Living the Dream

Over the last day or so, I've realized that I've been living out a fantasy of mine. (OK, so three fantasies: the first two being living and working in China and teaching the most amazing, thoughtful, kind, and studious group of children imaginable.) But no, I'm not talking about such mundane fantasies. Nope. I'm taking about the elusive Thanksgiving Fantasy.

"Huh?" I hear you say.

I love Thanksgiving. Love. It. It is about giving thanks for, well, everything, spending time with friends and family, and eating. A lot. Of good food. Those are all things that I whole-heartedly support. The thing is, I really love my Thanksgiving food. Some of you have been kind enough to indulge my tendency to take over and have let me do many things my way (and for that I am forever thankful). But generally, I find myself tagging along at someone else's feast and silently (and secretly) wishing I could just do it all my way, for once. 

Please, do not misinterpret. I have loved every single Thanksgiving I've been to. I remember them fondly along with friends, friends of friends, parents of friends, family, and strangers. I've loved the ones with copious alcohol and the ones without. I've loved the quiet family gatherings and the scores of people overflowing through every room. I've loved them when I'm new in town and know no one and I've loved them when I'm established and know everyone. I love Trivial Pursuit and sometimes even Cranium. Like I said, I love Thanksgiving.

But secretly, in my heart of hearts, I've wanted to host my own Thanksgiving. I've wanted to invite you all to my house and do it up the way you have all taught me to over the years. There would be some things from childhood Thanksgivings, things from Southern Thanksgivings, things from the Northwest. There would be all the bits and pieces I have collected and treasured and wished I could put together into one glorious whole.

The thing is, you aren't allowed to host Thanksgiving without a family. Not really. People with houses and children and real jobs invite you to their house to experience the joy of families. Those of us who are happily single, financially sketchy (God bless divorce and unemployment and student loans and teacher salaries), and habitually wandering just don't have the resources to invite the rest of you over. And realistically, it means you would have to drag your kids and all their stuff all over the globe (or country) on the most traveled holiday of the year. That's not fair of me to ask you to do. I don't have a house big enough (I don't have a house). And it's just easier for me. So I don't even put you in that position. (But sometimes, when I consider whether I want to even think of marriage, the fantasy of Thanksgiving with you all at MY place is very, very alluring.) 

However, I suddenly find myself surrounded by people who also don't have families. They also don't have houses or china sets or tricked-out kitchens. They all live no more than a (long) subway ride away. And most of them don't know a darned thing about Thanksgiving.

I get to school them. The way I want it to be. Thanksgiving in all my — um, er, its glory.

Now, it's not Thanksgiving at home. I can't get everything exactly how I want it. I can't get every perfect ingredient. I don't have every tool I need (*coughovencough* *coughKitchenAidcough*). But I can come pretty damn close, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to go down trying.

And (like you all do) they are supporting me whole-heartedly. I have infused them with my Thanksgiving spirit and I'm having to turn them away for lack of anything for them to do. Granted, I've pawned off the cooking of the turkey -- but only because Nigel offered. (He's got a real, albeit small, oven.) I dressed and trussed the bird and have given him directions (that I fully expect he'll mostly ignore). Jon procured the turkey to begin with. Andy said he'd rouse the boys in the morning to collect tables and chairs from all the apartments so we all have a place to sit. Catherine and Caroline have been offering up shopping (and chopping) services. Aaron is finding me Christmas movies. 

Maybe it won't be Martha-Stewart fantasy perfect, but when are fantasies ever perfect? At the end of the day (quite literally), I'll have everyone over to my house. Most of the foods will be cooked to my specifications (cornbread in the stuffing, cranberry sauce in the shape of a can, cucumbers and onions, cheese in the mashed potatoes, homemade green bean "casserole") and peas and carrots for my Canadian. I'll make my own pie crust and there will be a hint of citrus in the pecan pie.

And while it won't be "perfect" because all the rest of you are back in the States (having already eaten your turkey while I am typing this), it will be me and my newest best 14 friends with lots of great food and bottles of (probably bad) wine. 

I am living the dream.

Athletic Prowess

From the newspaper (translated by a Chinese staff member): The proof that the Americans aren't any good at athletics is that they've never, ever won a medal in the Asian Games.

