Love Teeth Mouth Cavity

            When translated literally, this is the name of the dentist’s office where I got a wisdom tooth pulled today. My roommate and I combined our Chinese character (hanzi) reading skills, along with the help of another teacher who just happened to be at the dentist office at the same time as we were, and it only took us about 20 minutes to figure out what it said. In our defense, it was written in script.

            Anyways, today I got a wisdom tooth pulled. It was rather painful, and in the future I will avoid it if it can be helped.

            When one has such a procedure done in a country other than one’s home’s country, it becomes necessary to make a few cultural observations.

            First of all, my appointment was at 9:30, and my roommate, who played mom for me today, and I arrived at the dentist’s office at 9:15, and the first thing that the dentist said to me was, “You’re early.” Here I was thinking that I was running late, and we ended waiting for at least a half an hour.  Before I came to China, I remember learning the rule of three; everything takes three times longer in China. This was a truth that was seen throughout the day. 

            I won’t go into the details of the procedure. I am sure that it was much the same as it would be in any other modern dentist’s office. The only difference was I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They would talk to me in English, but they spent most of the time talking to each other in Chinese. I am not sure if it made things easier or worse that I did not know what was going on.

            After the procedure, the dentist asked if I had any antibiotics. I was thinking that she meant Neosporin, antibiotic ointment. I wasn’t sure if I could ingest Neosporin, but that was the only thing that I thought that she could possibly mean. Then I realized that she meant an actual antibiotic, as in the pills. It did not register in my brain that she could mean the pill because a doctor/dentist the US would never ask if you had an antibiotic at home, s/he would simply prescribe them to you.

Well, as a matter of fact, I did indeed have antibiotics. Here in China, you can get antibiotics over-the-counter, most of the time. You see my roommate has been sick for a while now, and one day, the school nurse suggested that she get an antibiotic. She went to the pharmacy to buy it, but they would not sell it to her. Then she called a Chinese friend, Summer, and Summer said that the pharmacist would sell it to her. So Summer went and bought the antibiotics for my roommate, and while she was at it, she bought two extra boxes just in case.

Once I figured out what she meant by antibiotics, all was well. I paid the bill, set up a follow-up appointment, and was on my way.

My roommate and I went down to get a taxi. We waited. And we waited. And we waited. After several minutes of not having any luck finding a taxi, we saw this adorable little boy eating an ice cream cone. I was feeling pretty good, and ice cream sounded soothing, so I suggested that we go to McDonalds, and put our taxi waiting on hold.

Our conversation with the lady at McDonalds went something like this (Please note that this was in Chinese):

          “I want this (pointing to a picture of an ice cream cone), but I want it in a cup.”

          Blank Stare.

          “I want this (pointing to a picture of a sundae), but I don’t want Strawberry on it.

          Blank Stare.

          “I want ice cream, but I don’t want this (pointing to the picture of the cone).”

I think that at this point, she understood, but then she tried to charge us 7 kuai (about a dollar) for ice cream in a cup while ice cream in a cone is only 3 kuai (about $0.40). So we went through the whole charade again, but she didn’t get it.  We decided to suck it up and pay the extra 4 kuai. They don’t really do special orders in China. It’s just not a part of their culture, so it really confuses people when you try to make a special order.                                                                    

 Once we finally got our ice cream, we endeavored to wait for a taxi. And when we finally got one, I would say that the wait was worth it. We had ice cream, and we had a taxi driver that was very conversation, and he spoke a little English.  I genuinely enjoyed listening and somewhat talking with him on the way home even though my roommate did most of the talking.

Once I got home, I rested by watching A Christmas Carol, and actually, as I was watching it, I thinking about another blog post that will come in the future.

All-in-all, it went well, and aside from a sore mouth, I feel pretty good. Now I am relaxing to one of the Thin Man movies, a 1930s movie series with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

Classroom Management Issues that You Won't Find Anywhere Else

This week has been a bit crazy. You see they had to turn off the central air because they had to prepare the school for winter. (We don’t have individual air conditioners on our classrooms). It was in the seventies and eighties all week, and I don't even have a fan in my classroom. Needless to say, this week was a bit miserable at least in terms of being hot. There were a few distractions that made this week frustrating yet memorable.

1)   With all the windows open, it is very easy to hear the man who sings, or maybe I should say he wails, in the park every morning. 

