Restaurant fare, Chinese children and travel?

Since my last posting, I've added to my repertoire of restaurant hopping by visiting a Korean, Vietnamese and Chaozhou restaurant. The Vietnamese one was delicious but so expensive that my wallet is severely bruised after dabbling in duck. So, I've returned once again to my experiment-in-progress...the local Cantonese restaurant.

Here I sit at this relatively fancy Cantonese restaurant, chowing down on the simmering mutton dish, which is relatively delicious. It comes out in a clay pot, "simmering" as the name suggests, and very rich tasting. Then came the flies.

By "flies", I mean the housefly variety. Literally hundreds of them, as if summoned to my plate of food by some olfactory signal, which arose from my mutton dish.

Annoying as it was, I was on-guard with my chopsticks, waving them to and fro, cautioning any winged adversary against certain death, should they venture near my dish. But wait! Hark! While dining in this fancy establishment, I was suddenly graced with the ever-astute waitress, armed with a flyswatter. Having noticed my frantic chopstick waving, she came to my rescue.

While nibbling on my mutton, this beautiful and slim-yet highly skilled Diptera murderess whacked a fly on the window near my table, splattering fly guts in a ten-centimeter circumference on the clear windowpane, leaving a red smear on the once clean surface.
She was so proud of herself when she murdered one, that she stood right near my table, guarding the area and smashing, squashing, squishing and generally mauling the little bodies until she was squealing with delight...A wonderful appetite suppressant to say the least.


It's not the restaurants, the low prices, or the cheap travel that keeps me here. It's the kids. I'm their English teacher and for the thirty-five minutes that I have with them, twice a week, we have fun. I try my damndest to make learning a new language a fun process and the kids appreciate it.

This picture is of Sandy and I. She's one of my fourth grade kids and a good student. Last semester we opened, "Jenny's Coffee Shop" (named after the winner of a poster drawing contest for the restaurant sign), and the kids had a blast taking various "jobs" at the restaurant and practicing typical restaurant jargon. Sandy was the cashier and she took her job very seriously.

Chinese kids are awesome. They don't possess the hatefulness that I saw in children in the U.S. Sure, they tease one another and they fight, but the discipline here is the key. Problems here are dealt with swiftly and instead of punishment, they are lectured on the proper decorum expected of a proper lady or gentleman.


These children are not just smart, they are polite and they share things rather than fight over possession of something. It's a pleasure to observe. In this picture, Becky purchased a bucket of instant noodles from the food stand while we were on an outing in Shenzhen, visiting an aircraft carrier museum. She shared the bucket with four other girls. From left is: Genwa (who speaks English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Arabic), Amy, Becky, Chloe and Sandy. Jack is in the background and wanted to know why I always take pictures of the girls and not the boys.


Well Jack, although I admittedly favor the girls, I do take pictures of the boys too! This is little Ben. He is one of the happiest kids I've ever met in my life. This little boy is so glad to see me everyday that he literally chases me down when he catches a glimpse of me. He loves video games and I've armed my computer with several of them, just for him. In-between classes he visits me in the office and says quite clearly, "Let's play a video game!"


Yep, I've always been the ladies man. This is my fifth grade troupe. From left is Rose, Milly, Me, Olina, Connie and Aviva. It's interesting that not only the girls here are affectionate. Many of the Chinese boys love to hug me and cling to me. I show these kids a lot of love and affection, things that a teacher would end up in court over in the U.S. Affection is not only used here in China, it is encouraged, which I think makes a tremendous difference with the kids.


I'm heading to Malaysia! Finally, after over four years, tons of e-mail, numerous telephone conversations, recipe swapping and postal letters, Annie and I will finally meet. I am purchasing a round-trip ticket to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - leaving Guangzhou on May 1st and returning on May 7th. Annie and I will spend five days and two wake-ups together in KL and she'll be my Malaysian tour guide during that time, putting all those experiences she told me about over the years, into reality!

