Quiet Day Full Day

Tuesday morning: I was coming down with a cold. I could feel it as soon as I woke up, so I turned off my alarm, slept in, and skipped my 8 AM class. One ear was normal and one was filled with the sound of the sea. I remembered how my dad always says, each year in November, "Now be careful of your ears around your birthday time." For some reason, I often got ear infections around my birthday when I was a kid. I barely remember what they felt like. But the lop-sided feeling in my hearing suggested something was not right.

I lay in bed. I made excuses to my classmate via text messages. I'm not sure why, but I decided to say I was too busy instead of saying I was sick. I'm tired of being sick. Also in case I decided to go out and saw her later. Besides, I was busy. I worked hard on translating the whole day. Had about five times my usual dose of vitamin C. Drank hot water.

For lunch, I went across the street to the fake Kentucky Chicken, the Yihe Wang. It looks just like a Kentucky Chicken, even down to a picture of a pure white but Asian-looking colonel, and there's one next to every Kentucky Chicken. But it's a Chinese-food fast-food place. I had never been there before. For half the price of a breaded and fried chicken sandwich next door (I paid just under $2), I got a big bowl of rice, stir-fried chicken breast, steamed baby bok-choy, a perfect disc of fried egg, and a big glass of hot, unsweetened (and unusually delicious) soy milk. (Soy milk here by the way is incredibly delicious and totally different from almost all American soy milk. I really don't like soy milk in the U.S., but Chinese soy milk, I think, is actually made according to some different process, because both taste and texture are different, and better.)

I sometimes wonder if a huge part of the obesity problem in America is just the type of choices we're offered. If there were an Yihe Wang next to every one of our fast-food places that offered a healthy meal like this, would we be so fat? I sometimes think of Supersize Me, which was admittedly a very problematic movie, but it had one little cameo of a fat girl with her fat mother attending a talk (sponsored by Subway of course) by the semi-legendary Jared who lost so much weight by eating all those Subway sandwiches. "But," she said, standing half in tears beside her fat mother, "we can't afford to buy those sandwiches ever day." As if Subway sandwiches were the only effective slimming food in existence. Fast food mentality, narrowing of possibilities. It was sad. Yihe Wang rice-bowls are delicious, filling, and cheap. If only I could beam some over.

The sunsets are getting earlier. This one seemed to be full of dragons, what do you think? Okay, I guess maybe they had something to do with jets and reflections and stuff. But what would the ancients have thought, if they could have seen? A portent!

In the evening, I went gingerly out to the Carrefour and got some supplies. And another set of long-underwear. My ear was still rushing like an inconstant wind. I had soup for dinner and read a lot of blogs. Then I went to bed early.

By morning I was feeling much better, even perhaps all better, which was good because I had a long day ahead of me. I guess the right way to help my body fight off a cold is to drop everything and stay in bed most of a day. Hey, I like that! Above is my breakfast, hot milky tea and a funny (and utterly unhealthy--to make up for my lunch the previous day) type of pastry.


It's a fried and syrup-soaked bit of dough, much chewier than a doughnut, and sprinkled with sesame seeds on the outside. Due to a funny quirk of independently developing lexical strands, the name of this pastry could be translated as "marijuana flowers." Nope, no pot in it. It's just that ma is the word for "sesame," which is why it's in the pastry, I think--"big sesame flowers"--and also the word for "numb" or a thing Chinese identify as a taste which produces in your mouth the same kind of buzzing that marijuana produces in your head. So marijuana is "the big numb," rather apt, I'd say. Anyway, nice breakfast.

Wednesday: history and legend class. My worst misgivings regarding Chinese discussion class realized. A brave skinny kid got up and started talking fast and generally incomprehensibly about reading materials he had distributed only the day before (despite the professor's injunction to have them distributed by Sunday). He talked for about half an hour. I tried to follow, fitfully, unsuccessfully. The professor asked if anyone had any questions--dead silence. The professor asked if there were things people didn't understand. Dead silence. The professor--who must have spent some time in the U.S., I'm thinking--let the silence stretch out for what would have been an unbearably long time in the U.S. (as they sometimes tell you to do when no one's talking). The Chinese students were more than a match for it. The silence got slightly fitful as people started pulling out other work.

