Joel + Sarah

Book Readings: Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll

2010-12-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

These past few months have been ultra busy for Joel because.... wait for it... he published his first book: Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll! Here's the cover in all its published glory:

New York

Joel got his first shipment of books while we were in New York, so he had the good fortune to have his first book reading in Manhattan's East Village at a place called The Neighborhood Church. Joel's college buddy and former bandmate, Matt, accompanied the readings with songs on guitar. Overall a rousing success for a first book reading!

Joel holds up his first book

The reading in New York (missing the first part because I forgot to turn on the camera until about 10 minutes into everything):

Delta

Next, Joel trekked to Delta, a city near Vancouver, to participate in the recording of a podcast (the subject of which was Joel's book) put on by a group called The Kindlings, who fashion themselves after the original Oxford group of literary luminaries (which included Dorothy Sayers, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien). This resurrected Canadian version of the group meets monthly in a pub and records conversations on faith and art.

Listen to the podcast here.

Vancouver

Next, he had another book reading closer to our home at a cafe. Music was provided by former bandmate (from Team November), Miles Mattix.

I made some cakes. They turned out rather well, if I do say so myself :-)

Seattle

The last reading (which will be the last at least until the new year) was in Seattle at our former church cafe, the Q Cafe. Joel invited several musical local celebrities to perform between readings, including Lacey Brown, Eric Newbill, and Noah Weaver. It was a great turnout and a very fun night!

Again, there was cake, this time not baked by myself, but by a local bakery, Baked. It was delicious: chocolate cake with salted caramel filling - YUM! And of course, it was decorated to look like a turntable.

New York, New York!

2010-10-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

Back in October we had the honor to enjoy a fabulous trip to the Big Apple for Joel's sister's wedding (Kendal) to her beau of 6 years, Austin. It was an action-packed 4 days of Manhattan living and, since it was Joel's first time to the city that never sleeps, we also slept a little and did a lot.

We went to the Natural History Museum.

We went atop the Empire State Building (thanks to our hostess Jacinda, we got to pay half price AND bypass a bunch of lines! Thanks Jacinda!) for the magnificent view of the city and the outlying area. It was a bit windy.

We witnessed Kendal & Austin's civil ceremony at the courthouse - which we reckon took about 40 seconds for the judge to read through the rites and declare the happy couple legally married.

Later that evening, we attended the ACTUAL wedding, where everybody got dandied up in their finest and Joel opened up the ceremony with a speech. There was no officiant; instead, select people spoke and Kendal & Austin said their vows to each other. All in all, a wonderful ceremony!

Here we are in our wedding duds

Walk the Wall - Support Disabled/Abandoned Children in China!

2010-09-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

Sarah and I are particpating in this fundraising event on Saturday.

Please consider donating -- visit this website to donate online!

Summer is Finally Here

2010-06-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

Summer has come to Vancouver!

That's all. I just didn't want Marmaduke to be the first thing people see on this blog any more.

It's my fault that we don't update this blog much any more, and we never sent out a Christmas update last year! We'll get it together this year.

Yes, It's Marmaduke

2010-04-16T17:11:00.000-07:00

You may recall that when we first moved to Vancouver, we stumbled across the filming of the Marmaduke movie. Well, it's coming out soon. If the movie were what the first 20 second of this trailer makes it appear to be -- an adaptation of hundreds upon hundreds of one-panel cartoons in which the punchline is someone exasperatedly saying "Marmaduke!" -- I would almost want to see it for the sheer absurd spectacle. Imagine if they made a Ziggy movie, for instance.

Instead, it's just every crappy talking animal movie rolled into one, with Owen Wilson as a giant talking dog.

The Susan Boyle of China?

2010-04-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and well-wishers! Long time no anything on this blog!

We owe you quite a few updates, but in the meantime, check out this great video of the "Wet Market Auntie" singing "Amazing Grace" and "How Great Thou Art!"

We Are Still Here

2009-11-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

by Joel

We don't have any recent pictures of ourselves or Vancouver, so here's a great picture of the harbor from the flickr user "ecstatiscist," licensed by Creative Commons.

I commented once to some friends that there's a pattern that happens whenever somebody of our generation moves away from our hometowns, or, more usually, the place we went to college and began to develop some sense of community.

1) We start a blog. The purpose of the blog, at the beginning, is usually to keep in touch with those who are being left behind by the move. Inevitably, however, it also becomes a way for far-flung family and friends to keep in touch and abreast of our movements.

2) We post stuff on the blog all the time. This happens for the first few months -- note that on this blog, we posted 20 times in the first four months.

3) We post stuff less often. The second and third years of this blog, we only posted about 20-30 times a year, or about twice a month.

4) We move again, which leads to a new flurry of posts. This happened when we moved to China, when we started posting updates more frequently -- an average of once a week in 2008.

5) When some semblance of settling down arrives, we stop posting almost entirely. Note that we have not posted on this blog since September.

It's hard to say whether we have settled down here in Vancouver, exactly, but I think we are resigned to the fact that we're going to be here for a while (I shouldn't say "resigned," because we're pretty happy about it), and both so busy with our lives that updating this blog kind of seems like an afterthought, immersed as we are in the day-to-day stuff: going to class (Sarah's there an average of 6 hours a day), studying, working on projects, reading and writing for school, and so on.

Nevertheless, there have been some developments in the last few months that may be of interest to whoever out there is still reading:

* Sarah's doing well in her program and will start an internship designing a website for Simon Fraser University soon.

* I'm doing pretty well in school, although it's really busy, and I just gave a presentation at the Symposium on Second Language Writing at Arizona State University last week, where I also visited Grandpop (if you don't know who he is, he's my 92-year-old grandfather), both of which were great!

* I recently got a part-time job teaching writing to generation 1.5 high school students at a private ESL school on the UBC campus, Little Mountain.

* We haven't had a chance to go out and explore Vancouver too much since we're both so busy, but we have been to Granville Island, which is a cool place kind of like Pike Place Market in Seattle.

* We're scheming and brainstorming about how and when we'll return to China, possibly in 2011, for 6 months to a year.

* Sarah's really into Dickens' Little Dorrit, both the book and the recent BBC miniseries.

* I just signed a book contract for a book that will be out (probably, I hope) in the summer of 2010.

To family and friends far and near, we hope you are well. We think of and pray for you even when our only communication is sometimes through these little impersonal blog updates.

...and it's probably almost time to start writing our 6th annual Christmas letter, if you can believe that!

Steveston

2009-09-26T13:17:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

Last weekend we went to Steveston, which is a quaint fishing village about 40 minutes south of us. I wanted to to a little bit of location scouting for the video project that I'll be working on for the next couple of months. Here are some pictures (taken with my cameraphone, they're surprisingly good):

Down one of the Main Streets

I just liked this setup.

What a great storefront!

Arrr! Leggo my Lego!

Nice mural

Lots of neat boats in the dock. This one was selling spot prawns (in season right now)

A dramatic sign against a dramatic sky

Yep, that's a cat on a leash...

Along the quay

Hey Joel!

Sunny Vancouver

2009-09-16T21:06:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

Hello! We were lucky to have a great sunshiney last weekend before the fall gloom set in (today was wet, wet, wet). Here are some pics around our new hometown for your enjoyment!

A leisurely Sunday at Jericho Beach (about a 5 minute drive from our place)

One of the piers at Granville Island: Vancouver's farmer's market/waterfront/fresh fish market/artist enclave/tourist trap all rolled into one glorious parcel of land. This is definitely the place to buy your fish, as you're dealing straight with the guys off of their fishing boats.

The Vancouver Art Gallery, downtown. Sarah's school is located two stories below this building. Weird, huh?

A nice manhole mosaic featuring construction workers.Taken from the bus downtown. Lots of glass!While taking an evening stroll in our neighborhood, Kitsilano, we stumbled upon a film shoot of "Marmaduke" the movie. Whoopee!The star of the show himself!

Back to school

2009-09-09T22:02:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

We're both back in the classroom, although this time it's quite different - Joel's getting his PhD in TESOL and I'm getting a certificate in Multimedia.

Although we haven't experienced quite the same levels of culture shock that we did when moving to China, we certainly have a small but growing list of Canadian quirks that remind us that we're actually North of the Border. Here are some:

1. Canadians are generally REALLY friendly. Even the ones helping with setting up bank accounts on the phone.
2. Canadians like to sit/stand around and chat for a much longer period than Americans.
3. Canadians seem to be immune to cold, wet weather and some fashionable women dress in shorts and sandals in 18 degree weather (that's 64 degrees F for you southerners!).
4. Vancouver is probably the most international city I've visited (and that includes Shanghai and Hong Kong)... there are parts of downtown that seem to have been beamed directly from Tsim Sha Tsui.

Some pictures will be on the way, once we get a chance to take a few!

Last day in Spokane

2009-08-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

Vancouver BC, here we come!

The Pacific Northwest: The best place on earth (+ bear sighting!)

2009-08-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

Last week, we took a trip to Vancouver to scout out an apartment (which we found and want YOU to come visit us) and had some fun and diverting events along the way.

About an hour after setting off, a tire blew out on the freeway. Joel got his first "real life" opportunity to change a tire, which means he has gone one more step towards adulthood.

Along I-90. Luckily there weren't a lot of cars passing by.

The shredded remains of the back tire. The burnt rubber actually flaked into little pieces as Joel lifted it off.After the first mishap, the rest of our journey up north was thankfully uneventful, and we got into Vancouver in the evening to Sarah's uncle and aunt's home where we stayed. The next day was nothing but apartment hunting, and we saw about eight apartments. Whew! We decided on a friendly one bedroom basement suite in the great neighborhood of Kitsilano, an area equidistant from both UBC to the west (where Joel will study) and downtown to the east (where Sarah will study).

We met our Couchsurfing friend (a native Canadian who now lives in Hong Kong, where we stayed with her and her husband) for lunch in our future neighborhood, Kitsilano. Small world indeed!

A view of downtown from the beach! We are situated on a peninsula and therefore are surrounded by water to the north, west, and south. The beach is 5-10 minutes away from our apartment.

Chillin' with the seagulls

For our last morning in Vancouver, we were privileged to see a black bear ambling through the backyard, looking for some berry snacks!

A good-sized black bear ambling through the backyard... this is shot from the safety of the house, 2nd floor no less.

We headed to Seattle, where we decided to (belatedly) spend our 5th anniversary. Besides being a chilly 68-75 degrees for the majority of our visit, we still had a great time!

Joel & Sarah celebrate 5 years together at La Rustica, a great little Italian spot in West Seattle overlooking Puget Sound. We shared an appetizer of tomato & artichoke calamari. Joel had filet mignon topped with gorgonzola cream.

Sarah ordered pancetta-wrapped prawns. Delicious!

A nighttime view of the Seattle skyline - one of the many stunning views from West Seattle

We also met up with some friends in Seattle:

Sarah & Nicole

Chad & Melinda

SuJ'n & a delicious taco from the Tako Truk (thanks for the great recommendation!)

Driving back to Spokane, we stopped in Ellensburg to meet Saul for brunch at the Yellow Church Cafe.

Fun times had by all! Goodnight everybody!

Portland trip

2009-08-02T16:29:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

About 2 weeks ago, we had the opportunity to explore Oregon's Willamette Valley wine country, and also catch up with some old friends from college in Portland. It was a great vacation and reunion!

We stayed at this B&B in Newberg, a beautifully preserved/restored craftsman style house with an excellent breakfast.

We ate dinner at Tina's, lauded by locals to be the best in the area and featuring organic fare and a grade-A wine list.view from one of the wineries visited

overlooking vineyards next to Elk Cove Winery

The tasting room at Montinore winery - on a clear day you can see 3 (or was it 4?) distinct mountains including Mount St. Helens

We stayed at the Inn @ Northrup Station in Portland the next night - a very fun and ideally located boutique hotel.

The next day we parted ways with Joel's parents and met with our friends from college - the first time all of us were together in one place in four years!

First order of business was playing frisbee golf. I just watched.

The next day we had a late brunch at the Tin Shed which featured all you can drink coffee!Later that day, we barbequed and lounged on the shores of the Columbia River at Kelley Point Park. Here's our group photo! I really think we haven't changed too much!

5 years!

2009-08-01T21:00:00.001-07:00

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary!

Good job, us!

Spokane!

2009-07-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

at the End of the World - the valley a couple of blocks from the Hartse homestead

posted by Sarah

Half of our summer has already whizzed by, which I suppose is good in a way because it means that we're enjoying ourselves. So far we've seen 2 movies in theaters (UP in 3D and Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince), matching the number of movies we saw in China in the past 2 years (The Water Horse which we technically saw in Hong Kong and not in China, and Star Trek), eaten a lot of good food, visited many of Spokane's local attractions, taken a road trip to Oregon (pictures of that to come!), and generally have had a good time.

The first week back from China we adjusted ourselves to the 15 hour time difference by waking up at odd hours and going to bed quite early. Kendal came for a week, and we had a great time catching up with the Hartse side of the family. Here are some Spokane pictures!

We took a day trip to the summer resort town Coeur D'Alene, a 45-minute drive just across the border in Idaho.

Lunch in Coeur D'Alene included our first American burgers in 2 years... so much grilled meat!A parasailer on Lake Coeur D'Alene - gorgeous!We took a tour of the newly renovated Fox Theater in Spokane, restored to its 1920s glory after falling into ignominy as a cheap movie theater. The painstaking renovation included recovering the original light fixtures from various private homes and x-raying the walls to find out the original color of the paint. The Fox Theater is now home to the Spokane Symphony.

The Fox Theater auditorium ceiling, meant to mimic a forest canopy, Art Deco-style.

A picnic on the grounds of Arbor Crest winery in Spokane - complete with swing band and a lovely sunset. Joel swigging Cabernet Franc, overlooking Spokane ValleyAn evening at Manitou Park, where a live concert featuring Mozart pieces wafted throughout the garden.The mighty Spokane River - such clear water!Another sunset overlooking the valley. Evenings in the Northwest are truly magical.

aaaand we're back!

2009-07-07T14:44:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

We're back in Spokane for the summer!

More updates to come, but right now I need some serious sleep time.

5 weeks left

2009-05-28T19:39:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

So we have recently switched to posting on our blogs via email, because the Great Firewall has inconveniently blocked blogging sites in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. More on that later...

Today, however, I'll post a little about the Duan Wu Festival - literally meaning the summer solstice according to the Chinese calendar - but more popularly known as the Dragon Boat Festival. This year marks the first time China has made it a national holiday - a way to ease the travel strains during the other parts of the year, and also to reintroduce some traditions that had been repressed during the building of the Communist Party.

Since we both had the day off, we spent it hiking up Baochu hill, a hillside park that separates our neighborhood from West Lake. Luckily the weather isn't killer hot yet, and we saw lots of families and elderly people spending their day off here as well - everybody seemed well prepared with tea, snacks, games, taichi equipment, yoyos, portable radios for dancing lessons, or just a newspaper.

Pictured here is an instructor of the Gong Fu Fan - actually she's teaching the same routine that I learned! One great thing about China is just how communal everything is - so anyone can stop to observe or participate in park activities. I especially like the looks of concentration on her students' faces - I'm sure I've had a similar look on my face when learning this routine!

Getting Ready for the Next Chapter

2009-05-03T05:45:00.000-07:00

The last quarter of the schoolyear is in full swing -- my teaching load is 18 hours a week, for 4 different courses -- and Sarah's busy memorizing countless Chinese characters. We're so busy, in fact, that the fact that we are leaving China in almost exactly eight weeks hasn't really sunk in yet.But it's true! Let's recap the geographical Joel and Sarah timeline with a look at where we're headed next....

1999 Joel and Sarah meet in Seattle: College, friends, staying up late, and 5 years later, marriage!
2004 - 2005 Seattle, WA, USA: Living in an awesome house in Magnolia, workin' 9 to 5...
2005 - 2007 Eureka, CA, USA: Joel in school and freelancing, Sarah working at the print shop and perfecting the art of the apple tart...
2007-2008 Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China: Trying desperately to teach one language while trying desperately to learn another...
2008-2009 Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China: Sarah progressing much further in the study of one language while Joel progressing much further in the teaching of another...
2009 - 20?? Vancouver, BC, Canada

It's true! We are moving to the Pacific Southwest. Everyone has always said things to me like "you'd make a good professor," plus I think I have the right kind of glasses for it, so applied to several different schools. After much thought, solicited advice, prayer, and coin-tossing (maybe not all of that), we decided on the University of British Columbia. Not to get into the boring details too much, but I'll be in the Department of Language and Literacy Education working toward a PhD in Teaching English as a Second Language.

We're looking forward to a relaxing (or maybe busy?) summer and are right now tentatively making plans for a trip to Portland for a Dandelion Method reunion (not a show, just hangin' out), to California to see some friends and Wine Country, and just maybe some down time at my parents' house in Spokane during which we won't do anything. School starts September 1.

Until then, it's a race to the finish of the academic year! 加油！

Sarah's new blog

2009-04-29T19:55:00.001-07:00

Yes, Sarah started a new blog. You can access it/RSS feed it/follow it here:

http://sarahjhh.blogspot.com/

Thus ends the horn tooting.

