I BIT THE NAIL!

since i arrived in china, i have been doing two things consistently:

 

• not capitalizing (unless something is of the upmost importance)

• making lists

  

these are life shaping lists, experience lists, lists that i will look back on when i am old and say "ahh, i accomplished that", or "now i must do this before i can die", or maybe even "i am glad i never got around to doing that: what a foolish girl i was". it is a cathartic habit.

 

one of the lists i have been continually revising is entitled:

 

THINGS I DO NOT EVER WANT TO DO IN CHINA

 

items cover a broad spectrum: get a tattoo, eat fermented duck eggs, eat pig feet, walk barefoot in the street, hock a loogie in a restaurant, ride in the hard seat section of the train, go to the hospital (again), etcetera, etcetera.  

 

just so you are aware that i am not a huge lame-o who does not want to experience culture, you should know that there is a much longer list of things that i do want to do while i am in china.  

 

anyway, since the last time i was in the blessed middle kingdom, i have been appalled by the practice of eating chicken feet. thoroughly disgusted. i admire the determination to not waste any part of the animal's body, but ever since a woman tried to sneak a chicken foot into my instant noodles* on the train from lhasa two years ago, i have had, at the top of my T.I.D.N.E.W.T.D.I.C. list:

  

EAT CHICKEN FEET

 

and also, at the top of my list of things to do in china:

avoid chicken feet.

 

i have had people say "amy, it is a cultural thing, you have to try it. blah blah blah."   to this i say: THEY WALK AROUND IN POOP THEIR WHOLE LIVES! 

 

i, for one, am not in the habit of eating poop. no thank you. 

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chinese people explain it like this: 

"we eat the chicken feet because we do not enjoy the large pieces of meat. the chinese prefer the smaller, more delicate portions of the chicken, and of the other animals also- pig feet, chicken wings, chicken leg, intestines, pig nose. we can not eat portions as large as the breast of the chicken, it is just too much."

today at work we were talking about finding turkeys for thanksgiving. my boss, a chinese businessman, asked me 

"do you eat the turkey feet?"

after confirming that we do not, in fact, eat the turkey feet, he continued; "what a waste! you could make much money from the turkey feet. they would be quite delicious! what do you do with them, just cut them off and throw them away?"

i don't really know what we do with all the thanksgiving turkey's feet. i told him that maybe they grind them up and make them into strange canned meat, or perhaps use them for some sort of animal food or fertilizer. i do not know. but, i do know that i do not want to eat them, or even have my friends eat them. 

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once, on that same train from lhasa, i watched a couple munch chicken feet for hours and hours. it is a stomach turning process, if you think about it too much. the feet are cold, often pickled, and are fleshy little buggers. and this is the most terrible part: the nails are still attached! here is an example:

 

look closely, and you will notice the little claws that scratch around in the poopy dirt all the time. mmmm. 

  

in order to eat these delicate appendages, one must gnaw. a lot. which brings me to my recent experience. 

 

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one of my students, a fantastic 14 year old girl named katie, invited me to her house for dinner with her family. i met up with her, and arrived at her family's apartment** to find that her grandparents and aunt had all shown up for the occasion, which is awesome- i was really excited to be around older chinese people, because most of my time is spent with the younger generations. while the adults were playing ma zhong, katie showed me her sims family, and then we sat down to eat. 

lo and behold, there on the table, amongst plates and plates (probably 15) of tasty looking food, there were the chicken feet! i thought to myself i'll just avoid that, there is so much food, there's no way they'll notice if i don't take some of the chicken feet. and i'll avoid those other dishes that look like they are only skin. okay. dig in. what do you know, but her dad, after pouring me a glass full of baijiu***, plopped a chicken foot and some pig skin down on my plate. i couldn't avoid it. there were three generations of expectant faces watching me. to avoid looking completely ridiculous trying to navigate my way around a fleshy claw, i played dumb.

 

 "ummm... this is my first time with one of these... how exactly do i eat it?" 

 

first, katie said that i didn't need to use chopsticks, and then came the fateful words: "now put this part, is it the nail, into your mouth, and bite it off. then put it out onto your place." so i did. and then i found my way into the next joint, and bit it off and gnawed and gnawed until i had pried some of the cold skin loose, then i removed the bone from my mouth and put it in my bone dish and continued on to the next joint. and then i ate cold pig's skin. all to be polite. i now have hella guanxi(good relations) with that family****. 

 

so, was it that bad? i think i will borrow my friend joel's description: it is like biting into a pencil covered in rubber-bands. and you are trying to EAT the rubber-bands! and they are cold, and a little wet, and they do not have much give. and the whole time you're eating it you're thinking this has been walking around in poop for it's entire existence. not pleasant. 

