Brilliant Children and Jade

Hello from Nanchang.  I hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy.  I have been very busy as the semester is winding down and I have only one more week until finals.  I has been a crazy time with my students getting ready for their final exam but we still try and have fun as we learn and have even had some students over for dinner a few times.  Cooking Chinese food for Chinese people was a little nerve wracking at first but now that I have done it a few times my confidence is building.  When I get back from winter vacation I will even have a couple of cooking lessons.

But today I want to blog about a trip I made yesterday to an orphanage for the deaf yesterday.  A friend of mine was going and asked if I would like to go so I went with her.  It was such a great experience.  The children were so sweet.  It was on the outskirts of Nanchang (on the other side of the city from where I live) and a van picked us up in downtown Nanchang along with a few other people.  We took some arts and crafts supplies so that we could play with the children.

The little boys and girls were so cute and ranged in age from about 4 to 8 years old.  

The stickers and glitter were very popular with all of the kids.

If you notice all the children are bundled up in coats.  It gets quite cold in Nanchang, but it was actually a really nice day.  Not too cold (about 48 degrees) and the sun was out and shinning.  

We also went inside and sang songs with the Children although since they are deaf (and speak Chinese when they do speak) they didn't really sing too much.

They did enjoy the song, "Where is Thumbkin".  If you notice the little girl in the dark blue jack in front of the teacher in the light blue jacket, although didn't sing, did follow along with the hand gestures.

All of the kids were great.  I really enjoyed playing with them but this little girl impressed me so much (the same one that followed the hand gestures in the song).  All of the other little kids wanted to do the crafts, but not her, she wanted to write.  She brought over a little story book and had me sit with her and hold the book while she copied the characters on the pages.

She is only 5 years old and she wrote this whole page while I was there (which was about 5 pages of the story).  She would have kept going but they called us in to sing songs.  I have to confess her Chinese script is way better than mine!  She is so bright and intelligent and really made a big impression on me.  When it was time to go she gave me a big hug and the paper she had been working on.  It is now hanging proudly on my living room wall.  We stayed for a few hours having fun but the memories will stay with me for a life time.  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go.  I can hardly wait to go back and see her and the other kids.

I will be celebrating my birthday this Wednesday 12/12/12 and I am so lucky to be here in China getting to have so many new and wonderful experiences all the time.  I even have a new name.

                                                          李 玉 轩

李 玉 轩 (Li Yu Xuan) which means Li (my family name, just a transliteration of Le in LeCroix), Yu which means Jade and Xuan which has many meanings such as brilliant, smart, cool (as in she is so cool not it is cold. Xuan is a word from ancient times.).  So the English translation of the name is Brilliant Jade.  I held a contest (which was also a homework assignment) where my students got to ask me questions about myself and then choose a name for me.  I gave them two weeks to think about it and they did a great job.  They had to write a paragraph saying what the name meant, along with the Chinese characters and the pinyin.  I picked the top 5 (one from each class) and I will be taking them out to dinner at a restaurant in downtown Nanchang.  At the dinner I will announce the winner and that student, a girl named Vivi, will get an additional prize.  I haven't bought the gift yet but will be going to the market tomorrow with a Chinese friend of mine to pick it out.  I'm thinking a quilt for the bed since it gets so cold here in Nanchang and there is no heating in the student dormitories.


It is late and I must go to bed!  So I will sign off for now.  I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season and I send you all good thoughts and warm wishes.