The professor gave up. He got up and lectured, first about how to give a more engaging presentation, then about the subject at hand. His lecture was not as good as usual because he hadn't expected to give it, and because the person giving the presentation hadn't followed his suggestions about key reading materials to pass out to everyone--so we didn't have them. I felt for the guy. I wish I were better at talking because then I might have been brave enough to make a suggestion--such as, require the presenter to prepare discussion questions. Maybe I will e-mail him. I am not a very good writer in Chinese, and I'm bad about how to do epistolary etiquette unless someone is helping me. But it may be worth the risk anyway, just to try to get things on track.

Class got out early so I got into the Farm Garden cafeteria before the lunch-time rush. I went straight to the crepe station. Crepes here are savory without exception. At Farm Garden you have your choice of a crispy fried thing--vegetarian, I asked--as filling (together with egg, lettuce, and sauces) or some chicken chunks. I prefer the chicken, though the fried thing is good and filling I will say. Ah, nothing like a piping hot freshly made crepe with delicious spicy sauces, fresh lettuce, and yummy chicken. The man's hand was hurting from repetitive stress, I could tell by the way he shook it. I felt a little bad, but there was really nothing to be done. He asked if I wanted the whole one or half. I liked at it. It was probably about a foot long. But a lot of the filler was lettuce. The whole, I said, to the dismay of the lady in line behind me. Tee hee. Then I ate the whole thing. And a bowl of extremely mild bean and rice soup for warmth and because that's what people here tend to drink with their meals instead of beverages.

I went home, did small chores. At two I set out for my visit to LGs. What a marvelous old man he is. Every time I go to see him, I feel nervous beforehand--but I shouldn't. He is invariably kind to me. He gets slippers out of the cupboard for me as I take off my shoes, and smoothes out the couch and rearranges all the cushions before inviting me to sit. His wife brings me a cup of coffee without asking. He shuffles into his study and comes out with his papers and an impish grin. Seventy-seven years old. He gets very excited about his little discoveries, just like I do. He showed me some stuff written in 1946 about my ancient historical work and explained the political subtext. It was amazing. I wished I could record every word. We'll definitely have to talk more on this.

Then I sheepishly brought out my list of questions about the translation work. I need not have worried. He explained everything very unjudgmentally, even happily. There was no "you should have looked harder for this before asking" or anything like that. With one sort of idiomatic Chinese word, which I hadn't found well-defined in any of my dictionaries, and which he explained in modern Chinese, I fished around and suddenly thought of the perfect English translation. He was delighted. His academic English is very good, so he can read it well, understands it, and has a good vocabulary, though he doesn't really speak. I was delighted too, to hear him say, "That's JUST what it means." He also told me some grand stories from history, relating to various four-character phrases. I'm studying this sort of thing with my tutor too, and for the first time in my Chinese learning career I'm actually having a really good time learning the phrases.

LGs wanted a copy of my list of questions! I only found that out after I had scribbled notes all over it. Never mind, he insisted, and went off to make the copy. He wanted the copy because some of my questions weren't so easily explained and he wanted to ponder them and write out proper footnotes to explain.

I do hope we can get this paper published, and hopefully published somewhere good. It would just make me feel so proud.

As I was leaving, I wanted somehow to express how much I appreciated all he is doing for me. So I said I felt very lucky. He said in a perfectly courtly way that he felt lucky too, because there were quite a lot of English-language stuff that I could go through so much faster than he. I also said, I was I was putting my shoes back on, that I just somehow felt happy every time I came here. Yes, he said. When he was young he had a friend who was a professor when he was just a student, and they used to have such talks, and he would feel just like that: unreasonably happy. So he could see what I meant. It is a kind of intoxicating feeling, when someone you respect takes you seriously and teaches you carefully.

I went home and rested, thinking about some of the stuff we had talked about.

