What I’d like to know is… October 26, 2008

…why the SIAS school bus parks in my relatively suburban neighborhood?

a very out-of-place bus… it’s even still got the US “SCHOOL BUS” lettering!

As far as I know, SIAS – a large uni an hour or so from here that has a ton of foreign teachers – runs a shuttle to town on Saturdays, dropping teachers off at one of the bigger stores downtown around noon and then picking them up again early that evening.  So what’s the big American-style yellow bus (itself quite out of place in a country without school buses) doing parked around the corner from my apartment late on a Sunday afternoon?  Or up the road from my gate on a weekday afternoon?  Or outside my other gate on a holiday?  I’ve seen it in all of those places in the past couple years – today it was around the corner; in the picture below it’s right outside the main apartment complex gate sometime during the National Day holiday.  My current theory is that the driver’s elderly maiden aunt lives in my neighborhood and he comes to visit her while he waits for the wei gou ren to finish their shopping.  I wonder if that’s even close to the facts?

In case you’ve wondered, the milk here has been declared safe to drink again by the government (don’t laugh so loudly, people are staring at you).  Well, I’m hoping the threat of additional loss-of-face means they’re telling the truth and it’s really fixed.  So, here’s what 93 RMB of dairy goods looks like (perhaps not all made in China):

1.5 pounds of New Zealand butter for baking: 30RMB.  2 cans of Nestle evaporated milk for a certain bread recipe: 12RMB.  2 cans of condensed milk for Christmas fudge: 10RMB.  1 package of 10 cheese slices: 18RMB (ouch! – the imported stuff’s actually cheaper per-slice but they were out).  Large box of 18 single-cup bags of milk: 23RMB.  I’ve been using a lot of milk since I started baking bread weekly, and a lot of butter for cookies.  Both activities have been enabled by my purchace of:

An electric mixer.  (That was the special package a couple weeks ago.)  Did you ever try to cream butter and sugar for cookies by hand?  I’ve made very few cookies since I’ve lived in China, and now I’m trying to make up for lost time!  And the dough hook, which kneads the dough for me without getting sticky fingers, is an absolute Godsend!

A few more thoughts…

I met a bona-fide celebrity today.  Apparently a boy here was abducted and taken as far as Guangzhou (near Hong Kong, thus very far from me) before he managed to escape, breaking his arm in the process, and get someone to call 911 (or the Chinese equivalent).  Now he’s back.  The children insisted on introducing me to him, and he was generous enough to show me the scar still healing on his arm.  No photos or autographs, sorry   but I’m glad he got home!

Becky’s baby shower last weekend was fun.  Here are a couple photos:

Becky

The snack table, near the end of the party obviously!

The cross-stitch I was making for them, a few days before the shower.  I didn’t finish it in time, though I did finish the names before the party.  As Becky said, “I hope it’s really a boy now!”  I’m waiting to finish it until we’re sure, so I don’t have to take it out of a frame to change it.  The baby will be delivered next weekend, unless she goes into labor before that.

Someone around here got married:

I didn’t see the wedding party, but smelled the incense from the stairwell and enjoyed looking at the flowers for a couple days.  Notice the extra light strung up above the door with a make-shift paper shade (not sure the significance of that).  Now all that’s left are the large rocks and bricks they used to keep the flowers upright.

Rainy days bring out color in unexpected ways!  This is a very small section of a parking area between a high school and a park – the school kids park literally hundreds of bikes there daily, and on this day it had been raining when they went to school, so they left their bike ponchos draped over their bikes.  By the time I took the photo – almost lunch – it had mostly dried off.

Is it just the lighting, or am I getting old?  Probably vain of me, but when I was trying to take a photo of myself for a new Facebook profile picture, I noticed trace lines beneath my eyes, between my eyebrows, and between nose and mouth.  The last ones can be blamed on smiling (that’s fine with me), but I think I need to get more sleep and stop squinting, frowning, and/or worrying as much!  It’s not lines in general I object to, it’s having anything negative from my past written permanently on my face!

I hope you’re enjoying the fall season.  Celebrate the harvest, and the One who gives it!

Tuna Helper, Chinese-style October 19, 2008

Tuna casserole is a favorite dish of mine to make.  In the States, I learned to make it from my mom, and then tried out the “helper” mixes once I was in college (tuna being preferred because a can of tuna is a lot cheaper than a pound of beef!)  Here I make it a little differently, and I’ve thought about sharing it with other foreigners here who miss simple home foods, but there isn’t really a forum for it.  Teagen did try to start up a “foreigners-in-ZZ” web site once, but I don’t think much ever happened with it, and she’s really busy these days (aren’t we all?), so I doubt any more WILL happen with it any time soon.

