Our Canadian family members and comrades will be pleased to know that Nanaimo bars made their debut in Tianjin last night, which may be a first in the whole of China for all we know. At any rate, we’re claiming the premiere Nanaimo bar cultural overture in Sino-Canadian relations.

We shared them with some friends, who also took some to their neighbours, and I suppose our teachers will also get some on Monday.

My mom mailed a mix from Canada, and found a recipe so Jessica can make them from scratch when the mix runs out.

Those of you who don’t know what Nanaimo bars are can take this opportunity to pause and reflect with wonder on the superior cultural refinement and achievements of your neighbour to the north.

Pronounced: tián sǐ le
Literally: sweet dead
Means: unbearably sweet.

Ugh. This post isn’t so much about (not) eating lunch as it is about the hazards of being illiterate, hungry, and having only limited oral language skills at your disposal.

I like variety. I like to try new things. On long road trips I keep my finger on the Seek button, stopping on whatever radio station is playing music I’ve never heard before (ha, Jessica hates this). It’s the same with cheap food. But today, it backfired.

Weekday lunches here are usually street food or the next closest thing. They cleared off all the street vendors near the library office where I study in the afternoons, but there are still plenty of hole-in-the-wall places where lunch will cost you less than a dollar. This week I’d already had a string of good luck, stumbling upon three new dishes worth adding into the regular lunch rotation. It helps that the longer we study, the more the street signs slowly come into focus and we can start to read parts of the menus.

Jessica, Chuck, and I hit the street at lunch time wondering what to eat. I noticed a doorway listing some kind of dish that had “roast” (烤) and “spicy” (辣) in the name, among other characters, and that was more than enough to warrant giving it a shot. So Chuck and Jessica headed up the road for bāo zi (包子) and má là miàn (麻辣面) while I ducked inside. They had a BBQ rack! These long (sometimes several feet) skinny BBQs have been in short supply the last few months, and they usually have some of the cheapest and best roasted-on-a-stick street food around. I talked to the couple inside: they had a table full of loaded skewers, and they mentioned “sheep soup” (羊汤). I ordered two chicken skewers and sheep soup, all of which came hot in plastic bags in about a minute.

The three of us returned to the office where lunch usually doubles as oral Chinese practice with the office staff (except for Chuck, who’s sort of an ABC). That’s when I discovered my lunch’s true identity. Now, it’s one thing when you’re served dinner as a guest and you eat whatever it is without any improper hesitation. It’s another thing when you’re buying your own lunch and what you thought was sheep meat turns out to be diced sheep digestive tract, and the chicken meat that you then thought would make your lunch not a total loss turns out to be chicken skin on a stick. No meat, just dimply fatty skin-on-a-stick. Fifteen minutes later I was back outside telling all this to the fried noodle lǎo bǎn (老板), explaining that most Westerners don’t go for stomach parts and skin, and he laughed and told the customers eating next to him while he took my order.

Moral of the story is what everyone at our lunch table, except me, already knew: “sheep soup” (羊汤) and “sheep meat soup” (羊肉汤) are not the same thing. That, and wherever you live, if you want to have a clue you have to learn the language!

These are the Fuwas (fú wá), mascots of the Olympic games. Aside from taking cute to a whole new level, there’s some interesting (and even more cute) symbolism and word-play involved, all of which, it could be argued, makes the Fuwas just that much more “Chinese.”

Mandarin is a language of homonyms; compared to English, there are way more words that are pronounced the same, and there’s a rather limited number of available syllables. Chinese culture is full of phonetic word plays, allusions, and even superstitions (door numbers on the 4th floor are often changed because the word for “four” (四; sì) is pronounced the same as “die” (死; sǐ) but with a different tone).

You’d think all these homonyms would make it harder to communicate, but that’s not necessarily so. First, Chinese language and culture emphasize the context of statements in order to understand their true meaning, placing more emphasis on non-verbals and less emphasis on literal meaning than we do in English (this is a perennial point of culture stress).

Second, when people need to clarify the meaning of a word during a conversation (and they often do because of all the homonyms), they’ll use their finger to trace the character on their palm (yeah, big help for beginning language students!). Or, since most words in Chinese are made with more than one character, they’ll say “[example word]‘s [character].” For example: 国家的国; “nation‘s” guó, as opposed to any of the other “guo’s.” We use this almost on a daily basis, and it’s part of the routine of sharing our names.

