China Birthday

I’m 24 years old. I’m in my mid-twenties—no longer a fresh-out-of-college 22-year-old but a 2-year veteran of the “real world” (whatever that means).

As with so many other stages in life, I’ve reached this point only to realize that “wait, I still don’t know what I’m doing.”

I have a clear memory of little 2^nd-grade me walking up the stairs of Mary Munford Elementary School, gazing at the gargantuan fifth graders up ahead, and knowing, without a lick of doubt, that these kids understood what was going on. They had everything all figured out.

Only, then, one day, I was a fifth grader, and there was still a lot I didn’t get. But middle schoolers, they were sure to understand it all. …Nope.

Well, perhaps once I was in high school and knew how to drive, or perhaps once I got to college, or got to be a senior in college, or graduated from college, or went to live on the other side of the world…. Oh. So all the wisdom and knowledge of adulthood doesn’t just show up one day?

Shucks.

Anyway, I’ve celebrated my last several birthdays away from my family, but this was my first time celebrating abroad, and, because I have a summer birthday, it was also my first time celebrating on a regular old workday. Hence, much of my day didn’t feel all that birthday-like. I’d told my students that I wanted my present to be good behavior, but for my first two classes that was apparently too much to ask. I got to skype with a friend for about ten minutes during the afternoon, and Malijun gave me a beer, but but frankly, I was pretty mopey until after my 3 o’clock class.

I still had a couple of hours before my evening marathon class, so I decided to bike into town for bubble tea and also pick up a bar of chocolate to supplement the ghiradellhi Mark was kind enough to bring me back from America. I made a rice cooker cake. Specifically I made a mint mocha cake (chocolate with hints of mint and coffee) with a thin coffee frosting/filling between the two layers and a bailey’s (again, courtesy of Mark) chocolate glaze over top. It was, unfortunately, rather ugly when done, so no pictures. But it was darn tasty.

The first half hour of the evening class was its usual self—reviewing vocabulary and the like. Then, after the five-minute break, we went outside and spent the next half an hour playing basketball against Yiming’s class.

Class 82 has major troublemakers who happen to be talented basketball players. Despite a rule stating that only two of my class’s top five players could be on the court at any moment, we crushed the opposition. Meanwhile, I took pictures of my kids (whether they wanted to be photographed or not). Here we have Mike and Zach, and Laura and Sam (Samantha, she now insists, after the mortifying discovery of Sam listed in the textbook as a "boy's name").

Yiming’s class went in at 7:30, and we stayed out until 8. (I’d decided over the weekend that I might have an evening class on my birthday, but I was not going to spend the whole two hours fighting my students into being quiet and listening while we covered real content.)

Some of my kids opted to keep playing basketball, and a few asked if they could go back to the classroom and do homework, but I managed to corral the rest into learning all about the very important American staples of duck duck goose, octopus tag, and red rover. It was silly and fun. After I shepherded them back inside, I saw that the trustworthy girls I’d allowed to go in early and start their homework had,

in fact, decorated the entire blackboard with birthday wishes. The

class sang me happy birthday in English and Chinese. I got presents from two students and notes from a few more (see pictures of presents. They are epic things, they are). Touched, I thanked them profusely. Then it was homework time. Most kids were tired enough from all the running around that they either buckled down into work or at least kept quiet so their classmates could. All in all, it was a lovely class.

After the bell rang, I headed back to my room. Mark had candles leftover from Malijun’s birthday a few weeks ago, so I stuck them in my cake and got the gang over. Yiming’s girlfriend, who was visiting from Hong Kong, made a small fruit salad, and Yiming gave me a plant that’s currently sucking up sunshine on my windowsill. We ate the cake (sadly for me, no leftovers remaining), and just relaxed for a little while before splitting up so we could all get work done for Tuesday morning. It was not a typical American birthday, perhaps, but that doesn't mean it wasn't memorable.

