november students

For the first half of the semester I was lucky enough to be assigned a tiny classload of six hours a week. I taught Monday and Tuesday and had the rest of the week off. But I was holding my breath the whole time, so last week when our dear Ricky Martin informed me that I would soon be teaching ten more periods, my heart only sank a little. I was prepared. Then it all turned into a mess that ended yesterday evening with Dan and I flipping through the schedules for eight different classes of English majors and deciding on our own class times. This morning I took the schedule into the very professional and kind Mr. Liu, and taught a couple of first-lessons for the new students. Despite being in their last (third) year and generally a bit more world-wise than the four-year English majors on the new campus, they are sweet and generally excited to have a foreign teacher. They're all from Sichuan and most have never been out of the province. The kind of students that make me want to give everything I can.

亲爱的

Justin says no one cares about blogs anymore; everyone's on Twitter. But something in me nags that I should be sharing part of this crazy day-to-day. Last year for a time I was writing 750 words a day. I hope I can write a few here. And then there's this fabulous VPN that allows me to pretend I'm surfing the internet from San Francisco. There are no excuses left. I will write.

The last few days it's just me in the bakery. TL our super-baker went back home to get her winter clothes. I miss her like crazy. She called me from inside the new subway in Chengdu, complaining about the strange system of exits, but mainly just wanting to brag. 洋气不? she joked, using a phrase she has made part of my everyday vocabulary. Literally, it's "Western-feeling" or, more loosely, "trendy, cool." I was 洋气 when I drove the electric bike (and wearing sunglasses, no less) to pick Justin up from the train station. She's 洋气 when her new winter hat and face-mask (do people even wear those in the West?) arrive. WY is 洋气 when she goes abroad for the second time in six months. Shelley is 洋气 with her silvery-sleek Mac and her silvery-sleek beauty. TL and ZY are 洋气 when they invite us over for a full table of dishes in their big new apartment. I doubt that lunch in the bakery kitchen - she and I hunched over rice and warmed up dishes on the wooden chair/table - counts as 洋气. But those are my favorite moments with her. The ordinary times. Volunteering to do the dishes and arguing over how much chocolate sauce goes on top of the mocha. Singing "遇见" and "我爱你" and "I've gotta have you." It's "You are in my way!" as we work around each other in the small space and "Please notice my baby!" when one of us is too busy to check the cake almost done in the oven. Her complaining about my messiness and me laughing at her fake-anger. Weathering the bad moods and exhaustion and conflicts and knowing the strange love between us is deeper than that of employee/employer, and won't break easily. I don't understand it. I don't understand why this tiny little Sichuan girl has come to matter so much to me. I don't understand how or why she came, but I am grateful, and I would do it all over again just to know her all over again.

cheers for telling

The bakery opened, and as far as I know (I am now very, very far away), is doing okay. As in, so far, looks like we may survive, financially.

Funny though, how the last anyone on this side of the pacific had heard about the bakery was that it was in need of prayers because only friends were buying things. A reminder that "doing" is not always enough. How it's the telling that really shapes reality.

At church on Sunday they're talking about "story" and so is NPR this morning. Humans, turns out, like to tell stories. The show promised that good story-tellers have an edge in evolution, too.

Here's one: I come back to Harrisonburg to find that most of the little coffeeshops scattered along it's streets a year ago (The Daily Grind wasn't a spectacular coffee shop, but at least it was locally owned, and trying) have disappeared. I drove all over the south side of town searching (so far I've managed to avoid Eastern Harrisonburg Hell) for wi-fi, until I finally remembered Greenberry's, a great little place that originates in Charlottesville, and has giant, oat-y cookies. It's freezing inside, but they don't give me dirty looks when I buy a coffee and stay all day.

So here I am. Admiring toned female legs and eavesdropping on conversations. A few tables away the two middle-aged yuppie women owners are sitting with the SYSCO guy, ordering next week's pesto. It reminds me of the sign Justin saw when we visited Mondragon (vegan-anarchist cafe-bookstore) in Winnipeg. In the window by the sidewalk, it said something like, 'It has come to our attention that a SYSCO van occasionally parks in front of Mondragon when delivering to [nearby business]. We would like to assure our customers that we DO NOT buy from SYSCO.'

See, that's principle, and not easy. The tiny bit of information that makes all the difference in the world. That makes me prefer that place to this place (though I'll come here when I don't have a choice). And somebody's gotta tell the story, or it won't make a damn bit of difference where they're not buying from. Don't forget.

first step

It's my third night to spend at the bakery. The first night I still had the van and picked Johnson and FDS up when I dropped off WY and Libby. The second night Johnson tricked FDS into staying instead of himself. Tonight I told them all to stay home and get a good night's rest. I've slept like a baby so far, and I'm certainly not afraid of staying by myself.

