Class, Cats, and Mooncakes

I was still not feeling well yesterday morning, and had a hard time getting out of bed. By the time I had done morning things and was ready to head out, I was pretty nearly late to class even without the commute. Probably the fastest thing would have been to race to school on my bike, but I just didn't feel up to that kind of effort. So I did the second most extravagant thing, which was hope in a taxi. There were a line of empty ones waiting at a red light, and I saw the woman in front of me hop into one, so I hopped into the next one. I don't think the taxi driver was very pleased, especially when I told him that I just wanted to go to the East Gate of the University. He should have been pleased, because there's a 10 RMB minimum, which probably would last twice that far. But I think the idea of a student taking a taxi to class didn't sit well with him, or maybe he just didn't like the trouble of a short fare. Well, he took me there anyway.

Myth and Legend class was kind of a soupy blur, especially because I was about 10 minutes late. But also because the professor is just plain hard to understand, and the texts are hard too. From what I could gather, he was discussing comparisons between the Classic of Documents and the Shiji and the Mencius. I considered asking him whether there isn't any book that has done this already, but decided it would be impolite. Instead, I just took note of the passages and resolved to check on it later. Sometime in that great "later" that will happen eventually. Most of the stories were about the blind father of the sage-king Shun and his homicidal brother, and how the whole family hated and resented Shun because he had been chosen to succeed the sage-king Yao--a triumph of meritocracy over inheritance. And also various moral issues related to that, as well as some of Shun's deeds. Certainly the story of the king's blind father has a certain mythic resonance to it, doesn't it? And although I shouldn't mention it, in discussing "The Sandman" doesn't Freud say that blindness equates to castration? And wouldn't being the subject of your ruler-son be rather...? Well, we won't go there, but anyway.

While my attention was wandering from the murky discussion up at the front, I noticed this cute little graffito in the inside of my desk. I present it with the caveat that of course I agree (since there's only one shuai ge--cute guy--for me) but that it's not an objective fact about the institution. And I'm not making any sad faces--it's fine with me. But SOMEONE was disappointed. Maybe she should have been hanging out in the philosophy building rather than in ghetto old Third Classroom.

After class, I had a really light lunch of egg-drop soup and steamed bread. It was fairly satisfying to me, but clearly comprised of two side dishes as far as cafeteria pricing is concerned--it cost an almost shamefully cheap 0.9 RMB. I decided to double the price by finishing it off with this intriguing looking offering from the dessert counter. Could it be... fungus and wolfberry soup? I had my suspicions when I tasted it, and these were later confirmed during a quick stop in the grocery store for honey. Yep, they sell something called "white fungus" and it looks just like this. But aren't the red wolfberries (they have no taste but are supposed to be medicinal) rather picturesque? And isn't the delicately sweetened liquid so…delicate? The whole thing, I confess, was really odd--but not bad.

Then I went home and tried to sleep but I coughed too much whenever I lay down. Nothing like a chest-cold to make you feel like you are dying. If I were in the US, I would drink hot honey lemonade, but I haven't seen any lemons for sale here. I drank honey ginger orangeade, but it wasn't quite the same. Nonetheless, I managed to drag myself out to go to class at 5. It was a class I hadn't been to before, "History of Ancient Chinese Literature 1." All about the Classic of Odes. The professor did not look like my picture of a Chinese intellectual (which the "History of Ancient Chinese Literature 3" professor REALLY REALLY does), which is to say he was not old and bent with a sculpted bony face and heavy plastic rimmed classes behind which lurk sarcastic knowing eyes. Instead, he was short and heavy-set and energetic, looked and talked like a Chinese businessman. He untiringly promoted the memorization of the poems we were looking at, and many of the poems he discussed were clearly already memorized because he didn't bother to mention the numbers and when he recited them about half the class chimed in.

It was only a little bit deeper than our standard treatment at UO, where I had my first history of Chinese literature class. He had an amusing way of making the traditional interpretation seem shockingly absurd, and then explaining the textual support for it. But there was a strong sense of "the way we read it now" being just as important as the traditional reading. I had a hard time following it, since I didn't have the text or anything. But I knew some of the odes well enough that I could recognize them when he started to talk about them.

After class, I walked through the strange little residential enclave that sits in the middle of campus like a paramecium engulfed by an amoeba but stubbornly indigestible. It is called Yan Nan Yuan, and has, according to our tour guide, been there longer than the university. So the university, I guess, just grew up around them. I wonder how they feel, living right in the middle of a campus?! Students trek through their lanes all the time. There is also an amazing population of feral cats. I suppose the feral cats must control any potential rodent problems, and that's why they're kept around. I happened to pass by while they were feeding, though, and it was fairly disturbing.

I knew just what I wanted for my own dinner, readily if expensively available and the "QuickCafe" (Kuai Can). A whole 5.5 RMB expensive, I mean. It's…Meat Pellet Soup! I suppose I should call it Meatball soup, but I can't help thinking of that word in Chinese as meaning pill or pellet, so to me it's "Fragrant Clay Pot Meat Pellet Soup with Rice." It may not be chicken soup--it's probably even something gross like pork soup--but it surely has more or less the same effect. It was certainly comforting and tasty.

And since I'm on a roll with the food photography, here's some more about mooncakes. They were being sold a la cart outside the Farm Garden (Nong Yuan) cafeteria today. They are being sold everywhere. And for mama, who didn't know or forgot what they were, here's also a picture of some I bought just for her--though of course it's I who have to eat them. They're typically heavy and dry and sweet. I think the ones here, selected at random, turned out to be "fruit", coconut, and…hm…two "brown". Perhaps I should read more carefully next time, because "brown" was nothing to write home about (even though I am). "Fruit" was pretty good though, as is pineapple.