They weren’t kidding when they said this dish was spicy.A Little Tofu With The Peppers
They weren’t kidding when they said this dish was spicy.Important Words
Another English teacher’s Chinese lesson on the staffroom blackboard.Street Shopping
My coworker Christina asked me yesterday why I would walk past the supermarket to get fruit at a street stand. I think I said something about it being more Chinese, but I didn’t really have an answer.
Yes, the fruit carts are a little less expensive, and the prices becomes cheaper and cheaper as the laowai prices come down, but I don’t know if that’s the reason to walk the extra block. The fruit is a little fresher… again, it’s not really a big difference.
Ihe main reason is that my Chinese is terrible. The guy who’s sitting outside all day with his bikecart full of grapes has a lot more time to deal with my bad pronunciation than the hourly supermarket cashier. (Sometimes they like to use this free time to bargain, which is kind of like a test of how fast I can count backwards in Chinese.) The cashier doesn’t care if she makes the sale or not. But the bikecart guy, or popcorn girl, or any other street vendor, has an interest in selling the product, so they really will go out of their way to try to understand the disjointed phrases that I call Chinese.
A Chicken In Every Pot
Last night, we celebrated Moon-Viewing Night by trying out a street hotpot place. It’s a hole-in-the-wall during the day, but at night, they set up flimsy portable tables with propane burners and vats of boiling soup.
So we get a table, and a menu, and I THOUGHT I was ordering a chicken broth. The waiter said something about chicken in the soup and I was all “Yeah, ok, fine,” because he seemed to be repeating “chicken” and “soup pot”.
Then the soup came, and there was a headless, plucked chicken sitting in the pan! Oh, THAT’S what he was saying! Poor Christina was really creeped out by it, and I felt a bit stupid because the waiter had so clearly tried to tell me what was up! If only Chinese had an article, so that I could tell “chicken in your soup” from “a chicken in your soup”. Although I probably wouldn’t understand anyway.
Apparently Beijing hotpot comes with a little dish of seasoning to drop into your broth for flavor. The waiter, who was probably hating his job more and more as the evening went on, said something about cilantro. I knew it from ChinesePod (Thanks, John!), it’s xiangcai in Chinese, but I thought he said xiangcao, which is vanilla, and for a horrible moment I thought I’d ordered a giant bowl of vanilla-headless chicken soup
When he came back with the dish of cilantro and scallions, I caught on. Then I ordered other food for the soup, based on what I saw other people eating. It took forever to come, I’m not sure if the’re always slow or if the waiter was in the kitchen psyching himself up to deal with my bad Chinese. (Just kidding.) (I hope.)
The food was delicious. Hotpot is essentially make-your-own-soup, which means you can put exactly what you want it in. No mystery meat! Only the vegetables you want! And if you don’t order Chicken Carcass Soup, all the meat is boneless, too.
Apple Art
Stick and I stopped by a fruit stand on the way back from Pancake Man, and we noticed that the vendor had some kind of crazy art apples. Is this a Mid-Autumn Festival alternative to mooncakes? Or are they everyday apples that I just never notices before?
While we were excitedly showing each other Buddhas and bunnies on the apples, the vendor and his son realized what we wanted, and looked throw their crates for ones with good pictures. The little boy was pretty excited to see us up close, but it wasn’t anywhere near the crowd I could have drawn in Yantai.
I’m not sure what this one says — although I think the second character is star — but I’m going to pretend it says “For the most beautiful”. I hope it doesn’t start a war…
Foreigner Wanted…. For Something.
I noticed this job posting this morning. At first glance, it’s a typical English tutoring job. There are hundreds of these in China, if you’re foreign, you’re literally offered English teaching jobs as you walk down the street. This ad poster is looking for a native speaker to meet up for decently-paid weekly ESL lessons. So far, normal.
It’s hard to see in that screenshot, but I noticed the email address used.
I think that means something else.
Books I’m Reading
Last weekend when we went to the Beijing Bookstore, I got Age Of Innocence and Dr Zhivago from the Moonstone English classics series.
I really liked Age Of Innocence. Marcus, I think you should look for this one, although you’ll probably want a different edition. The tragic love story is probably even better without substituting “impotent massage” for “important message.” If anyone from Moonstone is reading this, can I suggest proofreading before publication? Even better, how about hiring me to proofread? It would bring me even closer to my lifelong goal of lying in bed all day, reading books.
As frustrating as all the scheduling surprises this week have been, I guess it’s good that I’ve been busy because Dr. Zhivago is one depressing book. So far it goes funeral, suicide, rail strike… and I think if I keep on with it, it goes revolution, starvation, revolution.
Nightmarket Flowers
Oh, in case you saw the corner of that frame and thought it looked nice? It’s actually a completed puzzle, of a girl talking to a dolphin. Really.
Yes
I’ve already talked about using “Yes” as a synonym for “I have no idea what you’re saying”. This entry from Tim Johnson’s blog quotes a letter from a 1920s missionary in China, and shows that the ubiquitous Chinese yes is not a new trend.
