lao gong

so, yesterday I also spent all day laying very still on my back sipping Fanta, but this was no food poisoning or stomach flu. No, this was the classic hangover. On Wednesday night, I accepted an invitation to go out to dinner with a wealthy Chinese business man and his colleagues. The meal was in an extremely fancy seafood restaurant (which occupied an entire building). We had a private room with about 15 people in attendance total. Most were either wealthy business men or Communist party leaders. Like any fancy dinner, the host has two goals: 1) impress the guests by enormous quantities of fancy food, and 2) try to drink everyone under the table. According to Chinese custom, it is rude to not drink as much as one's host, or to refuse a toast. The word for "cheers" in Chinese is "gan bei" which means "bottoms up," or literally, "dry the glass," so there's not really much room for sipping. The meal was very interesting, mainly because the star feature of the meal was sea cucumber, which is an extremely expensive delicacy (you can buy gift boxes in the supermarket for about 100 American dollars). Although it looked like a large slug, it actually turned out to be surprisingly tasty, if a bit gelatinous. The meal was paid for by one of the Communist party leaders named Gong, who is known as "lao gong" could mean old Gong, but in this case is a colloquial term for husband. So after about 3 hours, 10 (increasingly full) glasses of expensive white wine, and several peking ducks and sea cucumbers later, we all got up to sing karaoke. We got into a car (the driver seemed to be slightly more sober, or at least I hope) and drove to an extremely fancy karaoke den. In China, karaoke is THE nightime entertainment, and it involves renting a room with a large tv and sound system, and then ordering an array of snacks and drinks. When I go with my friends, the snacks consist of sunflower seeds and the drinks are Qingdao beers and waters. This time, the snacks included carved pineapple sculptures and the drink was Chivas whiskey mixed with sprite and tonic water. You can either take turns or all sing communally, and usually there's a bit of both. Of course, as a foreigner who can sing some Chinese songs, it meant I was center stage for quite a while. As the night went on though, we all became exceedingly drunk, as the nonstop toasting didn't stop. At one point, I remember singing (or by that point I should say drunkenly crooning into the microphone) "The East is Red" with the communist party official. Oh well, at least when I'm really drunk and making a fool of myself, I am still culturally appropriate.



I have one other unrelated funny story about lao gong. I had my class of 5 year olds today, and we were reviewing family members. I asked them what family members they had, and amidst all the shouts of "grandmother!" "father!" etc., one boy said "I have a lao gong!" (which again means husband). My TA and I did a double take, and I asked my student, "who is your lao gong." He said, "my dad is." After that my TA explained that lao gong definitely did NOT mean father.

sheng dan jie kuaile

"Did it hurt when they nailed Jesus to the cross?"
That was a question I never expected to have to answer, especially not to a 10 year old in China. I suppose I kind of brought this onto myself by trying to give the students a little bit of an idea about what Christmas was about, beyond Santa Claus, christmas trees and presents. I tried to explain that Christians believe that Jesus was the son of a woman named Mary and God. I tried to balance a line between accuracy to the Christmas story without seeming like a creepy missionary, more portraying my story as a "some people believe this..." sort of tale. One of my TAs, who is actually herself Catholic, tried to help out by mentioning that Jesus was the man who was crucified. That perked up the kids interest much more than mention of a pregnant woman and an angel, and soon the questions began. (If you were curious, after some stammering I said that it probably did, and then hurried away). Unlike Dan's students, a fair number of my students did have some idea that Christmas was connected to a man named Jesus, though none of them really knew who he was. When I asked some students who Jesus's father was, one student piped up, "Santa Claus!"
Many students thought that Christmas was somehow connected with the new year. In an attempt to be more ecumenical, I tried to explain about Hanukkah, only to encounter boredom and confusion. In my class of young teenagers, one kid asked what the story behind Hanukkah was. I started off, "a long time ago, there were people who wanted to get rid of all the Jews.." the same kid immediately jumped up and said, "teacher, I know!! I know who they were, it was the Germans!!!" I said no, this was even before them. Ultimately though, they were kind of nonplussed with the miracle of oil burning for 8 days.
In my class of 15 year olds, I branched out even more and tried to tell them about Kwanzaa. I said, "it's a holiday black people in America celebrate to celebrate African culture." The kids however, were much more interesting in talking about black people, which led to some pretty awkward moments. (Ideas of political correctness and racial appropriateness are very different in China.) One boy asked me, "how are black people different from red people?" I asked for some clarification, and he seemed confused. Finally he said, you know, in their hobbies and interests and stuff. Another student asked me if black people were better in sports, and another asked if black people were uneducated. I do have a student in that class who lived in America for 4 years, and she looked about as embarrassed as me.
Well, I must go now, but I'll try to update soon.