At 5:30 I headed out to buy bread and cheese for the American grad students' potluck I was going to. I just have to note that my bike is working great now. There's a huge difference between riding a bike with a borderline flat tire and riding a bike that's functioning as well as a totally crap cheapo Chinese bike can be functioning. I was like that wind! I bought the supplies at the French market Carrefour. Bread and cheese might sound like a pretty ordinary contribution…if you don't know how rare actual cheese is around here. By actual cheeses, I mean anything above individually wrapped slices of processed cheese (think off-brand Velveeta singles) for which I have a passionate dislike. I thought I'd try a couple baguettes to go with the Camembert. We're not talking super-good Camembert here, but it was passable, you know? I chose the nicest-looking baguettes I could find, and headed for the check-out.

Now here's the part where I devise a new life-rule. As anyone who lives in a foreign country will know, there are always going to be those occasional moments when someone asks you what sounds like a yes or no a question except you don't know what the hell they said. You have two choices. You ask them to say it again, thereby admitting that you are the dumb and troublesome foreigner that you appear to be…or you can just say yes and see what life has to offer. Now as far as my personal philosophy is concerned, the latter option seems rather attractive, especially if I have at least a guess about what I'm going to get. You know--be open, spontaneous, etc.? Now this has already gotten me into trouble, as regular readers know who remember the "emcee debacle." But I thought I was pretty safe at the check-out, when the clerk asked what I though was "Do you want a bag for those?" I figured out a moment later that I had missed the crucial verb in the sentence, for as soon as I indicated my assent, she took one of my beautiful and newly purchased baguettes, gave it a few exploratory squeezes, and then began to attack and deform it with such enthusiasm that she tore the paper of the bag it was in. "No no!" I said. "Oh," she said. "You don't want it folded?" "Er, no, thanks." "Then there's no solution," she said dismissively and unapologetically, dropping the bag and turning to the next customer.

My new life rule is to figure out what you're being asked before you agree to it. Cause you know what, that question just might be something you really want to refuse before it's too late, such as "Do you want to be our emcee?" or "Shall I fold your baguette for you so it will fit in the bag?"

I think they're also not to used to the idea of baguettes here, or even just bread that doesn't come pre-sliced. Next to one bakes because ovens are not a standard home-kitchen feature here, and besides, the primary carbs are rice and noodles and steamed dumplings.

I took my abused baguette and pedaled toward the giant apartment complex where my colleague lived.

The potluck was fun, in a way, but also deflating. Which is to say, sometimes--especially after a good day--I get started thinking that I am a brave explorer into a strange new world where everything is different from what I'm used to and all my discoveries are unique and amazing. For example, these construction workers rebuilding the side-walk in front of my building, with about one worker for every square yard of sidewalk. Actually I saw another white guy taking a similar picture. It was just so marvelous. But that's part of the point. For almost every amazing daily-life story I have, someone else living here has one that's just the same, and usually better. In amidst the disappointment, though, I get a better sense of which parts of my experience actually are unique. And I get humbled, which is generally a good thing. Things are going so well for me here, that I occasionally get on a high horse!

Two people were working on orphanages and abandoned children, albeit from different perspectives. They had heart-wrenching stories.

I got some good advice about dictionaries.

For some reason, sociologists and me just don't mix. It's nothing personal, because talking on a personal level there's no problem--at least at first! It's just that when it comes to talking shop, all of a sudden there's no common ground. Not only do we not see eye to eye, but it's impossible to maintain anything but the shallowest semblance of mutual respect, if that. We actually are about ready to snarl at one another, except the sosh is too polite and I'm too confused. So she'll look down on me with carefully veiled condescension, and disapproves of everything I say, while I wonder why the I seem to keep on saying the wrong things. This is not the first time! Sigh, and probably not the last.

It was almost eleven at night by the time I biked home. I was wearing my helmet and my white jacket, so I was pretty safe and visible. The streets are relatively quiet by then anyway. It was cold. I stayed up later than I meant to, first chatting with my fellow, then reading blogs.