Until next time,

Me  :  )

I'm just plain thankful... Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello All,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving week and a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.  I did not do Thanksgiving on Thursday but instead celebrated on Saturday.  Some of the Western teachers (about 15 of us) got together and had a potluck.  We didn't have a turkey (the turkeys in China are really just chickens on steroids and super expensive), but we did have a chicken.  We even had pumpkin pie that one of the teachers made from scratch with a real pumpkin!  Very delicious! I made home made mac-n-cheese "hot dish".  What is hot dish you ask?  Well, a lot of the teachers are from Minnesota and instead of a casserole they call it hot dish and they say most everything is better as a hot dish!  So I made the mac-n-cheese then put it in a casserole dish topped it with more cheese and bread crumbs and baked it in the oven.  Needless to say it was a big hit!  My favorite of course was the pumpkin pie.  Nothing says Thanksgiving and the holiday season to me like home made pumpkin pie.  We had Chicken casserole (with stuffing and gravy), cranberry salad, sweet potatoes with marsh mellows on top, fruit salad, garden salad, garlic mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, hummus, beans Cameroon style (we had a guy from Cameroon come and his bean dish was delicious and spicy!), and shrimp gumbo.  Quite an eclectic group of dishes!  It was a lot of fun and after a variety of desserts including a pear and apple cobbler, apple crumble, brownies and of course pumpkin pie!

After dinner we had major competition in wii tennis and wii bowling.  I can say I wasn't last in bowling (just 2nd to last!) and did very well in tennis.  Then the music got turned up and we got down and boogied the night away.  All in all it was a lot of fun.  My only regret for the evening was that I forgot to take pictures of all the delicious food!  I was going to but then I forgot in all the festivities.  So since I was so remiss in documenting the American faire I have decided to post pictures of some of the delicious food I have had since coming to China.

Here is one of my all time favorites, sweet and sour fish.  It is so delicious and the way it's prepared you don't really have to worry about bones.

Another one of my favorite fish dishes is custard with Silver fish.  This is a delicacy of Suzhou.

The fish is cooked in a custard and the fish is eaten whole.  The bones are so small that you don't have to worry about them.  It isn't even crunchy.  Very smooth, very delicious!

This is a black fungus dish that although it doesn't sound all that appetizing is actually quite good and very healthy too.

This is qie zi or eggplant.  It is a fav with all of my friends.  It's not on my top 10 but I included it because everyone else is crazy about it so it is always ordered whenever we go out to a restaurant (off campus, they don't serve at the 5 campus canteens) to eat.

Here is a typical dinner at a restaurant off campus.  We usually eat at one of the 5 canteens on campus or cook for ourselves but every couple of weeks the western teachers try and get together and go out to eat off campus at a nice local restaurant.  If you can see, everyone is eating with kuai zi (chop sticks). It is the normal eating utensils, so much so that most of us (myself included) eat with chopsticks even at home.

This is a stall in Wuhan on a street that is famous for it's street food stalls.  I took this picture on a trip to Wuhan that I took during Mid-Autumn festival.  The street was packed with people (almost all Chinese) buying wonderful street faire.

Here's a close up of the crabs.  Very delicious.  Each region has a special crab that it specializes in.  In Wuhan it is the hairy crab which is only eaten in October.

This is a pancake stall where they served tasty pancakes stuffed with pork, scallions and spices.

This is my good friend Wes (a teacher at JXNU) buying street food at a street that has many street food vendors in downtown Nanchang.  It's right across the street from Walmart, so after a little shopping, a nice bite to eat before hopping back on the bus to head back to campus is the order of the day.

And of course I couldn't write a post about food without including my all time favorite dish in China, Malatang!  I eat Malatang at least 3 or 4 times a week either for lunch or dinner.  Noodles with different greens (you pick out the greens that you want), usually (for me anyway) bok choy, spinach, lettuce, also lotus root and pressed rice cakes, lots of la jiao (chili pepper spice) and delicious broth.  In fact my students all know how much I love it and often tease me about it and join me for a nice hot, spicy bowl of Malatang!

Well my peeps, I'm sorry I got caught up in the Thanksgiving festivities and forgot to take pictures of our eclectic feast but I hope you enjoyed seeing the wonderful and exotic faire I have had the privilege of experiencing since coming to China.  I did however not forget to remember how thankful I am for having this opportunity to come to China, have so many wonderful adventures, and exposure to so many new experiences (on a daily basis!).  I also want everyone back home to know how thankful I am for you and how much I miss you.  I appreciate all of the correspondence though e-mail and Skype.  I am definitely thankful for the electronic age where I can communicate clear across the world in the blink of an eye.  Snail mail takes at least one month each way so I really appreciate my computer!  Don't forget, I have given an open invitation to all my friends and family to come visit me in Nanchang.  I have a spare bedroom and would be more than happy to host you on your visit to the wonders of China!