toothpaste

Dan and I went to buy more toothpaste from a large, international chain supermarket. Dan's favorite toothpaste is Colgate total, so we bought two boxes with tubes of the toothpaste. That evening, we opened up one of the boxes and pulled out a tube of toothpaste, not colgate, but Crest. And not only was it Crest toothpaste in a Colgate box, but it was a mossy greenish color. I looked at the tube and in Chinese, it said it was what I think is "herb flavor" tooth paste. It has a sweet and grassy flavor, which isn't necessarily unpleasant, but I think I would prefer a more minty flavor. To double check, we opened up the second box, and it did indeed contain Colgate total toothpaste. I wonder. Does this prove that all toothpaste is secretly made in the same place owned by some shadowy international toothpaste conglomorate? Now I'm guessing that just might be the case.

layers

Qingdao, as I have previously mentioned, is a very cold city, and people seem to dress accordingly. Some people however, seem to go a little overboard, or at least when it comes to their children. While all my children show up looking a little like sausages, when it comes to my 5 year olds, the layering becomes ridiculous. Half-way through class last week, I saw one little boy sitting there with sweat dripping down his face. Even though it was about 75 degrees in the room, he was still wearing his jacket. I made him take it off. Underneath, he was wearing a sweater. I asked him if he was still hot, and he said yes, so I made him take off the sweater, underneath which was--yet another sweater. Underneath that was a padded shirt, and underneath that was another long sleeved shirt. I spied yet another layer under that shirt too. I looked around the room and noticed that about half the children were still in their (down) coats as well, not to mention their padded shirts and jackets and vests and sweaters. I made every one in the room take off at least one layer, if not two (or in some cases, three). We had to put them in the back of the room in a pile, and the pile covered about two rows of desks. Yet about 20 minutes later, some of the children had put most of their layers back on, even though the class room was really warm. Not only do children wear this many layers on top, but they also all wear two or three layers on the bottom as well. Under pants, many children wear padded long underwear or two sets of regular long underwear. I could maybe understand all of that outside, but inside I don't understand why they don't feel ridiculously hot.

