at the temple, trying to get out of the way of the stumbling hordes behind us, then found a slightly quieter vendor and ordered some shrimp.

Back on the boat, I had a seat to myself outside in the sunshine where I could eat my delicious shrimp in peace. They were hot and crunchy and salty and rather oily and extremely delicious! The salty pear was more interesting than delicious. It tasted like a regular Chinese pear (nashi pear) that has been soaked in salt water, so was slightly salty and slightly soggy, but cool and refreshing after the shrimp. I imagine it would be just the thing on a hot summer's day, after a long walk!

 

Merry Christmas from Snowy Beijing!

It's snowing here in Beijing, a fine light sparkly snow that makes your coat and hat all wet, but is settling into a lovely crunchy white ground cover. But don't worry, a small army of workers will be out early in the morning to remove any traces of the white stuff from main roads and pavements before I've even woken up. Can't leave snow lying on the ground! Oh no! My second Christmas in Beijing has been a lot of fun. I helped out with Christmas music for my church Christmas Eve Eve service. I graded papers 'til midnight on Christmas Eve. Gave my students a practice writing exam (about Christmas) on Christmas morning. And had some friends over on Christmas Night for dinner, music and games. It's kind of weird living in a place where Christmas is just a regular workday. When I ask my students about it, most of them know it's a western holiday, and they mostly know about Santa and presents. But not so many of them know that the main reason for Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We westerners are exporting consumerism very successfully, but the Jesus message is a little harder to get through! The reason for the season is alive and kicking among my bible study group though. We are all away from our families so we came together to eat special food (Thai Red Beef Curry and Coca Cola Chicken and Purple Mashed potatoes) – if not actual Christmas food. My excuse is I don't have an oven! This was topped off with very traditional desserts including Chocolate cake, cream puffs and roasted chestnuts. No fruitcake. Ah well. Some traditions just don't really translate well to China. What a shame... Then we had music and a Christmas story bible quiz. We probably took this 'fun' activity a little too seriously. I guess we are a bible study group. Every question got debated for 10 minutes. What is Ruth's relationship to David resulted in a discussion of how genealogies were written in Hebrew to reflect symmetry rather than accuracy. How many times did angels appear in dreams in the New testament before Jesus was 2 years old resulted in a 10 minute discussion of what constituted a dream, and what constituted a vision. Our non believer guest looked on in fascination at our passionate arguments! It's hard to believe another year has passed. I have just signed another contract and will be here until January 2014. So if you happen to be around for Christmas 2013, brush up your bible knowledge, you can join my team for the Christmas Day Quiz! Next year, we're going to win. Do you hear that Mr P? :) Merry Christmas and God Bless you all!

Happy New Year! 祝你过节快乐！

[Photo: Christmas Day with friends]

I like this phrase in China. You can say it all the way through from 31^st December to mid February, and you could be referring to either Western or Chinese New Year, making you equally polite in both cultures. So, Happy New Year! Wherever you are, whatever you're doing!

I am on an aeroplane, on my way to Hainan Island (海南岛), a tropical paradise in the South of China. Yesterday in class I was teaching conditionals: 'What would you do if you didn't have to visit your relatives over Chinese New Year? Where would you go?' Everyone said 'Hainan!'. Lucky me.

My university takes the foreign teachers on two trips a year, depending on where the Directors' wife wants to go. Conveniently, she has a friend in Hainan. Last semester we went to Beidaihe (北戴河), a seaside resort East of Beijing, full of Russians. Hainan is also full of Russians, but it's warmer and cheaper.

I'm travelling with the Director, his wife and an American colleague. The Director has a 'gold card' which is totally awesome! It means you jump the queue at all the airport check-in stuff, and you get to hang out in the first class lounge. It's been a while. Free drinks, whatever you like, snacks of the peanut, crisp and instant noodle variety, or fresh dim sum and noodles. For us 外国人 (foreigners) they also had sandwiches and bread rolls. I tried both. The dim sum was much better. It's hard to find a decent sandwich in China.

I got to practice my 普通话 (Chinese) on the Director – he was very kind and spoke slowly and clearly so I could understand more or less everything he said. Not sure he could understand everything I said. These tones are tricky lah! He wanted to know where my 老家 (hometown) was. This generally requires a very long explanation, but I'm quite good at it by now.

