My Recent Travels

The Bai Ma people live in wood houses like this.

 This past weekend I traveled into the mountains to visit several villages of a minority group. The scenery was breath taking. Here is just a tiny glimpse of what I saw.

Kitchen at the guest house I stayed at.

Dining room, that is a wood stove for cooking and heating.

Traditional clothes.

Bai Ma village

I love this sign!!

Horses in the valley.

House in the village.

新年快乐!! Happy New Year!!

Boom! Boom! Fireworks explode breaking the quite of evening, I glance out the window and see reflections in my apartment complex so I know these are close to my house. Right now it is Chinese new year and they celebrate in style with LOTS and LOTS of fireworks! Chinese new year is a week long celebration and many people travel to visit family and friends. Most of the stores and restaurants close for several days. It has been weird to walk the streets this week, it seems so deserted with very few people out and about and all the shops closed.
However, the city center park was not deserted. Here are some pictures of the decorations they put up to ring in the new year. Enjoy!

I don't like Fridays?

So I have been very lax in updating my blog recently, many apologies! I will try to get back in the habit of doing so.

This fall I have been studying Chinese at a university here and I really enjoy it. I have made a lot of progress in my language skills. Below is a sample of the text I was reading this morning and some of my homework, my writing isn't very good yet. :) 

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 One of my favorite things about living in China is the questions I get asked. Today I was having tea with a friend and she asked me why Americans don't like Fridays. I was a little surprised by the question and I said we like Fridays. Then we talked a little more and I discovered that she was confused about Friday the 13th and thought that it meant Americans didn't like Friday in general. So, I explained to her that some people think Friday the 13th is unlucky etc.

 This is a shot of the one the rivers that runs through my town. I spent the afternoon at a park with one of my friends and was inspired to take some pictures.

马马虎虎

This week I learned an interesting story behind a phrase in the Chinese language. The phrase is 马马虎虎 (ma ma hu hu), which literally translated means horse horse tiger tiger, but it means so so or carelessness that leads to a heavy consequence. I found the story behind it interesting so I wanted to share it with you.
During the Song dynasty (960 AD-1279 AD) there was a painter who was more on the abstract side of things (from my understanding) . One day he drew a horse head and a visitor came to ask him how to draw a tiger so the painter just added a tigers body to the horse head. Well, the person thought the picture was really bad and didn't want to buy it, so the painter kept it and hung it on his wall. The painter's eldest son asked him "what is this?" He told him it was a tiger. His younger son asked him the same question and he told him it's a horse. One day the elder son was out hunting and he saw a horse and because of what his father told him he thought it was a tiger, so he shot it! Understandably, the owner asked the father to pay for the horse. In the same way, one day his younger son saw a tiger and thought it was a horse because of what the father had said. The little boy wanted to ride the "horse" but it bit him and he died as a result. The painter was so sad he never painted again. This is where the phrase ma ma hu hu comes from.
 I don't know if it is a true story or just a myth but I always enjoy learning all the interesting stories and cultural things that come along with the language learning. I hope you enjoyed it!

An Unexpected Afternon

Summer comes early to this part of the world. It is supposed to hit 30 degrees C today and it feels it. I, of course, love it. It is beautiful weather to be outside and active. Last weekend I sent a text message to one of my friends asking her if she would like to go to the park and take a walk, she replied "ok". So, I head out to meet her and she shows up with her whole family plus her sister in the car and tells me they are going to a school. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on but after a few attempts at communicating thought perhaps they were checking the school out for her son. When we got there I discovered we were picking up her nephew. Now we will probably head to the park, I am thinking. Wrong. We get back in the car and my friend informs me we are heading to a lake 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) outside of the city to ride bicycles. What? I am not dressed for this, I was wearing a skirt and sandals, so I informed her of this and they graciously took me home to change first. It turned out to be a wonderful afternoon of riding bikes and enjoying the outdoors but it was a rather amusing situation. My friend doesn't speak a lot of English and often relies on her 14 year old nephew to communicate with me in a mixture of Chinese and English which is great for my Chinese learning but odd in that I end up talking with him more than her. :)

This part of the country is known for the people have a more relaxed and leisurely lifestyle. All over the city there are tea houses where people go to sit and talk or play cards or mahjong. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Tea house, people playing cards

People enjoying live music at the park

An amazing pot of tea I enjoyed with friends

This is in front of my building. Literal translation is: give me a little love, I give you some green. :)

Spring and a new use for textbooks...

