Elizabeth in China » Eating

I Lost Lucy

Elizabeth — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:25:16 +0000

Lucy – I tried to write to the email address you left, but it bounced back. I posted a reply to your comment here.

Anyway, I have some other photos to post from Halloween. Unfortunately I don’t have any more of me in my fabulous bug costume. Hehe.

Jeremy and I spent Saturday night and all of Sunday vomitting and unable to move. It was terrible. Must have been food poisoning. Really awful. We’ve both pretty much recovered. We even went out for pizza last night. Yum!

Good Eats, No Meats

Elizabeth — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 07:27:24 +0000

I returned to Nordica for dinner last night with some friends. We intended to catch their weekly BBQ, but we got there too late so we ordered off the menu. I had a very tastey mushroom quiche with a side salad for 18 RMB, and we shared a bottle of white wine (the brand was Great Wall, I think?) for 80 RMB. For dessert, everyone got a brownie except Karina who ordered the carrot cake which came with a great citrus frosting. Yum! Recommended, but next time I think we should arrive closer to 6:00 p.m. so we can do the BBQ (35 RMB) — of course, I might prefer the quiche to the meaty BBQ.

We poked around the loft area a little after dinner. There were several galleries/bars/tea houses that had a crowd — primarily local, from the looks of things. The paintings were not overwhelming, but it was really exciting to see art happening in Kunming. There were some really cool spaces — converted old buildings — and lots of nooks and crannies with very colorful, comfortable-looking courtyards. I would really like to explore the area more during the light of day.

Anyway, it was great to play after a brutal week of classes. The expectations at this level are a lot higher. I’m writing tons — both practicing characters and I have two essays due next week. Whoah! I was so exhausted by the end of classes on Friday, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. I need to learn how to pace myself. I totally neglected to study for my Friday classes so I was embarassingly ill-prepared — which of course made even more anxious during class. Bah. I think it’s surmountable, but I need to get my act together. Thank god I have the weekend to regroup.

Jeremy had a potluck dinner with his classmates last night. He prepared jambalaya with little shrimp (a New Orleans dish) as well as a treat for Roshashana, apples and honey. How very ethnic. That, of course, was the name of the game — everyone brought food from their home country. Sounds like it was an incredible feast! Jeremy especially enjoyed Caroline’s contribution of cheese and French bread. Sounds heavenly.

Go Fish

Elizabeth — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:07:37 +0000

Ok, don’t eat fish. Not in the U.S. and not in China. I heard a horror story (Jeremy’s friend received a forwarded text message) about something mysterious infecting fish in China. And in the U.S. I guess there’s some terrible stuff with the antibiotics they feed to the fish affecting consumers. Yikes!

~~It’s really too bad. I like fish.~~

I’ve been asked to retract this crazy, alarmist, and inaccurate post. I just heard a vague rumor about bad fish, but until some evidence is presented you really shouldn’t alter your eating habits. [Thursday, August 31, 2006, 7:24 p.m.]

No More Lonely Noodles

Elizabeth — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 06:57:20 +0000

Jeremy is here! And we have a little home. And classes are about to start. Yay!
I’m really craving a routine. Right now I don’t seem to be getting anything done, and my study habits are miserable. I took my placement exam on Monday. Wow, that was scary. I think they gave me one of the higher levels, but I think I completely failed. Hopefully I demonstrated some ability. It will be exciting to have new books and classmates and things.

Since I’m living off campus, I had to register at the police station. Last time I was here, I went to the same station. I remember it being very confusing, but this time around they had an entire office dedicated to interacting with foreigners. Of course I had to sit around a while, but it didn’t take long. I suppose I was a little more prepared this time. I had all of my documents in order. That helps.
Jeremy gave me a camera, but I still need to buy a memory card. There is a small internal memory, but it can only hold a few images. I’ll soon fill this site with some good pics. I already have a few on my flickr site. I have to admit that I’m still a little shy when it comes to pulling out my camera. Sigh.

It’s been fun rediscovering a few restaurants around Kunming. Yesterday we walked through the rain to a place that serves “box lunch” style meals. It’s rare that you can order a single meal. Most restaurants are family style, so it’s nice to have a place where you eat alone without being wasteful. Of course, you can always order noodles in single servings, but that gets monotonous. Noodles are lonely.

No More Mari

Elizabeth — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 08:41:28 +0000

This morning I had a lovely brunch with Mari and Ta. We ate at Salvador’s, a local cafe that caters to Westerners. I had a huge bowl of yogurt, granola, and fruit, along with a bagel and cream cheese. Mari and Ta went with the eggs, potato, fruit, and wheat roll. Good food. Ta says that she doesn’t tend to run into cafes like this in Beijing, so she was especially enthusiastic about sitting down to some Western food this morning. We are good eaters. We have had a great time consuming all manner of things together over the last few days. Lots of hot peppers, lots of fish, and always a little eggplant (my favorite).

They were both off today for Laos. So sad to see them go, especially after spending the last 5 weeks with Mari. Of course, she’s relieved I think because her time here has been packed with intense language study (over 20 hours a week in class!). I think they’ll have a good time in Laos. Getting away from China will do them both good.