We were anxious to get started with the decorating. We didn't plan a lot, just started in with the obvious first step. We had to have a way to enter that didn't include traipsing through the teashop next door. We needed a doorway cut into the giant piece of glass that was the front of the shop.

WY and I secretly delighted in the way the glass-cutters came in a gang, leaning against their motorcycles when we arrived. There were five of them. The leader had a big belly and a lip that might have been clefted, or maybe a fight. They charged us too much, but what were we to do? Duan still down in Southern Sichuan with Rod and Lao Huang chasing government officials around. Later, in the van we talked about how we secretly enjoyed their good natured jokes and schemes to make more money off of us.

another day is done

 

Okay, so I'll have much nicer pictures when either A) Justin gets here or B) I decide to buy a camera. For now I make do with the camera built into the Macbook. Hope the gorgeousness of the bread shines through.

Cranberry-walnut celebration bread from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice, the exception that might be made to our no-bread, focus-on-desserts rule for the first few months.

Lao Duan (Leah's husband) is in Southern Sichuan working to set up an MCC water project. Which means I get to drive the little mini-van around. Leah calls and asks if I'd mind driving it home, and well, no, actually I wouldn't mind at all. She has her license, but isn't comfortable driving. The right thing to do would probably be to encourage her to practice more while her husband is gone, to try to get used to driving ... or maybe the right thing to do is just enjoy the damn van.

Duan is very good at cars, and has switched it to run on natural gas . . . so the fun of having a vehicle for a week comes almost completely guilt-free. And it doesn't hurt that it rained heavily the whole afternoon. After classes I called Karen and insisted on picking her up. Stopped to pick up noodles at the gate and then slowly rolled through the crowds of students back up toward home. (I like how unnecessary excessive speed seems when you're used to walking or biking everywhere.) There was even the struggle of the defrost against the encroaching window fog. We giggled like little girls.

I couldn't agree with you more!

The teaching-Chinese-as-a-second-language majors (my delightful freshmen) debated today. It was hard to get the old "dogs or cats?" debate going because, for 99 percent of my students, it's hands-down for the dogs.

Should high school students be required to wear uniforms? There were ideas about school unity, about focusing on studying, about cutting down distance between rich and poor students, and about how a uniform makes it easier for teachers to look out for student safety. But no one can stand the baggy sports-suit that passes as a school uniform in every high school and college in Sichuan. What about the Japanese-style school uniforms? Fashionable, but the skirts are a little too short. If it's not modesty that stops you, it's fear of "cold-knee" disease.

Should smoking be allowed in public places? The side that I assigned to support the statement gave great groans of protest, obviously feeling it was the harder argument (even though smoking is still allowed in most public places here?). Justine argued that limiting smoking in public areas would just make people smoke more in their homes. "Hurt your family or hurt strangers?" she asked, and we all laughed hard.

a good start

On Monday, Sam's mom brought to the shop a friend of a friend who helped her with the interior design of her restaurant ten years ago. Later she claimed that she knew he was the perfect person to help me. I think it was just luck. Or the universe. I am starting to wonder. Like today when I asked Jeff's friend, who was trained in making Western desserts, and worked at a big hotel in Beijing, what she's doing now, and she told me she was job hunting. I'm not sure why I didn't offer her a job on the spot. But the next time I talk to her (and hopefully tomorrow) I will.

The decorator, Mr. Gou, understood immediately the style we need to create, and gave extensive, valuable, and free advice. A few times he raised his voice a bit to shut the rest of us up and plead, "let me finish," but mostly was just really patient and cool. After a few hours we went to pick up his wife and visit his amazing office, which is decorated in real, exposed brick!!! and big slabs of dark wood for tables, and an old embroidered picture of Chairman Mao.

yesterday's news

Friday night we went out for hotpot to celebrate Sam's birthday. We asked Austin (the EMU student who's being hosted by Sam's family) how things were going with Sam, and he said, "Oh, we're good. I like KFC. He likes KFC. I'm not sure why we're not there right now." Turns out Austin is funny. And seems just about perfect for Sam. Shelley and I oversaw the hotpot ordering and kept it to beef and vegetables mainly (just shook my head when duck tongue,and chicken intestines came up.) Rumor is that the one girl who refused to go back to her host family on the second evening got pig brains on the first.

