Tissue? I Hardly Even Know You

I've been running through my tissues -- due to my cold, of course, So, when I went to the store yesterday to stock up on fruit and soda, I picked up a new box.

Except tissues don't come in boxes in China, they come in plastic bags. Think a really big package of pocket tissues.

Neither, incidentally, do they come with lotion or soft fibers, I might add. I found a package of "premium" tissues a couple of months ago. And they're premium if by premium you mean about as soft as standard issue at a public high school in the U.S., but not as large. 

So, I have to find the tissues in the store. I find the paper products section and start looking for plastic bags filled with soft, squishy stuff. (Remember, I can't read in this country.) I found an end cap with plastic bags on it. Hey, these look good. They're even in a pretty pink shade.

I turn the package over, look at it, squish it. Notice the picture on the back... wait a minute! These aren't tissues, they're pads. Now, a package of pads wouldn't have been the end of the world, but they really wouldn't have helped much with my runny nose.

I found a package of tissues one end cap over. They're softer than my "premium" tissues, but they still ain't no Puffs.

The East German Judge

The school held a speech competition. As English teachers, we were asked to write speech topics, but other than that, we were largely out of the loop. A couple of students came to ask me for some help, but mostly, I didn't know who was participating.

The English teachers had all been invited to be judges. Of course, by "invited" I mean "expected". Although I was coming down with a nasty cold, I knew there was no way I was getting out of this. Misery or no misery, I was in for the long haul.

Earlier in the day, a student came by to ask if I would give the oath for the judges. Yes, an oath. (On my honor, I swear to do my duty, to God and my country... wait, that's the Boy Scout code.) The students took the Olympic oath for competitors and judges and modified it slightly. (Everyone is all a little Olympics crazy around here, still.)

We were assigned seats in the front row of a lecture hall. The three English teachers (two A-Level and the one AP from downstairs) are all sitting in a row. Already the Eastern Bloc was in.

We were given score sheets, but no scoring instructions. We told to judge the speakers on content (out of 4), language (out of 3), and manner (out of 3) for a total of 10. We were told that one decimal place was OK, but 2 places was right. out. That's all.

I'm used to rubrics. In my previous school, we had a lot of presentations and I did a lot of judging. (SASE in the house!) In that system, a 3 was perfect (or nearly so), a 2 was passing, and 1 was failing. So, I fell into the same system. Since we were allowed decimals, I decided to hand out .5s as well. But I wasn't going to get into .3s or .8s. I'm an English teacher, not a math teacher. (Please ignore my life-long math abilities. I am actually horrible at arithmetic -- and spelling -- but you knew that already.)

The first nine candidates speak and we all judge. La-di-dah. I had hot water in my travel mug (I finally got one at Starbuck's on my Monday shopping spree -- it's the only place you can find a flip-top mug in this town). My sinuses were aching, but I was playing a trooper. There is an "intermission" and the Canadian was roped into MCing it. There are some silly riddles (what has 8 arms, 4 legs, and 9 eyes? a monster) and some brain teasers (how do you make 1000 out of 8 eights?). Then, they reveal the scores for the first round. Oh, cool.

But wait... they don't just reveal the scores. Oh no. They have a picture of each judge and the SCORE WE GAVE TO EACH SPEAKER! Holy shit, Batman. It's one thing to give a student feedback in person and explain your reasoning in a conference, it's another to reveal the scores in cold blood in front of a live studio audience. Oy.

And there it was, on the big screen, all the English teachers gave the lowest scores. It was a bit humiliating. We were handing out 6, 7, 7.5 and the other judges (administrators, mostly) were handing out 8.9, 9.2, 9.5. My Partner-in-Crime was the East German judge for most of the first round. The three of us took turns during the second round, and then there was the 3rd round.

By then, the other two English teachers were tired of being the bad guys and I started feeling worse. A lot worse. The entire inside of my sinuses were on fire. I was trying to squelch coughs. I had run out of hot water, and when I sent a student out for more, they came back with cold! (All the buildings have hot water spigots in them.) 