Annie's in Spain right now, enjoying the rewards of yet another contest she has won. She'll be in Spain for about a week and then will return to KL and face her decision to take a big job offered to her in Singapore. She's an interesting woman and one whose personality alone will take her to higher and higher places.

Well cowboys and cowgirls, it's time to sign off again. Hope you enjoy the pics! Thanks again to Meg and her blogging expertise!

-Jeeem-

Culinary expertise…





Lately my friends Tanka, Bala, Sebastien and I have been on a literal food binge. We have been eating out at numerous restaurants in Xintang, Phoenix City, Guangzhou and surrounding areas, sampling some true Chinese delights.

This picture is one of our favorite roasted oyster restaurants in Xintang. These two guys cook up oysters on the half shell roasted over an open fire with garlic and green onion and they know us well because we hit this place at least twice a week.

The food here in Guangzhou and its outlying areas is simply delicious. Cantonese, Hunan, Szechuan, Mongolian, Thai, you name it, it's all here. I've gobbled up mutton, ox, frog, eel, duck tongue, pig intestine, turtle, taro, beef heart, dog, goat, pigeon, snake, about fifty different types of mushroom, vegetables that only have Chinese names, tofu, octopus and too many other things to list here.

It is true what they say about Chinese food: They eat everything on land with four legs except a table, everything in the sky except a plane and everything in the sea except for a submarine. Some pretty weird stuff, but delicious all the same.




Yeah, yeah, yeah….you say! Okay Jeeem, enough about food! How's your love life? Well, it is finally doing rather good. After a long period of searching, I've found the (near) perfect woman. Shaoping Liang is a doctor in Guangzhou and we've been dating seriously for some time now. Shaoping is Cantonese, a long time resident of Guangzhou and a lovely woman.

I'm teaching privately in Guangzhou now, on the weekends, so Shaoping and I see each other fairly often. Right now its dinner and a movie, shopping in Tianhe district, a brisk walk along the Pearl River on Shamian Dao or catching the subway to different parts of the city. But, this coming May we're going to take a trip to Beijing to walk the Great Wall, tour the Forbidden City and take in the Beijing opera, a first for her and a repeat for me.

'


Here are my two Nepalese pals Tanka (the big guy) and Bala, who I see quite often here and who work at the local five-star hotel. Both are from Kathmandu, Nepal and working here due to the Maoist rebel problems in their home city. Being Hindu, these guys make it interesting, going out to eat with them. They don't eat pork or beef and with the local chicken flu scare, there isn't much left to the imagination.

Well, enough for now I suppose. Not too much else happening here with me but I do promise to keep the info updated and the pictures coming. Take care all of you….until next time!

-Jeeem-

If anyone out there would like to take a peek at my school's website, you can click Click Here.

The website is mostly in Mandarin but several links are in English and you can see some pictures of my kids and the teachers I work with.
Note: Jeem, this is meg. The link isn't working from here. Maybe it works from China?

Ahhh….sorry folks! I've been meaning to get to this blog and get something going but can't seem to find the time. It's funny when I think of the comparison of my life in the U.S. and life here in China. I'm a totally different person here and much busier than when I was living in the U.S.

My latest news is the purchase of a cell phone. I was one of those stalwarts who swore I'd never purchase one of the things for a variety of reasons, but life here almost demands the use of one, so I purchased a used one. Equipped with text messaging and voice capabilities, I can be reached wherever I am and can reach out and touch anyone I want.

Of late, I've picked up some extra work around Phoenix City and Guangzhou. I now do some private editing of documents, brochures, menus, price lists etcetera at the local five-star hotel here and I am also teaching privately in downtown Guangzhou on Saturdays. All this is bringing in a sizeable amount of money, which allows me a little bit more of a luxury lifestyle.

