Chinese Thanksgiving

Last year for Thanksgiving my two co-workers and I went out to a restaurant and had to eat substitutes that we were used to for the traditional meal. Instead of turkey we had chicken feet, instead of mashed potatoes we had potato wedges, and instead of pumpkin pie we had a roasted pumpkin. 

This year for Thanksgiving I was able to find a turkey thanks to a new co-worker who knew of an online foreigner meat store. I decided to do a thank you dinner for my TA's and friends. 

First, if you are American than you know we buy things by the pound and the rest of the world uses the metric system. When the meat store advertised a 4kg and 6kg turkey, I decided to buy the 6kg turkey because I thought it wouldn't be that big. 

IT WAS THIRTEEN POUNDS!

The circled thing is the bones. I have no idea if I did a good job or not. Does it look okay?

  Now I had to figure out how to cook my monstrosity. They don't sell what we consider traditional ovens in China since 90% of the foods here are made in either woks or rice cookers. The ovens they sell here are toaster ovens and I knew that my heavy and giant turkey wasn't going to fit in my toaster oven, even if the store said it would. I immediately looked up recipes for rice cooker turkeys and they actually have a few! Since we work on Thanksgiving Thursday and one of my friends doesn't get off work on Sunday until the evening, I decided to have the dinner on Sunday night instead of the usual lunch time. 

Since I have never met anyone that cooked a turkey in a rice cooker I knew that I had to test out a few recipes first, which I did with a chicken. This is the recipe I chose for the potatoes, vegetables, and turkey. For the gravy I chose to do this recipe. 

To fit the turkey into my rice cooker I had to butcher the beast by myself, which was a first for me. I then had to do cook the turkey in sections. It only took 30 minutes to cook the turkey that was in the rice cooker, but I had to do it five times. I started at 2:30 pm and got done at 5:30 pm. While the turkey and vegetables were going, I made apple crisp and apple pie. To my sadness I forgot to put the flour in the pie, so it came out soupy but people still seemed to like it. I included vanilla ice cream as a topper as well. 

The "drained" pie

For drinks I made apple cider which was a big hit! They don't have the drink in China and almost two containers of apple juice were gone by the end of the night. I also had Czech wine, Sprite, Coca-Cola, and my friend brought rice wine. Another friend made banana and chocolate muffins to share with us. 

My friend Susan brought me flowers.

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with my Thanksgiving. I had cooked everything and it was all delicious! My friends asked to take some of the leftovers home with them which I was very happy to do. 

I also taught them about the wish bone which they found very fun and exciting. A few mentioned they wanted to try it with chicken bones. 

At one moment, I was looking out at all my guests eating and chatting and laughing and I got emotional. It was fulfilling to see people I loved eating the food I made and having a good time. Even though I wasn't around my American friends and family, at least I could eat turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie, and roasted vegetables like I could in America and I could still feel loved. 

Your Lucky Numbers Are...

If you have ever gotten a fortune cookie then you will know that on the back of the fortune they will have a list of lucky numbers. You can read about how 110 people got lucky with their numbers here and the history of the fortune cookie! (Spoiler: they aren't Chinese.)

Even if fortune cookies aren't Chinese, I have found that every culture does believe in lucky numbers and they vary by region. 

In America, you will know that a lucky number is 7 and an unlucky number is 13 and the "devil's number" is 666. 

In China, lucky numbers include 520, 888, and 666 and an unlucky number is 4. 

Wait? 666? The devil's number?

I know right? Why is 666 a bad number in the West and a lucky number in China?

How are any of these numbers lucky or unlucky?

Let's start with America. 

Western lucky numbers have to do with the Old Testament of the Bible. Seven is the number of days that it took God to create the universe, therefore seven must be the most perfect number (Got Questions). 

What I was told when I was in Catholic school is that the number six, the number right below seven, must be the most imperfect number and "un-God like." If it is unlike God, then it must be the devil's number. If you are Christian than you may believe there are three parts to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If the devil wants to mock God then he would chose to use the symbolic three for his number, 666. There is also the fact that the Book of Revelations states that an evil beast will number 666 (Schorn, Joel).

