When Beijing hands you lemons

Posted by Natalie in Beijing, Cooking and tagged with , , ,
January 12 along the 2nd Ring at Dongsishitiao

January 12 along the 2nd Ring at Dongsishitiao

By now it’s basically made the news everywhere that Beijing is in the midst of an “airpocalypse” of epic proportions. This past Saturday night the US Embassy air quality monitoring station spat out a terrifying AQI reading of 755. Considering the “acceptable” level is less than 100, and the advisory scale maxes out its severest warning label at 500, that was seriously ominous.

After a few days of slogging through this soup, your muscles ache, your eyes burn and your skin cracks. It’s easy to get caught up in complaining, whining about the AQI to your friends while you obsessively check and recheck the readings. I’m certainly guilty of doing a bit of this, but I also am struggling to remind myself that I have consciously chosen to live in a developing country that places progress above all else.

So, I decided to pretend it was a lovely summer afternoon. When sequestered in my apartment, this actually isn’t a very difficult task. Our building management is a bit… overzealous when it comes to the heat. We have a thermostat on the wall, but from what I can tell it is merely decorative. And with the pollution levels as they are, I am hesitant to open a window to cool the place down.

Dried lavender

I’ve had this lavender lemonade recipe stored away just waiting to be tried, and I figured now was as good a time as any to give it a whirl. It’s insanely simple to brew and it makes your whole home smell like magic (aka lavender). In China they sell dried lavender for making tea in pretty much any grocery store, but elsewhere in the world you may need to visit a specialty shop to get it.

The most difficult part is waiting an hour while the bulk of the lemonade sits around making itself. Seriously, I just wanted to dunk my head in the pot. The added bonus to this is a gorgeous naturally pink hue that comes from the flowers, which really brightened up my dreary day. I can’t eat artificial red dyes, so it’s been a while since I’ve been able to enjoy a pink drink. If you’re having a party, or just looking to escape your gray surroundings, this is a fast-track ticket to happytown.

Lavender lemonade

You are what you eat

Posted by Natalie in Uncategorized and tagged with , , ,

Judging from the photo, this may actually be a literal translation…

Ordering food in China can be tricky if you don’t speak or read Chinese, leading to many a frustrated expat staring into an unanticipated  plate of chopped chicken feet. When I first moved to Beijing in 2005, my Chinese was a bit more limited, which led to a limited set of dishes I could order. I once thought I would be safe when ordering 牛肉面 (beef noodles) from a menu, thinking I would get a plate of noodles and beef. What I was actually presented with was what is now infamously known to my friends and family as “Fear Factor soup,” – a giant metal bowl with piles of spicy peppers floating ominously on top.

Luckily for the non-Chinese speaking restaurant goer, many places now offer English translations on their menus. Unluckily for the English-speaking restaurant goer, these translations may need translating as well. Sometimes fanciful, often nonsensical and occasionally vulgar, mistranslations are never more glorious than when found on a menu. I’ve assembled quite a collection over the years, but a choice gem at dinner over the weekend inspired me to share them. Bon Appétit! 

I think no

This does not make me think of Spring, nor does it make me smile.

I can see why the wild germ would hate that

“Speculation” is the key word in this one

Having a difficult time choosing between Super Cherish and the Baked Elbow

They expect a lot from their yogurt

“Excuse me, but are the garlic cowboy tablets made from real cowboy?”

I admire millet pepper’s bold public declaration

 

The Art of Brownieception

Posted by Natalie in Cooking and tagged with , , , ,

My Nana used to make the most amazing dinner concoction: stuffed meatloaf. When I was a kid I saw this as the culinary version of a ship in a bottle. I just couldn’t figure out how she got the stuffing into the meatloaf. Magic! Even though I now understand the mystery of the meatloaf, there’s still something magical about putting a food inside another food (see: turducken).

So, when I saw this Picky Palate recipe for brownie covered Oreos a few months ago I knew that I had to give it a whirl. I’ve supplied these single-serving happiness pucks for a few friends’ birthdays (using birthday cake flavored Oreos, naturally), but out of laziness I’ve always made them using boxed mix. This weekend my new high-tech countertop oven arrived and I was dying to take it for a spin. A request was made for my brownieception, and I was more than happy to oblige.