Nanjing in 48 hours

2009-04-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

Since we had a three day weekend last week (Joel usually has to teach on Saturdays) we took advantage of the free time and spectacular spring weather to visit the city of Nanjing, perhaps best known in the US for the Nanking Massacre - which occurred at the start of WWII. Located in Jiangsu Province (the next one up), it took us about 4 hours by bus to get there from Hangzhou.

Our hostel was located a stone's throw away from the Confucious Temple, spectacularly lit up here.

These are the first rickshaws we've seen in China! For a fee, these snazzily dressed men will take you on a tour around parts of Nanjing, stopping at various points to give information.

Papercut-inspired lanterns overlooking the river

We ate at a touristy place decorated like an old-style teahouse. We ordered some Nanjing specialties: a slightly fermented sweet rice tea (what they use to make rice wine), the local version of stinky tofu, and garlic spinach (a standard dish we can't get in Hangzhou right now because spinach is out of season here).

Some deep-fried crabs. We didn't eat these.

the subway system has a "love zone" for elderly, disabled and pregnant women. I just liked the stick figures.

We stopped in a music store where you can buy Hello Kitty guitars in pink and blue. Sign me up!

We visited the Nanjing Massacre Museum (also translated as Holocaust museum) - it was extremely depressing but worthwhile to understand the history of China and the emotions associated with the last 100 years.

The museum architecture - reminiscent of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - is fairly bleak and starkly depressing.

Located right next door to the Massacre museum is the Nanjing Brocade museum, which was extremely informative and impressive. Nanjing's silk brocade was the premier fabric in China during the time of the emperors, and all of the emperor's robes were made in Nanjing. Our tour guide described the process of designing a brocade piece as like a precurser to a computer program - a very apt description, I think.

Here's a master at work at a loom handweaving silk brocade - there's another person at the top, not sure what she does but she was constantly rearranging all the separate threads. One days' worth of work will produce 5 cm of brocade.Sarah with the fairy goddess of weaving - She figures prominently in a famous Chinese love story that you can read here. The Chinese have their own valentine's day based on this legend. Joel at the Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum on Purple Mountain (also a national park). Sun Yat-Sen is considered "the Father of Modern China" and the majority of the places we saw here were dedicated to him.

We're not sure why this guy is dressed up, but it says "old sports fan" on his tunic. 加油!

A grandfather holds his granddaughter up so she can try to remove the ball from the lion's mouth. (p.s. this is cute)

A glorious spring day!

A pagoda dedicated to the soldiers who fought against the Japanese during the Japanese invasion.

Joel from the top of the pagoda. The city skyline is faintly visible in the background.

This guy was just about as tired as we felt at the end of our long walk!

Suzhou in 36 hours (差不多)

2009-04-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

We have often heard about Suzhou, because it's linked to Hanzhou in an old saying: "上有天堂,下有蘇杭" which translates as:

"Above is heaven, below is Su-Hang (the cities of Suzhou & Hangzhou)."

We decided to take a weekend trip to the city whose legendary beauty is matched only by our own Hangzhou. The weather was perfect and we got some nice pictures, which we will share here:

Suzhou is best known for its gardens, and its bird & flower market boasts some lovely things, like perfectly manicured bonsai trees.

We see these wisteria everywhere; they're beautiful and fragrant.Wandering through the narrow alleyways of Suzhou's neighborhoods, we came across a communal well - something we haven't really seen in other Chinese cities.

I love these old sewing machines - many women will set up shop on a corner for the day.

The Suzhou Museum - designed by architect I.M. Pei - beautiful!The central pond in the heart of the museum.One of my favorite pieces from the Suzhou museum - carved jade figures of the eight immortal beings (I think Tang Dynasty, but I'm not sure)An elegant tree in a traditional-style courtyardSuzhou is best known for its gardens - there are about 10 different gardens to visit. We chose the biggest and most famous - called the Humble Administrator's Garden - which was a riot of spring beauty - and a zooful of tourists, then we went to the Master of the Nets Garden, one of the smallest but definitely less crowded and still quite beautiful.

"General Description"
An ornate pavilionA nice stained glass motifSuzhou has two faces: the old city and the incredibly new and shiny Singapore Industrial Park area (we actually stayed in that area with a family through Couchsurfing.) The newer neighborhood is located between the old city and 金鸡湖 (literally "golden chicken lake"), which boasts a pyrotechnic light show in the evenings. We were looking forward to seeing this show but sadly it wasn't running that night. We did manage to recoup our evening by getting ice cream from Coldstone Creamery.

Singapore is really invested in Suzhou - this sculpture titled "Harmony" was unveiled by some political bigwig from Singapore.
Joel is king of the world! Or so he thinks.

Joel's Parents in Hangzhou & Shaoxing!

2009-04-13T02:21:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

We spent a good week with Joel's parents in our adopted home of Hangzhou. Besides seeing the sights, we also stuffed ourselves silly and had multiple massages (foot and head) - a great way to get the tension out of those sore muscles! Our week in review:

Hangzhou's West Lake - its most prized tourist attraction

Hefang Jie, a touristy old street selling old fashioned things - as well as a lot of new stuff too - tea, silk, knick-knacks, etc. This is blown sugar, an old method that's dying out with the advent of factory made confections.Here's video of a candymaker using caramelized sugar to create a bird. You spin a wheel to determine which animal you get (of the 12 zodiac animals). Pretty impressive!

We went to a show called "Westlake Impressions" - a nighttime spectacular directed in part by Zhang Yimou, the guy who brought us "House of Flying Daggers" and "Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony." It was pretty impressive - people walking on water, giant multi-storeyed boats, and lots of cool lights.

We also visited the National Tea Museum and Dragon Well Tea Village - where China's best green tea (龙井 - Longjing - or Dragon Well) is grown and harvested. Here we are at the Botanical Gardens - one of our favorite places to go, especially now that spring is here!Sarah at Hangzhou's biggest teahouse. You pay for a really expensive cup of tea (about $10-12 USD) and get an all-you-can-eat buffet of delectable snacks in a cool setting. On Thursday we spent the day in Shaoxing, where we lived last year. We had a great time revisiting old sites and a sleepy boat ride on Shaoxing's canal (it's one of China's old water towns).

Kevin & Jane in our 4 person boat - it had a little table in the middle so you could bring along snacks and sip tea.

Joel with some very excited Chinese students at the Lu Xun museum. Lu Xun is one of China's best-known modern writers (he lived at the beginning of the 20th century) - some people compare his work to Mark Twain's - and his family is from Shaoxing.We met up with a few of our colleagues from last year for dinner; it was a wonderful reunion! We miss them a lot. Notice how Sarah is the shortest of the group. *sigh* On Saturday we bid a fond farewell to Jane & Kevin at the Shanghai airport. (They had a safe trip back). See you in the summer!

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T04:03:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

He is risen indeed.

Now I can watch movies again.

Also, I got a digital tablet recently which I'm using for my loads of Chinese homework (Windows has amazing handwriting recognition capability!)... and I'm also playing around with the drawing side of it as well. Here's my first quick drawing (inspired by Easter. And dessert.)

using Corel Painter Essentials 4 for the first time... looks like a real pastel drawing!

Our Doppelgangers

2009-04-07T22:59:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

"Joel and Sarah are a spicy mix of fire and water with enough steam to drive a locomotive" - Joe Ely (By the way: he's not talking about us)

We occasionally get emails from well-meaning individuals hoping to contact Joel and Sarah; however, they're not looking for us in particular - apparently there are at multiple Joel & Sarahs floating around the continental United States, living parallel lives to ours.

We have learned a lot about the lives of other Joel & Sarahs through these cases of mistaken identity, or rather, a lot about the lives of their friends who update us with their news. All in all, I can say that most of Joel and Sarah's friends seem pretty nice.

Click HERE if you want to peruse the sites of our doppelgangers.

Joel's Parents in Shanghai!

2009-04-05T22:35:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

We apologize for the lack of posts here lately; it's been a crazy busy semester for us both and we've been up to our necks in work - but also play! This past week, we had the privilege of hosting Joel's parents, Jane and Kevin, for 10 days, which turned out to be a whirlwind trip of Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shaoxing. We got the chance to show them around our digs and also do some fun touristy things that we normally wouldn't get the chance to do.

We first met Jane & Kevin as they arrived, somewhat dazed from the 16-hour flight, at the Shanghai airport. As it was already 9 pm, we immediately went to our lodgings for the weekend, a snazzy little B&B called the Quintet in the heart of the historic French Concession.

Here are a few pics from our first installment in Shanghai:

Father & Son reunited at Quintet B&B

The next day, after a leisurely breakfast, we headed to the Propaganda poster museum tucked inconspicuously into a small basement space and housing a rather impressive collection of original prints spanning from the beginning of the Communist Revolution to the mid-90s. After that, we went to a cool shopping area hidden away in the narrow alleyways of Shanghai's close neighborhoods, where we stumbled upon much more tongue-in-cheek propaganda.

An example of old vs. new cultural propaganda

Best name for a store EVERThat night, we had a great meal at a restaurant recommended by the owner of the B&B.
After dinner, we headed to the Bund to take a look at the lights at night. When we got there, it was curiously dark, and Joel was the first to realize that we had come on the global "Earth Hour"... luckily for us tourists, the blackout didn't last long, and were were able to see the spectacle of the Bund at night.

Kevin & Jane in front of the more historical side of the Bund We're in front of the Bund w the Oriental Pearl Tower in the backgroundThe next day was spent in People's Park, where I (Sarah) hunkered down into a Starbucks to catch up with some homework while Joel, Kevin & Jane went to the Shanghai Museum.

After that, we were on our way to the city we (and 6 million other people) call home: Hangzhou!

Hint, hint

2009-04-05T02:56:00.000-07:00

Piratey pride - 山寨

2009-03-11T03:23:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

There is much malign and vitriol (and perhaps deservedly so) regarding knockoff products in China. In Chinese, there's a word for these products: "Shanzhai (山寨）.” Previously a word spoken with derision, a new generation of Chinese trading on the global market now see the shanzhai spirit as one to be admired.
Not only are there knock off Prada bags and iPhones (like the humorously and deliberately misspelled "iOrgane"), there are shanzhai dogs (see picture) & shanzhai t.v. shows.
To the entrepreneurial American spirit, a fake good is nothing short of forgery and flat-out stealing. However, the Chinese have come to see a certain pride in the pirated goods they produce.

A blogger recently posted a good article about this phenomenon, which has caused me to rethink my own views of invention vs. innovation, and particularly international copyright laws. After all, what here on earth is truly new? Here are some interesting bits:

In its contemporary context, shanzhai is a historical allusion to the legends that dwelled within. One such legend is the 12th-century story of the 108 bandits of Song Jiang. ... A friend of mine described Song Jiang as a sort of Robin Hood meets Che Guevara; Song Jiang was a rebel and a soldier of fortune, yet selfless and kind to those in need.

Their ability to not just copy, but to innovate and riff off of designs is very significant. They are doing to hardware what the web did for rip/mix/burn or mashup compilations. The Ferrari toy car meets mobile phone, or the watch mixed with a phone (complete with camera!) are good examples of mashup: they are not a copies of any single idea but they mix IP from multiple sources to create a new heterogeneous composition, such that the original source material is still distinctly recognizable in the final product. Read the rest here...

We Are Still Here

2009-02-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

above: Wushan Square was insanely packed for the Lantern Festival, the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday. (Please don't be alarmed by the golden calf. It's the year of the cow/ox.)

Yes! It's true, Joel and Sarah still exist. You might be interested to know that today is exactly the 1.5 year anniversary of our arrival in China. Indeed, we have been living here for 18 months now, and although according to our paperwork, our residence is set to expire in about 4 1/2 more months, plans for next schoolyear are still up in the air. It's really too early to tell where we'll be come the fall, but we're really hoping to get a chance to visit friends and family this summer, so more on that as it becomes known.

I (Joel) started school last week. I'm teaching British Culture (really!) and academic writing, and also several IELTS (a test for students who want to study in English-speaking countries) speaking test preparation classes through the university's Continuing Education department. Sarah is getting ready to start up on Monday, so she has had an extra week in what we call Hibernation Mode here at the Heng Hartse homestead. It feels good to be getting back into the routine of work and school, although I already feel like I'm getting behind in my work, but I really enjoy teaching. So that's good.

In recent weeks, we haven't travelled much, but we've hosted a whole lot of guests through Couchsurfing -- we've had people from Australia (biking across the world!), Spain, Taiwan, and France in the last few weeks. It's been really fun! We also recently visited the Longjing Tea Village -- what a beautiful place!
I'd retire here. Basically it's a little village in the heart of Hangzhou (really not far from the lake, but it feels a world away) where you just hang out and drink tea (Hangzhou being famous for its green tea, specfically Longjing or "Dragon Well" tea -- the Dragon Well itself is in this village). We had an overpriced meal with some pretty good tea, where we met this little friend who is maybe the cutest kid I have ever seen in my life:
We wandered through the streets of the sleepy village, interrupted only by a constant stream of middle-aged women asking "Do you want to drink some tea? Do you want to buy some tea?" Eventually we made our way to the park where you can (of course) drink tea. We didn't see anybody using this fancy-schmancy tea table, but check it out:

So, there's a quick update of some notable stuff we've gotten up to lately. More soon!

I'll end with a conversation I had with a little boy yesterday, and then, because you've been patient, a picture of some puppies we saw at the Longjing village.

Boy: You're a foreigner, right?
Me: Yes. [Boy's eyes widen in amazement.] You're Chinese, right?
Boy: You look like a foriegner. But I thought foreigners could only speak English.
Me: I can speak Chinese. Can you speak English?
Boy: I can't.

Chinese New Year & Our Holiday So Far

2009-01-28T00:25:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, as I rushed to get my grades in, we took a quick jaunt to a mountain village we’d heard of, Moganshan. This turned out to be a really amazing place. Since it was the middle of the week – and the middle of winter – we were pretty much the only tourists on the mountain, where we enjoyed our time tottering around various paths, taking in gorgeous views of bamboo forests and babbling brooks and such. It was really a wonderful retreat, and so close to Hangzhou!

Of course – and I say of course in an ironic way because keep reading – of course the only other tourists at Moganshan were a troupe of burlesque dancers from Seattle. We had dinner with them, and since they invited us to see their show in Shanghai (for free!) that weekend, we headed back to Hangzhou and bought train tickets to Shanghai, where we stayed near the French Concession and enjoyed an evening of old-timey burlesque and a few free drinks.

Nothing quite so exciting has happened since that –we’ve been in serious veg mode, though we’ve been hosting some guests through Couchsurfing which has been fun. Last week we had a guy from South Africa and his Chinese friend who happened to be from Chaozhou, which if you’ve read previous posts you know is Sarah’s “hometown.” This week we’re hosting a couple from Spain (one of whom is actually an American). It’s fun!

This week is Spring Festival, AKA Chinese New Year, and almost every shop on XiXi Road between Hangda and Baochu Roads – our neighborhood – is closed. Sunday night was Chinese new year’s eve, and we ended up at the JZ club, a classy jazz club where we heard a pretty good band and then stepped outside to watch the most insane display of fireworks I have ever seen in my life. There aren’t really any restrictions on fireworks here like in the US, so normal people can buy the kinds of fireworks that would normally only be used in, like, the Official City 4^th of July Fireworks Show or whatever in the US. The sound was deafening, the smoke thick. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that literally millions of fireworks went off in Hangzhou in the span of about twenty minutes. Think about that, except multiplied by EVERY CITY in China (all of China is in the same time zone), and you've got an inkling of the importance of the Chinese New Year here.

Fireworks are still readily available, and I suspect we’ll have to buy some more (we had some roman candles on New Years Eve, which were totally cool).The other day we saw a giant firework explode on the ground in our courtyard while the chefs from our little restaurant were lighting everything on fire.

That’s the current happenings. We’re both doing plenty of reading and watching movies, hibernating until school starts up again in about 2-3 weeks. Until then, 祝你们新年快乐!

Now YOU can order real Chinese food in real Chinese!

2009-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

posted by Sarah

I once read on a blog that a good way to learn Chinese characters was to translate a menu. I undertook this task as an extra way to help foment my budding knowledge of Chinese, using the local restaurant in our courtyard as the basis. I did this in October, so a lot of the menu items have changed, but I still think it was a worthwhile experiment.

The chalkboard menu in the restaurant. You just order from this menu at the front, tell them where you're sitting, then wait 10-15 minutes for some great food.
Next: my written translation. On the left are the characters (just copied from the chalkboard, so not exactly correct). The middle column is the pinyin, as best as I could make it out. I left blank spaces where I couldn't recognize/look up the character in my dictionary, then asked one of the waitresses at the restaurant to help me fill out the rest. On the right is a loose translation into English - some dishes sound extremely strange!
The third step was to transfer this all to an Excel spreadsheet, and then into a nice looking menu layout (I use InDesign). This step is a bit retroactive, because in order to type in chinese characters you must type in pinyin, then choose from a list of homonyms to find the correct character. Here's the final result, all prettified (click here to download the PDF):

Happy 牛 Year! (a little Chinese humor)

2008-12-31T23:02:00.000-08:00

posted by Sarah
It's a bright sunny (and cold!) New Year's day here in Hangzhou, and we both have the day off, half of which we have already squandered by sleeping in. Outside it's quiet, as most people also have the day off, so normal activity is at a minimum - even our banana seller across the street is not moving bananas at such a brisk business as usual.