What about 13? There are a lot of theories actually. Since our days are set on a 12 hour system, it is believed 13 would be odd unbalanced, therefore unlucky. 13 also isn't divisible by a single number, making it unbalanced again.  Judas was said to be the 13th guest at the last supper, the man who betrayed Jesus. Similarly, Loki, the god of mischief, was the 13th guest at Valhalla (Maranzani, Barbara). 

For Chinese, the lucky numbers are actually homographs with Chinese words. 

520 in Chinese sounds like "wu er ling." "I love you" in Chinese sounds like "wo ai ni". The reason 520 is lucky is because it sounds like "I love you" in Chinese. If you are ever invited to a Chinese wedding, you may find the number all over the venue. It is also why May 20th is the Chinese Valentine's Day. 

The number four sounds a lot like the Chinese word for death "si" so the number is highly avoided. 

Six sounds like "lucky" and eight sounds like "rich." Nine sounds like "long" so by saying 999 you are wishing someone a long life (Attract China). September 9th is also a day where Chinese people go to visit and honor their elders. 

Putting numbers in threes together is like tripling the good luck. Since four is an unlucky number, you will only see 666 together and not 6666. 

The next time you are buying your lucky numbers at the lottery, maybe you can try Chinese numbers alongside your American numbers. 

  

 Works Cited

Attract China. (2014, November 19). Symbolic Meanings of Chinese Numbers. Retrieved from Attract China Blog: http://www.attractchina.com/symbolic-meanings-chinese-numbers/

Got Questions. (2018). What is the Biblical Significance of the Number 7? Retrieved from Got Questions: https://www.gotquestions.org/number-7-seven.html

Maranzani, B. (2013, September 13). What's so Unlucky About the Number 13? Retrieved from History.com: https://www.history.com/news/whats-so-unlucky-about-the-number-13

Schorn, J. (2013, October). What is 666 in the Bible? Retrieved from U.S. Catholic: https://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201309/what-666-bible-27901

What is in a Name?

If you are in your mid-twenties or older than chances are you have friends, family, and co-workers your age having babies. Usually the top question asked is, "Do you have names picked out?" In China they don't ask this question. Why? Because they have...

*Astrology*

I thought it was really interesting and will share my very basic knowledge on the subject. 

In Western culture we typically name children after relatives or after religious figures. Even if you aren't religious, there is a good chance your name is related to the Old or New Testaments of the Bible (John, Luke, Mark, Sarah, Mary, Elizabeth as a few examples). 

In the Chinese culture, names are picked out based on the year, month, day, and time that a child is born. A baby could be named as late as a month after being born. If you are familiar with the Zodiac years you will know that there are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac and each year is related to an animal. 2018 is the dog and 2019 is the pig. 

The animals are rabbit, tiger, rooster, dragon, snake, mouse, pig, sheep, monkey, dog, ox, and horse.

Then the year is broken up into the five elements of nature: earth, wood, fire, water, and metal. Fall season is metal, winter is water, spring is wood, summer is fire, and earth is between seasons (The Five Elements).

Then on each day there is a specific item related to that element. I tried finding a calendar online that had a comprehensive list of what each day relates to what element and all I could find were fortune telling websites where it wanted me to pay money. The closest I could get was this chart below. In fact, most Chinese people will go see a psychic who can tell them the names they should pick based on the Five Elements Calendar. 

This is also where the idea of Chinese medicine comes from

HOWEVER I do have a friend who was named based on this theory and this is what she told me. 

My friend was born during the wood element season and on her specific day was the day of the forest. Then the hour she was born was during the cedar tree. So her name means Girl of the Cedar Forest. She told me that there is a belief that being named after an element that is the opposite of the day you were born brings permanent bad luck. If her family named her after a fire element when she was born on the cedar forest day, she could be in deep crap right now...according to this idea. 

If you ever get a chance to be an English teacher, then you will sometimes be asked to give people an English name. I got to name a lot of my first grade students and a few people's babies. I try my best to translate the Chinese name to an English name but it is nearly impossible to get it right. 

