Seating for Two

Well, when I moved to SD, I thought to myself: I'll scrimp and save. I don't need to buy a big bed when there's a single bed in my parents' basement. I don't need more than one comfortable chair when I don't have a roommate or any friends in SD, who might want to sit down while visiting me.

It turned out that I did meet a friend who wanted to sit down while visiting me. Since I only had one chair, he decided to sit on my exercise ball, and to sit next to him, I decided to sit on my footstool. This situation being less than ideal, I decided to invest in seating for two.

I found a sale item on Target.com, and asked my brother to talk me into or out of ordering it. In the end I ordered it because it seemed like a small thing that would be easy to disassemble and move, and because it was my favorite color and on sale.

My apartment manager said that they don't accept packages for tenants, so I figured it would be a dilemma to be around to receive the package. But last Monday, when I returned from class, this big box sat inside my apartment. It was big enough to hold the notorious "leg lamp" from A Christmas Story. I'm still thinking of making a fort out of the box.


It was difficult to assemble...That's all I'm going to say about that.

It ended up working out ok, though. It's a very green little couch, with two black ottomans that slide under the seat.


I think it's cute, but nobody else has seen it or sat on it. The birds like to hop around on it, but we're being careful not to get spills and droppings on it. Target.com reviewers said it's prone to water spotting.

-吴碧芙

Mad Hatting Skills

I learned to knit because I needed a hat. My first project might have been a hat, if I hadn't thought that it would be too complicated for myself as a beginner. The yarn is Lamb's Pride again in colors "clematis" and "sea foam." I wanted the hat to kind of match the scarf, apart from the color, so my friend sent a ribbed hat pattern she found on someone's blog.



Perhaps the coolest is the decreases, which causes some of the ribs to come to a point in the back.


This blog is becoming too showcase-y.

-吴碧芙

Re-Finished

I finished my first scarf, wore it, and decided I wanted to make it longer. I thought I would want to wrap it around multiple times in the SD winter. On Friday I was finally able to go to the yarn shop in Sioux Falls to get the seafoam color to add to the ends. So I finished it again, much to the disappointment of Kavi and Roscoe, who thought it was a comfy perch. It's about 8 feet long. The yarn is Lamb's Pride (from Nebraska sheep) bulky weight, which has wool and mohair.


I learned Continental style, which is much faster, and easier on the hands. I cast on a new scarf right away, this one in "cafe au lait," "sand dollar," and "blue magic" worsted weight Lamb's Pride with smaller needles. This is step two in the knitters' evil plan to get me to knit socks against my will.

-吴碧芙

Fire Dragon Fruit

My parents are on tour. Coming back from Texas, they took a turn over to my place, bringing me a "fruit truck." The most wonderful and exotic fruits, which they remembered I liked from when they visited me in China. I have lots of pomelos now. I have a yali pear and fragrant pears.

One of the most exciting was the fire dragon fruit. In China the meat was white with little black seeds, but the taste is the same. Last Easter, I tried to use the bright skin to dye Easter eggs, but they turned out light grey and ugly.


I was squealing as I cut open one of them for breakfast this morning. The birds probably thought I was crazy, but that wouldn't be anything new for them.

-吴碧芙

Blow, blow thou, Winter Wind!

Xue le! (It snowed!)


Western SD got a lot of snow this week. We got this much, but I'm not complaining. This is the first snow I've seen since Jan. 2007. The wind is cold, and I haven't finished my scarf yet. I can't start my hat until I finish my scarf, but today I thought I better just give up and buy one. The wind blew into my ears and felt like a knife. At times the wind was so strong while I was walking home that I couldn't bare to face it, and it was difficult to stand straight. It's very very cold!

-吴碧芙

在 南大口塔 有 柚子!! (South Dakota has pomelos!!)

红色的 柚子!! (Red pomelos!!) I went to HyVee to get some Election Day food (read: beer...just kidding). I usually check for pomelos, not really expecting, but hoping, to see some. Today I saw some! I wanted to buy out the store, but I just bought two.


For those who are pomelo newbies: The first time I had a pomelo in China, I was visiting a colleague who had some students visiting her. They handed me a section of pomelo, and I ate it as it was. I pleasantly said how good it was, when in fact, I thought it was terribly tough and like eating leather. The problem was that I didn't open the white "skin" that covers each section. On the picture, you can see one portion which is pink and shiny, while the other portion is white and veiny. You want to eat sections from which the white veiny part has been peeled off. With my colleague and students, I was relieved when I watched someone else eat a section, peeling off the skin. I started eating a few sections at every meal, and pomelos became my favorite fruit. I thought it would be quite some time before I could eat one again, but SD went beyond my expectations.

