Lì

My grandma search continues.  There are lots around.  Generally pretty small, and a little hunched over, they almost always walk in groups of two or three and are either carrying a bag of veggies or have their hands clasped behind their backs.  In the picture, there are two in the foreground, and a whole other group walking in the distance.      

Andrew says to be patient.  So in the meantime - I have found a vegetable friend.  It’s the lady in the basement.

In one example of the mixed use that you can have in China but not in the U.S., or perhaps just a successful example of a live/work unit, is the existence of a tiny vegetable market in the basement of our building. It’s right next to the extensive bike storage area, and what could be better than rolling into the vegetable market in your pajamas for a little morning ginger run?  

The lady who runs the market doesn’t know it yet, but we are becoming friends. She’s teaching me about money, for example. As in, I hand her my cabbage and celery, and she says “er dian si” and I stare at her blankly for a couple of seconds while I count on my fingers until I recognize the numbers she just said to me. And then generally I just hand her a few kuai (a few bucks if you will) because it’s taking me too long to figure out what she said, and then she gives me the change. It’s magic really.  Friendship blossoming.  

In news of my language blossoming though - well, this week I think I actually understood my first sentence.  Wait. Let me clarify. I think I understood my first sentence that was a) not spoken by my language teacher and b) not taught to me by Andrew or Peng (our good friend and date for Valentine’s Day). It was nothing dramatic. Yi ge mi fan. From the waitress (fuwuyuan) at the campus eatery. Do you want rice? Dui, I said. Yes. 

!!!!!

Now – that may not seem like much. And it’s not. And I’ve probably actually heard it approximately 1.3 trillion times since getting here. But this time I know what I heard!  And I responded as if I could actually speak Chinese.  Of course Andrew reminded me, as I was recounting my breakthrough to him later, that if I was really good, I would have ordered rice with my meal and she wouldn't have had to ask.    

Nonetheless - this week I had my first exam - so now I can read, write, and almost say exactly 50 characters (which doesn't, by the way, count my own name.  But I still don't really recognize that and I can't write it either).  My tones are rough at best and a whole sentence such as "I like to drink tea" is slo-o-o-w going.  But I have learned such important words as 力 and 立 which are, respectively, "lì" (lee, strength) and "lì" (lee, stand).  Same tone (4th - down). See how easy that is?  Two different characters, exact same word and sound, two completely different meanings.  Great.  I looked in my dictionary, and there are no less than 42 more.  As in same pronunciation, same tone, different characters.  My brain hurts just thinking about it.

But to end on a happy note - I am taken with the poetic logic of characters and their meaning.  My favorite today is 日(sun) and 月(moon), when combined 明 mean "bright".  Of course.   

Package this.

It's been twelve years since I first came to Beijing, and, yes yes, this place has changed a lot, but certain aspects of the city retain their sense of mystery. For example, the mail.

China Post lost a big envelope of documents I sent express from California late last year, but the good news is that we received our first package at our new Beijing apartment and it's nice to know all postal systems are up and running smoothly.

If only.

On Saturday, a guy knocked on our door to tell we had a package arrive for us from the U.S. I thought, "Great." He then proceeded to have me sign a slip of paper and write down my passport number. Now, I'm generally used to signing for something, but the guy at the door had only the paperwork. He told me we had to go pick up the package at the post office. Well, that's no problem, seeing as how there's a post office right in our little housing complex. But, actually, the guy said, we had to go to the bigger post office farther down the street.

When we arrived at the bigger post office farther down the street, a uniformed staff at the information counter took us to the "Get Bag" counter. But the staff behind the "Get Bag" counter said they don't handle international packages and we had to go to a different post office on North Third Ring Road and didn't I see the Chinese characters in stamped red ink on the back of the slip that said I had to go to the Beitaipingzhuang office? I hadn't even thought to look at those characters because the guy who came to our door said we had to go the post office down the street and I thought that was good enough. By this point it was becoming less clear whether that guy worked for the post office, the building management company, or neither, because he wasn't in any kind of uniform, but either way, he apparently had me sign a slip of paper that says I have received a package that is currently being held at some post office 15 minutes away by taxi, depending on the traffic. At this point, we were quite satisfied with package-retrieval work for the day, and so we decided to postpone our trip to Beitaipingzhuang for later in the week.

