Changchun: Not a top tourist destination, but a newbie success

China pretty much shuts down during Chun Jie. Cities empty out as people travel to their parents' homes in small villages (or cities with less than 5 million people) and notices of modified store hours are taped onto almost every door, right above the chain lock wrapped around the handles.

Jake and I knew this, but we still felt like we needed to travel out of Shenyang for a portion of the Chinese New Year. I can only do so many loads of laundry before everything is clean and cook so much before I run out of dishes that I can make without an expensive trip to the import store. It's nice to sit in Starbucks on my computer for hours, but I'm in China for goodness sake! I want to see China, not hide away in a Western corner until school reopens.

So, to Changchun we went.

Wait. Where's Changhcun?

Don't worry, you're not the only one who didn't know. I had only heard of the city when I read a blog entry about cities in Northeast China and many of my co-workers had no idea where it was located.

The train ride from Shenyang to Changchun was just over three hours

Okay. But wait. Why would you go to Changchun?

Also not a bad question. Changchun isn't exactly a top tourist attraction. That's one of the reasons we went.

Since we knew it was probable that things would be closed, we didn't want to invest a lot of money in a trip that could easily turn out to be a flop. So we went in with low expectations, hoping to see the Puppet Emperor's imperial palace and the large Buddhist temple. We considered a trip to Changbai mountain or Jilin to see the rime, but knew it might not work out. So when it didn't, we weren't phased. There were dozens of small victories and high fives and though Changchun is definitely not a must-see, we had a blast.

First of all, and possibly most importantly, we had wonderful luck with food...

Lucky find #1: Changchun's Muslim noodles, a hole in the wall very similar to one that we have in Shenyang

Noodle soup with egg

 Mutton chuan (pronounced "twar")

Lucky find #2: A hot pot restaurant with prime time people watching and PBR

Before I show you hot pot pictures, I want to flashback to October, when Jake and I first ate at a hot pot restaurant. It was a Saturday night when everyone was busy and we ended up with no plans. So, we hopped on a bus, rode it until we saw something interesting, and got off. We walked around, watched the masses of Chinese people doing an aerobics/dance fusion exercise routine, and then sought out food.

The restaurants seemed to be just like Goldilocks... too full (people perched on buckets eating in the streets), too empty, juuuuuust right.

What we didn't realize was that the juuuuuust right restaurant had a menu with no pictures, an oddity in China and a major hurdle for newbies who had only been in China for 2 months. We glanced around at what people were eating and realized that they all seemed to be eating out of metal bowls that were in the center of their tables. It was also warm inside the restaurant. Using our excellent deductive reasoning skills, we determined that we must be at a hot pot restaurant.

Nevertheless, neither of us had ever had hot pot, nor knew how it worked. We watched as they took metal bowls with what seemed like dirty dish water past our table to others' tables and wondered why this was such an attractive meal to our co-workers.

As we stared at the sheet of paper full of hanzi (Chinese characters), we decided we could at least choose the animal from which we wanted the meat. We looked up beef on Jake's Pleco app and tried to match it with the characters on the page. As we searched, three more waiters gathered around our table, in addition to the one that had been watching us the entire time.

Finally, one waiter stepped forward and said, "I speak a little English." Phew! Jake pointed to a random set of characters on the menu and said, "Uhh... what's this?" She looked at it and, after thinking for a moment, said decidedly, "Blood." Jake looked at me in disbelief. What?! No way. "Uhh, okay. What's this?" Again, she responded, "Blood." Jake pulled out his phone and translated blood into hanzi on his phone, sure that if he showed her the definition she would realize she misspoke. Instead, she looked at his phone and said, "Yes." Jake asked her cautiously, pointing to a section of the menu, "Are these all blood?" "Yes," she affirmed. "Looks like we're having blood, Jake!" I chuckled, thinking it couldn't be that different from morcilla in Spain. Luckily for him, however, he had studied a bit before he came to China and he managed to spit out, "Bu yao zheige." (I don't want this.)

We didn't get blood, but I did let them talk me into ordering a number of random things off of the menu, not knowing if we were ordering a normal amount of food or an absurd amount of dishes. Later, as plates of uncooked noodles, meat, mushrooms, and greens came out, we were pleasantly surprised. The waiters led us over to the sauces, which we originally thought would go inside the pot (which explains why I put two tablespoons worth of garlic in my bitty bowl), and we mixed sauces as they pointed and smiled. They stood over our table and told us when to put the different ingredients into the pot and at one point, went so far as to take a napkin out of the napkin holder and hand it to me. Jake and I laughed at our ignorance and celebrated our success of about having navigated such a complicated meal alone.

Four months later, we felt like old pros at hot pot...