 

overall, i am rather proud of myself for eating the chicken foot and the pig skin (and also skin gelatin and intestine) for the sake of good manners, but i am not about to try to do it again, unless i absolutely have to. you can be proud of me, too!

 

the fresh product:

 

notice the nails. 

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*just a little thing about instant noodles: in chinese they are called fangbianmian which directly translates to "convenient noodles". it is one of my favorite words to say. 

  

**another note: katie's family is loaded. i knew this because they have a stuffed eagle with it's wings outstretched mounted on a rock in their living room. awesome. also it is positioned under an enormous set of deer antlers.  

 

***say it: "buyjo". it is like the most intense grain alcohol ever. well, that i have tried. it tastes like what i imagine kerosene or rubbing alcohol would taste like.  he said white wine, and i said yes. i sipped the thing all night and never finished. 

 

****later in the meal, katie's Grandpa had a stroke or something, i'm not really sure. now he is in a larger city's hospital because they found a brain tumor. it was very intense, and i honestly thought he was going to die. thankfully he did not, but please keep him and his family in your thoughts. 

well then, what do you like?

i like when things get better. 

 

confession:

recently, i have been having a pity party.  it's been going on for a while, and ultimately ended with a giant three day festival called "amy can't quite bring herself to get out of bed", at which point i realized that i was being ridiculous. sure, i'm a bit homesick: culture shock is setting in.  yes, the weather is changing, and teaching english is a little challenging... oh, and chinese is not the easiest thing in the world. but really, i need to put things into perspective. or at least start looking on the bright side of things. 

 

so. the pity party is over. now begins the "buck up amy g, you have a fantastic life and people love you and you are trying new things and your country elected a new president who seems to have a heart and also immaculate articulation" party. okay. on wednesday (because of the time change) i sat in my bed (this was during the pity party) and watched obama's speech probably 8 times (not all the way through- i was just waiting for it to load) and cried. i was in a fragile state already, but i am a sucker for hope and passion. and elocution. i am excited/hopeful. but, as a woman (so rudely) pointed out to me in a coffee shop the other day "not EVERYONE is excited", so i am staying more quietly glad, and hoping that mr.obama will do things that will earn the respect of his detractors. 

 

some of you may be wondering something like "amy, you're away from everything you've ever known, including: your family, your best friends, the ocean, normal bread, convenient dairy free options, and stores that stock your size of shoes. how on earth are you not having a pity party all the time??"

 

 

let me show you:

 

 

reason i am not having a pity party #1.

 the food is too good (and cheap) to be sad for too long.

these 面条  (noodles) are handmade to order. 

this is a piece of sheep stomach. and also some lotus. i ate both of them at...

HOT POT!

i love hot pot. i am now the proud holder of a v.i.p. card for the hot pot restaurant 2 minutes from my front door! 

 

reason 2. the plant market.

i can go here whenever i feel sad, and walk around in the enormous greenhouse. and buy things.

my friends joel and jesse help me transport my bounty. 

 

3. fall colors happen in china, too!

 

my weekly scrabble challenger lives down this little alley. there are apple orchards on the other side of the trees. i like to walk here. 

 

we went on a camping trip here, and while the experience was laughable at best, 

the trees were changing, and that was cathartic in itself. 

 

number 4. children. 

this it the sports school near my house. these children start at seven am. i like to watch them play soccer and basketball, and yell things like "foul" "traveling" and "nice pass". 

i met these boys in the alley behind my favorite market. they buy these crawdad creatures from the seafood vendors, then they race the animals. 

this girl was on vacation. i was going swimming, she was a twirling fairy. 

 

 

5. glamour shots.

 

reason 6.  beer testing.

 

we were walking past the beer aisle one day... and decided to try them all. 

pabst: highest alcohol content of all contenders.

the contenders:

pabst

snow

chill (carslberg)

pineapple beer

ginger beer

lychee beer

pabst knockoff

harbin wheat

another ginger beer

the winner: ginger beer. but we hear lhasa beer is good, so we're holding our breath and hoping. 

 

7. nice people who help me.

this is my roommate. her name is Tseba. she is an ultra smart girl: besides her heart language, tibetan, she also knows english, and chinese. she is a translator. also i am becoming a cleaner person, because she likes clean space. 

 

this is my chinese teacher, Sheila.  she also has a lot of languages: chinese, qinghai dialect, english and korean. she is a teacher at my school, and she is ULTRA patient. 

 

reason 8. you know... chinese things.

hey halal festival!

 

this baby goat thing loved me. it wouldn't come to it's mother's bleating, and i think i should have taken it home. see how much it trusts me. 

 

these are polite chinese fingers. it is what classy chinese ladies do to get the men, and the respect. i do not have delicate fingers, so it is a tough thing for me to get the feel for. 