We had a nice Christmas last week - Joel had to teach in the afternoon but was back in time to attend our German neighbor's Christmas dinner. I made sides for the dinner: roasted rosemary new potatoes, green beans with caramelized shallots, and an apple, celery & walnut salad with a honey-dijon vinaigrette (which, surprisingly, Joel liked despite its mustardy character). Our Australian neighbor contributed a vatful of pumpkin soup, and our host served us homemade bread and orecchiette pasta in a spinach-cream sauce. Yes, it was all vegetarian (my first fully vegetarian Christmas dinner)!

We exchanged a few presents: Joel got me Tales of Beedle the Bard, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, and Wall-E.I gave Joel a tie and scarf on Christmas day, and my main present was, regrettably, late, but I eventually gave Joel his first suit (custom-made by a local tailor); I think he looks rather dashing.
On Saturday, we hosted our annual Wine, Chocolate, & Cheese Holiday Soiree, which was a smashing success (if I do say so myself). I used part of the 5.5 lb. block of chocolate previously purchased for such an occasion to make a giant plate of chocolate-dipped mandarin orange slices.
I also made a cream cheese dip (actually more of a spread, since I couldn't find sour cream to make it more viscous) featuring caramelized onions, spinach, and roasted peppers (really easy to do in a toaster oven!), and mulled wine, or as the Germans call it, "Glühwein." Our guests didn't disappoint either: only two bottles of Chinese wine (one of which was actually quite good) were brought along with several bottles of quite quaffable wine, cheesecakes, chocolate covered gingerbread, pesto and fruit were some of the offerings laid at our board.

For New Year's Eve, we didn't have anything planned - this is often the case; New Year's Eve seems to be an afterthought in the detritus of Christmas planning - so we just went to a nearby bar to ring in the new year. While waiting for the clock to strike, Joel learned how to blow smoke rings with a pretty good cuban cigar. I tried but failed miserably.

And with that, we're all caught up! Happy New Year, everybody!

Proof of our (unscientific) findings

2008-12-29T20:17:00.000-08:00

If you read our previous post about Chinese myths, you may have been surprised by number 5: Chinese people do NOT in fact eat everything. These findings were actually the subject of an article in Gourmet magazine's August 2005 issue, found here. It's an amusing and fascinating article authored by Fuschia Dunlop, whose most recent piece in the New Yorker is about an exclusive Hangzhou restaurant, which alas, we will never eat at given the minimum you have to spend is rumored at around 1600 RMB (about $235 USD), or in our terms, almost 2 weeks' wages.

“How am I supposed to eat this?” asks Yu Bo, puzzling over the red snapper that has sent me off into flights of ecstasy. He is as confused as a Westerner faced with her first bowl of shark’s-fin soup, plateful of sea cucumber, or serving of stir-fried ducks’ tongues. I’ve often seen this scenario in China, but this is the first time I’ve witnessed it from the other side. Read more...

Weekend trip

2008-12-28T23:07:00.000-08:00

by Sarah

This post is a bit late, but I still think it's worth writing home about. (I guess my home is the internet.)

Sarah, along with her Gong Fu class from the Art Academy, was recently featured on local Zhejiang Province TV along with other students around Zhejiang Province in an international student talent show. It was fun, but long and tiring. Here's the home video of the performance (Sarah's in the back, with the red wig):

As a reward, we (as in 500+ international students from around Zhejiang Province) got to go on a weekend trip to Linhai and Taizhou, about a 3 hour drive from Hangzhou to the coastal area of China. Unfortunately Joel couldn't come along since he had to teach, but nonetheless Sarah had a good time.

We stayed in a really nice hotel, and visited the Taizhou International Wen Wu School, a private training school for kids 5-18 years old to learn martial arts. Very impressive! (Actually, just click on my friend Dave's blog because he took much better pictures than I did.)

Some video:

After that we did some sightseeing of the local old relics, like the South China Great Wall (which apparently is NOT part of the Northern Great Wall) and the scenic and lovely gorge area, the name of which I have forgotten.

The hike up to the Great Wall. That red banner is especially for us.

Me standing on the step of the Temple of Heaven (exactly like Beijing's Temple of Heaven): apparently you stand in the middle and say something profound. Apparently it didn't work, because immediately afterwards I dropped our camera down the long flight of steps.

Hiking along the South Great Wall. Each tourist had his/her own local high school buddy as a guide.Breathtaking views from the bottom of the Gorge in the Tiantai Mountain Scenic Area.

It's like that place in North Dakota! Except, not anymore.

Chinese myths busted

2008-12-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

Now that we've been here for over a year, we have a bit of authority in the ways of the "inscrutable Chinese." So here is a list of the top 5 (or 10, if I can think of that many) stereotypes about the Far East that we've come to realize are, in fact, just plain wrong.

1. The pronunciation of Beijing.
No, it's not French. The "J" is not soft. Think "jingle bells," "big joke," "Boy George," "bat jinx." Now say Beijing.

2. Everybody speaks Mandarin.
When the Communist Party came into power, they started a language reform that made Mandarin (or 普通话 -"Putonghua" - the common language) the official language. However, most people speak their local dialect in addition (or sometimes not in addition) to Mandarin. People living in towns adjacent to each other have a hard time understanding each other's local dialects, and this is a source of amusement and joking to most people. Also, in our unqualified opinion, Beijingers talk funny.

3. Chinese characters are pictograms.
The ancient system of writing did, indeed, contain many characters based on pictures. However, most modern Chinese characters are called "phono-semantic compounds," comprised of two elements: the meaning and the sound. So, even though the character for "mountain" （山）kinda looks like a mountain, it's not like the character for dog (狗）looks anything like a dog, unless you really squint.

4. Chinese people don't know English.
It's safe to say that there are more Chinese speakers of English than there are Americans due to sheer population. The average college sophomore has been studying English for eight to ten years.

5. Chinese people eat anything.
Contrary to popular belief, Chinese people are by and large quite picky about what they eat. (However, my Chinese teacher has a belief that people in Guangdong* truly eat everything - including rats.) It is true that the cuisine of China includes eating the whole animal, not just the fillet of something - but there are many Chinese do not like food that is spicy or "western".

6. Creature comforts of "the West" are unavailable in China.
There are more Starbucks in Hangzhou than there were in the last city we lived in in the US. We bought three kinds of European cheese and a giant block of Belgian dark chocolate at a German-owned supermarket yesterday. Hotels have HBO and CNN. You can buy Newsweek on Joels' campus. We live within walking distance of a driving range. There are Rolls Royce, Porsche, Ferarri, and Mini Cooper dealerships (not to mention Dolce & Gabbana, Christian Dior, Sephora, etc.) within walking distance of Sarah's campus. Granted, we live in the richest region of the country, and there are many people genuinely living in poverty -- but if you can pay for it, you can get it.

7. Lack of a "First Amendment" here keeps people ignorant and afraid to speak up.
Most of my students are keenly aware of recent events in Chinese history and the role the media plays in telling or not telling stories on controversial topics. In fact, many Chinese internet message boards go far beyond rules of decent behavior and often dissolve into foul-mouthed flame wars.

8. All Chinese people look alike.
I'm not just talking about unique features for each individual; the people of China are ethnically different. When you think of a Chinese person, you probably think: black hair, shorter**, almond eyes, round face; you are, in essence thinking of a Han Chinese (the largest ethnic population in China). However, there are other minorities whose facial features, coloring, & height may seem more Eastern European/Southeast Asian/Middle Eastern, depending on where you are in the country.

Well, we got to 8, at least, to round off 2008.

* Where Sarah's roots are.
** Although even that is pretty wrong - some people here are tall, and some are short. When we first moved here, Sarah was a bit disappointed that she still felt short.

zhu ni sheng dan kuai le!

2008-12-15T00:56:00.000-08:00

In lieu of a Christmas tree we have this (thanks to Joel's mom for the ornaments):
In a couple of weeks we'll be hosting our 3rd (or is it 4th? One can never remember) Annual Wine, Chocolate & Cheese Holiday Soiree; this one promises to be an interesting affair, given the "luxury" nature of all three items here in China. Our rules are as such: 1. no Chinese wine unless previously tasted by the bringer and judged to be palatable, and 2. no processed cheese slices unless forced by the direst of circumstances.

Apparently China doesn't like Flickr.

2008-12-08T03:07:00.000-08:00

Do you use Flickr?

If so, do you use Flickr Uploadr, and if you use THAT, can you send me the program file? (Windows version)

Thank you...

a short quick update.

2008-12-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

posted by Sarah

We've both been quite busy lately with various projects and events. Joel just came back from a conference in Hong Kong, the subject of which is something very confusing: The International Association of World Englishes.

He's also in the middle of applying to some grad schools in the US (and one in Canada) for next autumn. If there's a good offer from one of them, then we'll be moving back to the States in July.

As for myself, I've been busying myself with schoolwork (memorizing Chinese characters mostly), experimenting with the limits of what can be cooked in a toaster oven (actually, it turns out, a lot of stuff!), getting together Christmas cards and newsletters to send, and slowly but surely making our apartment a more pleasant place to live in. Last week I brought the songs in our music collection tagged "holiday" into the general playlist mix, which has made things feel nice and festive. "The Snowman" soundtrack = instant holiday cheer! That and Ovaltine.

This Friday, my Gong Fu classmates and I will be performing at a "talent show" featuring all the other international students in the Province. As a reward for our tireless efforts, the school is sending us on a trip to Taishun and Linhai this weekend, which I'm sure will be an interesting experience. I have no idea what's in store at these places, but I think good times will be had by all!

it is entirely possible...

2008-11-25T00:26:00.000-08:00

...to cook an entire Thanksiving meal for 10 people using a toaster oven and hotplate.

Sadly, no pictures were taken to commemorate the event, save one of the apple tart (1 of 2), which will now be shown here.

apple frangipane tart featuring:
- real Washington granny smith apples!
- almond frangipane (kind of like marzipan)
- buttery crust
- served with real whipped cream!
Dinner also included carved roast beef with red wine demiglace, garlic mashed potatoes, chestnut bacon stuffing, and hot mulled apple cider.

On top of what we provided, guests brought a veritable truckload of other delectable savories and sweets, including custards, cookies, apples, oranges, two footlong Subway turkey sandwiches (the only turkey eaten here), and Hangzhou's latest Western luxury, donuts.

Needless to say, I'm about to burst. Let the holidays begin!

Fall is in the air...

2008-11-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

and we're pulling out our long underwear and hoping that this year won't be as bad as last year.

This holiday season we're making more of an effort to make things festive, as the ache of missing family and friends is approaching.

This Sunday we'll be hosting our first potluck in our new apartment, for all the local expat Americans bereft of their canned cranberry sauce this year. The big problem I'm facing now is: how can I prepare a meal using a toaster oven, a microwave, and a hot plate? It'll be interesting for sure.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Beijing Weekend

2008-11-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

posted as a joint effort

We had a hurried but fun weekend in Beijing last weekend, with only a few hitches that made the whole experience even more interesting.

We decided to go to Beijing on this particular weekend to meet up with our good friends from Eureka CA (now, coincidentally, living in Spokane), Andrew & Jess. They were coming into Beijing to volunteer at an orphanage at a nearby city (Langfang), and we got the chance to hang out with them as they spent the weekend doing touristy things around Beijing.

First of all, we missed our overnight train. Rush hour traffic in Hangzhou is a nightmare, and despite leaving our house an hour and a half early, we arrived at the train station mere minutes from the train's departure - needless to say, we weren't let through the gates. After about 10 minutes of general panicking, we pulled ourselves together (actually, Joel got a grip) and got tickets for the next train. However, the next train was less than ideal: we would be on the train from 11 am on Friday until 9 am Saturday - giving us only 1 full day in Beijing. So we decided to try and catch a flight out on Friday instead. Luckily my dad could help us out with booking some plane tickets and instead of riding a train for 22 hours we headed for Beijing by plane, which takes a mere 2 hours.

Upon arrival to the great city, we lost no time in heading to one of our topmost priority spots: 798 Art Zone. This neighborhood is the heart of China's modern art movement, and it is comprised of about 5 blocks of renovated factory spaces. We didn't have much time to explore, as it was getting dark by the time we arrived, but we did see some interesting galleries.Joel headed straight to the Sugar Jar, an independent music store dealing exclusively in experimental Chinese music. The clerk, Liu Kai, turned out to be a treasure trove of good information on modern Chinese bands and promised to introduce Joel to a few of his "good friends". He was a consummate host, and served us oolong tea from a traditional tea set while playing us obscure music from the far reaches of the country.

He also recommended a great Sichuan restaurant, where we ate our first Beijing meal of beef with fresh vegetables and a sweet pumpkin dish with glutinous rice and soft sugar on top. Yum.The next day we met with Jess & Andrew and toured the Temple of Heaven. It's an impressive place, where the Emperor used to pray for a successful harvest each year. (I don't think Hu Jintao prays there.)
How cool to see our good friends half the world away from where we first met!

Then we went to the Pearl Market, a huge tourist trap, and bought a bunch of stuff including some silk pajamas for myself! Score! Then it was a quick jaunt to a nearby theater to watch one of Beijing's famous acrobatics shows. All the acts were impressive; perhaps the distressingly young tumblers in the finale were the most 使人敬畏的.
We ended up at an American-style pizza place for dinner, after which we headed to D-22, Beijing's hippest rock club, where we saw a band called 23 (pictured below playing a cover of "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" by the Smiths) and a few others.
Sunday morning, after a leisurely American breakfast at the Bridge Cafe in the Wudaokou neighborhood where we were staying, we joined up with Jess & Andrew's group again, this time at the Panjiayuan Antique Market. This was a cool place, and there were more Chinese than foriegners there -- always a good sign. We came away with a few knicknacks, a painting, and a book by Stephen Fry, of all things. Check out one of the stalls selling toys, below.
After that, we headed to Beijing's famous shopping & snack street, Wangfuijing. Despite multiple calls of "HELLO CENTIPEDE!" we managed to avoid the more exotic fare, sticking instead to fruit and chou doufu. Although Joel did have a bite of starfish.

These soup dumpling with straws in solve a great problem, which is that whever you bite in to one of these things, you normally get soup all over the place. Not anymore!
We flew out early Monday morning -- so thus endeth the whirlwhind tour! We definitely need to go back to see all the stuff we missed, and revisit some of the stuff we liked.
(Back to Zhejiang, from the plane)

How about that...

2008-11-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

We celebrated the next presidential election with a small gathering of other Americans at a bar here in Hangzhou, which will officially mark the earliest I have ever set foot in a bar (12 p.m.)

美国加油！

Finally!

2008-10-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

The day has come and we are finally able to move into our newly renovated apartment!

We'll be pretty busy this weekend with that...

Tai Chi Madness

2008-10-21T06:43:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

This week I'll be doing this routine (a bit more simplified than the version here) with the other international students in front of the entire school for the fall sports meet. In Chinese terms, a sports meet happens once a semester and doesn't really have a whole lot to do with sports, and the only good thing about it is that you get the day off from classes.

Look for our version here later!

National Day Holiday and Joel's Birthday

2008-10-02T18:26:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

We've been granted the week off due to National Day (October 1st), and instead of joining in the travelling frenzy like pretty much everybody living here, we decided it'd be best to stay put and have some local fun. After all, Hangzhou is itself a top tourist city, and we're far from discovering all its best spots.

Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes to Joel last week! We had a really fun day, blessed by the most beautiful fall weather imaginable. Here are the photos to prove it.

We started off the day with a leisurely late brunch buffet at the curiously named "Reggae Cafe," which, in all respects is a high class joint - except for the psychedelic posters of Bob Marley on the walls.

Joel finishes his brunch in a bit of a post-prandial daze.

Then to West Lake - a 10 minute bike ride - where we were accosted by a group of schoolkids asking foreigners to sign their banner in support of the cause “请说普通话” - that is, "Please speak Mandarin." They're really cute (when they're not yours).

Joel getting schooled in reading Hanzi by the Chinese equivalent of the Scouts.

West Lake is really beautiful on a fall day - windy enough for kites, but warm and bright.

A delightful string of mini kites tracing a path towards the sky. A kite decorated with a Beijing Opera style mask.A hardcore kite flying enthusiast sporting a heavy duty reel and umbrella hat. We then decided to rent a boat and spend an hour on the water. Water is very important to a healthy Chinese lifestyle - and spending lots of time around it is always a great idea in my book!

The boathouse where we rented what we thought would be a paddle boat, but turned out to be motorized. Cool!

Cap'n Joel at the helm.

After West Lake, we visited the Foreign Language bookstore where Joel picked up Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" and "English as a Global Language." Fortunately for you, no action shots of browsing through books document that part of the day.

