Two Recipes and A List

Sihongshi chao jidan (tomato scrambled eggs)

1. Heat up a small quantity of vegetable oil in a wok. If you don't have a wok, I suppose you'll just have to improvise.

2. Stir up some eggs in a small bowl, maybe with a little salt. You have to stir only in one direction. Stir them until they've got little bubbles, which in Chinese is "paopao," which is awesome.

3. Toss the eggs in the wok and swirl them around a bit. You don't want them to be regular scrambled eggs all little curds, and you don't want it nearly as well done as an omelete. The eggs should remain soft and moist and more or less in one big glob.

4. Cut up some nice tomatoes into bite-size pieces (actually, you'd better go back in time and do this beforehand or your eggs will get cold). Put them in the wok with maybe a little MSG if you happen to have some and sautee them gently until they're warm and the skin wants to come off.

5. Put the eggs back in the wok and mix it all together briefly. Serve immediately.

Basi Hongshu (Pulled Caramel Sweet Potato)

1. Wash and peel two sweet potatoes and cut into goodish bitesize chunks.
2. Put a goodish amount of peanut oil in your wok and heat it until when you dip a chopstick in (god, you don’t have chopsticks, you don’t have woks, what is with you people?) small bubbles form.
3. Gently slide sweet potato chunks into oil and cook until soft and yellow. Remove from oil and set aside.
4. Put a little more oil in your wok – maybe a cup. Add sugar – perhaps not as much as you would think necessary. How much? Gee, I don’t know, two thirds of a cup? Try it and find out and let me know. Stir it around with the oil until it is well mixed and the sugar is melted.
5. Add your cooked sweet potatoes to the oily sugar mixture and stir until they are well coated. Remove from wok and put on a plate. When you pick up a piece of sweet potato with your chopsticks there should be thin strands of sugar. You can serve with a bowl of cool water to dip them in so that you don’t get candy floss all over everything.
6. Serve immediately.

ALSO: At my mother’s request – things you can buy on the street in Beijing

1. Flowers
2. Beige brasseires
3. Jewelry
4. Sweet potatoes
5. Sugarcane
6. Popcorn (I was surprised by this)
7. Bootleg DVDs
8. Copies of The Little Red Book
9. Novelty socks

Not *a lamb.* Lamb.

Today some friends and I went to the Korean restaurant for lunch. Their specialty, according to Liu Lei, is dog, and Nina and Aijia ordered a plate of dog to share. The rest of us stuck to the tasty rice, egg, and miscellaneous dish we always have - it is served raw, in a very hot iron bowl, and you stir it around really fast to cook it and then eat it, it's very good.

When I was fifteen I stopped eating meat. I still ate fish (a "Catholic vegetarian," as my friend Elizabeth says) and I was fairly laid back about it, having the occasional bite of someone else's meal or even, once, a hamburger. But I believed, and still do, that vegetarianism was the correct choice. When I found out I was going to China, I started eating small quantities of meat in preparation. It was never my plan to be vegetarian here. I wanted to taste everything. I wanted to be a good guest. So for about the first three weeks I was in Beijing, I consumed large amounts of meat. Then, maybe two weeks ago, I stopped again. Now I'm even more laid back about it than I was before, but to all extents and purposes I am once again vegetarian.

This is why, today at lunch, I did not eat the dog. I am not at all sure how I feel about it. Intellectually, meat is meat is meat, as Nina said. And yet. It's dog. I don't even especially like dogs, and I suspect my hesitation is irrational, but there it is. I did not eat the dog.

This is not my last chance. I will be in China for another six months. If I really want to try dog just for the sake of having tried it, I will surely have another opportunity. But first I suspect I ought to think about what it means to eat a dog, what - besides novelty - makes it different from eating a chicken or even a rabbit, which I have eaten in the past without difficulty. In the meantime, please pass the kimchee.

All Manner of Things

Very busy weekend. On Friday, we had our Language Culture Practicum. Every week I whine and drag my feet – I hate Language Culture Practicum, I hate talking to strangers, I’m tired – and almost every week it’s actually really interesting and fun. This week we had a scavenger hunt. We broke into teams of three and ran all over Chaoyang looking for people to answer questions and have their pictures taken with us, then to the various places where teachers were stationed, where we showed them our answers and had to sing a song or recite a tongue twister to get our next clue. We came in third, mere seconds behind.

