The Best Stuff On Earth

Posted on December 8, 2006 by Meg

It was a great day for globalization in the Jiajiayue last night. I was shopping with Dorothy when we saw this:

It’s Snapple! In Yantai! You have no idea how this warmed my little expat heart. Yes, I know you can find Coke in every corner of the planet, but I don’t actually like Coke.

That bottle of strawberry-kiwi goodness cost as much as the rest of my shopping put together (about $3 if you’re counting) but it was totally worth it.

Seeing this Snapple is my own object lesson in globalization, because when I came to China, just under a year ago, there wasn’t any Snapple in the supermarket. Don’t worry, Western products haven’t changed taken over the market, the blood-tracked floor, chicken feet and so forth are still there.

Whenever I hear of China’s groing economy and all the rapid changes in China, I’ll think of Snapple, sold next to chicken feet, noodles and cocoons.

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No More Cowboys

Posted on December 5, 2006 by Meg

Today was my last class with the Cowboys. These are a group of kindergarteners that I begged Will not to make me teach. I got stuck picking them up in the office and singing:

This is the way we go to class,
go to class,
go to class
this is the way we go to class,
and now it’s time to learn

When I met them, they already knew “This is the way I brush my teeth”, “comb my hair” and “eat my rice” but I added “This is the way I fight the Gauls,” to their list. Although I’d said I didn’t want to teach little ones, and asked everyone else in the office to please please please take this class and I would teach all the problem teenagers in Shandong province, I got attached to the little Cowboys.

As class ended today, I was marching skipping walking in a totally mature and adult fashion down the hall after class, singing “This is the way we go to home, go to home…” with the kids.

Will popped his head out of his classroom and sang:

“And now you need a job,”

Man, I’m going to miss this place.

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Spokeo Beta

Posted on December 4, 2006 by Meg

I finally got onto a social networker before Kristin. I signed up with Spokeo, a new combination blog/RSS reader and profile network. Unlike MySpace, Spokeo seems to have users who are out of their teens. You don’t have to declare your dating status, list off your favorite movies or come up with a cutesy tagline to sign up. (not that I’m still bitter about thinly veiled dating sites, ahem, Consummating)

Since you log in with your e-mail address, you can change your username whenever you want. So you’re not stuck with a name that you thought sounded really freaking cool (violet eclipse) but now seems kind of stupid (violet eclipse) when you see it listed with Whyguoren, Pimp My Rickshaw, Decadent Western Dog and Pastey White Guy, to name just a few of the blogs with cooler names than mine on the China blog list.

Anyway, I just signed up as Meg In China… which I’ll be changing to Meg In Rome and then to Unemployeed Girl In Western Mass very soon.

Spokeo is clearly a work-in-progress, with it’s share of dead links. Recently it’s also failed to recognize my password. It doesn’t bother me, though, I got my GMail account when it still had the beta disclaimer. I just missed getting an Early Adopter Livejournal account because whenever Kristin tries to get me to sign up for something, I whine and moan for a while first.

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Roman Holiday

Posted on December 3, 2006 by Meg

My round of farewell dinners began last night. We went to one of those restaurants that has a few pseudo-Western dishes. Every person at the table pointed out the American steak on the menu, and since they’d chosen the place for me, it seemed kind of grumpy and bitter to explain that I don’t really like huge slabs of dead cow.

At dinner, someone commented again on how funny it is that I look just like Audrey Hepburn and I’m going to have a Roman Holiday. (We look alike in the sense that we both have fair skin and dark eyes)

“I went to Rome once, on business,” the man on my right told me. “I didn’t like it,”

“Really? Why not?” I asked, wondering if there was some Chinese-Italian prejudice I’d missed.

“There are no Chinese restaurants in Rome. None. For ten days I had to eat Western food!”

“I hope I can manage,” I said.

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Logistics

Posted on November 30, 2006 by Meg

I’m leaving China in two weeks, and going to Rome to see Stick. I can hardly believe that my China year is over. And I’m going to see Stick again! In Rome, which is the classicist equivilent of Disneyland. And then I’ll be spending Christmas back home in New Jersey.

I was talking to my dad yesterday, and he asked if I was excited to come home.

“I’m a little nervous, you know, ’cause I don’t have a job or an apartment for when I move back to the State,”

“Oh, those are just logistics.” he said. “Don’t worry,”

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Food I Don’t Hate

Posted on November 28, 2006 by Meg

Since I’ve spent so much time complaining about Chinese food I don’t like, I thought I should devote some time to food I don’t hate.

1) Everything at the Japanese place on Huang Shan Lu. I love this place, I love the waitresses who try to understand my awful Chinese, I love the tempura sauce, I love the veggie tempura so much that I go there for takeout about once a week. Sometimes they have pumpkin or sweet potato tempura, I don’t know if I can finish posting this without going to go eat some.

