Around Town

So far we have found the people of Zhengzhou to be honest as the day is long. On our first trip to the markets an old man (who looked like he would own very little) pointed out that we had dropped a banknote. He was keen for us not to lose it. Yesterday a lady chased us forty metres down the road to give us back some money that she had realised she had overcharged us.



We had great fun buying a doona yesterday. The weather is alreading turning a lot cooler and getting a bit nippy over night. It's a welcome relief from the stickiness of August.
The little man in the little shop down the road started off by waving his hands in a "Come on you've got to be kidding" motion when we started asking in English for a bigger than single size. The man in the next shop began berating him for missing out on a sale, so the first man listened and watched while we went through our pantomimes waving and arms and grunting out the very few words of Mandarin we have so far. The inscrutable stare suddenly turned into a spark of recognition when I picked out a phrase meaning "wider" from our phrasebook, and I started holding up a quilt and comparing widths. We almost saw a light bulb suddenly flash above his head. He bounded into the back of the store and came back with a queen sized doona. After haggling it down from 200 RNB to 160, we marched off with it, smiles all round.

We spotted a spooky little cafe that looked to be straight out of the Torres Strait (where we lived during the 1980's)with its outdoor cooking over a big greasy stove and various concoctions bubbling or sizzling away with lots of noise and smoke.



Inside the cafe bit there was a certain very rustic charm about the place. Not quite a fixer-uperer, more like a pusher-overer. Electrical wiring just twisted together, exposed, looped across the walls. Laundry taps hanging over a huge sink. Bare concrete floor awash with litter. Long-ago painted now grimy walls with vivid signs of many a repair or attempted construction. And a huge cracked mirror covering one wall.



What we had spotted was Peter’s favourite dish - Chinese "dumplings" (jaozi) which are like a small steamed pasties. We ordered by pointing and speaking in English. The lady responded with "Jaozi" and led us inside where she cleaned down a table for us. We also ordered a couple of bottles of Coke, which she sent her son across the way to another shop to collect. She brought us each a bowl of soup which we hadn't ordered but I suspect is standard for any order.



It’s a bit like Australian restaurants sometimes bringing water to the table. Chinese in these parts always have soup of some kind as part of a meal, usually a clear vegetable soup. This one had coriander floating in it in great abundance. It was rather relaxing sitting in relative gloom with a ceiling fan blasting onto us, while watching the world go by in the market just metres way out in the sunlight. Eventually our dumplings arrived, a large plateful each with the chili dipping sauce. We battled to eat so many but managed to squeeze the last one down. They were delicious and very filling. This banquet cost us 12RMB. In Oz dollars that is $2 including the Cokes. But we are paid in RMB, so let's call it $12. Still cheap.



Zhengzhou traffic is just amazing. Often three wheels or five! Yes I had trouble imaging that the first time I heard about 5 wheeled vehicles; four on the back and one on the front. Some are basically a motorbike with a cart, but all joined up to make one vehicle. Some are a cart pulled by what looks like a very big rotary hoe without the hoe blades. The driver holds onto enormous handlebar type things that remind me of the handles of a reel mower. It's all joined up like a horse and cart. Weird. Cars would only account for about 10% of road users. Oh, and there are lots of "Cat Weasel" tricycles, if you ever saw the series on TV when you were a kid. Some motorized and some strictly pedal. Lots of bicycles and scooters. Some motorbikes (legally limited to 150cc) carrying three people.

Lots of pedestrians meandering across madhouse roads. Horns honking continuously. Huge loads being carried on tiny vehicles, with more people perched high on top of the loads. Achingly slow tractors chug-chug-chugging their way through all this with heavy loads of bricks or soil on their trailers. We saw some little men pulling genuine hand carts today; heavy-looking crude wooden carts with melons and corn loaded into them. Peter is building up quite a collection of digital photos of these things. The last guy teaching here took over 6000 photos in 6 months. I reckon Peter will beat that no sweat.

Eating in the canteen

I have been learning to eat with chopsticks. The ones they give you here at the college canteen are in a long thin paper bag with "sterilized" printed on it, but the bag is open one end, and the chopsticks are wooden and usually still wet, so you can't help wondering!