Then we had Chinese lunch table, where we ate potato mountain, Japan tofu (I do not know why it’s called that), caramel bananas, and bok choy with mushrooms with Li laoshi. After lunch we returned to the dorms and then I embarked on a SOLO BEIJING ADVENTURE! I had just about finished all my books so I took the subway all by myself to Xidan, where Li laoshi said there was a huge foreign bookstore. This turned out to be untrue. Still, I figured I might as well look around while I was there. I looked at expensive, pretty clothing and expensive, ugly clothing in shops, and tried on a pair of pretty shoes. Why I bother I do not know. I asked the salesperson to bring me a pair to try on, and she asked what size, and I said I didn’t know, how about the biggest you have. So she brought me some shoes and they were maybe two sizes too small. They said, “So pretty!” I said, yes, they’re very pretty, but they’re too small, do you have any bigger ones? They said to wait a moment and came back presently with the ugliest shoes I have ever seen, all square-toed and covered with green rhinestones. (They love rhinestones not wisely but too well over here, it’s very irritating.) This is how shoe shopping always goes for me in China and I would give up, only the shoes are just so pretty, and hope springs eternal.

Presently I decided that I probably had time to take the subway to Wangfujing, where I knew there was a foreign bookstore, so I did. I didn’t find the bookstore I’d been to before, but I found another one that had some English books, so I bought Anna Karenina, What Maisie Knew, and The Scarlet Pimpernel, which ought to tide me over. Then I left the bookstore and got lost. I asked several people for directions but I didn’t understand their replies, so I just kind of wandered around until I found the subway station. I was back at the dorm in plenty of time for our Evening Cultural Event: Chinese Teahouse.

The teahouse – how to explain. We all sat at tables and drank tea, which the waiters poured in a very fancy manner from elaborate, long-nosed kettles (on one occasion, onto my lap) and ate xiao chi - little snacks including barbequed watermelon seeds, tiny cookielike objects, and rice porridge. As we ate, we watched performances of Chinese songs, dancing, juggling, conjuring, and utterly incomprehensible Beijing repartee. It was interesting, and I enjoyed the conjuring and juggling especially, but it was hard to see and hard to understand.

Afterwards I went out with some people to San Li Tuanr for pizza, which was exciting since it was my first time eating Western food since coming to Beijing, but the company left something to be desired. It was mainly second-year boys, and they were all speaking English, which made me deeply uncomfortable. It’s odd how since coming to Beijing my mother tongue has taken on this sense of taboo. I felt as though my companions were committing some horrendous sin. Also, one of them, a deeply deeply irritating chappie, was smoking a cigar and blowing smoke around in a pretentious, irritating manner, and it smelled horrid and who on earth did he think he was? So Lili, the only Chinese-speaking boy (kind of a wet blanket but compared to the rest of these boys stood out as a winner), and I left and went to Pure Girl Bar, where we met up with some friends and managed to speak Chinese for goodness’ sake, finally ending up in a little restaurant for more pizza and discussion of Sleater-Kinney with Liu Lei. So my evening out turned out to be far more fun than I had expected, and I’m glad I didn’t just go home as I had thought I would at first.

The following day (Saturday) I went with Shuhui to the electronics market, where I bought a microphone, so I can look into using some sort of program to chat with people back home. After lunch, I went with a group of people to the National Museum, where we saw many things made of jade. That evening I was very tired so I watched some Jeeves and Wooster and went to bed early. A week from now, I believe we shall be in Sichuan – provided we all live through the midterm.

Today Lili, Kunning (my roommate) and I went to the nearby Korean restaurant for lunch. It's a little bit bu san bu si - their specialty is dog - but they have a very good dish. It's served in a super hot iron bowl, and when you get it it's just a raw egg and rice and vegetables and seasonings all arranged in little piles, and you stir it really fast until it's cooked and then eat it. It's very good but a little expensive (11 kuai for the vegetarian version), as foreign food tends to be in Beijing.

