6:30 in the a.m. I can’t believe how little the jetlag has affected me. I feel great/well rested this morning. I neglected to mention in yesterdays post that I got really sick my first night here. Not like stomach flew from food, but a nasty head cold (really sore throat, runny nose, sneezing, headache, and I think I even had a fever for a bit that night). Yesterday morning it turned into really achy muscles and head . Popping a few Advil helped. I thought at first I may have picked something up at home from my rather unsanitary nieces and nephews, or something on the plane. However, when I look at the timing and symptoms, I think it’s more likely a reaction to my MMR vaccine. In fact I went through a similar ordeal during my first round of the vaccination while teaching in Peace River. But again, I fell good this morning.
I suppose It shouldn’t really be that surprising, but there are quite a few things here that seem to be different from Dre’s description of China. Small things really. Like underwear availability. Dre, there is plenty of selection. It’s not all tight and white. Also, electronics do seem to be a fair bit cheaper. I bought myself a fantastic speaker system for my laptop yesterday for under $40. I’m sure a similar setup would have run me triple that back home.
Also some other things seem to be more expensive than I expected. My first night out, the new teachers all went to a restaurant , ate and drank a ton all for about 25RMB each (RMB = Chinese dollars. I believe it’s pronounced Rem Em Be). To figure out the equivalent Canadian value, you just divide by 7. So this meal would have cost about $3.50. My guess is that a similar back home would probably run about $60-80 per person, in large part because of the amount of beer drank. Just the food would have probably run about $40 each. I do recall Dre telling me that eating at a great restaurant should run a person around a dollar (I’m not sure what the beer cost… but I’m pretty sure its cheap). Incidentally, the beer here is standard 3% alc/vol, so it’s pretty much impossible for Canadians (or at the very least Miramichiers) to get drunk. A nice bonus for those of us who might like to drink beer with their lunch on school days. I fact, because it can get quite humid here, our principal has told us that “beer is very important” I’m not really sure why one couldn’t just drink water… but I trust the guy. He’s been here a while… You know.
Last night a group of 15 of us ate at a Japanese restaurant, It ran me about 70RMB or $10. Again there was lots of beer, but I know my food was 55RMB. $45 of that was for a dish I got called tempura. A dozen shrimp about the size of Kris’s middle finger are lightly coated in a sweet batter and deep fried I’m guessing. You then dip it in a sauce that looks like ‘Au Jeu’ or beef dip. It’s not beef (I think). Again it’s sweet.
After I sent yesterdays post, I went on an adventure walk by my self through. Taking random turns on streets, and cutting through back allies from time to time. I walked through the residential complexes, visited a few shops. Eventually I found an open space between a bunch of stores where there is a market. People sell there veggies off of blankets laid out on the ground. I recognized some things but not others. There were peas in the pod the size of large bananas. The peas swelled out to look as though a group of plums had gathered together in a green blanket for warmth. I went into a shop an bought a pastry. I learned how to say “one of those” from the lady at the shop “eega”. I think ee is one and ga means that. Wandering some more I eventually found an old lady standing outside building with a cart selling noodle something or other. Wow, it was really hard to order!!! I’ve got to get on this Mandarin thing going so I can communicate with people. I just kept pointing things and she kept asking me what I’ll assume were questions. Let me stray for a moment… In Japan, before you eat a meal you are given a hot face cloth to wipe your hands, or face, or whatever you want to wipe. The Japanese have in my limited experience tended to offer these cloths with a pair of tongs. Back to the lady and the cart. Finally after about a minute of spewing friendly noises at each other, the lady offered me a cloth with her tongs. As I reached out and took the cloth, I realized I was a little out of my element. It had the feeling of the shell of a wet pirogue. I realized she was not offering me something with which to wipe my hands, but was asking me, “hey white guy would you like some of this?” So there I am holding the end of pita shaped noodle, while she is still clinging tightly to the other end with her tongs and a huge grin on her face. I let go and gave her thumbs up. “Yes the texture of your noodle is fine… I’ll take it” She chopped it up and put it in a big metal mixing bowl. Now she started pointing at things. Each time she did I gave her a thumbs up and a big smile (having no clue what I was ordering of course). She eventually got the idea that I in fact knew what none of the things on her cart were. She helped me select a series of powders, herbs, sauces and oils to go on my noodles, noodle like things and what I’ll guess were chunks of either tofu or sponge. The metal mixing bowl was now full. This was a lot of noodle. It was like I ordered a noodle noodle combo with a noodle appetizer and a side of noodles. She now proceeded to mix my noodle around in a fashion that I can only describe as being Chinese. Every few second she would stop tossing my noodle salad and look up at me and say “uuuhhhh?” which I translated as “how’s that? ….. Mix, mix mix…. what do you think about that? ….. Mix, mix, mix…. How’s that looking… and on and on. She then picked up a plastic covered bowl and dumped my noodle noodle combo in. Then she reached under the bown, grabbed what were the handles of a bag tied it up and gave me a pair of chop sticks. I then wandered home to eat my bag of noodle noodle wonder. I wouldn’t say it was great, but it was good. I only made it about half way through. I have heard that the Chinese connect the eating of great quantities of food with strengt… There going to think I’m such a wussy.
Though there is lots more I could tell you all, I have a great deal to do today, and so will continue monologueing later. (Yes I am more that aware that the word monologueing is rather incongruent with the present form of the English language, but I’m wordulating… you heard me… or read me at least.
Sending a plethora of hugs and kisses to across the puddle to all you beauties
Your son, brother, uncle, nephew (choose whichever applies to you)
;p ßy the way that is not a semicolon and the letter p, it is me smiling, winking and sticking out my tongue.
Daniel Monkey Mark Andrew Standring
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