The Olympic Fúwás are a fun example of Chinese homonyms in action (“fú wá” means “good luck doll”).

Note that the names for each are double-syllables: Beibei, Jingjing, etc. What they did is take each syllable in the sentence, “Beijing welcomes you” (北京欢迎你 – Běi jīng huān yíng nǐ), and double it. The characters for three of the Fuwas don’t match the corresponding characters in the sentence. They used homonyms instead to give those names more meaning.

The blue one, Bèibei (贝贝), is a fish. She represents the aquatic sports. Instead of using Beijing’s “bei,” her name borrows its character from “treasure” (宝贝). She’s gentle and pure, and represents prosperity. “Fish” (鱼) is pronounced the same as “surplus” and “remainder” and is a traditional Chinese symbol for prosperity.

The black one, Jīngjing (晶晶), is a panda. He represents weightlifting, shooting, judo, and stuff like that. Instead of using Beijing’s “jing,” his name uses 晶 (jīng), which is from “crystal” (水晶). Pinyin.info says you could get something to the effect of “Sparkles” if you were translating “晶晶” into English. Jīngjing is an honest, optimistic, and happy panda, despite (or maybe because of) the gun.

The red one, Huānhuan (欢欢), is the Olympic flame. He’s enthusiastic, extroverted, and passionate, and represents ball sports. 欢 (huān) means “joyous” or “pleased” (as in the “pleased to meet you”), and keeps the first character in “welcome” (欢迎).

The yellow one, Yíngying (迎迎), is a lively, vivacious, and healthy male Tibetan antelope. He’s the track and field mascot, and keeps the second character from “welcome” (欢迎), which just means “welcome.”

The green one, Nīni (妮妮), is an innocent and joyous swallow of good fortune (the bird, not the verb). If they’d just doubled the character for “ni” from the sentence (你), it just would have said “you you,” as in, “Not me-me, but you-you.” Instead they chose a different “ni,” which means “girl” and is used in a girl’s name. But this Fúwá also alludes to Beijing because the character for “swallow” (燕) is used in Yanjing (燕京), an old name for Beijing. She’s the gymnastics mascot.

Wikipedia, which – of course – we can’t access in China, has a nice overview with additional info on their personalities, attributes, corresponding elements, and symbolism. Pinyin.info goes into a little more detail.

And speaking of interesting symbolism, that panda with the gun (a.k.a. Fúwá Jīngjing) is an officially approved image.

I passed the local elementary school during recess on the way to the library this last Wednesday.

Jessica discovered this funny bit of slang from her teacher this week. In English we might say things like, “Three’s a crowd” or call someone a “third wheel” whenever a friend hangs out with a couple that would otherwise be romantically engaged. In Tianjin, they call this person a “lightbulb” (电灯泡儿); couples like to be alone in the dark, and having a third friend tag along is like turning on the lights!

Pop quiz: If every unmarried person under 30 lives in a tiny apartment with their parents, where do they go to kiss and cuddle with their 男朋友 or 女朋友? Right out in public, of course! You would not believe how much kissy-gooey-Hello-Kitty-cutesy PDA goes on around here! During the summer if you went for a walk in the park at night (note: everyone and their dog – literally – goes for a walk in the park at night here), every single bench – almost literally – along the canal would have some young couple snogging on it – only it’s not so much actual kissing as it is just being gooey-kissy-poo with one another… I don’t know how else to describe it. Even now that it’s cold at night, it doesn’t stop a lot of people. It’s kind of like living on a college campus full of freshmen.

In Tianjin, sexuality is still not really up for public discussion. But apparently this actually gives people freedom to make-out in public because the chances of ever having to actually talk about it are slim. Bright Future is trying to change that by developing a self-reproducing sexual health and values program for Tianjin universities. Their college intern, Chuck, and I were pretty much like lightbulbs the other night when we went out to get photos of couples for one of the upcoming lessons. There weren’t that many people out (it’s getting too cold), and it’s kind of hard to be discreet about it when you’re using a flash. Still, I hope they got what they wanted; they’re going to use the photos as a fun way to start one of the class discussions.

Pronounced: diàn dēng pàor
Literally: electric lamp bubble
Means: light bulb; third wheel