I decided that if I was going to use the digital marvel, then I owed it to the glorious machine to only feed it my best ingredients. This meant making the brownie batter from scratch, rather than dumping mix in a bowl. While I would normally guard my best recipes like secret files, this turned out so exceptionally well that I felt as though I needed to share.

The brownie batter is made by mixing these ingredients together in the order listed. To achieve brownieception, just follow the instructions in the link above. To bake regular brownies, pour this batter into a greased square pan and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.

  • 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), melted
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 Tb vanilla extract (or to taste)
  • 1/2 cup flour + pinch of salt

Rage against the… minty freshness

Posted by Natalie in Uncategorized

When it comes to hypothetical situations, I’m starting to think that zombies aren’t the real concern here. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. Especially not in the traditional Chinese sense. (Hopping? Really guys?) Nope. If things are going to take a turn for the horror movie worst in Beijing, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a rage virus.

There are many things I love about this city, but I can’t stand the propensity for situations to go from this:

To this:

…in about 10 seconds flat.

Last Friday, I was on a packed bus (surprise, surprise) when it became clear that something was going on behind me. It seemed that one woman had bumped into another woman, causing a ruckus to ensue. I’m pretty impressed that she even had the space necessary to actually jostle someone. I didn’t even have the space to turn my head to check out the situation. Not that I needed to see it to know what was going on, since the volume of their shrieking match was only outmatched by the octave of their shrieking match.

Their argument escalated way beyond the rational point when they started insulting each other’s mothers, but on some level I can kind of understand where anger like this comes from. What I can’t understand is what I witnessed today at the grocery store, especially considering I’ve seen my fair share of fights in Beijing.

For once, I actually remembered all the things I needed to buy while I was still at the store (I credit this afternoon’s massive coffee). I had my shampoo in the basket and was humming a congratulatory tune to myself as I made my way towards the toothbrushes, when I realized that not everyone was having quite as jolly a trip to the supermarket.

Down the other end of the aisle, a man was screaming and shaking an accusatory finger at the girl stocking the toothpaste on the shelf. He was convulsing with rage as he alternated back and forth between smacking an empty hole on the shelf and slamming precisely three boxes of toothpaste down in the hole. The combination of his anger and local accent meant that the noises tumbling off his tongue were like a mashup of Charlie Brown’s teacher and the Incredible Hulk something slightly more creative than this, because apparently I’ve used this exact turn of phrase once before.

I normally try to sidle away from conflicts, lest I be noticed and then involved, but there was a problem: I really needed to buy toothpaste. So, like a ninja, I ducked into the next aisle and pretended to look at bottles of deodorant while I assessed the situation. Also, I was honestly kind of curious as to what sort of toothpaste scenario could result in so much anger. Did it fall from the shelf and injure his child? Did the sharp corner of the box jut out and poke him in the eye? Nope.

The toothpaste was on the wrong shelf. The shelf of a toothpaste that was ¥0.90 less expensive than the boxes he had picked up. So he made it all the way to the register with this toothpaste before he found out he had been duped. All the way to the register! (he screamed over and over and over). Nine mao! (he howled like a werewolf).

Yeah. I’ll buy my toothpaste tomorrow.

Other People

Posted by Natalie in Beijing

I’ve touched before on the fact that Beijing is chock full of people. Teeming with people, people everywhere, pretty much a nightmare for anyone with an acute fear of a zombie epidemic. Even though I’ve now lived in Beijing a combined 4.5 years (in two different stretches), because this is so different from how I grew up I am always aware of the sheer volume of people around me.

I’ve noticed recently that Beijingers seem entirely oblivious to the fact that there are people in their vicinity, to the point where my “otherness” doesn’t even make me stand out enough anymore for people to avoid jostling me. Waiting in line to buy coffee today a woman breezed in front of me, stepping on both of my feet, before she suddenly noticed me and (it seemed genuinely) apologized. Later, walking in a stream of people down the side of an escalator, a man reached into his bag at the exact moment I passed by him and elbowed me in the ribs. He was not apologetic at all.