Thanks, Avril for the Whoppers, Red Vines, etc. Maybe we'll see them soon. In the meantime, think about this: in a megalopolis of 14 million people, is there really just one post office that distributes all international packages? Mystery indeed.

It takes a village

Or at least a small army of people - to clear snow in Beijing.  Not that it snowed all that much.  Or that in reality Beijing has received approximately zero centimeters of natural precipitation since late October (cloud seeding is a frequently used art here).  But there was no fewer than 15 people clearing snow in the little open space area in our complex.  And another new thing that one sees everywhere when walking to school -  clearing snow with a broom.

Our Spicy Valentine's Day

Our date

Our dinner

Step 1: Season the Wok

I haven’t managed to get myself adopted by a Chinese grandma (yet). So I signed up for a cooking class instead. Last Thursday was my first day. And until last Thursday, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what it meant to “stir-fry” something. Right.

First off, I got a little lost. It was my first real trip out sans translator/husband. And that’s fine. I’m a strong independent woman and all that. But it turns out that I can’t really read street signs yet. Luckily my phone works now and we bought a little compass in Hong Kong, so between heading in the general right direction and calling my cooking teacher a few times, I made it (although a little late).

Cooking class was great.

We started with a market tour to buy our ingredients for the day. I learned about cabbages and lotus root and which green beans are in season now, how to pick good Sichuan peppercorns and the difference between the in-house tofu and where to get a softer kind. Duck eggs versus chicken eggs versus quail eggs and finally what all those grannies are looking for when they pick up a handful of rice at the supermarket and inspect it while letting it run through their fingers.

Then, back at the hutong, wok and cleaver class. Have you seen the cleavers? They're huge and used for everything from peeling ginger to dicing cabbage. I have yet to get my own, but soon enough – I know now what to look for in a good one. I’ve also learned round-bottom woks are the best, and are nearly impossible to find in the average department store nowadays (at least in Beijing).

It was a class of three people on my first day, and we learned and cooked and ate as we went. Thursday was Dry Fry day - dry-fry green beans, dry-fry chicken, steamed pork ribs, and blanched vegetable.

Day Two was Seasoning Class and more cooking and eating. Vinegars and soy sauces and rice wines. I never knew how much I didn’t know. It was also braising day, so I got to add four more dishes to my repertoire.

Day Three – Dumpling and Noodle class. Now- I learned to fold dumplings over the New Year’s festival, but what I wanted was the dough and filling part. Which I got. Great.

I’ve been testing everything at home on Andrew of course. Noodles and dry-fried greens beans and jiachang doufu – he eats it all, but then again, the boy rarely refuses food. So who can say how it's turning out - the real test will be cooking for our chinese friends. I think I need more practice first though.

At any rate – I’ll be taking a few more cooking classes, but not until March. In the meantime - language classes start on Wednesday (finally).

On the Andrew front – he started his post at the China Academy of Urban Planning & Design. So far, so good.  He commutes by bus in Beijing rush hour traffic and is still searching for the best route (i.e. less than 1.5 hrs and greater than 1.5 sq. cm of personal space).           

白美秋

I got named yesterday.  In some cultures, naming involves ceremonies, celebrations, at the very least usually a parent might peruse a baby name book or try out grandpa's middle name or something. 

We were at school registration.  The form asked for my name, and then for my Chinese name.  Which of course I didn't have yet because how do you just pick a name for yourself in a language you don't know?  And Andrew has been insisting (rightly I think), that my Chinese name should come from a Chinese person.

So the registration guy (about our age, and Chinese), asks what my name is, asks Andrew what his Chinese name is, looks at me for a second, and then just fills out the form.

Bai Mei Qiu

The whole process was a little unromantic I suppose.  But he was a very helpful registration guy (another post topic sometime: how many passport photos and different stamped papers does one really need to be admitted to language school?)

It means Beautiful Autumn.  And it's fitting, no?  Beautiful Autumn?  Autumn is harvest time - arguably my favorite time of year.  Of course, he mostly just chose it because it sort of sounds like my real name.  But that's fine.  It's pronounced "Buy May Chyo" (um - second, third, first if you know your tones).

Wait - small correction.  It's actually (literally), "White Beautiful Autumn"  White (Bai) is the surname, and also happens to be Andrew's last name in Chinese.  Amusing, no?  That I go to China and now I take his name? 

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