Next week or the week after that we're leaving for Sichuan, which is super exciting. My roommate, who was here last semester, says that lots of people are going to get drunk and sleep together, which pleases me in a sort of evil way because I do so enjoy other people's drama. (I've been away from Smith too long.) Plus we're going to see pandas. Drama, pandas, and oranges - what else could anyone wish for?

After lunch I read an old copy of Bitch for awhile and then came to the gym and listened to Sleater-Kinney and now I'm feeling all high-school nostalgic and wanting to smash the patriarchy. Sleater-Kinney would probably be excellent live. I think they're still touring but I could be wrong.

Macondo

Today we had a brief, planned blackout. They'd told us a week ago that this was going to happen and that we should check the bulletin board for more information, but the notice was written in Chinese so forget that. Much more fun to simply make stuff up and spread it around. So I was surprised to hear that stores and restaurants were open, since I'd been under the impression that there would be NO POWER anywhere in Beijing, and I was even more surprised when the lights came back on after lunch, having expected the blackout to last 24 hours. I was actually a little disappointed. You can't do homework when it's pitch black in the dorm, so I'd entertained thoughts of sitting around on the floor telling ghost stories. Miaolan, one of my classmates, had apparently been under a similar misapprehension, since she's purchased a small red lantern and candles. Oh well.

Last night my roommate and I were sitting around doing our homework when we became aware of a loud hissing, roaring noise that had probably been going on for some time. "What is that?" she said. "I don't know," I answered, and got up to take a look. The sound was coming from the water boiler down the hall. The entire hallway was full of steam. People started pouring into the hallway to look, and once one of the teachers had shut off the water heater and we were no longer concerned about the possibility of it exploding, everyone started jumping around and taking pictures. If I were at my own computer instead of the gym, I would post a picture of the steam, but unfortunately internet access in my room is sporadic at best.

Speaking of noises and things that are a little irritating about my new room, the new room has roaches. This is not a huge deal. I have actually only seen one roach since I moved. I wan't sure what to do. It was in the bathtub, not really moving. I was about to take a shower, and somehow the fact that I was not wearing shoes (or, you know, pants) made the situation seem much more difficult. Finally, I dropped a ceramic ashtray on it. This did not kill it, so I went and got a can of roach killing spray and sprayed it a bit, worrying as I did so about poisoning myself and the fact that I was about to bathe in the now foul smelling shower. Then I wasn't really sure what to do with the body- throw it in the garbage? Flush it down the toilet? I didn't want to touch it with my hands, god knows, and toilet paper seemed inadequate to the task. I went back into the other room to find a roach-moving implement (God only knows what I was looking for) and when I got back it was gone. Ew.

But anyway the connection to noises is that often when I'm in the room I'll hear a noise and my crazy brain will assume it's roaches. Any sort of noise. Roaches squeak, don't they? Or maybe kind of hiss? Yes, I'm sure that roaches hiss, and also rustle things around, and thank god we have power again because using the bathroom in the dark when it might be full of hissing roaches is really not as much fun as it sounds.

However, would I trade my new roach-infested, internetless room for my old room? Not in a million years.

Party

Last night a few students threw a teacher/student party in the faculty office. Some people tried to show the teachers how to play the ever-popular Beer Pong, but the teachers didn't seem to want to play with beer, preferring empty cups. They were very adorable. Then the Beer-Pong Loving Students took over. For some reason ACC gave the party organizers Y300 to spend on alcohol- there was beer aplenty as well as baijiu (which makes you go blind and smells very foul) and even wine. Never much for beer or ping pong or any crazy combination of the two, I myself stuck to iced green tea and inflicting myself on Zhiang. I would have pictures, but I still do not have internet in my room and so I'm posting this from the gym, where I just spent a pleasant hour listening to Dressy Bessy and running on the treadmill.

Also, a belated happy birthday to Aunt Grace! Hope you have a wonderful year.