The hot pot apparatus

This wasn't floating in here on accident...

 

Mutton

Noodles

Cabbage and beef

The hot pot cooking away

The finished product, just before being slathered in peanut sauce

Dipping sauce: a mixture of peanut sauce, soy sauce, red pepper sauce, green onion, sugar, and an appropriate amount of garlic

Lucky find #3: A countryside restaurant

On Saturday afternoon, Jake and I wandered rather aimlessly along the streets of Changchun for almost an hour, looking half-heartedly for food. 

Walking down a side street in the center of Changchun

We were hungry, but not so hungry, and we didn't know what we wanted until we found it. When we stumbled upon an impressive rustic building that was clearly open, we wandered in. But when I saw a couple of men cooking just inside the entry and talking to a number of people, I panicked and thought, "I just walked into someone's house!"

 

Just inside the entrance

I ran out, only to see someone taking a picture of the outside of the building. I looked at her, then looked back to the door, where a man had followed me to the door and was staring at me from the other side of the glass. I managed to ask her, "Wo zai zheige difang chi fan ma?" (Can I eat at this place?) She kindly answered, "Yes" without insultingly drawing attention to my cluelessness; I called Jake back and in we went.

We were led into the restaurant by the man at the window and sat down next to a larger than life statue of Mao. For the following hour or so, we enjoyed the rustic, rural home-like ambiance as much as the delicious food.

 

The meat, green bean, and corn dish that the waitress recommended when I asked her, "Women zai Changchun chi shenme?" (What should we eat in Changchun?)

We also appreciated the city's cultural attractions...

The Puppet Emperor's imperial palace was quite impressive as well. We didn't know what to expect, especially after we walked for 20 minutes around the perimeter without seeing any life or open gate through which we could enter. But when we finally made it to the entrance, we were pleasantly surprised.

One of the large doors in the patio

 Inside the palace

The row of shops just outside the palace

The palace was heavily influenced by European design and seemed quite different from the palaces we had seen in Shenyang and in Beijing. It also had an entire museum area describing the actions of the puppet emperor and the ways that he had betrayed his country. The museum descriptions were written from a very patriotic perspective and made "good" use of quotations to show sarcasm... except for when they were put around the wrong "word". It reminded me a little bit of the Friends episode when Joey was trying to figure out how to use the air quotation marks...

On Sunday we went to the Banruo Buddhist temple, which we later realized was not a tourist attraction. We first got turned away but were then ushered in, so as we walked around we realized that we may have been mistaken for Buddhists. Oops.

Pagoda

In the courtyard

And last but not least, we overcame a few language hurdles...

The first hurdle...

...was when we tried to check into our hotel, only to find that they didn't have Jake's reservation. It took us a good while to explain that we wanted two rooms instead of one and part of the process involved me following the grandmother of the operation up in the elevator to see the rooms and pick which kind we wanted. As Jake stood at the desk talking to the receptionist and I got in the elevator, it suddenly hit me that this shady hotel (We paid 352 kuai, or $58 for two rooms for two nights...), could very well be the kind of place one tries to avoid. I tried to get Jake's attention as I followed the grandmother to the elevator, "Uh, hey! Jake! I'm, uh, going upstairs! Hey, Jake! I'm just going to look at the rooms for a few minutes so I should be back down soon..." I didn't hear a response, but as she hit the 5 button and the elevator doors closed I awkwardly/desperately called out to him, "5th floor Jake! 5th floor!" The doors closed, and I smiled nervously at the little Chinese woman next to me as we went upstairs.

Of course, it all ended up being fine, but it was one of those stories for the book. Successfully checking into a hotel where no one speaks English makes you feel pretty victorious, even if said hotel is one that considers toilet paper and soap to be optional amenities...

Our second major hurdle... 

...was when we decided we would try to go see a movie. Shops were closing for the evening around 5 PM and we had no desire to spend any extra time in our hotel rooms. So in the late afternoon, we went to the IMAX movie theater to check on our options for movies in English. The workers were confused, either by my poor Chinese, my request about English movies, or both, and it took quite a while for us to figure out that one of the movies did indeed have zimu (subtitles) in English.

However, when we later returned to buy the tickets, we spoke with a different worker, who claimed that there weren't subtitles. Confused, we looked around to find the workers we had spoken with earlier. When we finally found one, she denied having told us that there were English subtitles.

We walked away from the counter and pondered our options, only to realize that we had banked completely on seeing the movie that evening. We finally decided to go see the movie, even though it was completely in Chinese, so we once again approached the counter. This time, a random Chinese man accompanied us with 35 kuai tickets for a showing of the Jackie Chan movie.