-吴碧芙

Stress and Flowers

Last week was one of the busiest of this semester. The biggest thing was that I had the GRE on Saturday. So, between studying for my Audiology exam and trying to cover some extra hours at work, I tried to prepare for the GRE. There was a nice surprise on Friday, when my family sent me a fall bouquet.

Saturday morning I decided to order an omlette from the greasy diner down the road. I asked them for one without meat and without mushrooms, but neither of these was completely honored. There were two chunks of ham and tons of mushrooms to pick out. I cut up a melon and took that along for a quick healthy lunch.

As I got on the road to the testing center in Sioux Falls, I found that three trucks were trying to transport plane parts using our on-ramp. Nothing was moving. I thought I would be late. Hilarity ensued as I thought, "Hey, I'll go south for a bit, find an overpass, and change directions." However, the next overpass is about 15 miles down the road. By the time I illegally turned around in an 'only authorized maintenance vehicle' driveway, the planes were long gone.

I was shaking when I finally found the testing center. I was on my game though, and in the analytical writing section, I wrote about art from the Chinese Cultural Revolution and "BodyWorld." For the latter, I wrote that the popularity of the exhibit "reveals society's fascination with the macabre." I'll have to wait for the writing scores, but the verbal and quantatative are given immediately. I improved my score by 25% over 5 years ago. Yeah! Take that, 5 Years Ago Me!!

After that, I went shopping. I found Lambic Framboise (Belgian raspberry beer) at World Market and bought all they had except one bottle. I got a few bath things and essentials. I wanted to take myself out for good Chinese food, but none of the restaurants looked so delicious.

That was my week. Thanks for reading!
- 吴碧芙

Kavi the Flirt

When Kavi is happy, he holds his wings a little away from his body, purrs, talks, and knocks his bead against things. Although this vid is not as interesting, Kavi is so cute. I never see Roscoe doing head bobs. He prefers hopping and screeching in Kavi's ears, but I think those are signs that he's feeling good.


My friend taught me how to knit on Saturday. I learned knit and pearl, pulled it out a few times, and finally decided to make a ribbed scarf. It's about 6 inches long by now. She taught me English knit, but I'll probably switch to Continental because of crochet interference. Knitting is magic to me because I don't yet completely understand how all of these motions end up making a piece that looks like this:


We had "drunken knitting" at a pizza place last night. The lack of Fat Tire discouraged me from actually drinking beer, but everyone was amazed that I'm such a quick study.

-吴碧芙

Martha Mags

I decided to make some magnets today, mostly a repair and improvement mission. I saw these on Martha (on one of the few times I watched the show) a few years ago. I made some of them then, but I didn't use a strong glue, so they were a little fragile. I got some E6000 glue this time, which I'm hoping will work better.


It involves gluing a paper circle to a flat gem and then gluing a strong magnet to the paper. The result is a high-profile, highly adorable and personalized magnet. I used some scrapbooking paper, which I got with my aunt. Heavy-ish paper works well because the glue might soak through the regular stuff. For these, I actually don't know if the magnets are strong enough to handle the weight of the gems, or if the glue is strong enough to hold everything together. If this works, you may be finding a set of these in your Christmas stocking.


This is Homecoming weekend. I have to work on Saturday, but it should be busy and fun. People keep telling me that it's going to be crazy, and that I shouldn't try to go grocery shopping this weekend. Having lived in IC and China, I have my doubts that I'll be overwhelmed by the amount of people, but I might be surprised.

-吴碧芙

All signs point to normal...

I go to McDonald's every other Monday morning (...for the past three weeks). Today I ordered the wrong thing: a McGriddle instead of a biscuit. I ended up getting a plain biscuit to replace the McGriddle portion. Who makes a breakfast sandwich out of two pancakes with some kind of syrup-like sugary substance baked into them? Not that a biscuit is any better, but at least it's not sugary.

Today in my Intro. class, we did audiometry, otoscopy, and tympanography on each other. I got a nice little tidy printout of my tympanogram.


Tympanography measures, through air pressure, the flexibility of the ear drum. The ear drum will not move as much if you have fluid in your middle ear or if you have other middle ear problems. I don't know how to read them, but basically, they shouldn't look flat. I think the point was to try it out and know what it feels like, not to really learn how to do it.

My hearing on the audiometer showed sensorineural hearing loss, but there were a number of factors that made the test invalid, like noise in the room and possible misplacement of bone conduction thingies.

Note on the Oct. 3rd vid: Kavi (on our right) is saying "Kavi" and doing the dog call whistle. He does a little of "The Iowa Fight Song" at the very end. Roscoe (on our left) is doing the wolf-whistle almost the whole time.

