Home again, Home again, jiggity jig

My Grandpa used to say that little rhyme every time we got back home from an outing or when I got home from school. Nanjing isn't my home home exactly (Pittsburgh will always be my home) but it certainly is more familiar to me than Europe was, even when I went to England. So for now I will say that I'm back home in Nanjing!

This past week I've been going through cultural readjustment at maximum speed—that is, certain things that I had long been used to by the end of last semester are somewhat of a culture shock again, but I'm getting used to them quickly. For example:

As soon as the plane landed at the Nanjing airport, people immediately got up before the plane was done taxiing to get their luggage together—the Chinese always have this urge to rush towards the front of the plane/train/bus when it reaches their destination. I think this perhaps originates from the fact that the Chinese are physically, mentally and culturally unable to form lines (queues) and therefore must make it to the front of the pack, lest they be waiting for hours.

Pretty much immediately after I landed, the coughing and spitting started. Men hacking their lungs out to get out a loogie and then spitting it out anywhere—the ground, their old coffee cup, ect…

Men smoking everywhere and anywhere you look, including the post office, bank, travel agent, restaurants of course, ect ect…

People staring at me everywhere I go, yelling out Hello! (in English) or calling me Laowai (foreigner).

People shoving you out of the way without saying excuse me, or cutting in front of you in line… if there is a line.

The squat pot toilets.

It's funny that at the end of last semester, I barely noticed any of these things. Luckily, I am quickly readjusting and a lot of these things don't bother me at all anymore.

I am pretty much just hanging out in Nanjing. I am still tutoring one of my high school students in English everyday. Since I have nothing else to do with my time, I'm giving her free classes, and in exchange she speaks Chinese with me for an hour. If we run out of things to talk about, then we read Shel Silverstein in Chinese, including the Giving Tree and Light in the Attic, which has been great fun. I think her aunt is happy about this, but I'm not sure studying English everyday during her winter break is her idea of a good time.

I've also been reconnecting with some of my Chinese friends that are Nanjingese, since everybody else has gone home for the holidays. In addition, I've been studying Chinese everyday. My program coordinator gave me some of the old textbooks from last semester from the level above mine so I've been studying those. I'm also preparing for the HSK test that I will take in the spring. The HSK is a standardized test to rate your fluency in Chinese, like the TOEFL for international students going to the US. And last, but certainly not least, watching Chinese television dramas.

The CIEE program coordinator, Pingping, invited me to her home to celebrate Chinese New Year with her family so I will be going to her home, a suburb of Shanghai for the New Year. It actually is the first place the Japanese invaded when they invaded the South of China during World War II. It should also be interesting because Pingping actually won't be there for a couple days. She was recently married and will be going to her husband's town for New Year's Eve, then back home for New Year's. What should make it particularly interesting is that her mother doesn't speak Mandarin, she only speaks a local dialect from Shanghai.

Here are some pictures I've took around Nanjing.

One of my favorite breakfast foods are baozi, which are steamed buns stuffed with meat, vegetables or red beans. Below is a picture of one of my favorite baozi snack stands. The sign says "Golden Wheat Basket Big Bun Shop"

Below is a picture of one of my favorite Tofu dishes. In China, Tofu is definitely NOT just a meat substitute or a vegetarian food like it is in the States. When it's prepared correctly, not as a meat substitute, but instead as a food in its own right, it's absolutely delicious. The meal below is Tofu with ground beef, chili sauce, yellow bean vegetable, and rice. Look closely, you can see the tofu and ground beef in harmony with one another.

Below is another very common Chinese dish: noodle soup with shredded chicken pieces and a green leafy vegetable.

Restaurants like this one are common in China. You can see into the kitchen, in the back on the right. You see people wearing their coats inside? Remember, there is no indoor heating in Nanjing. In the middle is a heating and air conditioning unit, but it is probably very rarely turned on since electricity is so expensive. This place is a hole in the wall (probably a little bit unhygenic but if you're going to be squeemish about that, then don't ever come to China), but one of the most delicious restaurants I've been to.

Here is a typical place setting at restaurants. Chopsticks, toothpicks, sauce, garlic to take as you please (Chinese people just eat chunks of raw garlic with their food), and toilet paper. the toilet paper is to be used like napkins.