Baking is not part of traditional Chinese cuisine. Stir-frying, steaming, and braising are common. But ovens are still very much a rarity in a Chinese kitchen. The fact that I can make bread, cakes, and cookies is amazing to my local friends. They don’t realize how terrible the local bakeries’ bread is because they’ve never had quality bread or desserts. (Well, until they visit me, that is!)

I have to make our own breads in order to have something edible and somewhat nutritious. (The bread here tends to be very light and sweet. I think it is made with water instead of milk, all white flour, no eggs, and a lot of sugar. Think ultra sweet Wonderbread. Yuck.)

Some cities do have Western style bread shops, but our small city still has only Chinese-styled breads, things like buns stuffed with sweetened red bean paste or stuffed with dried meat floss. Things like tortillas, bagels, pita bread, raisin bread are non-existent.

So I use lots of flour. So much flour that I buy it in bulk at the bakery supply shop in the wholesale market. Here is my latest delivery — a 25 kg bag (over 50 lbs) of bread flour and a 23 kg bag of whole wheat flour. I don’t do it so much to save money (although it is cheaper this way) as to save the trouble of carrying home a 5 pound bag of flour every time I go to the grocery store.

The bakery supply shop has become so used to me that they will deliver right to my door. What a convenience! I just call them up when I’m running low. This much flour lasts us about 6 months. I spent 350 RMB on this delivery; that’s about $50.

This time they even brought me some muffin papers. My last package (all red) lasted me two entire years. I don’t know how many are in there– maybe 600? Looks like this cycle will be yellow.

The whole wheat flour has to be special ordered since none of their other customers uses it. (That tells you a lot about the quality of bread in our city, doesn’t it? Four million people and I am the sole user of whole wheat flour.) I store the flour in big plastic bins in my bedroom beside the chest freezer. I’ve never had any trouble with weevils or other pests since the bakery’s flour is much fresher than what is in the grocery stores.

Three lovely Chinglish examples for you today.

These two are signs near our home. I walk by them often but usually without my camera. They are just too good not to share, so I deliberately took my camera one day.

I think this is a fancy name for what is in essence a tea house or maybe even a bar.

Yummy. Now doesn’t that name just make you want to go right in and order up several bowls?

And this one is thanks to my dear husband. He’s a gem about picking up a few needed grocery items on his way home. I texted him, asking for peppers and mushrooms (for pizza).

When he got home, I was surprised to find these dried mushrooms in the bag. He explained that the grocery store had no fresh mushrooms. (It’s very common to not be able to buy certain things at the supermarket. The choices fluctuate greatly.) The ladies in the store explained that these would work if I boiled them in water for a few minutes. (“What do they know about making pizza?” I wondered.) As I grabbed some scissors to open the bag, I noticed the wonderful Chinglish on the package.

My  husband said that he knew I’d like the crazy English, so he bought that particular brand. Good  man! And they worked okay on the pizza. A bit chewy, but maybe that was just from our mind.

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We’ve been home, sleeping in our own beds for one whole week now. It’s good to be home, but whew… it does take me some time to get back on track. Besides jet lag, there were so many things to tend to — unpacking & organizing, shopping, banking, paying our rent, calling friends.

In lieu of a longer post, here are some Crazy English shots from Beijing. Hope this tides you over for a while.

On our way back to China, we had to spend one night in Beijing (due to flight schedules). It was actually nice to be able to shower and sleep after that killer 13 hour flight from Chicago.

We took a shuttle from one terminal to another where we put our 10 trunks/cases in left luggage. We saw this on the shuttle window. Not too bad, actually. At least you know what it means.

When you’re a bleary eyed foreign family looking for a place to sleep for the night, don’t expect any bargains in Beijing. We got totally taken at this hotel. It was NOT 100% perfect. Just a glance at this sign in the elevator can prove that.

For what we paid, it should have been a four star hotel. It was more like a two star. (The reservation desk said it was three stars. Whatever. It was a place to lay my tired head.) We all ended up with dozens of mosquito bites from our stay. The good news was that since we woke up super-early with jet lag, we ventured out on our own to find some breakfast instead of waiting for the hotel breakfast (notoriously bad). We got some amazing street food for just a few dollars. I even found an ice cold coke as my coffee substitute. I was a happy camper.

