At 4:30 in the morning, one wonders how it is that one has come to be sitting in McDonalds of all places, listening to a Vietnam vet tell story after story, while drinking the worst coffee in the world.

Guangzhou, the capital of neighbouring province, Guangdong --  also known as Canton.  Also known as one enormous shopping mall.  There really isn't much to do in Guangzhou other than shop and we all know how much Rachel LOVES to shop...I'm being completely sarcastic.  The only part about shopping that I like is bargains but I hate actually shopping for bargains with other people let alone half of China.  Plus I'm such a cheapskate and I can always think of things I need more.  And Chinese laobans (shop-keepers) are scary when they get angry at you...did you ever wonder how 'chinese burns' got their name? Lets just say that I know first hand what it means to have one's arm twisted into buying something...literally.

Ok now, I see the confusion on your face.  Well, to cut a really long story, this was our last effort to hopefully annul my request for residency in the USA (that has been going on since January '08).  We just had to get someone at the US Consulate to apply the official seal to all our verified documents to prove that I'm no longer in the USA so they won't deport me (from American)...but I'll stop there before I start ranting and raving.  Not really knowing how long this would take or if they'd need to keep our passports over night like they do when you get visas and stuff, we planned to spend Thursday till Saturday and come home Sunday.  Guangzhou is about 11 hours away from Nanning by bus but our driver apparently had a lead foot because we made it to Guangzhou in record time of 8 hours hence the reason we found ourselves in McDonalds at 4:30am because it was the only thing open.  So we had time to kill till our 10am appointment at the consulate so this delightful old American Vietnam vet. told us his entire life story for the next 4 and 1/2 hours...

The US consulate took all of an hour.  Once the lady said, "ok that's it.  Next," we just kind of kept standing there -- nothing at the consulate has ever only taken an hour before.  "Don't you want our passports?  Don't we need to go through security again?  Shouldn't we wait for our number to be called in about 2 hours?"  "No, you can go now."  "Are you sure?"  "Yes.  Please."  So dumbfounded, we wondered over to the metro to try and figure out what we were going to do till we met our couch-surfing host...oh yes, here's another one for you -- we hadn't met the people we would be staying with yet.  Well, we had on the internet but that was it.  

(These are our Couch hosts and their friends at this quaint little board game place!  We had so much fun listening to all the Bi-hua (Cantonese) being spoken and playing game after game...Jason is a Settler's of Catan addict now.)

When my sister came to visit me in the States, we went to NYC and stayed in some random guy's apartment that I'd met on a website called couchsurfing.com.  Ok Mum, before you start freaking out, check out the site and you'll see what a wonderful thing this is.  Basically its a way to travel on the cheap, stay somewhere for free and make new friends with the premise that they'll show you their city and their culture from their perspective.  I love it.  So this is the second time we've ever done this and we hooked up with this lovely couple -- a guy from Canada who teaches English and his girlfriend, a local from Guangzhou...and their 4 cats and 2 dogs.  It was a full house.  

(Good thing I'm not dyslexic or anything...)

Between the markets, the temples, ending up in opposite places to where we wanted to be, playing video games, great conversations, having animals vying for our attention (well Jason's attention -- animal's LOVE him), monsoonal rains and travelling time (Guangzhou is so huge -- we felt like we had culture shock that first day!) we came home EXHAUSTED.  But as all the furniture we want for our someday apartment where ever that might be is still in Guangzhou (I told you, I never buy anything the first time I see it), I guess we'll be crashing our friends...or someone elses...couch again sometime.

See, they do have freedom of speech here...

On a side note, after yet another sudden, monsoonal down-pour, we found ourselves in the same complex as a Starbucks.  Now, I don't know why I thought that I would like a Starbucks in China when I don't even like them in America but THIS is supposedly an iced coffee.  What it is in fact, is the most expensive tall cup of milk with a slight hint of coffee flavouring I've ever had.  Ah, Starbucks...I still have nothing nice to say about you other than it was my own silly fault!

I about busted up laughing today in the classroom I volunteer at when I saw this flash card:

This is the back side -- note how it has Pinyin, followed by Han zi (Chinese characters), followed by the correct stroke order in which to write the Han zi, followed by the English.  