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Hello Everyone,

Sorry I have been remiss in my posts.  It seems that time just flies by here in China.  I am now 16 hours ahead of everyone back in California since daylight savings time is back in effect.  So you would think that I would have an extra 16 hours to post, but between classes, going on vacations and having fun...  Ok, I tired to think of a good excuse so since I don't have one I will just promise to post more often!

Today's post is all about traditional Chinese medicine.  I took a trip to Wuhan (which I will blog about later) and ended up hurting my knee so decided to get some acupuncture.  My friend Ming Cao (Dynasty) took me to the hospital of traditional Chinese medicine.  It was quite an experience!

 

This is the traditional Chinese medicine hospital for Nanchang, Jiangxi province, so the first two characters on this sign say Jiangxi for the province.  It is a good thing I have such a nice friend since no one at the hospital spoke English.  Ming was great at translating for me.

After getting my hospital card Ming translated for the doctor, telling her that my knee hurt and that I needed acupuncture.

Here is a chart showing all the different points of acupuncture for the body.  Since my injury was in my knee my acupuncture was confined to the knee area.

The first step is to insert the needles.  As you can see I'm kind of a pin cushion at this point.  They don't hurt once they are in, in fact you don't even feel them but sometimes when they are sticking them not so much fun...  My last treatment the doctor put one needle in a new point and it was almost like my leg was humming.  It kind of hurt going in and it continued to hum (but not hurt) throughout the treatment but when it was done my knee felt fantastic.

The next step is to add the incense.  Besides smelling good it is actually used to increase circulation in the area being treated.  I love it.  I had one treatment without the incense and it wasn't as effective.  It really warms up my leg and seems to increase the effectiveness of the acupuncture.  I have had three treatments and am proud to say that the last time I went all by myself!  Of course Ming wrote out a little note to the doctor for me telling what I needed, and as Ming is so wonderful he told me to call him if there was any problems and he would talk to the doctor for me, but everything went smoothly and I didn't have to call Ming.  I am really starting to learn my way around town and although I have a LONG way to go before I become proficient in Chinese I am learning a lot and am able to communicate the basics.  

I am loving China and I have picked up a couple of tutors to give me private Chinese lessons.  I am even feeling like a native Nanchanger.  I went on a trip last week to Nanjing, Wuxi and Suzhou (I will also blog about this trip later), and although I had a great time, I could hardly wait to get back to Nanchang for some good spicy food.  China is so big and each region has it's own flavor.  Some areas may be more metropolitan than Nanchang, some may have better weather, and I'll admit even better traffic (Nanchang traffic is horrible, it's like the wild west with NO RULES) but Nanchang has the BEST food!  Spicy!  Spicy! Spicy!

One bit of really good news I'd like to share.  I made a proposal to the school to make a short film about the school geared to prospective western teachers who are thinking of coming to teach here, and I just got approval to do the project.  I am really excited and I even get a budget!  One of the things that helped me decide to come to Jiangxi Normal University was talking to other western teachers who work here and so I thought if we had a short little film that the university could send to prospective teachers it would help.  It's a win win for me.  It gives the school face and gives me face (a big Chinese concept), helps me keep my film and editing skills up and I can put it on my resume.  So I am excited to start the project and I will let you know how it goes.

Well, I must end now.  It's time to work on my lesson plans.  I am working on mock interviews for the students.  Besides learning English, I want to give them practical experience that will help them in the future.  I figure helping them understand how an interview works in a western company will stand them in good stead.  

I hope everyone back home is well.  A shout out to the girls at the pool... Miss ya!  I don't get to swim here (the pool was open only one month) and I miss it terribly but I walk a lot and ride a bike all the time, but still... swim a lap for me!    