Paying for our tickets became a long ordeal as this random Chinese man continuously talked at us and the cashier refused to take our money. Finally, I shoved the 220 kuai into the cashier's hand and she, without speaking, handed it to the guy next to us. He gave her two of the tickets and us 20 kuai and in a few moments, we walked away with two tickets for the movie that we wanted to see, each priced at 35 kuai instead of the 110 kuai listed price.

We were bemused... until it dawned on us that the guy had made 65 kuai off of each of our tickets. He had given us a "discount" of 10 kuai each, but had exchanged his discount tickets and made 130 kuai... enough for hot pot for four! And the movie theater cashier had let him do it right in front of her. 

Chinese: 91, Rogers/Strother: 0

Well, at least we saved 20 kuai? Oh, and the movie did indeed have English subtitles!

Chinese: 91, Rogers/Strother: 1

Our third major hurdle... 

...was knowing what to do when we had 6 random Chinese people gathered around our train seats at any given time. After exhausting the few conversations that I can successfully navigate (I am from... Where are you going? I'm going... I am a teacher in Shenyang... Did you make jiaozi for Chun Jie? I went to my friend's house...), there was a lot of smiling and repetition of "Ting bu dong" (I hear, but I don't understand).

I learned to ignore the man who leaned over the railing and stared incessantly at me for 45 minutes. We got our pictures taken with strangers (who later posted them to Wechat) and managed awkward laughs as one called out to us, "Never say goodbye!" We thanked the Chinese who knew English and helped to translate conversations for us and I let them look through my Chinese book and passport. Neither train ride was a waste of time, but rather a strange mix of Chinese class application and foreign relationship building. All of those Fulbright speeches during orientations and mid-year seminars must have stuck because I can't help but consider myself an ambassador whenever I am abroad.

Overall, though, the trip was very relaxed. We killed time trying to find Jake a new pair of dress shoes (a near impossible task since Chinese stores only stock up to size 44 instead of Jake's size... 46), studying Chinese over coffee, and playing my pocket version of Xiang-qi (Chinese chess) that I bought outside of the palace.

I definitely consider it three days well spent, a bonus to my Chun Jie experience after dinner with Nancy's family!

Much love from China,

Amber

My First Chinese New Year: 春节快乐 (Chun Jie Kuai Le!)

When I first looked over the school's schedule in August, I can't say I was too disappointed to find that teaching at an international school meant that I got to celebrate both U.S. holidays and Chinese holidays... especially if one of the Chinese holidays was a two week break in the middle of the hardest stretch of the school year, the months following Christmas.

But as Chinese New Year approached, I began to wonder how wonderful this break would really be. Many of my friends had travel plans, either for vacation or with ISC's high school service trip to the Philippines, and I had been reminded time and time again to stockpile bread and milk so that I wouldn't go hungry when the restaurants and grocery stores closed or failed to restock. It's cold, it's polluted, most of my friends are gone, and everything will be closed.

Though I was happy for the chance to get ahead on lesson plans and to catch up on e-mails and blog posts, I think it is safe to say that no one wants to spend two weeks doing that. In the days leading up to break, I began to seriously regret not making plans to travel out of China. It's possible that I even checked flight prices multiple times in serious consideration of making an impromptu trip back to Madrid...

But I remembered, "Everyone has to stay in China and experience Chinese New Year at least once...." Accounts of the Armageddon-like fireworks and money-burning seemed fictitious and I figured I should indeed stick it out and witness Chinese New Year first hand.

The first night of break the fireworks began to go off and I thought, Ooooookay. I've heard them. Now I have to experience 16 more days of this to say I've really experienced it? Saturday I did a deep cleaning of the apartment and was reaffirmed by my roommate, "You know, this is when Chinese people do spring cleaning. You're right on schedule!." Fireworks, check. Spring cleaning, check. Monday I biked down the street and saw individuals setting yellow pieces of paper aflame and I reckoned that I could scratch that one of the list too. I studied some Chinese at a coffee shop and then returned to my apartment by way of the muffin man, only to find the window closed up. Can't buy food because stores are closed for the holidays... check that one off. Tuesday I struggled to enter my apartment because a few teenage boys were shooting off fireworks alone right in front of the entrance to my apartment. When they switched to sparklers I hurried past them, noticing gratefully for the first time that my doorman had a collection of eight fire extinguishers next to the front door for easy access.

By Tuesday night, I was over Chun Jie. I experienced all of the inconveniences of the holiday and I wasn't excited about 12 more days of the same.

Thankfully, Wednesday greeted me with incredibly blue skies and brisk air and even though I had nothing planned for the day, the world felt like a good place to be. My roommate, Irina, and I meandered for 40 minutes to a nearby fabric market only to find it closed, but contentedly settled for a leisurely cup of coffee at the Starbucks next door. As I was sipping on my coffee, I got a text from Jake that turned my day of nothing into the day that made these two weeks, no matter how boring the rest of the days seem, worth having spent in Shenyang.