After dinner we went to watch Terminator 2 - the first English version American movie I've ever seen in a Nanchong theater (though I saw Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Taking of Pelham, and Avatar in Chinese). The slight discomfort at the glorification of violence aside, I enjoyed the movie immensely.

independence day

My fierce little tiger watches the open balcony door for mosquitoes that she can hunt. I am watching Daily Shows from the first of April. The eighteen EMU students arrived in Nanchong tonight and I was pleasantly surprised by how, at least, they ate the tofu. Have my expectations really fallen that low? It's always so good to see Papa Myrrl, and I was swept with warm feelings of pride sitting in the back of the room while Leah introduced the school and gave a short orientation. As Myrrl said later, it feels a bit like family. Libby pushing herself around in the office chairs and Johnson leaning in to share the day's gossip. 

At lunch Jeff talked about the NGO he's volunteering for - Raleigh International (the one Prince William? famously did a stint with).  Jeff hopes to do one of the month-long leadership, community, and adventure "expeditions" this summer. He said some of his classmates worried that it might be a pyramid scheme, brainwashing thing. I felt slightly moved when he talked about his passion for students to "just know that there are people doing things other than just studying and getting a job" . . . he was inspired by a Nanjing student who'd taken a year off of college (something that's INCREDIBLY rare) and traveled to India with the program. But I felt removed from his excitement, and noticed how much my worldview has shifted these years away from NGO's and straight-up volunteering stuff. I get much more excited about the idea of gathering people around a viable business (and I'll soon find out if it can work) . . . or maybe it's just that I distrust and dislike working with anything that resembles an institution. Freedom in some form (though I think we usually end up sacrificing one kind of freedom for another).

Today is Sam's birthday. He turns thirteen. It's also the two-year anniversary of the earthquake, and the one-year anniversary of my liberation from a wrong relationship. I think I'll make a cake.

feel so loved

Sunday morning Ricky Martin dropped by with mail. A big box from my mother with chocolate (homemade and otherwise), coffee and craisins (that I'd requested), and a pile of knitted dishcloths for the bakery, among other things. By strange coincidence, there was one from Justin as well. I left both of the packages untouched until I got home from Sam's in the afternoon. Then I tore off the paper and threw it on the floor like Christmas. I do not take days like these for granted.

Justin sent the China Mountain book he promises is good, and a cd - another mix by which I could count the years we've been friends. He says I started it, and I believe him, because I am good at starting things. I am less good at the continuing.  When I visited Nanjing last spring retired kindergarten teacher Chen took me aside to talk about our common personality. She told me the story of her youth - how at 16 or 18, when they were being sent to rural areas for "reeducation", she chose the farthest place she could. She said her husband still doesn't really get it, and we laughed together at how we're drawn to risk. The drawback of our personality, she told me, is that "we've got a tiger's head, and a snake's tail." We're all enthusiastic and gung-ho at the beginning, but later our energy and commitment wanes.

And I think that's why I'm still here, sticking out this language and this place, and this bakery idea. There's the fun of the adventure, but also I'm trying to prove something, mainly to myself, about how I can follow through. Even if it's just in the sheer stubbornness of waiting it out. 

Last week we finally found a shop to rent. Three different friends had told me to go check out this little milk-tea bar for students, and when Charity left Nanchong on the third (and final day of the labor day holiday) I finally did. The current owners have it decorated in low-key browns and black, with an almost-Western feel, and in the back I saw an unused tiled room begging to be a kitchen, so I started scheming. Sam's mom came back with me in the evening and we found out it was up for rent. Three days later we'd agreed on a price, and barring some major glitch, it will officially be ours in less than ten days. And then we start measuring days by money made (or lost).

In a strange coming round full circle kinda way, the bakery-to-be, on "Fish and Rice Alley", is just down the street from the medical college and from my first Nanchong apartment. All those bowls of pulled noodles with seaweed during the first lonely few years in . (The beautiful woman boss still nods at me when I walk by.) And on the corner just fifty feet down is the little bakery where I begged cheap margarine for years. (They used to be the only place open when I would come walking home from ZX's after midnight.) Directly across the street is the new thirty-three story apartment building - the construction of which I had such ambiguous feelings about when all the market vendors got kicked out onto the street and old women held a sit-down on the corner. Funny how easily ambiguity disappears when you start thinking in terms of profit. The development has turned the street into a much more attractive place. Three years ago we would never have considered it as a location for what we hope to do. But now it's there, and here we go.

simple foods and xuanchuan

I make a beautiful bowl of noodles for lunch. Take the styrofoam boxes from the fridge - leftovers from a jibao dinner exactly one week ago. Sniff at the glob of chicken, mushrooms and fat to be sure it has not gone bad. Plop it upside down into a ceramic bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. It still holds the shape of the box, but begins to smell like something delicious. Start the water boiling on the stove and then completely forget it while you write a birthday email to a friend. Remember, and return to the kitchen to slide a pinch of dried noodles down into the water. Nibble on a broken piece of dried noodle, register the taste of "jian" - baking soda. Finish heating up the chicken mixture 'til it steams and juices run. Pull out a few noodles at a time and dangle them into your mouth to test for doneness. Turn off the heat and pile the noodles on top of the chicken. Mix it all together. I think I will eat exactly the same thing for lunch tomorrow.