Back to Terminal 2 to await our domestic flight, we found these three Chinglish examples.

Lei in Chinese means tired. I sure was feeling lei! I thought a Tired Cafe seemed pretty appropriate. Feeling tired? Have a cup of coffee! In fact, it was named after the Hawaiian Lei as you can see from the Chinglish explanation below.

Actually, there was no alcohol served here, just hot water (boiled so it’s safe to drink).

Maybe PRESTIGE wasn’t a big enough word for this billboard inside the terminal. Maybe it wasn’t “NOUN” enough. Add on a -NESS just to make it clear.

Enjoy!

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I’ve discovered a wonderful shopping option that has almost anything conceivable – Taobao.

So far I’ve bought an oven, an oven thermometer, a camera bag, permanent markers, coffee, and audio books. These are all things I can’t get in my city which I can now buy online and have delivered right to my home. I am so thrilled with my new skill. It’s not easy to do. Setting it all up is a nightmare, and reading the Chinese requires a lot of help from online translators, but it’s worth it now that I can buy hard to find items right from home.

Take a look at my wonderful Colombian coffee, ground for free, and shipped right to my apartment entrance.

At the top it says Enjoy Your Life. Well, thanks, Coffee. I will, especially with a cup of YOU in my hand.

Then I see a very classy crest which certainly proves the pedigree of my fine Colombian coffee beans. Under that I learn that these are not ordinary coffee beans but Professional Coffee Beans. My apologies, Dr. Coffee.

And then to top it all off is such a moving statement from Dr. Coffee. Just let that soak in. Does your coffee speak so tenderly to you? Oh, no. This is special coffee. Professional coffee.

Oh, Dr. Coffee, I am moved by your touching sentiment. And even though we’ve just met,  I feel the same about you. I can’t wait to brew you tomorrow morning!

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grilled fish with tofu

Emily asked a great question, “Does it insult the hostess if you are not interested in trying one of the dishes?”

Short answer — Yes, of course. (I always have to deal with my own hurt when local friends turn up their noses at my carefully prepared casseroles or desserts. “Cheese is gross!” “This is too sweet!” or of a salad, “These vegetables are not cooked!”)

But it’s not quite that simple. There are some loopholes you can use.

In our family, we believe that overall, we should eat what is offered to us. (There is some wisdom in a very popular book to that effect.) But as we’ve lived here longer, learned the language and culture, we’ve learned acceptable ways to refuse things.

noodles with beef

One popular strategy in my family is to focus on what you LOVE while avoiding what you find gross. That is, keep saying over and over, “This vegetable is delicious! What’s it called? How is is cooked? What’s it good for?” (Everything is good for some body part, and they always know.) This is in contrast to saying, “EWWW!!! Goat blood vessels! How repulsive. I would NEVER eat that. We don’t eat that in America. We throw that away!”

It also seems that if at least one of us eats something, it’s okay. If we all refuse it, that is bad. Between the three of us, we are able to manage to have at least one representative to taste an odd food.

Recently I  ate ocean sand worms. Not bad actually, but I did force myself NOT to picture them in my mind or to look too closely at them. Just eat and keep on moving. Thinking is what gets you in trouble. I could look at the cook and give him some positive feedback, and no one seemed to notice that Sprite didn’t taste the worms.

Here are some of the odd things I’ve eaten in China:

• duck tongue (yes, they are awfully tiny)
• wild cat
• dog
• snake
• eel
• fungus
• pig stomach
• tiny frogs, whole
• rabbit
• pig tongue

eggplant

I need to explain an eating custom in China. It’s a sign of care and hospitality for people to serve you. That is, they use their own chopsticks to select a choice bit and put it into your bowl. Uninvited, unasked. They just do it. And it’s a sign of being polite to serve others in this way. That’s when it gets tricky. What your friend is selecting for you is surely in her mind the best thing on the table. But all you can think is, “Ugh, not more boiled eel!” So you either leave it in the bowl, or choke it down,  or as a last resort use the “oops chopsticks” strategy.

I’ve also discovered that once people truly get to know you and realize that you do appreciate Chinese food, they are more accepting of your personal tastes. I think that if we complained about most of the dishes and hated everything, they would not be as willing to accommodate us. In fact, they would be offended. Most Chinese people take pride in their cuisine, so to reject their food is akin to rejecting them.

