The Blind Masseur

Cathy and I have a membership card for a massage place...a blind massage place to be exact.  A massage from a blind masseur isn't for the weak of heart.  Unless otherwise stated, they'll dig right into your muscles as if they were all pressure points...just the way I like it!

We usually go once a month.  But this time, something very peculiar happened to me.  Let's just say you don't know the meaning of embarrassing unless a blind masseur tells you to drop your pants, only to put acupressure cups on your bum...at the front of the store for all passersby to see.

...only in China.


...correction...only in Wuhan.

Hankou NYE

Cathy and I planned to go to Shanghai for New Years Eve.  But her being a councilor meant that she had to work on our January 2nd day-off.  Instead, we opted to go to Hankou to hang out with some colleagues.

We started off by taking the bus to Wuhan Square, a big mall complex in Hankou. We had dinner with another counselor from the school.  I had the "American potato" appie (aka: fries) and lamb chops with red wine sauce.  Yum.

After dinner, we went to a DVD store with a massive English title collection.  It was pretty awesome.  The store front looked a lot like HMV, but on closer inspection (and through a questionably dangerous back-store hallway), there were tons of DVD and bluerays...every conceivable English movie and TV series and some Korean, French and Japanese movies too.  Needless to say, we stayed there for a while just browsing the stacks.

We wanted to get to Hankou's river front area to see some fireworks, but it was way too crowded.  Our taxi got us within 5 blocks of the river, but then stopped dead in its tracks because of the legions of people and cars.  We walked the rest of the way. The walk took a long time because we were baby-stepping it the whole way due to the wall of people and motorcycles in front of us. We met up with some more friends.

From there, we took the ferry across Chang Jiang (The Yangzi River) back into Wuchang. Walked around Simakou Food Street and had some xiao chi. One place we stopped had chou tofu...stinky tofu.  Cathy was into it.  The sign above the kiosk read "The cook's great grandfather served chou tofu to Mao Zedong here."  Apparently, on any regular day, the place would have a massive lineup, but on NYE it was surprisingly short.  I downed some of Cathy's.  Chou tofu from other kiosks smelled like week old sour milk, but Cathy's choice wasn't so bad.  No wonder the Chairman chose this place to eat!

Fattening up for winter

Cathy and I have made a hobby to cook awesome food and eat out at great restaurants around Wuchang.  I call it "fattening up for winter," but realistically, I suppose it has to do with my reaction to the cafeteria food getting worse and worse.

Ever since coming back from Sanya, Cathy and I have hosted a number of dinner parties and ate at pretty awesome restaurants.  So far, some highlights we've cooked are chicken pesto pasta, brownies, Chinese chestnut chicken, and a local favorite, Central Chinese hot pot.  I also have a routine of making crepes on Saturday morning.  I've managed to find unsalted pralines. Last week, I made pecan maple syrup crepes. Delicieux! Hao chi!

Some restaurant highlights include various hot pots, Italian, Thai, local spicy fish stew, countryside food, a revolving continental buffet restaurant (which Cathy and I ate at for our 1 year celebration of being together), and American Thanksgiving.

We plan to cook increasingly complex recipes each time we cook.  But before doing that, I should probably try to master my own fusion dish, Mr. P`s Scotch Whisky Flambe Stir Fry.

Eating at the revolving restaurant. Imagine the restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancity, but make it cheaper and with more choices. Crazy delicious!

One of many Cathy`s turns at cooking dinner. Notice the Baron Phillipe de Rothschild Mouton Cadet Bordeaux on the right. Oddly enough, Wuhan is blessed with fine selections of wines.  Maybe it has to do with the fact Wuhan is Bordeaux`s sister city...

Meiguo de Gan En Jie (American Thanksgiving) gen wo de tongshi zai Hanyang de Aloha Restaurant.  Turkey, mash, and all the fixings.  I had 3 entree rounds, 1 eggnog steamer, 2 coffees, a slice of pumpkin pie, and some apple cider.  And Cathy came along for her first Thanksgiving!  It was American, but what the heck, eh?

Kung Fu Fighting and the English Arts Festival

Today some of my colleagues and I went to Kung Fu lessons.  My instructor Carol kicked the crap out of us...as usual.  By the end of the lesson, my left arm was ready to fall off.  I've been having some muscular pain in my shoulder as of late.  Probably just a minor rotater cuff injury.

After Kung Fu, I went to my school's English Arts Festival.  The kids and volunteer teachers put in a lot of care and work into the production of this year's play The Jungle Book.  I was really impressed, especially with the shadow puppet show the art teacher spearheaded.  My role this year was helping with the speech competition.  Out of the 40 students that competed for the speech cup, a grade 9 girl came out on top. When I saw her speak at the finale earlier today, I was so proud of her.  Her English was better than some of my grade 11 and 12's. She used many techniques outlined in my Toastmasters CC manual...without any formal training. Wow.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures.

