The Wrench

In my last post, I announced that I have a new job. Yes, it is true, and I have signed a contract with a university in southern China. But there is a potential wrench to be thrown in the works. I require two things from my evil former employers in order to seal the deal. One is a letter of reference (even though I only worked for them for 3.5 months and even though I have already submitted two stellar letters). The other is a ‘letter of release’, which states that I am no longer working for them and comments on my awesomeness or lack thereof.

So far, my three requests for the letter of release have met with nothing. And I have submitted a fourth request, this time to the head of the international department who can neither read nor speak English, interestingly. I have also asked for a letter of reference from someone who said yes, but then never did it. I already missed the deadline on one university job offer because I couldn’t get that letter to them on time.

What are my chances of getting a good review from same people who wouldn’t take me to the hospital when I called them to ask for help in getting there and who have forged my signature a few times? Maybe not so good, in my opinion. Honestly, I am not sure what the future holds here. Being in this country has always been and continues to be an ordeal.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

I’ve done numerous posts over the last 5-6 months describing what I’d like, but have been unable, to escape from, so for this post, I’m happy to say that as of a few days ago, I finally have something to escape to.

I have a new job starting in September, and for visa and paperwork purposes, next month, I’ll be relocating to Guangzhou, the city where I’ll be working. Good bye bad-news, law-breaking employers, foreigner-hating colleagues, and isolated college campus. Hello central and accessible university campus, welcoming and efficient staff, and snow-less, tropical city.

I will say that I am going to miss my current little crowd of students here in Nanjing immensely. I always do when I leave a school. On the positive social side, though, I will soon be reconnecting with some of my former high school students from Hunan province who are now university students in Guangzhou. I haven’t seen them in two years :)

The photos above were taken when I visited Guangzhou for 3 days two years ago. There is a gorgeous botanical garden in the city, and I was in heaven.

More about this and other photo challenges can be found here.

Chinese Chess and Cha

And by ‘cha’ I mean 茶 – or tea, in English. In this case, it was an oolong-like green tea. Subtle, subdued – like the silent strategizing of a master chess player. I am not a master chess player… but I do like tea.

The other day, one of my favourite students came over for the afternoon. He is also my self-appointed Chinese culture teacher intent on schooling me on history and tradition and some of the nuances of life in China. Needless to say, I’m interested and grateful. He is a delightful young guy, really into life and learning, and I quite admire his attitude. If only all teachers were like this! Anyhow, he arrived at my door carrying several things. He had a small, beautiful teapot and cups from his collection that he keeps in his dormitory for tea-fueled gatherings with fellow students (who said the young are not sophisticated!?!), as well as some of the above-mentioned tea. He also had with him a chess board.

There are many forms of chess, and the one I was to be introduced to was xiàng qí (象棋) or Chinese chess. First, the game board:

Chinese Chess game board

The game represents a battle – typically, the period of time following the fall of the Qin Dynasty where the Han and the Western Chu duked it out for supremacy back in 206 BC (red pieces represent the Han, and black, the Chu). Dividing the board is a river separating the territories – the characters written are often 漢界 – or ‘Han border’. In this case it is 河界 or ‘river border’.  Among the pieces used in the battle, there is no Queen – a sharp contrast to international chess where the Queen is the most powerful piece. I won’t go through all the moves and intricacies of the game – there is a perfectly adequate basic description on Wikipedia, and plenty of rule and strategy books out there. But I’ve included photos of the pieces below. One of the hardest things about learning the game is remembering which pieces are which after they’ve left their original position on the board. Further, the Chinese characters, even after I memorize what they mean, are much less satisfying or potent to me than the figurines of international chess – but I would say that about any board game that uses recognizable, three-dimensional tokens as opposed to chips.

Generals - jiang and shuaiThe Generals:
Black – jiàng ( 将= general)
Red – shuài (帥 = marshal)
Advisors - shiThe Advisors:
shì (士 = scholar, gentleman, officer)
Elephant Minster - xiangElephant / Minister:
Black – xiàng (象 = elephant) I don’t know what this character is
Red – xiàng (相 – minister)
Horse - ma Horse:
mǎ (馬 = horse)
Chariot - juChariot:
jū (車 = chariot)
Cannon - paoCannon:
pào (砲 = catapult)
Soldier - zu and bingSoldier:
Black – zú (卒 = pawn, private)
Red – bīng (兵 = soldier)

I must admit, I’m not fascinated by chess (or most games, for that matter) as some are. I like learning about the cultural and historical significance of things, and thus talking to my student about his belief that this game is one of several metaphors for life was infinitely more interesting to me than playing the game itself. Cognition is interesting, but the meta-cognition is way cooler. And if you are drinking tea at the same time, what could be better?

The Case of the Mystery Meat

[Continuation from last post: 'From Above'.]

A typical meal for a Chinese college student - 8.5 yuanSame photo, different questions. Take a look at my tray. Looks like some white rice, some greens, some kind of vegetable stir-fry, and what the heck is that in the top right corner?

I’d noticed it on other occasions in one of the hot trays in my college canteen, and I wrote it off as animal innards of the intestinal variety. Trust me, I ate my share of guts when I lived in Taiwan. There are some foods that take getting used to – you might not like them at first, but they grow on you, and you wonder how you avoided it for so long. Goat cheese was like that for me. But not guts. Nope. My brain tells my mouth that guts are not food, were never meant to be food, and that are mostly designed to process and/or flush waste products from bodies.