Zaijan for now! 

Time

I just noticed after I posted that it shows I am posting at 10:30am on Friday but I'm not really.  I guess because I am using a VPN (a service that makes my computer seem to be in San Francisco), so that I can access my blog and avoid all the restrictions placed on the Chinese internet, it is showing my post in PST.  So in reality I am posting at 1:30am on Saturday!  Just thought I'd let everyone know so the don't get confused as to why I'm saying things like I have to go to bed when it shows me posting at 10 in the morning.  Just remember I am 15 hours ahead (it will be 16 once everyone turns the clock back an hour on November 4th).

Night All

Starting Classes

Hi Everyone!

Well I have been very busy.  I had my first week of teaching!  I didn't start until this week (even though school officially started at the beginning of September) because I have all freshmen and the freshmen go through a month of political training before they start their classes.  

This training consists of the students doing drills, marching and shouting slogans all day long.

Sometimes you can't help but feel bad for them as they are on the field ALL day long no matter how hot it is.  Notice all the water bottles at their feet and this day wasn't even that warm (well for Nanchang), only about 85, but of course with about 80% humidity!  Remember Nanchang is one of the 4 famous furnaces of China.  We are actually the #3 furnace so it gets really hot and humid!  But the "training" is over and classes have started so I have been enjoying my first week of teaching.

3 of my classes are on the 5th floor (no elevator), so a nice little jaunt up the stairs where I am rewarded with a beautiful view!  As you can see on the right is an arrow that shows my apartment so I either walk or ride my bike to school.  I love it!

I have 5 classes (approximately 200 students!).  I love my students and know I will have a lot of fun teaching them.  Each class has it's own distinct personality and it has been a pleasure getting to know my students this week.  I have a great schedule.  I teach Tuesday's. Thursday's and Friday's from 8:00am to 9:50am and on Wednesday's from 10:10am to 12:00pm and 2:00pm to 3:50pm.  I always have a 3 day weekend and if I want to leave right after class on Friday I could be on the train by noon and effectively have a 4 day weekend!  Of course while I only have 10 class hours a week, I do spend a lot of time with my students out of class.  Everyone lives on campus (including me) and so we run into each other all the time, which is great as it gives the students a chance to practice their English and me a chance to practice my Chinese.  I like to play basketball with my students and will eventually have students come over to my apartment (in small groups of course because as nice and big as my apartment is it's not big enough for all 200 at once!) and we will watch movies and practice our English/Chinese.  The students are so eager to learn and really appreciate us as teachers.

Since I am in the Business school (The School of Intercultural Studies or SICS), all of my students are either Finance majors or Accounting majors.  It is interesting to note that the students do not get to pick their major.  Their majors are chosen for them based on their test scores.  Additionally, the university that they go to is also based upon test scores. JXNU is considered to be a good university and SICS is considered to be one of the best schools within the university, so I am lucky to have really great students.

Here is a picture of one of my classes.  Not everyone is in class yet as it is not quite time to start (there is still 15 minutes before the start of class but most students come early).  Each class has a little over 40 students and as you can see from the picture there are a lot more girls than boys.  If you notice the boy in the yellow shirt in the front row to the left, his name is Phillip (well his English name is Phillip, which since it is an English class everyone was given an English name if they didn't already have one.).  He is the class monitor and was quite a ham.  When I was introducing myself to the class he asked me why I came to Nanchang instead of Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong (the three biggest tourist cities in China) and I told him, "Why would I go to those cities when we all know Nanchang is the best!"  Of course the students loved that and everyone cheered.

I feel very lucky to be here and am having a blast.  I am learning so much and my adventures never end.  Although I just started teaching this week I am already on vacation!  This coming week is National Day (like our 4th of July) and Mid-Autumn Festival so I have 10 days off.  The university had a reception for the foreign teachers where they gave us moon cakes and took us out to dinner.  I will have to share the pictures I took of all the wonderful dishes we had but that will have to wait until another time.  I must go to bed as I need to be up early so I can get ready for my trip.  Yes, I am going to go on a trip this break.  I have been invited to Wuhan and am looking forward to my first trip out of the province.  Wuhan is in the next province (state) over.