We were so worried about trying to be polite here, but that hardly seems an issue any more. Ok, so you don't put your fingers in your mouth. If you find a bone or something icky in your mouth (and the "meat" is mostly bone with a little something wrapped around it) you can very delicately take it from you slightly parted lips with your chop-sticks - not too hard (with practice) if it is something big like a chicken head, but it can be tricky with fish-bones. So in a case like that you just open your mouth slightly (not too much now) and go "phlew!" and spit it onto the table. Or the floor, though that is a little insensitive because it makes it slippery for others. Only things like tissues and chopstick wrappers generally go on the floor.



So, about noises! It's ok! Especially with noodles. Just slurp away. Pick a few up with your chopsticks and start slurping. And as for managing with chopsticks... its really, really easy. You either hold your bowl up near your mouth - right under your chin or lips is ok - or you put your mouth down near your bowl or dish. In our canteen they use those big metal trays (like in "MASH") with little compartments, and they give you a little metal bowl as well. You can use it any way you wish. I like to have my rice in my bowl. Most people get some soupy stuff in their bowl and drink it straight out of there. So I have seen people sitting there with their chin or lips down at table level trying to slurp straight from the tray because its too hard to pick the tray up.

Then there are the big things. They always have these steamed buns - they just look like a lump of uncooked dough, but they are actually quite light. Sometimes they are shaped like a big lump, other times they are all sort of twisty. These things you can pick up with your fingers and bite, and dip it into your gravy on your tray or whatever. Or you can spear it with your chopsticks and pick it up and bite bits off, or delicately hold it between your chopsticks and bite bits off. Then there are things like greasy fried pizza base, and they give you big triangles of it. That's nice, although its greasy - a bit different from everything else! Some people manage that with chopsticks, others use fingers.

Oh, and about the chicken head. I wasn't kidding. Peter was staring at the bits of chicken on his plate one day, and suddenly realised one of them was a head. Not much meat on that, but a tasty little eyeball or two if you want it and maybe the comb part isn't too bad - he didn't try it! He’s such a little favourite, the next day he was served up with a foot. And sometimes he even gets a couple of heads – but I’ve never had one.

Wedding

Today is Tuesday here - well, "day 2" in the timetable. I have no lessons this morning, but three this afternoon at 2.50, 3.45 and 4.40. That last one is a real killer, "graveyard shift"! It finishes at 5.25pm when my stomach is telling me its time for tea, and the students are all sitting there counting down the minutes. Mind you, they have more lessons after tea, but at least they do get a break before them.
With this being a private college our students don't have to do all the "political training". We can hear them at another uni/college/school not far from here from early morning til late at night. Sounds like a polital rally, calling and shouting and repeating slogans at the tops of their voices.

Last night we went to a wedding. Our deputy principal was getting married and invited all the staff to a special dinner at the college. It was a nice change from the usual rice and wild gourd laced with hot peppers. Its amazing what "the smoking man" (our canteen chef who regularly comes and watches us eat, and yells complaints at us in Chinese out of the corner of his mouth, while puffing smoke all over us) can come up with when he puts his mind to it!!

Anyway, there were lots of speeches. Everyone laughed a lot - except the few of us at our table who are "foreign teachers"! No one would give us a translation. Then there was the drinking ceremony, which went on while the traditional Chinese feasting went ahead - plates being brought out and placed on the “lazy susan” in the middle of each table and everyone pulling bits off with their chopsticks. Fortunately we are reasonably adept with our chopsticks now. The bride and groom and MC went to each guest with a tray with three little cups, like egg cups, and a bottle of their "white wine". It is a strong liqueur, smells foul, and obviously there is no need to clean the cups between use, nothing could live in that!

Peter did his bit - drank his three cups for the happiness of the couple. But I just told them my doctor wouldn't let me - I was finding it a bit stressful. The single Canadian guy had got himself tanked up before he even went and was in fine form refilling everyone's glasses and talking loudly. The tiny Canadian lady went ahead and drank her three, whispering "save me Jesus" between each one, and then sat down swinging her legs, and with her face going all shades of red and purple. The Sri Lankan, a Moslem, sat and neither ate nor drank the whole time. Our new Filipina teacher, sitting next to me, got louder and more drunk - until she ate a lolly and discovered she had a hole in her tooth. She wasn't drunk enough to cover that pain! We were most relieved when the party suddenly broke up at about 9.30pm.