This and that

So, what’s going on in Hangzhou?

Well, for one thing, it’s cold!  Ok, ok, not really cold.  Not winter cold.  But cold enough so that, dressed in a light wool sweater, jacket, and long-sleeved shirt, I was rather chilly on my walk home last night.  The wind was whipping around excitedly and I started to contemplate the imminent possibility of real coats.  On my way home, incidentally, I made a baby friend.  Passing by my favorite fruit stand, I decided to stop and pick up some clementines.  Like every small, nondescript shop lining a Chinese street, this place is family-owned.  A young man sits behind a desk equipped with a scale and a calculator while an older woman (mother?  mother-in-law?) peeks around from a back room occasionally, folding laundry or stirring dinner in a rice-maker.  She usually has a little twinkle in her eye, and the young man is always quick to hop up and provide me with a plastic bag for my selections.  Yesterday he was holding a baby – a chubby, bright-eyed, bundled up to the point of paralysis baby.  Well, obviously I couldn’t help cooing over the baby, and I hardly payed attention to which clementines I was choosing because I was so caught up in attempting to catch her attention.  Her father loved it – he was clearly as proud as can be (remember, this is his one shot at fatherhood), and proceeded to tell me all about his little girl.  All I really caught was that she is four months old, and that he agreed with me when I told him that she was “hěn piàoliang!” – very pretty.  But, considering that two months ago I wouldn’t have even known he was talking about his little girl at all, I’d call that progress.  I already liked this fruit stand, as they are always so nice to me and have delicious produce for a good price, but I’m sure I’ll be even more inclined to visit now that I have a baby friend waiting for me.  On my way out, I stopped at the stand next door and picked up two piping-hot vegetable baozi, which I recommend as a cure for cold hands on any blustery day.

Oh, speaking of shopping – I realized that I should clarify a bit on the terms I use for the Chinese currency lest I confuse you all.  I have referred to Chinese money alternately as “yuan” and “RMB.”  When I arrived, I was mistakenly talking about things costing X amount of yuan when I should have been saying X amount of RMB.  According to Wikipedia, the yuan is the base unit of account of Chinese currency, whereas the RMB is the actual currency itself (analogous, Wikipedia tells me, to the sterling and the pound).  RMB stands for rénmínbì, which means “people’s currency.”  In general, though, Chinese people never say rénmínbì – rather, they say kuài.  So, from hear on out, I’ll refer to things costing X amount of RMB or kuài.  Reference to the yuan will be relegated to the past, to a time when I had little understanding of Chinese economics.  Wait, I still don’t understand Chinese economics.  Anyway….

I mentioned in my last post that I’d tell you a bit about our anniversary.  Because it fell on a Monday this year, we decided to do most of our celebrating on Saturday.  I spent many hours preparing what I hoped would be a feast, and included:  a roasted eggplant and tomato soup; a celery, walnut, and green apple salad; a roasted squash, shallot, and pomegranate seed galette, homemade gnocchi in a spiced pumpkin sauce, carrot cake, and Italian cookies.  If I sound like I’m bragging, it’s probably because I am.  I was very satisfied with the results.  More importantly, however, we had a wonderful time.  And for fear of sounding too sappy, I’ll just leave it at that.

On Monday, the actual date of our anniversary, we decided to meet up after work and have dinner downtown.  We had no real plan in mind other than a pre-dinner drink at a Western-style bar called Red Space.  This we did, and we were happy to find that they sell Orval (Orval is a delicious variety of Belgian trappist beer, and it is especially significant for me because the brewery is located within walking distance of my former home in Belgium.  Look it up, it’s a pretty cool place).  We had failed, however, to take two things into account.  One, we forgot that no one really goes out on Mondays.  The bar was empty, and often a nearly-empty public space can be vastly less intimate than a crowded one.  In short, there was no ambiance.  Further, we were both exhausted and I had a cold coming on.  So, hungry by this point, we decided to forgo an ostensibly fancy dinner in favor of a casual one that we knew would be delicious and quick.  We were only a block away from our favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle shop, the one we discovered a few weeks ago.  So we happily made our way in that direction.  It was crowded, as usual, and the host seated us across from a pleasant-looking Western man.  We struck up a conversation, and spent the rest of our anniversary dinner talking with Husman, a transplant from Northern England.  After a long cab ride home, we put on our pajamas (or I did, at least) and shared a half-bottle of champagne.  All in all, it was a good night.

Meanwhile, we’ve started to think a bit about Thanksgiving and Christmas.  More specifically, will we be able to procure a turkey and a Christmas tree?  I think the chances of finding a Christmas tree are low, and the chances of finding a turkey are even lower.  In fact, I could probably find turkey feet before I could find a whole turkey, or even a turkey breast.  So it may be a chicken-y Thanksgiving for us.  And, don’t worry – I’m not one of those people who puts up Christmas decorations unforgivably early (if you are one of those people, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.  But, you know…it IS unforgivable).  I adhere to a strict after Thanksgiving rule.  But, under tree-less circumstances, I do need to start preparing earlier than usual.  Now, taking down Christmas decorations is a different story.  I like to tell myself that the bleakness and darkness of winter justifies leaving them up for as long as possible.  But February may well be pushing it.  If you promise not to put up decorations before Thanksgiving, I promise to try to take them down before we get too far into January.

Speaking of holidays, if you have any ideas for Halloween games I’d love to hear them.  This morning Helen (my counterpart) approached me and told me that we’ll be celebrating Halloween on Friday at school.  She wants English Square to last twice as long as usual in the morning and asked me to prepare a number of Halloween Games.  I must have looked a little bewildered when she said this, because she asked, “Do you have Halloween games in America?”  I wanted to say, “NO, and how on earth do you expect me to entertain 200 pre-school children for 20 minutes with nonexistent Halloween games???”  But I just said, “No, I’ll make some up!” and smiled.  I’m such a sucker.  So, any ideas would be welcome.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful week!