Ni Ha-oh, Hello.

I live in China, right?

Guangxiao Temple, GZ

Yup, definitely China. It's just, sometimes it can be hard to tell. Sure, I look out my window and see a city of skyscrapers. I walk down the street and am surrounded by Chinese people. I go to a restaurant, or look at a newspaper, or try to take a bus, and I'm faced with more Chinese characters than my Chinese 205 textbook. My students whisper back and forth in Chinese when they think I'm not paying attention (and sometimes when they know I'm paying attention, but they don't care. But that's another story about my poor classroom management skills). I constantly face that beautiful kind of Chinglish that can brighten your day even while confusing you to no end.

Sounds tasty, yes? It's mushroom soup with a puff pastry crust.

But, I don't speak Chinese. I have been in Guangzhou for 7 weeks, and I have spoken less Chinese than I did in any 7 week period in college. Before arriving here, I was primarily worried that my Chinese would suffer because I speak Mandarin, not the native Cantonese. This has not been much of a problem, as I have yet to meet a local who does not speak Mandarin. My students, in particular, all speak Mandarin to each other. So, then, what's my issue?

The issue is this: unlike when I lived in Beijing, with a Chinese roommate and a language pledge requiring me to do most of my communicating in Chinese, here in Guangzhou, I'm part of an ex-pat community. My coworkers all speak English, and our Chinese abilities range from 'hello/thank you' to full fluency. But, we work in an English school, so we are required to speak English with our students, and our Chinese coworkers are there for the opportunity to practice their English. Those who do speak Chinese at work are generally speaking Cantonese. Actually, I've had more opportunity to speak French at work than Mandarin.

Out and about, I don't really do a lot of speaking, past checking out in a store or ordering food (which is, sadly, usually done by the pointing method, as my ability to read and recognize the names of dishes is pathetic). I have had one casual conversation with a fellow pedestrian, who was happy to have a simple conversation in Mandarin about the relative merits of China versus the US (US: freedom, but poor economy. China: not so free, but at least we've got jobs). I had some complicated business at the bank yesterday, and I muddled along in Chinese for about eight minutes with the teller before she flagged down a passing bank worker who spoke some English to help (to give me some credit, half of her confusion was banking related, not language related).

My Front Door

In fact, I've only had to do one complicated thing on my own which required using all Chinese. I needed to get the lock changed on my new apartment's security door. This presented a fun challenge. How and where do I find a locksmith? And how do you say "change a lock"? If this were Maine, I'd look in the phonebook or online. Here, I noticed that there was a little shop across from the bank that looked like they made/copied keys (ok, the giant key-shaped sign helped a bit). So, I looked up the word for "to change a lock," double-checked it with a native Chinese speaker at work, and stopped by after class one day. I asked the woman if she could change locks. Ahah! She can! Well, I said, I need my lock changed. She asks me if I have a Chinese friend. What? Not really, I say. She's surprised. Do I have anyone who can come translate for me? Is there anyone I can call who can translate over the phone for me?  I'm a bit confused, at this point, that she's so concerned about my inability to understand Chinese, since, you see, we're having this conversation in Chinese. But to appease her, I call my friend/coworker/fellow newbie who is Chinese-American and does speak Chinese. She doesn't answer, and I tell that to the locksmith lady, and I also say I don't think we'll have a problem. Locksmith Lady looks doubtful, but proceeds by asking me what type of door it is. She taps on a piece of metal and asks me if the door is metal. With great effort, I refrain from rolling my eyes, and reply that yes, it is a metal security door. She asks to see the key to the current lock, I pull it out and show it to her, and she picks up a lock from a shelf and asks if my lock looks like this one. It does. Then she asks me if I need the inside lock changed, too. This throws me, a little, as I wasn't really aware you could have a different inside and outside lock on the same door. So, I tell her that I don't think so. This, I think, was my fatal error. She writes up a little card with the name and the price of the outside-type lock, the inside-type lock, and the service fee and hands it to me, telling me I can consult with my husband. Blink, blink, go my puzzled eyes. Why are we suddenly talking about husbands? I don't have a husband, I say. She smiles, and corrects herself, your boyfriend. I don't have a boyfriend, I elaborate, and now it's her turn to look puzzled, as if she cannot imagine a woman without male relatives to look after her -- I'm sorry, did I just step through a time vortex? Either way, she's handing me this card and clearly dismissing me. I'm standing there, looking stupid, saying to myself, shouldn't I be telling you where I live and scheduling an appointment? But no, something's gone wrong (I'm sensing a cultural misunderstanding, not a linguistic one) and I'm too tired and hot to deal with it. So I go.