I swear, I did my best to hand out the same scores for all students. However, without training or a list of what specific behaviors warrant which scores, it's really tough to do. Maybe I got a little tougher. I felt bad for a couple of students, but I wasn't going to lighten up just because I was being embarrassed on the big screen. What's a little embarrassment? I can always explain to my students in person what I saw as their strengths and weaknesses. Every contest needs an East German judge. They wanted the Olympics? I gave them the Olympics.

At the end, there were awards. In true Chinese style, all the students won an award. There was a group of third place students, and the four teachers (three English and one of the conversational English teachers) were asked to hand out the prizes. (We were definitely the 3rd place judges.) Then, there were the second round speakers and the second round judges (the Centre and Center principals). And then the winner (who, although I was the lowest score and so had my score thrown out, was the speaker I gave my highest score to) and the first place judge, the Asst. Principal for the whole school. 

The one real benefit is that Mission Germ Warfare was successful. The A-Level teachers have an unofficial war with the AP teachers. We're on different floors. We want to have the smartest students. They're American, we're British... er, except for the Token American and Canadian, of course. You know, the usual stuff. Well, I've infiltrated them (played on their American sympathies) and made them think I'm their friend. And then... sat next to one of them for two hours -- with a raging cold. They should all be sick within the week. 

I'll be a star at the A-Level Centre.

Jimminy Cricket

The school occasionally gets free and/or discounted tickets to various cultural events about town. This time, there were tickets to the symphony. I like the symphony. I'm not as fond of choirs or the opera, but I do like some orchestral music.

Except, if I'm going to the symphony, I'm going to have to look nice. Part of the reason why I went on my Monday night shopping spree was so that I wouldn't have to wear my dirty puffy jacket to the symphony on Tuesday. I mean, call me old fashioned, but when one has tickets to the symphony at the Forbidden City, one gets a little dressed up.

So, get dressed up I did. I have one black dress. With black tights and my black boots. My new black jacket with the fur collar and my stylish black fedora. A (hand-made) scarf in muted blue and purple completed the ensemble. I looked good.

The Boys and I (who were complimentary of my outfit) headed off the 6:30 subway. As I promised them, we all got seats. A short trip to Tiananmen and a walk through a dark garden and we were there. I must say, though, it wasn't totally clear where we were supposed to go. There was no path of lights leading through the park. However, it wasn't so tough that a girl in heels and some slightly inebriated boys couldn't find the way. (The Boys thought some beer would help their enjoyment of the music. I thought it would just make me do the pee-pee dance.) 

The concert was pretty good. It was sort of a best-of line-up of Western symphony tunes. While I don't have all the names memorized, I'd certainly heard many of them before. It brought me back to my days as score reader for the symphony. You see, when you televise something like the symphony, the director needs to know where the symphony is in the music. It was my job to follow along with the score. It involved a whole lot of counting. I admit that to this day, when I sit in the symphony, I start counting. 

Well, counting and chanting a little ditty: Jimminy Cricket, Raggedy Anne, will-o-the-wisp, Yosemite Sam. Up in the air, through space and through time, a new place in history, not yours and not mine!

We also televised the Young People's Concert (where I learned that the oboe tunes the orchestra). And the reason why Peter and the Wolf is so popular is because it's so good. The one we did was about time travel to different composers. That chant was the "magic phrase" that started the time travel. It got old. Really old. And when we televised the opening night of the symphony that year, they played a song featured in the YPC. Every time we heard that song, I started chanting. The crew hated it (it was really annoying), but the director kept on laughing. (I would have stopped if he hadn't laughed so much.) 

So there I was, dressed to the nines, counting to 4 (or 3) and reciting a "magic phrase". At least I didn't burst out in laughter. (The Boys are excellent at getting me to laugh, loudly, at inappropriate moments. (OK. So everyone can do that to me. Fine.) My English Partner-in-Crime attempted with a couple of Chinese titles for the pieces -- Mao Crossing the Yangtze and Being Welcomed by the Grateful People of Hubei or Chairman Mao and the Revolutionary Forces Expel the Imperialist Americans from China.) 