On board, my colleague and I laughed at the aeroplanes' safety video. Apparently it's 'really dangerous' to smoke in the toilets. I've never seen this emphasised before. My theory, based on observations from the building where my Chinese school is located, is that people (girls in particular) like to hang out in the bathrooms to smoke and chat on the phone. Smoking is supposed to be bad for a girls reputation so they do it secretly. On the plus side, you don't have to wade through a crowd of smokers when you want to enter a building here. Maybe there's something in it? Architects, take note!

Moussaka and Tiramisu

This evening I went for dinner with some friends to Biteapitta, an average and slightly expensive Lebanese place in Sanlitun, aka Expat Central. I've been there before. All the waiters speak perfect restaurant English, but smile patiently when we use our halting and inaccurate Chinese to order. The food is ok, but not up to the London Edgware Road standard. I'm spoiled I guess!

On my first visit I ordered a chicken shawarma sandwich, which was small, lukewarm, and not quite satisfying. I wanted to order something else after I had finished eating. I guess, somewhat unfairly, I had in mind a memory of shawarma at my favourite restaurant on Edgware Road, Al Tanoor, where the shawarma's were massive, and overflowing with meat, to the point that I had to ask for extra salad to ensure I received more than a pinch of lettuce and the suggestion of tomato. I usually found myself too full to finish the chips, crispy Macdonalds style french fries, salty and hot and deliciously more-ish.

Tonight C and I ordered Moussaka and a lamb and chicken skewer, which came with rice, spinach patties, chips and salad. I hesitated for a long while over this choice. I have become acclimatised enough to the local currency that paying 55 Yuan (GBP5.50) for a main meal with two sides seems excessively expensive. But I figured it's my birthday, I may as well splurge a little!

The Moussaka was excellent. A little cold – possibly because we ate the skewers first, but a wonderful texture of eggplant and minced beef and tomato. Warm and filling and comforting. I would definitely order it again. The skewers were also good. Big chunks of lamb, barbecued, with a little fat, tasting like wonderful barbecued lamb ought to. Here in Beijing, the lamb is mostly chuan'r – very thin strips of meat on a stick, marinated in a Xinjiang style spicy sauce. It's good, but it doesn't taste the same. (Maybe it's not really lamb?) This stuff was the real deal!

The salad was very tasty. A good combination of finely cubed cucumber and tomato, with enough spice to keep it interesting. The spinach patties were disappointing. They sounded interesting, but looked more or less like circles of greenish black pudding, and tasted like lukewarm fried frozen spinach. I suppose they were vaguely healthy. The rice was great. But the chips. Oh dear. Large, and cold and tending towards a slightly stodgy sogginess. Not nearly enough salt. I didn't bat an eyelid when C finished the last one.

Still, the company was good. It's nice to be surrounded by friends on your birthday. Especially friends who don't get too offended when you get a bit animated and accidentally offend them by suggesting that their line of research is boring/pointless/causes people to despise the subject due to excessive analysis. One of these days I'll learn to hold my tongue!

Afterwards we went for tea and cake at an Italian style cafe. As you opened the door a fragrance of lilies wafted towards you, from the massive yellow bouquet next to the delicious looking display of cakes. Each table also had it's own cosy bouquet of orange lilies. The menu was in Italian, Chinese and English. But strangely, the waiter didn't speak any English. A rare feat in Sanlitun. We were allowed to, no, required to practice our Chinese, and to explain what Earl Grey tea is in Chinese. They didn't have any, so we settled for Jasmine tea and Tiramisu.

Now I've eaten a lot of Tiramisu. I used to work at Pizza Express, and their Tiramisu, while frozen, is still pretty good. This tasted different. Fresh. Not quite perfectly blended and melted together like the mass produced quality controlled bulk bought Pizza Express version, but perhaps, (gasp!) homemade? Certainly the massive steel kitchen tray of tiramisu in the display cabinet looked like it could not possibly come in pre-frozen plastic tubs. We enjoyed it. Every last creamy, soft bite, even the bits with a tad too much cocoa powder on top. The plate was all but licked clean.