-吴碧芙

Kavi Sings

Today I had a paper due and an exam. After that I did a file review for homework in another class. All these tasks meant that I didn't get home until 5:00 pm today. When I was in China, I tried to try something new every day. Life in any new place, where you don't know many people and you don't know all the good places, can get a little boring and depressing. My something new today was to go check out the fitness center, which is located in this cute little stadium they have here. I got a good EFX workout while reading Bitch. The fitness center is free to students, and everyone knows how much I love my EFX.

When I came back, I needed a shower. Since I had noticed that Kavi's voice seems to get better with moist air, I let the birds sit on the counter, but they eventually flew up and perched on the curtain rod.

Kavi's voice goes in and out, sometimes he sounds like he has something stuck in his throat and can only make popping peep noises. Other times, his voice is low and scratchy. Occasionally, he says, "Hi Kavi," in his usual high and pure chirpy voice. Since he's been with me, he hasn't done any whistling, presumeably because he can't, or it hurts his throat. I whistle his favorite songs to him anyway.

When I got out of the shower, I heard the old chirpy voice say, "Hi Kavi...I love you...Pretty Birdy...Kavi whistle...C'mon." He started whistling, just like he used to, and I ran to get a quick vid. Kavi is on the right side of the picture. You can hear Kavi saying his name, making kissing noises, and whistling the Iowa Fight Song toward the end of the vid. Roscoe is also whistling, which is strange for him, as he usually screeches or makes vocal calls. I haven't been this excited since baby Bucket used the litter box.


This video is also available on YouTube under "Kavi Sings" for the blogospherely challenged.

-吴碧芙

Roscoe Pitches a Tent

I've been trying to capture this video for the past few days, with good lighting, and without distracting the star of the show. This is one of Roscoe's favorite games, and he will hide under the paper for a few minutes at a time, singing, before climbing out again.


I had an interview today, which went well, I think. I'm going to observe the job on Thursday, to see if I think I will like it.

-吴碧芙

What's there to do around here?

I've had classes for almost two weeks. My Tuesdays and Thursdays are free, and I haven't yet found a job, but I have some exciting prospects. Still, these days I'm finding my life more boring with a lot of time to think. Last week the weather was quite cold, so I decided to make a scarf, which I finished on Monday. Today I made a necklace, having finally acquired some daisy beads.


Today I studied at a coffee shop for about 3 hours. I came home and decided to use some of the beads I bought with my aunt just before I moved. It was my first attempt with a three-stranded necklace, but my crimp beads weren't big enough to allow six wires, so it's two strands.

The birds are well. I wish I had it on video, but I couldn't get it fast enough. Roscoe went down to the bottom of the cage and started chewing the paper. Then he started rolling up the top sheet. He jumped off the paper, onto the next sheet, and allowed the top paper to unroll on top of him, covering him completely. Kavi and I looked at each other, but Roscoe was happy, whistling from under the paper, and popping his head up every once in a while, causing the paper to pop up with him. I finally lifted the paper up and let him out.

-MsLin

Two Birdies

Well, I moved to SD on Saturday and started classes yesterday. Classes seem good, but undergrad classes have a lot of work in them. I got Kavi back, along with his friend Roscoe. Both are sweet, but Roscoe is kind of a stinker. His mischief is cute, though. I let them out whenever I'm home. They have clipped wings, but Roscoe flies with no problem, I guess he just figures he has to try a little harder, but it works. They mimic each other and like to be in the same room at least. When Roscoe flew into my bedroom and didn't know where he was, he screamed and Kavi screamed back, although that was the only time I've heard Kavi scream these days. Kavi might have an infection, and he's been quiet but affectionate lately.

Kavi (left) and Roscoe

This morning I let them stay on the counter in the bathroom while I was getting ready. Roscoe checked out the sink, but then they both sat on the counter, and Kavi preened Roscoe. I thought I would check out the video feature on blogger and let you see how cute they are. If the video doesn't work, I'm including a still.



Roscoe wants Kavi to preen him all the time, but Roscoe doesn't like to be petted by people. Kavi will take a pet from anyone. It's what one might call the "chain of preening."

I don't have internet or TV at my apartment. I'm at the library now with plans to buy my books after this. I've already met a few people on campus through the International Student Group. One of the international students is a returning student like me, so we have some of the same classes.

-MsLin

I'm never...

There are many times when I say, "I'm never..." but the trend seems to be that I always end up doing the thing I thought I would never do. Like going to China to teach English, and eating a river snail, and being a vegetarian. Add to the list: Owning a car that isn't a Chevy. Two weeks ago, my dad and I decided to look for a car for me because SD is 5 hours away, which is just long enough that anyone who would come pick me up would have to stay overnight before driving home. SD is also, I hear, crazy cold in the winter, so a car will be better for errands and emergency runs to Sioux City when I can't bear it any longer.