Yesterday was a very busy day for us. First, we got a new sofa out of the blue from the school. Until yesterday, our living room furniture consisted of this oversized wooden bench-like thing with arms and two wooden "arm-chairs" besides being as soft and comfy as a park bench, the slats in the seat were a little warped, making it almost impossible to sit on certain parts of the couch. We had complained earlier, and received what were basically plush bathmats to place on the sofa and chairs. It was a surprisingly big improvement, but only because the starting base for comfort was so low. On sunday however, our boss told us to be home around 10 am because we were getting a new sofa delivered. The next day, some workman and the school owner showed up with the mother of all sofas. It's one of those sofas that wraps around the wall. It came in three parts and was basically was so big that it overlapped with our air-conditioning/heating unit by about 2 inches. (Quick aside. In China, air-conditioning heating units are called "kong tiao," which I just thought meant air-conditioner. This has led to some confusement on my part when people say to me, "oh, don't worry, it's quite warm, it does have air-conditioning after all.") They had to bring in an air-conditioner repairman to have the air conditioner moved over about half a foot. Though back to the sofa: it's a modernist sofa in cream and orange, with a variety of different size, shapes, and patterns of pillows, all variations on cream and orange. The seat of the sofa is orange, the back and sides are white. Maybe soon we will put a picture of it up on the internet. Like pretty much everything in China, it's extra firm, but it is quite comfortable none the less. Also, the back of the sofa has in certain places, orange head rests like those in cars and airplanes.
The other news is that our two roommates moved out after what has basically been a three month process. Our school has two apartments, one which is a 10-15 minute walk from the school, and ours, which is behind Qingdao university a total 25-30 minute walk/bus ride to the school. We are also on the side of a mountain, which makes for very nice views, but we are not all that close to many restaurants or stores. The biggest problem is not that we are objectively that far away, but that it's a 10-15 minute walk to the bus from our house, and it is all uphill on the way home. In return for having a somewhat inconvenient location, we get a washing machine, microwave, toaster, free internet access in the home, rides home at night, and apparently, a very nice new sofa. However, whether these are viewed as outweighing some of the inconveniences is somewhat of an individual thing (and one that I tend to vacillate on myself). Anyways, I'm not going to go into the whole drama, which does involve much more than the housing, but basically our roommates negotiated getting a new apartment in the other complex, and in return, Dan and I will, for the rest of our stay, have a 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment to ourselves (and of course, a new sofa, which the more cynical might view as a ploy to stop Dan and me from also requesting to move). Unfortunately, it appears that their apartment is a little too new, as it is still under construction. And apparently, besides beds, there is no furniture, the heat doesn't work yet, workmen are there all day long, it smells like strong paint fumes, and the kitchen isn't finished. Our apartment is now quite spacious, what with the new furniture arrangement and no roommates. While in many ways our roommates were good company, in some ways this move could not come sooner because we no longer had any space in our room to put our stuff and had to put it in piles around the room(surprise surprise). Dan says however, that more space does not give me the right to acquire enough stuff to fill it, so I will work on that. (Though I have to say, it is not completely my fault, for example, a student of mine (adult, of course) gave me 4 sweaters from her factory).

So, I too have not fallen off the face of the planet, instead I have just been faced with a combination of computer malfunction and a lethargy that prohibits me from going to an internet cafe. And also, in the past week or so the temperature in Qingdao dropped about 20 degrees, so now it's inbetween the mid-twenties and high-thirties everyday with a fierce icy wind. Going outside is now incredibly unpleasant and I am avoiding it as much as possible. On the plus side, it is basically sunny everday, although we have had a little bit of snow, though none of it stuck.
Besides the change in weather, the other major development here is that practically every store is now decked out for Christmas, with artificial trees, tinsel, giant cardboard santa heads tacked to the windows, loudspeakers playing christmas music, etc. I think I have now heard "Santa Claus is coming to town" played in front of Popeyes every time I come into work. The ironic thing, of course, is that for all this Christmas cheer, I will actually be working six hours on christmas starting at 8:30 am and finishing at 7:30 pm (with a break in between, of course), as well as seven hours on christmas eve until 8 pm. If no one really celebrates Christmas, I kind of want to know what the point is of all the lavish Christmas decorations, though probably any occasion for people to spend more money is a good enough reason for stores to get excited. And to be honest, many places have Christmas decorations up year round, particularly cheap restaurants. Our school too, has santas on all the doors and christmas lights in the lobby year round. We went with the school to buy more christmas decorations, but as the school pointed out, we really didn't need all that much more.
Other than that, nothing terribly exciting has happened. I am sick again, though not as bad this time, and the only thing that seems to settle my stomach is Fanta and potato chips, so I am sitting at the computer guzzling my second can of Fanta. As my friend pointed out, both of them have a very high sodium content, and it could be my body's way of replacing the salt I am losing. I do find it strange that Gatorade, which is specifically designed as a rehydration drink, would still make me nauseous. Maybe if this keeps up I can get endorsements from Lays and Fanta.