Thanks for the tip about how to make rice as well.
This one appeared more of a rhetorical question but I will I would like to respond anyway. I agree about there being nothing quite like being the only white face walking down the street. I have gotten to the point where when I see a foreigner I stare at them. When I am with other people I make a note to point out the foreigner to them as well. I stare more then the native population. Some Chinese people do stare at me but I have not really noticed it that much. If I do not feel like being stared at I just give them a light glare back and they look away, but some do not and it turns into a staring contest with locals. They usually win.
I have started to do something that is probably culturally/politically/(or a word closely related to the last two) incorrect which is that I started a foreign people count in Changzhou. From the moment that I arrived in Changzhou I have been recording foreigners that I have seen in a little note book that I carry with me. Since I cannot tell what country people originate from, although telling a White American from a White European is easier than you think, I have been recording based on skin color and my assumed ethnicity of the person. (This last sentence is why I say it might be culturally/(and what I just said above) incorrect but, that is how it is). I have not added anyone that has east Asian facial features because I cannot tell them from Chinese. There so few of foreigners that I can actually tell if I have seen them before and not accidentally count them twice. I will not go into the break down now but I have counted 65 foreigner in Changzhou from September 1st to November 1st. In doing this I am conducting a study of how many foreigner are in my city to see what the ethnic diversity is after 10 months living here for my personal information. I am not counting any foreigner I see in any other city besides Changzhou which has an urban population of around 3.6 million in the 2013. I thought about doing this in a city in America but there is much more diversity and you do not know who is an American citizen and who is not. In China you can correctly assume that the non-Chinese looking individual is not a Chinese citizen for I believe it is harder to become a Chinese citizen then an American citizen.
So, I would next like to respond to my dear old aunt and uncle (there not really that old . . . ) who asked about the fortune cookies of China. Well, in response, I have not seen a single fortune cookie alive in China!!! Not a single one, they actually are not even really a Chinese thing they were invented in California. You can read this article form the Smithsonian Website for more information: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cracking-open-the-history-of-fortune-cookies-28538557/?no-ist. As I am writing this I asked one of the Chinese teachers if they knew what a fortune cookie was. She gave me a questionable look and repeated the word. I then showed her a picture from the magical web and she still did not know what they were. I then enlightened her to the culinary incorrectness of Chinese food in American by informing her that we get these with our Chinese meal as a 'Chinese' desert along with a fortune written on paper placed inside the cookie. She found this rather funny and gave a laugh smile. Guess I will not get the answer to how they get the fortune in the cookie in China! So, while I am in China, eating REAL Chinese food, have an American fortune cookie for me!
As for what I am cooking at home (my Chinese home) I still have pretty much limited it to rice with broccoli, trying a random other vegetable every now and then. I mostly eat all my meals at school for they serve breakfast, lunch, and diner to students. It is the weekends where I need to fend for myself. I have not yet cooked any meats at my apartment since I cannot read the label and do not accidentally want to buy pig intestines or cow tongue, although I am pretty sure I can tell it is cow tongue . . . I think. You might be thinking why do you need to know what it says on the packaging, you should be able to tell by the cut and look of the meat, well to that I say . . . they do not cut meat in the exact same cuts as they do were I come from! One also cannot to buy as many boneless cuts as you can in the U.S. I went looking for ground beef, a perfectly acceptable way to buy meat in a rural Indiana town and was told, by a Chinese friend who happened to be shopping with me, that I cannot just buy that here in China, I can get ground pork but must request that they ground different cuts of beef up for me to have ground beef. To a early beginner of Chinese the process of requesting this ground beef sound a little, no very, daunting when they eat many parts of the animal that are not generally consumed by the majority of the population in U.S. (That was most certainly a generalizing statement). So, to sum up this paragraph: I am scared of cooking meat in China.
This picture below is of the ground pork, front and center, in the upper right you can see the pigs feet making an appearance.