Later that night we finished off the day at Peppino's, a restaurant in the Shangri-La Hotel which is reputed to have the best Italian food in the city. And it was quite good; the Caesar salad had real homemade Caesar dressing with a creamy aioli texture, the foie gras accompanied by a raisin reduction was impeccably grilled, and the wood-fired three-cheese pizza topped with bleu, goat, and mozzarella cheeses hit the pizza-shaped spot that Joel always seems to form in his stomach for his birthday. We also shared a bottle of fruity Bodega Norton Argentinian Malbec in giant Riedel glasses.

A festive centerpiece? We had to ask the waitress. Actually they're extremely long breadsticks.

Whatever your position is on foie gras, it is undeniably delicious. When prepared the right way, that is.

Life in Hangzhou

2008-09-24T18:26:00.000-07:00

This post bought to you by Joel and the fish who lives in our bathroom (pictured below)

Things are going so fast here! Sarah's in her second full week of classes at the Art Academy, and I'm finishing my first month of classes at ZJU this week. Wow. We've done a lot since we've been here -- ridden our bikes around a lot of the city, met some new friends, taken a boat ride on the Grand Canal, gone to a concert where we saw a crazy DJ from France, and done a lot of studying and preparing for class.

Next week is the week-long National Day holiday, and we are planning (hoping! if we can find a place to stay) to take a short trip to Suzhou*, to see the sights, and Shanghai, to take in a music festival called NO+CH (which, amazingly enough, is a joint Norweigan/Chinese festival now in its fourth year). If it all works out, you'll see a report here...

*A Chinese idiom says: "In Heaven there is paradise; on Earth there is Suzhou and Hangzhou." Since we live in one of those places, we ought to check out the other.

Here's a picture of the view from outside my office:

Hangzhou - back on track

2008-09-04T01:56:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

A view of West Lake, where you can rent boats paddled by these guys.

A more modern view of Hangzhou, complete with colorful graffiti.

Since moving to Hangzhou we've been kind of in limbo, mostly due to the fact that we're in temporary settings until the renovation has finished for our new apartment on the other side of the building. That and not having anything required of us has left us unmoored and drifting.

Here are a few pictures from around our new digs. More to come later...

Joel at the gate of the foreign teachers' building. It's on a quiet, crumbling street called 西溪路 (Xixi Road)-a road that is surrounded by shiny new buildings housing multinational companies.View from our window. Hangzhou is much greener than Shaoxing, a fact that I appreciate immensely. Across the street is the banana seller, who we can count on to always have bananas and laundry out.

Our lovely abode, where we live with a bunch of other foreign teachers. The pile of rubble on the ground is the remains of our gutted future apartment. We're hoping they'll be done by next month. Keep your fingers crossed!

Starbucks Conversation

2008-09-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Joel writes:
Today's conversation of the day (loosely translated from Chinese)

2 Starbucks employees talking.

Woman: My English name is Susan.
Man: I'm Evan.
Woman: Egan?
Man: Evan.
Woman: Edan. Sounds good.
Man: Susan, Susan...what does "Susan" mean?
Woman: I don't know.
Me (eavesdropping): We foreigners have no meaning. If a name sounds good, we like it.
Man: Oh. You know, meanings are really important for Chinese names.
Me: Yeah, I know.

Home away from home away from home away from...

2008-08-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

Well, we've finally landed in Hangzhou after a grueling 5 weeks of teaching summer school to 8-17 year olds (thankfully, not all in the same class). Boy are we glad to be done with that!

We're in temporary digs right now, living in Zhejiang University's Foreign Teacher's building in a one room apartment with a shared kitchen. We'll be able to move into our real apartment on the other side of the building in about a month or so, but due to the fact that it's currently filled with rubble, construction workers and not much else (and we are made painfully aware of that fact every day from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. when the banging happens), we're setting up our mosquito net for another lengthy temporary stay.

I'm glad to report that this new place is a vast step up from our dank hotel room - no giant cockroaches the size of mice, it's been recently painted, and we've got TV with nonstop coverage of the Olympics. The kitchen is spartan at best - no running hot water, stove, microwave, shelves, etc. - so I've decided to wait to unpack the kitchen supplies. Luckily, right outside our door is a great little neighborhood restaurant serving up homestyle Chinese dishes for a great price - a basic meal for 2 (3 dishes and rice) costs under 20 yuan.

Joel begins teaching on September 1st, with a full schedule of 3 classes: English Literature (that's ALL literature printed in the English language to you), Intercultural Communication, and American Culture. I will begin classes at the Art Academy on September 9th. In the meantime, we're preparing for what's ahead (ok, Joel's preparing. I'm reading Gone with the Wind). We're both excited for this next stage in our China adventures!

What we will be doing for the Olympics Opening Ceremony*

2008-08-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

5:30 p.m. Buy a few cans of American beer, either Budweiser or PBR and some Doritos
6:20-7:50 p.m. (Joel) teach class
7:50 p.m. Go to hotel room
7:50-7:52 p.m. Kill any cockroaches that may have wandered in
7:53 p.m. Turn on AC
7:55 p.m. Turn on television to CCTV Olympics channel
7:57 p.m. Settle in with aforementioned "American" snacks under mosquito net
8:00-? p.m. Watch Olympic pageantry along with the rest of the country, yell really loud when American athletes make appearance on TV

*may change depending on what other Americans are doing here in Shaoxing

美国加油!

2008-08-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

Joel says:

The Olympics opening ceremony is tonight. I don't consider myself a very patriotic person -- I mean, I like America and everything. (When I was in the third grade we had to do an assignment about "why I'm proud to be an American," and I wrote that it was because "we were first on the moon." Seriously -- what else is there?)

Anyway, since then my enthusiasm for my country has waned, but I will tell you this: I am gripped with an irrational desire for America to completely win everything at the Olympics, especially if it means beating China. I really like living in China, but...well...I just want the USA to kick some butt.

Cockroach Update

2008-08-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 3: 1st cockroach.
Tuesday, August 5: 2nd cockroach.

4 more nights -- hoping the 3rd cockroach decides not to make an appearance.

Goodbye Feng Ya Yuan, Hello...

2008-07-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

In a couple of hours we are moving out of our modern, comfortable apartment and into a seedy motel. Our address for the next 10 days is Room 3020, the Sketchiest Motel Ever, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China.

We're bracing ourselves for almost a month of temporary accomodation, first here in Shaoxing, and then in Hangzhou, where we'll move on August 10 (thanks to our friend Gareth, who's offered to give us a ride). We'll be in our new building, but not our real new apartment yet, because it's being remodeled, apparently.

Further updates from the seedy motel as necessary...

Sunday outing

2008-07-25T01:16:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

We work six days a week, and this past Sunday instead of taking our allotted day of rest, we went on an outing with some kids and their parents from the school to Ling Shan, where we spent a surprisingly enjoyable (if not tiring) day.

Our large group set out at 6:30 in the morning on two air conditioned tour buses, and our chipper tour guide (in typical Chinese fashion: wearing heels for a rigorous walk around a mountain) informed us that the trip would last about 2 hours. The bus, unfortunately, did have a microphone, and our guide used it to her fullest capabilities, asking students to come up and say English phrases, and having the adults sing songs. Our colleague Mr. Wen sang "Eidelweiss," I sang "Amazing Grace," and Joel opted out due to a head cold.

At our destination, like all official Chinese tour groups, we donned fashionable matching baseball caps and set out to have some organized fun.

Our ascent to the top of the mountain via funicular railway. Funicular funicular funicular.

Greeted at the top by an exuberant student and a not-so exuberant snail.

The subsequently freed snail - it's a monster!

Our first stop was the (arguably) largest single cave in China, spanning about 4,000 meters across, where the largest stalagmite (again a disputed claim) reaches from floor to ceiling. It was blessedly cool. I came to realize why people still live in caves.

Hey, there's Joel!

A rock formation called "spring peonies" or something like that.

Afterwards, we tottered on stone steps down the mountain to have a somewhat harried lunch (we're not used to eating with kids), and then to the lake where we had a great time on rickety bamboo rafts covered with woven straw roofs.

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.. or at least to the cultivated green yonder...Qiezi! (that's eggplant in Chinese.)

A neighboring boat - with whom we engaged in a serious water fight. The kids went crazy with their water guns (the vendors made some serious bank from our group!) I'd like to think our boat won.Yes, these are Yamaha motors powering the rafts. So sweet.

Our final destination was a pear farm where we picked our own pears. These delicately sweet, refreshingly crisp bronzed globes were wrapped individually on the trees in a special kind of paper bag (is this a common practice?) - kind of strange, picking packaged fruit from the trees.

Mmmmm, delicious!

We picked about 10 pears before retiring back into the cool sanctuary of the bus. Then, a somewhat peaceful ride back to the hustle and bustle of Shaoxing.

Angry Youth

2008-07-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker recently published this in-depth article covering the reaction of young Chinese (called the "post 80s generation" in reference to the 1976 Opening and Reform policy) to recent Chinese global political events - mostly related to the Olympics and Tibet.

It's definitely worth a read. Some excerpts:

Sitting in the cool quiet of a California night, sipping his coffee, Liu said that he is not willing to risk all that his generation enjoys at home in order to hasten the liberties he has come to know in America. “Do you live on democracy?” he asked me. “You eat bread, you drink coffee. All of these are not brought by democracy. Indian guys have democracy, and some African countries have democracy, but they can’t feed their own people.
“Chinese people have begun to think, One part is the good life, another part is democracy,” Liu went on. “If democracy can really give you the good life, that’s good. But, without democracy, if we can still have the good life why should we choose democracy?”
***
“[Young Chinese] see . . . that liberalism in the West has lost its belief in itself, and they turn to... conservatism that is based on principle, on ‘natural right.’ This conservatism is distinct from a status-quo conservatism, because they are not satisfied with a country that has only a status quo and not a principle.”

Soo... tired...

2008-07-18T05:59:00.000-07:00

This summer is exhausting.

The heat, the kids, the lesson planning... it all adds up to two things: multiple showers and constant cat naps.

On a more positive note, the heat takes away one's appetite, coupled with the constant sweating and biking in humid 90 degree weather probably means that we're losing weight.

...*hoorah*

Independence Day, expat style

2008-07-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

Hello! I feel like we haven't updated in a while... so here are the latest movements from the Heng Hartse household...

We've just finished teaching at Yuan Pei College, and starting this week we're plunging right back in to teaching EFL through a summer camp with elementary age students. (Actually, Sarah just tutored one-on-one for 4 days last week - no rest for the weary!) Joel will be working 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Sarah will be teaching at two different schools for a combined total of about 20 hours per week. Whew! Honestly, it's going to be a grueling summer...

We celebrated the 4th of July by moving the majority of our stuff from our Shaoxing apartment to a storage room of our new housing residence in Hangzhou. Apparently the apartment we'll be moving into is having some work done and so we can't move in until after they're done. According to the oh-so technical staff who categorized and inventoried our belongings, we've left 11 "things" with them.

We spent the night at our favorite hostel, the West Lake Youth Hostel, this time quite busy and overflowing with international tourists. Due to the melting heat (in the high 90s) we spent most of our time indoors trying to stay cool. Our 4th of July/end of the school year celebration dinner was at a great Australian-run place called the Hangzhou Wine Center, where I had a nicely done grilled salmon and Joel had grilled lamb. To finish, we shared an extraordinarily delicious slice of lemon ricotta cheesecake topped with wild strawberries. While we were there, we also noticed a private 4th of July party happening on the lawn outside, including potato salad, bottles of beer in coolers, and a large package of fireworks. What fun!

Summer heat has descended with the force of, well, something strong -- and now we are cowering in our apartment with the curtains closed and the air conditioner and fan merrily humming. It seems that people shift their activities to happen at night during the summer, and so I think when the sun sets we'll do our shopping and see everybody out on the street, milling around, eating late night snacks (one of the greatest things about living in China), and generally exulting in the lack of sun. I should mention, however, that last night I Googled the temperature at about 11 p.m. and it was a reported 90 degrees.

A is for....

2008-06-22T01:19:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

My, how time has flown! We're on our final week (that is, before finals week) of class, and I decided to have my students do a photo scavenger hunt. The requirement was for them to find objects, places, or people that started with each letter of the alphabet, and take a group picture. In a rare show of creativity and originality (Chinese students are better known for their test-taking abilities than independent thought), I got quite a variety of photos back. Here are some highlights:

A is for "attention"

A is also for "ass" (I didn't teach them that!)

C is for "chalk"

D is for "Dance"F is for "friend"

N is for "nobody"O is for "Our teacher" - that's Joel if you couldn't tell

O is for "on hand"

Q is for "quadrangle"R is for "radio" T is for "toothbrush"

Z is for "zero"

Bicycle Feats

2008-06-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

As riding a bike is the primary transportation here, I've gotten pretty good at the skill. Of course, I'm not just talking about sitting and pedalling; there are many factors to riding a bike in China that the average ride-for pleasure American probably never encounters. Here's a list:

- riding in pouring rain
- riding in pouring rain, holding an umbrella
- riding and talking on a cell phone
- sitting and riding on the back of Joel's bike, both "side-saddle" and "regular" position
- jumping onto the back of Joel's bike while it's moving
- riding in traffic
- riding in the middle of mobs of people

As for bike maintenance, one of the great things about China are the plethora of bike repair vendors who haunt street corners. For 3 RMB, they'll do a basic tuneup, oiling gears, tightening spokes and brakes, and aligning handlebars. They'll replace brakes for about 2 RMB, or patch a tire for about 5 RMB. The only thing I've had to do by myself is pump up the tires, which cost about 10 cents (1 Mao) per tire, or if the bike vendor's doing a brisk business, is free.

What’s next for Joel and Sarah?

2008-06-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

joel sez:

Glad you asked. As the school year winds down (we're at about the three-week mark now), we have decided to stay in China for another year. We have plans, but ever since the Great Peace Corps Fiasco of 2007, I’ve learned not to broadcast what we're hoping to do as what we're really going to do. As they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”

Anyhoo, here is the TENTATIVE plan for the next 12-15 months.

July: Work at a private English training school in Shaoxing.
August: Move to Hangzhou
September - January: Joel teaching at Zhejiang University, Sarah taking classes at China Art Academy.
January/February: Spring Festival vacation. (Possible trip someplace in Asia, if we have any money, which is kind of unlikely, but if it were up to me I'd want to visit Taiwan or Singapore.)
February – July: More of the same, school-wise.
July: Work in at another private English school in China.
August: Elaborate intercontinental train-riding scheme, dependent on time and money factors.
August or September 2009: Return to U.S.

After this, things get beyond tentative to "downright fuzzy" or "totally unknown." We will both be 29 years old, which if my calculations are correct place us in the “Responsible Adult” phase of life. It might more accurately be called the “Holy Crap I’m Almost 30, What Have I Done with My Life” phase.

Photo Shoot (and the last of Joel's mustache)

2008-05-28T04:59:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

We did this a while ago (March 28th, in fact), but it's taken a few months to get the photos back.

A fun benefit to living in China is the popularity of photo studios. Relatively speaking, these photo studios are a bargain, so we took advantage of this opportunity and booked a day with a photographer. The total package included four outfit changes, two inside and two outside scenes, a nicely printed and bound book, a large mounted portrait, and the photos on CD.

Here are the results:

We started out with a traditional Shanghai 1930s look. Sarah had fake hair, which was pretty cool. The Chinese are obsessed with having fair skin, so these shots are pretty bleached out so we both look incredibly pale.

A happy couple

The weather was absolutely perfect: sunny and warm but not sweltering. Spring, alas, is all too short here in Shaoxing, and now, two months later, we step outside and immediately feel hot and sweaty.

Spring blossoms - beautiful!

The next set of photos were shot in Fushan park. This area skirts along the edges of the park and has nice shadows and light.

The stylist's choice on hair and accessories lends, I think, a kind of "innocent first date" feel to these pictures.

Below are (I consider) some of the best shots of the day (I get a big kick out that retro feel).

I got a HUGE mane of hair for these shots.

Joel's mustache got waxed nicely. Quite the gentleman, I think.

And finally... our last set up. We didn't know what to wear, so the stylists told us to wear matching outfits (white shirts and jeans). The result: a family portrait straight from the early 90s.

So, we had a lot of fun and we now have some great (and some really cheesy) photos to commemorate our time in Shaoxing!

China: Olympics, the earthquake, and how we fit into the grand scheme

2008-05-20T02:42:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

It's been quite hectic these past few weeks here, for several reasons which have made global news (and some that haven't).

First off, there's the earthquake that's ravaged Sichuan Province and left tens of thousands dead and injured in its wake. It's a horrific tragedy, and here in China there are massive efforts to bring medical aid, financial support, and the appropriate amount of respect for those suffering. Although the quake didn't affect our area, the aftermath of the earthquake has been felt in ways large and small.

To its credit, the government has sprung into action and the rescue efforts have been immediate and large-scale. Its reaction, in turn, have spurred many Chinese to support relief efforts in herculean ways. (Actually, you can read about this civil mobilization in this New York Times article.)

