Cooking Comparison

I noticed it even after a few months of living in China that oftentimes the locals would turn their noses up at us foreigners when they would see us eating out or bringing home take-out. In response to their opinions and my own wedge of pride within, sometimes I get a domestic hair up my nose and try to buy, chop, and fry various Chinese dishes. But it’s always disappointing; the flavor is lacking, the meat is tough, the vegetables soggy. Plus, it usually takes about twice as much time to cook for myself as it would for me to get the food from a local vendor.

If I spend this kind of energy cooking in the kitchen, I want it to taste like mom’s home-cooking. But mom’s cooking, I’m realizing now, involves a lot of canned vegetables, milky broths, and processed cheese. Ah yes, cheese! The phantom ingredient not found in recognizable form in Chinese supermarkets. And cheese isn’t the only thing that is hard to find in China. This evening, as I whipped up a home-made pizza, I used about 5 ingredients that I could never get in the local supermarket: instant pizza crust mix (just add water), alfredo sauce, canned olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and parmesan cheese. This past winter, I also helped my mom cook some soup. My task? To open up three cans of vegetables and empty them into a pot; it took me about 4 minutes. Similarly, the pizza I made this evening only took about 20 minutes to prepare, but to get a similar product in China would take me an incalculable amount of time (especially since I would have to culture milk to make cheese and grow some olives in the garden I don’t have.)

(One of our white sauce home-made pizzas, a staple of summer in the Strasser household.)

In fact, anytime I want to cook some western dishes in China, I should be prepared at least a few hours before expecting to eat. Take the simple meal of spaghetti for example. In order to cook spaghetti, I should have fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, and a little bit of peppers on hand. I should cut them all up early enough to let them stew for a good hour. I should also have a special kind of Italian noodle only found at the supermarket downtown where we live (about 15 minutes by bus). This step, although simple, does require time and forethought. By the time the spaghetti noodles and sauce are ready, I will have spent a good hour in the kitchen already, just chopping and stewing. As you might guess then, even a simple meal of spaghetti is quite time consuming and not usually high on my list of things to do in a normal day.

As I think about living another year in China, facing the suggestions and haughty attitudes of neighbors who have been cooking Chinese cuisines in their kitchens since birth, I find myself not even caring. Happy to leave behind this expectation that I need to cook for myself, excited to see what kinds of sickness or ecoli trouble I can get myself into on the streets of Hengyang.

(My former team-mate Ani looking pumped to eat her lanzhou noodles (pronounced la mian in Chinese.) These delicious noodles are made right at the restaurant and fried with tomatoes, garlic, onions, and beef, sold for the equivalent of about $.80.)

Band Concerts, Bike Rides, and Blue Skies

No more Milkin'

Up until this summer, I had very high standards for holding conversations with people. For me to feel like I had connected with someone, I required conversations to include at least one of the following: sharing about one’s spirituality, confiding a love interest, or expressing hopes, dreams, and fears. I viewed conversations much like milking a cow. I tried to extract deep information from the person I was conversing with in the same way the dairy farmer yanks and pulls on the cow’s tit until the milk is squirting freely into the pail. I saw myself as a combination of the farmer and the pail; the farmer to squeeze out the information, the pail to catch it as it came squirting out. I put a lot of pressure on myself, the person I was talking to, and conversations in general.

But this summer, I realize that it’s impossible to reach that deep level of conversations with everyone. Furthermore, it’s emotionally exhausting. In fact, it’s more suitably the job of a psychologist in order to help people process their lives. So why did I feel the need to give free sessions to everyone? I’m not sure. It was probably even dangerous of me in that I wasn’t trained in helping those I was conversing with deal with their emotions. But a light has gone off for me this summer, and I realize I don’t need to be so lofty in my expectations of conversations. As a result, I am better able to enjoy conversations. Sure, sometimes I ask directed deep questions if I feel it’s needed, but I’m also perfectly content to keep the conversation at a politely shallow level. “How do you like your new job?” “What’s your favorite meal to make in the summertime?” “How do you deal with sharp turns on the riding lawn mower?” etc. Recently, these conversations have been equally as satisfying and a lot less draining that the “milking” I had fancied was required of me earlier. I’m not saying that “milking” is never required, but in general, I can relax and meet people where they are at conversationally.