All in all, a quiet but fun birthday dinner. I am so blessed to have such good friends here, even after only eight months. Perhaps it's the transient nature of the place. You make a little more effort to make friends quickly, because you know that soon enough, they'll disappear back home to South Africa, or Scotland or wherever it is they came from! We will all go home, eventually...

How to make dumplings

My Chinese teacher invited me to her her Father-in-laws house for lunch with another student. We arrived at an airy, modern flat, with Traditional style Chinese furniture – uncomfortable red wooden chairs, with bamboo seat covers so you don't get too hot and sweaty in the summer. We sat and sipped tea and asked repeatedly, "Can we help?"

As honoured guests, we should relax and not lift a finger, but Anna and I were very keen to learn how to make dumplings. Eventually we were allowed to help, and our host showed us how to roll out the dough into small flat round dumpling wrappers. And how to spoon just the right amount of filling onto the wrapper, and how to fold it neatly into a dumpling.

So we tried, and we rolled and we folded. It took us about two minutes to make one dumpling, in which time our host had made about six perfect ones, while ours looked like something a two year old might make! It looks very simple – squish the edges together, and pinch them shut. But the pinching requires a certain art which I suspect takes a lot of practice to get perfect!

The filling was a very special mixture, containing some kind of green vegetable, ginger, garlic, water chestnuts, and something else which I really didn't catch. My food Chinese is limited to what I can order in a restaurant. Ingredients are still beyond me, much to the amusement of the lady in the vegetable shop.

I regularly go in, look around, then attempt to explain what the vegetable I want looks like. She will say the right name, I will look blank, and explain again. She will say the right name again and show me, then I go, yes! And she laughs. Still, I'm learning. I can now ask for onions. Progress.

Anyway, dumplings. So we made dumplings, and then the meal was ready. We were treated to six cold dishes. Peanuts, thousand year eggs, pork, tofu skin, cucumber and duck. I expressed delight in the thousand year eggs (which are not actually one thousand years old, they are just pickled) and so had about 12 put onto my plate. Aaarrghh! Must remember to be noncommittal about everything in future! I guess they are an acquired taste as the texture can be a little slimy. 

And then the dumplings came out, steamed and fried. Anna and I looked at them in despair. Were we really expected to eat all of this food? We had barely made a dent in the cold dishes! Our teacher said it was ok. So we ate as much as we could, slowly, and expressed our deep appreciation. The food was excellent, and it was awesome to be able to sit with a Chinese family and eat together. I'm sure it was nothing like the reality of a normal dinner at home for them, but still, we could imagine!

I was reminded of my grandfather, who liked nothing better than having a table full of family and friends around to eat together. Food always seems to taste better when you have company! So friends, family, come and visit me so we can eat together! I might even make you some misshapen dumplings, Chinese style!

'You know, you're crazier than you look!'

Yes, I have crossed that line, from mostly sensible, to slightly crazy person. I attended my first official b!ble conference. And it was awesome!

I have been singing with the African Choir at chvrch, which is like a cross between London Rev and the Pra!se and Worsh!p team at Hope. Awesome choral music, (lots of African songs mixed with Hillsongs et al) sung with ridiculous enthusiasm, loudly, into microphones, and accompanied by drums, guitar, piano, bass, and sometimes the tambourine (I get very excited by this so they don't encourage me to play it very often, as my rhythm is a bit random)!!

So, can you see the African Choir? Can you hear them singing? If it's helpful, think of the last time you heard me sing. Imagine that my voice is like a kitten miaowing, and next to me are five or six lions, roaring. Can you hear them now?

Now imagine that there is an African choir in every city in China, and that they all come together twice a year for a conference. Is there anything more wonderful than listening to a room of 350 people sing, soulfully, meaningfully, at the top of their lungs, pra!ses to Him? And further to clap and shout and dance in celebration?

The conference was basically three music sessions every day, followed by a speaker, and then some group discussion. I was with a couple of other conference freshies, and the first time the dancing started we watched, jaws on the ground, as a spontaneous mosh pit/line dancing group formed in front of the stage. The pure energy was exhilarating to watch.

The second time, we were ready - my new friends and I rushed to the front to take part! The trick is to figure out who is leading (which can be fairly fluid) and then to not trip over anyone else's feet. And also, to do whatever you do with 100% enthusiasm. You can't dance half heartedly here!

