Name:Chase Country:United States State:California Birthday:5/14/1983 Gender:Male
Interests:Reading
Running
Baseball Expertise:Reading, writing and thinking.
Talking trash about baseball, music and movies.
Really good taste in music, movies and food.
Acting confident.
Occupation:Student Industry:Textiles
I think I understand the cross lots better than I understand the resurrection. As in, what was the significance of the resurrection. What did it mean to the disciples? What should it mean for me?
Any recommended books? I'm hoping to read N.T. Wright's book, but it feels a little daunting right now.
Studying Chinese for
one year at the local community college didn’t get me very far in China.
Despite my best efforts, I understood very little of what was going on most of
the time. I was able to say a few things and carry on very basic conversations
about food and coming and going, but otherwise relied on Helen and her Mom or
just observed. It’s pretty exhausting being immersed in a setting where you
don’t speak the language, and pretty humbling too. Most people in the world
probably deal with this more frequently, but I think for most white Americans
it’s a pretty unusual experience to be in a situation where you are completely
unable to communicate.
I read somewhere that
learning Chinese takes twice as long as learning Spanish. To be functionally
literate, you have to know 4,000 Chinese characters (out of more than 47,000), compared
to 26 in European languages. Add to that the complexity of tones, and I have a
long road ahead of me before I’m anywhere near competent. But this trip
provided good incentive.
Let me tell you the
high-point and low-point of the trip for me language-wise:
The low-point. The day before we left Xi’an, the family had
a banquet to celebrate my marriage with Helen. I decided I wanted to give a
speech. Knowing I would be nervous, I kept it short, wrote it out beforehand
and practiced it with Helen. Unfortunately, I underestimated just how nervous I
would be.
I totally botched it.
For those who heard my speech at the original wedding banquet, it was much
worse than that, nevermind the second semester of Chinese I had taken or the
six months I had lived with a Chinese wife or the two weeks I had spent in
China. I forgot my lines, forgot my tones and ended up greatly regretting I
ever decided to give it.
I spent the rest of
the banquet beating myself up over and over again. The one good thing that came
out of it was when Helen’s Mom comforted me afterwards. It’s hard to resist a
comforting Chinese mother-in-law.
The high point. Fortunately, there was also a high-point.
Helen and her Mom decided to drop me off at the grandparents house one day so
they could go shopping without a reluctant white guy tagging along. I was a
little nervous about this, since the grandparents don’t speak any English and I
speak so little Chinese. However, it turned out to be one of the highlights of
the trip.
I went with Grandpa Waiye to the park where he goes
every day. We walked around a little bit and I made a few mundane comments
about the weather. Grandpa Waiye introduced me to some of his friends, bought
me some ice cream, and then sat down to play cards. After watching for a little
while I noticed one of Waiye’s friends had gone off with a bucket and a mop and
was writing something on the cement. When I went closer I saw that he was
writing Chinese poems in beautiful calligraphy using water as paint and the mop
as a paintbrush. When he saw me he handed the mop and bucket to me, so I wrote
a few characters I know, very badly. It turned out that between the little
English he spoke and the little Chinese I knew, we could communicate. So we
took turns translating each other’s writing into the other language. A big
crowd of people gathered around and watched, fascinated by the scholarly
grandfather and the young American. People were especially interested when I
explained that Grandpa Waiye was my grandfather. Cross-cultural experiences
like this are exhilarating.
I remember when I used
to think that Chinese food in LA was good. It was actually one of the things
that “converted” me to LA—the chance to eat really good Chinese food at dozens
of restaurants within a few miles of work. After spending two weeks in Xi’an
and Beijing, I don’t think I’ll be eating Chinese food in LA or anywhere else
for quite a while. It knocked my socks off.
During my time in
China we ate out almost every single meal. For one thing, eating out is very
cheap. For another, family members and friends wanted to take us out to
celebrate constantly. Probably the thing that struck me the most is the
quantity and variety of dishes. Think about the most elaborate meal you’ve had.
At a big Stafford Thanksgiving dinner we’d have maybe 9 or 10 different dishes.
In China we regularly had 15-20. And all amazing.
Some of my favorites:
Xinjiang beef (dry rubbed with intense spices), sour wild kelp, cold mu’er
mushrooms, saozi mian (spicy hand-made noodles), yang ro pao mo (spicy lamb
stew with bread pieces), fresh rabbit and suan nai (yogurt drink). The best meal
we had was out in the countryside with Helen’s uncle’s colleagues. The meal was
called Nong Jia Le, which means Farmer Family’s Joy. 20 dishes for 7 people.
Elaborate meals like
this were always accompanied with bai jiu, which is liquor made from sorghum,
typically distilled to at least 60% alcohol. Drinking is a big part of the
banquet culture, particularly for men, with people toasting each other in
friendly drinking contests. I was a frequent target, so I was grateful for
being a tall white guy, as I didn’t have too much trouble outlasting the
locals.
The one thing I did
have trouble adjusting to was the breakfasts. Don’t get me wrong, they tasted
great. But something about spicy, savory breakfasts every day was difficult to
adjust to for this white guy. Just a psychological thing I’m sure, but I was
definitely grateful for cereal and milk when I got home.
Xi’an is famous for
its noodles and its Muslim food. We ate at a range of different Chinese
restaurant, including Sichuan, Cantonese and Beijing styles. It probably helped
that the family knew where to go in Xi’an, but the food in Xi’an was definitely
my favorite.
Now that I am back I am enjoying my cereal but missing
my saozi mian.