Friday night I ate at the Vienna restaurant inside the Phoenix City Hotel. Very, very plush, but not so expensive and really not all that good by Western standards. I ordered a salad with lettuce, watercress, bell pepper, cucumber, tomato, almonds and Thousand Island dressing, which was probably the highlight of my meal. My entrée was called, "The Vienna Mix," and included a pork chop, steak, veal and sausage with a mushroom gravy sauce and rice. The rice was cold, dry and lumpy. The steak was quite literally raw when cut and the "sausage" consisted of two tiny hotdogs cut in a rosette pattern. All told, dessert included (honeydew melon ice cream in a glass with watermelon and cherry tomatoes), came to 138 RMB.

"So what?" you say. Well, in my six months here in China, having eaten out at least three times a week at many varied restaurants, sidewalk cafes, barbecues and holes in the wall, I could have eaten three really delicious meals for that price and thoroughly enjoyed myself. So, although I occasionally enjoy eating out at the really fancy places, I find I much prefer eating at the little crappy, run-down, scary looking places because the food is consistently wonderful.

Yesterday, after teaching my class in Guangzhou, I met my friend Derek and we went shopping. I had my shorts repaired by a local seamstress who sewed my shorts so perfectly we almost couldn't find where they had been torn. The cost? Five RMB, which is roughly about 75 cents U.S.

We ended up eating at KFC, which was enjoyable and an interesting time just people watching. Guangzhou is like New York City on steroids. You have never seen so many people in one place in your life, I guarantee you. The first thing you do when you enter either a McDonalds or KFC is go to the counter and decide what you want to order. Then you go try and find a table. This may take you anywhere from a couple of minutes if you are lucky to upwards of half an hour. Then, your partner plants themselves in the selected spot and you go order the food. In China, you get used to eating whilst crammed next to somebody else. Privacy does not exist, as Westerners know it.

Also worthy of mention here are "lines." Here in China, the buzzword is "queue." But, just because China has a special word for getting in a line, doesn't mean they actually get in lines. They don't. When you walk into a McDonalds or KFC, it's every man, woman and child for themselves. If you are polite by Western standards, you will never get served in China. You have to learn the expertise of "politely" shoving and pushing your way to the counter to get what you want. After six months here, I am slowly becoming acclimated to this method and I'm actually less annoyed by it now.

Well, that's all for now. I promise to try and get more postings on here as soon as I can but things are a bit hectic right now. Thanks for your patience.

-Jeeem-

My pal Tanka…







Hello to all, from Guangzhou, Guangdong – China.

Thanks for visiting my site and helping to keep it alive. I especially want to thank my moderators too, for helping me to post here as the Great Firewall of China won’t even allow me to view my own blog, let alone see any of yours.

This is my friend Tanka. He is from Katmandu, Nepal and works at the five star Phoenix City hotel here. Tanka came to Guangzhou looking for better work opportunities, with his sidekick Bala, whom I will post about in another bloggy.

No, he doesn’t dress like this normally. This is the garb he has to wear while working at the hotel. Unfortunately the picture doesn’t show the curly pointed shoes he has to wear, which I always make fun of.

Tanka is a fun guy. We often go to Xingtang together with Sebastien and Bala to hit the sidewalk barbecues, shop the markets or just go sightseeing. Recently we went out for barbecue amidst the fireworks and hoopla of Chinese New Year and this is the funny scenario that transpired….

Tanka is Hindu so he is seriously limited in what he eats. At the barbecue stands are also an area where you can design your own noodle/soup bowl. The table is filled with bowl full of raw vegetables, several types of mushrooms, potatoes, bean sprouts, fried tofu…you name it. You gather what you’d like and give it to the woman to fill with water, noodles, spices and boil.

It’s delicious!

I’m up to the table gathering raw vegetables, mushrooms, fried tofu and the like for my dish, when Tanka looms over me and points to a bowl full of something that looks like congealed blood squares.

“Try these, they are good!” he says.

“They are good?” I ask.

“Yes, they are good!” he repeats.

“What do they taste like?” I ask.

“I don’t know!” Tanka says.

“Have you ever tried them?” I ask.

