Silicone Wonders and Cupcake Holders

Silicone is fast becoming one of my all time favorite substances. It makes your boobs look good*, it helps you run really far , and now it can bake cupcakes!

My friend L. sent me these silicone cupcake holders, along with a brownie mix (and a few other treats). They can withstand up to 500F and are reusable, so I'll be able to use them in my little toaster oven. No more expensive disposable tins needed!  What a thoughtful friend.

*No, mine aren't silicone, but sometimes I wish they were.

Open Hearted

The word 'happy' in Chinese is made up of the words, 'open' and 'heart.' To be happy is to be openhearted? I'd never thought of it that way, but I think it's kind of nice.

Downloads and DVDs

These are the shows I download illegally every week:

The Office
30 Rock
Big Bang Theory
Gossip Girl

I have little crushes on Jim, DotCom, Nate (so pretty) and Chuck.

A quick buying-DVDs-in-China (or Chinatown) guide:

First: pirated, where sellers set up blankets or bins of DVDs on the street and sell them for about $.80. These DVDs are usually not high quality and have Chinese subtitles you can't turn off. Software and games are good quality, though. This is the most available way to buy them.

Second: a bootleg DVD store. High quality, licensed DVDs intended for sale to other audiences (Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, etc.) that have found their way here. They all have English tracks/subtitles. About $1.50

Third: bookstore or chain grocery store (in large cities only). Licensed for Mainland China, with English and Mandarin tracks/subtitles. About $3.50, and the selection is not as good as the bootleg stores, because they are subject to import censorship laws. (However, I have seen a box set of Sex and The City for sale, which shocked me. Someone did some good negotiating!)

So now if you ever travel to China, or Chinatown, you know about how much to pay for DVDs.

Timely

The secretary of my school's Foreign Affairs Office helps us when we need to navigate public services in China. She took me to the hospital today to get a blood test. In the taxi we were talking about diabetes, and she said, "If you have diabetes, you have to eat less sugar, and have a rest."

Based on my post yesterday, it was too timely not to share.  (Btw, she is also my tutor, so remember her in your prayers, she puts up with a lot, haha.)

P.S. I don't have diabetes, just sugary urine, for some reason. It must be all the sugar and spice and everything nice I am made of.

"Have A Rest"

Resting is extremely important in Chinese culture. There is a standard two hour break everyday for lunch and resting. It's kinda of awesome, until I want to get something done during those two hours, and then it's frustrating. (Spoken like a true Westerner.) I recently did a lesson with my students about sickness and gave them a list of ailments to provide remedies for. Almost all of them included the advice to "have a rest." I have gotten notes from students explaining that they missed class because they needed to have a rest. It's a very cultural thing that every day, you should rest.

In fact, here is how prevalent it is: at the hot springs we went to yesterday, the building had two large, dark rooms filled with oversize recliners and foot rests, pillows, down blankets, and a small flat screen tv for each chair. At any time during the day, you could come in from the spa pools and "have a rest." It was awesome!  The dressing room attendant gave you a plastic bag for your wet bathing suit, gave you some dry spa clothes to wear, and you could eat fresh fruit and have a rest before heading back to the spa pools. No extra charge. I slept for about a half an hour after lunch, then went back outside. And that was very "Western" of me, most people stayed longer. Most offices I've seen have a long couch for sleeping, and our teacher's room couch is always occupied during lunch. So even if you work away from home, you can still have a nap at work.

I am going to come back to America and feel like my hour lunch break is very, very short! And I am going to want a place to take a nap when I am out all day working/playing.

Beity Hot Springs

Today was our trip to the hot springs, about 45 minutes from my neighborhood, and it was really cool!  I'm going to post small pics here, you can click on them for the full size version.

First, the scariest picture of me ever taken: Rebecca The Floating Head. I am in a pool with the water up to my jaw line, hence the creepy floating head illusion.

Here is a picture of the grounds at the hot springs. They have around 10 different "spa" pools, each one with a different theme: rosewater, tea, Chinese medicine, lavender, etc. Each pool smelled wonderful. There was even a red wine water pool, which is supposed to be very good for your skin. And reminded me I always wanted to take a red wine bath, but forgot about it. When I get back to the States (and a bathtub) I'll do it.

Another view of the grounds. Behind each circle wall is a spa pool. They were playing traditional soothing Chinese music over little hidden loudspeakers, it was very relaxing. The open air and view didn't hurt either.

My legs in a tea pool.












And last but not least, the fish pool!  Yes, hundreds of little fish descend and eat your dead skin flakes. Exfoliation, basically, but done by little fish. You have to stay very, very still, like a statue, or they get scared away. I had to move a bit to take the picture, so this shot doesn't really do it justice: there were hundreds and hundreds of little fish. I stayed in the pool for about a half an hour. The little bites just tickled, so it felt like a tickle massage. It was a pretty interesting experience!

By the way, the entrance fee was about $8.00 USD. A pretty good deal.

Treats, Chinese style

Someone gave me American brownie mix for my birthday. We don't have regular ovens, so I had to make them in my toaster oven. I made four little pans in total. I got the little pans at the "western" grocery store. They were expensive, but worth it. The Chinese don't bake, everything is fried or boiled. I've never seen a full size oven here, and I'm pretty sure only the foreigner apartments have toaster ovens. I've learned to cook pretty well with very few appliances, though. I have a microwave, the toaster oven, a rice cooker and a hot plate. I hardly ever use the hot plate, as it has two settings: high and off. But the rice cooker is very handy, it automatically shuts off when the juice is done so nothing ever burns. I make dumplings and veggie curry in it all the time.

And, this is a sucker someone gave me for my birthday. The gristle part was the candy, kind of like a blow pop. Yummm...gristle candy!

New Blog Address

Hey everyone,

I merged this blog in with my existing blog, Stuff I Love, and I changed the name to Rebecca's Adventures in China. I won't be updating this address any longer. I didn't want to maintain two any longer. The NEW address is http://www.beccaplaying.com and it is public, no need to be logged in. 

Update your bookmarks! 

Well, I don't think many people are reading this anymore. My apologies to the very few who do, but perhaps there is a better way to dessiminate information. It appears this way isn't really interesting. So, feel free to email me or whatever if you want to know how I'm doing/what I'm doing over here. 

Fishy

Monday is a holiday here, Tomb Sweeping Day. It's like Day of the Dead in Mexico, the day you go clean off your ancestors tombstones and leave offerings. I don't have school that day, so I am going to a hot springs with a few other foreign teachers. They have a fish pool at this hot springs; you sit in the water and little fishies come eat your dead skin. I can't decide if it's going to be cool or terrifying. But supposedly if you have eczema, it's a great treatment. So, I'll let you know how it goes. 

I teach my writing class on Fridays, and it's my most frustrating class. They are Junior English majors, so their English is pretty good, but I just don't know how to teach someone to be a good writer. I can teach them correct grammar and sentence structure etc., but to be creative? It's a challenge. They have to do a research paper as their final project for this class. Which means I have to read them all. Fun grading for me! 

A Chinese word I am studying today is "life."  Life + sun = birthday. Life + school = student. Chinese is the tinker-toys of languages. Because you can't make new root words, all you can do is create new compound words to describe what you want to say. For example, electric + brain = computer. It's pretty fun learning all the compounds. Also, it takes forever!