We did some research on consumer reports and Edmund's. I had driven a few cars, but we found a 2005 Elantra with low mileage, which seemed kind of perfect. The 2005 Elantra is the used car "best bet," and it's considered to be pretty reliable. Besides...look how pretty!


Perhaps you remember when I wantonly threw out my favorite shoes in China. It was really sad, but I got some new shoes, which are better, if only because the soles aren't falling off. Actually, I think these shoes are a bit more awesomer because they have different colors of brown and stylish stitching on the toe area.


New car, new shoes, new school...and coming soon: two birdies!

-吴碧芙

Stepping Out

My old roommate and I were busting up Iowa City this weekend. Things have changed, but things are also the same. There is a feeling to IC, which can't be described. It seemed that almost everything was the same, including some of the people we saw, people who have been walking the streets probably every day since we were in school. Shock highlights included the empty store front where Baldy's used to be, flood damage, and many new buildings.

We, of course, had dinner at Masala, and spent the rest of the night at, of course, Dublin Underground. The evening included us, ex's, ex-band members, and a few surprises. When we got hungry, we skipped out to Marco's Grilled Cheese cart and George's Gyros cart. We took over the jukebox, and played the less-known alternative and indie songs. In the morning we had breakfast at, of course, the Java House, where they make a Tahitian Coffee that can't be beat. We walked around checking out downtown, and we eventually went to the Co-op to get those few hard-to-find items (Coconut oil was on sale).


After the Co-op, I met my friend and her four-year-old for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then, I went to the best HyVee ever, where I used to work. They had gerbs, buy one get one free, and I couldn't resist.

I miss IC...It was good as escapism, at least for two days...Now I'll be going back to Starbucks coffee and beer to drown my sorrows.

-MsLin

TAC (Thursday After Class)

Looking through my China photos, I found the pictures from our last group barbecue. We used to go every Thursday after class, around 9pm, to have barbecue at the university's East Gate, where there was also a smoothie stand and the small restaurants that we frequented. Everyone would meet for beer and things barbecued on sticks, ordered with the instruction yidian la ("a little spicy"). This stand appeared in the evening and was completely open to the air. The blades of the fans were missing, and instead metal wires with plastic bags attached to the ends spun on the fan apparatus to keep the flies away from the food. The grill was next to the stand, also open to the air, with an exhaust fan to the side of it, in order to draw the smoke away from the customers.


I liked that there were enough vegetarian food choices in the stands, including tofu skin that was wonderful with the spice mixture on it.


My food (above) from top to bottom (kind of): tofu skin, sprouted garlic shoots (green), mantou (bread rolls), cilantro wrapped in tofu skin, green peppers (underneath).

The owner always remembered who ordered what, and how much they owed, so we could pay at the end of the evening if we wanted. We sat at metal folding tables and plastic patio chairs under a tarp, and wait for the food we chose to be delivered to the table.

Last Thursday I was traveling. This Thursday I will miss the weekly barbecue and all of my friends from China.

-吴佩芙

The Leaning Tower of Lianzhou

The two cousins accompanied me to Lianzhou and we stayed with their older sister. The evening of the first day we ate snacks by the river. This was where I tried a snail, which is a local specialty. I ate one, and it was ok, but sucking on the snail and biting off the head to eat seemed more disturbing than the idea of eating snail in the first place, so I didn't try it again, but at least I tried it once.

The second famous attraction in Lianzhou is the leaning tower. It seems to have been built with some kind of Buddhism in mind, but the exact reason is not completely clear. It leans slightly because of a problem with the foundation years after it was built.

At the top levels the stairways and passages get shorter and narrower, but high on the top-most level there is one of the best views of the city.


After returning from Lianzhou to Guangzhou, I stayed for two nights with Cousin James, who has an apartment there. We had dinner with his girlfriend on both nights and we spent Monday looking around the city, where I bought an English book for the trip back to the US, and we had the best foot massage ever for 40 RMB.

I took the early bus today, back to Shantou where I had to start again with bartering for a cab after just stepping off the bus. Now I'm at my apartment and getting ready for the inspection and check-out procedure tomorrow before flying home on Thursday!!

-吴佩芙

A Time for Spelunking

I just returned from a visit with the cousins to Lianzhou, which is a small city in Guangdong Province. I went from Shantou to Guangzhou first. Despite the "theifs and racketeers" my student warned me about, I found Guangzhou to be a nice city, although a little large. I waited for the first cousin at the mall, and then we met the other cousin at the bus station, where we hopped the 5-hour fast bus to Lianzhou.

