Oh Dear God, What is That?!?!?

This is an oft' used phrase of mine here in China. Possible uses range from the more mild: piles of odd half eaten food on the sidewalk, an oddly colored pleghm puddle in the street, to the more shocking: mothers holding babies up to pee out of a little hole in their onesies...on the street, grown men pulling over in their taxis, scooters, etc to pee in a bush. Yes, I feel like I've seen it all here (although every day I discover I have nowhere near seen it all) but luckily, as described, all these "discoveries" have been on the street. Until now :( As I left my apartment yesterday I opened the door to leave and saw this in the threshold taunting me to try and cross it!
Oh dear God. What the HELL is that?!!?!? Besides the fact that I had about 129.99 pounds on it I leaped back in horror. To give some background on my bug phobia, close friends and family will know by experience, I am not the biggest lover of animals and when it comes to bugs, I would rather watch paint dry for eternity than have to touch or see them. Kafka's Metamorphosis?? Gave me nightmares for weeks. Australia??? Almost caused a separation from my roommates when I put a glass over a cockroach and left it there for days waiting for someone else to deal with it. So imagine my fear everytime someone talks of the bug culture in China and how bad it gets in the Summer. I never mentioned this before but when I arrived at my apartment that first night in February my kitchen was stocked with plates, silverware, pots, pans and RAID, as if this is a basic necessity for living in China.

Back to the creature though. It appeared to be dead and not moving for the 10 mins I stared at it while contemplating my next move. My Ayi (housekeeper) was coming the next day so I decided to leave it there and maybe she would do something about it. WELL, it was still there in the morning (thankfully not crawling around looking for my flesh to prey on) giving me some relief. BUT when I came back from class and was letting my ayi in while explaining to her (more in gestures than in words) the big insect that was living in my door jam, I discovered, to my horror, that it was gone!!!!! I quickly showed her the picture I had taken expecting her to laugh at me but she was just as horrified and then pointed to her ear as if this is where they like to hibernate. Noooooo! She then went on explaining how bad the first floor is for bugs (I know I know) and that I should move. This did not settle well AT ALL. I may shortly have a new apartment. Ughhhhhahhhlele!

I will write more on my Ayi later (and when I have a picture of her). Basically, she is my favorite person in China :)

Heartattack Survived, Innovation Realized

After my near heartattack today due to the undesirably close UCLA-Tx A&M game I am almost tempted to fly home just to be able to watch UCLA's tournament run on an actual tv. Due to the 9am Sunday game time in China, there was not a single live feed to be found in all of Shnaghai. And yes I know you can get the games live on-demand over the internet but my connection is too slow and my lovely mac doesn't come with the necessary plug-in to watch them any way. I was reduced to watching gamecast re-freshes on CBS Sportsline in a cafe with a much faster connection than my apartment. This is absolutely killing me. BUT my parents and I figured out a solution should I be in the same predicament in the future: Skype!! We did a test run and if they put their computer in front of the kitchen tv, which is small enough for the camera to capture the whole screen, I can watch tv live! Not ideal but desperate times call for desperate measures. I was able to watch Slick Lavin go through all the high/low lights of the game. Yes I'm crazy but I love my Bruins!

Sugar Overload

Easter came early for me thanks to Mom and Dad. I picked up my package at the post office and nearly had to turn on the tears when they wouldn't give it to me b/c I didn't have my passport with me. Luckily my friend Fang Fang was with me and could translate that I was getting my visa fixed so I didn't have it. Once in hand, I could hardly contain myself. Yes, I know I'm 26 years old and giddy about an Easter Basket but I knew it would be filled to the top with Reese's peanut butter eggs and jelly beans. Given my Dad's affinity for tape, it took a while to get to it and Fang Fang even commented saying, "You are really excited for that." So being F-F's language and culture exchange partner I tried to explain what Easter is and let me tell you 1) its not easy given the religious origins and China's history of frowning upon that sort of thing and 2) try, as a grown woman, explaining what an Easter Bunny is AND why he still visits you...in China. In the end, I don't think I communicated the idea of Jesus-rising-again so well but got across a rabbit bringing you candy and presents just fine. FF even laughed anf called me a "grown up child". After about 6 minutes of fighting the tape with my key in a Chinese restaurant and giving people an actual justification to stare at me I got to the promise land. FF stared at the goodies in wonderment. As an added bonus, and just in time, my parents threw in a Bruin rally towel. I hoped FF wouldn't ask what it was but she did of course so, for reasons unbeknown to me , I tried explaining March Madness and UCLA basketball. I confused myself and obviously her and just said its like Yao Ming's team in college. All those explanations made me hungry and in the last hour that I received the package I have eaten 3 peanut butter eggs, about an entire package of jelly beans and who knows how many chocolate eggs. I gave FF some chocolate and she happily ate it but was a bit more hesitant when I handed over the jelly beans. She smelled it a few times and kept putting it to her mouth but not taking a bite. She even asked me if I was going to wash it first! I couldn't help but think, "You eat chicken feet!!"