I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Silent Reading

I was coerced into running the Book Club at school. It's a pretty thankless job, when you think about it. Running an after-school club that feels like a class... getting kids excited about literature when they have a tough time as it is. Getting shy students talking... What did I agree to?

We started club time without any novels. I am new and the school hasn't really built up a library of books for lit clubs (they might have one or two copies of a book, but not 8-10). So it was rough going at the start. Then club was cancelled for 3 weeks (first for flu shots, then for exam week, finally for an all-school meeting). Today, we were back in business. 

And two of the eight students showed up.

It was me and two boys in a room. Preparing to read The Kite Runner. And they wouldn't stop giggling. No reason why, just giggling. Ahh, high-schoolers.

So, they look nervous and shy as I talk about reading books. I explain keeping up with the main events and how to use sticky notes to make notes. I explain questions and predictions and reader response. They giggle. And it's loud outside. We are three people in a mostly empty room with a lot of hard surfaces perfect for bouncing sound around. We're also next door to the loudest class in the school. Oof. Is it ever loud.

Finally, I ask how they want to read. Aloud, silently, should I read to them? They choose silently. OK. I leave the room for a minute, to let them calm down, and grab some tea. 

When I come back in the room, they are quietly reading. They are immersed in their books. I pick up a book and start reading along with them. The noise in the background dies away. Occasionally, one of them snickers a little -- there are a couple of bad words early on in the book -- so I can tell where they are at. Occasionally, one of them reaches over to see how far along the other one is. I show them where I'm at -- and they are amazed. Then we go back to reading.

Before we know it, our hour is up and the bell is ringing. They don't drop the book and run away. They slowly finish where they're at and then stand up. 

Maybe Book Club isn't such a thankless job after all.

Silent Reading

I was coerced into running the Book Club at school. It's a pretty thankless job, when you think about it. Running an after-school club that feels like a class... getting kids excited about literature when they have a tough time as it is. Getting shy students talking... What did I agree to?

We started club time without any novels. I am new and the school hasn't really built up a library of books for lit clubs (they might have one or two copies of a book, but not 8-10). So it was rough going at the start. Then club was cancelled for 3 weeks (first for flu shots, then for exam week, finally for an all-school meeting). Today, we were back in business. 

And two of the eight students showed up.

It was me and two boys in a room. Preparing to read The Kite Runner. And they wouldn't stop giggling. No reason why, just giggling. Ahh, high-schoolers.

So, they look nervous and shy as I talk about reading books. I explain keeping up with the main events and how to use sticky notes to make notes. I explain questions and predictions and reader response. They giggle. And it's loud outside. We are three people in a mostly empty room with a lot of hard surfaces perfect for bouncing sound around. We're also next door to the loudest class in the school. Oof. Is it ever loud.

Finally, I ask how they want to read. Aloud, silently, should I read to them? They choose silently. OK. I leave the room for a minute, to let them calm down, and grab some tea. 

When I come back in the room, they are quietly reading. They are immersed in their books. I pick up a book and start reading along with them. The noise in the background dies away. Occasionally, one of them snickers a little -- there are a couple of bad words early on in the book -- so I can tell where they are at. Occasionally, one of them reaches over to see how far along the other one is. I show them where I'm at -- and they are amazed. Then we go back to reading.

Before we know it, our hour is up and the bell is ringing. They don't drop the book and run away. They slowly finish where they're at and then stand up. 

Maybe Book Club isn't such a thankless job after all.

What an Ass

Friday night was a parents' night at school. We hold these nights on Fridays because many parents live outside of Beijing, and must fly in for the meeting. They fly in, spend five minutes with each teacher, spend the night in a hotel, and then fly home. They are dedicated to their children's education.

The event runs until about 6:30. As a way thank the teachers, the school brings us out to dinner afterwards. I'm not talking about a sandwich tray in the teachers' lounge or some colleagues going Dutch unofficially. Nope, I'm talking about an official sit-down meal paid for by the school. With beer, no less. 

We had a great time looking through the menu. Some of the translations were priceless. We have to go back with a camera. I can't even begin to fake just how awesomely bad some of the names were. While the Chinese staff usually order for us when we go out, this time they gave us a chance to order on our own. Well, the Canadian decided we should try something "exciting". OK. Donkey it is!