This isn't the funny side.  

THIS is the funny side.

I'm not sure I want to see the flash card for 'older brother' (or any of the rest of the family for that matter!!!).

Class dismissed! 

I moseyed on down to the ji shi chang (that's the market/bazaar) today to pick up a couple of things. I've decided it's simply my most favourite part of Nanning. Its noisy and bustling with people, it smells of everything you can think of (good and bad) and I always come home toting some prized culinary item that I never expected to see in China for some ridiculously low price (comparatively speaking -- you'd probably fall off your chair thinking how cheap you can get that in the West). I enjoy the sense of accomplishment when I manage to get the laoban (shopkeeper) to knock a few yuan of the price. But despite this wonderful, dirty, hot and over-crowded building being my most favourite place in the whole of Nanning (despite having to constantly check my personal belongings to make sure they haven't been snitched) , somehow, everytime I go, I always forget to take my camera.

And today of all days, I am so bummed that I didn't bring the camera. It's fortunate that I took Jason with me today (my own personal pack horse but I tell him that he is shuai ge, which means he is a handsome pack horse...ah...man...so he doesn't mind...I think) or I'd have no one to back me up.

I found out where you go to get any kind of turtle you can dream of to eat for dinner -- including but not limited to the very endangered green sea turtle. He was 80 kuai yi jin (about $22 a kilo -- cheap they tell me).

I found out where I can get dried Thyme for 34 kuai (about $4.50) for a container (the cheapest I've found prior to this is 50 kuai) and fresh parsely! Haven't see that since I left the States!

I found a new people group! Well, I'm sure they were already found being that they were at the market but they were wearing clothes I hadn't see before and looked different from the Zhuang minority group which represents the largest minority group in Nanning...I was about to ask them where they were from when I realized what the guy was trying to sell me was...

...a tiger's foot. Yup. A real, fair dinkum leg of a tiger (from about the knee cap down...they knee cap still being attached, that is). Many thoughts rush through your head when someone holds a tiger's foot in front of you. Isn't that illegal...That tiger was once alive...this man actually killed a tiger (no doubt in my mind on that one)...poor tiger...poor village...where is the rest of the tiger...Mowgali and Sher Kan (wrong country I know)...my, what big feet that tiger had...are the police going to arrest me any minute for looking at this...are PETA going to come screaming around the corner with their clubs and pickets...is my husband really asking that guy how much the tigers foot costs...is he really bartering with that guy for one of the tiger claws...the answer to the later two thoughts was, yes. No he didn't buy it...mostly because I was protesting too much. But seriously now, can you guess how much one tiger claw was going for? This thing is at least 2" long (don't you love how I include both metric and imperial measurements?).

Ba kuai. That's a little over $1 USD.

I kept thinking how dreadfully sad this was, and I wondered if the tiger had any idea that his toenails where only worth 8 kuai each? Way to belittle the poor, dead, tiger. I wanted to ask where the rest of the tiger was, had he terrorized a village and who exactly were these people (other than poachers) but they took off after getting wind that the police where coming. Just as quickly had the tiger's leg been thrust in my face, it and all of that people group, had vanished leaving Jason and I gawking on the foot-path trying to remember what we'd actually come to the market for in the first place...

So I met up with one of my Chinese friends the other day to go out to dinner, but I'm not here to blog about the dinner. It was how we got to the dinner. 

Well actually, it's not so much how we got to the dinner, but what he said on the way. And yes, we did take one of those things in the picture (sorry, but I had to borrow this picture, we don't actually have a picture of one of those trikes in our library). So I meet him at the front gate of his college and there's plenty of these trike scooters ready to take you somewhere that's a bit far to walk, but too short to justify a taxi. He promptly walks up to one and asks how much it is to go to the place it is we need to go to and the driver says 4 bucks. My friend then said 3 bucks, but the driver wouldn't budge for less than 4, so we walk to the next one. In China, if you don't like the price, you walk away. Unfortunately, this next driver also wanted 4 bucks and wouldn't take the offer of 3. So we hop in that one and head on our way. My friend knew that I understood all of what just went on and he looks at me and says "Economic inflation". He needed my help to say the second word, but I knew what he meant. And it made me laugh. Even rickshaws aren't exempt from a troubled world economy. At any rate, it was a fun ride if you enjoy cutting off traffic, riding on the opposite side of the road, and flying through the air (ok, I lied about the flying through air part). 