My benefactor-family most recently gave me a soymilk making machine. And a bag of dried soybeans and brown rice. I'd seen the machines sold, but never really paid much attention. They're very specialized, and very specific. Certain levels of water, and certain levels of beans. You can do banana shakes and stuff, but mostly, you just make soymilk. It's quite wonderful first thing in the morning. These days my mind spins with pictures and instructions for lemon layer cake and chocolate souffle cupcakes. The simplicity of the thick, warm drink is a welcome change. I find myself agreeing more and more when people tell me, as they have been doing for years, how much better the Chinese diet is than the American. Friends have suggested that I can increase bread sales by convincing mothers that wheat is better than rice for their kids. Will help them grow strong and smart like westerners.

Johnson and DB spent seven hours today sitting in the center of an apartment complex with a table, a turtle suit, a couple of signs, and a whole bunch of brochures. I showed up at 5:30 and left at 6:00. Most of the families are still away for the holidays, we were told. Two-thirds still gone, they said, which surprised us. The few kids there were came to try on the turtle head, and to see me. I spoke to them in a mixture of language, and they whirled to ask Johnson, in the turtle body, what I'd said. They were skeptical about DB's status as a teacher, when they figured out he doesn't know English.

Dinner with CJ, and we talked, as is usual recently, of traditional culture and all she is excited about - Taoism, Fengshui, and the Book of Changes. When their teacher is back from Shanghai, they eat lunch in his house with his mother, father, wife, and child, then sit around drinking tea and talking about these things. He is teaching them a standing meditation pose. She is a new driver, and I try to ignore her ignoring the traffic lanes on the drive home. We listen to a cd of Sigur Ros, Regina and The Weepies that I made for her.

one good turn

On the street of the wholesale market yesterday a man pulled the wallet out of my small bag. I immediately sensed what had happened, and grabbed a fistful of his coat as I yelled. He threw the wallet on the ground and calmly walked away while my heart beat with receding fear and growing anger. There were no police or guards in sight; all I could do was watch him continue down the street and fade into the crowd. No doubt he would succeed before the afternoon was up.

In September I lost about 1000 RMB on a Chengdu bus. I felt the bump, but the bus was absolutely packed, and I thought nothing of it until we got off and I found my bag gaping open and the money gone. The other passengers must have watched as the thief opened not one, but two zippers to reach the wad of money. I have no idea how he knew it was there. After I shed a few tears back at the hostel, I swore to Justin that I would make the money back by selling bread and cakes in Nanchong. On National Day we made a few hundred selling bright red Chinese flag sugar cookies, but still my vow goes unfulfilled.

The woman who sold me the cake pan and decorating turntable peppered me with questions about what I would use them for. When she knew that I was seriously considering a bakery she joked about how I, "plan to make money off the Nanchong people," and I joked back that that was exactly my plan. "Good!" she said, "then I'll make money off you!" 

"好！可以!" I laughed.

side ventures

On the last day of the year I winterized my house. A quilt hung over the big bedroom window and pages from old MCC calendars taped over the bathroom door vent. The kindergartners had New Year's performances, so I got to sleep into the dense morning fog. At midnight we toasted Karen with Phil's crappy sweet red wine. We sang Auld Lang Syne, badly, in the hallway, a terror, as always, to our neighbors. Then we sent Shelley off to party like a cool kid and we watched a movie. 

On the first day of the year there was sun, and groups of fathers and children playing badminton by the empty apartments. It's good to be a teacher, we all say. Two long vacations a year, and the work in between still leaves you plenty of time to hang out with your family. Or possibly open a business on the side. 

Fish was to come to Nanchong at Christmas. Then it was New Year's, then today. He called yesterday afternoon to push it to Friday. He'll spend his real two days off helping a friend. Something about preparation for the graduate entrance exam. He'll have to take two extra days off from work, but this is the friend who gave him answers so he could pass the dentist licensing exam.