My best example story is a woman who asked me to name her daughter. When I asked what her daughter's name meant it was something along the lines of, "Girl of serenity and strength of a great and deep lake." I told her we don't have names that could incorporate all those meanings but could get one of those. I offered the names Marissa (means ocean), Audra (strength), or Serenity (take a wild guess). She was really disappointed that I couldn't get all the meanings in and decided to wait on giving her daughter an English name. 

Usually when I name Chinese people I try to go by the sound if the meaning is something that doesn't translate well. For example if the name sounds like Jia then I might name them Jaiden or Jay. 

I have noticed that some Chinese people who choose to name themselves might make simple mistakes or not realize that the name sounds odd to a Western person. 

For example, not all names are gendered in China so they may choose a typical boy/girl name without realizing. 

Real names that I have encountered: Carol for a boy. Rex for a girl. Both have now changed their names. Now they are Carter and Abigail. 

Or they may pick a name that sounds cool but seem silly to Westerners. 

Real names that I have encountered: Boom, Poker, Hulk. 

Chinese people usually want an English name because their names are hard to pronounce for those who don't speak the language. You can read it about it in this blog post!  They would rather choose an English name they chose than have a person continue to mess up their real name-which is sad and we can go into the colonial implications of all that later but that is the short version of why they want English names. 

But guess what? Sometimes Westerners will be given a Chinese name! I do have a Chinese name which I got written on a stamp. The name they gave wasn't based on the calendar but based on the sound of my name (just like I name my Chinese kids). It is pronounced zhuo shi (kind of like Chelsea). The name means "exquisite poetry" which makes sense for an English teacher!

What is in a name? As Juliet would say, if we called rose by any other name it would smell just as sweet but maybe translating the Chinese name Graceful Rose of Wonderful Serenity into an English name would just lose some of that wonderful context. So I hope being called just Rose is okay and all the rest of the meaning can be gotten through personality. 

Source:

The Five Elements (Wu Xing). (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2018, from https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/astrology/five-elements.htm

A Spoon Full of Sugar Will Help the...Turtle Go Down?

When it comes to medical practices I had assumed that there was a universal standard as to what good healthcare entails. However, I was surprised when I found that this varies by culture, especially in China. 

Maybe you have heard of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) or Chinese herbal medicine. The good things you heard are probably that it is all natural and can really help. The bad things you heard about it is that they are poaching rhinos and tigers for medicinal purposes. 
Granted, I am a western person and I don't understand the cultural significance of Chinese traditional medicine but it is just so odd to me. 

When I talked to my Chinese co-workers about herbal medicine they all seemed to have a different answer as to what I needed for my cold. Even people who practice herbal medicine in China all have different answers as to what is needed. It seems from doctor to doctor they have a different idea of what is good and bad. Because it is. Because there isn't a standard of what actually works. After thousands of years, only recently have there been studies to see the effects of Chinese herbal medicine and most of it was inconclusive (Traditional Chinese Medicine: In Depth). 

Not to mention that there is this strange idea (for me-in my Western perspective) of cold and hot foods and beverages. I literally had this conversation the other day. 
"Chelsea, are you sick?"
"Yeah, I have the cold."
"Did you drink cold water?"
"Yeah, I always drink it cold."
"Well, that's it! Don't you know the the cold energy sucks your life force out?"
"...What?"

There is a philosophy in China that everything must be balanced, and if it isn't balanced then something bad will happen to you. If you get sick, well then your temperature of your food that you ate must not have been 50% cold and 50% hot! 
According to this site it doesn't always mean temperature hot-some foods are labeled "hot" if they have lots of calories and those with low calories are labeled "cold."

Once a woman in my school fainted. When they were helping her back up one of the first questions they asked her was, "Did you eat ice cream last night?" When she replied yes they all nodded their heads and said, "Well, that explains it!" 

Me-

These things...are not related?

I have also had a local tell me that drinking water while eating, at any temperature, makes you fat. Let me repeat that drinking water something with zero calories, fats, and sugars, while eating makes you fat. Which explains why I'm the only person in my school that brings a water bottle with them to lunch. 

