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!

Twirl baby, twirl!

I went to the Temple of Heaven last week with a couple of friends, and we paused as usual in the garden to watch the ribbon twirlers. There is something so entrancing about watching these ribbons twirl, they are so smooth and colourful and it looks so easy and effortless. This small boy was being taught by his grandmother. He was pretty good actually, only lacking a little height to give him more proficiency.

I figured, if he could do it, I could do it. The lady let me try her ribbons and showed me the basics: you twirl in a figure of eight, or in a spiral pattern. The trick is to keep your speed fairly steady and to not get your ribbons tied in a knot. The knotting thing is actually very easy to do, and takes forever to unknot! You can see the lady in the first picture has a massive knot in her ribbon. It didn't seem to affect the size of her smile though. Once you have mastered the basics of twirling, then you have to learn the swaying dance that goes with it and point your toes and stuff, all an integral part of the performance.

I must admit, I bought a ribbon. I dithered for a good five minutes but I thought, 'This is fun. And I can practice at home.' So I took it home and practiced twirling it in my flat. Once. It's quite good exercise for your arms. They certainly ache afterwards! Maybe I should dig it out again!

Life on a T-shirt

Photo: A friend models her Beijing purchases – squid on a stick and a Mickey Mouse hoodie.

Walking home today I saw an older foreign guy wearing a T-shirt which read 'I [heart] my Chinese girlfriend', but 'girlfriend' had been crossed out and 'wife' written in with permanent marker. I smiled as I read it!

What does your T-shirt say about you? I remember when I was at uni, and lived in a uniform of jeans and a T-shirt, that choosing the best T-shirt for the right occasion was a tricky task. I guess it's the same anywhere, the only difference is what you deem to be 'cool'!

I get the impression that it's 'cool' to wear a T-shirt with English on it in Beijing. No matter what it says. I saw a middle aged Chinese lady wearing a T-shirt which read 'I am Mr Right Now'. I wonder if she had any idea what it meant?

Some of the English on T-shirts here looks like the test page you get out of a printer to check the ink is working properly, i.e. complete gobbledegook. That's pretty bad. But I think the worst ones are where someone has tried to say something in English and got the grammar totally wrong. "I charming".

Another 'cool' trend is Mickey Mouse. This in particular terrifies me. A group of guys were walking towards me this afternoon and of course, one of them was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. How did Mickey Mouse become cool in China? I mean, I understand that Mickey Mouse can be cool for a 4 year old, but for a 24 year old? Even my 6 year old nephew would not be seen dead wearing Mickey Mouse – It's Thomas the Tank Engine all the way.

I asked my students to invent a product for various target markets and the group with students came up with his and hers matching laptops. I suggested (as a joke) that maybe they should add Mickey Mouse to make the laptops more attractive. They nodded attentively, and lo and behold, the final ad had matching lap tops (blue and baby pink) complete with a subtle black Mickey Mouse ear design. Oh dear...