And Sam I Am is right. If you try it, you may like it. I’ve become a huge fan of tofu since living in China. It’s not simply because it’s so much better here (although it is). It’s also because I’ve consistently eaten it over many years. Over time, I truly did grow to love it. Now I actually crave tofu and order it at restaurants.

Now you can chime in with your sympathies or your own adventures in eating.  And to comfort some of you who think, “I could never eat some of those things!” just remember that people all over the globe generally like to stick with familiar foods. It’s not really that Chinese people are more adventurous with their foods. These foods are common for them, so they enjoy them. When I offer them something radically different from their usual fare (say pizza or a chicken casserole or a very rich dessert), they tend to merely tolerate it just like I do with the duck tongues. So be comforted that those of us who are adventurous in eating — and I do consider myself one –are in the minority.

When we made the little trip to pick up Sprite, I made sure to carry my camera around most of the time. I was richly rewarded. The first one is my favorite — Chinglish on the side of a very nice Toyota SUV.

Yeah, don’t even ask. I have no idea either.

This one at least makes sense although it’s worded quite oddly.

BathFool sounds intriguing. But we didn’t go.

Such a dignified lady and such expensive clothes with such a ridiculous name.

Starbucks wannabe.

Another really bad translation.

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I love this year of the tiger display at a city center department store. Thought I’d start out with a bright and cheery photo before I show you the rather gloomy  images of traveling at Chinese New Year.

Sprite went to visit a friend in a neighboring province and couldn’t get a flight back to our city. So we took a bus — during Chinese New Year — three hours away to get her at another airport. Travel during any Chinese holiday is hectic, but the Spring Festival is especially torturous.

First of all, I was nervous about how long the ride would take. A good friend came to visit me right after New Year’s Day on a bus ride that should have taken no more than four hours station to home. It took her six hours! She said the traffic was terrible.

Let me show you some views of a Chinese long distance bus station.

At the larger bus stations, you will find these day laborers who will help you carry your bags with their yokes and ropes for a small fee. We regularly use these helpers to ease our burden because we don’t travel as light as our local friends. <grin> And we love to stock up on our trips to Big City.

Come on in the station in our city. Yes, it’s gloomy and dark. And why is that? Because only one light bulb is lit in the entire station. But check out our festive advertising banners!

People are everywhere, waiting to buy tickets and waiting for their bus departures. It’s cold; there’s no heating in the station. And people are smoking (even though it’s supposedly against the rules).

The line to buy tickets is going out the door.  But pushing and shoving is at a minimum, so by local standards, the travelers are being quite polite. At larger bus stations the line to get into the waiting hall is pretty scary. It’s a very, very tight channel of people, all pressed together. Carrying luggage and shielding your bags from pick pockets is a stressful task. We just try to laugh and join in the pressing without getting mad when people elbow us out of the way and separate us from each other.

These are typical bags that travelers use.

The backpack basket.

Duffel bags, rice bags.

Denim backpacks and small “carry-on” suitcases.

But plenty of travelers are carrying only paper shopping bags or a purse. I envy their skill at packing light. But then again, I like to wear clean clothes each day. So it’s a trade off.

By the way, the ride was uneventful for us. The roads were clear. Somehow we’d chosen a perfect day for the trip, and it took the normal 3 hours. And we’re all home safely now after yet another “easy” bus ride home.

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One Pile for Dad; One Pile for Mom

“In the hours before midnight on the eve of Chinese New Year, hundreds of families went outdoors to burn paper money and incense. Although our host’s brother said it’s “just a custom and not a superstition,” I am not convinced.

While the money burns, words of prayer are spoken.
“Grandpa, make my children healthy and do well in school. This money is for you.”

“We remember you, Grandma. This is for you. Stay warm.”

People bow down in front of the pile of burning paper. It’s a sobering thing to watch, this “custom” of the Chinese New Year.

Stacks of Paper Money Offered to Dead Relatives

I’m going to get deep now. Get ready.

I’ve discovered that people (ALL people) often use the term custom as an excuse for not thinking about their behavior, for not making deliberate choices about how to act.

Me –Why do you….?