What is frustrating for me is the fact that even doctors in hospitals seem to believe in this too. Last year a co-worker fractured her ankle and the first doctor she went to (she chose to get a second opinion) 
1. Did not give her a cast
2. Told her she was fine but then said if it was sprained or fractured
3. Buy a beef hip, boil it, and drink the contents. 
His years of medical practice and experience and he chose to not give her any pain medicine or pills to help with the ankle but to drink.beef.bone.broth. 

It is frustrating to me that so many people still believe in this medicine even though there are scientific studies saying that it doesn't work. Also, the fact that some of these people are making animals endangered because of how much they think that eating rhino horns makes them feel better instead of taking an arthritis pill from the pharmacy. 

Granted, I will say this much about American health-it is nowhere near perfect.  We are in the middle of an opioid epidemic caused by doctors over-prescribing pain killers. I'm sure that our culture of medicine seems just as odd and destructive to other countries. Again, I am a western person living in China so I don't understand the complexities of every cultural aspect. 

But dang nab it is so hard to find cough drops here but it is really easy to find dried turtles to use as medicine. 

Read more about the science of herbal medicine here. 

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/chinesemed.htm

https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/traditional-chinese-medicine/-tcm-evidence-based-and-safe

Traditional Chinese Medicine: In Depth. (2018, July 16). Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://nccih.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/chinesemed.htm

Chelsea Goes to Czech Republic

China doesn't have many breaks. No Christmas break. No Easter break. What they do have is Golden Week or Mid Autumn Festival where all of China gets one week off. It is supposed to be a celebration of the foundation of Communist China. Last year I stayed in China and it was crazy how full of people it was. This year I decided to get around that by going to a different country, a country where my sister lives. In this post I will just go over the highlights since you can read more about the country on her blog. 

The first day I landed in the evening but my sister planned for us to go to a spa. Not just any spa-a beer spa! Bernard Beer Spa puts hops into a tub of bubbly warm water and gives the patrons unlimited beer to drink and Emilie's super great boyfriend Ondra, got us bread, meat, and pickles to snack on while we fermented in the bath. 

The big wooden nozzle is a beer tap!

The patron saint of beer, St. Bernard

After sitting the baths we could choose to lay on heated beds or a salt room. We chose the salt room. They played that flute music that you hear at yoga studios in the salt room and it was really relaxing. 

The second day we toured Prague. We went up a giant hill and took pictures of the city. This area is called Petrin. 

We also went to a palace which had an art installation. 

Not to mention we saw one of the more famous spots, John Lennon Wall. 

Cuties

The third day we headed to a town called Brno. We visited a church, a castle, and went on an underground tour! Plus they have a ton of art installations around the city. It is hard not to get a good picture there. 

The vegetable market

An underground tour, right below the vegetable market!

The underground tunnels were originally for storing food to keep cool. Eventually they kept growing in size which lead to some underground pubs and restaurants. There is a rumor that a baroness (or countess I don't really remember and had a hard time finding it online) had an underground storage room where she buried lovers she got bored of. There is no evidence to back it up, but it is a fun story. On the tour they used to have a statue you could touch of one of the baroness' old lovers. If men touch it, they would be single for a year. If women touch it, they will great luck with getting a significant other. Too bad it is gone now. 

Brno is also really famous for wine and I was able to buy a svobodak. It is a seasonal drink made from wine and I got to have it right at the end of the season. 

The fourth day we headed to Ondra's hometown-Melnik. His family lives on a small farm but the city itself was much larger than I imagined. 

There were the "Demon Heads" we visited and then saw an abandoned chateau. I can't tell you how badly I wanted to go in that chateau. I could see through the windows that on the inside of the building they had stained glass and vaulted ceilings. Is it wrong to see them closer?

This will be my new house, I swear. 

We visited a cafe inside a clock tower, saw the river that goes to Prague and Germany, and went on another underground tour but this time to see a well. 

Inside the clock tower

Well Tour

Also! In the Czech Republic they have a drink called kofola which is supposed to be like Coca-Cola. During the Russian takeover of the country, all American goods were not allowed in but the Czech people wanted to have their Coca-Cola back. They made a recipe based on memory of what it was like and now they have their own drink alongside the original coke. 

The fifth day we headed to the Prague Castle. Look how flipping gorgeous it is! And it is for free.  