Recently

Fridays are always pretty busy for ACC students. In the morning, we have a two hour exam, followed by our Language Practicum, which is generally kind of a drag. Last week we went to the Chinese Kindergarden, which was interesting. Today we went to visit Chinese families. Not our Chinese host families - this was a one-time deal. Xiao Gao, a second-semester boy, Kangrei, and I took the bus to our family's apartment. This was my first time taking the bus, and I was very glad to have Xiao Gao along, since he is something of an expert. Moreover, it's always nice to have a boy along in China so that he can do all the talking (sorry, Lills, but if you're sending feminist magazines overseas you might include the latest issue of Bitch). The bus was terribly slow owing to traffic, but we eventually arrived.

The family we visited consisted of a sometime-ACC teacher and her mother. Their apartment was small, of course, but extremely nice, well-lit and well-decorated. Like my Chinese host family, they had a futon in the living room which was set up as a couch during the daytime - a very practical arrangement. They had prepared a very nice lunch, including pork cake (sounds awfully unappetizing in English, but was actually delicious), soup with corn, rice, and prunes, and potato salad. I am baffled by the Chinese love for potato salad - my Chinese host family served it, too.

After lunch we sat in the living room and chatted over cups of Nescafe. Xiao Gao did most of the talking, which was fine by me. I interviewed the mother for my independent research project, so that was good. I have to interview three people by Tuesday, which is not really that many but it's awfully daunting to approach Chinese people on the street or in shops and ask them questions. Still, we must do what we must do.

Yesterday I giggled all day over two ancient private jokes with my sister Caroline. The first was owing to the slightly bulbous forehead of one of my classmates. Here's a riddle: "The bigger it gets, the less you see." Caroline's instant response: "Your huge forehead overhang." That's been cracking me up for years, but I suspect you had to be there. Second, at the gym, a line from a story Caroline wrote at maybe age seven popped into my head: "'I love her ... a little.' I cried inside. My dog Sparky ran to me and licked me." I cannot explain why, but that too had me in stitches. I'm snickering right now in the somewhat bu san bu si [sketchy] dorm computer lab.

To the post office now, to send letters to my maternal grandparents and Aunt Gee Gee, none of whom have email, and to the bank, because I am down to my last few mao.

Incidentally, this blog cannot be accessed from the gym or from any of the computers in the dorm's internet lab. I would not be at all surprised if the only computers in China that can get it are those of my former roommate and The Boy Who Does Not Want A Girlfriend At This Time. That would be just my luck.

I leave you with a recently learned very useful idiomatic expression: "Po chu da ma": to break out in a stream of furious invective. You've no idea how useful such things can be.

I have never been able to access this blog from China. I can post to it, but I can't see the things I've posted. I can't get to any other blogspot site from my computer, either. I jumped to the conclusion that Blogger pages couldn't be accessed from China.

Turns out I was wrong. As it happens, Blogger pages can be viewed right from my very own room. Or what was once my room.

So that's that.

Fortunately Unfortunately

Today was an interesting day. We had our weekly two hour exam (Weekly. Two hour. Exam. Yeah you heard me right.) and I did pretty well, and then we went to a Chinese kindergarden for our weekly Language Practicum (see pictures). This was pretty interesting. Some highlights:

• When we stepped into the classroom, twenty little voices piped, "Laowai laowai! Foreigners! Waiguo ren! Foreigners!" I am not sure what their attitude was towards us. I thought I detected no small amount of aggression but it could be my imagination.
• We were told to "play" with the children. This was very difficult. Ordinarily I'm pretty good with children, but either today was an off day or I just can't do it in Chinese, because my conversations with the children went nowhere fast.
• It's really kind of sad when you ask a four year old "What color is that toy?" because you yourself honestly do not know.
• At the preschool where I worked sophomore year the children all used the bathroom together, but there was only one toilet so they all took turns. There are no toilets in China. What China has is holes in the ground, or, in the case of this school, a long trench. A whole bunch of children can pee in the trench at the same time. Girls, boys, it's very weird. (Yeah, that's my big cultural observation: it's weird. Who let me out of the country?)
  
• The principal gave us a brief lecture, much of which was lost on me, but I did catch that at this school, fat children are subjected to a special diet. They get less food than the other kids, they have soup first, and they are weighed regularly. I found this peculiar but perhaps it works for them.