“No!” he says.

So I crack up laughing, looking at him with tears in my eyes and saying, “You’ve never tried them but you want ME to try them and say they are good…!!!”

Tanka just grinned his big dopey grin and laughed at me.

What a pal.

-Jeeem-

Sawatdee Khrab Thailand!

Hello Thailand!

I’ve just returned from a wonderful five day trip to Bangkok, Thailand and my head is still in a stir from the activity over the course of my stay. Bangkok is beautiful! It is clean, ultra friendly and English is widely spoken. I had a great time!



This photo was taken after the traditional Thai dancing show at the Vimanmek Golden Teakwood mansion. The Thai dancers were amazing!



Yep! That’s me alright, holding onto a rather large King Cobra at the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute and Snake Farm. I saw many poisonous snakes here, including the Monocled cobra, the Malayan pit viper, spitting cobra, banded krait, Russel’s viper, Indochinese rat snake and copperhead rat snake. We watched the King Cobra being milked and I chickened out when it came to posing with these slinky things around my neck!



Yum! The local Thai food was great! No, seriously….I DID try authentic Thai food but my GOD was it hot! It is said that one has not visited Thailand if one has not tried Tom Yum soup. So, I tried it. Good thing there was a fire extinguisher close by! It is also said that the herbal ingredients in Tom Yum soup prevent digestive tract cancer….easy to figure…the stuff must BURN the cancer out!



This trip wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to the Grand Palace and a walk along the Chaophraya River, sampling some local fare eats. This place was so beautiful and ornate. I also visited the Emerald Buddha which has to be seen to be appreciated (no pictures allowed!).

So, I loved Bangkok! I’ve applied at some schools there and am considering it along with some of my other considerations for travel such as Prague, Czech Republic – Myanmar, Vietnam, South America, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives and other strange and far off places….stay tuned! I’ve only got five months left in my contract!

-Jeeem-

Phan Thiet Dragon Fruit






This is a Phan Thiet Dragon Fruit.

Pretty exotic looking eh?

Well, begin peeling this sucker and what you’ve got is a whitish fruit flesh that is run though with small, black seeds about the same size and shape of sesame seeds.

Flavor?


Don’t count on it.

Dragon fruit tastes like soft, chewy,……….NOTHING.

No flavor. Zip, nadda, nothing, absent, hasta la vista baby, departed, gonzo, vanished, defunct, non-existent.

Pretty, exotic looking, but BLAND.

Now, check this ugly sucker out!








This is a mangosteen.

This ugly, pitiful looking fruit was introduced to me by some Westerners living here in China…a name placed on it by none other than the famous, “Annie from Malaysia.” My Southeast Asian connection.

You squeeze it and if it’s ripe, It’ll crack wide open for you, revealing the white, slimy garlic shaped fruit meat inside.

Taste?


Absolutely delicious.


Go figure.


Yet another proof that judging the book by the cover never works!!!!


-Jeeem-

Delicious Refuse



That’s what I read recently, on a package of candied peanuts sitting on the shelf at our local market. Delicious refuse. Ya gotta love Chinese interpretations of the English language. Yum!



So, I bought a bag.



Not bad for refuse. Pretty tasty actually. Today, while sitting in a taxi, stuck in traffic in downtown Guangzhou, I passed a store with a sign out front that said, “Drugged Store,” which was just down the street from an Interrational school.



Things that make you go, “Hummmmm”



But, Guangzhou isn’t tops on my list of places to go since to date I’ve been robbed and have been involved in a rather horrific bus accident. So I stay pretty close to home nowadays, mostly venturing out to farther destinations with friends, using Guangzhou as a jumping off place.









Speaking of friends, this is a picture of Sebastien. He’s from Montreal, Quebec. I received an e-mail from him one day entitled, “Hello from Phoenix City!” Seems he somehow managed to get on my blog site and found out I was working just down the road from him.