A Massage with some Chinese Staff/ The IRP Police

So I got a massage at the mall near the school yesterday.  I went out to eat with some of the Chinese staff.  We had ramen noodles.  They were okay.  Nothing special.

After that, we headed to a massage parlor (no, not a brothel), and had a 100 minute massage.  Initially the massage was for my feet, but I guess the masseuse got bored (or fed up) with massaging my feet.  She gave me a whole body massage instead. Good deal...especially since I only paid the foot massage price.


..........................................

I remember at UBC, my old FAs used to tell my cohort and I that there are no IRP police (Instructional Resource Packages or IRPs, are the curriculum standards of BC schools).  Well, looks like that wasn't true.  Tomorrow, the BC teacher's accreditation team come in to take a look at everyone's lessons.  I think I'm ready.  Let's hope so.

Halloween Anelects

This Halloween I wanted to be Bruce Lee in a custom-made yellow jump-suit.  It never happened because I didn't place an order with the tailor in time.  Maybe next year.  I was Hannibal Lector/ a zombie instead.

 I was at Metro (a Costco type store) trying to find a costume, and my backpack (with my digital video camera) went missing.  I ran around the store trying to find it, thinking someone stole it.  I even ran around the parking lot.  I panicked in front of my colleagues, including my principal.  But then one of my colleagues took my backpack out of his cart.  Apparently, he thought I misplaced it, and took it for safety reasons.
 
I got totally pwned in every game I played this weekend.  I got pwned in darts, 20 questions, foosball, a staring contest, ball hockey, a 100 meter dash, and computer chess.  Lucky for me, none of these were for money or drinking games.

I didn't dress up for school because I woke up too late to apply my zombie makeup. Luckily I had a Hannibal Lector mask.  I put it on for the day, but changed to a zombie for the Halloween party at night.

I decided not to bring drinks to the teacher Halloween party because I intended not to drink this weekend (see the last post for the reason why).  We all went over to my colleague's house.  Told me I wasn't allowed to drink anything in his glasses unless it had alcohol.  He gave me a quarter bottle of rum and told me to finish it.  Had some, but then switched back to water, claiming it was vodka.  If you're one of my colleagues reading this, let's just say you act really, really funny when you're drunk.

I went to a Chinese restaurant this weekend with some of my Chinese colleagues.  I remember something good professor Henry Yu once said about Chinese restaurants in Vancouver: the better the food, the worse the service.  Obviously he was joking (maybe), but I found out it applies to Chinese restaurants in Wuhan.  Fill in the blank.  The food was so good!  The service was __________________.

Saying "Wo xihuan Wuhan" to a taxi driver guarantees he will drive you to the right location.

He bu he?

Hedy: Paul, I think they're trying to get you drunk.
[Some of the Chinese teachers continue talking in rapid Mandarin]
Paul: That's what I figure. Okay let's do this! Cheers Nicholas! [takes a swig of beer]
[Chinese conversation stops]
Nicholas: Hey Paul, we're gonna play a drinking game. It's called "he bu he?" (to drink or not to drink?)
[Nicholas explains the rules to Hedy in Cantonese]
Hedy: [translating] Basically it works like this. One person covers his eyes. The person to his right points at a person sitting at the table and says "he bu he?" The blind person says either "he" (drink) or "bu he" (not drink). That person the pointer pointed at has to drink. You can point to the blind person and yourself too. You can't pick the same person in a row, but can go back and forth if you want.
Paul: Sounds stupid easy, and probably will make me stupid drunk.  Didn't you say they are trying to get me drunk? They're gonna gang up on me.

...1 hour, many beers and a round of baijiu later...

[One of the Chinese staff fronts some more baijiu towards Paul]

Paul: Oh man, I don't like this game at all. I can't believe I'm still standing.  Hey this guy's trying to get me to do another round of baijiu! Eh, how about Nicholas here? [hands Nicholas a cup of the stuff]
Nicholas: No, I can't handle that stuff. [divides his share between Paul and a Chinese teacher]
Paul: Um...okay...

[Paul stares at a glass half full of baijiu]

Wuhan Anti-Japanese Protests

So, if you've been reading world news, you might know that there recently has been a wave of anti-Japanese protests throughout China, but particularly in Wuhan.  It's gotten pretty rough around here.  A Sony store in the mall near my international school got smashed up.  A few days ago, 2 of my colleagues were scooting around town and saw a division of police in riot gear coming away from a local university.

About 10 hours ago, the staff and I were told by the head office that we have to work tomorrow (Saturday, October 23rd) because Wuhan's civic government ordered all schools (middle school to university level) to remain open. Apparently, this move would encourage youth not to participate in a major upcoming anti-Japanese rally scheduled for tomorrow.  It has been deemed "illegal" and the police and military have been called in to stop it by arresting protesters.

I'm not sure what group is pushing this protest-that-might-turn-riot.  This is China, so perhaps there might be an ultra-nationalist student activist group behind all this.  Indeed, it has been those groups that have fueled mass zeal here in China for the last century and a half.