Speaking of food, I had a pretty lengthy conversation with FF about American eating habits. We went to a hot pot restaurant for lunch (boiling pot of broth in the center of your table and you add whatever you want and it cooks in the broth: meat, veggies, tofu, noodles, etc) which is my absolute favorite here in China especially Sichuan hot pot (very spicy). Partly b/c you cook the ingredients yourself and know what's going into your food and also b/c its probably the healthiest meal you can get without all the goop made from sugar and oil that goes on other Chinese food. FF said I changed her impression of Americans' eating habits. All I eat with her is tofu and vegetables. She told me she thought all Americans ate was lots of meat and fatty and fried foods. I told her that a lot of Americans do eat that way but now in America, health is a big concern and people are trying to eat more healthy foods. And then I went home and stuffed myself with chocolate and jelly beans. I think I may curl up on my couch now in a sugar coma.

Go Bruins!!

When you feel like you really hate your job...

Just be thankful you're not this guy!


















I have NO idea what he is guarding but it sure must be important!

And how cute is this kid?

Dodger Blue in Beijing

The weekend I had been waiting for since January came and went in a flash. I got into Beijing Friday afternoon and hardly recognized the city I had lived in during the Summer of 2002. Despite the smog, the city is very, very clean and I would say about 80% of the buildings are brand new with infinite more being built. The streets are very clean and what makes Beijing even better is that they don't allow residents to hang their clothes outside to dry so the high rises look like proper apartment buildings as opposed to Shanghai where nearly every building is disgraced by the lines of granny-panties hanging out the window for all to see. Moving on... I met my friend Andrew, a new friend Jeremy I had been introduced to through a friend and his friend Catherine (I need a synonym here for friend I think). Catherine is really interesting: She works for the ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi and didn't go to college but speaks english with possibly the best fluency of any Chinese person I have met here. And she lives right by me near Fudan so I have a new friend. Yay! Here is a picture with Me, Cat, Andrew and Jeremy.

So on to the game.

It was a beautiful, clear day and perfect for a game. The stadium was brand new but lacked any sort of character. You can't blame them though for not putting too much effort into is since the stadium is being torn down right after the Olympics so that new apartment buildings can be built. There was a makeshift tent called Texas Roadhouse BBQ that sold hot dogs, chicken burritos, beef sandwiches, peanuts, etc. After a close look at all the pictures of the food I went with the hot dog which came pre-smothered in relish and mustard...ick. Umm...I'll just say it was no Dodger Dog :( . Beyond that the game itself was pretty uneventful. I only recognized two players, Matt Kemp and Chan Ho Park, as the Dodgers brought all rookies, AAA players AND the token Chinese player from Taiwan Hu Chang-shei. Hu is his last name so when he made it to first base there was a wave of chuckles that rippled through the few Americans in the crowd (if you don't get why think Abbott & Costello). The score ended in a tie, 3-3, and with not much action. However the real action came in between innings when the entertainment took the field. Sometimes an emcee would come out and a play would be shown on the big screen and she would ask an audience member what the play was or other typical in-between innings entertainment. BUT the real fun began when these girls came out after the 2nd inning.

Unfortunately for us MLB's funds are all going toward steroid probes and we had to be subjected to this "entertainment" about 6 times. I just felt weird watching it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cheerleaders but they seemed to take the worst aspects of cheerleading: skimpy, yet unflattering outfits, oversized pom-poms and uncoordinated routines. Talk about setting the women's lib movement back 50 years. The best part about it is that they would come out and do their routines about 15 feet in front of the players dugout. So odd.

So the weekend was great. I found a new appreciation for Beijing and even found the old Outback Steakhouse I lived at in 2002 after 6 weeks of Chinese food did me in!

Tidbit

Here is a funny story that has no real relevance but just thought I would share.

The other day I bought children's books to practice my reading. One book is a compilation of Andersen's Fairy Tales. I thought I'd take it on the metro to read during my trip downtown. I get on the train and settle in with my book and am getting pretty into it and excited b/c I understand a lot of it. Well of course on the very next stop a young man, maybe in high school, gets on and sits next to me with his book in English. Ah how funny we are both practicing reading a foreign language. EXCEPT what is he reading?? Shakespeare!!! Here I am with my Little Mermaid book and colorful pictures dancing across the pages and he's reading Shakespeare!! Bubble...bursted. I put my book quickly away and had a little chuckle to myself about how funny that must have looked. 