A few days ago, I met up with one of the students I’ve become friends with for dinner, and I asked him, “So, what do you recommend?” And he pointed out the very thing I’d been avoiding for months. And as if reading my mind said, “It looks like meat, but it’s not.” And then it dawned on me that it must be some kind of tofu-related dish.

Bingo. My young friend called it dòupí (豆皮 pronounced ‘doe-pee’), which roughly translates to ‘tofu or bean curd skin’. I have tried looking it up online, and the doupi I see doesn’t look quite the same – perhaps this was a regional variety. Basically, the skin is the film that is produced on the top of boiled soy milk. In this dish, the thin skin is rolled and there is a beautiful sauce that it is cooked in. It is absolutely delicious and decadent. Soft and juicy, your teeth are cushioned as they sink through the multiple layers. There is a slightly sweet taste and upon chewing, a spicy tang. It is quite difficult to describe, but it must be tried. It is also really filling. Take a look at some close-ups below.

Doupi - tofu skin rolls

Doupi - tofu skin rolls

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

Excellent. I snapped a small collection of photos yesterday, and said to myself, “Self. You are going to make these work for the photo challenge tomorrow, even if the topic is ‘Brotherly Love’.” Okay, so maybe not that topic, but I’ve always been good at spinning things no matter how tenuous the connection.

I have compromised because there are a few angles to the photos that I want to address, and some of it doesn’t apply to the photo challenge topic. My photo series will be divided in two. First part today, second part, Monday’ish. Here is the first: From Above. I’m going to put two spins on it.

A typical meal for a Chinese college student - 8.5 yuan

Most obviously, I have taken this photo ‘from above’. That’s straightforward. But it is the second meaning I want to discuss further.

The photo depicts a typical meal eaten by a college student in China. As I usually eat what the students eat, I photographed what I purchased from my college cafeteria for my lunch. In total, it cost 8.5 yuan (by today’s exchange rate, that is about $1.38 or €1.05), and I didn’t buy any meat. Sound cheap? Of course it does. If you are from a Western country and you apply your Western earnings to products purchased in developing countries, it does. It is a typical mistake made by travellers and new arrivals.

The students complain that the food is too expensive. And poor quality. Even the cafeteria workers often leave food uneaten and tell me it’s poor quality. (I have found hair and other things in my food and the rice is often dry, so I guess I believe them.) The school raised the price of food this semester – this meal might have cost 7.5 or 8 yuan a few months ago. Still sound cheap? Consider that my students with part time jobs, say in a restaurant, make about 8 yuan per hour.

Food prices in China, especially in the last few years, have fluctuated wildly, often changing without warning. There is some talk from above about the need to stabilize the cost of food to prevent a slow down in this rapidly growing economy.

More about this and other challenges can be found here.

And the Bee Geek Strikes Again

A day of frustration and elusive success. You know, one of those days where you’re multi-tasking like crazy, and nothing seems to be coming to a logical and satisfying conclusion? I’m coming to the close of my Monday, and I’m happy to report that I’ve solved one tiny mystery. Nerdy BeeI’ve been doing some small-scale ambling about on my college campus, trying to rehabilitate my foot. It is the start of bee season, so I have added motivation to get out there to witness the action. The other day, while out and about, I saw them. Bees. Going nutso on a few flowering bushes. And of course, I didn’t have my camera with me. So I brought it today, and was rewarded with a few good shots, not just of honeybees, but some hoverflies (bee look-alikes). Normally, I post my bee pics on my bee web site (Bees Alive!), but if I’m extra excited about the photos, I might even post them on The Good Villager, in addition. The major problem though, is that I hate posting a bee photo if I can’t identify the plant it’s visiting. Today, I spent a few hours trying to figure out the names of three different small white flowers. I managed to positively id one of them, and to celebrate, I’m posting these two photos below – behold Pittosporum and honeybee. I am so pleased :)

Pittosporum and Honeybee - Nanjing China - April 28 2013

Pittosporum - Nanjing China - April 28 2013

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

Ah, one of my favourite topics. Culture.

Something I frequently say is that you can’t truly understand a culture until you understand the language people speak. I mean this literally, but I also say it to refer to food. Food – how it’s prepared and how it’s eaten – is such an important part of life everywhere that it is a language of its own that speaks volumes about what the culture in question is all about.

Featured above is ‘tang yuan’ (湯圓: tāngyuán). Glutinous rice balls, in this case filled with different pastes, are a good example of the expression of cultural values through food. Super sticky and very sweet, tang yuan represents family unity. It is typically eaten during Chinese Lantern Festival (the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday), but also during times when coming together as a family happens. It is both the round shape of the food as well as the circular shape of the bowl that conveys the feeling of togetherness, although, for me, it is the stickiness of the food itself that, more than anything, spells ‘union’.

The above bowl of tang yuan is mine, and shows one of the variations of the food. Tri-coloured (often they are just white), each of the balls contains a different filling. In this case, black sesame paste, bean paste, and peanut paste.

More about this and other photo challenges can be found here.