Food for Thought

 The best thing to eat, I found, is something called "huajuan." I've mentioned them before. It is a pastry with some sort of sweet bean paste in between layers of dough; I could eat them all day! I ate a few for breakfast (Baba noticed how I really enjoy them) along with a duck egg. Now the duck egg wasn't that great. It was boiled or soaked in salt water so its saltiness was overwhelming, and so was the aftertaste.

I had some down time before class started at 11:30 so I went around behind East BeiWai to soak in the backalley flavor of China. I walked up to a stand on the street (it was more like the bed of a cart) selling ginger and bought some. This thing was as big as a dinner plate, too bad I can't bring it home but I'll end up eating it bit by bit probably. After that I stepped into this convenience shop to buy some yogurt. The dairy here is interesting, I can't tell if it is fresh or not but the yogurt was sitting out for a while before I drank it. That's right I drank it because the yogurt had the consistency of milk.

Today for 'class' we went to Houhai - the market district. First we got lunch provided at a nearby restaurant. The food was good and just kept coming. By the time we were putting our coats on the egg drop soup arrived. It's a faux pas to leave food at the table here because China is on the brink of famine, but we had to. We walked down the ridiculously long road to the nearest subway station then all made our way to Xinjiekou St. We entered the narrow streets of the hutongs (alleyways) where the fun shopping is done. First, our group passed through the meat market where all the butchered or unbutchered meat sat out on display in the open air. The same went for fish. The place had an interesting smell that did not leave the nostrils easily. Our tour took us into the bigger part of the market where virtually everything is sold, and cheap fruit can be bought. I ended up buying those mouth numbing peppers called 'maojia' to bring home.

We made our way out of the market and onto this lakeside pathway. For those unfamiliar with Beijing, there are a few lakes to the left of the Forbidden City. These were frozen enough for people to skate and fish on this time of year. Once we walked around the largest lake, the Drum Tower came into view and we ended up climbing it. The way up was one long staircase inclining four stories at about a 60 degree incline. The top gave us a great view of half the city, and a good perspective of how bad the smog was. We could barely see the Forbidden City's north end.

Gege (older brother) and his wife were over for supper again. We ate supper in the gaze of the TV and talked about lots of things. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad popped on the news, so I asked what they thought of him. Gege said they like people who make trouble for America because China doesn't like America to be the 'voice of the world.' I thought it was a valuable opinion. We ate dai4yu3 for dinner, which is a long skinny fish. It was tasty considering I don't enjoy fish at all. We also had this rice, nut, and date porridge that was amazing.

Once Gege and his wife left, I got my grammar lesson in Chinese. It was confusing but I retained most of it (I think). We talked about the air quality and I asked why it was so bad. They gave reasons, but more focused on how it is getting better. They said high emission vehicles are no longer allowed, factories are forced to move away, and coal is not legal to burn anymore. I am starting to get along better with Mama than Baba I think. She is way more verbally understandable and can explain things really well if I don't get it. Baba, however, is just a blast to joke around with. His sense of humor is pretty funny when I get it. After a while my brain cold only hold so much Chinese lessons, so I'd have to start fresh tomorrow.