Eating Out in China

Paul and I often grab a bite to eat on our way home from language school.  One of our favorite places is a small shop near our home.  I usually have the bowl of noodles for less than a dollar.

The noodles are made fresh in the front window.  You can see them cooking in the big pot.  We often ride by and see them making the dough and stretching out the noodles.

Paul likes the fried noodles-also less than a dollar a plate.

The menu.  There are many other choices on the menu.  Great character reading practice!

This restaurant is usually packed to the brim with students and workers.  However, students are now on their winter break so it was a little more empty.  On every table are two bottles of beer, soy sauce and hot peppers.

I'm sure you can figure out which fast food place this is!  Except that in China, it is a fairly formal, sit down restaurant.  It's very popular and not cheap.  We ate at one in Beijing two years ago but have never eaten at this one.

Also a familiar site to most of us!  Except that in China, KFC delivers...on bikes!

In which we choose to laugh...again!

Since Paul and I are in the "cholesterol" years of our lives, we often choose to eat oatmeal.  When we first arrived in China, we went to our little local market and bought this.

I think they forgot to add "and the infirm."  This was not the whole grain kind of complex carbohydrate we were looking for!  No, this was a soupy, porridge like oatmeal, meant for people without a full set of teeth.

So off we went to Metro, a foreign grocery store where we can buy the kind of oatmeal that we want.  It comes from Australia and is just what we want in the morning before a cold bike ride in the ice and snow!

When things are not as they seem.

What  are these?

What are these?

If you put them side by side, can you tell what they are?  Are they the same...or different?  Which one would you put in chili?

What is this?  Is it a slow cooker?  Could you use it as a slow cooker?  If the sales person assured you in Chinese that yes, it could be used as a slow cooker, would you think it was a pressure cooker?  Are you sure?  What if all of the directions were written in Chinese?

Please feel free to laugh at this story.  We did.

When we first arrived in China, we went to Metro, the big grocery store to stock up on kitchen supplies.  I wanted a rice cooker and a crock pot.  We saw both and then we saw this glorious, shiny machine.  We looked at the picture- rice, vegetables, meat!  We asked the sales lady-of course you can cook things slowly in it.

Okay then.  We bought it. We made stew.  Which took about 15 minutes to cook. Thus confirming that it was a pressure cooker. Not a slow cooker.

What do you make in a pressure cooker?  Beans for chili of course!  No canned beans here-that's for foreigners!

We had friends over on Christmas Eve and I made stew and a big pot of soup.  I bought beans from the grain man at the store-he is next to the fish woman and the meat family.  Less than a dollar for a jin of dried red beans.  I soaked them over night, and cooked them in the steam cooker.  They did seem a little firm but who likes mushy beans anyway?

The chili was a hit and eaten very quickly.  I actually never got to taste it.  In the middle of dinner, some one asked if there were peanuts in the stew.  I quickly dismissed that notion and we went back to eating.

I would have forgotten about this except that Paul occasionally mentioned the peanuts in the stew.  I'm sure he was laughing with me, not laughing at me.  The other day I asked him to go to the store to get some red beans.  A friend sent me a magazine from the USA that featured a recipe with red beans. So Paul went to the store to buy red beans.  He talked to the grain man and asked him about the bin with red beans....which are actually red peanuts.  Yes, it's true.  I soaked and pressure cooked red peanuts for our  Christmas Eve stew.

So which are the peanuts and which are the beans?  You can probably tell from the pictures..but could you tell if they were in a big grain bin?  I couldn't.  But I can now!

Winter in Shenyang

View from our friend's window- they live on the 14th floor of their apartment building. Can't you just feel the cold?
China is heated by coal. This coal plant is literally across the street from our apartment. The smoke is everywhere in winter.

You can see a tall building in the background. It is currently under construction. The workers live behind the white fence in sub-standard dormitory type housing. For every skyscraper in China, there are hundreds of these poor migrant workers, trying to support their families.

Mandatory volunteerism. These are college students clearing the snow. Every school and university has an area that they are responsible for. In winter, you see students clearing the snow with brooms and shovels. The idea is to teach community spirit and responsibility.
Imagine college students doing this in America! Or school children! But here, it is totally normal.

Ice skating on Christmas Day. NorthEastern University (DongBei Daxue) floods their sports field in winter. They are then used for PE classes. You can skate there for about RMB 10 or a little over a dollar. It was pretty empty on Christmas because the students were clearing snow and ice.

That is Elisabeth on skates with the face mask.