I spent the afternoon scrubbing clean my entire dorm room, removing everything from drawers and shelves. I have a vague hope of moving in temporarily with a super cool woman I met the other day, Shannon, but mostly I just need to clean. Psychological? You bet. Everyone around me is in transition, and I’m really longing to get out of this dorm and live with Jeremy. I really want some movement!

Oh, by the way, I think I cured my glumness. I bought some oil paints and spent a few hours the other day painting figures from photos I found online. They weren’t my most fabulous work, since I’m totally out of practice, but it really is so rewarding to lay paint down paper. I can’t tell you why.

An Entire Box of Cookies

Elizabeth — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:55:15 +0000

I just ate an entire box of chocolate chip cookies. My god.

I haven’t had a moment to pause recently, and now I’m just beginning to appreciate that today was my last day of classes. I mean, I have a whole month and a half to fill outside of the university! Oh, man. I don’t really want to travel, because I’d probably just go off with some English speakers and avoid speaking Chinese. Plus, I don’t have the curiosity right now to explore further afield. I’m still very occupied with the language and trying to find my place here.

There’s a tendency to just take every that flies my way, but I realize now that I have to make some decisions if I’m really going to feel good about my time here in China. Many of the people I meet here want to interact with me using very poor English. It’s maddening. And very hard to avoid. I need to be more assertive with my Chinese, but I also need to learn more so I can use it more often. Of course, I expect to speak silly English with my students or language exchange, but I need to resist other low-level English interactions. It’s hard enough allowing myself to talk to Mari or folks from back home… or BLOGGING. Heh. But that’s different because I’m really expressing myself in a way I really can’t in Chinese. The simple day-to-day stuff should be done in Chinese. Even the internal monologue: “I better get up now.” or “Where did I put my bag?” Chinese only please! It’s beginning to happen.

I’m actually feeling pretty homesick. I talked to Mom on the phone for her birthday. Mark, Leigh, Emily, and Ben were visiting for the big gardening shopping spree. It’s very hard to let your head straddle these two worlds. It’s easier just to forget one for a while. But I really miss Jeremy and my family. I suppose I’m also bummed because I keep missing Jeremy. We’ve both been busier lately — the bar exam is rapidly approaching for J — so we haven’t caught up in a bit. I’ve been really spoiled connecting with him — voice and video conversations — every other day at least. But it’s been a few days now.

Actually, I’m in better spirits now, because I had a lovely meal this evening with Mari. She’s been crazy sick with a fever for a few days, so it was great to see her out and about. We splurged and got pizza. Wow! It was wonderful. It’s funny how talkative we are together. I don’t feel like I’m normally such a chatterbox, but we get along great. It’s too bad that she’s only around for another few weeks. I think she and Jeremy would really click too.

Oh, Jeremy bought me a digital camera! Looks pretty cool. I think rather than having him mail it I’ll wait for him to hand-deliver it. I seem to remember that there are some crazy customs issues about bringing electronics into China. Anyway, so when he arrives I’ll begin to fill the blog with photos. Yay!

Like Frog

Elizabeth — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 13:33:06 +0000

Intense few days of classes and studying. Although, last night I went out to eat with Mr. Cheng and Mari. That was fun. I’ve been tutoring Mr. Cheng in English, but for table conversation he’s still a little slow. So, there was plenty of Chinese as well as English. We were a little mystified by one of the dishes — “like frog” according to Mr. Cheng, but not toad or eel — but not in our dictionaries and now the Chinese has escaped me. It was definitely heavy on the vertebrae and was very fatty. I thought it tasted like fish, but most of it was inedible as far as I was concerned, just bones and fat. Ah well. The sour fish was excellent and we had those itty bitty shrimps that are stir fried with hot red peppers. Yum!

Exploring online today, I found a number of interesting sites:

Sinosplice – a top-notch site for Chinese language and culture from an academic American perspective. In fact, I found most of these links on John’s site. He seems to be pretty tech savvy and has a hand in developing some of these websites. On Sinosplice, I like his discussion of language and this is fun: a popular Chinese song as a language learning tool
Adopt a Blog – help circumvent the Chinese censorship of blogs.
NewsinChinese – a stream of news articles written in Chinese with pinyin pronunciation and English translation available when you mouse over the text.
Serge Melnyk – this guy offers free Mandarin lessons, both streaming and downloadable. I think it has too much English, and I’m a little doubtful of some of his interpretations. But, hey, what do I know? Anyway, it’s another resource.
ChinesePod - this is a kind of big budget version of Melnyk’s site. New podcasts DAILY, which is very cool. And they broadcast from Shanghai. I’ve been listening for a while. Lots of different levels to help you get started and keep building your vocabulary. Conversational. Recommended.
AdsoTrans – a kind of wiki-style Chinese-English translation tool.
AdsoVocab – same folks as adsotrans. Promises a little more than it can deliver, but still pretty awesome. Lets you build vocab lists and create flashcards. I couldn’t get it to work completely, but I think I’ll keep fooling with it.

Look how well I procrastinate from the actual task at hand: studying Chinese. So easy to waste hours in front of the computer!

Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July. Curiously enough, I didn’t see any fireworks here. Could have been arranged, I’m sure, but somehow I’m not feel very patriotic.