Sebastien used to teach English in Beijing but after returning to Canada for a respite from the SAR’s scare here, he returned to China and found a good job working at the Phoenix City Hotel, a five star hotel here in our sprawling community.



Sebastien works with two men from Nepal, named Tanka and Bala. These guys are a riot. It’s so nice to have friends here finally, who I look forward to getting together with. Don’t get me wrong, Chinese people are fun, but sometimes the battle over English is a tiring struggle.



After my fourth grade class yesterday, at 2:15 p.m., my teaching schedule for the term is over for a month. I’m now on vacation until February. Money is tight because I’m flying to Bangkok in nine days, but I was bored stiff and wondering what to do when Sebastien invited me to tag along with him, shopping in Guangzhou. We visited a couple of places I’ve never been to in the TianHe district; the Corner Deli, which specializes in Western food and the large market in the basement of TEEM Plaza.



I actually bought mustard and cheese! Now I can have real hotdogs! Something that is very rare around here. The market at TEEM Plaza was awesome and huge! I’ll certainly return there in the future. We ate dinner on the sixth floor of the Plaza building, at a food court that ads a new dimension to the word, “Affordable.” I had a wonderful meal of some type of spicy mystery meat (I think it was frog) served on a sizzling plate and piled high with vegetables, and meat and served with rice. The whole meal cost me the equivalent to about $2.25 U.S.!&nb! sp; Food here in Guangzhou, if you manage to find the right places, can be incredibly inexpensive.



After dinner we took a taxi and managed to get to our bus stop just ahead of the Phoenix City bus, arriving back home in short order, around 7:30 p.m. A nice respite from the lack of activity here in Phoenix City.



I’ll be in Bangkok for five days and then will return January 19 to wile away my time until school begins again, the beginning of February. If finances allow, Sebastien and I will be making a trip to Hong Kong for a day or so, just to check things out.



Oh, almost forgot…..Happy New Year, Merry Christmas and all that crap. I’m not much one for holiday celebrations and it’s hard to get into the spirit of the holidays when you live in a sub-tropical zone. Ha!



Ciao,

-Jeeem-

In Memory...



As many of you, friends and colleagues alike know, a very good friend, fellow colleague, office mate and lover recently met an untimely and very violent death.



I am repulsed and revolted at this shocking news, finally passed on to me by a good friend and colleague who knew us both.



Six thousand, six hundred and eighty miles away, I feel detached and out of sorts with this situation, but as many of you know I had already begun to detach from the situation which I left back home.



This woman I knew and grew to love, whose name I will refrain from posting online, will be fondly remembered. She and I met about six years ago and through the years, we were able to share many thoughts and feelings together. She supported me when I was down and beside myself with heavy decisions, as I tried to support her when she was in the throes of indecision and fear brought on mostly by her tumultuous life with an ill chosen man.



She fell victim to a selfish, cowardly man, suffering from terminal “little man syndrome,� who wanted more of a possession than a wife, more of a plaything than a friend, more of a puppet than a soul mate. He, like so many controlling men, couldn’t deal with the fact that he was so much less of a man that he failed to hold onto a woman whose spirit could not be broken by his egocentric way of thinking and acting.



I knew this wonderful woman in so many different facets. She had many faults, like we all do, but most of us hate to admit. Behind her façades, she was a wonderful, caring, loving person who gave of herself to many people.



In the span of six years of friendship and about ten months of a more intimate relationship, we shared many, many laughs and special moments that never will never be forgotten and never can be replaced. She had a spark inside her that was so vibrant but she struggled with many demons, that only time may have cured.



Now, her life is cut short. May she rest in peace. Wherever you are my sweet woman, know that your memory will always be with me.



-Jeeem-

Milly and Ann





Every morning, same time every day, Ann and Milly come to visit me in my office. Their classrooms are upstairs but they make the trip, for about ten minutes or so, to spend some time with me in the office every single day.

