Night Markets and Foreign Banquets

Well, this week has been really good - I'm learning how to get into the rhythm of teaching and figuring out what I need to do to keep up my stamina, and having some fun with my classes. It's been fun and challenging!

Well, Fall is here, and Winter is just around the corner, and every morning I wake up and think, "GOD, it's freaking cold this morning..." But hey, Lanzhou gets cold. The central heating doesn't get turned on until November 1st, so I've got about a month before the heat comes on.

One thing that signals the onset of winter is the sweet potato vendors. As you can see, there's an empty oil barrel filled with wood/coals, and the sweet potatoes are baked whole right on top of the barrel.

From what I've heard, this was originally a Beijing/Northeastern tradition, but it seems that over the years, it's made its way out to Lanzhou and other places in China.

I don't eat sweet potatoes, but it's just one of those things that I see and think, "Well, I guess it's officially Fall now."

So, I've been up to a lot this past week - one of the things that I enjoyed the most was my trip to the Zhengning Night Market. It's one of Lanzhou's more famous and popular night markets, and deservedly so. There are a lot of great snacks to be had there.

One of the best things you can have there are the kebabs - lamb kebabs, chicken kebabs, octopus kebabs.....all kinds of great stuff.

They'll have the raw meat on sticks there, and they season it and cook it whenever you order it. It's pretty awesome, and really fresh! You can see the guy here seasoning it with a water bottle poked full of holes filled with the seasoning.

One of my favorite things is the octopus kebabs, and it's great, but the ones I had weren't cooked quiiite long enough, and I was thinking....."And yet again, I'm rolling the dice with my food here." Haha that's part of the deal in China. But I was fine.

It's a chaotic place - crowded, a little hot, dirty, and such delicious food. Oh, man.....it's so awesome, and so uniquely China.

I went there with a Chinese friend who hadn't been to Lanzhou in a while, so I got to sort of play the guide and she got to be the tourist.

We had a lot of fun sitting and chatting about China, America, life, culture, and a lot of great stuff. I was thinking,

"You know, this is life. This is a good time. Just watching the people go by, talking about culture, eating some delicious food, and not really doing anything."

I dunno, I enjoy those little moments of being idle and relaxing in this crazy, chaotic city. It's refreshing.

One thing that I enjoyed a couple of days ago was the Gansu Provincial National Day Reception for Foreign Experts. It was a little gathering for about 100-ish foreign teachers, delegates, and workers in Gansu Province.

I didn't know that it was a really special dinner, but apparently it was. Not a lot of people were invited to this dinner, so I was pretty lucky to go. Lanzhou Jiaotong University is a pretty well-regarded university in the province, so all the teachers were invited to go.

Only about 8 of us went, but it was pretty fun. As you can see, it was a pretty nice spread - a lot of great food, some wine (I don't like win), and some great conversation.

(Also, check out the menu. My favorite one is "Fried Bun stuffed with Vegetarian Stuff"....awesome, huh?)

We got to meet a lot of other foreigners, a few of them who had read my blog. I met a girl from Europe who had emailed me about coming to Lanzhou, and another American teacher who read my blog before coming to Lanzhou.

It was pretty cool to meet them, and it really made me feel like this whole blog thing is finally worth doing. I've gotten emails, met people who've read it, and I keep getting hits. It's nice to know that it's not just numbers - real people are actually reading it.

I always love meeting other foreigners in China, because we're all here for the same reasons - we love China, and we all are here to do something we can't really do back home.

It's also fun to share those funny stories about talking to kids, embarrassing moments, our crazy-normal lives. There's no such thing as a foreigner with a 'boring' life in China, and once you get a bunch of foreigners together, it's readily apparent. Once the China bug bites someone, it's not a bug that people that can easily get rid of.

Until next time,

Austin

P.S. - If you guys want to see more pictures of Lanzhou, I've got them up in a couple of albums on Facebook: Here and here and here. I've got way more, but it would be a lot of trouble to put up everything on here. Anyway, yeah......see you guys later!

The Unfamiliarity of it All

Finally, a new video is here! Yeah, I've been pretty much keeping to a once-a-week update unconsciously, so I guess I'll be sticking to that schedule!

I just got my teaching schedule and textbook/curriculum and everything, so I'll be putting up a post about that soon.

First, the videos! Watch, and then I'll get into more detail below. As always, YouTube and Youku:

 



As I said in my previous post and in this video, everything you do here is different. Everything. And to a certain extent, it is really wonderful, but sometimes it can be really tough.

I'm not really sure how to explain it, but there's a great amount of satisfaction to be had in daily life in China, especially in a place like Lanzhou, where there are few foreigners.

You find yourself in these seemingly normal circumstances here - buying food, going to a restaurant, talking to people in Chinese, seeing the neon lights at night, and all of these other things......to you they are normal life, and to be able to function in these ways without really thinking about it is really satisfying.

You have to use your Chinese to do all of these things, you have to always be aware of the fact that people may be staring at you literally all the time, you have to use your patience to deal with crowds or lines or noise or whatever, and at the end of the day, when (or if) you think about what happened that day or what you did that day, you kind of say,

"Oh, yeah, I totally just did ______ in China/Chinese, who knew I would/could ever do that?"

Just doing simple things requires a little work in another language or requires a little more thought, and it's these little daily/hourly challenges that make life here so interesting. Some people relish how awesome new and unfamiliar things are, and some people just don't.

You think and live with a different part of your mind here than you do back home. Because you're utilizing this other language, it changes how you think and how you deal with the circumstances around you, and that's something you just can't fully explain to people. It's one of the biggest reasons that people who come here stay here. 

That's about all I've got for you now - I guess I'll talk to you later!

Austin

From Huan Xian, Gansu, China

What's up guys?

It's been a while, yeah! Unfortunately, internet access has been a bit troublesome for me, and this is the first time I have actually been able to sit down and write without worrying about a coming appointment...

It's hot in my hotel room in 环县, Huan County, and I'm a bit thirsty from the Oreos I was just eating as I was talking to my mom on Skype. America is worlds away right now. Outside the window are honking taxis, sputtering motorbikes, and the sounds of shopping and bargaining. 

The fan is slowly panning back and forth, but it's not quite enough to get me "comfortable."

I've spent the day with my friend Benjamin Xi, his girlfriend Elena, his brother Peng, and his mom and dad. We had a great breakfast of 包子 (Bao Zi), which are meat/vegetable stuffed steamed buns that are a typical Chinese breakfast, followed in two hours by a great noodle/egg/tomato/bokchoy lunch with steamed bread, and lots of watermelon.

Lots of watermelon.

Watermelon is good here because it provides much-needed water to the body in a dry place like this. It's also tasty, which helps as well.

After that, we went to the market where Ben's mom sells her food - Sha Guo, which is a small, but deep bowl filled with soup, noodles, tons of vegetables, and meat of some kind (chicken in this case, but it varies). She also sells "mouse ear" noodles, which I will just have to put up a picture of, because I can't really explain what they look like. 

Anyway, we had a great dinner of Sha Guo and Northwestern-barbecue. Awesome! Seriously, this is great food...if Northwestern Chinese food made its way into America, people would quit going to those crappy Cantonese-dish filled buffets. The Northwest is the best!

In a couple of days, we're gonna go to Ben's village - where he is originally from. I will stay with him and his family in their cave homes, devoid of showers and an abundance of water. Life is hard in that part of the country, and I hope I can show you guys why I feel such a strong attachment to these somewhat, but in this case, definitely, far-flung places.

I'll be typing up another blog post right after this one --- read if you like! 

See you next time!


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