The day after the quake, the square in front of the cafeteria was a sea of large travel bags ready to send to victims, filled with blankets and provisions. We donated some money through our school, and many of our colleagues and students did likewise. The Chinese government has called for a three-day halt to entertainment, including movie theaters, online video websites and game sites, as well as the Olympic torch relay. (This was a bit unfortunate for us, since Sarah's birthday fell on the first day of the entertainment moratorium, effectively killing Joel's plan to take her to see a movie.)

Yesterday, there was a national moment of "silence" for the earthquake victims at 2:28 pm. (Silence, in this case, actually meant the lonely wail of air raid horns, and for you to honk your own horn as insistently as you can.) Since all of China is on Beijing time, that means the entire country stood still for 3 minutes at that exact time. It was an eerie atmosphere: We were biking downtown when the air raid horn sounded; all traffic stopped (including pedestrians) and we gazed, astounded, amidst the cacophany.

Although the relay has been postponed, we in Shaoxing still held the Olympic festivities, and the Olympic torch came through Shaoxing last Saturday. Here's a short presentation with video and pictures of the event, which conveniently came through the campus on which we live.

Friends we miss

2008-05-09T23:52:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

This past week has been life changing, not for us, but for some of our dear friends who all coincidentally (or not) live on the west coast. So many felicitous events have reached us through the electronic ether, and it has been both a joyful and sad time for us, since we really wish we could be there to celebrate with our friends. So we're publicly sending our love to the following:

First of all, Chris and Nicole got married on May 2nd in Washington, two individuals we met and befriended at Quest Church before they got together and decided to fall in love. I'm so glad that we got to know them, especially Nicole, who is a hilarious, creative and beautiful woman who happens to share my shoe size- a fact that has strengthened our friendship, I think. She has a lovely voice, and sang at our wedding. She made her own dress - she is heading into the world of fashion design, so look out for her line!

Chris & Nicole in Seattle, summer of '06

The next day (May 3rd), Mandy and Seth got married in California. Mandy is one of the first gals I met when I started college, and she has always been an inspiration, being a fiercely creative woman. Although we haven't met Seth, we're pretty sure he's a great guy. Mandy was also in our wedding, as a bridesmaid as well as my wedding dress designer and tailor (she also designed and sewed her own wedding dress).

Joel and Mandy outside of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Conservatory, Spring '06Then, on May 5th our good friends Nathan & Christy gave birth to Ozias Elliot (which is one of the greatest names in baby naming history) in Oregon. We've both known Nathan & Christy from our freshman years of college, and we've also been roommates (Joel and Nathan freshman year, Christy & Sarah junior and senior year). They were the first couple of our circle of college friends to get married, and are now the first to have a wee little baby. We can't wait to meet this new Conant in the flesh!

Christy, Nathan, Kevin (below), Sarah & Joel, Portland '06

RIP Joel's mustache: 10.1.07 - 3.28.08

2008-05-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

If you're a regular reader of our updates here, then you know a few things about us: we're in China, we're married, we like to eat lots of interesting foods.... but there is another facet of our lives that hasn't been explored in enough depth here on Joel and Sarah's blog: Joel's mustache.
Since we moved to China, we've let go of a few social taboos that would have been frowned upon in America. For instance, we've come to embrace certain dinner customs like spitting bones on the table to be wiped up at the end of the meal, or burping loudly to express our approval of a dish. We hardly think twice about pushing through a crowd. We (try to) bargain with various vendors, expressing an inordinate amount of dismay and anger to get a price down by a few yuan. And from October 1st, 2007 to March 28th, 2008, after weeks of pleading on my part, Joel patiently grew what turned out to be (in my opinion) a very fine specimen of handlebar mustache, as evidenced in the pictures here.

An awe-inspiring 'stache sits proudly on the upper lip.I was really hoping for a Dixieland Barbershop quartet to magically manifest itself once the requisite mustache had appeared, but unfortunately I had no such luck.

A rapier point to match its wearer's rapier wit?

So, Joel's mustache, you will be missed by at least one person. Readers, please take a moment of silence to pay your respects. Also, for more information on mustaches, please click here.

Durian encounters

2008-04-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

joel sez:

(The following conversation took place in Chinese. This translation conveniently glosses over the grammatical mistakes I probably made.)

Sarah picks up a sizable durian at our local fruit stand to check it out.

Fruit Lady: You guys like durian? You think it's good?
Me: We like it. It's really good! You don't like it?
Fruit Lady: No, I don't. It's too smelly.
Me: How much is it?
Fruit Lady: 9 yuan for 1 jin (half a kilogram).
Me: Her (Sarah's) father is from Malaysia. Malaysia has a lot of durian.
Fruit Lady: How much do they cost in Malaysia?
Me: I don't know, but they're a little cheaper. How much is this one?
(Fruit lady weighs it.)
Fruit Lady's daughter: 65 yuan.
Me: Too expensive.
Fruit Lady: Yeah, it's too big.
Other fruit-stand customer: What's that -- durian? It's delicious.
Fruit Lady: You want it?
Other fruit-stand customer: I'll take it.

ALSO, recently we had a Durian Chicken Soup at the new Banana Leaf restaurant in Shaoxing. (Banana Leaf is chain of Southeast Asian restaurants in China.) It was totally awesome.

Any time you order durian anything, people stop you to make sure you know what durian is and what it smells like. We say bring it on. Further durian updates as necessary.

Current Events

2008-04-17T07:18:00.000-07:00

{Joel sez}

When I decided the theme for my oral English class this semester would be "current events," I didn't realize just how many current events there'd be. If you follow the news, you know what I'm talking about -- the torch, the protests, the media craziness. I want to recommend a couple of good resources:

First, I found this editorial in the New York Times pretty reasonable: "A Not-So-Fine Romance."

Next, I've been reading this blog since we moved here, and I really appreciate the approach the author takes to understanding and dialogue. The last few weeks of entries give a lot of insight into the point-of-view of many average Chinese citizens: Wang Jian Shuo's Blog.

Finally, probably my favorite newspaper coverage about China comes from the South China Morning Post, which is Hong Kong's main English-language daily. You have to register for a free 2-week trial to be able to read it, but all they really require is a valid email address (I've done it four times now). The reporting and editorials come closer to being "balanced" than anything else I've been reading. (In case you're wondering, HK does have a "free press" in the sense that we're accustomed to in the western world.)

A brief update

2008-04-05T01:30:00.001-07:00

posted by Sarah

So we're a little behind on our latest "goings-on" since our vacation ended, but hopefully we'll catch up eventually... We're 6 weeks deep into the spring semester, and it's been quite a change of pace for me from the hectic fall semester. I have no classes on Mondays or Fridays, which has given me an unprecedented amount of free time which, to be honest, I have no idea what to do with right now.

The weather has finally turned from uncomfortably chilly to quite temperate; today the high was around 72 F. We've been poking our heads out and squinting, not quite ready to emerge from our wintry existence, watching the latest episodes of Lost online.

We're also looking to the future: this summer, we plan to teach summer camp in Korea, if the paperwork can go through in a timely fashion (recently the Korean government has required foreign teachers to go through a rigorous application which includes getting a criminal background check & medical exam through their native country's consulate, and turning in an actual copy of one's diploma).

And this fall, we're still deciding where to go. I'd like to be a full-time student, taking Chinese language classes and also printmaking classes at the China Art Academy in Hangzhou; Joel is looking at schools to teach in the city. We certainly like Shaoxing, though, so maybe we'll stay another year here. Time will tell, I suppose.

Shanghai International Literary Festival

2008-04-05T01:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we travelled to Shanghai to see some events at the Shanghai International Literary Festival, a pretty amazing event featuring a ton of international authors spread over three weekends. We saw three speakers and crammed in the requisite shopping necessary for a trip to the Big City. Oh, and a great dinner at M on the Bund, who were also the hosts of the festival. Here's what we took in and some memorable quotes that left us thinking.

Rob Gifford, NPR reporter and author of China Road.

On the question of the current unrest in this country: "For some people, identity is more important than progress."

Zhang Lijia, journalist and author of Socialism is Great!

"China will never become a great nation if there is no reading middle class." (Our colleague Jiang-- not the author of Wolf Totem, below -- said the same thing the other night at dinner. "Chinese people don't read. It's a big problem.")

On why she wrote her memoir about working in a missile factory for ten "mind-numbing, soul-destroying" years in English instead of Chinese: "I didn't want my parents to read it."

Howard Goldblatt, Notre Dame professor and translator of Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem. (Reading in the picture below. Seated is Jo Lusby of the novel's English publisher, Penguin China.)

"If you ask me, the only important thing in the world is to read and translate literature."

We bought a copy of Wolf Totem, which won the first annual MAN Asian Literary Prize. I (Joel) have started reading it and so far I like it. The story is based on the author's own experience living and working with Mongolian sheep herders in the 1960s.

It was a successful and very literary weekend jaunt.

Spring Festival Vacation: Xiamen and Gulang Yu (February 19-22)

2008-04-04T04:51:00.000-07:00

L to R: Sarah, Giant Metal Octopus, Joel
Tip: if you ever visit a foreign country, try not to look foreign.

Sarah had the advantage of being, ethnically, just as much a 广东人 as any of the millions of people around us when we traveled through Southern China. I didn't. I'm a big, white, "high"-nosed, "yellow"-haired foreigner. As such, when we get off a train or bus, I am immediately identifiable as a tourist and thus an easy target for the 500 taxi drivers hanging out at the station. So after fighting through waves of taxi drivers trying to get us into their cabs, along with people who get commissions if they convince someone to go to their hotel, we made it to the Xiamen Plaza Hotel, which was ridiculously nice and had free Chinese breakfast (the last of the Congee breakfasts, sadly). We got in late and had dinner at the "Southeast Asian"themed restaurant. (not great compared to the real thing in KL!) The next morning we walked downtown and took a ferry to Gulang Yu, an island just off Xiamen (which is itself an island). It's an amazing place for the following reasons:

1. There are no cars anywhere on the island. It's tiny, and the streets are narrow, so the only vehicles are some bikes and a little electric tourist car. The atmosphere is serene and peaceful, and in fact, there's piped-in piano music playing almost everywhere. Why? Glad you asked...

2. ...Gulang Yu is the Chinese capital of classical piano music. Who knew? We stumbled onto the amazing piano museum, which houses over 100 antique pianos from all over the world. This little island is also home to a prestigious music academy for children, a piano competition, and piano concert hall. (Check it out here.)
3. The architecture is fascinating -- they've preserved many old colonial buildings from the early 20th century, when the Germans set up shop there. We saw what I think is China's oldest Catholic church, and a number of other beautiful old buildings.
4. We got some durian for the first time since moving to China. If you don't know what durian is, I feel sorry for you.

5. There's a real live beach, with great views, on about half of the island's coast. (This is one of about 4 photo shoots -- three for wedding photos -- that were taking place that day. More about photo shoots in the coming weeks...)
We had dinner in an oceanfront hotel in Xiamen with a great view of Gulang Yu and the sunset. The waitress explained that we could get "snacks"or dinner. We opted for dinner, but it turns out "snacks" meant dim sum. So we ate a (decent) regular meal, noticing halfway through, with some covetousness, that everyone else was eating delicious-looking 点心.

We wandered the streets and ate ice cream, and then it was time to head back to the hotel. Next morning we flew from the Xiamen airport back to Hangzhou -- a 2-hour flight, not a 22-hour train ride as we'd once planned -- and caught a bus to Shaoxing. And that was it! Just like that our monthlong trip was over. Back to the grind and the freezing weather...

Spring Festival Vacation: Chaozhou (February 17-19)

2008-04-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

A horde of Chaozhou schoolchildren swarm across the city at lunchtime. We think they have at least 2 hours between morning and afternoon classes. It's rather wonderful, I think.

Why Chaozhou? Some of our students haven't even heard of this place when we mention it to them. It's a very small, very old city in the Northeastern part of Guangdong province, and also happens to be the ancestral hometown of Sarah's family on her Dad's side. Unfortunately, no actual ancestral home exists; like most of China, it's been demolished and replaced by apartments. But what does remain of the old city is worth looking at.

We arrived in Chaozhou and immediately found ourselves in the role of soothing some worried Australians: Mindy, whose handbags are made in a Chaozhou factory, and her friend Lucy, had crossed the border from cosmopolitan Hong Kong with all its conveniences to the raucous developing chaos that is mainland China. Needless to say, they weren't prepared for the change. On top of this alienation, their ride didn't show up at the bus station, so they came with us to our hotel while waiting to make contact. (Eventually he showed up and everything was fine.)

This incident coincided with hitting the half-year mark since our move to China, and having just returned from HK and Malaysia, we were in a reflective mood.

"Everything about not being in China is easier," Sarah said as we ate the first of several delicious Chaozhou meals (this one on the street by our hotel: fried tofu with chili, squid with leeky greens, tripe with carrots and other veggies). "But I'm glad we're back." I had to agree. We'd just spent two weeks in places that felt easier to navigate and more similar to the lives we've known in the US. But eating a great, cheap meal on the street at 10 pm, drinking Qingdao, enjoying the easy, language-free camaraderie between street-restaurateur and customer just felt right. We were so far away from that first nervous night when we arrived in Shaoxing, and meeting those Australians drove home the point that we are finally feeling at home here.

A southern staple: congee, aka jook, aka rice porridge. We had a hearty meal where we chose the condiments to add to our porridge: chinese sausage, marinated tofu, preserved and fresh vegetables, and of course, some cold beer to wash it all down.

The next day we visited West Lake, not to be confused with the "real" or at least verifiably better West Lake in Hangzhou. This is Chaozhou's main downtown park/lake/recreation area, where we walked around looking at trees, calligraphy, and a cheesy dance spectacle. (We left when there was some kind of trivia contest and the guy with the microphone pointed me out, so everyone turned to stare. I get a little tired of that kind of thing.)

Next, a sumptuous lunch at the Ciyuan Juijia ( 瓷苑酒家), a restaurant recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet, where we were served what seemed like the "tourist special" -- 100 RMB worth of food not chosen by us, since we couldn't read the menu. Although it was probably a routine meal for the restaurant, we enjoyed everything: food in Chaozhou is really, really tasty. Somehow the food seems unadulterated and in its purer form - perhaps since we were in Southern China, food is not preserved as much as Northern food, so the ingredients are fresher. Since Joel is allergic to shrimp, Sarah had the skewers to herself. There was also a cold dish of preserved duck, amazingly tasty fried squid, the prerequisite qincai (green vegetables), and fried rice.

Sarah at Chaozhou's West Lake. Her dad recalls spending time here as a young boy.

Since what we mostly do is eat, the next morning we had breakfast at the cafe next door to the hotel, where Sarah ordered a "ham and egg sandwich," which consisted of ham and eggs but no sandwich, and I got a "chocolate muffin," which was a waffle drizzled with chocolate syrup and garnished, oddly enough, with cherry tomatoes.

Then we checked out the old city wall, which is in the more "historical" and also touristy part of the city. The funny thing is that to get there you have to go through blocks and blocks of nothing but renovations. It's like the entire downtown is under construction. (You could say this about the entire country, of course.) We met a nice shopkeeper at a tea shop and drank some gongfu cha with him. (Gongfu cha is the style of tea people drink in Chaozhou. It's oolong tea brewed in a really tiny pot and drunk from really tiny cups. The ceremony is just as important as the actual liquid.)

Sarah's Dad happened to call her, and she passed the phone to the shopkeeper. I'm not sure what they talked about, but I'll bet it was a surprise for the guy to get into a conversation with another Teochiu speaker thousands of miles a way. We didn't end up buying the teapot Sarah had her eye on, which is perhaps our one great regret of this trip. We were haggling hard -- and being the sensitive non-confrontational guy I am, I'm horrible at haggling, because I feel like I'm being mean -- but they didn't budge. We just got some oolong tea and picked up a cheaper Chaozhou-themed teaset from another shop on our way back.

Drinking tea is a daily ceremony, involving many pourings of tea at various stages into tiny cups, with a rinse of hot water in between each serving. The whole set sits atop a large slotted tray to catch the rinse water. Notice the remote control in the foreground...

At the day's end, we took a Chazhou version of a sanlunche (three wheeled vehicle) -- different from the Shaoxing sanlunche, which is covered -- to the bus station, and we were on our way to Xiamen...

Spring Festival Vacation: Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong Part II (Feb. 12 - 17)

2008-03-17T04:17:00.001-07:00

Hong Kong: as seen from the highest point (you have to take a FUN-icular railway to get there)

The much more peaceful New Territories of Hong Kong: a bit like a seaside resort town only it's still Hong Kong.

We returned to KL from Penang via the "NICE" bus (that's the brand name, and yes -- it was nice). To be honest, some of the KL Part 2 stuff got incorporated into our previous KL entry. Just know that Part 2 was more of the same: shopping, hawker food, and touring the sights. We checked out the Batu Caves, which are full of Hindu temples and monkeys.

The entrance to the Batu Caves; not sure which Hindu god this is but it's ginormous.

A couple of Rhesus monkey mothers and babies hanging out on the steep steps to the Batu caves. There were dozens of these creatures scampering up and down, and along the walls of the cliffs.
On our way back into Shenzhen (always through Shenzhen before HK, because flights are cheaper that way), I accidentally and illegally brought two oranges into China. I had to sign a piece of paper acknowledging the error of my ways and was given a brochure about not bringing fruit across the border. Embarrassing.