Finally, I want to share a picture of my residency permit.

 
I am officially a resident!  Without this I would be considered an illegal alien, which is kind of funny to me since in California we have so many issues about illegal aliens.  But fortunately I have my permit and I am good to go.  We have to renew it once a year but the university takes care of that for us.  This is a great university and they do a wonderful job taking care of the foreign teachers and so I feel lucky to be a part of such a wonderful community.  I love my job and I really appreciate the great experiences I am lucky to be having.

So stay tuned for the next installment about all my wonderful adventures!

Until next time,

Zaijan!

Nanchang Food

Wei (hello)!

Well, I finally got my teaching schedule and I start teaching on Tuesday.  I have a great schedule.  I only teach 10 hours (5 classes), Tuesday through Friday.  So I always have a 3 day weekend!

I've been doing a lot of shopping. I love going to the open markets and buying fresh ingredients (some are so fresh they are still alive!), to bring home to cook.  So, I thought I would share some of the culinary delights with you...

These first two pictures are of Niu Roe Mian (beef and noodles).  Very delicious and very spicy.  Nanchang is known for its spicy food.  They make the noodles fresh all day long right in the canteen.  We have 5 canteens on campus where we can eat for around 5 kuai per plate (which is about 80 cents!).  The top picture also shows some bread.  The expats call it pizza bread but it really has nothing to do with pizza other than it is really good.  It is about 2 kuai and the water is 1 kuai so the whole meal is under $2.00.  And yes, I do eat with chopsticks all the time.  In fact, it is a good thing I knew how to eat with chopsticks before I got here as there are no forks and knifes in the canteens whatsoever.  They do have spoons but only for the soup and then you still need your chopsticks!

This was a wonderful fish dish, but my friends and I had to go to a restaurant off campus for this meal.  The fish was succulent and very delicious.  However, I don't go out to restaurants very often and I only eat at the cafeteria occasionally as they serve a lot of carbs.  As you can see from the first two pictures, it is heavy on the noodles and very light on the beef.  My favorite thing is to go to the open markets and buy fresh ingredients then cook them up myself.

As I said, fresh sometimes means still alive.  These are fish that are definitely still alive and kicking.  The little tubes going into the bucket are pumping oxygen to the fish.  The Chinese really value fresh. They were actually some really nice looking fish but a little to big for just me.

They have many kinds of fish here in Nanchang.  The Gan River that runs through Nanchang is a tributary of the Yangtze (or Changjiang, one of the two main rivers of China, the other being the Yellow River or Huang He).  In fact Jiangxi, the province I'm in, means West River.  Jiang (river) Xi (west).  We also have many lakes so we have lots of local fish to choose from.  You can also get salmon and other fish from the sea as well.  Of course if your not in the mood for fish, fresh meat is always good.  Pork is a favorite but you can get all types of meat.  Chicken, duck, beef, pork, lamb and sometimes mutton and dog.

There are stores with a more western style here in Nanchang.  We actually have a WalMart and there is a store called Metro that caters to the western palate and you can buy things like beef patties from Australia or even Skippy peanut butter.  But as long as you go early and not on a terribly hot day, the local open market is a great place to buy all your food needs from fish and meat to fruits and veggies and it is always fresh.

Like I said earlier, Nanchang is known for it's spicy food so you can get lots of wonderful peppers here.  From the more mild (like the big green ones and the big red ones), to the really hot small red peppers that people buy and then put outside to dry in the sun.  The long skinny green ones are pretty hot too so you have to be careful until you know how hot each type is.

These are some of the little red hot peppers drying on a mat right outside of my apartment building.  You can find these everywhere and most dishes have a healthy dose of hot peppers in them.  You usually have to ask for a dish to be non spicy.  Good thing I like spicy!