The worst assault of the day came from another passenger on my mildly crowded bus. I say mildly crowded because there was still enough room for everyone to hold onto the hand rails, but there was not really enough room to get down the aisle without carefully inching along sideways. In his hurry to get off the bus (even though he was standing right next to the door), a man near me simultaneously let go of the hand rail and violently brought his arm down, essentially inflicting “The People’s Elbow” on my collarbone. His apology consisted of shouting the Chinese equivalent of “whoops!” as he bounded out the door.

 

The reason I bring up all of these instances is not because they were in any way exceptional. Things like this pretty much happen on a daily basis, and I’ve always chalked it up to locals either being so used to other people they didn’t see them or maybe tuning them out as a coping mechanism for the stress of crowds. But I had another interaction today that really gave me pause to think; an interaction that was very exceptional.

Walking into a mall restroom amid a crowd of other ladies, I could see that there was a woman mopping the floor. As people walked in, she made sure to warn each one of them to tread carefully because the floor was wet. As I walked past she asked if I was finished with the coffee cup in my hand and offered to throw it out for me. I could hear her do the same for another woman as I waited in line. After washing my hands, she saw me look at the empty paper towel dispenser and then move to the mechanized dryer. She immediately went to the storage cabinet, took out a stack of paper towels, and carefully peeled off two for me.

She was not just being nice to me because I was a foreigner. She was being nice to everyone, smiling as she cleaned. It really struck me that this woman, who could so easily keep her head down and ignore, was going out of her way to not only notice the people around her but also to notice what they needed. And it occurred to me that maybe this habit of ignoring other people, while it could still be a coping mechanism, is partially an attitude of privilege.

Beijing – An Underwater Adventure

Posted by Natalie in Beijing, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , ,

About a week ago, it rained heavily for an hour and I came home to find my street looking like this:

A little over a week ago – minor flooding

I was grateful that emergency crews were there to try to pump the water out, but pretty shocked that cars were still driving through that mess (and with great speed, no less). Forecasters started spouting doom and gloom this week around Thursday, insisting that Beijing was in for some epic rainfall. Having seen this preview, I was naturally concerned for what would happen to my neighborhood.

Cut to Saturday morning, when upon waking up I threw open my curtains and was met with some of the worst pollution I’ve seen in months. Because those gross particles are rather heavy, I knew it was only a matter of time before the sky opened up. I got pretty soaked in a brief lunchtime downpour, which led me to stock up on food and retreat to my apartment to wait for the main event.

Starting around 3pm, my neighborhood was absolutely slammed with sheets of rain, howling wind, thunder and lightning. I went into my kitchen to cook dinner around 7:30, and decided to take a peek out the window to see how the street was faring. Answer: not very well. The photo at left (very poor quality, with apologies) is of a car floating by. Floating.

Needless to say, I was dying to get down to ground level and document the mayhem. The only problem was that it was still torrentially raining outside and there was no way I was getting any decent footage without damaging my camera, or worse, myself. So, I waited. I finished cooking dinner. I had a cup of tea. I obsessively checked the window every ten minutes to see if it had let up enough for me to go outside.

Finally, around 11pm, the rain slowed to a moderate drizzle and I decided to make my move. Armed with a very large umbrella I trudged my way through puddles to the main gate of my compound, where emergency crews were frantically trying to pump at least 3 feet of water out of the street. Meanwhile, cars were still trying (and some failing) to drive through the river for reasons that I can’t even begin to fathom.

We’re gonna need a bigger boat

This van floated into the red car – luckily not with great force

While I was down on the street snapping away, I figured I would take some video as well. This first one gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like both for those driving and those pushing cars. I felt particularly bad for the guys pushing because they kept getting hit with waves as cars went past.

I moved a little further down the street, away from the worst of it, hoping to get a slightly better photographic angle from the stoop of a nearby business. I took a few more pictures, mostly of people trying to wade their way home, and figured that was probably it for the evening. But just when I was getting ready to head back in, a viral video miracle took place: A cop car got stuck in the river.