Sporting News

I've had a good dose of LA sports in my life lately. Here is how it relates to China.

In case it didn't make the headlines back home, the LA Galaxy came here to play an exhibition game with a made up Shanghai-Hong Kong team. Being the daughter of Galaxy season ticket holders I felt obliged to go. It should have been called the "David Beckham puts on white shoes and runs around a bit for your pleasure" exhibition b/c no one has ever heard of the Galaxy let alone any other players on the team. AND the team they played- The Shanghai-Hong Kong All Stars is not even a real team. So my Euro/Australian friends and I went, paid my homage to LA, cheered for Becks and left, all in about 15 minutes. BTW: I definitely got an earful about how amateur American Soccer is compared to European soccer. Here are the pics to prove I was there!

How is he on the field AND right in front of me at the same time?? Amazing!

I head to Beijing tomorrow to see my Boys in Blue play the Padres (or the minor league Dodgers play the minor league Padres). At least Torre will be there. Special thanks to Matt Wendt for connecting me with tickets! The teams are playing here in an effort to steal some of the market share the NBA has on sports in China. They're trying to convince the Chinese kids that they are not going to be tall like Yao Ming and therefore better suited to play baseball. Mmm hmmm. I'm going with my friend Andrew from NY..a Torre fan. 

Of course in true Nicole fashion and wanting to get as much attention as possible, I emailed the LA Times Dodger reporter letting him know that I would be at the game and am available for comment as a true blue LA girl in China :) Shockingly he never responded!!  I guess I'll just have to jump in front of every camera I see in my Dodger hat. Look for me!

Finally in sports, I can't believe I am missing the Madness of UCLA!! :( I went to the largest sports bar in Shanghai and met the manager (a canadian) and made it very clear that ALL UCLA tournament games MUST be shown live regardless of the time difference. He laughed and said he'll "try". I don't think he appreciated my sincerity (a Canadian- go figure). Andrew has illegal satellite cable so he said he'll figure out a way for us to watch the games.  If a game is played at 7pm in Phoenix it will be 10am here. Perrrrfect. Hopefully we avoid morning and afternoon games. Not good for me. Someone mention that to the NCAA selection committee for me, OK? Go Bruins!!

Meet Fang Fang

So it's been a while. I guess not too much of interest has happened lately or maybe I'm becoming used to the differences of life in China from the US. 

I have a language partner now though. Her name is Fang Fang and she is very sweet (I tried to hunch in the picture a little to disguise the slight height discrepancy)  She is 25 and a graduate student in physics...we obviously don't have much in common there. I knew I would

instantly love her though when we met for the first time and, to practice her English, she was reading, "Women are from Mars, Men are from Venus". Ha! The girl's got a little spunk. 

Another favorite Fang Fang moment of mine is when we were discussing Gossip Girl (which she also loves) and I explained to her that in real life high school isn't much like that and she responds with, "Oh. Probably Desperate Housewives is more like real life." Hahahhhaha. I teetered on the decision but in the end couldn't allow myself to spread the propaganda of tv producers and had to explain to her that nothing on TV is how it is in real life in America. Pure shock and disappointment from Fang Fang. 

For our first meeting I took her to the coffee shop I always go to, my treat, and told her this is what friends do in America: meet and chat over coffee. Being a student still and not yet part of the disposable-income crowd of China I don't think she makes it to the $4+ latte coffee shop much. I could tell she didn't want to disappoint me though so she ordered a coffee and had maybe 2 sips of it (on a side note: it was a hazelnut latte and billed as "the classic drink of all time"). Every time I've suggested going back she says "may be we try something new?" Ah something new. She took me to eat real chinese food tonight and I had to re-establish my vegetarian policy b/c we went to a REAL chinese restaurant where the whole dinner cost 24 kuai or about $3.50 US. I think it was safe to assume free-range chicken and Niman Ranch grass-fed beef was not on the menu here. I felt really bad lying about the vegetarianism to her especially when she asked why: "Because Chinese meat scares the bejeezes out of me" just didn't seem appropriate. All I could come up with on the spot was because I didn't like the taste- as if all meats taste the same, right? She gave me a funny look but dropped it. I of course slipped no less than 5 minutes later and made a big deal about how much I love jiaozi and xiaolongbao (2 types of dumplings ALWAYS made w/ meat) and ate it everyday for the first 2 weeks I was here. Being the smart girl she is she immediately called me out on my vegetarianism, "So you're not a real vegetarian". Just let me order my eggplant and tofu and leave me be woman! I really am thankful for her and her appreciation for my "unorthodox" American ways :)

Here is another special Chinese friend: A 30ft Mao! I walk by the big guy every day on my way to class. No public institution is complete in China without him!