This time, we took a bus to Hong Kong instead of walking there, which made things considerably easier. We arrived at our hostel around 3 pm, and it was tiny and awful and there were no towels. The neighborhood (Fortress Hill) was a bit more pleasant than Kowloon, though. We made a mad dash via the metro and foot to Zest, a restaurant I'd "secretly" booked for a Valentine's Day dinner. (True Joel and Sarah experts may recall that this is also the time of year we celebrate our "date-iversary," of which this was the eighth.) The meal was a lovely prix fixe affair (wine included with each course); Sarah had prawn raviolo for starters, followed by the main course of crispy pork belly accompanied by a potato-apple puree and topped with split-pea and bacon vinaigrette, and finally a pear, almond and chocolate tart with frangelico mascarpone. Needless to say, we had a great time.

Joel says: "this delicious tart is the same size as my head!"

We enjoyed a few breakfasts at Congee Wonderland, which was right near our hostel. (Sadly, nobody eats congee where we live, but we got plenty in southern China.) If I had it my way, I think I'd start every day with a bowl of congee and a South China Morning Post.

The next few days were spent couchsurfing with Debbi and Dave (from, um, the couchsurfing website) out in the New Territory of Sai Kung, which couldn't be more different from downtown Hong Kong. Much more peaceful there, and it really felt more like a "village" with the down-home eateries, trees, beautiful views out to sea, and friendly neighbors walking their dogs.

A fanciful newspaper boat sculpture by the Sai Kung bus terminal.

We visited the Hong Kong Heritage museum, which had some really cool exhibits of international poster art, HK fashion, Cantopop (fairly awful but culturally interesting Hong Kong music), and old-school Chinese art. And for the first time since we moved to China six months ago, we had dim sum! We went to supercrowded place in a mall which was totally worth it. Delicious little snax a-plenty.

One of the fantastic records on display at the Cantopop Exhibit at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

Our last day in Hong Kong was pretty uneventful. We got up at an insanely early hour (after staying up late-ish with our new friends and a bottle of Ravenswood) to try to catch a church service at St. John's cathedral, the city's oldest Anglican church. (Notice a theme re: old Anglican churches?) We missed most of it but did see the hundreds of Filipina women who congregate in the Central neighborhood on Sundays (they're nannies and maids who get Sundays off), many of whom were on their way to a Tagalog church service at the same cathedral. After breakfast, we were ready to roll, and so we headed to the long-distance bus terminal where we boarded a bus for our next destination, Chaozhou. How can you tell when you're back in the mainland? Maybe it's that all the cars start constantly honking their horns...

Looking for a California Accountant

2008-03-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

This isn't related to our vacation, but here's the deal:

We spent part of the year (2007) living in California, and part of the year not living there. Because of this, we can't do our CA taxes online and I'm pretty sure we have to file some funky forms that tend to confuse and aggravate laypeople like us. Does anybody know a good, reliable, friendly, inexpensive California-based tax preparer/accountant? We can mail all our forms to them and all of that. Please email or comment if you have a suggestion...

Spring Festival Vacation: Penang (Feb 8 to Feb 11)

2008-03-07T06:15:00.000-08:00

There are worse things than listening to a two-piece band playing "Girl from Ipanema," while drinking Tiger beer with friends, on a Malaysian island in what would otherwise be the dead of winter.

Our visit to the island of Penang was a way for us to accomplish a few things: first, visit with our friend from Seattle, SuJ'n (and her boyfriend Alan), who's currently teaching English in South Korea and happened to be on vacation in the same area of the world at the same time as us; secondly, see another part of Malaysia - the island of Penang has a distinctly different character from Kuala Lumpur; and thirdly, to sample the world-famous Penang food, particularly the spicy assam laksas and Penang curries at their source.

Penang is a popular tourist destination (for Malaysians and non), and the fact that we'd ended up there on a 3-day weekend -- Chinese New Year being an official Malaysian holiday -- compounded things. Long lines for attractions and slow traffic dampened our spirits slightly, but considering that the mission was simply to "relax," it wasn't much of a setback. Our first full day, we checked out the Kek Lok Si [see below], Southeast Asia's largest Buddhist temple, which had some amazing huge statues of some deities we're not familiar with.

Joel, Suj'n, and Alan at Kek Lok Si Then we went up the funicular railway (I'll never get tired of saying that) to Penang Hill, which offers a stunning view of Georgetown (Penang's capital) and a lot of the island. We sipped fancy juice drinks in front of a geodesic dome and beneath a friendly plant-dwelling snake, enjoying a respite from the insanely hot weather, at the top of the hill. [see below]Sunday, we went to church for the first time in months, and it was pretty great. We went to St. George's Anglican church [see below], the oldest of its kind in SE Asia. The funny thing is, it was almost exactly like an evangelical service in the US (right down to the awkward teenage kid singing backup vocals because his mom was leading the music), except that the ethnic mix was typically Malaysian. The Rev. Joel Leow informed us in his sermon that the fruit Adam and Eve consumed was not an apple, but durian.

We also made it to a lazy little beach (after a languid lunch at the Eastern and Oriental, Penang's swankiest hotel), where we took a dip in the Indian Ocean, which was bathwater warm. Nice. The two pictures below come from the beach.
Afterwards, a quick trip to the tropical spice garden, where we got many exotic bug bites and smelled a lot of exotic spices. Here, Sarah and Suj'n enjoy a swing strategically located in front of sheer drop to the jungle floor.

Instant drink: cut a hole in coconut, add ice & straw. Enjoy.

On our last day in Penang, Suj'n and Alan had departed, and we did something that sounds boring but wasn't: we took a public bus around almost the entire island. This was a great way to see everything, from the tourist beaches of Georgetown to its grungier industrial district, the idyllic, tiny inland towns like Balik Pulau, and the gorgeous, verdant hills between cities. Our ultimate stop was Penang's tropical fruit farm [where Sarah holds a custard apple, below], where we took a short guided tour which culminated in a kind of fruit buffet. (Have you tried jackfruit? That stuff is amazing.)

After the fruit farm, we headed back to our hostel, did a little last-minute shopping (Sarah bought some batik, and a funky hat for me, the latter of which caused a taxi driver to remark "Michael Jackson, nooooo no noooo...") and got ready for the return trip to KL.

You know what? I know I'm not done describing it, but this trip was amazing. Writing these installments reminds me how fortunate we are to be able to do this kind of stuff. I remember telling Sarah when we got to KL, "I never thought I'd see this much of the world." I really didn't. And I'm glad we have. Coming soon: KL and HK - the sequels!

Spring Festival Vacation: Kuala Lumpur (Feb 3 to Feb 7)

2008-02-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

Getting off the plane, it's like woosh, HEAT! We'd gone from literally freezing in Shaoxing to a whopping 33 degrees in Malaysia -- that's like in the 90s for those of you in the non-metric world. Sarah's cousin Joseph (who, with his wife Caryn, were our hosts) graciously picked us up from the airport, and we began a journey that would include a lot of walking around in 90 degree humidity, shopping, sleeping late, and, of course, eating. Yes, indeed, eating.

The view from our room in Joseph and Caryn's flat on the 25th floor, daytime and nighttime. The religious diversity in KL is astonishing; from the condo we could see a Hindu temple, a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, a Presbyterian church, a Catholic church, a Thai Buddhist temple, and a mosque. In the distance you can see the Batu Caves.] If you were at our wedding all those many three and a half years ago, you might remember that the food was provided by the Malay Satay Hut, Seattle's only Malaysian restaurant. That food was good, no doubt. But multiply that by a thousand and you get the variety, abundance, affordability, and utter deliciousness of what we experienced in KL.

Joel checks out one of KL's myriad fresh fruit stands. Note the Washinton apples sign! Freshly blended fruit juice is abundant and delicious in Malaysia, and sometimes comes in a plastic bag, which is awesome.
Despite the warning from a Bank of China teller that my ATM card wouldn't work in Malaysia, we were able to get plenty of Malaysian money (sorry, Chinese economy!), so we lived on a pretty generous budget thanks to our travel allowance from the university.

Although we were outside of China during Spring Festival, we spent plenty of time in KL's Chinatown, depicted here, for food, shopping, and general tourism.Although we never made it up to the top, we ate dinner in the shadow of KL's enormous Twin Towers in KLCC park, a pretty lush place with a big manmade lake/pond and fountain.

We visited KLCC Bird Park, one of the largest aviaries in the world, where we saw a whole lot of cool birds. Sarah's holding a hornbill and a tawny owl here.
Some monkeys were just hanging out, like this family we encountered on our way to the bird park.Also did a lot of shopping, or at least more than we'd done in the previous 5 months in Shaoxing. Mostly books (English books! Yes! although we've already read all of them now, pretty much), and a few clothes.

We attended amazing Chinese New Year party at Caryn's family's bungalow (don't let that word make you think it's small), complete with Lion Dance, huge array of catered food, Carlsberg beer on tap, and a variety of guests including members of the Malaysian parliament. We mostly hung out with a Singaporean-Malaysian-Indian guy called Michael, who works as a bodyguard and told us some hilarious stories about having to put contact lenses into the eyes of one of his fussy, rich employers. He also told us a riddle that we have yet to figure out, involving a deaf man, a blind man, a dumb man, and the theft of some chickens. If you have heard this one, please tell us the answer, because we may never see Michael again and it is driving me nuts.

The hired lions for the Chinese New Year party. They did some cool tricks, like eating various fruits and beer, scratching their ears with their hind legs, etc.
We also visited a variety of Buddhist temples, including the one which Sarah's paternal grandfather was a member of. We saw his picture hanging and a memorial plaque in the temple. Caryn told us he was a pretty well-known guy in KL; some of her relatives knew him back in the day.

Sarah at the Buddhist Temple where her paternal grandfather's picture is hung. Later on we had dinner with Sarah's dad's cousins, who we call aunties to make it simpler (or more confusing), and who regaled us with stories from their childhood in Malaysia.After 5 days in KL, we boarded a bus to the island state of Penang. Would our time there be as shocking and decapitation-filled as the unanticipated onboard film, Rambo 4*? Stay tuned...

Also coming soon: a more in-depth post related to Malaysia's many awesome foodstuffs.

PS: You can see way more pictures of all this stuff, and the rest of our trip, at our Flickr page.

(*Answer: no.)

Spring Festival Vacation: Hong Kong (Jan 31 - Feb 3)

2008-02-28T18:22:00.000-08:00

An Olympics display featuring one of the Olympics mascots, JingJing, with a pistol. Awww yeah. Nobody tells you that you are going to have to walk to Hong Kong. When we got to the Shenzhen train station, I kept wondering, "where's the train to Hong Kong?" Because, you know, this is a train station, and I know from maps that we're really close to Hong Kong, so I just figured. After walking past sign after sign reading "To Hong Kong -->" and finally being shunted into several different lines in which people took and stamped my passport, I became aware that there was no train "to" Hong Kong, because we were already there.

A view of Hong Kong Island from Kowloon, where we stayed in the Tsim Sha Tsui district.

Despite the fact that Hong Kong has been under Chinese rule since 1997, the "One Country, Two Systems" policy is more like "Pretty Much Two Countries" in practice. Hong Kong is like China, but without all Chinese stuff you get used to on the mainland. The spoken and written languages are different (Cantonese and traditional characters, as opposed to Mandarin and simplified on the mainland), there's English -- mostly sensible English -- everywhere, newspapers can print whatever they want, and some of the coins have pictures of the Queen on them.

A great storefront ad. I'm guessing "Clarks Hair Key's" specializes in breeding amazing chickens.

Oh, and, our first night in HK I did something I had been wanting to do for six months: eating a hamburger while drinking a real beer. (More about Chinese beer in a future dispatch.) We ate at a swank little place called Mes Amis in Kowloon, the ultra-touristy part of Hong Kong where we stayed, where I had a totally decent hamburger with a pint of Tetley's (on tap). Heavenly. Then we went to Hong Kong's "Avenue of the Stars," which is kind of like the Hollywood walk of fame, only we didn't know most of the actors. (We did see Michelle Yeoh and Tony Leung's stars, though, although we couldn't remember which Tony Leung we like, because there are two of them.) We ended the evening with a completely awesome dessert at Haagen-Dazs, a kind of waffle cone full of strawberry cheesecake ice cream topped with real strawberries. Oh, man.

Joel posing by the Tony Leung Chiu Wai star, which is the Tony Leung we like. The one who's in the Wong Kar Wai movies and stuff.

(I realize there's a danger of this blog turning into "stuff Joel and Sarah have eaten," but that would just reflect our priorities, I guess...)

Sarah in the nicely appointed Wu Kong dim sum restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet.

The next day we went to the Hong Kong Art Museum, which was excellent (we even found a painting by Shaoxing's famous and possibly insane artist Xu Wei and took in an OMNIMAX (Imax on the ceiling) film about Greece at HK's Space Museum.

After our sojourn in Hong Kong, we walked back to China (I mean, basically) where we spent the night in a really nice hostel in Shenzhen. Oh, I forgot to mention that hostels in Hong Kong are overpriced and in horrible giant buildings that are falling apart. Anyway, this hostel was great, and we spent the evening curled up with hot water bottles watching Chinese soap operas and eating chicken brain soup. (I missed the "brain" part when I asked what the soup was. Another reason to improve my Chinese vocabulary!)

The next morning, we took the metro to a hotel where a bus picked us up en route to the airport, and we took off for Kuala Lumpur....

Spring Festival Vacation: Hangzhou (1/28 to 1/30)

2008-02-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

We had been planning to take trains during our vacation. In fact, we were stubbornly resolved to do so until it was almost too late. By now, you surely know the story that in the last few months, China experienced some of the worst winter weather in its modern history, that millions of people were without power and that hundreds of thousands were stranded in train stations due to, well, trains that couldn't go. But during the last week of January, we were unaware this was coming; we only knew that friends and colleagues were saying things like "Are you sure you want to take a train?" and "It's very difficult to get tickets."

Luckily, we were unable to get tickets for our planned Hangzhou to Shenzhen train (a 14-hour journey which would have been made who knows how much longer and more miserable this year), and had to settle for a comfortable 2-hour flight instead. No regrets here! The only real train journey was the 45-minute ride from Shaoxing to Hangzhou, which we almost missed -- we ran while some friendly soldiers or policemen (not sure which) carried our bags and ran with us.

We had a few days in Hangzhou, which may be the most beloved tourist city within China (it's not quite as high-profile with foreigners). Hangzhou is only about an hour away from Shaoxing, and even though I think about going there almost every weekend, this was the first time we'd even spent a night in it. We found a place to stay through CouchSurfing which, though cold, was comfortable and conveniently located downtown (on "Jesus Church Lane," no less).

The lane that led to our accommodation, named for the two churches (Catholic and Protestant) flanking each end

We visited West Lake, of course, which we've already seen the other times we've been to Hangzhou, but going to Hangzhou without going to West Lake is like going to a barbershop and not getting a haircut. Everything was dusted in snow -- a rarity in these parts -- and looking more enchanting than usual.

Joel in front of West Lake

A few highlights: an amazing homemade hotpot dinner with our great hosts (including homemade chocolate ice cream!), finding a Chinese-English edition of The Catcher in the Rye and some great (non-pirated!) jazz albums for cheap, stopping by the China Art Academy (more on this in the future, hopefully), viewing the Chinese traditional medicine museum, an amazing display of illegal vendors packing up and leaving a streetcorner in less than 3 seconds after they saw police coming, and, incredibly, breakfast at McDonald's.

Sarah in front of the Golden Buddha welcoming tourists to Hangzhou's (revamped) history street

On our last full day we ended up at the National Tea Museum, which was fantastic. It was a pretty cold day, so not a lot of tourists were out, and it felt like we had the place to ourselves. The museum is in a kind of secluded location near the lake, and surrounded by fields of tea; it really reminded me of vineyards in Napa Valley. The museum had a lot of cool tea-related things in it, including the biggest bricks of tea you'll ever see in your life.

A really old teapot at the Tea Museum

An impressive display of pressed tea - quite beautiful. This is how tea was processed (and still is, to some extent) - mixed with spices and pressed into molds until dry.
A great diagram displaying the three steps to making tea: 1) Select Tea, 2) Stamp Tea, 3) Number the Tea Cases. Who knew it would be that easy?

Next time we go to Hangzhou, the goal is to find some good food, because we were kind of unsuccessful on that front. Happily, the rest of our trip would more than make up for this...

Not that we had awful food, just not memorable food. The exception would be these cute little hedgehog baozi with sweet yellow bean filling.

Back from vacation

2008-02-22T23:53:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely time travelling all over and there is so much to report. For now, here's a teaser with some intriguing photos:

A little snow mouse heralds in the Year of the Rat in Hangzhou

Nighttime scene in Hong Kong

Kuala Lumpur's twin towers

Fishing in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Penang

An antique shop on Gulangyu Island

Appetizers for Going South

2008-01-25T01:14:00.000-08:00

posted by Sarah

For Spring Festival, the college gave out boxes of apples and oranges to each teacher; since we both work there we got two of each. That amounts to 60 apples (Fuji), and approximately 80 oranges.