Tired, Hot, and A Little Sick of Light Pollution

A few days later, I go back, and my flatmate's actually with me this time (mostly because we've been living with one set of keys while we wait to get our lock changed). I take out the card Locksmith Lady gave me the previous time, and this time, I say, hi, remember me? Ok, so this is the one I need, the one for the outside. I don't need this one, for the inside. No wishy-washiness. She says ok, and reminds me of the price. I nod that it's fine. She takes down two locks from the shelf and asks me which kind of key I prefer - my choices are a half-circle shaped one which reminds me of the symbol for Euros, and a solid one which reminds me of a hex screwdriver tip. I don't care either way, but I decisively chose the half-circle. Then she asks if we can wait a moment. And I say ok, and she pulls out some stools for us, and we sit, and I'm beginning to be confused again, and then I realize that we're waiting for her partner, the Locksmith Guy, who goes out to homes while she mans the shop. This is instantaneous service, you see. No appointment necessary; he's actually just going to follow us home and change our lock 1-2-3. We wait maybe ten minutes, he arrives, she writes out a bill and I pay her, and off we go. It's an eight minute walk or so, and I chat badly in Chinese while we walk. He is interested to learn that we teach English but can barely understand/speak Chinese -- he seems confused about how we explain things to the kids. Honestly, I'm with him on that. There are times when you just need an explanation of a word or a grammar point in your own language. We arrive at the apartment, we go in, he starts working on the lock. Twenty minutes later, it's all done, he shows me how the new lock works, and we're all set. He says "bye-bye" (literally. I do not think I've heard a Chinese person say the Chinese word for 'goodbye' yet) and that's finished. Despite some cultural and language problems, I was able to get what I needed done, done.  The challenge made it stressful, but it also made it a little bit fun. I miss having more of these opportunities to try my skills. Switching to English feels like cheating.

speaking of the view from my window...

So, to make a long story short, I have a new personal goal: speak more Chinese. Even if it means being that crazy person who breaks elevator-etiquette and talks to strangers in the lift. Even if I have to pretend to not speak English. Even if it means accidentally ordering hot papaya soup (not papaya juice) and dumpling soup, not boiled dumplings. And maybe I'll buy a newspaper for some reading practice. Hmmm. If only my Chinese professors could see me now.

Pita and the PSB

Let's continue to talk about food. It's been quite busy here, so I haven't had a lot of time or motivation to undertake any major touristy or sight-seeing type of activity. What I have had time and inclination to do is check out a variety of recommended restaurants. Truly, one of the best parts of city living is the wide variety of food available. In my neighborhood alone, for foreign cuisine there is a delicious Turkish restaurant, an Indonesian place, and a new Indian restaurant, and those are just the ones I've tried. For Chinese food, there's a good Xinjiang place, a yummy baozi stand, and a little counter that makes a baked, filled pastry called a bing. It's kind of like a little meat pie. Or peanut pie, or spicy vegetables, or bean, or a half dozen more varieties whose names I do not recognize. My favorite is the beef and onion for savory, and the peanut for sweet. There's a place directly next to it that makes a killer mango smoothie, too. A mango smoothie and two beef and onion bing runs me 14 kuai. At the baozi stand, I can get red-bean stuffed steamed buns, or the unstuffed variety flavored with scallions. I can also get a flat bread that has a scrambled egg fried to it, or a half kg of scallion pancake. All of these range from 1 - 4 kuai. The Xinjiang place [that would be Chinese Muslim cuisine, fyi] has the advantage of delivering to work at lunch time. They make the flat shaved noodles that I first ever tried in Xi'an, and also delightfully garlicky dumplings. The dumplings are 25 for 8 kuai. The noodles are 12.

