So the report is in on what the deal was at the Suan Bua Resort near Chiangmai, Thailand, where most of the people at our conference were puking and/or pooping their guts out. E.coli and clorliform on the silverware, fruit, and in the water!! The main filter for their water is the kind you’re supposed to change every month, and they hadn’t changed it in a couple of years.

Just in case you were planning a trip to Chiangmai any time soon…

In case you were wondering what had happened to this one:

崇恩和秀青 (Abe and Suzy) have just adopted Fire Chicken (火雞)!

Since Joel promised, more than a week ago, that I would write the third post in the “Stayin’ Alive” series….I figured I’d better get on it! Plus, one of my recent acquaintances told me that they enjoy checking our blog, but noticed that Joel seems to be the primary writer. That is true…or has been, but I’ll work on remedying that a bit over the next weeks and months.

Well….this will be short and sweet. Last year, when we first went to Taiwan, I had a few brief and terrifying weeks during which the only coffee I could find was of the instant variety (and I call that stuff coffee only in the loosest sense of the word). Then I found inexpensive coffee at the local Costco, and even better our “Starbucks Angels” (Meredith, and Joel’s sister Julia) started sending the occasional box of much better quality coffee our way.

My first week or so here was also coffee less. I didn’t even resort to the instant stuff (okay, well, I did have ONE cup of instant!). Joel said that it was getting pretty desperate, but really, I think I was quite well behaved overall. Especially since I hadn’t had any for the whole last week in Thailand either (because of being sick….even the lovely smell of coffee was enough to make me want to toss my cookies!)

However, after asking around a bit, we were finally able to locate some relatively inexpensive…and REAL coffee! Better yet, the stuff isn’t even imported! It’s actually grown in China! I had always heard that there was no coffee grown in China…and while that may have been true for many, many centuries…coffee is now grown in Yunnan Province. It’s no Starbucks (it’s a breakfast blend, so it’s actually pretty mild as coffee goes) but at 15 kuai (about $2 US per box…about half a kilo) I’m definitely not complaining. :D

One of the first things in Tianjin that we noticed driving in from the airport were the fireworks stands. And they don’t sell just little stuff like bottle rockets. You can buy the big kind that explode in colours in the sky, stick the box on the sidewalk, and shoot it up between the buildings (as you’ll see in the video). From our 6th floor apartment, you can look out over the city and see fireworks shooting up way in the distance and right below you.

I never thought about it before, but the economic growth of China means more cars, and that means more car alarms, and that means there’s a whole new audible dimension to the Spring Festival experience now.

We took most of this video from out our own window and out some friends windows. It’s not spectacular, but it gives you a hint of what it’s like here during Spring Festival.
Make sure to note the car alarms in the second clip. That happens every time a big one goes off, and there’re lots of big ones. We were inside with the windows closed, but you can still hear them.

Pronounced: qi� zi
Means: eggplant. Also what many Chinese say in place of “cheese” when posing for photos.

I’m noticing something: just because you can do something in a classroom, like understand sentences and speak sentences in return, doesn’t mean you can do it in a loud, crowded market. In the classroom there’s no pressure, the teacher pronounces everything clearly, and you have all the time you need to think of a reply. In the market, the more you look like you don’t know, the higher the price you might pay. Plus it’s noisy, the accents are thick (and fast! Geez, people!), and people can be in a hurry. I’m pretty sure the several bagfulls of fruits and veggies I just brought home should have cost less than the $4.50 Canadian that I paid for them, but I was pretty much at the mercy of the market ladies, and I’m pretty sure they knew it. Not that I blame them. It is kind of comical, and if I was them, I’d probably be charging a Nairobi-sized foreigner tax!

Next time I might stake out the stalls I want to buy from and wait for someone to buy what I want and see what they pay. Problem is, at this stage in our language study I have to translate it all in my head while doing the math, filtering out the words I don’t know, while remembering what the thing I want is called, how to put all the words and tones together, nevermind remembering all the counting words and pronunciation rules for how to shape all these sounds that I want to come out of my mouth.

Really, you can’t think about all that stuff or you’ll never speak. At this stage of language learning — just beyond single nouns and numbers and finger pointing but still having to translate everything in your head on the fly — you just have to give them what you’ve got, assume their laughter is good natured, and enjoy the real life practice where messing up has virtually no real consequences. Anyway, back to the books and the mp3s; we have to buy more rice tomorrow!

Pronounced: di�n n?o
Literally: electric brain
Means: computer

Somedays, I wonder if this is what we look like in Mandarin class, or in the markets, trying to get the tones right (33 sec).

Pronounced: y?u y? di?n s?n b?
Literally: Have/Is a little three eight.
Means: He’s a little like a woman.

March 8 is International Women’s Day, and slang here often uses calendar dates. One female Mandarin teacher qualified “like a woman” to mean nosey and gossipy, and the other also female teacher gave a range of meanings that are all associated with woman-ness here, including effeminate. This is the kind of stuff you learn when you practice Chinese with the taxi driver.

Saturday I went with a nice guy named James to the local bike market to buy my first creaking, black Chinese bike and ascend to my place amidst the bike armies of Tianjin.

There are different ways to buy a bike here. You can go to big supermarkets, you can go to the bike market, or you can stand around at a certain intersection where someone will walk up and offer to sell you (probably stolen) used ones. Probably stolen use ones are the cheapest, of course, and plentiful. I have yet to meet anyone who has not had at least one bike stolen (many people have lost two or more). As a soon-to-be bike owner, encouraging the local bike theiving fest didn’t come across as the most astute choice, so we headed for the bike market.

Originally they forcasted snow but there was a cold drizzle instead, and the market was not too lively. Still, James has been here 6 years and knows some of the shop keepers who still sell used bikes (most only sell new). We found exactly what I was looking for in about 2 minutes: big(ger) size, old, dirty, squeaky, black, but still in good(ish) shape, says “Flying Pigeon” on it, and cost 130 RMB (about $17). New it would have been about 400 RMB (about $53). The idea is to get a bike that won’t be the first (or 10th) choice of bike thieves, and one that won’t cost too much to lose if/when it does get stolen. I road it back about 10km from the bike market to our apartment. It’s not too hard to ride safe, but left turns are a little tricky. I just picked someone to follow, trying to make sure there’s no room for a taxi to nudge in between us, and that seemed to work. We’ll see.

Right now it’s literally freezing… it snowed all day Sunday and the sidewalks are caked in ice.