Every city has it's own claims to fame, and Lianzhou has the Subterranean River. It is a huge cave with amazing rock formations, so far down into the ground that the cousins joked that if you went much further, you could go to America.


Just looking down from the entrance, as we waited for a guide, was pretty amazing. It's called the "Big Mouth Cave," because the cousins explained the opening of the cave looks like a big mouth. Their four-year-old niece was a little frightened by the size of it. It's true, though, that it looked like the mouth of Monstro (the whale who swallowed Pinocchio).


The bottom left formation is called a "lotus flower," and the pieces really look like the petals of a flower. We walked up and down staircases for 40 min. and the tour ended with a 20 min. boat ride on the small cave river.

-吴佩芙

I'm no longer afraid of spiders...

...except the kinds that eat birds, which my distinguished colleague reminds me are prevalent in the mountains and hills of this area. However, I have a few jumping spiders in my apartment, whom I have asked to jump under something so that I can't see them anymore. So we live happily in this way. Sometimes I jump when I see one, but the jump is followed by the thought: It's just a spider! Thank goodness!

We have geckos here too, more than in Arizona, but I don't mind those either. If I see one scurrying across the floor, the same thought goes through my mind: It's just a gecko. And I call it "Baby bihu (house lizard, 壁虎)" and talk to it in Chinese. I usually pick it up and put it out on the front balcony.

In China, small harmless spiders are a small harmless worry when there are 2-inch roaches threatening to squeeze through the cracks and streak across the room when you turn on the lights. Roaches give me the heebie-jeebies (a word that I taught my students during a slang warm-up this semester). Even thinking about them makes me jump and have formications.

A few weeks ago, as I was walking to ACC to work out I saw a glitter of gold on the ground. This was the first day of sun after a few days of rain. I looked down to see a iridescent beetle, stuck on his back and flailing to flip over. I grabbed a leaf and turned him over. It was the most beautiful natural thing I had ever seen, mixed specks of gold on a background of emerald green that sparkled in the sun like a gem. I grabbed a piece of paper with the intent to wrap him up, go work out, and then take him home to take a picture. However, a slow and steady escape artist, he worked through the folds in a few minutes and flew away before I could put him back inside. I lamented that I wasn't able to take a picture, and would probably never see another more stunning insect ever again.

Today I went to exercise early, and on my way back, I saw the iridescent beetle again, on the ground. This time I wrapped him in a towel, but as I was arranging this, a man who swept the streets took an interest and came over to see. He picked up the beetle off my towel and started shaking it around. I thought he was going to crush it. "No, wo yao! Ack! No, no, no.." He said something like "Bu yao dinxin" and put it back on the towel. I have no idea what he said, maybe "You don't want to touch it," or "You don't want a beetle," or "You don't want to capture it." As I rewrapped it and started walking home, the sweeper laughed and shook his head: Crazy laowai!

Well, I did get my picture, and the beetle is still alive on the balcony, although I'm hoping he will fly away before the cleaners come today.

-吴佩芙

Toes

Some of my distinguished colleagues and I decided to go downtown yesterday. Some of us hadn't had a pedicure before, even at home. However, we were persuaded when we saw that one of our colleagues had some cute nails done at a nice and clean salon. She said that we could get fish painted on our toes, and she told us about some hideous design examples she had seen. (Well, maybe not "hideous" but a little too bright, a little too busy, and a little too China-fabulous.) We each got either fish or flowers, and it was a fun girl's day to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the rest of our lives. Can you guess which toes are mine?


I couldn't resist the fish, and I think the did a good job. My first pedicure, and maybe my last for a long time, was very fun and cute. Some of us also went to buy some gongfu tea sets, keeping in mind room in our suitcases and breakability of tea sets. I found a pattern I really like though, and a little yellow travel set in a zipper case (without a base) for under 2 USD.

We came home and got dressed for our year-end party. It was held at a nice hotel with a buffet dinner and then there were speeches and karaoke. It was also my first time singing any karaoke. I sang "I Just Called to Say 'I Love You'" by Stevie Wonder and "Top of the World" by the Carpenters (and was quite impressed that they actually had that one).

We took an extra hour to get to the hotel, though, because our fancy coach broke down right after we got out of the STU gate and onto the busy road. We got off the bus, and then they said it was fixed, so we got back on the bus. It wasn't fixed, so we got off the bus, (did the Hokey Pokey), and finally a new bus was called.

If you still haven't guessed, here is an extreme close-up of my toe painting:


-吴佩芙

Bucket

This week I have a special visitor, Bucket (as in: "Please-don't-kick-the-") or shui (bao) tong 水桶 in Chinese. He was found one month ago poking around a dumpster on a cold rainy day. He was tiny and skinny, and he wouldn't eat. He needed to be fed with a dropper every two hours, which meant that I would go visit and make sure he was ok, while my distinguished colleagues and neighbors were in class. Lately, he's been staying with Bi Fu Ayi (Aunt Beth) because my neighbors went away for the weekend, and now they have guests.