Back in mid-December, when I had taught my Chinese friend to make Christmas cookies, she had mentioned that maybe I could come over to her house for Chinese New Year. She mentioned it a few times after that, but never gave a plan or a time to make it feel like it would truly become a reality. But reality it was.

Here are a few highlights of Wednesday evening, Chinese New Year's Eve...

When we first arrived, we sat down on the couch and snacked on the typical Shenyang candies, nuts, and juzi (smaller than clementine nuggets of vitamin C deliciousness). I contributed some chocolate chip cookies for the waiguoren touch.

中国 (Chinese) snacks

My hosts then gifted me with a stuffed goat to celebrate the incoming year of the goat

I showed a lot of self-restraint for the first hour or so as I refrained from pulling out my giant camera to take pictures of the festivities. Of course, I didn't want to embarrass Nancy or draw any extra attention to myself (Wait... is that even possible?). But when aunts and uncles started taking pictures of the dinner table, I figured I had nothing to lose. The Rebel XS made its debut and stayed the rest of the night... and none of them even seemed surprised that I felt the need to document the entire evening.

 

Dinner is served

Nancy has been taking classes in tea history and tea etiquette, so after dinner she served us a 4-year old black tea and showed off her tea making and serving skills. Tea is like wine in that it can improve with age and that older tea is more expensive, so it was very kind of them to share such nice tea with us.

Getting the cups hot before pouring the tea into them

Pouring the tea

Nancy's grandfather was adorable. He continued to surprise and impress us with his knowledge of English, constant kindness in offering us food and beverages, and his accordion abilities. He could have entertained us all evening and we were mutually appreciative of each other's presence that evening. After dinner he had Jake, Rico, and I sign our names in his diary next to the description of the day that he made two American friends and a German friend.

 Make sure you spell your name right, Strother!

Most likely playing Jingle Bells for the fifth time... :)

After dinner and tea, it was time to make jiaozi (dumplings). We rolled out the dough - gan, zhuan, gan, zhuan (roll, rotate, roll, rotate) - stuffed the wrappers with either pork and leek or shrimp and cabbage, and methodically pinched the dumpling wrappers closed - yi, er, san, yi, er, san (one, two, three, one, two, three). It took us a while to get the method down, but as the evening went on, we became quite the pros. Nancy's grandfather suggested we open a jiaozi restaurant stateside when we go back.

Proud of my finished product

Looking good, if I do say so myself!

After we finished the jiaozi, which we would eat just before midnight, we headed outside to participate in one of Chinese people's favorite Chun Jie hobbies: setting off fireworks. 

This was one of many that was set off just across the courtyard... so much for safety precautions.

The fireworks are not just for looks, but are a tradition deeply rooted in a Chinese legend about a monster named Nian (Year). You can read about the legend here, but the gist is that an old man scared off the monster using fireworks and red paper around the door (uhhhh, Passover?). "It turned out that the red color, flame and exploding were what Year feared the most. And when the door of the grandmother's house was thrown open and an old man in a red robe burst out laughing in the courtyard, the monster of Year was scared our of his wits and fled helter-skelter... red paper, red cloth, red candles and the exploding firecracker were certainly the magic weapons to drive out the monster...." Thus, not all of the fireworks sparkle. A lot of them just make extremely loud noises that scared the crap out of the unprepared waigouren (foreigners) walking by.

 We almost walked into this one on our way out to the street

The last part of our Chinese New Year Eve celebration, besides eating jioazi, was to head out to the street for Nancy's family to burn jinzhi (ghost money) for their ancestors. Stands all around the city had been selling stacks of gold rice paper embossed with emblems of ancient money, which Chinese buy and burn to send to their ancestors. I was curious about the tradition, so I asked Nancy if her family really believed in it. She said no; they do it as a family as part of the holiday traditions, but not everyone even deemed it something worth leaving the warm house for. Some stayed back to continue watching the special New Year's program or to boil the jiaozi that we would soon be eating for our second meal of the evening.

Burning money outside the apartment complex

So all in all, Chinese New Year was an absolute success. We ate so much jiaozi that we each left with a baozi (a Chinese stuffed roll... a metaphor for our jiaozi food babies) and still accepted the leftovers they offered us to fry for lunch the next day. I am so thankful for the hospitality Nancy's family showed us and their willingness to include us... despite our inability to communicate beyond a toddler's level. The experience was well worth the two weeks of Armageddon sound-effects at all hours of the day and night outside my window!

春节快乐 (Happy Spring Festival!),

Amber