 

 

 9. it is getting too cold for this sort of thing.

which gives me a reason to dress cozy cozy. 

now i have a new jacket, and i am working on my "keep the heat in" outfit. last year it was

  -50ºC. yikes. 

so. the pity party is over for now. here's hoping it doesn't try to repeat itself anytime soon. tomorrow i am going to dinner at a middle school girl's house- i met her at an english corner that i help out at. we just got done texting, and i'm hoping that my "i like to try new things: surprise me" response to her query about what i'd like to eat was not a mistake. her grandparents and parents will be there- i need to not lose face. she is ultra adorable too- she just texted me:

 

AMY~i hope we

can have a good time

tomorrow right?

and i am so excited

just can't go to sleep. 

 

 

i know. so sweet, so honest, so direct. it is lovely. 

wish me luck. love you. 

amy teaches chinese children the importance of safe sex

don't be nervous, just ask.

and always always always keep a rubber on hand. 

 

thank you, new cambridge english. now, i will never forget the sound of 50 9 year olds reciting this to me. 

 

MY BODY and the MONSTER'S!

                                 

this week, i was responsible for teaching about one hundred and twenty children about body parts. it pretty much resulted in the most fun saturday and sunday i have ever spent teaching. on saturday we played the hokey pokey for hours, and i took them all outside into the courtyard in the front of our school building and we made a huge huge hokey pokey circle. on sunday, we drew MONSTERS! then talked about their body parts

  

                     

                        

              

i think my favorite thing about these past few days of teaching is that it was so encouraging.  sometimes i get really nervous about the kids not having much imagination because so often they are taught like robots, and praised exclusively for being able to regurgitate information. i shouldn't have worried, because they LOVED dancing outside and singing the hokey pokey (maybe because i was pretty much making a huge fool of myself in front of a bunch of adults, maybe because the hokey pokey is awesome), and their MONSTERS! are incredibly individual. i was rather expecting them to copy the basic boring monster that was in the book, and i think only one or two kids did. 

 

 

this week is my teacher observation, where i will prepare a lesson and teach it to all of my coworkers- both the foreign and chinese teachers- and then they will critique me. i'm a little nervous, because i am not really confident in my ability to teach a cohesive and interesting lesson.  after watching one of the veterans last week ( a man named jim who has an incredible amount of wisdom) i have become even more aware of my lack of things that take age and experience to accumulate. 

 

i have been responding to my lack of experience by being slower, not rushing, and not letting myself feel harried by my students. i am trying to change the way i present myself, and i think that my past attitude has been one of "you're going to learn english OR ELSE!" and now i think i want it to be one of  "hey, i want YOU to learn english if you want you to learn english". i am working on letting kids have a bit of leeway when they are goofing off, and having them adapt to more of a team mentality. this is the first time in my life maybe that i have felt like i need to become more consistent and reliable in my attitude and treatment of situations in order to be fair to people around me, especially my students. 

 

i think this past weekend they really did well with my change in attitude. we were able to do fun learning things, then calm down incredibly quickly and get back to  less fun, but necessary stuff.  i am getting more and more hopeful about these kids and my ability to teach them, i really hope that the observation this week does not shatter me. 

a cloudy day and a warm bed. 一个多云日和一张温暖的床

this is the first complete "day off" that i have had in almost four weeks. no lessons, no teaching, no childcare, and no reason to leave the house. i am reveling.  i am mildly disappointed in myself because it's nine am and after naturally waking at eight in the morning, i can't go back to sleep. does this mean i am growing up? or that my internal clock has been eternally tuned to a schedule of morning work? will i never again be able to sleep in to ridiculously teenage hours of one or two in the afternoon?  it may be a blessing, a delightful turn in events. perhaps i will accomplish incredible things in the morning, or join a gym, or journal in the early hours. this could be the start of something amazing. maybe i will become a regular blogger. 

 

it has been a while since my last post, and i feel like i have so many things to catch up on. in all honesty, i have been mainly occupied with teaching, babysitting and (bane of all banes) learning chinese.  these things, on their own, are not too enthralling (except for the babysitting, of course) but because i am in qinghai, everything becomes incredible in the right light. 

 

these past few days at school, i feel like my classes and i have settled into a comfortable routine. we are fun, and we do the lessons and i think they may even respect me a little. i have my favorites, which is probably a bad thing, but they are such sweet kids. 

 

My Favorite Class (got a little excited about the camera)

 

 

this kid with the double victory ears is fantastic. he has the best bowl cut in the world.