Tuna Helper, with almost all “Chinese” (locally bought) ingredients.

The basic recipe is in bold; additions I like are in green.  The sources are in parens – local markets=LM; local stores such as Spar, Dennis, or StarMart=LS; import stores such as Better Dennis=BD or Wei San Lu=WSL… WSL is always cheaper but has less variety and is harder to find.

• Heat a large wok on medium heat. (that’s Chinese heat; it would be medium-high or high in the US!)
  

• Pour in a tablespoon or so of oil; when it’s hot, add 1 or 2 cloves minced garlic (LM) and 1/2 small onion (LM), chopped.  Cook till fragrant.

  

• Pour in 3 cups of hot water, 1 little bag (=1 cup) of milk (LS), half of a small stick or 1/4 of a large stick (=1/4 cup) butter (LS/WSL), one package of dry “Chicken and Mushroom” or “Chicken and Corn” soup mix (LS), and one can of tuna* (BD/WSL).  Stir to dissolve the soup mix completely. *You could use cut-up chicken (LM/LS) instead of tuna; in that case, add it before the water so it browns a bit in the oil.
  

• Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally so the milk doesn’t burn.

• Mix in about 200g of pasta (LS – find it loose where you buy things by weight, or pay more and get it imported and pre-packaged at BD/WSL), and stir occasionally. Add a couple handfulls of chopped vegetables, either fresh (LM) or frozen (BD).  I like to put in fresh broccoli and frozen peas and corn, though other things have made their way in.
  

• When the pasta is almost tender (probably less than 10 minutes), mix in some graded Parmesan cheese (BD/WSL) and/or some broken up block- or pre-sliced-cheese (LS/BD/WSL).

• When pasta is tender, serve and enjoy!

Serves 3 hungry adults, or a family.  I think.  Being single, I’m never quite sure!

What’s available at local stores varries: I’ve been in some larger stores that don’t have loose pasta, but my medium-sized neighborhood grocery store almost always has a big container of it to scoop out and weigh as much as you want.  The same goes for butter and cheese in the dairy section (but dairy is less than half the price if I go to WSL).  Theoretically, if you make it with chicken instead of tuna and all fresh veg, it can be made without any trips to special import stores.

On a slightly related topic (food and markets):  The food shops in the market next to the local supermarket finally opened again!  The government closes them from time to time, and September was one of the times.  I was so glad to see all the open stalls and people buying dinner!!!  I often buy baozi (steamed bread with meat or veg inside), fried bread, or fried noodles there when I don’t feel like cooking lunch or supper.

And, a quick look at my latest knitting project, Versatility (pattern from Knitty.com, by Amanda Williams):

Half finished.  I can hardly wait to share photos of it finished, and in use!  I hope it isn’t too cold out to wear it when I finally get it finished.

Things that make me happy October 6, 2008

Things that make me happy:

The popped rice season has started! It lasts while the weather is cool enough to be near a constant fire but still warm enough to sit outside all day.  I bought two bags of popped rice and two of popped wheat on the way home today, and then they left a Hansel-and-Gretel trail (from my bike basket) all the way from the gate to the garage!

Getting mail

Recycled yarn – silk from sari fabric scraps – from India; and Rama II – traded for online via BookMooch – a sequel to a random book I acquired and enjoyed earlier this year.

Fall colors

I call these Chinese Lantern Trees.  There were (and hopefully still are) some near the entrance to the Kempsville Public Library back in Virginia.  Here there are many along some streets, such as my own, and they simply glow when the light hits them right!  We don’t get spectacular leaf displays here, but these are making my autumn more colorful.

Applesauce

This peeler-corer-slicer (not the mystery mail mentioned before – photos of that in use have gone missing but will hopefully be located soon) was a wonderful find a couple years ago in a battered box all alone at the bottom of a supermarket shelf.  Here it’s in use to prepare what ended up being a double-batch of applesauce, most for a sick friend but a bit kept for my own enjoyment and that of my helpers!

Activities for my classes that come off well

In this case, I assembled it from cork trivets from the Beijing Ikea, push-pins from the market (at the third or fourth stationary stall I tried), and plain rubber bands.  No colored bands to be found, sadly, but I think it worked well anyway, and the kids definitely enjoyed it.  It reminded me of the peg-boards of my youth (something like this item, but mine had a rigid black base and simple cylindrical pegs), where you could put pegs into holes on one side or string rubber bands around protrusions on the other side.

