Monday, June 3, 2013 at 9:41 am (China time)

I am too busy.  I am trying to do too much—trying to lose another five pounds, learning Chinese, teaching an online class, teaching here in Changchun, trying to help my Chinese students succeed, and struggling with the language barrier on more than one level.  What does that tell you—that I am the same as another Chinese, trying to do too much?  Hehehehe….

There is a myth that Chinese food is slimming.  Check out the points on WeightWatchers.  Yikes!  You will eat up all your daily points in one meal.  Here in Changchun, if I eat out, the dishes will be greasy, salty and on occasions, sweet.  There will also be a lot of starch.  So I cook at home most days.  However, without proper kitchenware, it is almost like camping out!  There is a fresh vegetable and meat market about 10 minutes walk from my apartment.  I can buy fresh pork, frozen chicken, and plenty of vegetables as well as tofu.  The fish are really “fresh” because they would be swimming in tanks and you can pick them out.  You can also buy the frozen fish from Walmart and they are much cheaper.  Fresh is usually more expensive.  The Chinese do not eat as much beef as pork and beef can cost twice as much as pork.  Also, the cuts are different and the meat can be really tough.  You would have to stew the meat for a long time.  The Chinese also like to cook their meat in boiling water first, then throw out this water (they consider this water dirty), and then cook the meat with the other ingredients.  Of course, we cannot carry too much.  Whenever I buy a chicken, that is already about all I can carry.  Therefore, buying those heavy weight vegetables like potatoes or carrots can be a pain.  Therefore, shopping in Changchun requires some forecasting skills (like financial analysis) and then deciding how to divide up the load!  The wet market is a fascinating place and I want to eat everything.  I am afraid I embarrass my Chinese student who takes me there.  She has told me that I need to keep my mouth shut so that she can bargain.  She always asks, “tai gui le, pian yi dian!” or “this is too expensive, please give me a discount.”  Of course, I do not have the pinyin annotator on and so the accents are not there.

One other interesting thing is that the Chinese like to have a “cover” over their furniture or pillow cases.  Instead of directly sleeping on the pillow covers, you sleep on the cover (see my picture below).  The “foreign teachers” think that these covers are towels for other uses!  Heheehehee.  I have such a cover on my sofa so that I can wash the cover and the sofa stays clean.  I will have a picture the next time.  In Walmart, I can buy such covers for my chairs, my sofa, my easy chair, my pillows and even for the armrest so that I can sleep on my sofa during my afternoon nap!  When we go outside and want to rest during our walks, usually we find a piece of paper or cardboard on which to sit.  I think I must carry one of these chair covers with me so that I can have a pretty one to sit on.  The Chinese will not put their bags on the ground because the latter is dirty.  The girls will carry umbrellas for the rain as well as for the sun.  The umbrellas for the sun have reflector coating on them so that they are supposed to reflect the sunlight!  I am not supposed to use such umbrellas for rainy days because the reflector coating may wash off!  I am constantly being told off for not using my sun umbrella in the sun because my skin will turn dark!  My problem is that I did not want to have another 1.5 lbs of weight to carry with my shopping.  Tomorrow, the electricity and water will be turned off.  So I have to go now and get ready for my classes tomorrow.  I am wondering how I can control 131 students without my Powerpoint slides and without a microphone.