They also have lots of wonderful veggies, tubers like potatoes, and other delicious food.  But if for some reason after all the shopping you know you will be too tired to cook, you can always opt for the street food option and buy a little take out.

These are various dishes from small snails (lower left bowl) to chicken feet (lower middle bowl) to mushrooms (top two middle bowls).  I will admit I wasn't brave enough to try the snails but I have had some great street food.  Finally, when I am full on all the delicious street food, I might end with a delicious snack from my childhood (well ok I've only gotten them once because they have way too much sugar for me) that has also been a traditional Chinese treat for centuries.

Candied crabapples!  These sure do bring back memories from when I was a child in Hong Kong.  I used to love eating them as a child.  But of course so much sugar is not on my menu anymore so I've only tried them once but boy did they bring back some wonderful memories!

Well, this is my first adventure into the land of culinary delights that China has to offer.  This has been such a great adventure so far and it has just started!  I look forward to many more and I look forward to sharing them all with you!  So until next time....

Bon Appétit!

My Apartment

Hello Everyone!  I hope this post finds everyone well.  I have been pretty sick for about a week with a head cold, fevers and headaches.  I guess it was the welcome to China illness as all 3 of us (the other 2 professors I came with) got sick, but hurray I'm finally starting to feel better!

Since I was so sick I didn't really leave my apartment for a few days and almost went stir crazy so I got the idea why not take pictures of my apartment!  Thankfully my apartment is nice and big and I have plenty of room to move around.  So here are a few of the pictures I took while "locked up" on the inside.  :  )

This is my bedroom.  Spent a lot of time there this past week.  Luckily the view outside the window is nice.  I also have an air conditioner in the bedroom which in Nanchang (90 degrees with 80+ percent humidity) is very important!

This is my spare bedroom.  I use it for storage and a workout room.

The bathroom is interesting, if you notice the shower is on the right wall.  Yes, no dedicated shower but this is also the norm in many places in Europe so I don't really mind.  The bathroom also has a couple of really intense heat lamps, which of course right now I don't use, but sure will be happy to have come winter time! Oh and it does have a sink you just can't see it as it's hidden by the front left wall.

My kitchen has all the regular things except a big oven.  The little box under the orange pan is my "oven".  It's more like a toaster oven but it works and I have a 2 burner stove so can cook most things.  My microwave sits on my "big" refrigerator.  Yes I said big.  I'm one of the lucky ones.  I have a dedicated freezer with my fridge.  Many of the expats do not.  The thing with the pink basket on it is my washing machine.  No dryer but I have a pole to hang my clothes on.

This is my my living room.  It's a nice size and as you can see I have a tv with over 20 channels in Chinese!  Actually I enjoy watching the kid shows.  I can actually pick out some of the words and most channels have subtitles (In Chinese for those who speak different dialects than Mandarin, like Cantonese, the written characters are all the same) and I like to pick out the characters I know.  Behind the fan is a small kitchen table.  Overall the apartment is really nice.  Of course after having been stuck in it for most of a week I started to go a little stir crazy but now that I'm starting to feel better I've been going out, so being able to come home to a nice apartment is great.

Not sure what I'll blog about next.  Guess you'll just have to come back and find out!
Zaijan (Goodbye) for now everyone!

1st pictures of China

Hi All,
I have finally gotten online with my computer!!! Yeah, now I should be able to post regularly, I hope (this still is China after all and the internet goes down at times).  I want to post a few pictures so you can see where I'm at, so here goes....

This is my first picture of China.  I'm on the flight from Beijing to Nanchang (pronounced Nonchong).

This isn't my apartment building, it is the one behind me (I'm taking the picture from my office window), but they look exactly the same so count up 13 stories and that's where I'd be.

This is the view behind my apartment...

And this is the view from the front.  Each morning I get to enjoy a fireworks show that is set off by the building in the upper left corner of this picture.

I have been "in country" a week and a day now and it has been one new experience after another.  Stay tuned for the next post and I'll tell you all about my experiences trying to order food (all in Chinese of course!).