Ann strokes my beard. Milly hangs on my shoulder. They look about and ask me, “What’s this?”….”What’s this?” The two of them using every English word they’ve learned….Finally resorting to trying to teach me Mandarin.


I’ve taken to getting my work done early so I’m ready for them, giving them my undivided attention.


These two girls, along with the other bunch of students who are all so special to me, make this international venture worth it for me. If it were not for the kids, I’d never have made it here.


Milly speaks English well and she gets better day-by-day.


She’s like a sponge, soaking up English and wanting more. Ann, however, is Chinese to the core. Her pronunciation is lacking but she tries hard. She gets frustrated and shakes her head, her long ponytails swinging about, knocking down anything in their path.


Today, Milly asked me if I was happy. I turned towards her, cupped her pretty face in my hands and told her, “Yes, because of you, I am happy!!”


I’m not sure if she understood but she and Ann both smiled and said, “We love Jim!”


My God…my heart couldn’t take much more.


This is the reason I’m here. This is what I’m looking for.


-Jeeem-

Chī fàn!



“Have you eaten?”



“No, not yet, but I’m getting ready to….”



In fact I’ve just prepared twelve boiled “mystery dumplings” from the local market. I call them “mystery dumplings” because these frozen delights are all dumped into large bins in the freezer section and labeled in Mandarin as to their contents.



I’ve had help from some of my Chinese friends who can read the labels but I can never remember the order of the bins. So, I go by sight. The folded ones seem to be better; typically pork or beef either with vegetable or not. I stay right the hell away from the purse-string looking ones because they are usually contain seafood and God are they nasty tasting.



In the U.S., I was an “EATER.”



I loved to eat. If I wasn’t going out to eat at a steakhouse restaurant or a Mexican food joint, I was downing Big Mac’s left and right at Mickey D’s, going for the Bacon Double Cheeseburger at Burger King®, or pointing to the biggest hamburger on the menu at Wendys®.



“Uh, excuse me….Can you Super Size that?”



Here in China, my taste buds, along with my appetite, went on strike. To get to a McDonalds®, Pizza Hut® or Kentucky Fried Chicken®, you have to take a bus to Guangzhou, over the highway for thirty minutes or risk your life on a motorcycle taxi ride to Xingtang.



Sometimes it just isn’t worth it.



So, I cook in my apartment. Spam sandwiches, fried egg sandwiches, chicken gizzard-eggplant-green pepper-onion stir fry, pre-frozen, spicy dog kebobs….thus, my appetite has been reduced to nearly zero and I’ve lost a lot of weight. So-much-so that my pants finally fit as they should.



Plus, I’ve been sick for a month, if not longer. Every day I’m downing licorice pills and other assorted thingamajigs that the Chinese Traditional Medicine doctor gives me, but still my cough, general malaise and runny nose persists.



But this coming Friday it’s PARTY TIME!!!!



Me and my pal Sebastien are gonna paint Xingtang red!



I was surprised a couple weeks ago when I received an e-mail from someone I didn’t know, with the subject line: “Hello From Phoenix City!”



The e-mail was from a French Canadian guy named Sebastien who is working at the five star hotel here in Phoenix City. Sebastien saw my blog site online, which surprised me because I can’t pull up my blog at all. Evidently Sebastien got through by doing a search on Lycos.com.



He’s got two co-workers named Tanka and Bala, who are from Nepal and we’re going out to Xingtang on Friday to kick back at one of the outdoor barbecue joints, eat, drink and look for Mary.



It’s such a pleasure to meet someone from my neck of the woods.



Sebastien is from Montreal, which is as close to New Hampshire as you can get, given being here in China. Sebastien speaks good English so it’s going to be a pleasure to sit back and enjoy good company and a good meal while conversing normally.



Things are looking up for me now after a long and depressing adjustment here….The hard-initial culture shock, depressing news from back home, Chinese red-tape, being robbed, feeling vulnerable and lost. But finally I’m fitting in here. China suddenly isn’t so bad. It just takes time to adjust to things.



-Jeeem-