The one problem was the conductor: he stopped and gave a 15 minute speech before each piece -- in Chinese, of course. What he needed was a little less talk and a lot more rock.

Of course, I was the best dressed person there. Every day, on every street, I am under-dressed. I wear comfortable shoes, cotton pants, and a down jacket. I wear a hand-knit cap most days. Women wear high-heeled boots, pretty dresses, and cashmere coats to go to the store, ride their bikes, or walk their child home from school. But to the symphony? They haul out their quilted jackets and sensible shoes.

Extensions

I've been eating lunch with some of my students lately. A couple of them have come up and asked me to eat with them. I can't say no to that! They invariably ask me if I can use chopsticks. Of course, I can. I've been using chopsticks for as long as I've been eating at the Happy Dragon. That's been since sometime in the 80s. I'm no expert, but I'm no slouch, either.

In America we might use chopsticks, but we don't use them in the same way the Chinese do. In America, they are just a replacement for a fork, not a replacement for a knife and fork. We cut up the food into bite-sized pieces before cooking and then pick up each piece at the table.

In China, the food is not cut up that much. You get giant sprigs of broccoli or cabbage, whole chicken legs, fish with the bones still in it. Using chopsticks to manipulate the food into -- and often back out of -- your mouth is definitely a skill I'm still learning.

I was making chicken soup this evening (I have finally fallen victim to the cold that's been going around school). I've been practicing using long-handled chopsticks instead of tongs in my cooking. I'm doing this partly because I want to get better at using them, partly because chopsticks are bamboo and my pans are nonstick, and partly because it just looks cool. I chopsticked the chicken legs out of my rice cooker (which doubles as my soup pot until I finally get a good-sized stock pot) and took them into the living room to pick the meat off the bones.

If you've ever made chicken soup, you know the worst part is picking the chicken off the bone. If you wait until the chicken cools, it's really nasty and fatty and slimy. If you don't wait, the chicken is scorching hot and burns your fingertips. Well, I had the chopsticks there and... wait a minute. This was pretty easy.

Chopsticks are neither a replacement for forks or for knives and forks -- they are finger extensions! It all makes sense now. Eating in China is a lot like eating with your fingers, except you aren't using your fingers. But you still nibble meat off the bone, pick things out of your teeth, and use your incisors to bite your vegetables (which sucks for those of us whose previously working bite no longer works because our fake teeth are no longer in exactly the same position our real teeth were in). 

When I first started using trekking poles while hiking, it was very awkward. I didn't really trust the to hold me; I didn't know how to hold them. But now, I feel naked when hiking without them. I rely on them for balance while walking up and down steep slopes. They turn me into a four-legged animal.

While chopsticks won't give me two extra fingers, in fact, they take away three fingers, they do extend my reach and keep my fingers from being burned -- or getting all dirty. I still have quite a ways to go before I am a chopstick expert: I have a lot of finger dexterity and hand strength to work on. But I feel like I'm now approaching it from the right perspective.

Without Counting the Change

My favorite poem is one by Denise Levertov called, "A Woman Alone." I read it in my sophomore English class as part of a unit on female confessional poets. We read Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Levertov. My professor (Beth -- yes, I'm talking about Raper) suggested this poem was the reason that Denise didn't commit suicide. Well, not the poem itself, but the truth she expressed in it. As the name suggests, the poem is about the joy and comfort the woman finds in all the things she can do -- does do -- because she is single. One of those things is spending her time "without counting the change."

Now, I know that Levertov wasn't talking about literal change. But I went shopping on Monday night, and I realized I was spending my time without counting change. It's a nice feeling.

It was something of a shopping spree, I'll admit. I went out after work (6:30 is the magic hour if you want a seat on the subway) and headed across town. I hit up the Foreign Language Bookstore for some travel guides -- and where I found the new David Sedaris. Talk about a find! 