Her –Well, it’s our custom.

Me –But why is it your custom?

Her –It’s just what we do.

paper with "coin" imprints to represent money

Living abroad has helped me honestly look at my own customs.

• How many are superstitions?
• How many do I follow just because “that’s what we do?”
• What do these customs really mean?
• Where did they come from originally, and what significance do they hold for me?
• Do they enrich my life and draw me closer to God?

It can bring about some soul searching.

Here’s a small example. I rarely ever say, “God bless you,” when someone sneezes. First of all, it’s not part of the culture here, and people think it’s crazy to say for a sneeze. (So is saying “excuse” me after a burp, but I still do that!) So I’ve slowly gotten out of the habit. But I also made a conscious decision to stop saying it even when around other Americans.

Did you know blessing someone when he sneezes was originally was a superstition to ward off evil spirits that were supposedly causing a sneeze? Now, it’s not wrong to say, “God bless you,” when someone sneezes. But I realized that I say it more out of habit than a genuine desire to bless someone. And since it is rooted in superstition, I chose to change that behavior. Living in a superstitious culture has shown me the absurdity of some of my own “rules of behavior” and has made me want to change them to better reflect what I truly believe.

Another example. Several years ago, my husband and I chose to stop using the words luck or lucky, preferring to use blessing instead. Because that’s the reality. We are blessed by God, not the recipient of random fortune.

None of us are totally consistent, and these issues often fall in the area of Christian liberty. (Worshiping ancestors, of course, is not a matter of Christian liberty. I mean how we observe holidays and habits of behavior.)

What do you think? Are there customs of behavior or even words that you’ve chosen to reject because they don’t match your values or are rooted in superstition?

It is now officially the Year of the Tiger.

The View from my Apartment Window at Midnight Feb. 13

Thank goodness. I really dislike the time of the year between Jan. 1 and the Chinese New Year. It’s just too confusing. And it was so long this year — a whole month and a half. Even though the Jan. 1 new year is a holiday that is observed, in this interim time between the two eves, people still refer to 2010 as “next year.” It confuses me constantly.

We had a delightful dinner with a local family on New Year’s Eve. What a treat to be invited into their home on the most important holiday of the year. And the food was awesome. Because it was a celebration, there was lots of meat.

Fish

Pork, Chicken (with dark skin), Sausage, and Ham

Can I share a secret? I ate wild cat meat.

Wild Cat Meat

I don’t know exactly what animal it was. They used the words wild and cat. A wild cat that lives in the mountains. It was very, very tasty. Don’t tell Maxie and Oreo.

Don’t forget my contest. You’ve still got plenty of time to celebrate.

Eating strange meats is not necessary. <grin>

Celebrating in the apartment complex

The new year was welcomed with a truly deafening amount of fire crackers and fireworks. The whole city sounded and looked like a war zone with the crescendo coming at midnight.

The red part is firecrackers. At the end is a strand of M80s — each tube is a fifth of a stick of dynamite. (This information is from my husband who seems to be quite the connoisseur of fireworks and things that explode.)

Firecrackers and Explosives!

I was horrified at the sound of those M80′s. It was so strikingly loud that I had to hide behind him and cover my ears. And all around me were children, unaffected in the least.

It’s a glorious time for children (from their perspective, at least). They are given matches (!), fireworks, sparklers, and firecrackers to play with. All around them are explosions and fire. It’s shocking to me to see so much danger so close to such young children. But this is what they do. No one gives it a second thought. In fact, most people were laughing at my “wimpy” reactions.

The fun is not over yet. In fact, as I compose this post, I can hear fireworks outside. It will be like this for many days to come.

Midnight Finale

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Yeah, don’t you feel sorry for me? I’m just suffering here in China with nothing decent to eat. (That’s sarcasm.)

Scenes from a simple meal at the home of friends. They are from a coastal city, so seafood features prominently.

A pickled turnip dish. Yummy!

Cilantro, jellyfish, and mushrooms are the main ingredients in this very tasty salad.

Amazingly, I didn’t even like seafood until I moved to China. That’s when I started to eat fresh seafood, cooked well. Then I discovered how wonderful it is.

Do you like fish and seafood? Would you try the jellyfish salad or just stick with the crispy fried fish?

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