Swan Lake

Last night my host family took me to an extraordinarily fancy restaurant called Swan Lake.  We were seated in a private room (with a TV) where three business colleagues of my host father's joined us.  To illustrate the luxuriousness of this entire dinner: the ceiling was the clear bottom of an aquarium, out the window lay a lake filled with swans, the dishes were served on a rotating crystal platter, and the bathrooms had toilet paper.  The main dish: a tray with a lobster (may or may not have been alive), a small ice sculpture, and a mini liquid nitrogen volcano.  Other dishes were Beijing roast duck, filet mignon....  The weirdest thing I drank: corn juice, although this sauce that was like wasabi but 100 times worse (and my host sister let me put a huge amount in my mouth) was a close second.  It might as well have been moonshine by how well it cleared out my sinuses.  The importance of the guests can be determined based on who controls the Lazy Susan on which all the dishes are placed during meals whether formal or informal.  If you are the guest of honor, you can spin it for whichever dish you like.  Everyone else waits for their desired dish to land in front of them.  The only abominable part was that all of the men were smoking, and the regular Chinese table etiquette was mostly withstanding (burping, chewing with one's mouth open, etc., ugh).  Every couple of minutes someone would stand up, make a toast, and drink their shot of sake.  At one point they all stood up and looked at me.  Lily whispered that I was supposed to wish them something, so I subsequently drew a blank on all my Chinese except for 祝你生日快乐, "wish you a happy birthday".  Eventually I managed something about peace (but most people put more effort into birthdays anyway).  Afterwards my host sister and I played golf on the attached country club's driving range.

I learned that for women to marry in China they have to be 20 years old and men have to be 22!

Weirdest thing I ate today: chicken feet.  They were just as scrumptious as they sound.  Additionally, we had dessert for the very first time, not counting the abundance of nightly watermelon.  The dish tasted like an extremely watery jello with rice-pudding-like chunks and not at all sweet.  I brought good old artificial American jello to make my host family later, but it will probably end up being sweet enough in comparison to scar their taste buds.

Dragon fruit, not as sweet as the dark color insinuates.

Milk Flavored Chinese Toiletries

Weirdest thing I ate today: pig's stomach on a stick.  It was part of our dinner of Chinese barbecue which my host sister absolutely adores.  Slightly different from American barbecue, you choose raw meat on a stick and then it gets slathered in spices and cooked either in a pot or on a grill.  All the while my mouth was on fire as my host sister just giggled.  For breakfast I was served homemade soy milk and glutinous rice balls filled with a black herb-looking goo that actually tasted like sweet peanut butter, and since glutinous=delicious, it was delicious, albeit gaining bowling-ball-like qualities in my stomach.  I had made chopstick-size peanut butter sandwiches for my host family the night before, so they were convinced I love peanut butter (very true).

Milk Body Wash

Milk Nail Polish Remover
(Smells wonderful; why do we not have this in the US?!)

Lily and I painted each others' nails today, my favorite culturally transcending, bonding activity!

Panda Park

My host sister, Lily, in front of baby pandas.

Today my host family took me to the Chengdu Panda Reserve.  It is this huge, beautiful, lush park with about 20 giant pandas and red pandas.

In the afternoon, Lily and I went to a massive underground market for cheap shopping.  I loved bargaining as I hunted for unique souvenirs.  My host sister was not nearly as driven of a bargainer as I was, but I think the vendors automatically notched up the price just because she was standing next to me.  Besides all of the shoes stopping at a size I grew out of in elementary school, at least an inch of height is added to the bottom of each.  Converse must have to special-make Chinese Chucks.  A lot of the clothes are of a really strange style; I cannot tell if their fashion is ahead of or behind ours, but hipster has definitely not struck yet.  I have already tired of the clothes I brought with me, but then I realized that my host sister only has five outfits...

Contacts to change iris' color or size.

I recently figured out why it is so hard to understand my host family's Chinese; they speak a dialect of Mandarin called Sichuanese that varies from Standard on a few vocabulary and pronunciation points.  For example, 吃饭 (chi fan meaning eat) and 睡觉 (shui jiao meaning sleep), two rather important words, are pronounced ci fan and sui jiao.

