The China Chronicles: The China Chronicles: September 12, 2011

Greetings,

For all of you who were waiting on the edge of your seat to hear what the Italian Red Meat flavored potato chips taste like, I will now fulfill your craving for knowledge (Ha! Look at that pun. A work of art.). They taste nothing like Cooked Meat, Raw Meat, the color Red, or Italians. In fact, they taste like the food scientists said to each other, "Hey, let's put some of this funny-looking seasoning on a potato chip." "But what flavor will we call it? It doesn't taste like anything!" "That's okay. Let's just call it Italian Red Meat flavor. That way, people will buy a whole bunch of it because they think they are getting something mysterious, or maybe something that tastes like Italians." "That's a brilliant marketing strategy!"

Of course, that whole conversation was in Chinese. I just didn't want to take the time to translate it. Because I'm so good at Chinese, I could translate words like 'mysterious' and 'marketing strategy'. I've lived here for three weeks, haven't I? I should be fluent in the language already!

Ha. I wish. As I found out today, "I am an American" and "This is my little brother" are not relevant vocabulary phrases in a crowded restaurant. We went to lunch this afternoon, happy as could be, and when the hostess tried to talk to me I said "four!" and held up my fingers, assuming she was asking how many people. She was, but it turns out that, this being a holiday, the restaurant was completely full. She babbled at me for a little while, at the end of which I caught "Is that okay?", which is something. Thinking I was all smarty-pants, I said, "Wo men shuo han yu!" which of course in my head meant "We don't speak Chinese!" She then proceeded to talk to me more, asking if something was okay, and I finally said "Okay." Five minutes and a very confusing interaction (where she handed me a piece of paper with Chinese characters on it and babbled a bit more) later, we left the restaurant. It was then that I realized! that I had not said "Wo men BU shuo han yu," as I thought I did, and in fact told her that we speak Chinese, not that we don't. I think she figured it out.

I mentioned a holiday, didn't I? Well, are you in for an interesting bit of Chinese culture. Today is called the Mid-Autumn Festival, aka the Moon Festival, aka The Holiday Where We Try And Squeeze As Much Money As We Can Out Of Everyone Based On An Ancient Tradition That No One Knows The Origin Of Anymore, Sort Of Like Valentine's Day. Okay, no one else calls it that, but that's the name I've taken to calling it in my head.

The Mid-Autumn festival does have some sort of ancient tradition whose origin I don't know, but in my limited research I have found out that it was already a festival by the end of the Yuan dynasty, which was one of the eras ruled by the Mongols. It's all about giving each other moon cakes. At that point in time, the Chinese were not happy about the Mongolian rule, and decided to organize a coup. They thought and thought about how get organized, but the Mongols were always watching them and they didn't know about The Fly Lady. Lightbulb! Let's put our invasion plans inside the moon cakes! That way, we can get the messages to the people we want to, and there's no chance of the moon cakes getting sent to the wrong people! It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Genius, I say! So that's why it's still celebrated today.

The funny thing about it, though, is how much these mooncakes have become a part of the country's economy! You're supposed to give them to your friends and family, and it's all about spreading the love, right? Ten mooncakes is 300 yuan. 300 YUAN. That's 47 USD, everybody. Not only are the prices ridiculous for the common people, employees who receive a "gift" of mooncakes from their employers are forced to pay INCOME TAX. No joke. They have to pay income tax on a gift they didn't ask for in the first place. And the tax is something ridiculous, so they end up paying like 60 yuan on a 30 yuan gift that only took 10 yuan to make. They're not even that good, anyway. The first ones we tried tasted like bean flavored Fig Newtons. Those crazy Communists.

So, that was today's interesting phenomena (doo dooo be doo do!). Let's go back to last Monday… sorry about being a day late, btw. It got to be like 22:00 (look, I can do military time now! Sort of.) and I was like, Oh, I should do that… and then didn't. That seems to happen to me a lot… especially about the dishes. Alas! Procrastination, thy name is woman. That's how the quote goes, isn't it?

Let's go back in time to Monday. (waAAah wah. waAAah wah. Pew pew pew pew!) We had the branch president over for dinner, which was nice. He's pretty cool. For some reason Mom and I couldn't come up with a good dinner, though, so we ended up ordering from an Italian place. It tasted.. Italian. Except for the Chicken, Corn, and Blueberry-topped pizza. That had a distinct Weirdo flair to it that wasn't quite Chinese or Italian. Not bad, though. Could have used an egg on top too.

That was the most exciting thing about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday too. I started school on Tuesday, which has made life a little bit more interesting and busy. I'm doing an online school which actually seems pretty fun. The most interesting classes so far are Chinese and Audio Engineering. I'm excited to do more in those, although I already know "Ni hao" and "Xie xie" so it will probably take a few weeks for the class to catch up to me :) Wait, wasn't I just talking about my deficiency in the Chinese language? How different everything is when put into perspective.