My only regret is that I didn’t manage to capture on video the moment when the cop tried to shovel water out of the wheel well. While the car sat in 3 feet of water.

For more pictures of the damage elsewhere in the city, head over to Beijing Cream, where he’s rounded up a fairly representative collection. The photo below (taken from Weibo) was right next to my office building, where a man drowned in his car after suddenly being engulfed in 12 feet of water. Scary stuff.

Cars were suddenly lost in 12 feet of water

Lost in Translation (slightly NSFW)

Posted by Natalie in Uncategorized and tagged with

If you like poor English translation as much as I do, then China is an amazing place to live. I have a pretty dazzling collection of ridiculously worded T-shirts and most friends know that’s likely what they’ll be getting in the mail come birthdays or holidays. So, the recent addition of this coffee shop in the lobby of my office building naturally delighted me.

In case you’re not well versed in your British slang, minge is a rather… colorful term for a lady’s lady parts. The fact that this is plural makes it even more cringe-worthy. If you’re not easily offended, Urban Dictionary has a remarkable collection of definitions (definitely NSFW).

This has obviously led to a fairly constant stream of jokes among the ladies of the office, especially once the “Minges Menu” was delivered to us. I personally find it particularly amusing that one of the items they sell is muffins. So very meta!

For the record, reviews have been mixed on the quality of the actual coffee (of course we had to try it). And in terms of genuinely flawed translation, it still doesn’t make the top of the list of places I’ve seen. My favorite is still this fantastic grocery store I went to in Hebei back in 2007. You stay classy, China.

Taxi cab confessions

Posted by Natalie in Beijing, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , ,

Conversations with taxi drivers generally follow the same formula. I could probably record my side of the conversation a la Ferris Bueller’s doorbell routine and save myself quite a bit of talking time. Yesterday, however, my cab conversation took a turn for the delightfully quirky.

It started raining sideways basically the moment I stepped out of the office. Resigning myself to a very soggy, crowded commute, I was walking to the bus stop when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Like a miracle, there it was: a red “For Hire” light driving my way. Not only was it driving my way, it was pulling over and stopping for me. Unprecedented!

What followed was the most enjoyable taxi chat I’ve had in quite some time. After telling him my address, the fun times just kept on rolling in.

Driver: That’s near Sanyuanqiao, right?

Me: Um, no. It’s down Chaoyanglu.

D: Oh, right! West of the bridge.

M: East.

D: West.

M: East.

D: I’m pretty sure you mean West.

M: Actually… you’re right. I do mean West.

D: [laughing] 你蒙我! (You kid me!) Look at this traffic! It’s pretty awful.

M: [now I'm laughing] Everywhere you go in Beijing there’s traffic.

D: Ha! You must love traffic. Just kidding! Now I’m the joker! So, where are you from?

M: Where do you think I’m from?

D: Russia?

M: Nope, America.

D: Really? Because you look Russian.

M: I’m definitely from America.

D: Hmmm…

M: [sighing] But my grandfather was Russian.

D: Aha! That explains it. How long have you been here?

M: Altogether about 4 years. I was here for 3 years before the Olympics, and now I’ve been back for a little over a year.

D: [turning around in his seat and raising an incredulous eyebrow] How old are you?

M: Almost 29.

D: Seriously?

M: Seriously.

D: But you look 20. 22 tops. So, if you’re 29, you must be married.

M: Uh, no.

D: But you’re 29!!!

M: In America, it’s not unusual. People get married in their 30′s all the time.

D: Not in China! In China you have to be married by the time you’re 23.

:::awkward pause:::

D: So… do you like to eat Chinese food?

M: Yup! It’s much more delicious here than it is in America.

D: That’s probably because Chinese people are making it. Do Chinese people make the food in Chinese restaurants in America?

M: [chuckling] Yes, often they do. It’s just that Americans like to eat different things, so they cook the food differently.