Bucket helps out around the house. Last night he was sitting on the floor and looking straight up at the curtains. A little tiny roach-type animal was resting there. I flicked it off and flailed around trying to kill it while it was flying, while Bucket still sat, staring calmly at the spot on the curtain where it had been.


If I'm lying on my back, he will knead his paws on my stomach and purr. He's very sweet.

-吴佩芙

Di San Xian Three Fresh Earth Vegetables

One of the dishes we love at the Banyan Tree restaurant is called Di San Xian (literally "Earth Three Fresh"). The three fresh Earth vegetables are potatoes, eggplant, and green peppers. My distinguished colleagues went to the restaurant earlier this semester to have a "cooking class" to write down some of our favorite recipes.


Di San Xian is one of my most favorite Chinese dishes, and I didn't try it until I came to China. When I made it at home, I didn't have all of the ingredients. The basic seasoning is from fresh ginger, garlic, salt, soy sauce, and sesame seed oil. I almost forgot about the cooking oil, lots and lots of cooking oil. It's good as a treat. My pic looks quite similar to the restaurant, although without corn starch, the flavor soaked into the vegetables instead of making a sauce.

-吴佩芙

Zongzi Party: Part Two

In the evening, when the zongzi were finished, the students brought about eight or nine rice cookers and pots, all filled with soup, to the student cafeteria. In the afternoon, my student had asked me what kind of soup I liked. I said that if there was meat in the soup, of course, I probably didn't want to eat it, especially if it was pork or chicken. I suggested fish, but she said the smell of fish soup would not be very good. I agree with that, but if there must be something dead in the soup, fish is the most tolerable. So eventually there was a solution to make one pot of vegetarian soup.


About five of my students were there, so they talked to me and wanted to tell me the story of Duan Wu Jie. It was the first time my student had ever made vegetarian soup, and the first time many of them had every tasted vegetarian soup. They seemed surprised that it worked and had a good flavor.


The three vegetarian zongzi that were tied together were found, after a brief period of frantic worry. I had only put rice and split mung beans inside, but they were good.

-吴佩芙

Zhongzi Party: Part One

My students in the Law School organized a party to make zongzi (English: "rice packets") for the Dragon Boat Festival, and they invited me to join them for making zongzi in the afternoon and to eat them, along with soup, in the evening.

I've made zongzi before with Dan's parents two years ago in SF, and I was quite touched by the story of the holiday. It is said that a poet, who was loyal to the ancient Chu state, was banished for opposing an alliance between Chu and the state of Qin. After 28 years, Qin took over the Chu capital. Because he had been against the alliance, and because he loved his country, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the river. The local people, who loved him, threw zongzi into the river, so that the fish would eat the food, instead of his body. The dragon boat races are said to originate from the idea that the people went out in boats in order to retrieve the body.


I'm amazed at how these parties happen. There is always too much food or too many extra ingredients, or some ingenious substitutions. Today we had too much filling for the amount of leaves we had. We ran out of stems needed to tie the zongzi together, so we ended up using regular string. We were set up under the awning outside the student cafeteria. The students had arranged for one of the cafeteria booths to cook them when we finished making them.


One of the boys was the expert, and he showed me how to make the triangle zongzi. When the leaves would rip, or tying them seemed impossible, the girls passed the zongzi to him to fix or tie. Because different provinces and different families make different types and shapes, we ended up with many creative shapes and sizes. Mine were the smallest ones.

The three I made were vegetarian. My student looped them together with string, so we would know which ones they were because I don't want meat, and nobody will want my meatless ones.

-吴佩芙

Chop chop

On Wednesday I went back to the art shop to pick up my new chop. I took a distinguished colleague along, and she ordered four chops for friends and relatives. The laoban served tea and gave us tea packets to take home. He said that I already have a chop, but it has my old Chinese name on it. I wanted to get a new Chinese name because my old Chinese name (wu pei fu, 吴佩芙) has the same sound, although different characters, as a Chinese warlord （吴佩孚） who was the enemy of the Chinese Communist Party, in the early part of the 20th Century. When people heard my name, I suppose their reactions were similar to a Chinese student telling us their English name is "Benedict Arnold," although I haven't heard of a student with that name...yet. I was not too broken up about it, but I asked my Chinese teacher for a new name last semester.

The new name (wu bi fu, 吴碧芙） is much more effective. It means "Emerald Lotus." I put it on my school email signature, and a number of Chinese people whom I have emailed, have replied and then written "PS- Your Chinese name is very beautiful." The new chop I got was big, and so the artist added the character yin, which means "stamp" or "chop."