Then we had Chinese Lunch Table, and I went with Li laoshi (one of my teachers) and Xiao Gao, a third year boy. We had Sichuan food and it was pretty good. Plus I adore Li laoshi because he's the one who told me about Chinese math that one day.

After lunch I returned to my increasingly unpleasant room. My roommate no longer responds to my greetings. How much effort would it be to just echo "ni hao" when I say "ni hao"? Plus when my test came back she basically threw it at me. I was so filled with hulklike rage I went out for a walk. (What an anticlimactic sentence. It ought to be more like "so filled with hulklike rage I smacked her" or "I played my Steve Earle really loud over her top-40 Country." Next time.) I went to the post office and sent a letter to the Thomases which should get there sometime before August hopefully, and I explored a bit. It was my first real solo expedition in Chaoyang. I wanted to buy some underpants so as to avoid doing laundry a little longer, but Chinese underwear is really unfortunate. I really want to buy some and send it to Caroline because she would be appalled. It comes up to practically your sternum and it's all beige. Instead I bought an ice cream bar, which was probably the best 1 kuai 5 mao I've ever spent.

When I got back I read some Psmith and took a nap, with my headphones on because heaven forbid my roommate use hers, so I couldn't lie on my side and had to instead lie on my face. But I listened to the Katie Rose CD, which always cheers me up.

Then it was time for our Evening Cultural Event: a trip to see the Chinese acrobats. We rode on a chartered bus, and we had no sooner started to move than I found myself breaking down. I just started crying like a six year old in front of everybody, and most notably in front of Zhi'ang, who was (of course) across the aisle from me. He was super nice and asked me if I'd had a bad day. I managed to pull myself together a bit and respond and dry my eyes and everything, but by the time we got there I was in pieces again.

"What's wrong?" said Zhi'ang. I just sort of shook my head. When I'm upset, kindness just undoes me even further. We went inside and my friend Jiani saw me and squeezed my arm, said it was okay and offered to take me to the bathroom. I went by myself and washed my face (there was a sink, which is super fancy, but I had to dry my face with my scarf) and by the time I got to my seat (next to Zhi'ang and in front of Jiani and the two of them are my heroes of today) I was able to act like a grownup. These things happen abroad. It's stressful. It's okay.

The show was pretty amazing. It basically comes down to this: they could balance stuff really well. Stuff like other people standing on their foreheads. Things like spinning plates on sticks. The Chinese love plate-spinning. The guy who did one hand handstands on top of dozens of chairs stacked one on top of another was pretty intense. "Are your hands sweating?" Lu laoshi asked us. They were. My favorite though, was the women riding bicycles, because they reminded me of Bears on Wheels, the first book I ever read all by myself. So many women on one bicycle! So exciting!

When we got home, Lili invited me to play beer pong with some people, and I went, but just watched. I really don't like Yanjing Pijiu. I really don't like beer. I was torn between What Is More Boring, watching people play beer pong or being by myself in my room, and my room won. I know it's important to be social, but I have had a rough day. Today has been like the game we used to play when we were little: "Fortunately Unfortunately." (Do you remember that?) "Fortunately, you sat next to Zhi'ang on the bus! Unfortunately, you were crying humiliatingly! Fortunately he was really nice! Unfortunately your nose was running and your eyes were all rabbity! And so on!"

I think today has been a net gain, however. So there's that.

Haizi washing their little hands 

Kindergardeners having lunch - soup and baozi 

Ou Aimei

I often think about my name. It was given to me by my Chinese professor at Buffalo State College when I was sixteen. When Chinese people introduce themselves, they often explain the meaning of the characters in their names. Mine generally goes like this: "The 'Ou' is from 'Europe'; the 'Ai' is from 'love'; the 'mei' is from plum." Europe love-plum. Interestingly, the "Ou" of Europe is also the "Ou" of "vomit" which would be an interesting way to introduce myself if I'm ever in the mood. Moreover, as my father recently pointed out, both P.G. Wodehouse and I are known as "Plum" which pleases me.