Foreign restaurants tend to be a heck of a lot pricier, but sometimes, you just really want some variety. I would say, sometimes you just want something familiar, but I haven't quite found a Maine diner on the corner of Dong Feng street yet. I have found these, though, and I can happily report they taste exactly the same as they do in the USA:

Ikea Swedish Meatballs: 15 kuai. Eating Swedish Meatballs in Guangzhou: Priceless

Today was my day off, so my flatmate and I went to a Mexican restaurant about which coworkers had raved. I have to say, the raving was deserved. I had a chicken quesadilla with sour cream and homemade salsa. The chicken was smoky with chipotle and the gooey cheese was something like Monteray Jack. Oh, so good. My flatmate had a vegan bean burrito with roasted veggies and was wicked happy with it. It made me cringe to pay 60 kuai for lunch, but really, that's only about 9 USD, so I truly can't complain too much. As we left, I overhead a party just sitting down conversing in Spanish. Mexican so good, even the Spanish-speakers of GZ eat there.

Now, you may be wondering about the title of this post, so let me finish off with a story. Now, Saturday and Sunday are the busiest days of our work week, when we are at work from 8:30-6:30, and teach three 2-hour classes each day. Sunday night, we got off work and decided we really didn't have it in us to make dinner. I had told my flatmate about the middle eastern Shawarma place I'd been to the week before, and we decided to go out for some falafel [because falafel makes everything feel better]. It was about 7pm and dark when we arrived in the neighborhood. The restaurant is two subway stops away, in Taojin. Now, Taojin has a higher concentration of foreigners than anywhere else I've been in Guangzhou, though I don't have the foggiest idea why. Anyway, it's also where we ran into the PSB version of a speed trap. Two things you might like to know: the PSB is the Public Safety Bureau, and in China, not carrying your passport gets you a 50 kuai fine.
So, here we are, on a quest for delicious falafel, and we get stopped by a gaggle of cops about a block away from our goal. They ask us for our passports [in Mandarin Chinese, which, by the way, my flatmate speaks not at all]. I produce mine, but my flatmate only has a photocopy. This earns us a trip around the corner to the local PSB station. As we arrive, I see a group of foreigners leaving. In the station, there are about 6 or 7 foreigners waiting around. We follow our officer in, and he asks us [and by us, I mean me, because this is all still in Chinese] if there is anyone who can bring us my flatmate's passport. Well, no, there isn't, since we're both here and we hadn't gotten around to giving anyone a spare key to our apartment [in our defense, we just had the lock replaced on Saturday]. Our officer seems surprised, but settles for asking if she knows her passport number. She does, since she has a photocopy to reference, and they go to look her up in the computer system [thank goodness we are law-abiding foreigners and are registered with the police in our district]. They confirm her identity, write her out a pass, and collect the 50 kuai fine. It all takes about 10 minutes, and we're free to go. As we leave, there are more foreigners being escorted in. Honestly, I think they accost every foreigner they see. Maybe they've got a quota to fulfill?

We continued on our way, got our delicious falafel in homemade pita bread [yummy yummy yummy], and returned to our apartment without further incident. My flatmate seemed very surprised by the whole incident, and while I can understand why, part of me is really not surprised at all. China, despite all it's cosmopolitanism, all it's private ownership and rampant, gleeful consumerism, is still a communist country. Why shouldn't the authorities stop us and demand to see our papers?

But, that is too dark a note on which to end, so I shall leave you with this picture from my walk today. This is a little garden along the canal that runs behind the hospital outside my window. The garden immediately lifted my spirits, as the swiftly flowing current carried the scent of warm, wet mud. Ah, but the thing I miss most about rural living is the smell of nature. But I suppose, for a year, I can settle for the smell of fresh baked pita and steaming hot dumplings.

Whatever Shall I Eat?

Ah, China. Home to some of the most delicious food on earth. In my five weeks weeks here, I have had delicious noodles, buns, dumplings, vegetables, fresh fruit, fish, soup, scallion pancakes et cetera, et cetera, ditto, ditto, and so on and so forth. There are several nice restaurants and hole-in-the-wall places within a ten minute walk of my apartment. Now, when I was in Beijing, I didn't have the ability to do much cooking, as my room didn't have any kitchen equipment. I ate a lot of instant soup noodles and oatmeal. Here, in my apartment in Guangzhou, I have a kitchen, and I feel rather obligated by both frugality and my general nature to cook for myself.