So far, we've gone through 1 box of oranges thanks to the purchase of a juicer (not electric) and some rigorous arm work. Tall glasses of fresh-squeezed, utterly sweet golden juice are just the thing to imagine sunny tropics instead of our freezing, poorly insulated apartment. Luckily, we won't have to imagine for much longer; we will be leaving for our vacation down south next week.

Here is a short itinerary:

Hangzhou: 3 days
Hong Kong: 3 days
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 4 days
Penang, Malaysia: 5 days
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 2 days
Hong Kong: 1 or 2 days
Chaozhou & Shantou: 2 days
Xiamen & Gulang Yu: 2 days

Pictures will be forthcoming. Hooray for vacations!

Indian Restaurants We Have Loved

2008-01-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

joel sez:

Seattle: We ate a lot of meals at India Bistro, which at least at the time was I think the best deal for Indian food in town. I seem to recall dishes being something like $7 each in 2003 and 2004. Cedars was another favorite -- it was always packed, but service was super fast and you couldn't take a sip of water without your glass being filled immediately afterwards.

Eureka: Luckily, the only Indian restaurant in town was really good. Samraat is one of a few places in Eureka I miss (along with burritos from Rita's Tacqueria and the fries and beer at Lost Coast Brewery). Super-delicious spicy dishes -- the chicken tikka masala and lamb vindaloo, our staples, never disappointed.

Shaoxing: We've been to a couple of local Indian places, but our favorite is Punjabi, which, I was just surprised to learn, is part of a chain of Indian restaurants in China that includes locations in Beijing and Shanghai. Usually there are no more than one or two parties dining there when we go in. The food is top-notch -- every dish we've tried has been great, except for one mutton* dish that was too chewy -- and the service is excellent. The mango lassi and masala tea are great, drinks-wise.

This place has a tendency to be quiet, and the waitstaff usually look really bored -- except for last night, that is. We were hosting a visitor to Shaoxing via the Couchsurfing project (a website that connects travelers looking for places to stay), and the other two parties in the restaurant were a Punjabi couple from Canada and another group of Chinese and Indians-- maybe business partners? The two Indian guys asked that the volume on the TV that plays Hindi pop videos be turned up to unreasonably loud levels, and that tables be moved out of the way, and proceeded to dance. This was amazing and hilarious, especially because the most enthusiastic was a very paunchy, mustachioed, balding, middle-aged man who danced like a coy Bollywood starlet. The highlight of the evening was either:

a) When the aforementioned man danced with a genuine glass full of beer balanced on his head.

or

b) When the head waiter, a guy who is normally really quiet and shy, unleashed his impressive dancing skills.

or

c) When we, along with everyone else in the place, were inevitably peer-pressured into joining the dance party, to cries of "come on! it doesn't matter! let's just dance and have a good time!" Which we did.

*Every place in China calls it "mutton" in English instead of "lamb." Does this truly mean we are eating the older sheep or is it just a translation thing?

Christmas in China

2007-12-27T05:31:00.000-08:00

This marks the first Christmas spent not only away from family, but outside of the United States. It's been a bittersweet experience, but something that I think is part of a natural progression in life.

Christmas in China has, in some ways, stripped the holiday to its essence - a reflection of the best and worst of this season. This week in our Oral English classes, we talked about the Christmas holiday and its history and traditions, and I think our students have reflected this paradox of the holiday season most accurately.

The export of Christmas, unfortunately, has become another opportunity for commercialization. Joel talked about Santa Claus, to which a student remarked, "In America, Santa Claus gives presents. In China, Santa Claus gives flyers."

In my Western Cultures class, Charlie Brown wailed, "even my own dog has gone commercial for Christmas."

After another class, one of Joel's students told him she wanted to give him a Christmas present. She motioned for him to walk with him, and she started to sing "Amazing Grace" in Chinese. She then proceeded to say, "even though you are far away from your family and friends, God is with you and Jesus always loves you." She thanked Joel for talking about Jesus Christ, as she and three other classmates were Christians.

And in my Western Cultures class, Linus recited Luke 2:8-14.

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.' "

Dialogue

2007-12-17T03:42:00.000-08:00

Cultural Differences

Me: Eventually, maybe Chinese will become the world's most popular language.

Ma: I hope so. But at that time, I am very old.

Me: My father is a music teacher.

Ying: Oh. (brief pause.) My parents are farmers.

David: Are you a member of a political party?
Me: No, I'm not. I prefer to be independent.

David: I know there are donkeys and elephants. Clinton – he was a donkey. Is there a communist party in your country?

Me: Yes, but it's very small.

Me: My wife is a mei ji hua ren (Chinese American). (pointing to Sarah)

Student: Oh, I see.

Me: My brother-in-law, you know, he's also Chinese American, and...

Student: Oh, really? I wonder what he looks like!

---

Things I've said about food in the last four months that I'd never said before in my life:

“Those snails were really good.”

“Even the brain was delicious!"

"Wow, this beer is 4.3% alcohol!" (In a voice that connotes surprise at how much rather than how little that is.)

"I thought the turtle was OK, but the shell is really hard to eat."

“Let's go to McDonald's for lunch today.”

--
Yes, Some Things About Our Lives Have Changed A Little

"Joel, this bowl is so dirty it looks like it's from a restaurant." - Sarah

"We can help you change the money; it doesn't matter if it's legal, illegal, whatever." - anon.

"I saw two white guys today!" -me

Holiday beginnings

2007-11-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

posted by Sarah

It's been a while since our last post and things have settled to a sort of amicable predictability with work. We just passed the first half of the semester - a real milestone - and there's a mixture of pleasure for having successfully passed the gauntlet, as it were, as well as a dire feeling that the first 9 weeks of teaching crawled by at a snail's pace. Hopefully the second half will roll on smoothly!

Yesterday we celebrated a subdued Thanksgiving sans turkey with our non-American friends, Gareth (from Wales) and his wife, Ying (a local Shanghainese). We baked an apple crumble in their toaster oven, which turned out quite well, all things considered. The night before we had "pumpkin pie" - actually small ball-ish cakes of glutinous rice with pumpkin in the center that are deep-fried. Crisp on the outside, and gooey pumpkin in the center. Not bad for "pumpkin pie," but most definitely not the real deal.

Last weekend we had the privilege of hosting my dad, who had just finished a tour of China (he's a travel agent). It was a short but nice visit, wherein we tucked into fine meals and listened to fine tales of Dad's childhood spent in Malaysia, China and Singapore. As for sightseeing, we didn't go out much on account of the soggy and freezing weather. It was great to see him, and we were sorry to see him go--we don't have any more visitors coming until next March or April, so we must settle ourselves in for a long winter abstinence from friends and family from our old life.

This brings me to the next subject: what I'm thankful for. After all, it is the season for giving thanks!

Firstly, companionship. I'm (superlative here) grateful that I'm here in China with my spouse, Joel. I know that life would be much different without having this lifelong partner to share in these misadventures.

Family. Even though we're spread thin across the globe, having family to silently support us is a vast encouragement and I don't think we would be who we are today without our family. So thanks to you all!

Friends. Regular e-missives from our friends (not to mention the visitors we've had) really buoy our spirits. We are extremely lucky to have made such great friends over the years. You know who you are. I'm also thankful for the few friends we've made here, although it's been tough to do so because of our busy schedules and the language barrier.

The internet. Okay, so this officially marks me from the generation to whom technology is indispensable, but it's true. Having such a nifty way of correspondence and information dissemination makes communication with aforementioned parties a snap.

Home. Even though we've lived in more places than the number of years we've been married, Joel and I have been extremely lucky in the places where we've laid our heads. Our current situation in China is no exception. We are afforded comforts - even luxuries - that have cushioned our transition to living in China.

Jobs. Transitioning into a teaching job hasn't been easy, but the challenges have, for the most part, been rewarding. I feel myself stretching my abilities in unknown directions, and I'm learning so much more than I think I'm teaching. I'm thankful for this experience.

For all this, we give thanks.

More Shaoxing

2007-11-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

posted by Sarah

This past weekend we hosted our friend SuJ'n, who's travelling around China for a month before going on her way to teach English in Korea for about 6 months. It was a great time to relax and see an old friend, and get to see the touristy parts of the city that we hadn't yet explored. We took her to some of our favorite places (which just so happen to be restaurants): A little restaurant that serves North-Eastern Chinese food, our favorite steamed dumpling place, our favorite hand-pulled noodle joint, and a terrific Mongolian hot-pot restaurant. Basically, we stuffed ourselves silly over the weekend.

The tableware at the Northeastern Restaurant (it's called "Dong Bei" which literally means "East North"). Everything comes shrinkwrapped. It's basically like a dry-cleaning service: the restaurant sends all its dirty dishes elsewhere and gets these packages in return. (photo courtesy of SuJ'n)

Our favorite jiaozi place (steamed dumplings). You get a steamer with 10 jiaozi for 3 RMB, which is a filling snack or light lunch. They're homemade, as you can see from the picture.

Here, we're dining at a hotpot restaurant called "Little Sheep" or "Rich Sheep" depending on which English sign you look at. You get a gigantuan bowl of broth atop a built-in burner at your table, and order different things to go into the bowl. "Little Sheep" of course serves mutton, as well as beef, a wide array of vegetables, tofu, etc. It's great fun, if not sweat-inducing due to the spiciness and the heat from the boiling broth. (photo courtesy of SuJ'n)

Besides eating, we explored a local attraction, The Orchid Pavilion, a site that's known for its beauty and inspiration to poets, who practiced their calligraphy along the banks of the meandering canal. A famous calligrapher, Wang Xi Zhi wrote about the place in the 4th century AD, and his style and prose has been emulated by enthusiasts ever since. Apparently a pleasurable pasttime for these poets was to float cups of wine down the canal. The cups came to rest against the banks, and the nearest poet would have to compose a poem on the spot.

From the calligraphy museum at the Orchid Pavilion.

Another fun thing we indulged in with SuJ'n was our first trip to sing at KTV (karaoke) Chinese-style. Unlike American karaoke, generally sung in bars, Asian karaoke is more like singing in a well-appointed living room with your friends. We went with a few of our students to one place, which took up a large portion of the second floor of a mall-like building. We were led to our own private KTV room, equipped with a large flat-screen TV, giant speakers, ambient lighting, a comfy wrap-around couch, two mics and a really fancy karaoke console where we picked out our songs. I was skeptical about the English song selection - and rightly so - there wasn't too much choice for us. However, it was fun to hear some Chinese pop songs (not all of them were bad), and one girl even sang a couple of Peking (actually Shaoxing) Opera songs, a very surreal experience, mixing ancient opera with oh-so-modern karaoke.

One final touristy venture was to take a boat through the canals of Shaoxing. We got a chance to see the back doors of Shaoxingese, since the canal backs onto the houses. In fact, many locals do their laundry right in the canal, and also hang elaborate plant gardens along their watery backyards. It was a nice and very interesting view into local life that we haven't seen before.

Boats along the canal: 40 RMB for about 20 minutes on the boat. (photo courtesy of SuJ'n)

Here we are on the boat! With the ticket to prove it. (courtesy of SuJ'n)

A boat selling snacks. We've also seen boats that would be great floating picnic/restaurants. (photo courtesy of SuJ'n)

Shanghai weekend

2007-10-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

Boy did we live it up this weekend! We had a great time being unadulterated tourists in the grand city of Shanghai, home to around 16 million residents and according to Wikipedia, the 8th largest city in the world. We spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday blissfully disregarding work at home and going the whole hog in the most Westernized city in China.

The first thing we did after getting to our hostel (Le Tour) was to take a nap. Ah, yes... vacation.

After that, we trekked to one of the foreign language bookstores in town, astutely named "Foreign Languages Bookstore." There, we bought a couple of English books (I bought The Travels of Marco Polo and D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love; Joel bought Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood) and an English language map of Shanghai. On a side note, apparently the best-selling English translated book on the Chinese market is Who Moved My Cheese? Funny, for a society that doesn't eat any cheese.

Following our book binge, we went to a French supermarket Carrefour (they're called hypermarkets here) where there was a wine festival happening that evening. Not knowing what to expect, we ate dinner at a delicious little Singaporean cafe (in the food court!) then headed to the wine fair. It turned out to be quite the event. The entire basement garage had been converted to a tasting room lined with bottles from the four corners of the world. All the wines were available for free tastings, and there was an amazing jazz band playing in the midst of it all. Plus, all wines were discounted 20% that night. Needless to say, we had a great night and it was (for the most part) free!

We bought two bottles, both from France.

The next day we did some heavy sightseeing, starting off with our first Chinese Starbucks (somehow it seems wrong to go to Starbucks in Shaoxing, but ok to do it in Shanghai) walking around the People's Square, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Bund, the Riverside, Pudong, Old Town, and so on (as our students would end such a sentence). I bought a knock-0ff LeSportsac bag with little birds all over it. We met up with our friend Suj'n from the states, fortuitously in Shanghai on the same weekend, and had a lovely dinner with her and her hosts (also U.S. transplants) at a swanky Western restaurant overlooking the river and the Bund. I had the three course dinner (main course: pan-seared lamb) which included wine with each course for the astonishing price of $25.

Here's a video of our day to prove we were there.

Finally to round off our day, we went to a little bar to see the band Lonely China Day, on tour from Beijing. It was a little dive bar, and the band was great (even if the drums were way too loud). To me, this part of the day had the most "American" feel to it; I felt as if I had been transported to the Crocodile in Seattle to see a band play. We finally headed back to our hostel around midnight, tired but elated.

Lonely China Day plays in Live Bar

The next day we headed back to Shaoxing, but before boarding the train we made a quick stop at IKEA (yes, it was the ultimate trip in Western shopping) to buy a couple of lamps and other goodies for our home.

All in all, a fun vacation was had and we enjoyed ourselves in the biggest city in the PRC immensely!

We're going to Shanghai!

2007-10-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Full updates after the weekend.

We're on NPR...?

2007-10-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

joel (with help from Sarah on the bits about food) writes

Well, kind of: our friend Johnny was featured on NPR's "Open Mic" Podcas t, and their review of his CD mentions the band SYNTHAR (of which I am a founding and honorary member), which, they write, has members in "New York City," (true), "Seattle," (no longer true), and "Shaoxing, China."

Things are good here in SX (hip abbreviation?) -- last week's typhoon (Krosa) was actually worse than the previous one, but now that it's gone, we have, for the first time since we've arrived, perfect weather. It feels like early autumn in the Pacific Northwest -- cool and crisp but warm in the sunshine with highs in the mid-70s -- simply put, the best weather in the world! We've enjoyed being outside for the first time since our arrival, riding bikes to and from school, and, last night, floating paper boats in the canal with students from the university's English Club.

Teaching is keeping us busy, but we still explore now and again. The highlight of this week: we bought French wine and Land O' Lakes cheddar cheese at Carrefour (a French supermarket chain with 100 stores in China), or 家乐福, or Jia Le Fou. While we were on our quest for such things, we found ourselves in one of the swankiest parts of Shaoxing (Seattleites: imagine something like the U-Village, only with more high-rise apartments), where many foreign businesspeople and their families live. We saw the world's cutest Pekingese puppy, more foreigners than we'd seen in the previous six weeks combined, and... get this:

A liquor store that sells, among other things, Chateau Ste. Michelle Reisling and Columbia Crest Merlot and Cabernet. Yes, Washington wines in a small town in Eastern China. This completely blew my mind. You know that thing, that thing everybody keeps talking about? Oh yeah, globalization? It's totally real.

In cuisine news, we've eaten curried ramen at an uber-hip Japanese restaurant, supped on big bowls of shaved noodle soup (the cook takes a large piece of dough and shaves strips of it into a giant pot of boiling broth), indulged in different street food from various vendors, and have been enjoying some amazing fruit: sweet and juicy apples (from New Zealand), and the best Asian pears are in season right now - crisp and juicy and absolutely sweet. Get some now, they're amazing.

We're looking forward to a visit from our friend Suj'n in a couple of weeks, and I'm hoping to plan a weekend trip to Shanghai in the next month or so. More on those events as they transpire. We hope that you, friends and family, are well!

Briefly: "My Moustache"

2007-10-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

Joel sez:

UPDATE: Thank you Mr. A. Cooke! The rest of you may ignore this message and get on with your lives.

"I was sitting alone in my hostel, lamenting my moustache's unhappy fate and pondering the reasons for its being slandered..."

For reasons that may or may not become clear later, I'm very interested in finding an English translation of Lu Xun's 1924 essay "My Moustache." Lu Xun, as I think we've mentioned before, is one of China's most famous and well-liked modern writers, and Shaoxing was his hometown (I'll write more about him another time). "My Moustache" can be found in the Selected Words of Lu Hsun, Vol. 2, translated by Gladys Yang. It's only a few pages long. Can you, dear reader, help track this down and email me a copy of the essay? I'd be much obliged.