It's weird though, that this made up name is actually official now. I used it to sign my credit card receipt when I joined the gym. I believe it is on my visa, and I know it is on my letter from the Chinese university where I'm studying that allowed me to obtain a student visa. I am told it's on the file that the Chinese government now has for me. (I had a whole post about my thoughts on race in China, and it vanished. Invisible hand of the (REALLY AWESOME!) Chinese government at work? (This post is so going down next.))

Kep, bless her, sent me a recording of a logic problem, including several iterations of my real name, which made me very happy. Despite the fact that 85% of girls my age are named Emily, I love my name. I think it's really pretty. I don't care for "Aimei" as much; I think it's too cute. But it's my name now, in some sense. It's all rather confusing. How can "Ou" be my "family name" if no one in my family shares it? What sticks names to people? What's the difference between "Aimei" and "Emily"?

"... as if one believed that different people had to correspond to the word 'I' and the name 'Ludwig' because the concepts are different." (L.W., On Certainty)

Why doesn't this kid have a fanclub?

These comments are too awesome to stay in the comment section.

Well, well, well. Has feminisim deteriorated into "I will be demure and eat my potato salad?" I say! Perhaps we shold send you a copy of 'Ms.'
Lily

'You don't speak the language and you're pasty white. And everyone else has a natural tan.'
Be brave, Em. I know you can do it. Don't be watermelon!
Lily

It seems I was spared the thudding of basketballs. Perhaps it's cause the Vogelsangs are older now. Then, too, the snow could have something to do with it.
Lily

Ever So Much More So was in Centerburg Tales. And really, Em, don't you know better than to buy French food in China? God!
Lily

The older she gets, the more I dig my little sister. Plus I hear she has mad public speaking skills.

Today was my first Chinese painting class. This is me with my painting of bamboo. Liu laoshi says it needs more leaves; the leaves look too lonely. 

Smurf Kuaizi 

Smurf kuaizi and Convenient Noodles 

Ever So Much More So

I had a break between classes today so I went to Fabao, the "French" grocery store across the street. I never noticed it before, but they have an entire aisle of MSG. Isn't that crazy? MSG always reminds me of Ever So Much More So from that Centerburg Tales story (or was it Homer Price? One or the other. Robert McCloskey = talented guy). It makes things better! Or more! Or something! What does it do? The Chinese word for MSG is weijing, which literally translates to "flavor essence" which is not very illuminating. Fabao also features an impressive selection of pickled eggs, and it is a mark of something or other that I am sitting here right now thinking, "mmm, pickled eggs," rather than making the yuck-face I bet you a nickel you are making right now.

Today was not a day for purchasing MSG and pickled eggs, however (two great tastes that taste great together!). Today's purchases:

• 4 liters of water. I buy a 4 L bottle of water at least every day, and each time I swear it is the last, and next time I will start getting used to drinking the peculiar tasting boiled water from the dorm's boiler, but I drink a lot of water and I just can't bring myself to quit.

• Two small Tupperware bowls with lids

• A Dove bar, because it has been at least two weeks since I last tasted chocolate, and oh my goodness it was worth it for 4 kuai.

• A King Packet of Convenient Noodles (ramen), shrimp flavor. Ramen is like bowling: best very late at night, but I had some for lunch anyway in the interest of saving time which I could theoretically use for homework but am instead spending typing this. It was extremely complicated ramen, too, containing no less than three little packets: one of dried plant material (carrots? parsley?), one of what I assume was Shrimp Essence (Essence of Emeril: "Did he ... die?"), and one of a crisco-like substance I could not hope to identify but which I added anyway. Made it very hard to clean the bowl.

• Best of all, a packet of children's chopsticks, one blue pair, one pink pair, and a small wooden spoon. They are a little too small for convenient use, but it is totally worth while because when I got home I realised that they are in fact KNOCKOFF SMURF KUAIZI, which is the coolest thing ever. And they came with a sheet of (presumably) Smurf-related jokes which I haven't gotten around to translating but when and if I do I will post the results. They look pretty awesome. I used to really love the Smurfs when I was little for some reason.

Walking home from Fabao I passed Sa Zhi'ang, whom I pretended not to see because everyone knows that is the quickest route to friendship. But then I made up for it by stopping by his room after class to chat for 3.2 minutes, ending in an abrupt, "Okay, bye!" At least this time I remembered not to thank him.