2)   It is too hot to keep the classroom doors closed, so we are able to hear everything that is going on in the other classes. For example, my students are taking a rather difficult quiz and the class across the hall is doing “Walk through the Bible” and all my students want to join in.

3)   Also during this quiz, the teacher across the hall says something and my entire class bursts into laughter, but I missed whatever it was that he said.

4)   We decided to go outside for class because it is cooler outside than inside. Unfortunately two other teachers had the same idea, and the most ideal spots were taken. 

5)   You can hear the fireworks better when your windows are open. You can hear the fireworks even better when you are outside.

6)   When a gym class is on the soccer field and your students are able to see the game, there is no hope for getting anything done in class, especially when the ball keeps on getting kicked in your direction. One highlight of this was that the ball came towards, and I kicked it back into the field and students from three different classes cheered. (I’m not sure if they thought that I was super cool or a major dork, but hopefully the former).

While many of these distractions are rather humorous, here’s to hoping that next week is cooler.

An Ode to Turning Twenty-Four

Since Switchfoot already did a much better job than I could, I am going to post the lyrics and a music video instead. Apparently, Jon Foreman wrote this song at the end of his twenty-fourth year, but I think that it will be a good theme song for this year, particularly the second to last stanza.

Twenty-four oceans
Twenty-four skies
Twenty-four failures
And twenty-four tries
Twenty-four finds me
In twenty-fourth place
With twenty-four drop outs
At the end of the day

Life is not what I thought it was
Twenty-four hours ago
Still I'm singing 'Spirit,
take me up in arms with You'
And I'm not who I thought I was
Twenty-four hours ago
Still I'm singing 'Spirit,
take me up in arms with You'

There's twenty-four reasons
To admit that I'm wrong
With all my excuses
Still twenty-four strong

See, I'm not copping out
Not copping out
Not copping out
When you're raising the dead in me

Oh, oh
I am the second man
Oh, oh
I am the second man now
Oh, I am the second man now
And you're raising these...

Twenty-four voices
With twenty-four hearts
All of my symphonies
In twenty-four parts
But I want to be one today
Centered and true
I'm singing 'Spirit take me up in arms with You'
You're raising the dead in me

Oh, oh
I am the second man
Oh, oh
I am the second man now
Oh
I am the second man now
And you're raising the dead in me
Yeah

I wanna see miracles
To see the world change
Wrestled the angel for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
I'm singing 'Spirit, take me up in arms with You'
And you're raising the dead in me

Twenty-four oceans
With twenty-four hearts
All of my symphonies
With twenty-four parts
Life is not what I thought it was
Twenty-four hours ago
Still I'm singing 'Spirit,
take me up in arms with You'
I'm not copping out
Not copping out

(Hopefully, when you try to watch the video, you don't get a push-up bra add).

Man, I feel like an American

When I wrote this title, I was singing it to the tune of “Man, I feel like a Women” by Shania Twain. I know that it doesn’t really work because American has four syllables and woman has two, but I feel like this song is a good song to go with this blog post. I mean what could be more American than a girl-power country song? Except that I just found out that Shania Twain is Canadian. How American of me to assume that she is American!

Anyways, I have been feeling very American lately. I did not realize how American I was until I went to the grocery store with my roommate, and we bought enough groceries to fill one of those giant blue Ikea bags and two other regular size bags. You see other people, even other western people, don't buy things in bulk like we do in the US. Most Chinese people go to the store every day to buy what they need for dinner, but my entire growing-up years, I was taught that this was wasteful. You should go the grocery store once a week or even every other week. You should buy everything that you need to buy at once so that you don’t waste gas and time making multiple trips a week. People in China can’t do this the same way we can in the US.

1) Most people don’t have their own cars, and it is much more difficult to buy in bulk if you have to carry things to a taxi, and it’s even worse if you have to take it on a bus.

2) Chinese refrigerators/freezers are not that big, so you really don’t have enough room for buying bulk products.

3) Chinese people use much more fresh produce than we do, so it would be wasteful to buy this in bulk because it goes bad quickly.

4) There are tons of little markets that are within walking distance, so you don’t have the need to go to the supermarkets like you do in the US.

It is so interesting to me that my view of waste is so different from someone else’s view of waste. Not only that, but they flat out contradict each other.

Another way that I have felt very American is my need for space. For example, today I went to a coffee shop with my two roommates, and we sat at three different tables so that we could work without encroaching on each other’s space. Also, on the bus to and from school, the foreigners will try to get a seat to themselves if they can help it, but the Chinese staff members will always sit with each other if they can help it.