Paul and I went out one night. We put on long john's, double socks, jeans, shirt, sweaters, ear muffs, face mask (for Sandy), hats, scarves and double gloves. Then we rode our bikes over for sea food hot pot.
We didn't actually know it was sea food hot pot until the sea creatures appeared in our hot pot. We also had sweet potato, lamb, and some other vegetables to cook. All for about $10.00.
One day, we went to see some friend's who live on the north side of the city. This involved about an hour an a half bus ride. We had to change buses and Elisabeth was hungry. She is eating Ji Dan Guan Bing or the Chinese equivalent of an Egg McMuffin. Street food is the best.
One last view of ice skating and hockey. Paul and I skated, too but no pictures are available of that!

Christmas in China

Christmas is long over but the decorations are still up all over our city.Our English Corner reading a Christmas carol and hearing the true story of the Nativity.
Outside a restaurant. The more traditional Chinese looking building is not historical, just decorative.
Offerings to Buddha in the window next to the Christmas tree pictured above. Three apples and a mangosteen, plus some tea.
Pictures of Santa are everywhere. Pictures of the nativity are no where to be found.
Wu Ai shopping area. A mixture of Christmas stuff and Chinese New Year's decorations.

Santa is everywhere! Even at Wu Ai in Shenyang!
Our sad little fake Christmas tree. No wonderful pine smell, but no needles either. The lights lasted about three days. First they blinked all over, then the bottom half blinked, then they didn't blink at all, then no lights. They cost about a dollar so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Santa also speaks Chinese! WTG, Santa!
And a Christmas Merry to you, too!

The chocolate gold yuan that Elisabeth got on Christmas Eve. Tangible proof of His love for her.

The Meat Market-literally

What do three American women do on a cold Saturday morning in China? Why take a taxi to the meat market of course! In the north part of our city, there is a huge outdoor market that caters to restaurants. They often have foreign goods at a discount-things that you can't usually get at a local market where we usually shop.

The other two women had been there before and they knew what they wanted. I just went out of curiosity.

Here are some pictures-some are not for the faint of heart! Some may make you want to go vegetarian!
Goose eggs.
Sea food.

More sea food.
Beautiful vegetables-peppers, chili peppers, beans and celery.
Meat.

Intestines

More meat.

American's have a nebulous relationship with meat. I felt a little queasy when I saw this.
Hope my meat doesn't come off the floor.

It's interesting to me that many of my Chinese students have told me that American's smell like meat! Yet we are surrounded by meat here all the time. A few weeks ago, I brushed past half a pig on a cart. I wasn't at the butcher-I was in the lobby of our language school.

Yes- China makes it very clear where meat comes from. One more culture learning experience for me!

Where we live.

I thought I'd post a few pictures of where where we live in China.

We live on the 6th floor of an apartment building in the south end of the city. Sixth floor-no elevator. It's a small three bedroom apartment with lots of light.

Yes- that is someone hanging out of our windows washing them. No, not it is not me. This picture was taken in September before winter set in. Notice the beautiful blue skies!
Paul on our sofa that we had made. Basically, you go to the furniture market, find a sofa you like, bargain for a reasonable price, choose the fabric and have it made. Then they deliver it (for a negotiated price) and carry it up the six flights of stairs. If you don't have an elevator, you have to pay extra for the delivery!

Paul is not wearing his glasses in this picture because they were broken. Later he fixed them with superglue and he had to get new ones. Going to the optometrist is great language learning!

Sadly, he has picked up on the tendency to do the V for Victory sign when a picture is taken.
Elisabeth in one of the leather chairs that came with the apartment. We've told her that the orange slippers are a little like the ones they hand out in prisons.

The desk in Paul's office/man cave.

Traditional Chinese two burner gas stove. That bottle is the milk we buy. It comes like that or in a box.
Our kitchen that leads to our laundry balcony. No diswasher but we do have a coffee maker!
No built in stoves in China! Most foreigner's have counter top stoves. This can actually get a full sized cookie sheet in it. When you use it, you set the temperature (in Celsius) and the time that you want it on. It works pretty well.


Our backwards tub. Notice what is hanging over the drain-our towels. When we moved into the apartment, we negotiated to have a tub put in. The bathroom had a traditional Chinese shower-no tub or shower enclosure around the shower head. coming out of the wall. You basically stand on the floor and the water drains into the drain. The floor stays wet all day.

So we asked them to put a tub in. When we moved in, I looked at the tub-the drain is at the opposite end of the tube than the faucets and shower head! Apparently this is pretty common and has to do with the drainage system. It's not super efficient but it does work. And it's much better than showering standing on the floor.

Most important-our slipper collection that we have to offer guests. No shoes are ever worn in Chinese homes. We have a growing collection of slippers that we have for when people come over.

Hope that gives you a picture of where we are living.