Now, just for fun, here's a picture of what one Mini-Cooper dealership in Beijing did to prepare for the Olympics.

Now that's what I call mini. (And yes, it's pedal power)

Until next time.

Jason

Let's play a stint of word recognition, shall we?  (I'll help you out a bit.)

I say "India".  You say..."Curry!" 

I say "France."  You say..."Croissants!"  

I say "America".  You say "High fructose corn syrup!"

I say "China."  You say...no...not dog...no...not rice...I'll give you a hint:  they literally do drink only a spot of it at a time...yes tea!  There isn't any problem in the world that can't be solved over a nice spot of tea (and if it can't be solved with tea then a cute little vegan cupcake will do the trick, trust me).  

It was China that introduced tea to the rest of the world.  Whether it be black, green, red, plain or highly spiced, tea is an important meal component in any Asian country.  While I wouldn't call myself a definite connoisseur yet, I do appreciate how the Chinese take time to drink their tea while appreciating the taste, the friends, and the overall art of the experience.  I definitely must learn to do this. 

My memory escapes me but someone once said that "...in America, we were lonely.  So we created coffee shops.  That way we could drink our coffee and read our newspaper with other lonely people doing exactly the same thing at the table next to us and continue our loneliness together.  And then, we even had the audacity to build 'drive through' coffee shops.  Have we entirely lost the art of conversation and relationship?"  Now that of course is an extreme statement but when you travel to the east, you begin to realize just how much of an individualistic society is encouraged in the West...no one here ever goes to a tea or coffee shop to read a book by themselves.  Even if they go to study, its in a group.  And they talk...and they talk for AGES...and restaurants and tea shops would NEVER hurry you up so they can give your table to someone else.  In fact if you stay less than an hour, they think you didn't like the service or something! 

This is our Chinese friend demonstrating how ladies are supposed to hide their cup while drinking tea.

Trying to look Chinese while drinking tea...I'm not doing thumbs up on purpose...in fact I'm probably flipping someone off...

Jason drinking tea the manly Chinese way.

Ok so here's a quick lesson on brewing your own cup of tea at home.  I'm on an oolong kick right now -- oolong is a semi fermented tea, a little stronger than regular green but milder than black.  Very aromatic.

1.  Bring cold water to the boil rapidly to prevent the water being de-aerated.  

2.  Use a china or glazed earthenware teapot that will retain the heat, and warm it by swirling a little hot water around the sides and emptying it out.

3  Measure the tea carefully:  1 heaped teaspoon of leaves for each cup and 1 for the pot.

4.  Follow the old adage "bring your teapot to the kettle, not the kettle to the teapot" to ensure the water is still on the boil when it is poured onto the tea leaves (this step can be different depending on the type of green tea apparently but if it's a Chinese green tea, this should be fine).  This will agitate the leaves and release the full flavour of the tea.  Fill the pot and then promptly poor the first cup out to remove all bitterness.

5.  Refill the pot and put the lid on.  Leave for a few minutes to infuse the leaves.  Tell your friends a story about how the dragon ate the sun and then gave birth to it in the form of a pheasant.  If you add motions and body language, this will be sure to keep your crowd entertained for all of a minute.  Then sit in awkward silence till your tea is done infusing.

6.  If using milk (not with green tea!!!), add it to the cup before the tea.  The scalding tea will slightly cook the milk and blend the flavours.

7.  Stir the pot and poor tea through a strainer into each cup.  Add sugar if you are a weakling and cannot appreciate the flavour of the tea for what it truly is.  One might ask oneself...if I am adding sugar to disguise the wonderful flavour of this tea, should I really be drinking it? 

This is an example of one of the many kinds of traditional tea tables.  Often carved out of solid wood, they come in many sizes with all kinds of intricate designs and scenes carved into them.  I gotta get me one of these some day!  When I do, you can all come over and we'll have a tea party!