Pretty little grouch

I took Mimi outside and she parked herself on a park bench and then wouldn't budge. Crazy dog keeps making me laugh.

Doesn't she have a pretty face? Even my neighbors who are terrified by her say she's pretty.

I don't blame my neighbors for being careful around dogs, because they don't know for sure my dog has her rabies' shots (she most certainly does, as do I). Rabies are not completely under control in this country because, for one reason, people figure they can save money by not inoculating their pets.

Why are they terrified of her? She seems to be territorial, as in, she thinks the elevator belongs to us (her and me) and that other people who get on it are borrowing it from us without our permission. She growls at them when they get on like she's an angry ticket conductor on a train.

On days when she's being most ferocious, I pick her up and throw her over my left shoulder. Like a baby. She likes it and immediately calms down, because she likes being treated like a baby. Which reminds me that I must apologize to all of you in the western world for making the people here think that we carry our dogs like babies. They don't think I am weird, they think all foreigners are weird and carry their dogs like this. And you probably really would carry your dog like this if you had to share an elevator with your neighbors like I do. But anyway, sorry. I try to be a good ambassador in every way possible, but this is just one area where I can't represent you well.

Curious me

The question just begs to be asked.

What exactly are they DOING over at the monastery? (I bet you ask yourself that question every day.)

This young monk was spotted at a sporting goods store, holding his iPhone up at the knee and elbow support section, asking his friend on the other end of the line which product he needed. Shopping by phone if you will. He was using Skype, no doubt. He then picked a knee pad and tried it on his knee.

For a minute I wondered if he was going to pilfer the product, because with it under his robe no one would notice, and anyway people would be too afraid to accuse a monk of shoplifting (for the record, he did NOT steal it; of course how could he when I was standing there watching every move he made; I'm sure he didn't require me to be there to be his conscience, yet there I was anyway).

What do they do at a monastery all day everyday, and how do knee supports and iPhones fit into the picture? Do they have rules like "turn off your cell phones during chanting practice?" Because if they do, these may be normal people like us.

I just want to know.

My favorite holiday here

It's just like Thanksgiving!

Without the pilgrims. Or the gratitude. Or the turkey and dressing.

Okay, never mind, it's nothing like Thanksgiving.

Except it does fall on a Thursday this year.

It's Mid-Autumn Festival this Thursday, the 19th. The weather is crisp and cool, and people all head home for a big meal (ah, finally, that part sounds familiar). Then after dinner, the tradition is to sit outside or take a walk under the big bright full moon and eat mooncakes (pictured). Besides Chinese New Year, this is the most important holiday on their calendar.

The mooncakes have the consistency of American-style fruitcakes, but the fillings tend to be more nutty and creamy than fruitcakes. (I don't love mooncakes, but they are lots better than American Christmas fruitcakes in my opinion.) I had a mooncake yesterday with coconut filling, so now for the first time ever, I can truly say I like a mooncake. People stand in long lines outside this particular mooncake bakery to buy the tasty treats.

I gave a box of these yummy mooncakes to my Chinese friends Hank* and Luella* yesterday; they were pretty excited to get some without having to wait in line. Please keep their family in your prayers as Hank faces an uphill battle against the beast known as pancreatic cancer. Pray they will have a sweet holiday time together.

A shout out to home cooking

The tall young waiter balanced the serving tray in his right hand. Steam could be seen rising from the delicious looking stir-fried green bean dish. I wished I had ordered that. 

He was walking from the direction of the kitchen to the dining area when it happened. He sneezed. All over the green beans. No look of sorrow, repentance or embarrassment crossed his face. To him, this was normal, a non-event.

He passed my table, rounded a corner, and served the dish to the unsuspecting customers who, thanks to a wall that had obscured their view, had not witnessed the event. I'm sure they ate it all.

I want to eat at home from now on.

The grass probably really is greener on the other side

Most summers, it rains a lot due to typhoons. The grass gets really high and is seldom mowed. I measured last year and the piece of grass I chose to measure was 5 feet long. No kidding. The mowers were hired to cut grass once a month at most, and sometimes it was less frequent than that. Mimi would go walking in the tall grass and would disappear from sight.

This year, they mowed the grass once in May, and then we had a heat wave. The grass appeared to have died and everything became like dust. There was nothing to mow. The bald spots on the lawn made me sad because I felt it was unlikely they would plant new grass in its place.

Then in the last week or so, we've had some rain and the dirt spots are filling in with grass the color of spring green. It didn't die after all, it just was hiding out under the dirt!

The photo above shows their method of mowing the grass. They use weed eaters to cut the grass in the entire apartment complex. It gives the lawn an uneven burr haircut. And many times they fail to pick up and bag the long cut grass, so it smothers the grass underneath it. 

Chinese people don't have their own personal lawns, and those who are not maintenance workers have never had to mow a blade of grass in their lives. It's not quite an art form here. They are magnificently artistic at landscaping with trees, rocks, flowers, etc., it's just the actual grass part that suffers from inattention. 

Every now and then I get a yearning to take over the lawn at my apartment complex; I think I would enjoy making it look nice. But then a nap beckons me and I get over it quickly. They wouldn't let me do it anyway.

Homestyle chicken noodle soup

Ingredients:

one chicken breast, cubed or shredded
one large carrot, diced
2-3 tablespoons green onion, chopped
2-3 large celery stalks, sliced
1/2 cup uncooked noodles of your choice
1 can chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of oregano
pinch of thyme
1 tablespoon olive oil
water
saltine crackers (optional)

Steps:

Put chicken, carrot, celery and green onion in soup pan. Add salt, pour olive oil on top of ingredients, then stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Don't worry if the chicken is still a little pink, because it will cook thoroughly in the next step.

Cover ingredients with water plus about 1/2 inch more water. Boil at high temperature for about 10 minutes, until the carrots and celery are nearly tender. Add more water, bring to boil, then add noodles. Cook until the noodles are soft. While the noodles are cooking, add salt, pepper, oregano and thyme.

Then add one can of chicken broth, and heat for another minute or until the soup begins to boil again.

Crush six saltine crackers into a soup bowl and pour the soup over them.

Experiment with ingredients. You may want to add two cans of chicken broth for a more watery soup, or you may want to double the entire recipe so you'll have leftovers. Bigger veggie chunks and thicker pasta will take longer to cook than smaller/thinner ones (of course), so cooking times will vary. I used a green pepper in my soup, but next time I won't. Also, I use olive oil for everything, but other oils will work just as well. I don't measure the oil either, I just use what seems reasonable to do the job. I had green onions on hand, but if I hadn't had them, I would have chopped a regular onion.

Enjoy on a nice fall day! I think it tastes way better than Campbell's (just takes a little more time to prepare).

Backstory:

A small can of Campbell's soup at the import grocery store costs $4. I can't afford that. I love Campbell's soup and would love nothing more than to eat it twice a day (saving my other meal for chips and salsa). But that's all rather impossible in my weird little world.

I can buy Swanson's chicken broth at the import store for about $3.50. That's pretty expensive for one little can of broth. Well, I do have other options. I could go down to the village market (inside the city), choose a live chicken, watch them put the live chicken in something that looks like a small electric clothes dryer to tumble and defeather it, then watch them break the horrified screaming chicken's neck. Then they would bag the chicken for me, head and feet and all, and I could bring the thing home and boil it to make my own chicken broth, all the while wondering if I touched something at the market that will give me the bird flu. That night -- and frankly for the next two decades -- I would have nightmares. Paying $3.50 for a can of Swanson's feels traumatic, but it feels like the least traumatic of the options. Wouldn't you agree?

A room with a view

Upon my mom's request, I am posting photos of where I live. Today I'll show you the living room/dining room area, which is one big room with the main entry in the middle.

The wooden Chinese furniture on the right was custom made in Qingdao in 2004 at a low price. I had quite a few pieces made there. The one above is used at present to store shoes. Most homes in China have shoe cabinets near the entryway. To the right of it is a bamboo umbrella stand.

This house has a hallway with a built-in sliding-doors closet. Many homes in this country just have bedrooms off the main room, with no hallway. I like having a hallway.

The hutch on the left is used to store pantry items. The hutch on the right stores dishes on top and pantry items on the bottom. Most kitchens are so small that pantry storage room is at a minimum. That's probably why Chinese people put their refrigerators in their living rooms and go produce shopping daily.

In the dining area I have another hutch with a kettle and electric stove unit on top.

This is a view from the kitchen entrance. The main entrance to the apartment is on the right. (Padre, I know you probably are worried that I am about to burn the house down with that candle lit, but I promise you I blew it out just as soon as I was finished taking photos. :-))

The large balcony faces south and can be seen in the background of this photo. A small balcony is on just opposite the big balcony (behind me as I take this photo). I like the white tiles, because Mimi's shedding hair blends in with it. (The bedrooms have dark wood flooring, and her hair shows up much more clearly there.)

 A teapot, loose tea leaves, and Asian style tea cups await visitors.

The sofa belongs to the landlord, but the other furniture is mine. I had my own sofa, but since the landlord didn't have a place to put HIS sofa, I put mine downstairs in my garage. But then cats got in the garage, gave birth to kittens on the sofa, and before you knew it, my sofa was in ruins.

I'm really glad to have a clean place to live in. Some of my other living quarters in this country were so poor that I was constantly sick from breathing in mold, leaded paint and asbestos for all I know. If you missed it before, you can see my first apartment here. Yeah, really, it was that bad.

More of my Chinese furniture up close can be seen here.

If the other rooms ever clean themselves up, I will photograph them for you. But please carry on, as it won't be any time soon!

Summer travels in the south

This past summer, I traveled in the southern part of this country and have a few snapshots to share with  you.

Above is the 21st century version of a rickshaw, sometimes called a bicycle taxi, even though it is clearly more of a tricycle taxi. I estimate that I see many more luxury cars than rickshaws in this country of contrasts, but both are around. The man in this rickshaw was very friendly. He has his face covered with his cardboard fan, but otherwise the shy guy didn't mind being in my photo shoot.

Drink stands are popular year round. People buy flavored sweetened milk tea (mostly) with the small chewy tapioca balls, or "pearls" in the cups. It's called pearl milk tea in China (called bubble tea in some places like Taiwan). The heat index was around 108°F on this day, so people were looking for cold drinks to ease their pain. (Pearl milk tea can be served hot or cold.)

The cigarette sellers thought they would decorate their shop with empty cigarette cartons stacked like Legos. I bet they thought this was pretty. And maybe it would be if it were not, you know, cigarettes. I'd give them an A for effort, and perhaps lower marks for art materials. Not that I should be appointed to give out art awards anyway ... oh my, art was like my worst class ever.

In unrelated news, my 55-year-old next-door neighbor is screaming and pounding on the door at this very moment because her 5-year-old grandson is inside and locked her out of the house on purpose. He's in major trouble. That little kid is something else. :-)

Worth my time

China's Ministry of Education estimates that 30 percent of Chinese people living in China don't speak Mandarin, the official language. They speak other languages or dialects. And the lady above? She's definitely one of the 30 percent.

I met her in a park. I think she told me her life story. Poor lady was so desperate to talk to someone that she didn't seem to care that I didn't understand. (I told her I didn't understand, but she is hard of hearing and so maybe she didn't catch that part.) I just smiled and looked sympathetic when her tone seemed to call for it. I think it did her good.

I don't know her story, but I know she's created by God. That makes her worth my time.

Sippable vices

One month and one day ago, I said good-bye to a longtime friend, a friend who was never more than an arm's reach away, a friend who assisted me on a daily basis, a friend who pumped lifeblood into me. I said good-bye to coffee.

A full week before I said adios to the java, I parted ways with Diet Coke (and any soda for that matter). The soda thing was based on the possibility that artificial sweeteners and bubbly stuff might be damaging my body in some way. The only bubbly I've had since then was when I had some Alka-Seltzer this morning.

The coffee thing was about the caffeine and its dehydrating effect ... which may be a source of some pain issues I have.

Where I grew up in west Texas, the tap water was fairly impossible to drink. I think this is where my penchant for consuming non-water tasty drinks got started.

I started drinking coffee in an addictive kind of way when I lived in Colorado. It was pretty cold in the Rockies, but coffee kept me a little warmer on the inside. I continued drinking coffee when I moved to Hong Kong, then to China. Even when I couldn't get coffee, my parents mailed it to me. Then when Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts came to China, I was able to buy my own coffee beans (even though it cost twice the price for half as much coffee).

I started drinking Cokes in China when I realized it was probably much cleaner than the water. I drank a lot of Cokes in the early years. I could boil water, but there would be so much sand at the bottom of the kettle that heat could not eradicate, that it just didn't feel like a wise decision to consume it. Later, Diet Cokes and then Coke Zero arrived on the scene. Bottled water in big dispensers also arrived, but rumors persisted about the cleanliness of its source. Carrying sodas up five flights of stairs was not easy, but since it had to be done whether it was water or soda, and the price was about the same, I went with the tasty option (soda).

In the past month, I drank more water than I have ever before in my life. I should feel extraordinarily healthy -- right? -- but for some reason I feel just the same. What's up with that? I'll give this experiment a little longer, maybe until the end of the year. If I don't detect health benefits by then, I might re-unite with my steaming little coffee beans. I think I will permanently forego the sodas though (which I don't miss).

P.S. I had several weeks' worth of caffeine withdrawal headaches in the past month, in case you were wondering.

Once upon a time

Here's a photo of me a month shy of my 6th birthday, sitting on rocking outdoor chairs with my younger cousin Wanda. She looks so cute! I have never seen this picture before, not until Wanda sent it to my parents last week. So now the cat's out of the bag -- I was young once. This was taken in December, so obviously it's not very cold in the Houston area in winter. I bet we didn't even need different clothes for summer and winter. Thanks for sharing the photo Wanda! 'Cause I don't think I knew what I looked like as a five year old, and I'm glad to find out. :-)

The 'hood at dusk

Here are some views taken from one of my balconies recently. In the park below are dancing ladies. They consider their dance to be exercise. One group meets 6-7 p.m., the other from 7-8 p.m. I don't think they break a sweat, but they keep their muscles limber. I used to scoff. But now I have stiff muscles and joints, so I scoff no more! Night dancing is common in China.

The park's pond has water lilies and algae growing in it. This is the first year I recall seeing the algae growing in it.

I live in a complex that is new, modern and tall (some buildings have more than 20 floors). But the ones across the street were built 30 years ago. The neighborhood has a mix of old and new.

My complex is rather large and may house more people than the small town where I grew up, or it would if people were living in all the apartments ... a few have not been moved into yet.

No tall buildings can be built on land inside the city's moat, as the government is trying to preserve that old part of town. The two buildings on the left (in above photo) are just outside the moat. The tall buildings far away are also outside the moat. In most cities, the tallest buildings are in the downtown area, but in this city, the tallest buildings circle the city, so it looks a little odd until you get used to it.

I have a view of a few mountains from my balcony. I like that. I like living in a big city.

Fruits as deadly weapons

Do you recognize this fruit? It is durian. If you have ever been near one, you'd probably remember it. It stinks horribly. When I walk into a grocery store and my gag reflexes activate, it is usually because they have durian for sale. Many hotels in this country have signs that ban guests from carrying durian into their hotel rooms. It is that bad. Slicing one open looks to be a dangerous pursuit. I avoid them. The above photo? That's the closest I've ever come to one in 18 years of living in Asia. And I did it just for you.

In related news,* I saw with my own eyes a small porcupine in my apartment complex last week. For context, there are no wild animals in this country, at least not in the superbly overpopulated eastern half of the country. You have to travel to the countryside to see pigs. I saw cows on a riverbank once (I was on a boat). There are not even cockroaches. And I live pretty much smack-dab in the middle of a city of about 8 million people. So how the heck did a porcupine get here? It's a mystery.

*What? Can't you see the resemblance between a durian and a porcupine? Makes sense to me. :-)

The calendar rules!

Today is September 1st, so the kiddos started back to school today. Never mind that it is a Sunday; the calendar says September 1st, and that makes it final.

When I lived up north and was a recipient of the government-controlled steam heating (that cannot be controlled individually in your own home), it started on a certain date even if it was balmy, and it ended on a certain date, even if a blizzard was in progress.

In other bizarre calendar-related news, if you are a teacher at a Chinese university (which may start on a different date than public school for young ones), you can contact the university leadership in early August and ask them what day school will start in September, and they will tell you it hasn't been decided yet. Likewise, you can ask them in May what date that school will end for summer break, and they can't tell you that either.

For air travel, almost no one here books a flight more than two weeks in advance. If you ask them why, they'll tell you it's because so much could change between now and then. Often, the airlines can't even tell you the price that far in advance.

This used to all seem strange to me, but now I'm all used to it and everything. :-)