The Beijing crew were invited to lead one of the music sessions. We were all slightly nervous about this as our usual choir of 7+ singers with assorted musicians had dwindled to three singers, a drummer and two very reluctant musicians (she can hardly play the piano, and I can hardly play the guitar). But we were backed up by pr@yer, and He provided three incredibly talented musicians, an awesome set list, and a really good time slot. We sang on the second day, when we all still had some voice left, and were not completely exhausted, just on the edge of it!

We started with slow songs, deep songs, that normally you have to sing quietly. With this group, we could belt it out. We are encouraged to sing with our best voice, or most comfortable range, so I get the ridiculously squeaky high bits. It feels so good to sing out, loudly, as He intended, and to know that he is using you, and your voice, to reach out to people, to help people speak with him.

We intended to finish our set with a short fast song, and then something medium paced to calm people down. Well, within seconds of the fast song starting we had our very own mosh pit forming, who would not let us stop! They screamed, "More! More!" How could we disoblige? 30 minutes and several African songs I don't even know later, we staggered off stage, exhausted.

I know that many of my friends (and I love you regardless) look on my energy and enthusiasm for life with a kind of fear, and a "don't let me get infected" feeling. How can I express how wonderful it feels to be surrounded by people equally enthusiastic, equally on fire for Him, to walk His walk, to do His will, to trust in His crazy, amazing, and unimaginable plan for us. All I can say is Thank You! What a privilege have I been given. May I thank Him always for this gift. 

A Trifling Experiment with Cheeseburger Pie

You may imagine from this blog that I only ever eat out at restaurants. It's not true. Sometimes I eat out at other people's houses.

I have met lot's of Americans here. And some of them have been kind enough to invite me for dinner. And they cook American food. American food is cool! Way cool. I mean come on, 'Cheeseburger Pie' – what an awesome name!!

So the name is sort of descriptive, if you translate it into American. 'Cheeseburger Pie' is a cross between a cheeseburger (in that it contains burger meat) and pie (if by 'pie' you mean a pasta bake crossed with toad in the hole). It's apparently very easy to make. You fry up ground beef (I.e. minced beef) and onions, and add some 'seasoning mix' (no idea exactly what it contains but some kind of chilli powder, plus salt and pepper, and various E numbers I guess?). Then you pour over a ready made box mix of something called 'Bisquick' which makes a biscuit mix (or a kind of doughy substance similar to yorkshire pudding). Finally you top it off with grated cheese and stick it in the oven. Yes, my American friend has an oven. She also bakes cakes and cookies (I mean biscuits)!

And voila! Cheeseburger Pie is served. I liked it. Crispy on top, lots of red meat with a kind of Tex Mex chilli con carne flavour that American's do so well, the sort of doughy stuff that binds it all together. I had thirds.

For dessert another friend had experimented with trifle. In a kind of 'well I don't have sponge cake, or jelly, but I have custard and random biscuits and some fruit. Lets's sort of throw it all in together and see what happens' way. It tasted good! Custard with all sorts of exciting bits of fruit or biscuit lurking where you least expect them. Plus the top was covered with 杨梅 (yangmei) or Yumberries. I had never eaten them before. They are slightly sour and tangy, but sort of sweet as well. They went nicely with the custard, bringing a tartness to the sweetness of the trifle.

Aren't you all impressed with my new American food vocabulary? Yeah? Oh weeeell, it's reeaal naaice of y'aaall to saiy so. [I never said my American accent was any good!!:)]

Sticky Hairy Apples

When you have a set class schedule you also have set lunch buddies. And our campus has limited restaurant options. There are two decent restaurants, so we alternate. And sometimes, yes, we get bored and order strange things for a little variety.

This week it was toffee apples. A group behind us had them and my colleague said they were good. So, some minutes later a massive pile of hot toffee apples appeared on our table.

They are not your traditional 'apple on a stick coated in toffee and wrapped in red cellophane' variety. These are much nicer and slightly easier to eat. They are freshly cooked pieces of apple, battered, and then covered in toffee. They are served with a bowl of cold water because the toffee is so fresh that it develops these fine toffee hairs when you pick it up. You have to dip it in the water to cool the toffee, and stop the hairs from growing, then eat it slowly – because it's still really hot inside.