The only problem with my new name is that it sounds like "beef" in English. I'll just continue to use whichever one is more convenient at the time.

-吴佩芙

The Magic Shop of Unknown Treasures

Yesterday was the third time I had gone to the artisan shop for name chops. I want one with my new name and another for a friend. It's magic because I don't really know how to get there. The last times I have gone, I've gotten on the 17 bus to the old city. I don't know where to get off the bus, but I have a receipt with the address stamped on it in Chinese. I get off the bus when I think things look familiar, then I ask someone to point me toward the address on the receipt. Luckily, I've always gotten off the bus really close to the correct street, and I've always been headed in the right direction before asking for help.

Yesterday when I got to the shop, it was closed. I stood in front, trying to use my cell to call someone who might be able to help. The shop owner rode up on his motorcycle just then. I spent a few minutes looking at the chop stones. The one I chose is a multicolored marbled stone with a carving of a lily pad and fish. I picked out the carving style, and then I was invited for Kongfu tea before leaving, as is the Chaoshan hospitable custom. I have ordered 7 chops all together, which probably makes me a good chop customer.

I used my limited ability in Chinese (Putonghua) to have chit-chat, over about 6-7 shots of Kongfu tea with the owner and his friend. They offered me cigarettes. They asked about where I was from, what I did, how much money I made, all polite conversation topics in China. Of course, I rounded my salary down to the nearest 3-thousands. He asked if I took the chops back to America. I said that the five chops he had carved were already in America, sent to my parents and friends. He seemed a bit emotional thinking of the idea that his work had traveled so far.

I asked which bus to take to get to Walmart from that part of the city. The owner and his friends decided it was the #24. As I got up to leave, the owner asked me to have one more cup of tea, and said he would take me to the stop because he didn't know for sure which bus it was. So I rode for 1.5 blocks on the back of his motorcycle, which was less horrifying than I had imagined. The bus I needed was #12. I didn't have change. I said maybe I could buy a bottle of water. He told me to stay there, he took my ten, and he came back with a bottle of water and change.

I made it to Walmart and graded at the Bread Diary. It was a successful day.

-吴佩芙

When Shoes Die

I had been trying to convince myself that I did not need to pack my Sketchers on the trip back to the US. I told myself that I could buy better shoes when I got back. Afterall, my Sketchers were heavy, old, and had lost all of their traction. These factors did not outweigh the fact that I loved them, and they still seemed wearable. I've always wanted brown shoes that look like bowling shoes, with stripes and different tones of brown, but I could never be sure that they would be as cute and as comfortable as my Sketchers. Still, I had decided to leave my shoes, when I went to put them on for the last time, and I realized that the sole was completely falling off.


Now I don't feel so bad. I got a lot of use out of those shoes, traipsing around Xi'an, Hong Kong, and Beijing and hiking over Shantou Mountains. So sad! But it definitely made my decision easier.

-吴佩芙

Sick and Tired

I got sick yesterday. It wasn't pretty. I threw up a few times during the night, and I had the worst aching in my joints, and I couldn't sleep. I ended up finding subs for my classes and having a student help me go to the hospital.

The doctor said I had an intestine infection. So far I've been taking the medicine and eating rice porridge. The joint pain has diminished, at least to the point where I can sleep.

My students were very concerned. Some students came after class and made porridge and brought flowers. Students from my later class made me a card.


Isn't that cute?

-吴佩芙

Life is a Bowl of Waxberries

I haven't seen waxberries (yang mei) anywhere else than China. I've bought them preserved, but yesterday I found them outside the Main Gate and Mr. Handsome's fruit stand. They are made up of tiny pieces, huddled around a large pit in the center. Intensely tart and a little astringent, they also have a delicious undercurrent of sweet.



Mr. Handsome himself is not actually handsome, but a pretty good and honest fruit seller. I asked how much the waxberries were, and I was completely surprised to see them there. He told me the price and added that they were hen hao chi, that is, very good to eat. He always says everything is hen hao chi.

-吴佩芙

Jiaozi Party

Some of us didn't go away for May Holiday. We found other things to do, like baoing jiaozi and grading at the Bread Diary. The best and most impressive was the jiaozi with carrot vegetarian filling. Although the first attempt at making jiaozi took 3 1/2 hours for my distinguished colleague, myself, and my Chinese tutor, they turned out awesome. The carrot filling took the longest, as we had to grate carrots, boil the grated carrots, squeeze all of the water we possibly could out of them, and then further chop them.



We learned three different shapes: triangle, round, and frilly. After shaping them, we boiled them, and, to everyone's surprise, none of them split open, and they were delicious.