D: I know. Americans like to eat beef. And also bread. They eat lots of beef and bread.

M: Um, sure. Beef and bread.

D: And they don’t stir-fry food like we do in China. That’s why they’re so fat. Come to think of it, you’ve been living in China for a while. You should be getting skinnier. Anyway, it’s pretty impressive that you speak so many languages.

M: So many?

D: Sure. [counting on his fingers] Russian, English, Chinese…

M: I don’t speak Russian.

D: That doesn’t make sense! Your grandfather was Russian.

M: Yes, but my dad speaks English, so I speak English. My grandmother is German (she’s actually Latvian, but I have no clue how to say that) and I can understand a little bit of German (actually, Yiddish, but who’s counting).

D: Wait, they have a German language in Germany? I thought they spoke English there.

M: No, they speak German.

D: Wow, that’s interesting. Good to know.

:::He rolls down the window and sticks his head outside:::

D: Woah! Just a little bit of rain on me and I’m so cold! Isn’t that odd?

:::another awkward pause:::

D: So… since you’re not married, and you’re in China, would you consider marrying a Chinese guy?

M: I suppose so, although I’m not looking to get married right now.

D: That doesn’t make sense. Foreigners come to China all the time to get married.

M: Maybe? But I’m not really looking for a husband right now.

D: [laughing] You’re such a kidder!

At which point, we pull up outside my apartment gate. After I pay and get out of the taxi, I see him rush off, purposefully avoiding letting another fare get in the car. Was he just looking to chat with a foreigner? Was I just extremely lucky to get a cab? Was it all a mirage?

All I know is that he set the bar high for future rides. Next driver who picks me up is going to have to work pretty gosh darn hard to impress me with his conversation skills.

Patience is a virtue

Posted by Natalie in Beijing and tagged with ,

In case you’re unaware, the current population estimate for China is somewhere around 1.3 billion. Beijing alone is home to at least 20 million, possibly even closer to 25 million. To state the glaringly obvious, that’s a lot of people.

Given such a massive population, you would think that people would naturally be used to, you know, having tons and tons and tons of other people around. And to a certain extent, they are. Cars turn right through crowds of pedestrians as if the street were completely clear. When a bus has reached capacity, people feel perfectly comfortable holding on the door handles and literally being closed into the vehicle. Shopping anywhere on the weekend generally means getting carried along in the natural flow of other patrons and hoping you’re deposited in front of a stall selling what you need.

To me, however, another byproduct of being around so many other humans should be developing a certain threshold for waiting. It seems to go hand-in-hand. The more people there are in a city, the more people there are between you and what you need to be doing. Yet, somehow, the residents of Beijing have what can only be described as a patience allergy.

There are two ways back to my apartment from the main expat shopping area. One way takes you down an avenue with tons of traffic lights, where you eventually must wait for an eternity to make a left onto my street. The other way weaves you through a neighborhood, avoiding the traffic lights and just driving straight South down my street. I think you can guess which way is my favorite.

The only problem with the second route is that, between 6am and 8pm, cars are not allowed to drive South down my street. In a city where red lights are merely suggestive and the sidewalk is often considered an extra lane, it blows my mind that taxi drivers always insist on following the no-drive rule on my street. This means that I can only take this route at night.

One night last week I’m heading home and giving the taxi driver step-by-step instructions on how to get there. We get almost to my street when he panics and tells me that we can’t drive down it. I tell him that it’s totally fine after 8pm, so he doesn’t need to worry. He looks at the clock and screams at me that it’s currently 7:57.

I try using my favorite phrase, telling him it’s ok 差不多, which roughly translates to telling him that 7:57 is realistically the same thing as 8. As I say this, I point to all the other cars driving down my street at that very moment. He’s furious, and says, “去不了!” “We can’t go!” Since we’ve already pulled over to the shoulder to have this argument, I use my lateral thinking skills and tell him I’m happy to wait 3 minutes and then make the trip. He’s so angry at this point that he nearly turns purple as he shouts, “等不了!” “We can’t wait!”