Emily’s First Yunnan Cooking Experience (and Some General Food Thoughts)

Here marks the last of my “backlogged posts.” It’s all new from here, folks! Also, as an addendum to this post, two days ago I attempted rice cooker corn bread. It turned out ok, but I really need to find baking soda/some sort of baking soda substitute/have baking soda sent from the US. Ma LiJun actually said it was the best corn bread she’s ever had, but I think that’s mostly because Chinese cornbread/cake and American style cornbread are very different animals. Today I might try to do tortillas, but, again, baking powder/soda would be nice…. I also plan to get lunch from the cafeteria this afternoon, just to try it out. I’ll keep you updated.

Also, check out my newest batch of pictures! http://anamericaninheqing.shutterfly.com

For lunch on Friday (today, at the time of this writing), I decided it would be a lovely idea to break into my cooking supplies and the food I bought in Heqing yesterday and try to make some lunch. I should explain that I really lucked out in terms of kitchen inheritance here. My room has a hot plate, a kettle, a wok, a medium sized pot with a lid, a steamer, a knife, a cutting board, and several cooking utensils, as well as a few bowls and a plate. Yesterday, I replaced the rice cooker that was already in here, because it was cracked on the bottom and generally did not inspire confidence as far as cooking safety was concerned. Now I have a new one (recommended by Ma LiJun) that came with a steamer of its own. Convenient indeed! I can’t wait to make mantou (steamed buns). I also bought some chopsticks, a glass mug for tea, and a trivet (which, in retrospect, seems rather unnecessary, considering that I don’t exactly have a dining table/chairs).

The girl who lived here before left containers of cooking oil, soy sauce, rice wine, and a couple other things I haven’t gotten around to translating yet. Yesterday I bought eggplant, broccoli, peppers(hot and not, although the hot ones weren’t actually hot), garlic, ginger, and sesame oil. For lunch I put together a stir fry of sorts. I don’t usually fry eggplant, so I used more oil than I intended to, and I didn’t bother to look up what each of the buttons on the hotplate means, but altogether I think it came out relatively well. I also over or undercooked the rice or something, but then, I almost never use rice cookers (or cook white rice—I use brown at home), so I think that’ll just take a bit of adjusting to

I will need to get better at cooking for one person; I made too much rice (which I saved), and a little too much stir fry (which I ate, since I have no real means of keeping it/reheating it). I’m so accustomed to cooking for 2-3 people, or at least cooking with the intention of leftovers, that I’m really not at all used to judging how much I’ll want to eat in one sitting. There’s no fridge here though, and no microwave. I suppose I could reheat things on the hotplate, but I need to get better at using it before I want to try that.

Veggies (at least the ones in the supermarket where I shopped yesterday) are cheap. My eggplant was 3 mao, which is less than 1 yuan, which is in turn less than 20 cents. My garlic was 1.2 yuan for 2 bulbs, my ginger was 4 mao for a knob about the size of toddler’s hand, my peppers (two relatively small red and two long and thin “spicy” greens) were 1 yuan total, and my broccoli was 1.5 yuan for a huge crown. So, I spent a grand total of 4.4 yuan, or 65 cents, according to the 6.75 exchange rate I saw last time I checked. In contrast, the “chocolate milk peanuts” (I had to try them—not bad, but they didn’t taste like chocolate or milk) were 1.9 yuan for a small package. Still cheap compared with the US, perhaps, but more expensive than my most expensive veggie. A chicken sandwich at the knockoff KFC-type place we passed by in Lincang was 15-20 yuan, which is pricy even by American standards, what with “dollar menus.”

In Lincang, I indulged in a lot of 2-4 yuan ice cream bars and 6.8 yuan packs of oreos, because CEI gave us “debit cards” of sorts to use at the school store, but I’ve decided that I want to avoid such purchases as much as possible here in Heqing (I have half a pack of oreos left from Lincang and will not allow myself to buy more). When I studied in Beijing, I lost some weight, mostly, I think, because I ate far less sugar than at home. I’d like to reduce my sugar this time too. It’s easy to see why prices like those above (1 dollar oreos and 22 cent broccoli) are one of the reasons there are far fewer overweight folks here in the Chinese countryside than in the US. I do wish they did more whole grains here though—not gonna lie. And, as always, I would like an oven.