Oh! Haha. I just remembered something. On Wednesday I got left home for a long time, so I thought I would go for a walk. How healthy I am! I thought to myself. Won't my mother be so surprised! I'm really doing something with my life. These were my thoughts as I walked down the busy street, the sky a dull, smothering, gray. The air was dense and humid, the birds were silent (or nonexistent), and life seemed pretty good. I walked around for 45 minutes, bought a few delicious sesame buns, and went home, proud that I had gotten some exercise. That evening I was chatting with our neighbor as we were in the taxi on the way to YW. "How was school today?" I asked her. "Pretty good," she said. "They wouldn't let us go outside, though, because the air quality was 'hazardous'."

I miss Washington.

But only for the reason that the air is fresh and clean, there are birds twittering and deer stalking, and people actually shuo ying yu. I mean, speak English. See how this is affecting me? Well, they don't have peanut-butter-marzipan-bean-fig-newton-mooncakes in Washington, so that's something.

Friday was more interesting than the rest of the week. I got to become a fine Relief Society lady as we went to the Flower Market. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, unlike hazardous Wednesday. Like, blue sky everywhere and really fresh and sunny and nice. The flower market was fun, too. Where do they get all them purty flowers? I have no idea. But I'm glad they have them! It was fun to hang out with all of the nice ladies. I met my Seminary teacher face to face, which was nice. She didn't recognize me. I also got to show off my bargaining skills when one of the ladies (in her twenties, moved here for the year with her husband) was trying to buy something and didn't speak any Chinese. I sort of helped her, but you can't really bargain for someone else if they're not willing to be firm with the price. (You want 120? I pay 60. 110? No, 60. Okay, 70. That sort of thing. She was just like, Oh, I guess I'll pay 90 for that, it's really nice...) Hopefully she learned something. We then went out to lunch, had a GREAT time handling Daniel (whose idea of fun is to throw broccoli across the room and kick your face if it gets too near) and got home pretty exhausted.

Saturday Daddy was home, so we all went to the Dirt Market in the pouring rain. At least that's familiar to Washingtonians. It was very interesting. Rows on rows on rows of people selling stuff- silk purses, old coins, weird little statues, swords, pottery, and rocks. There were probably over a million polished rocks in that place. How do you make a living off of that? I mean, it's not like it's the seventies and they come with their own little house! We then headed over to the Silk Market-- holy flying shark repellant, Batman. That place was crowded! And the sellers grab you and yell at you and you can't look at anything without them asking you to name your price! Mom did buy a few purses, though, for 50 yuan each, which made the seller really mad. Apparently that's a good sign, means you got a good price.

Some pretty pottery from the Dirt Market

Also a cannon, if you're interested.

In between the markets, though, we went for lunch and learned a very good lesson- don't just order whatever looks good on the menu, and ask for things that are not spicy. When the three bowls of meat/noodle soup came out in a broth that was crimson red, I was anxious. Two bites in, I was numb and coughing. Daniel was happy with his Italian Red Meat potato chips, though, and Dad ate his whole bowl, so it wasn't a complete waste, I guess. Still, not the best way to start going into the Silk Market- you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. You must be cautious.

Sunday was District conference, which was really nice. There were a lot of good speakers. A foreign exchange student from Mississippi came home to lunch with us and we made a cake, which I then proceeded to put into the oven under the broiler. Turns out, that does not cook it all the way through. It was, in fact, a gooey mess. Still pretty tasty though.

That brings us back to Monday! After the failed attempt at the restaurant, we headed over to a mall to see if we could find somewhere to eat. After looking for a Shabu Shabu (hotpot) place to no avail, we went downstairs to the food court and found a place that served… (wait for it!) hamburgers.

You thought I was going to say scorpions or something, didn't you? Nope! We found a Famous Amos or maybe a Norman's Famous or Somebody's Famous fast food place that was not quite as good as In-N-Out burger, but still not bad. The fish and chips was good too. That was our traditional Moon Festival meal. We're really learning how to blend into this Chinese culture.

Well, I should go to bed. I have seminary in the morning, after all. Oh! I never explained that. My seminary teacher didn't recognize me because we do seminary over the phone/skype! Everybody calls in on a conference call and it's all very high-tech and hard to hear everyone. She had just never seen me face to face, and I just looked all mature and Society Lady. Relief Society. Sounds pretty suave, huh? It absolutely is. They even have casseroles that shoot missiles and stuff.

Okay, wan an for real!

Ellyn

P.S. It was called to my attention last week (by an almost-Italian-minor-person who shall not be named) that I spelled the word "capiche" wrong in my missive. Despite much friendly, sisterly (vehementcoughcough) debate, this person will not accept that I was using the hick-American pronunciation "ca-peach-ay" and insisted that I tell everyone that it should have been "capisce" (pronounced "ca-peesh"). I have never been wrong in my life and it is my Chronicles to write and spell how I like, so I wouldn't have said anything, but to incur the wrath of your elder sister is not wise in any culture- Italian, Chinese, American or otherwise. So, there you go, dahling. I told everyone.

P.P.S. I think I should definitely get a pat on the back (OW, not that hard!) for the sheer number of awesome reference in this installment of The China Chronicles (ooh, I haven't used my awesome announcer voice yet! That was fun.) There are at least 11 references in there, some of which all of you should get, and a few which only family members will. Email me and let me know how many you found! (Heehee, it's like a game! How fun!)

Pictures from Dad's Guilin trip last week: