Homemade Chinese Dinners and the Detian Waterfalls

We are down to the last final weeks here in China. Today I finished teaching my last English major class because for the next 2 weeks I will be doing small discussion groups with my students. The discussion groups are their final exam and since I have so many students I have to spread it out over 2 weeks. We have been practicing the discussions for the past 3 weeks and I’m confident that they will do well, although I’m sure there will be a fair share of grammatical errors. The other exciting development for my classes is that I’ve set up a pen pal relationship between Gunn High School (the high school George and I both attended) and my students. My students are so excited to have an American friend. The students they are writing to at Gunn are taking Chinese language classes, so the American’s write in Chinese and the Chinese write in English. Getting everyone’s email addresses sorted out has been a process because email is new for many of these students. For some, their pen pal letter was the first email they have ever sent, EVER. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself that I got these kids using email.

Our last two weeks have mostly been centered around our students. Two weeks ago we had 10 students come over and cook us Chinese food at our apartment. Our kitchen is pretty small and we had to use every spoon, bowl, and chopstick that we had. I went shopping in the afternoon with them to buy all the ingredients, which was a different experience from where George and I go in the market. George and I tend to steer clear of the outdoor meat market because they sell everything there, including dog, goat, and every part of the pig and chicken. It also is not a very clean place. However, my students prefer to buy their meat here, so I spent a good part of an hour trying to hold my breath. This place is enough to make you become a vegetarian. I saw a goat head being blow torched and parts of the throat and intestines of all kinds of animals. The chickens are cut in half, with these things that look like tomatoes attached to their insides. I couldn’t figure out which part of the animal that was so I asked. “Oh, that’s the egg!” And yes, they eat the half developed eggs too. The students prepared us delicious food, but I didn’t really get to learn to make much of it because there were just too many people in the kitchen.

The orange thing is the chicken's egg... yum yum!

Trying to learn how to make Chinese food. I look so big next to them!

Gambay! (Bottoms up!)

That weekend we were also the judges at a singing competition some of the English majors held. The students are very creative in coming up with ways to entertain themselves, since there isn’t much to do around the school outside of class. Their singing wasn’t anything amazing, but it was entertaining and the student that won was the only one to sing in English. Afterwards, they insisted we sing for them too so George and I sang some Beatles songs for them.

Us and our singing students after the singing competition

TC and his wife Xue Chen over for dinner the next day and I made them a good southern meal to remind TC of his home in Tennessee. TC had told us that there was a place to buy boneless frozen chicken breasts so we tried to find them. Unfortunately, we don’t know how to say “I want boneless frozen chicken breast” in Chinese. George kept pointing to his chest and flapping his arms, but I was afraid they would think he meant “I want a chicken heart”! We managed to get chicken thighs, so it was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn for dinner. Xue Chen ended up shopping at the same shop later that afternoon and the owner told her about us and our acting skills. Xue Chen knew what we were looking for and thoughtfully bought us some chicken breast, so we have been enjoying chicken sandwiches ever since.

The next weekend we had a different, smaller group of students come over again for dinner. This time 5 students came and I went shopping with them again. George has managed to get out of shopping both times, while I have had to endure the stench of the meat market. This group of students made a different set of dishes that all involved the same pork, onion, and carrot mixture that was prepared in different ways. Again, it was delicious and I need to get them to write down how to make all this food before we leave.

Some of the food the students made

After dinner with our great chefs!

Last Saturday we took a day trip with TC and Xue Chen to the Detian Waterfalls. The waterfalls are on the border of China and Vietnam. They are the second biggest waterfall that’s on the border of two countries. The biggest, Niagara Falls, is much more massive, but Detian is also very impressive. We took a boat ride onto the river and felt the waterfall spray on our faces. There is a market at the top of the falls that supposedly is in Vietnam so I think we can say we have touched Vietnam soil. There was lots of Vietnam coffee and candy for sale, as well as other trinkets. We forgot to charge our camera battery the night before so we only got a few pictures, so I apologize for not having many pictures of the waterfall and market. TC has a lot more, so once we get the pictures from him I’ll post some more.

The beautiful waterfalls

On a boat ride by the waterfalls

We wandered into the art building last week to look at an art show that the art majors had to show off the work they have done this year. We liked a few of the paintings and asked if we could buy any of them. The student refused to sell them to us and said he would give them to us. We didn’t want to take them for free, so we gave him a quarter, a nickel, a dime, a few pennies, and some sea glass we found on the beach. The student was happy with this trade and we got 3 paintings for less than a dollar and some sea glass.

We only have 2 weekends left here and we don’t have much planned. We just want to enjoy our time left in China and think about packing up our bags. Talk to you soon!