Friday, January 11, 2008

Pictures Coming Soon-ish!

01/11/08- Evening

Of Yolk Cake and Dumplings

In the afternoon we went to find food. We needed first, though, to get a fan ka (meal card) so that we could join the ranks of supreme efficiency. A student here at Beida who spoke a little English helped us out, which is good because, when they give you your meal card, they also give you a numerical password to the meal card. But only in Chinese. I would be very hungry tonight if not for that kind translator.

We first tried to go to “noodle house” for lunch. We walked through the doors, which, like most doors at Beida, are large, heavy-ish clear flaps that hang down from the door frame, giving one the impression of walking through a car wash. We stood in the long line (as one student informed us, there are always long queues) and when we got up to the front, we realized that no one in our group, not even the guys who had taken three and four semesters of Chinese, could even order the simplest of noodly dishes. Not wanting to hold up the line any longer than we did, we beat a retreat to “dumpling house,” where I fully utilized my skill of pointing at large vats of dumplings to indicate which ones I wanted. Now, I didn’t know which dumplings were in which vat, but I didn’t really care. The woman helping me then said something in Chinese, and, taking an educated guess, I put my hands into a medium sized plate. My friend Will, who speaks Chinese, ended up with a giant serving platter full of at least a hundred dumplings- so I think I got lucky.

I noticed at this time that no one in the entire restaurant had anything to drink with his or her meal. No one. If you are aware of my love of drinking copious amounts of water/sweet tea/whatever at the table, you may have some idea as to the extent of my thirsty sorrow.

(update- I found out later that, after you point at a type of dumpling, the lady asked “how many?” and in the case of dumplings, “one” equals six. So Will ordered 10 dumplings and ended up with 60)

Earlier in the day (I just remembered what I did before lunch!), after the language test had so completely disheartened me, I found the one other person in my group who also had no knowledge whatsoever of Chinese. Her name is Anna, and she is of Russian descent but lives in Denver and goes to a college there, and apparently she hadn’t eaten since the plane ride the day before. I felt superior, having been to the mini-mart already, and so I took her there. While looking around, I came across a couple of items that I wanted to share-

  • Wrigley’s Coffee Flavored Gum (do we have this in the US?)
  • Steak Flavored Cheetos (I am assuming it is steak flavored because the other package had a picture of cheese on it and this one had a picture of a t-bone)
  • Chocolate Chip and Red Bean Cookies… (I have no idea what the “red beans” actually are. I might find out by semester’s end) and, my personal favorite…
  • Egg-Yolk Filled Mini-Cakes. Right next to the chocolate-filled cakes in your friendly pastry isle.

An update on the ATM situation- APPARENTLY I was supposed to tell my bank that I was going to China. I didn’t think I had to because it had always worked in Europe without prior notification. Anyway, my impression is that they canceled my card, so I have to get a new one sent to me. In the meantime I’ll skip on over to the bank of China and just hand them all the American money that I brought.

Obviously, I finally found the internet and I am allowed to post. An interesting side note, however, is that though I can post to my blog, I can not view it myself. Yay!

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