We went to a museum after that where we were approached by a guard trying to convert us to his cult Hari Krishna. It was crazy. But the armor was cool. 

Then we visited a garden and met up with Ondra again to go to Troja Castle which Emilie and Ondra had never been to. They said it was one of their favorite spots after the trip was over. 

Look how blue that sky is?!

We visited a church and cemetery called Vysehrad after that. The graves are mostly of famous people who have ornate and large headstones. They also had graves for those who died during the time of the Nazis and Russians. 

This lady is a headstone. I want this as my headstone!

The church had a small treasury inside and my favorite were these hands that had saint relics (pieces of the saint's clothes or body) inside. 

We saw an overview of the city and the river during sunset which was really amazing. 

My sixth and final day in the Czech Republic my sister took me to the farmer's markets. I went totally crazy and bought a lot of things like a rolling pin, jewelry, honey, and lavender oil. 

My cousin Jessica who had just moved there joined us for the Dancing House. You have to buy a drink in order to go outside. 

In all, the Czech Republic is a beautiful and inexpensive place to travel. There is a ton of history too! Maybe next summer I will visit again. 

From Prague, With Love

Round Two of China...Fight!

This is my second year of being in China and I believed that it would be easier. In ways, it is. I am better at the language for sure and I am more familiar with the culture. 

In one way it is not easier. That is being away from my family and friends, especially during holiday seasons. 

Halloween is coming up this month and I am sort of dreading it. I love Halloween but when I was in college my friends and I would make the entire month into a celebration. We would go to pumpkin patches, carve pumpkins, go to haunted houses, watch a Halloween movie every weekend, and then do something big for the actual day. In the past we went to a theme park, had a sleepover at the library (it was a library event-we aren't weirdos), and went ghost hunting in Peru, Nebraska to find the infamous ghost bridge. 

Not to mention I worked as a tour guide at a haunted house the weekend before.

Halloween is a thing in China but it is definitely not the same. Many citizens don’t celebrate it. Only shopping areas really promote the holiday along with Disney. As mentioned in a post before the government does not want us to teach the holiday in school this year which is another downer.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are hard to deal with as well. Last year my co-workers and I substituted things that I would usually do on that day. Instead of turkey we had chicken feet, instead of pumpkin pie we had pumpkin-rice dish, instead of mashed potatoes we ate potato wedges.

Christmas, I made apple cider successfully but the cookies were difficult. No one owns ovens in China which means no baking. I only own a small toaster oven. Only foreigner grocery stores or bakeries would have the ingredients needed for baked goods which include:

Powdered sugar, all purpose flour, baking powder, vanilla extract (I had to get it in USA), food dye, ground cinnamon, cinnamon sticks, cloves, ground ginger (I can get a root but not the powder), yeast, shortening, cocoa, and nutmeg.

So even when I tried recreating my type of Christmas it fell short last year because I had to substitute all these ingredients I was missing and I wasn’t able to find a ham or a turkey to have a proper holiday supper. It sounds so small but when you are in a country with people who have no idea what your holidays are and no one you love nearby, it gets really depressing.

Not to mention that I am the only foreigner in my building. The other foreign teachers are in the other building so I’m extra isolated.

I kept telling myself that it was fine, that it wasn’t going to be so bad but of course that didn’t happen. Sadly, I had to change my gym when four of my coaches decided to quit the gym I was at. I figured I would join a gym that one of my former coaches was now a manager of. When I said goodbye to my last boxing coach at the gym, he seemed so blasé about it. Then when I realized I wouldn’t have another boxing class until three days later at my new gym…all I can say is that my brain broke. The second I got home I tried to go to sleep and found myself staring at the ceiling until I was in a puddle of tears.

Thankfully my sister is just a phone call away and she picked up to a sobbing me. She was shocked and asked what was wrong and I pitifully said, “I can’t sleep! My boxing class won’t happen for a few more days! What am I going to do?”

What we realized is that the reason it was so hard for me is that going to the gym was a way to socialize with other people and get me out of my empty apartment. The second the class was taken from me, the feeling of loneliness washed over me.