Up next is the air quality question. The air quality is questionable, I noticed the biggest difference when I went with a fellow teacher to her parents home in the country. I could breath fresh air. There are people who walk around wearing masks on their faces and I was told that in the winter it gets really bad, so I might need to buy a mask. I have not seen the sun in the same intensity that I did in the Midwest since arriving in China. One morning there was a combination of fog and intense pollution so that other foreign teacher said they could not see the buildings beside their apartment when they got up early in the morning for school. I woke up later that morning due to not having to be at school super early that day or some reason like that and only saw the fog slowly dissipating. I will have to give an update on the air quality as the winter progresses. I do like walking into stores and having the option to buy a decorative face mask. I will write a more complete blog post at a later date, still have to gather needed pictures.
For those of you that requested or rather demand-stated that you wanted ice-cream mooncake you are tough out of luck . . . that is all I have to say on that matter. Actually . . . I also want to add that it I am only saying this because it would be irrational to mail them anywhere . . . and once Mid-Autumn festival is over regular mooncakes are kinda hard to find let along the ice-cream ones. So if you want ice-cream mooncakes come to China! Now that is all I have add about the issue.
To the comment about communicating in a culture whose language is not your native one and you really do not know the spoken language in that country . . . you are completely right about not being able to understand it until you experienced it. I am now able to connect to all the Spanish speakers with very limited English skills who I have interacted with in my years of life. It is harder then you think to learn another language, even when you live within that country. The quoted comment of "if you are going to move to this country you should learn English." is no longer relevant in my eyes. I would almost go so far as saying that if you have not experience living in a different country or have not learned a second language you really shouldn't demand that of others. You can still function rather well without knowing the native language of that country. It is a little strange never knowing what the people around you are saying and it is really frustrating when people talk so fast, or they just assume that you know no Chinese because you are white and they are not patient enough to let you use the little knowledge of Chinese that you do know. This makes me a little hesitant to practice because I would then be making them take more time out of their day then they appear to want to give. (This is not true of everyone that I meet but it is true). I am sure this is exactly what some of the Spanish speakers feel like, so they just give up learning English and still get along rather well. I do sometime just want to understand random background conversations for once instead of hearing a constant drone of Chinese, not that it sounds bad. I just want to understand!
On to the next thing! My pets still are alive, which is good . . . yay!! Yes, it would be really difficult to have horses while living in China, or steers, or anything that is not a dog, cat, or small house pet. Since my arrival I have only seen cats, dogs, the occasional bird and assorted small house pets at a questionably meeting PETA standards run pet shop in the basement of a mall. The birds there seemed happy; they kept singing. I did ask someone who lived in Changzhou his entire life if he had ever touched a pig and he said yes. I then clarified and asked if it was an alive pig, it did not count if he touched pig meat! He then had to admit that he has not touched a pig, or a horse, or really any farm animal. I never thought I would say that I missed seeing large farm animals so much. Although I did not help with carrying for them I still miss not seeing the cow that my parents raise hanging out in the pasture as I drive down our long lane.
When it came to traveling to Nanjing alone I was not very afraid, not saying that I did not take precautions. So far in my time in China, I have felt very safe. I would not say I was crazy or really brave, I just knew it would be fine.
About that complete Chinese meal Uncle Victor, I will have to see what I can do because I have yet to be taught how to do anything besides roll dumplings. So, we will just have to see.
This is now the end of my response (as you can see because there is only a paragraph left). I want to thank all others who left only comments, I enjoy reading them. If anyone has any other questions please post them and I will respond (maybe not right away, but I will respond!). I have also added a Follow by Email, so you will be informed as to when I post a blog and do not have to randomly keep checking, and a Contact Form, for those of you who have wanted to get in contact or would like to ask a question without it being posted for the world to see. Just put in your email address and the message and it will come to me. Keep enjoying life and can someone in America please eat potato salad for me in the coming week or two and let me know how it tastes!!!
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