Living overseas, sometimes it can be very easy to be critical of my own culture. However, I am very much an American. I just can’t help it.

Pronoun Troubles

I have been having pronoun troubles lately. Am I a we or a they? When I first wrote this I wrote: “I have been told that they think that westerns smell bad because of how much milk they consume” instead of we. However, I am not Chinese. I am indeed a westerner in both my thoughts and in my actions. (Click here to read about my American-ness). I do not even claim to be an egg, those who fit so well into Chinese/ Asian culture that they are said to be white on the outside and yellow on the inside. (This is not a racist thing). So I have no idea why I wrote we instead of they, but for some reason I did.

This is the first time that I have had trouble with pronouns when referring to Westerners vs. Chinese, but I have had pronoun troubles in referring to my two schools, Tianjin and Qingdao. When I refer to Qingdao, I still say we, but I am not really a part of that we anymore. On the other hand, it would be very weird for me to call Qingdao a they. I don’t know if this just has something that will slowly fade away as I transition into my new school, or will I simply be a we at both schools. I am an English teacher, and I am finding pronouns confusing. What does this say about the English language?

On Milk Products in China (Including a recipe for sour cream that I discovered/ made up)

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Milk products, except for yogurt, are not a common thing in China. I don’t know why Chinese people love yogurt so much, but they don’t go for the other milk products. I have been told that they think that westerns smell bad because of how much milk we consume. (Click here to read my blog post about pronoun troubles). But they LOVE yogurt! Picture this, you go the supermarket and there are three cold sections of dairy products, but 7/8^th of it is yogurt. The last eighth consists butter/margarine, cheese, milk, and a smattering of other milk products. At times this eighth is non-existent and at times it has all of these milk products, it just depends on the day. Now if you want forever milk, milk that does not need to be refrigerated, you can get that too, but that would not be in these cold dairy sections.

All this being said, it is nigh impossible to get certain milk products, such as sour cream, here, so you make your own sour cream. In the US, I would never have considered making my own sour cream, but it is actually not that hard. Mix whipping cream and vinegar together until it tastes like sour cream then whip it together and add cream of tarter to help thicken it. Easy, right?

Well this past week I made baked potatoes for dinner, and I wanted to make sour cream to go with them. However, I didn't have whipping cream, and I didn’t have the time or the energy to go get whipping cream. I did have plain yogurt that I was never planning on eating.

You see my favorite brand of yogurt comes in packages with 4 or 5 packages of yogurts that are one flavor and one of a different flavor. I don’t know why, but it does. Well, one package came with plain yogurt. I have only had one experience with plain yogurt and that was when I accidentally bought plain yogurt thinking that it was vanilla yogurt. I was sorely disappointed because plain yogurt in the US is rather gross in my opinion.

Anyways, I decided to make sour cream using my plain yogurt. What I did not realize was that plain yogurt in China is not a disgusting bland flavor like it is in the US. It is actually sweet, so I simply added extra vinegar to compensate for the sweetness of the yogurt (I think that I, perhaps, overcompensated). Another thing that my friends in the US need to realize is that yogurt in China has a completely different consistency than yogurt in the US. It is more like a smoothie. When you think of Chinese yogurt think of go-gurt; basically Chinese yogurt is drinkable.

Anyways, I mixed my sweet plain yogurt and vinegar together to create a sour cream tasting liquid, but it would not thicken even though I added cream of tarter. So I did some research online about how to thicken sour cream. The problem with doing this is that most recipe websites in English are written for people living in the west, so they assume that I have access to products that I don’t. Finally, I found one website that said I could thicken sour cream with flour, so I tried that, and it worked. The flour gave it a little bit of a grainy flavor, but depending on what you are using the sour cream for, the grainy flavor would not necessarily matter. I would like to experiment with this recipe a bit, but this is a much cheaper and much more convenient solution than using whipping cream. A package of this yogurt costs 2 kuai, about $0.30, while a container of whipping cream costs 30-40 kuai, about $4-6. Also, you can buy yogurt at every Chinese store, but only some Chinese stores have whipping cream and those that do have it do not have it on a consistent basis. Therefore, yogurt is a very nice alternative.

Thus goes my sour cream creating adventure. Please feel free to experiment with this recipe, and if you have any other ideas for thickening sour cream please let me know.