But you have to eat the dish quickly. Because once the apples get cold, they solidify into hard lumps that stick together and break your teeth! And of course, this is China, so the apples (dessert) always arrive before your main course! The worst part is, I'm starting to enjoy the sweet as a starter. I'll come back to the Western world having learned to spit bones onto the table, eat dessert first, and yell for the waiter without even looking. Oh dear! You just can't take some people anywhere!!

Are you sure it's beef?

In my Chinese class this week we were looking at menus and food words and how to order. My teacher asked me 你会不会点菜？ (Have you learned to order yet?) I told her 对，我会点菜，但是有的时候我点真奇怪的菜。 (Yes, but sometimes I order very strange dishes.)

A couple of weeks ago my colleagues and I were out for our weekly dinner. I was put in charge of ordering because I have the best Chinese of the group (which doesn't say much about us – I think between us we have lived in China for 20 years!). We go by the tried and tested point method. You point at a photograph and say 这个 (that one!). Occasionally we check what it is 猪肉吗？牛肉吗？(Is it pork? Is it beef?) Or 肝脏吗？(Is it liver?). My colleagues are not huge fans of liver.

Well, I was pointing and choosing, and we all agreed that something different would be good. So I pointed at something we hadn't tried before. 牛肉吗？ 对，牛蛙肉。(Is it beef? Yes, Beef -WA) I didn't know what 'wa' meant, but I was pretty sure it wasn't liver (gan). So we ordered it.

A colleagues' Chinese wife arrived a bit later and said, "Who ordered frog?" Well I did. It turns out that the frogs that you can eat are called 'beef frogs'. Beef is 'niurou' and Beef frogs are 'niuWArou'. That 'wa' in the middle turned out to be quite important.

Oh well. I quite like frog. Tastes like a cross between fish and chicken. This dish was irritating because peas are very hard to pick up with chopsticks, but the frog itself was good. Lots of bones, but no worse than crabmeat! And certainly no more fiddly than chicken feet.

You learn something every day. My Chinese teacher was very impressed with my knowledge of niuwarou, and laughed and laughed when she heard the story. I can just picture her going home to her husband... "You'll never guess what that crazy foreigner did the other day..."

Thunder, Lightning and Muffins

Pictures: Outside my teaching building, The main street, Next day – A split tree, A lucky car

Yesterday, around 4pm, I was teaching my class on Shakespeare's sonnets when the sky clouded over and turned black as night, the wind picked up and and the rain began to bucket down. My students stopped pretending to pay attention to my scintillating analysis of sonnet 146 and kept saying instead "下雨了" ("It's raining!"). Well, I have to admit, it was raining very hard. We paused to peer out the window.

We could barely see outside as the water was falling so fast and thick.The trees were a blur of movement. The thunder was really loud and close, followed swiftly by bright cracks of lightning. One girl suddenly remembered, "I forgot to shut my window!" Her roommates looked distinctly unimpressed. I said she could go now and shut her window if she liked. No one wanted to leave the room. They weren't afraid of the rain, but they wanted to make sure I was ok. All this fuss for a little rain?

I finished class and called my friend to say I would be a few minutes late as my class finished late. I got downstairs and stopped. The road outside my teaching building had turned into a river. Students were wading knee deep across this raging torrent to get to the other buildings. I called my friend and cancelled. I was not wading to the subway station in my brand new shoes. Besides, the subway was probably flooding as well!

My bus, due to take me back to the other campus, failed to show up at 6, or 6.10 or 6.15. So, instead I spent a delightful evening on campus with a friend of mine, sharing spaghetti and practicing my Chinese with some of her colleagues. We baked muffins, discussed the popularity of Mickey Mouse, and compared the weather in Beijing and Shandong province.

We were very lucky, I don't think any buildings were very badly damaged. The car above had no broken windows, and I know of no one who was hurt. Even my new shoes were relatively unscathed by their underwater adventure.

I spoke with the sister of my Chinese teacher and on her street, a manhole cover washed away in the flood. Two pedestrians wading through the water fell through the hole left behind and they have not been seen or heard from since.

The man upstairs is all powerful. Anything can happen. Lest we forget!