Weirdest thing I ate today: duck's tongue (like beef jerky with more tendons).  Although that was kind of a low, I had some really delicious things too, such as kumquat chrysanthemum juice with jackfruit (pictured below) and a dinner roll filled with red bean paste.  A few days ago I had Beijing roast duck, and it was so tasty.  For foods classified as highly-suspicious (often soups), I have developed a tactic where if I pick up something whose protein source is dubious I can let it slip and blame it on my still-developing chopstick skills.

The Amazing Race

Maomi playing with the Chinese paper lantern I made yesterday.

Food on a stick to cook in boiling water.

Balls of dough are bounced off a board with bells and then roll down a wall of flour-like coating.

Today we broke into groups and raced around Chengdu in an "Amazing Race" type format.  We were given a photo of the first place we had to go and then asked natives to navigate, while using all resources available.  The first place was known for serving a famous dessert, but we never actually got to try it since it was closed.  Another clue took us to a temple where we ate a lot of good street vendor food, like delicious glutinous rice balls (anything glutinous=delicious).  After saying a Chinese tongue twister to earn the next clue (四是四), we eventually made our way to another restaurant for fried dumplings.  Eventually we reached the final destination of a hot pot eatery (notice the edible theme?), where you choose raw meat, vegetables, and fungi on a stick and then cook it in the pot of boiling water on each table in traditional Sichuan style.  It is similar to the fondue places we have in Indy, but swap water with chocolate (obesity, much?).  My team actually reached the end first after a slightly frenzied trek, but now I know exactly how the participants on "The Amazing Race" feel.

Weirdest things I ate today (and realized I was eating): chicken foot and heart (not at the same time) and pig stomach (that one I only discovered its identity after putting it in my mouth).

Traditional Chinese Medicine

All of today we spent on a traditional Chinese medicine field trip.  In the morning we went to a museum, and in the afternoon we visited a university specializing in TCM.  The presentation they gave us was fascinating, talking about natural remedies, qi meridians, yin and yang balance, accupunture, etc; although, from the perspective of someone raised with Western medicine at least, the logic was rather sketchy (a word I seem to be using a lot in China).  A few of the students got the chance to try out the cupping and acupuncture.

I went out exploring the city some more after school with some friends, one of which is actually Japanese.  It is hilarious to watch as natives turn to her and rattle off Chinese expecting her to translate for the Caucasian Americans.  It seems hard for some to grasp that not all Americans are white and not all white people are American.

I saw foreigners for the first time since being in Chengdu!  One woman was in a Starbucks, and another couple was in a McDonalds.  Ironic...

Please Honk Appropriately

There is a surfeit of American fast food chains in China, especially McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and KFC.  The winner by far is KFC; so many people here LOVE Fried chicken.  They even have multiple knock-off KFCs that sell more cheap fried chicken.  All of the American-brand restaurants are a lot different, though.  McDonalds burgers are spicy unless requested otherwise.  Pizza Hut is a sit-down restaurant serving family-style noodles, meat, and dumplings in addition to pizza.  One night my sister brought home a delicious egg cake for me from KFC.

We preformed a final tai chi routine to wrap up our tai chi/kung fu unit at school.

Acceptable moments and durations to honk in Chinese traffic:
Too lazy to turn on blinker (3 sec)
Trying to win chicken with a grandma on a moped (10 sec)
Entering someone else's blind spot (2 sec)
Bored (to your enjoyment)
Running late (multiple 1 sec bursts)
Seeing an American (5 sec and stare)

Adventure to the Chinese Grocery Store

My host family took me to a Japanese department/grocery store called Ito Yokado.  It was packed at 9 pm and had samples for everything, like Costco on steroids.  I have to be careful what I compliment or even comment on, otherwise they will latch onto the idea that I LOVE that certain food, buy tons special from the grocery store, and serve me it nonstop.

My Host Aunt with tomorrow's dinner (chicken!)