Then, I was off to the Gap. You've been hearing me go on about the Gap, and the lack thereof, for months now. Some of you hate the Gap and the American consumerism it represents. That's fine. But whatever model they use to make their pants has the same hips and waist that I do. Well -- not their skinny pants -- no model who wears cigarette pants looks like me. But the ones wearing boy cut, metro trousers, or flared jeans do. And I say God Bless the Gap for making pants the more Rubenesque among us can wear! Curvy girls need pants, too! (Hell, we need them more than the twigs do -- they can get away with wearing anything.) Well, the Gap in Beijing stocks way too many skinny jeans, but they do sell boy cut corduroy pants. Were the pants expensive? A bit. But not more than I'd pay in the U.S., and I didn't stop to consider just how expensive they were. 

Next up was a nice winter coat. There are all sorts of pretty cashmere, wool, or wool-substitute coats in fun reds and plaids all over the city. I started trying them on and immediately became my own parody of "Fat Girl in a Little Coat." Even the extra-larges were too small for my monster shoulders and arms. One nice clerk suggested I get a down jacket -- but I already have a Puffy, My Darling. I don't need another one. And then I saw a hat.

A beautiful hat. Let me back up. While in Vancouver one New Years, I found an awesome black fuzzy cloche. After five years of not wearing it, I just couldn't justify the cloche as part of my 100 pound baggage limit. Then winter in Beijing arrived, and I saw that not only did people wear hats, they wore fun, cool, and interesting hats. I've been searching for a replacement ever since. 

This hat is black and fuzzy, and while not a cloche, it is a fedora which is equally cool. I put it on and there it was. A perfect fit. Many (most?) hats look funny, but when they look good, they look good. And this one? Looks. Good.

In a previous life, I would have hemmed and hawed over the purchase. I would have checked the tag, set it down, and walked away. I would have wandered around the mall and looked for a coat. I would have gone back to the store and looked at it again. I would have weighed the cost of the hat against my need for the hat and the pleasure the hat would bring me. I'd compare the cost of the hat with the number of happy hour beers the same amount of money would purchase me.

I would, in a phrase, count the change.

Instead, I glanced at the price. Saw that it was more than I spend on wool for a hat, but not ridiculously so. And I bought it.

Heading back to the subway, I stopped in another store that appeared to specialize in coats. I tried on every coat in the store. As a last resort, I tried on a man's coat, and while the shoulders fit wonderfully, the hips were too small for me to button. I did fine one woman's coat that worked. It has slightly puffy sleeves, so it gives my arms and shoulders a little room. It's pulls ever so slightly around the chest, but I can button it. It, too, was too expensive. And I'll probably eventually search out a nice cashmere fabric and pay someone to make me one that really fits. For now, however, I can wash my puffy and/or dress up a bit. 

After this mini-spree, I went to the bank today. I withdrew a sizable hunk of cash, saw I still had a sizable hunk in the account, and transferred said hunk back to my U.S. account. That was an even better feeling than the shopping.

Well -- maybe not better than finding the hat. I do love hats.

An Offer You Can't Refuse

Today, I got roped into organizing the Centre's performance for the Christmas party. Roped isn't really the right answer, though, because I never really had a choice. Roped implies some hemming or hawing or convincing.

Turns out, I'm working for the Godfather. The Godfather has done me a favor -- given me a job; provided me with free toilet paper and laundry detergent; handed out fruit, and pants, and flowers; and recently delivered a 500 gig external hard drive to each teacher. So when they come asking for a favor, there's no saying no.

Wish me luck with Christmas. I think maybe we'll do the Grinch -- in some form or another.

Thanksgiving Impossible

The situation: Beijing, China. Thanksgiving. I have access to an oven a block away. It's a real oven, but small. One glorified toaster oven in my kitchen. Three mixing bowls, one of them metal (but flat-bottomed, but sloped-sided). Two medium-sized pots, one large frying pan. Two pie plates, one tart pan, and a large, round, casserole dish that looks a lot like a pie plate, but isn't. Four sets of silverware. 