Photos from Nebraska

Memories

This past week, I helped mom go through some of my old toys. Here's what the back of the seat looked like as we took the cast-offs to the second hand store in town. I had no problem parting with most dolls and barbies.



However, there were 4 select Barbies that I couldn't bear to part with: the Heart Family. This Barbie family made by Mattel in the 1980's consisted of a dad, mom, and twin babies. These Barbies were special in that the arms of dad and mom had a permanent bend at their elbow making it convenient for them to hold the kids. This Heart family embodies my vision of a what a perfect family, ideally my own future family would look like. This a happy family: their clothes are pastel and cheery (complete with a heart on dad's tie); the kids never misbehave; the parents are perfectly compatible; and the whole family goes driving in their Heart family car on the week-ends.

I Love....

I love
fresh, strong coffee,
bluebirds living in our backyard,
rain showers in the morning,
friendly Midwest waves from drivers,
tractors parked on main street,
Barnes and Nobles
with a friend.

Do I love it?

Now that I’m back home and planning to go back to China for one more year, people often say to me, “You must really love it there.” I never know how to answer this statement. It’s a little bit like assuming that someone loves their job because they have been there for several years. I don’t assume that people love their job just because they keep going back to it. Sometimes, a person just needs a job and has to sacrifice their ideal life for a stable job that brings a salary. In fact, everyday I do things that I don’t just love doing: showering, brushing my teeth, jogging, eating bananas, and dusting. I don’t just LOVE doing any of these things, but I do them. It’s similar to living in a foreign country. I don’t LOVE being there. I don’t like that the climate is pretty much always uncomfortable, either incredibly humid and sweltering, raining, or freezing cold. I don’t really love that people stare at us and make generalizations about all foreigners based on our actions and habits. I don’t just love that people are always giving unsolicited advice; “Wear more clothes. Don’t eat at the back gate. Don’t have chocolate if you want to lose weight. Don’t take a taxi. Don’t stay out past 9:00 at night.” I also don’t like how the word for “foreigner” in Chinese literally means “Outside person.” Forever an outsider, never an insider. Always trying to feel normal and organic in culture that has labeled you as being different. Does it sound like I just love being there?

However, there is a joy that comes from the obedience I feel in being there. I can’t really explain it but sometimes it washes over me while I’m walking home from work, watching the grandpas and grandmas play with their grandchildren. Or when I’m sitting on the bus, marveling at the fact that any bus makes it one day without crashing, as the bus driver careens in and out of traffic. Some people pay big bucks to visit an amusement park while this bus ride only cost me one Chinese dollar (about 18 cents). Or as I’m talking with the store owner and he’s explaining his ideas about why people adopt children. Yes, there is a price that comes with living in a foreign country, but there is also joy. If it were simply one way or the other, it would not seem like a very realistic experience, but I can tell you that I experience the ups and downs of life just as deeply if not more living away from family and familiarity.

Road Trips

Travel to me should include at least 3 hours in the car listening to country music and at least one stop along the way for ice cream. Driving in the Midwest summer with the big blue sky ahead of you, puffy cumulous clouds lazing on the horizon, beckoning you to keep the pedal down, Brad Paisley singing sappy songs about lost love and new love, “ah, the good life.” This is my idea of travel. None of this hustle and bustle in the airport with people in their dark, tailored work clothes talking on their cell phones emitting “important person” from their brisk walk and commanding voice. None of those Beijing taxis with the windows open, refusing to turn on their air conditioner to save a few Chinese ren min bi as you swelter in the backseat. No more winding rides in the back of 13 person vans on roads that wouldn’t pass any kind of state approval even in the Ozarks of Arkansas.

San Li Tun （三里屯）

Towards the end of our travel in Beijing, we discovered a beautiful little place in named San Li Tun. This is a district that has restaurants and stores from all over the world: Turkey, France, Italy, Thailand, US, Canada, you name it, you can find your bit of foreign happiness in San Li Tun. This particular day also happened to be one of the hottest days in Beijing. So hot, that a reporter asked us to answer some questions about how expats were dealing with the heat. In the heat of the middle of the day with the knowledge that the ac in our little hotel room didn't work, we were obviously hesitant to leave our little foreign paradise. It's also an incredibly foreigner friendly place: climate controlled, western toilets with toilet paper, English speakers, no crowds, etc. While it felt so familiar in a lot of ways, I also felt a bit out of place. The foreigners who live and work in this part of Beijing are pretty well to do...or at least their pointy shoes, Gucci bags, and coiffured hair would suggest as much. At the same time though, I didn't really care if I felt in place or out of place. Who really determines that anyways except how you personally respond to the situation. If I pretend I'm a regular at San Li Tun, who's to make me feel otherwise?