Spring has finally come! I am so thankful that the weather is warmer and there has been several sunny days. The city has planted beautiful flowers everywhere and the cherry blossom trees in the park are beautiful.
I have continued on with my language studies and I feel like I am making good progress. I still struggle to understand what people are saying to me on the street because they speak in the local dialect and not Mandarin which is what I am learning. For example, on my way to class this morning it sounded exactly like a man asked me if I studied English after I had just finished telling him I came here to study Chinese. I was a little confused and proceeded to tell him I was an American and could speak English. He probably was asking me something else and no doubt wondered why I was telling him my nationality! Oh the joys of language learning!
Yesterday when I went to class my teacher started off by asking me if I wanted to play a game with her. She pulled out what is called a Jian zi, a blend between a hacky sac and a badminton birdie and showed me how to play with it. You are supposed to keep it in the air by kicking it with your foot. Well, I wasn't very good at it so after a few minutes she said: "we can use our books!". So, we got our textbooks and proceeded to play badminton in the classroom using our books as rackets! It was a lot of fun.
That is all for now, just wanted to write a quick update and let you all know I am doing well. 

Cooking and Characters

Good afternoon!
This morning during my language class I learned the character for busy. Many Chinese characters are made up of two parts and the two parts that make up the character for busy mean heart death. It made me think of stress related heart attacks. Chinese is a very logical language.

Yesterday I spent some time in the kitchen and I thought I would show you what I did. One of my teachers gave me a jar of pickled vegetables, something that is common to eat here, and I had eaten all the vegetables out of it so I refilled my jar. 

Brine the vegetables go in.

Cutting the veggies, I used carrots and radishes.

 

 

 

 

 

One of my friends taught me how to cook lotus root, a very common and delicious food here.

Lotus Root

Lotus root is cooked in oil with some spicy dried red peppers (I think chile peppers) and a spice called prickly ash in English which has a numbing effect on your mouth when you eat it.

Prickly Ash or numbing spice.

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the food!

Some randomness for your enjoyment...

Living in a foreign country there are many quirks to discover. I thought it might be fun to share some of them with you, enjoy!

1. I live on the 18th floor of an apartment building in the city but there are chickens on my roof, I hear the rooster crowing every morning. I like it.
2. I have a squatty toilet in my bathroom and my shower is almost directly above it so I almost fall into my toilet sometimes when I am showering.
3. I was told today that the Chinese language has about 90,000 characters...ai ya! I have my work cut out for me.
4. The word to brag in Chinese is made up of the words to blow and cow, so bragging is blowing a cow.
5. I was sitting drinking coffee with a friend today and she randomly asked me if I like hats. I said yes, I do. She then said that she had been thinking that I should wear a hat when I go to visit her grandparents since they nor (evidently) no one in their village had ever seen a foreigner and they would be staring at me. I then assured her that I was used to people staring and would be ok.

Living near the clouds...or thereabout

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I just experienced my first Christmas in the mainland. It was lovely. They have an interesting tradition here. At Christmas time many people buy inflatable bats and go to the park in the city center and hit each other with them. I have asked several friends why this is and none of them know why except that it is "funny". Who knows how it got started. I made sure to steer clear of the park over the holiday.

            I now have my own apartment! It is on the 18th floor so I have an amazing view of the city. Here are  some pictures for your enjoyment. 

Living/Dining Room

More Living Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

My Bedroom

Bedroom Cupboards

Spare Bedroom currently acting as storage...

Balcony where I do my wash...stuff the previous people left

Living Room, my bedroom door on the left

Some more pics...

                                           Three famous guys from long ago...

I was the model and photographer for this one...

Baked potatoes cooking in a fire pit that was located in the living room of the house, they tasted very good!

This tree is 600 years old, pretty cool.

A Beautiful Day

I got to go to a beautiful park, here are some of the pics!

Famous Poet