  

i have also been teaching in a small town (effectively called er shi si (24) for its distance away from xining) for one of my co-teachers who is currently visiting america. the classes are small, and incredibly intelligent. i stayed there till about ten pm on monday teaching the older kids slang words for throwing up (puke, upchuck, ralph, blow chunks, hurl, vomit). they ask about things like the civil war and racism in america, and they are starting to understand sarcasm and irony. i love them. from what i understand, their town (24) is a small company town that is a suburb (if those exist in china) of datong, a small city that supports an aluminum factory. when i get into town at 5:30 or 6 p.m. there is propaganda and music being played over the town loudspeakers. i think i am going to try to spend some time exploring that area before it gets too cold. 

 

i managed to leave town for a few days last weekend. i visited the famous qinghai lake, and met a norwegian man named carl who has a home and tibetan school out on the plateau. i went with my fantastic new friends sara and clara who are from austria and singapore, respectively.  they are pretty encouraging. i've been missing lady time. 

.clara.sara.tibetan plateau.

 

i think the entire weekend can be summed up by saying that i caught my breath. after driving a few hours out of xining, seeing leaves changing color, yaks and sheep being herded in vast pastures, farms and fields being harvested, and a different pace of life, i felt new and encouraged. i think it is so easy to get caught up in all this concrete and bustle that we make cities into. i have become so intimidated by all of this difficulty surrounding unknown language and the habits and customs of unfamiliar people and cultures, but removing myself from that was the perfect reprieve. i can understand mountains and animals and shepherding and being cold and growing things.  and now, the city does not seem as daunting and overwhelming.  

the morning after we arrived at carl's place, we took off at about eleven to make our way to the lake. as best as we can tell, we walked about 15 kilometers over the day, and after reaching our horizon a few times, we made it to the lake! on the way we saw horses and sheep and goats and yak. it was a cloudy day, but it was such a nice walk. once we got close to the lake, the land turned into this black, muddy, marshy swamp and we trekked through with our pants cuffed and our socks off.  i liked it. 

 qinghai lake is pretty much an ocean. it is the largest salt lake in china, and when you stand on the edge, it's tough to see the other side. it's got black sand edges and the waves make the sand undulate like small desert dunes under the surface of the water. it freezes over in the winter, and i want to go back then and walk across it. there's a famous bird island in the middle, and so many birds were all around while we were walking out.  we only stuck around for a little (we nixed the plan to swim due to the weather) because it was starting to rain, and then we meandered back to the house, hopping fences and encountering high jumping yak and angry dogs.  it was cold, but so wonderful to get my legs moving on something other than cement. 

here are some photos from my weekend:

this is the view from carl's house. can you imagine seeing this every day?

 

these flowers were like little ground anemones. 

 

and these flowers were in various stages of bloom all over the swamp 

  

the brown stuff is mud. deep, slick mud. 

the colors here are so rich.

 

we helped herd these sheep. the spotted one is my favorite.

 

prayer flags. cliche. but the interesting thing is this: because the lake is holy to buddhists, they often pilgrimage around it, praying and prostrating and putting up items pertaining to their prayers. thus, the place is littered with scraps of prayers and other things... and actually can get really messy and dirty looking.

 

this is my friend stuart. carl hasn't named him, but i fed him apples and carrots and bananas. i think he loves me even though he is an ornery old man horse who bit sara on the hip. maybe he was flirting.

sometimes it is easy to forget about the sky.

after we got back, i drank tea near the stove for hours to warm up. 

on the drive home, we could see all of the stalks of different plants, bundled and ready to burn. 

so, that was most of my plateau adventure. then i returned to the city and went on a special secret agent adventure with three of my favorite kids. we were looking for codes.  it's always fun to walk around xining with caucasian children, but it attracts even more attention when there are THREE OF THEM. in a place where one child is the norm, having three shiningly white boys running around is cause for stares and conversation. i can't understand everything, but most of what i can understand is something like "look at the american/foreigner, she has three boys! they are so cute. look at her hair! oh my! three boys!" and then they touch the baby and pat the other kids on the head. it's all very funny sometimes, but eventually we (caleb, jacob, david and i) tire of it. i am developing a disguise for the winter that will allow me to walk around in (hopefully) complete anonymity. now if i could just get rid of my accent.  

the other day i received a fantastic compliment. sara, clara and i were clothes shopping at this market, and i was getting into the bartering groove. first, one terribly intimidating woman clapped me on the back after a bartering banter and exchange (i got her to go down 50%!), then, in the next store, i bartered for a jacket for me and a shirt for sara. then clara, who is pretty much fluent in chinese (because she's so so smart) started bartering for a jacket, and the woman would not give her a good deal. so she was like "why did you give her such a good deal on those coats, but you won't give me a good deal?" and the woman said (get this) "because she (meaning ME!) is so good at bartering"... AWESOME! it pretty much made me happy for three days. sometimes now i sit and think of it and smile.  

i think that is most of it. i'm heading out to mengda nature reserve this week (because i have so much time off) and we might get super adventurous because the boys are coming with us. i'll be back by monday. 

also. happy national day!