BEST CLASS EVER.

Oh my goodness I absolutely adore Li laoshi. Today's chapter is about single-parent families, and full of melodramatic vocab like "tears" "to fall" "face, cheek" "to throw oneself" "someone's embrace" etc. So we discussed that for awhile and he asked me about whether I thought Comrades (homosexuals) should be allowed to marry, etc, and then he asked about my parents' attitude towards my studies. I said that they were very involved and when I was younger they'd even arranged for me to have a math tutor. And then we started talking about math. And it was so awesome I could barely handle it.

Li laoshi told me about Chinese mathematical discoveries like pi and permutations, and he told me a story about horses to illustrate a Chinese paradox, and he told me a Chinese version of the lawyer paradox. After my family, I miss logic more than anything else. In fact, I would say that although I have retired the jersey for #1 Thing I Miss (my family), the next 10 or so things on the list are all logic. So you can imagine how exciting it was to finally get to talk logic with somebody besides my journal.

People who go abroad to countries where they speak less ridiculous languages get to take actual classes like literature and history and math, and I deeply envy them. I would take logic in Spanish. I would take it in a boat, I would take it with a goat. I would take it in Chinese, in a heartbeat, and if I only understood one out of every twenty words that one word would send me so high over the moon it would be absolutely worth it.

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

I've listened to Madeleine Peyroux's cover of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" about twenty times in the last two days, and I finally got around to looking up the lyrics. She is not, in fact, saying that her relationships have all been like "valets in Rambo." But isn't that a pleasant image? Jeeves being like, "I should recommend the M60, sir."

Well, it amused me.

It's snowing! This makes me ever so happy, from inside anyway. And it means that the ever-present basketball players outside my window are taking the morning off. I'd forgotten what it was like not waking up to the thud thud thud of rubber on asphalt. On the other hand, the constant basketball playing reminds me of my old room at home, when the boys next door would play long into the night.

I'm drinking my Nescafe and thinking up possible slogans for an ad campaign. "Nescafe: It's almost like coffee!" "Nescafe: When It's Too Early For Beer." "Nescafe: Much More Expensive Than Tea!"

I had a fairly pleasant, laid back weekend. Didn't go out, but did homework, watched a bizzare Korean movie with my friends, and read This Side of Paradise. Plus I was Very Brave and knocked on Zhi'ang's door all by myself and talked to him for like five minutes before panicking at the first lull in the conversation and bursting out with, "Okay, well, I don't want to horse you, bye!" and ran away, no doubt leaving him with the impression that I am a spaz. Also, "I don't want to horse you?" What on earth was I trying to say? Do I want to horse Sa Zhi'ang?

Roommate Politics

My roommate and I have some issues. It is nothing insurmountable; it's not so bad that I feel the need to painstakingly express my dissatisfaction in Chinese, but it is a little grating. For instance,

• Her music makes me want to jump out the window. We only live on the first floor, so it's not as bad as it sounds, but still. Jump out the window, run over the basketball court, and not stop running till I get to Sichuan. Sidenote: the other day at my Chinese Host Family's house we were eating oranges, and the dad said "These oranges are really good, where are they from?" and the mom replied, "Sichuan." I cannot get over how weird that is. The oranges are from Sichuan! I thought all oranges came from Florida and California! Obviously that makes no sense, since I am in CHINA, but still. Sichuan! How exotic!
• She speaks English all the time. Not just on the phone with her friends and family, which is allowed, but when her friends come over, they speak English! Why does this make me so furious? It really doesn't affect me at all, but I can't stand it.
• Her friends are in the room all the time, which is fine, but on the rare occasions when one of my friends comes by, my roommate is really rude. One day Nina came by around 11:30 to see if I wanted to go get some lunch and my roommate told me to "please tell my friends not to knock early in the morning." Excuse me?
• We have this subtle music warfare going on. She listens to music all the time, even when she's sleeping, and it's like a race to start playing the music, whoever loses has to use headphones. Sometimes I have been listening to music and paused it to use the bathroom (which is in our room, not down the hall or anything) and the second I close the bathroom door Toby Keith or something starts blaring and when I return it's headphone time for me.
• Her attitude towards China irritates me. She hates the food, she thinks the city is filthy and disgusting (which it kind of is, but in a COOL way), and she seems to have no interest in work. She actually requested to be put in a lower level than the one she tested into so that she wouldn't have to work too much. Whereas I requested to be put in a higher level because I am a swottish weirdo.