Watch out, I'll be making jiaozi when I get home, but hopefully I will get much faster.

-吴佩芙

Nuclear Baby

In Beijing, we enjoyed Western food, and tacking on the Beijing 'r' at the end of our words, like saying "nar" instead of the Guangdong "nali" for "where?" We practiced the pronunciations our prescriptivist teachers insisted on, and we were understood. I ordered a shot of tequila at TGI Fridays in Chinese, to avoid the calories in a full-on margarita. I was able to buy small packs of Twizzlers. We had Starbucks almost every day. One night we had Papa John's(!) These small things, having been without them for so long, satisfied some of my culture shock, and gave me hope for the rest of my stay here.

There were other amusements as well. We spotted a number of curiosities in the Beijing domestic airport. This particular one we have dubbed "Nuclear Baby."


Then, in the last coffee shop we saw before heading to our coffee desert, we spotted "Raspberry Rash" on the smoothie menu.


-吴佩芙

Sexy Beijing

Beijing is full of beautiful architecture, temples, shops, Western stores, Olympic preparations. It's impossible to view everything in 4 days. Unfortunately, we only had 4 days and a speech competition and a conference to attend as well. This meant we had to choose some sites and leave others for next time. However, most of the things I saw blew my mind.

On the first day, I went to the Forbidden City with my friend and colleague. We spent 3 hours there. We were constantly amazed and filled with wonder at what it would be like to live in the Forbidden City all those years ago and how impossible it would be to get into the heart of the Forbidden City and overthrow the Emperor.


The last full day, I went with some colleagues to the Lama Temple, which has a 26-meter-high Buddha statue, carved from one ginormous sandalwood tree. We thought it would be cool to see. We went near closing time, and we only had 30 min to explore. When we made it to the place where the Buddha was, we walked inside and looked straight up. We likened the statue to the statue in Clash of the Titans or Ursula at the end of The Little Mermaid. The size of the tree itself must have been quite a marvel at the time because we couldn't believe that the wood had been carved in one piece. (It was verified by the Guinness Book of World Records.)


-吴佩芙

Overheard in class...

"I spy with my little eye, something that begins with _B_."
"Book?...Board?...Button?...?"
"...No...No...No."
"All of the girls have them."
"...?" >>This is a totally innocent thing, right? I hope so.
"Our teacher has some: Big ones."
"...?" >>OMG, Is this innocent or not? Does he have the vocab or the guts to say that?
"Bags!" >>What a relief.

On April Fools Day, my students gave presentations. We played the human knot game. Then we played 'I Spy.' It was a good game for repetition and for practicing pronunciation.

I had played April Fools on all of my classes, telling them that we were having a big quiz. Actually the quiz is scheduled for next week. At first, they didn't believe me, but I told them to check the syllabus, and they were all freaking out and pulling out papers. It was pretty effective.

My last class of the day played a trick on me. The students in that class always have suspicious grins when I go into the classroom, but before this class it was more than usual. In fact, I was being cautious, thinking that they might have put a rubber spider in the computer console. Nothing happened. Then at the very end, I was relieved that class was over because their presentations had run a little short and I was running out of things to do. I talked for a bit about nothing important and made some announcements.

Then I said, "Ok, that's the end of class, thank you, and have a good weekend." They all stayed in their seats. So I said, "And so...that means you can go now." They said, "No, this clock is broken. It's not the end of class yet." I checked my watch and cell phone, which all said class was over. But they insisted that we still had 15 min left of the class. For one terrible moment, I felt myself almost believing, and panic set in because I knew I couldn't keep talking about nothing for 15 more min. When I realized, I said, "No, that's an April Fool's joke."

I'm actually quite flattered that they all thought of the joke and played it together at the end. It shows that they are comfortable enough to have a little fun in class.

-吴佩芙

Kapok: Hero Tree

Earlier this spring, I noticed a sad tree outside my window. While the HK orchids have kept their leaves and continued to bloom throughout the winter months, this tree was a naked stick with no leaves. It was that tree that prompted me to write about Atreyu and the quest to save the Empress.

A few days later, the tree began to grow huge buds, the size of golf balls. There were no leaves, but the buds gave us hope that the leaves would be coming soon. A few people commented on how quickly the tree was progressing, when it had been completely dead before.

Before long, the buds started to pop, not with green foliage, but with huge, bright-orange blossoms. The bare tree looked silly, but we were delighted with this surprise.


As I looked at the trees today, I realized that they are a sign of Easter, coming out of the dead of winter, suddenly alive and vibrant.

Now the blooms of the Kapok or "Hero Tree" are falling, and decorating the streets and bushes below.


-吴佩芙