A few of my favorite things...

Beijing

~Traffic in Beijing, like most large, international cities, can be a bit intense.  We ran into a few gridlocked situations ourselves.  It was most impressive to witness, during these occurrences, how the drivers would not only refrain from cursing, but from getting upset entirely.  Rather, in near unison, they would leave their vehicles altogether and take advantage of the unscheduled smoke break.  Three or four drivers stopped near each other would gather around a tailgate like old friends to discuss the latest goings on while puffing away contentedly.  Once traffic starting freeing up ahead, each would return to his respective taxi or bus and carry on as though nothing were amiss.

~As many of you know, this is a very community-minded/oriented society.  However, it's one thing to hear that and quite another to experience it at times.  When our driver picked us up at the hotel in Beijing to go to the airport, he was a bit amazed at the amount of luggage we were bringing.  Somehow, he was not nearly as amazed as another driver waiting at the hotel that had nothing to do with us, our luggage, or our transportation.  The second driver (Mr. BlueShirt) was heavily involved in making sure the bellhops, our driver and anyone within earshot heard his thoughts on the situation.  When I thanked the bellhop that had been helping us in Chinese, Mr. BlueShirt looked taken aback and asked "She can understand all this??"  Which, to be fair, given his expressions and the accompanying gesticulations, one need not be proficient in Mandarin to have understood what the man was trying to convey.  Of course, he then took the opportunity to approach me and tell me that our poor driver's car was probably much too small for our things as he pointed to an empty bus and suggested we take it instead.  I assured him that we had come to the hotel in a small car with our belongings and the return was also quite feasible.  He continued to supervise the situation, offering none but the most helpful of suggestions to our beleaguered driver.  As Arianne and I piled into the backseat (the front carried one suitcase) - she with her guitar stowed in front of her, me gesturing for her pack to be handed to me, Mr. BlueShirt repeatedly asked if I was absolutely certain I could handle riding all the way to the airport with that bag in my lap.  I assured him I was.  He was incredulous.  He insisted everyone around him share his incredulity.  Meanwhile, our driver was most concerned that his car was entirely out of sorts.  He had to move his tea canister from the trunk to the front seat floorboard, for Petie's sake!  Though, he, unlike Mr. BS, chose to bear his burden in silence, ever so stoically.

~The hotel in Beijing was super swank.  A massive breakfast buffet was included with our room.  One morning I was finishing up my juice after Arianne went back to the room and the guys behind me were covertly trying to practice their English, but not brave enough to approach me.  One of their group would walk away, act like he was just approaching them for the first time and regale them with "Hello!  Good morning, heh."  Then they would all echo the same lines before cracking up.  Boy, was I ever impressed.

CQ

~After arriving in our new city, one of the teachers graciously offered to take us to the bank to exchange some currency.  Apparently the currency exchange is separate from the normal hubbub of the rest of the bank operations.  It happens to be upstairs at the VIP counter.  While we were waiting for the teller to complete Arianne's exchange (and hearing about how she simply could not accept a $50 bill because it had a slight tear), I looked over to see a small little boy wearing the infamous split pants.  He was adorable!  He was having  a ball making his way around the large, lovely carpeted room while his mom was distracted by her business at the counter next to ours.  When next I looked up, he was across the room, right in the middle of it, and was just on the closing end of leaving a large puddle right there on the carpet!  His mom, then finished with her transaction, turned to quickly scoop him up and away they went.  I'm pretty sure my eyes turned into saucers.  As we turned to leave and walk across that very same room, I quickly warned my companions to watch their step.

~Sometime last Friday afternoon, we were informed that the president of the college would be hosting a dinner for us.  I'm pretty sure we were all relieved to see that our beverage choices were between Pepsi and warm soy milk, as opposed to cases of Tsingdao beer or the driest red wine you can imagine.  Although, considering this particular feast only included three or four proclamations of "Gan bei!" ("Bottoms up!") instead of the normal 218,345,676...we might would have been ok.  Considering that some of the other foreign teachers don't have much experience with Asia (and thereby chopsticks), this was a great opportunity to practice.  Especially considering they were the only utensils provided.  One of the guys was excited to have been able to pick up a piece of what may or may not have been some kind of jerky.  It made it quite nearly all the way to his plate before flailing out of his chopstick grasp, landing quite perfectly in his lovely glass stemware.

Over the years, I have learned that Chinese banquet food is simply not my favorite.  For some reason, the special and honorable food that is presented at these events (such as fish eyes, octopus salad, or mountain frog uterus soup) is just not as appealing to me as the ho-hum everyday offerings of chicken and rice or fried noodles.  In a lot of ways, this particular event was no different.  However, we had just been to a local restaurant the day before and enjoyed a most delectable dish of garlic-fried eggplant.  I was quite happy to see a similar-looking dish in front of me.  Fortunately, due to the banquets of the past I have attended, I have learned to always take just a bite of each dish and wait for it to come around the lazy susan again if it turns out to be delicious.  So, I grabbed my small portion of what I hoped to be as tasty as the previous day's eggplant  and excitedly bit into it.  It was both softer and chewier than I expected...causing me to think that perhaps I had misjudged and it was actually some kind of chopped mushroom.  I continued to chew, working my way down to the end of the piece when suddenly my teeth encountered a most unsettling crunch, accompanied by further crunching (and involuntary cringing).  It was apparent to me, at this point, that there were bones (albeit small ones) involved.  There also seemed to be some kind of small hook (talon?!) at the very end.  I began hastily searching my memory in an effort to uncover what could possibly be roving around my mouth.  This served as an entirely necessary distraction in order to occupy my mental faculties just long enough to allow me to swallow the thing without thinking too long or hard about it.  The only comparable thing my mind could come up with was a time when I had unknowingly been served stewed baby duck feet.  It was quite possible that what I had ingested was a full-sized duck foot that had been chopped length-wise into sections.  Oy, oh boy. Arianne, who had the pleasure of sitting next to some nationals, told me later that they were relatively certain that dish was actually small eels.  Either way, I'd be content to never experience that one again.