Clean laundry

(second photo borrowed from earlier this year)

Specifically, having all my hand towels/rags/washcloths clean and dry, as you seen in the photos, as well as clothes, blankets, etcetera.  Not much smells better than walking into the apartment and smelling fabric softener.  Well, lots of other things smell better in the apartment, but they mostly involve cooking and thus aren’t available to smell when first returning home!

A clean house

I’ve hired a woman to help clean my apartment recently.  For three hours on Friday morning she does basic dusting and sweeping/mopping of the main parts of the house, and in between, she deep cleans parts of the house that haven’t had a proper deep-clean since I first moved in.  Such as the kitchen counter under the stove and boxes.  (The wood boxes to either side of the stove are what I use as a counter, since the actual counter is much too low for me to use without having serious back issues.)  Lurking on the left you can also see another happy thing – a nice Western meal when I feel like relaxing with comfort food.  Grilled cheese, sweet pickles, half an apple, and chips (very rare since they’re both expensive and fattening, don’t worry, Mom!)

National Day with all its flags

Even though the flag is different and doesn’t connect to the patriotism and pride of my own, I enjoy seeing everyone display it.

Cute kids

They were getting the camera strap adjusted at the cobbler’s so it could go around the boy’s neck.

Getting things fixed

The cobbler is fixing a ball for me.  She refused to let me pay her when she finished!

And friends

Melissa and one of her friends as we prepared to hit the streets on National Day with my camera in hand.

Cook-Out October 5, 2008

Everything tastes better in the open air (at least when it’s sunny, temperate air).

Today was our monthly get-together and we had a cook-out at the new apartment complex where several of us live – not me, mind you.  It’s WAY on the other side of town from me.  Oddly enough, the two times I’ve been there before I’ve taken my new bike.  Go figure!  But it’s good to know it can make it that far on its battery, even if it’s not fully-charged, and it’s fun to be free to travel like that.

In fact, I was just over there Thursday evening.  Some of us un-attached people here (I don’t like the term “singles,” I think because of “singles groups” in US fellowships kind of feel like left-overs, so lately I’ve used “un-attached,” which is especially fitting because most of the “attached” people I know are very attached – as in, spouse plus multiple children)… anyway, we had talked about having a progressive dinner, but due to holiday traffic and people getting sick, it couldn’t happen, so there was a small potluck instead.  As it turned out, it was all ladies who showed up at Sarah’s apartment, and the informal, comfortable time of chatting and eating that followed was beyond wonderful.  The (co-ed but also all-un-attached-people) coffee-shop discussion that led to the original idea started me realizing that I miss this kind of hang-out time, but I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I got home Thursday night.  It was just so good to be with other people at a similar place in their lives; the fact that were were of similar cultural backgrounds and all female was an even more relaxing, nice change for the evening, too.  And of course the food was fabulous in its totally un-planned way – first cake, then sausages, a salad, rolls, and cinnamon raisin pretzels.  I’m probably forgetting something, but it wasn’t much, just enough to feel bountiful but not wasteful.

Today I took a taxi rather than my bike (I’ve got a cold), but the food and fellowship out there was also wonderful.  Mike and Carl grilled up hot dogs and chicken, and after the meal, with its various side-dishes, we had my contribution: s’mores and some brown-sugar-cinnamon apples that had baked on the coals while the meat was cooking.  Yum!  It was loads of fun, even though a certain someone who shall remain nameless pulled my knitting needles out of my current project to use as drum-sticks   (I wasn’t smiling at the time, but the stitches were recovered with no harm done aside from a little dust being added to the project.)  Photos of the cook-out follow.

in full swing just before eating

speaking of swing: These are one part of the Chinese playground-exercise-station collection that features in many apartment complexes and school athletic fields.  Sara, Hannah (or Kayla?), and Pat.

a little post-lunch swinging, as well.  Peter and Carl…

…and Ling and Sarah.

Roasted marshmallows… (Andrew, Sara, and Pat)

…plus crackers and chocolate… (Pat and Andrew behind Chitty and Ling)

…equals S’mores! Sarah and Teagen chow down.

Yum! Me.

Chloe guards the leftover food

new lives growing

sing-along. Wang, Kelly, and Mike.

stacking stools

chatting – Deb, Elvis, and Sarah, with Cherie sniffing the grass in the background.  She loved it out there, as did we all (even the flies and bees)!

Tomorrow school starts back up for real.  I hope I’m ready.