2) Fried bananas at the Lying Hut Restaurant.

3) Dumplings at the Bad Service Diner. Most places bring your dishes in no particular order, sometimes with long waits between then, but the waitstaff here like to bring a sealed bottle of beer, then saunter back ten minutes later to open it, and then force us to ask several times for glasses, too. You have to shout for the waitress in most places, but here, she lets us know how much more important her conversation with the other waitresses was by bringing us the wrong food two or three times in succession. Once it finally arrives, though, the bao ze and perfect garlicky sauce are great.

4) Melon-flavored popcorn.

5) Yantai Beer.

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Big Mountain

Posted on November 27, 2006 by Meg

It seems that all expats in China all have something in common. It’s not just our supply of Purell, or our shared lust of bread and cheese, there’s also the group hatred of Da Shan.

Da Shan / Mark Roswell is a Canadian who speaks amazing Mandarin. He’s got a language course, a TV show, and he’s on lots of commercials and billboards in China, despite being a pretty normal-looking guy. It’s one of the weird ironies that a Canadian who speaks very good Chinese is a national celebrity, while a Chinese guy who speaks very good English is an engineer or a manager or something.

Edited 11/29/06 I don’t dislike Da Shan because he’s on so much advertising. On the contrary, every time I see his smile on another product, I’m happy. I wear glasses and have no intention of every getting contacts, so I feel like Da Shan’s striking a blow for my team of people-who-don’t-stick-their-fingers-in-their-eyes-for-fashion.

I quite liked Da Shan when I arrived. I watched Travel in Chinese half for the language boost and half for encouragement, reassurance that even a guy who says “aboot” could master Chinese. Watching Da Shan’s show reminded that someday, I could go into a Yantai store or restaurant, and ask for what I wanted. (Whether I’d actually get it remains to be seen)

As more and more conversations turned to Da Shan, I began to dread the sound of his name. Yes, yes, his Chinese is very good. Almost as good as a Chinese. No, he’s Canadian, I’m American. Yes, I have been to Canada, but, no, I haven’t met Da Shan. Yes, his Chinese is very good.

I guess it’s not as bad as it could be. Western guys in China, who bear even a slight resemblance to Da Shan are constantly mistaken for him.

I also began to dread the inevitable comparision of my Chinese to Da Shan’s Chinese. It’s not that I feel bad having my miserable Chinese held up next to Da Shan’s amazing Mandarin, it’s just the opposite. I’m constantly compared in a flattering way, with that false ring of insincerity (that which in other countries I might call lying through one’s teeth). I think that I’ve come to associate Da Shan with that sort of insincere compliment.

So… when I next hear the inevitable “You know Da Shan, yes?” my new plan is to look at the floor, pause, and then say that I don’t like to talk about dear Da Shan ever since we broke up.

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Cranberry Sauce

Posted on November 27, 2006 by Meg

Some of my students asked me about Thanksgiving, and I tried to give them a good description of the holiday’s history and it’s current incarnation, while hoping they wouldn’t equate Thanksgiving with their foreign teachers singing bits of Livin’ On A Prayer in the office and giggling. My Korean students, who know my dislike for three-quarters of the food in Yantai, love asking me about American food. I think it’s their way of tormenting me for all the grammar-related hell I force on them.

They understood a turkey, and pies, but they laughed when I explained stuffing. You take a big loaf of bread, then cut it up small, let it go stale and dry, then make it wet again with broth, and then you bake it again. No, kids, it’s very different from bread. Really.

As for cranberry sauce, I explained that we take a small, tart berry, that only grows in specific environmental conditions in one part of the country, then we cook it with enough sugar to make it sweet, and ship it out the non-Cape Cod part of the US. They thought that was even funnier.

Which got me thinking… If a hard winter for a few pilgrims turned an almost inedible cranberry into a national delicacy, is it any wonder that with a huge population and decades of hunger, the Chinese can turn anything that’s not actually poisonous into dinner?

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Foreigners’ Blogs Talking About China

Posted on November 26, 2006 by Meg

I just came across this Chinese site about foreign blogs.

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Foreigner’s Blogs Talking about China

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Talk Talk China ?????, The Vortext, Sinosplice, Shanghai diaries and
Mask of China are all mentioned.

Of course, I’m most interested in what “Violet Eclipse—???????????meg???” means.

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Why Did the Lao Wai Cross The Road?

Posted on November 25, 2006 by Meg

Today I was crossing the road in front of my school (in a crosswalk — old habits die hard) when a taxi honked at me. The honking barely registered until the driver pulled a U-turn, blocked traffic in both directions as well as my path across the street, and shouted “Hello taxi hello!”

And just when I was going to post about unmotivated employees.

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