I try to speak slowly as I explain to him that those are the only two choices. Either we go, or we wait, it’s very simple. I tell him I really don’t mind waiting and it’s no inconvenience to me. Despite my grasp of the local dialect, what spews out of his mouth at this point is absolutely unintelligible to me. It’s like a cross between the Incredible Hulk and the teacher from Charlie Brown. I have to stifle a laugh as I tell him I have no clue what he’s saying to me.

“If you can’t understand me, you should get out of my taxi!” he shouts back. I smile, and point to the clock. It’s now 8pm. Very sweetly, I tell him that we can now drive down my street without any worries. Never mind that in three minutes of waiting he made a few extra kuai on the trip. Without wasting fuel, I may add, since he turned off his car during our little spat. Despite this, he is Mr. Grumbles all the way down the street to my apartment gate.

Fun with Fire

Posted by Natalie in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Fireworks on Chinese New Year's Eve

Well folks, it’s that time of year again. 春节 Chūnjié (Spring Festival), known more commonly as Chinese New Year is coming to a close in Beijing. Which means that I finally have the peace of mind necessary to sit down and write. Well, almost. Tonight is the last legal night for setting off fireworks, which means that the explosions will probably kick into high gear in about an hour. [Edit: I was over-eager on this one. There's still a full week left of flash-bang-whoosh-boom.]

Playing with sparklers

When you grow up in a Western country, you tend to think of fireworks as an event. Meaning, it’s something official that a professional sets up and you go to a wide open place (like a field or a harbor) and watch the show. With a true communist spirit, in China fireworks are for everyone. Shopkeepers. Young couples. Drunk coworkers. Babies. Everyone. There are stalls set up all over the city that sell everything from nice safe shiny sparklers to giant boxes of full-on flashy fireworks. They also sell long strings of firecrackers that are meant to be loud rather than pretty.

It all relates back to a Chinese folk story. Basically, the New Year brings with it an angry, destructive dragon. In order to protect your home and family, you need to hang up red paper and set off explosions. Big, loud, ear-blasting explosions. This year also happens to mark the Year of the Dragon (龙). I’m not sure if that has special significance when it comes to the noise levels, but it has certainly seemed that way.

Riding on ice chairs in Chaoyang Park

It doesn’t help that my bedroom faces into the courtyard of my apartment building. This is lovely in the summer with the pond and trees and morning sun (when the smog lets it through). It is not so lovely in the winter when the empty concrete hole that used to be the pond is the building-sanctioned location for setting off fireworks. I love watching fireworks as much as the next person, but I’m really looking forward to a proper night’s sleep. Hopefully tomorrow night, fingers crossed.

Craftsman at Dongyue Temple Fair

In addition to fireworks, another 春节 tradition is 庙会 miàohuì (temple fairs). This year I went to two very different fairs: one was a carnival at a nearby park and the other was a traditional affair at my favorite Taoist temple. I love love love people watching at temple fairs. They’re places where people really let loose and get properly silly. They walk around in neon afro wigs and oversized sequined bow headbands while eating squid-on-a-stick. For the record, I skipped the wig but enjoyed the squid.

As much as I complain about the noise, there is something really enchanting about spending Spring Festival in Beijing. Because this is the capital, Beijing is also a city of migrants. Not just the migrant workers who are building its future infrastructure, but also white-collar businessmen and families looking for opportunities. This means that the majority of the city goes home during the week of 春节 to see their relatives, bring gifts and relate tales of urban splendor. Between bursts of explosions, Beijing actually feels a bit like a ghost town. All the little shops and restaurants are closed, there are plenty of seats on the bus and everyone left in the city is a real down-to-earth Beijinger. Every taxi driver I’ve had this week not only had the familiar pirate-esque Beijing accent but also knew exactly where my apartment is. It’s comforting and reminds me of the old days, when I first moved to China and all the taxi drivers were marble-mouthed locals.

But enough talk. If you really want to know what the seasonal madness looks like in Beijing, the best thing I can do is show it to you. Here’s the video I took on Chinese New Year’s Eve from the roof of my friend’s apartment. 新年快乐！Happy New Year!