Don’t get me wrong, I have friends that are local Chinese or Taiwanese citizens, but when something that is in your schedule is taken away, and you are a foreigner where you can’t speak the language, no one has your holidays, and you can’t even bake some gosh darn snickerdoodles without going across town to find a small bottle of cinnamon to remind you of home, your emotions get out of hand.

To be honest, I am not sure how well this year will go with the holidays coming around the corner. All I can say is that I am more prepared than last year because I stocked up on baking good supplies and I know that I still need to celebrate those holidays in my way. Last Christmas I thought by working on the holiday I could get through the day better, but it only made me resent being at work. Currently, I am on a group chat with other foreigners who are in Jiaxing. Who knows, maybe I will meet another American my age who can relate to my plight.

The Big Yellow Scam

Imagine you have just gotten off your long flight, you collect your bags, and you get through customs and are finally on your way out of the airport. You see people being greeted by co-workers, friends, and family and then a person comes up to you saying they have a taxi to get you to your hotel. It seems all well and good and you aren't familiar with the country and this person knows English! They seem trustworthy!

Welcome to the scam zone. 

In China there has been a recent scam of people dressed in professional clothes, with professional looking signs, and nice name tags claiming to work for a taxi company or even the airport that ask people if they need taxis. These people DO NOT WORK for a company at all. 

These guys are "runners" who go out to get clients. Another person sits in a car in the airport parking lot to wait for a call from them. Once they get the call, they drive down, and take the client to the hotel they want but they will charge you, no joke, over 100% of what it really should cost. 

Last year I fell for the scam and have even watched a few YouTube videos of people getting trapped into the scam (they were in Europe). For myself, I have taken Didi (Chinese Uber) out of the airport before and even the Chinese purple taxis (yes they are purple in China) but when I was walking out of the airport this guy in a suit, with an embossed leather binder with a hotel name on it, and a brass name tag asked passerby's if they needed a taxi. My hotel was only a few blocks away but I had a large bag. I said I would go with him and heck, he even spoke English! I knew something was wrong once we started walking towards the parking lot exit and not the taxi exit. When I asked why we were walking that way, he explained that his taxi guy had to park because he had been there a while. Once the car pulled up my heart sank. 

It was a black car. 

The Black Car Phenomena is something that a lot of my co-workers warned me about. In the 1980s there was a kidnapping surge where people claimed to be taxis and when they got inside, they wouldn't come back out. Usually the cars were black hence the name. You can read about it here and here. 

I was debating if I should get in the car or not. But then I realized that there was a driver, a person in the front seat, and the "runner" were all around me. 

Did I really have a choice?

Sitting in the taxi was stress-inducing to say the least, I don't think I took a breath. All three guys were in the car with me, talking fast in Chinese. The runner was on the phone talking to someone else. When we reached my hotel I finally took a breath. It was then that they charged me. Usually a taxi ride from the airport to my hotel should cost around 30 RMB. 

This group of men charged me 200 RMB. 

I was surprised to see ANOTHER one of their guys at the hotel. The guy on the other end of the phone call. That is now four men asking for 200 RMB and I am maybe 30 steps from my hotel. Without hesitating I take out my wallet and pay and we split ways. 

This wasn't the last time I encountered these guys. When I landed in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, and even my town Jiaxing there have been these crappy people (both men and women but mostly men) claiming to have a taxi or didi right outside. They all speak English. Most of them wear suits. All of them are fake. 

Here are a few things to consider when getting into an unfamiliar taxi. 

1. What color are the taxis in this country? (America-yellow. Britain-black. China-purple.)

2. Is there public transport you can take? It is usually cheaper than a taxi and safer. 

3. Is there a designated area for taxis to go? Airports I have been to have a line outside specifically just for taxis. There is a long line you can pick from. 

4. Why is this person saying they have a taxi/uber/didi in the airport instead of being in their vehicle?

5. Is the taxi's meter working? Is the light on the taxi working? Is there an ID in the car?

6. How much is a taxi in this area usually? Ask the driver before getting in!!!

Here is a website with other tips. 

If these guys approach you, don't look at them. Don't talk to them. Keep walking. Heck, speak in gibberish to them so they think you speak some weird language. Just don't confront them and don't get roped in. 

I hope this was helpful. Keep your money and yourself safe when traveling abroad.