The only piece of equipment that is worthwhile is a set of knives. Good knives.

The mission: Cook a real Thanksgiving dinner for 15 people. 

I started Friday night. The turkey was procured and transported from the other side of the city by the Canadian. I met him coming in when I was going to school. It was in a blue plastic Ikea bag. We both stopped and peered in in awe. We poked it. We looked. All the Chinese walking by on the sidewalk were incredibly curious. What on earth were those two whitefolks looking at that was so interesting?!?!

The Physicist was doing the roasting. Although he had long ago offered up his oven (which he had never turned on), he stepped up to the plate and said he'd do the actual roasting so that I could do all the other cooking. Running back and forth between two apartments was not going to get everything done. However, he wanted to pick up the turkey Friday night, not Saturday morning. So, stuffing must be made. Bird must be stuffed and trussed. It was falling apart (a wing was broken, the neck cavity had been sliced apart... much bamboo skwewering was necessary). I also needed to make up a list of directions and a turkey-roasting emergency kit, complete with turkey baster, meat thermometer, extra aluminum foil, and the like. Tommy (the Turkey) was then placed in a roasting pan, put back into the aforementioned Ikea bag, and walked across the street. The deal between the physicist and I was that I would provide the directions and he would return with a cooked turkey; I would never question what happened in between. 

Then. Pie. I admit that I'm a bit rusty in the pie crust department, especially with a Crisco crust. It ended up being a bit more crumbly than is ideal, but not impossible. I made both a sweet potato and a pumpkin chiffon. The sweet potato was easy. I was already cooking up the pumpkin chiffon pumpkin part (egg yolks and sugar and pumpkin and gelatin) when I realized I'd have to whip the egg whites. Until stiff. By hand. With a small whisk. And a medium saucepan. Oof. 30 minutes later, the whites were whipped. So was I. But I still had pecans to shell. The Chinese roast the pecans in the shell, so they had started to break apart. Still, it was hard going.

Sleep.

Up at 7:30. Time for coffee and more pie. I made the pecan and then the apple. I must say this for the Chinese, they have some good apples.

From Thanksgiving Impossible

On to veggies. I'd used up a lot of the sweet potato for the pie (I didn't have quite enough pumpkin for a chiffon and a standard pie), so I had to roast more potatoes. I also made a homemade green bean casserole, so that meant slicing Chinese long beans (not that there was even an option of buying them frozen), slicing onions, and making fried onions for the top. The recipe said to cook them in the oven, so I did, but it was a pain. In the future, I think I'll just pan fry them. Succotash with fava beans instead of limas because I couldn't find limas. I toyed with using soy beans, but I didn't. Maybe next time.

Then potatoes. I used the rice cooker to cook the potatoes. Even then, I had to do it in two batches. By then, Tommy arrived and he smelled good. I mean good. The Physicist said his entire apartment smelled like Christmas. By now, I knew I was good. A little gravy (or a lot) from the pan drippings and everything was ready. I even had a platter to put Tommy on (thank you again, Ikea). 

From Thanksgiving Impossible

The folks were arriving, although the procuring of tables and chairs had hit a stand still. I managed to convince them we did, in fact, need tables and chairs, so off everyone went to bring back things from their apartments. Soon, they were wrestling a table into my spare room (with help from the Mathematition) and the Biologist was setting the table. I was definitely losing steam, but everyone else was stepping up.

Wine and beer was opened. We all filed into the spare room and the turkey was carved.

From Thanksgiving Impossible

I did it. I cooked a dinner for 13 people in my tiny-ass kitchen. I made a proper holiday meal. Everyone left stuffed and happy. They were all incredibly impressed and properly thankful. 

From Thanksgiving Impossible

Not only did I cook Thanksgiving dinner, but I earned a bye for our Christmas festivities. (Although I did say I would be happy to cook a bird if that's all I had to do.)