Erin and I both said that San Li Tun is a great place for people who need a little break from the elements that aggressively greet you every morning in China. It's not that I don't like China, but it's tiring to live there. Everyday, every situation, is more confusing and convoluted than it feels like in one's home country. A simple example, when you go to the bank, you have to take a number and then wait for the 10 people in front of you to be helped first. You also have to watch for your number like a hawk or someone will cut in line and take your number.

Another example, while traveling in Beijing, few taxi drivers knew the place we were staying so that meant that I had to explain or show them the map. Most of the drivers pretended to understand once they saw the map, but it felt like we never took the same route back to the place where we were staying so I still wonder if they knew the place or found it by default.

Also, it's offensive to me when people stare and point. I don't think I experience it as much as some of my other, more stunning foreign friends. But even so, when I do experience it, I don't respond in a very loving way. On the great wall, I turned down two requests for my photo in a 10 minute period of time. I told them, "Everyday many people ask me for a picture, and I'm tired." Actually, people don't ask me that often, but I felt like the answer would help the people to see the situation from a foreigners' point of view. The Chinese tourists who had asked for my photo said something like, "That foreigner doesn't like Chinese people," and kept climbing.

A Turning Point

I've reached a new point in my Chinese language ability. Since traveling with my friend Erin for about a week now in China, I've had to use my Chinese pretty much everyday, nearly on the hour to communicate and get around. Any questions or translations that need to happen depend on me. I'm not saying that I'm speaking like a native Chinese person or even that I'm speaking perfectly, but I am speaking a lot, saying more things than I even prefer to say while using English, (I'm a minimalist when it comes to speaking.) The result? I'm speaking Chinese with confidence because there's not enough time or energy to worry about every single sentence that I'm constructing.
One down side of this newly acquired confidence is I'm also having to use the language in some aggressive ways. My friend and I clearly look like tourists, prime for the cheating. It makes me angry when people try to take advantage of this fact, so there have been several occasions when I have used Chinese to protect us or to scare people a bit. Perhaps one of the situations that I'm least proud of is when we we're trying to take a taxi in Xian. We were pressed for time (or so we thought), and none of the taxis would take us about a ten minute drive to where we needed to be. One taxi driver told me he didn't understand what I was saying. I repeated the address paying close attention to every tone. He again said he didn't understand. I was pretty flustered, and I said with angry eyes, "You understand" and I slammed the door. Finally, we settled on taking a little motorized rickshaw to the destination. I asked the driver if he could understand the address I was saying. Was I saying it wrong? He shook his head, "No, it's fine. You're saying it correctly." I then told him that the other taxi driver said he couldn't understand me. We both agreed that the other driver just didn't want to work.

An unforgettable ride

Yesterday, Erin and I took the bumpiest, longest two hour van ride of our long lives. The destination: Huang Long He (Yellow Dragon Lake). In fact, I had never heard of this place before it was included in our packaged tour to Jiu Zhai Gou in Sichuan. Normally, the road to Yellow Dragon would not be so bumpy, but right now the entire road is under under construction. As fate would have it, Erin and I were also in the back of the 12 seater van. Furthermore, our bus driver was crazy. While most drivers would slow down over bumps, I think he accelerated. Maybe it's because he was distracted by the text messages he was trying to send on his cell phone so he couldn't see clearly all the bumps we were clearly hitting straight on. There were times I bounced at least a foot off the seat; no seat belts of course. I took the time to listen to a sermon and make my peace with God. The tour guide, aware that we were all losing patience with the constant bumping said with a glint in his eyes "free massage," chuckle, chuckle. I told him I still preferred the massages you pay for. Sometimes, people think that miracles don't happen anymore, that they are only for the Old Testament times. I have seen several miracles in my lifetime mainly including surviving travel in China.

Jiu Zhai Gou in Sichuan