National Day Holiday & East Lake

2007-10-03T02:43:00.002-07:00

posted by Sarah

This week in China marks one of the two holidays that affect our work schedules - National Day, or the anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. We have the week off, and so does the entire population of China (at least it seems that way). We decided to use the time off to work on getting ahead with our class preparation, but so far we've spent our time vegging out and recuperating from the killer week we spent in class last week (9 days straight of classes!).

Yesterday we went to East Lake (a popular Shaoxing tourist spot) with Ying, one of our Chinese colleagues in the Foreign Language department, whose boyfriend was also visiting from Shanghai for the holiday. It was moderately hot, enough to get us good and sticky, and we spent a nice cool 30 minutes on one of the black wooden boats on the lake. These are pretty common all over Shaoxing's canals. Shaoxing, according to Marco Polo, is the "Venice of the East." (We joked that if or when we travel to Venice we'll exclaim, "Ah, Venice! The Shaoxing of the West!")

Here's a video (plus pictures) of us enjoying the day...

Afterwards, we returned to Shaoxing where Ying's boyfriend took us to a little family restaurant close to where he once worked along a side-street/alleyway that looked more like the entrance to someone's home. Which it was. There we feasted (a "light lunch" as Ying put it) on jujube fruits, roast duck with bamboo, green beans with seaweed, tiny freshwater "snails" in a deliciously garlicky and gingery brown bean sauce (which Ying insisted were not snails - "Chinese do not eat snails"), fish, soup, and rice. It was all very tasty and the total cost of the meal was 65 yuan, or according to the current exchange rate, $8.66. That's probably the best meal deal we've gotten here yet!

Jesus in Shaoxing

2007-09-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

Posted by Joel

Recently, one of my students mentioned her Christian beliefs in an in-class writing assignment. I was a little surprised, since as an American I've been kind of conditioned to believe that here in Communist China, you've either gotta be hush-hush about religion or not practice it at all.
So I was intrigued to see this blatant mention of Christianity in my class, and I contacted my student via QQ (a popular Chinese chat program similar to AOL IM) and asked her if she could tell me anything about churches in Shaoxing.

"Of course," she replied. "I am the churcher."

Not the most standard of Englishes, but you get her meaning, I think. She told me that there was a Christian student association here on campus, which meets on Sundays, and also that there was a church in downtown Shaoxing. We'd heard about it, but didn't know how to find it.

Yesterday, we were out and about on some errands* when we stumbled across the church, which is situated on a very commercial street between a hospital and some trendy clothing shops. It was very traditional-looking – the overall impression was similar to something like an American Presybterian church built in the 1970s, although I think this church is actually pretty new. The front entrance was blocked by imposing-looking metal bars and locked gates.
I saw a group of five older women who looked like they might be on their way to the church and caught their eye. They seemed to understand that we wanted to come in, and they motioned for us to come to the side entrance, where they rang a doorbell.

Once we got inside, we tried to explain that we wanted to come to a church service, but didn't know what time to come. (I had heard there was a service at 5 pm, but it was 4:55 and no one was there.) With our limited Chinese and their non-existent English, we weren't able to communicate much, but we did get something across.

"Keyi zhi women lai?" "Can we come here?" I asked.

"Lai le!" "Come in!" they insisted.

"Zenme ni shuo zhe na ge?" "How do you say the name of this place?"

"Jidu (something) ," one replied. I thought I heard Jesus and house -- church.

"Ah," I said. "Women shi Jidu ren!" "We are Jesus people!" (I don't know the Chinese word for Christian.)

"Ah," one of the women said. She smiled and pointed to us, then and pointed to herself and the rest of her group. She made a circle with her arms, as if she were embracing all of us – as if her arms were circling the world. I didn't understand her Chinese, but I knew exactly what she meant. I knew we were home.

* Errands included a trip to the Yi Gao (E-GO) supermarket (kind of like Best Buy, only all the stalls are independent sellers of electronics goods) to get a new charger for our laptop, a stationary store for some scotch tape, a DVD store where we were introduced to the infamous "back room" full of not-exactly-legal copies of foreign movies for about $1 apiece – we bought seven – and a Mongolian-style hotpot restaurant called "Little Sheep." Hotpot is similar to a fondue restaurant: a gas burner is embedded in the center of each table, upon which a giant pot of broth is set (either spicy or non, or both depending on your preference). You order what sorts of vegetables and meats to put into the broth, and cook them yourself. We had thin slices of leg of lamb, fish balls, cabbage, and cilantro to dip into our boiling broth. It was extremely delicious, and extremely spicy.

It's Joel's Birthday!

2007-09-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today marks the first time that Joel has celebrated a birthday outside of the United States of America. There are pros and cons to this: in China, a person isn't given the same royal treatment that Americans get on their birthdays. On the plus side, since we're 12-15 hours ahead of you people in the US, Joel's birthday is oh-so technically a day and a half longer... Heh heh. So Happy Birthday Joel! Or, in Mandarin: 生日快樂!

It's a good day: I don't have any classes today, Joel only had 1 class in the morning, and the week is almost winding down. This week has been quite the hectic week for us; we had extra classes to teach (the Freshman English teacher hadn't arrived yet), we had to teach last Saturday to make up for the day we had off due to the typhoon, and we have to teach this weekend as well to make up for having next week off (for the National Day Holiday).

Since we last wrote, we've had some fun school-related experiences.

Last Friday, we got a call from the higher powers asking us to judge a speech contest that evening. This happened to be the first round of a national speech contest (kind of like the Spelling Bee in the US). Our roles were to be the bona-fide native English speakers, and ask a question at the end of each student's speech that they had to answer on the spot. The theme that every student had to talk about was "Global Citizenship Begins at Home," which means that almost every speech was almost the same. (However, the winner of the contest had by far the most unique and entertaining speech of the bunch.) Despite the mundane repetitiveness of most of the speeches, we had fun coming up with questions on the spot to ask the students.

Last night we went to a party for new English majors at the college. Joel was asked to play a song for the event, and he willingly agreed, deciding that I should also perform with him. The party turned out to be a really big deal, with a variety of entertainment acts including the following:
Chinese rock band consisting of Yuan Pei College graduates playing something akin to heavy metal
Traditional dance from Yunnan province
Fashion show
Cross talk performance (kind of like stand up comedy but focused more on puns within the Chinese language... we didn't understand it but everybody else was laughing)
Modern dance
Shaoxing Opera (similar to Peking Opera)
and our personal favorite: hairstyle contest (three girls came out on stage and had their hair drastically redone by hairstylists in a space of about 10 minutes)
Our acoustic performance seemed quite humble in comparison to the hip, polished performances we saw... but I think it still went over well with the audience.

Overall we had a good time, and it was fun to see our students (usually reticent in class) performing onstage in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Rain Day

2007-09-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

Today (Wednesday) is the first time I've ever had school off for RAIN. It's a strange feeling. Yesterday we bicycled to campus in a miserable downpour, not noticing that the last residents left their rain ponchos until we were back at home, soaking wet. And let me tell you: riding a bicycle while holding an umbrella is way harder than it looks. Ah well!

The rain is due to Typhoon Wipha, one of the biggest storms to hit southeast China in a decade. Shanghai and some of the coastal cities of Zhejiang province caught (or will catch) the brunt of it; Shaoxing is far enough inland that we just got a lot of rain -- which has actually cleared up now.

Here is a picture of the bike that I bought (the one I was supposed to be provided with was stolen before we got here).

Besides the rain, we've been getting a little bit more into the routine of things. Last Friday, we celebrated the end of our first week of school by purchasing a bottle of Great Wall Cabernet from the local grocery store. It wasn't very good, but it wasn't horrible, either. We didn't finish the bottle. Chinese wine has a long way to go, I think.

some "Great Wall" wine... a nice label, at least!

Outside of school, we've been attending something called "English Salon" every Friday night (Joel mentioned this in our last post). Shaoxingese come to Cafe Dio (a coffee shop) to improve their English speaking skills. When I say coffee shop, I don't actually mean like a local living-room-feel Starbucks. The coffee establishments here are more like swanky hotel restaurants, with marble floors, elegant lighting, linens on tables, and a live piano player playing background music on a lacquered black grand piano. The English Salon crowd (numbering about 50 each week) has its own private back meeting room . What's funny is that hardly anyone orders anything to eat or drink - water and green tea is free! So I guess the status of having English speakers is worth it for the Cafe.

Here are some other pictures of Shaoxing that I hope you'll enjoy. So. ENJOY!

A McDonald's near the grocery store where we shop. We like to call this fella the "McDoctopus"

Near the city center. The large mound of trees in the center is Fushan Park, which has a tower at the top. Fushan Park was once where the local officials and the Yue Kingdom's center ruled (around 600 BC)

Here are a few pictures of the campus where we work. It's a separate campus - about a 15 minute bike ride from our apartment (located on the main campus). Yuan Pei College actually consists of 7 buildings, 3 of which are brand new this year. There is a really nice garden/lake area right next to campus, where students can hang out and fish if the weather is right.

The lake/pond next to Yuan Pei. In the background are Buildings 1 & 2. The school is set up more like a high school campus than a college campus, as bells ring for the start and end of every period.
Here's the wooden walkway that connects the campus to the dorms on the other side of the garden/park. Although the water is pretty murky, you can see small schools of fish swimming near the surface.

First Week of School!

2007-09-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

Well, our first week as real live teachers has come to an end, and none too soon, for some of us.

You might expect that when two monolingual, English-only speakers such as ourselves come to live and work in a country like China, most of whose 1 billion or so residents don't speak a whole lotta English, that there'd be a miscommunication from time to time. You'd be right about that.

On the other hand, you might expect that regardless of which country we're in and who speaks what language, everybody would make sure that we knew when to show up for our first day of work. That, dear reader, I'm afraid you'd be wrong about.

At about 8:00 pm last Sunday, I answered the phone. It was the secretary of the foreign language department at our college, the one who helped us get these teaching jobs and get set up here in Shaoxing.

“I'm calling to make sure you know that you will start teaching tomorrow,” she said.

“Right,” I said. “I know that tomorrow is my first day, but Sarah doesn't start until next week.” This was a piece of information she'd emailed to us roughly a month ago: I would teach sophomores, and Sarah would teach freshmen, who start school a week later.

“No,” she said. “Sarah also will start tomorrow.”

“Uh,” I said. Sarah wasn't exactly prepared in any sense: she hadn't planned any lessons and was looking forward to a week of getting ready for classes and maybe hearing what I had to say about the teaching I'd be doing.

“Uh,” I repeated. “No one ever told us this.”

“I think I told you,” she said.

“Uh,” I said. “OK.”

So with a little over eleven hours remaining, we discovered that Sarah would – surprise! -- teach her first ESL class ever. Luckily, I already had something planned, so she “borrowed” my lesson (ironic, since we've both been explaining that plagiarism is a big no-no) and managed, if I may say so, to pull off an admirable week of classes.

Since I was actually aware that I was supposed to start teaching, I think my week went a little more smoothly. I really like teaching, and I'm glad that I've had so much preparation from my MA studies at Humboldt. I have a mind-boggling 400 students; I've met 310 of them so far. And by “met,” I mean stared blankly into 310 faces of students whose chosen English names are “Jo,” “Joyce,” “Jody” and “Jo-Jo,” and wondered if it would even be neurologically possible to remember 25% of them. I tried a getting-to-know-you exercise I learned from one of my profs at HSU, which involves a circle of students each introducing everyone in the circle before them, but I had to stop because I realized it would take about three hours.

Some other bits of information:

The overwhelming majority of our students are female. I think the highest number of boys we had in any class of 45 was around six. It reminds me of good ol' SPU in some ways...

Our college, which is an independent institution under the auspices of the larger and slightly more prestigious Shaoxing University, is a school that admits students who perform relatively poorly on China's version of the SAT. Most schools won't take students whose score is below a certain level, but Yuan Pei sure will, the only catch being that their parents have to fork over about three times the tuition they'd pay at another university. This doesn't mean our students are bad, or even, as one of our Chinese colleagues warned us, “not very diligent.” As far as I can tell, it's not a school full of misfits or delinquents; it's just a place for people who are bad test-takers.

Other than teaching and lesson planning, we've still been timidly venturing out into Shaoxing for meals and other supplies. Stumbling into any given hole-in-the-wall (a phrase that is much more literal here than in the US) usually yields delicious and cheap food, so we've tried a handful of little restaurants nearby. I think our favorite so far was a noodle restaurant around the corner, where a guy actually makes the noodles from scratch right there on the street. I don't think I've ever tasted fresher – or better – noodles. And it doesn't hurt that two heaping plates and a 600 ml bottle of beer costs the equivalent of $2.

Another interesting thing we've done for the last two weeks is to attend Shaoxing's “English Salon,” which is an informal gathering of people in Shaoxing who speak English every Friday night. I assumed we'd meet a lot of fellow foreigners there, but actually each week we've only seen one or two. Most of the people who attend are in the textile industry and need to speak English in order to do business with foreign companies, but some are teachers and some are students. One nice guy I've talked with a few times is a manager at an engineering firm that tests all kinds of products, including Shaoxing's famous rice wine (more on this later, I think). I've really enjoyed going there and I hope we'll continue going.

We have to spend a lot of time explaining to everyone we meet that Sarah doesn't speak much Chinese, that her parents didn't live in China, but she's ethnically Chinese, etc... It seems to be getting through to some people, but mostly the information is met with incredulous stares.

There's a bit of news for now; we don't have anything major planned for the next little while, other than trying to get into the routine of school. We hope everyone back in the USA (or “Expensive-Land”) is well, and we look forward to hearing from you sometime!

Getting ready and adjusting

2007-09-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

It's been almost 2 weeks since we stepped foot in China and we're just beginning to feel comfortable, partly due to our friends Heather & Jim coming to stay with us for three days and showing us around our own town. Heather and Jim taught English in China for a year in 2004, and they decided to take a month long tour this summer to visit and revisit people and places. We thoroughly appreciated their stopping in our city - not only was it delightful to see real live friends, Jim's language skills are vastly superior to our one and two word utterances, and we were able to go out with a much greater degree of confidence than before.

We spent lots of time being real tourists, visiting the sites of Shaoxing, including beautiful Fushan park in the center of the city, which was at one point the palace and government buildings of the Yue kingdom (as far as we could tell). Heather & Jim seemed to have brought the rain, which was a welcome respite from the almost unbearable sauna-like conditions of the past few days. You can see our photos on Flickr (I would post here but our internet is kind of slow and it would take forever to upload).

The next day we decided to visit the largest marketplace of textiles in the world, Textile City located about a 15 minute bus ride away in the smaller city of Keqiao (pronounced "kuh-cheeow"). Unfortunately it rained all day, but luckily we Heather & I had purchased some really cute umbrellas (red with white polka dots and frilly trim) the day before. Imagine a large mall where each vendor sells nothing but fabrics and you're in Textile City. I had some vague hopes of finding some fabric that I would immediately fall in love with and purchase for cheap, but the market was so overwhelming that we just ended up wandering with dazed expressions on our faces.

The REAL reason we went to Keqiao, however, was that we had heard of a large Indian population there - ergo, some good Indian restaurants were to be found. We did find one - after three attempts in cabs taking us just a couple of blocks away - and took cover from pouring rain. Kashish turned out to be a delicious (if not expensive by Chinese standards) restaurant and the waiters spoke English - something of a novelty to us here! We had a great meal including hot flaky pakoras, chicken tikka, aloo gobi, a sweet curry which included persimmon, and three kinds of naan - paneer, garlic and spinach. It was well worth the trip out there, and satiated, we made our way back to Shaoxing.

Now we're getting ready for classes. Joel starts on the 10th of September and I will start on the 17th of September. Joel will be teaching Sophomore Oral English and Writing for English Majors, and I will be teaching Freshman Oral English and the History of Western Cultures.

Besides that we've just been adjusting to everyday life. One of the things I've enjoyed discovering is the good cheap "homestyle" restaurants; each night we try out another hole-in-the-wall dive and test out some bad Chinese on the waitstaff. So far, we've basically gotten what we ordered. Usually our dinner - two dishes and some white or fried rice - will cost under 20 Yuan (that's about $3). Oh, and we've been watching season 3 of Lost - thanks, Heather & Jim, as well as DVD pirates!

The Grand Tour

2007-08-30T01:46:00.000-07:00

We've spent a good deal of time in our apartment since we got here, cleaning, arranging furniture, getting to know in great detail about Chinese vs. North American voltage, figuring out how to do laundry and light the gas burners, and settling ourselves in general.
So here we proudly present our new digs in Shaoxing, China!

We're in Shaoxing!

2007-08-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

posted by Sarah

So, after 22 hours of travel through numerous airports we have finally arrived in Shaoxing, China to our new apartment and new lives.

Here are some first impressions of China that have struck us:

It is like a sauna anywhere outside. Walk outside and you're immediately drenched in sweat.
There are no old cars in China.
Wealth and poverty coexist in a more striking paradigm.
The traffic laws on the road are more like guidelines.
The dress code in China is exactly like the dress code in any Western city.
The sun sets really early (like around 6 pm).
Did I mention it's REALLY hot?

To be honest, though, I'd have to say that I haven't really experienced much culture shock - in fact, I think I had a worse culture shock experience moving to Humboldt County than moving here. Of course, we've only been here for 5 days.