However, turnabout is fair play, so in the interests of "balance":

• My music is probably pretty irritating too. I'll take it into my head to listen to Stars' entire ouvre or Madeleine Peyroux's cover of "You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go" on repeat, and even when I'm wearing headphones I tend to sort of sing along and dance in my chair.
• I am addicted to sunflower seeds and so I periodically have to clean up sunflower seed shell debris from the area around my chair. It is like I am a parrot.
• I tend to wake up much earlier than she does and although I make an effort to be quiet I do a certain amount of bustling around.
• I sometimes call her a po xie under my breath, for example, "Zaijian, po xie."
  

Feichang Feichang Hao Day

Well, while you all have been sleeping, I have been having a very nice day indeed. I was a little less prepared for class than I could have been for irritating, not-entirely-my-fault reasons I won't get into, but on the whole classes went well. After class, I went to find my friends for lunch and found out that Aijia, who is a FABULOUS FRIEND, had invited Sa Zhi'ang to lunch (he's in her class). When Shuyi told me I was so excited I jumped in the air and rather startled her. In addition to Sa Zhi'ang, there were two males I hadn't met before, both fourth year students. They were extremely hilarious because they speak in these really deep voices. You really don't get to use the Chinese expression "Nan zi han" nearly often enough. My second-year textbook translated it as "He-man." Isn't that awesome? He-man.

So Sa Zhi'ang and his friends the Nan Zi Han and my friends and I all went to the Muslim restaurant for lunch. Zhi'ang is a vegetarian, and so is my friend Lili, and my very amusing friends announced that I was "half a vegetarian." They also kept grinning at me and making faces all through the meal because I was so obviously transfixed by Zhi'ang's prettiness. He was wearing a t-shirt with a complicated equation about juggling! And he had tucked it into his black jeans! Who wears black jeans!? It's 2006! And he was wearing white sneakers! And okay that's enough Aimei, get a grip!

After lunch, my friends and I went to the Silk Market. They mostly have boyfriends and needed to find presents for them. Like, presents, plural! So much work! And at the Silk Market you have to bargain, obviously, and it's kind of a bother. Lili helped me bargain the pretty skirt below to a very nice Y75, which is not quite $10. So that was pretty nifty. Did I need a skirt? No. But who doesn't love pretty skirts?

After the Silk Market we had Beijing duck for dinner, and that was pretty good although certainly not something I would want to eat every day. And then! Shuyi went with me to Zhi'ang's room! And left me there talking to him about math! For like 5 minutes before I lost my nerve and said "I do not want to bother you, goodbye" and bolted for the safety of Nina and Shuyi's room, where I bounced on the bed and was happy.

Not going out tonight as I'm rather tired and the Beijing rock'n'roll lifestyle is not exactly my cup of tea. Perhaps I'll watch a movie with Nina and Aijia. Tomorrow: The Forbidden City?

Feichang piaoliang new skirt 

Lili and me, cripplingly terrified at a jiaozi ba in Xi Dan 

Dinner Conversation

Me: I want to make friends with Sa Zhi'ang. He is clearly so great. And I haven't seen him in days, which makes me very watermelon.
Aijia: You mean sad. Anyway, what's the problem? Just say "Ni hao." It's easy.
Me: But HOW?!
Shuyi: You open your mouth. You say "Ni hao."
Me: I am too frightened.
Jiani: What are you frightened of? You're in Beijing.

I thought this was a very good point. Apart from being sent into outer space, there is really nothing scarier than going to Beijing. I should, by rights, never be afraid of anything ever again. Getting on a plane and flying around the world to a country where you don't speak the language and don't know the customs: scary. Knocking on a door: not scary.

Yeah, right.