It was a cold dish. Sliced meat with a ginger/garlic dipping sauce. I did a side-by-side comparison with the cold sliced beef we also ordered. I couldn't tell much of a difference. It tasted like... meat.

The highlight of dinner was the duck, though. Oh yes, I had my first official Peking duck. Thin pancakes, cucumber sticks, green onion shreds, plum sauce, and sugar. And duck. First, they bring out the duck skin. You get meat later on. And at the end they fry up the bones so you can suck on them. By then, I was stuffed, so I didn't try the bones.

The skin, though. Oh, the skin. Crispy, fatty, warm duck skin. It brought me back to my days at Maggie G's, when chef used to staff the duck cracklins after rendering duck fat for confit. The sauce was bitter; the sugar was necessary. We ran out of cucumber and onion. But the skin was heaven.

Definitely better than the donkey.

Snack Wrap Supreme

I have a new lunch-time favorite. It's tastes a lot like a chicken snack wrap you'd get at . It is a piece of flat bread wrapped around some fried chicken nuggets with some sauce and a little lettuce and cucumber.

Yesterday, it tasted good. Today I had to stand in line to wait for one, and I got to watch them made, and it got better.

Here's what I noticed.

The bread was cooking on a large, flat oven in the back of the kitchen. I say cooking and not heating because at one point, the man went over to check on the bread, looked at it, and put the lid back down. That tells me that he is watching for the caramelization on the bread's surface to show that it is cooked, not just heating them up.

Another man was breading the chicken. I couldn't see the whole process. I don't know if the chicken came in fresh or from a freezer pack. But I know that it was breaded before my eyes and then dropped into oil.

When the bread came off the griddle, the chicken came out of the fryer. A man then immediately spread the bread with some red stuff (I think it's the ubiquitous red bean paste), put on a handful of chicken, added a few pieces of lettuce, and a cumber spear. Then he tossed on two shakes of something (salt and pepper?) and rolled it up. Into a plastic baggie and voila.

The best snack wrap you've ever had.

Sure, it has fried chicken in it. You can call that bad for you. I suspect they use peanut oil, though. (Although I don't know, it is certainly the oil of choice in this country.) But I'm noticing that the food is actually made on the premises. Not heated or assembled onsite, but made. By people. Out of food.

It is incredible.

There is a man who makes the noodles. A man stirring up your soup in a pot. A man who puts the ingredients you want into the hot pot for you. And while I don't see it, I bet there is a man or woman chopping the meat and veggies for the stir fry, too. The food isn't 5 star cuisine. Some of the flavors are odd to my palate and sometimes you can tell that things have been sitting on the steam table for too long. It is an enterprise that serves 5000+ people daily. (Well, that's just lunch. Many people eat breakfast and dinner there, too.)

But they serve FOOD.

I wonder if that has anything to do with how wonderful the students are. They eat food, not highly-processed, food-like by-products of the agricultural industry. Imagine that.

The Heat Is On

One of the things that I had heard about China is that some apartment buildings turn off the heat in the winter. It's so cold, they figure, it costs too much to heat the place, so why bother? When we first moved into our apartments, that was one of the first questions: where are the heaters!?!? Beijing gets cold, and I really didn't want to spend the winter without even the hope of heat.

No worries, I was told, the heat is in the floor. Hmm. OK. I'll believe it when I have heat.

Then I learned about the centrally-controlled heat. Oh yes, the government says when the heat comes on (and goes off). So although it got really cold three weeks ago, the head doesn't come on until November 15th (or the 10th, depending on who you talk to).

My apartment complex turns things on in order, it seems. People in buildings 1 and 5 got their heat a week ago. I'm in building 6, so I didn't get heat until last Thursday. My friend in building 9 got heat yesterday.

And let me tell you, when the heat comes on, it comes ON.

The thermostat is centrally controlled, as well, so I can't do anything about it. Today, I left two windows open all day: one in the living room and one in the bedroom. Currently, my thermostat reads 25.1 degrees Celsius. Let me remind you that room temperature is 20 degrees Celsius. 25 degrees Celsius is about 77 degrees Fahrenheit. That's with the windows open. In winter. In Beijing.

So while it's winter outside, it's still summer in my apartment.