My Apartment Building

This presents two problems. Problem one: I do not have an oven in my kitchen, and I'm suddenly realizing that some 75% of what I know how to cook involves the oven. Problem two: grocery shopping is a whole new ball game in China. In walking distance, I have a little grocery, a Circle K convenience store, and a fresh market. The Circle K is great for a cold beverage or a quick snack. The little grocery is, at first, comfortingly familiar to a foreigner, although perhaps oddly organized. You enter through a small section of toiletries and household goods. In the back, there is a dairy and frozen goods section, then a small fruit, vegetable, and meat section, then two large bins of bulk rice. There's an aisle of noodles and instant soup, an aisle of vinegar, soy sauce, seasonings, corn starch, etc, and aisle of cookies, crackers, and other nibbles, an aisle of cooking oil, rice, and canned and preserved goods, an aisle of shelf-stable soy milk, and an aisle of bottled water and other bottled beverages. Up front by the registers are displays of specialty goods, candy and gum. Beyond the registers is a little Tupperware vendor and a vendor by the front door sells nuts and dried fruit. All in all, it sells most everything you need to cook Chinese food. If, on the other hand, you are trying to cook Western food, you are SOL. Flour? No. Tomato-based products? No. Cheese? No. Any of the lovely meal-in-a-box, hamburger-helper-type products which take up aisles and aisles of space in an American grocery store? No. Alas, I am sadly uninspired by the selection. Beyond stir-fried veggies over rice, I don't know what to make. I am painfully aware that I need to (re)learn how to cook.

Now, if I go further afield to the larger malls, I can find larger grocery stores with "international" sections. There, I can pay a relatively obscene amount of money for a can of Hunts spaghetti sauce, a can of (Italian) chickpeas, Swiss Miss hot chocolate powder, or Land o Lake's Monteray Jack cheese (oh, what I wouldn't pay for some Sharp Cheddar). But still, the part of me which yearns for a sack of potatoes and a pound of hamburger remains unsatisfied.

Perhaps the most fun way to shop is to go to the fresh market. The fresh market is a tightly packed space of vendors selling piles of fresh vegetables of every variety: onions, celery, bok choy, cucumbers, eggplant, scallions, mushrooms, carrots, peas, beans, and a heck of a lot of things I don't recognize. There's fresh ginger and garlic, and eggs (you buy them by weight), fresh and preserved. Along the right hand wall are the fish vendors. They have fresh, frozen, and still living offerings [including a tank of frogs. Hmm]. Towards the front, near the exit, you have the meat vendors. These make the squeamish American in me want to run for the hills. Now, visualize the meat section of an American store. Everything brightly light and gleaming, no smell unless it's one of disinfectant,  all the meat wrapped in plastic and neatly separated in refrigerated cases. Even at something like a farmer's market, or a butcher shop, the meat will be refrigerated or somehow kept cold.
 Here, the vendors have their offerings piled before them, same as the vegetable dealers. Some cuts are hanging along hooks. Shoppers peruse the selection, picking up cuts, examining them, putting them back down. Vendors hold things out to entice. When people are paying, they sometimes throw the money onto the pile of meat. Nothing is refrigerated (including the whole market, which means the temperature of the space is likely somewhere in the eighties, or high seventies at best). Honestly? My reaction is probably irrational. Clearly, the Chinese shoppers are not being stricken en mass by salmonella and e coli. But I can't know the handling history of the meat. I don't know how long it's been there. I don't know how long ago it was slaughtered. I don't know how many people have touched it, or what other contaminates might have contacted it. In short: there are days I'm happy I live with a vegan and can use that as an excuse for being a chicken.
 
I will save the story of my restaurant adventures for another post. Just to tease you: I've already found a wonderful vegetarian Buddhist place, to-die-for Indonesian, decent Turkish, mouth-watering Middle Eastern (falafel! hummus! lamb shawarma! pita!), my favorite hot and sour potato dish that I discovered in Beijing, delicious Xinjiang style noodles, and a baozi vendor who makes a ridiculously cheap and delicious scallion pancake. Now, if I could only find some baked beans and a blueberry pie, I'd be in culinary heaven.