I also think that people here who are easily disillusioned and dissatisfied in some way with their life (and there are a lot of these types of guys in China) are easily mobilized by the prospect of fighting with authorities and smashing stuff. They might come out in droves in the next few days. Would the CCP throw these guys in the slammer? We'll see.

To read a bit about the situation, here's a link to the NY Times Asia Pacific world briefings HERE.

Funny how Fox News says the authorities are "allowing" anti-Japanese demonstrations. Who knows...they might be right, but maybe not.  Although they did use Associated Press for this one...Read about it HERE

Also funny is how all of this was sparked by a little island in the sea, and a detained Chinese captain on a Japanese boat.

Now, the hard part for me: how will I engage this political issue with my class if it arises through conversation? I've already heard many anti-Japanese remarks in the hallways over this week...

Identity politics...again

I thought I was through with being so pissed off about my identity politics after leaving undergrad.  I used to get so angry (like a lot of Asian Canadian/Asian American guys) at people telling me who I am or trying to define my identity for me.  I had my bout of wanting to be so individualistic that I spurned the notion of a culture of Chinese Canadianism.  I then realized I was being f***ing stupid.

I ended up believing that identity is like water - fluid, sometimes stale, but most of the time moving.  I am Canadian, but the story of my identity is both typical and unique, just like any other Canadian.  I didn't get angry over pondering over identity politics after undergrad, nor did I give it much conscious thought unless I had a deep conversation about it with my brother.

Well, the Middle Kingdom has a way of rekindling things.  I was walking with my buddies David and Nicholas down a place called Taylor Street in Wuchang on Saturday.  We stumbled over a Chinese Christian church and peeked our head in.  The guy at the door was really friendly, but he spoke no English.  He told us what time mass was being held.

Then the conversation switched.  I told him "Wo men shi Jianada ren" (We are Canadians).  He was so surprised, he looked at me as if I didn't make any sense.  He then went on a ramble to try to convince me that I was not Canadian.  When I told the guys, they both laughed and said that I'm apparently Chinese now.  "Even though my mom's a Surrey girl, my dad's Filipino, Vancouver is my native land, AND I don't speak Chinese all that well, I'm Chinese!? F**k this, this guy has a small world!"

But as angry as I was at the time, I think the guy began to understand me near the end of our conversation.  He did admit that I was the height of my white friends, so there was something about me that didn't make me fully Chinese in his eyes.

Let's just say that I feel tall here in China.

Hankou and the Guiyuan Temple (of HELL!)

Wuhan is really, really big.  It is 3 cities merged into one.  Yesterday, I went to Hankou - the main "city" in Wuhan.  I went to a Buddhist temple, the old colonial district, and a street that is just called "Pedestrian Street."  Lo and behold, it was a street for pedestrians.

The Buddhist temple was really neat.  It was called the Guiyuan Temple.  There were hundreds of statues depicting various deities and Buddhas (people who have reached enlightenment).  After the initial "wow" of seeing so many statues, I realized that this place was actually really small. It only took us an hour to see everything.

            

My favorite part was a room filled with lacquered carvings depicting Hell.  People were being tortured by little demons.  Every single carving was filled with blood, guts, and gore.  One showed a naked women hanging  upside-down being sawed in half vertically (my colleagues figured that was the punishment for promiscuous sin).  Another carving depicted people being disemboweled, quartered, and thrown into a grinder (not sure what those people did to deserve that...maybe gluttony or greed?).  Or my favorite: little demons throwing people onto spikes and impaling them through the face.  Fun.

Sadly, I wasn't allowed pictures, and my school's teacher-librarian got in trouble by taking a few.

There were also a few stray cats at the temple, which one of my colleagues took as pets.  I wouldn't touch them...might have fleas and such.  I'll wait until she cleans them up and trains them a bit.

                  

After the temple, my comrades and I went to walk along the Yangzi River and through the old colonial district.  It was 36 Celsius outside.  It was madness.  We walked to the pedestrian-only street, which was past the colonial structures which were built after the First Sino-Japanese War.  Ended up having lunch at a restaurant serving a mish mash of cuisines: pizza, curry, seafood hotpots...I got a mushroom and chicken curry on rice.  It was a bit salty.  

We went shopping shortly after lunch.  The rest of the day was pretty unremarkable except for the fact that the cashier at a bakery we went to totally screwed my friend Em out of 30 yuan.  My buddy Nicholas paid for it to quicken our visit time.

 

Craziness has ensued!

First week.  My students have very low English language understanding.  They don't participate or answer questions.  When I check for understanding, I realize they don't understand.  They sometimes do understand, but they cannot express that they understand.  Some won't stop talking in Mandarin.  Others have talked to me in Mandarin straight up, assuming I could understand them. Some students in my English Foundations class are really disruptive.  I have my work cut out for me

All in all, my first week was great.  The first two days were Hell, but yesterday was awesome. I got my grade 10 students using the computers to access the school network.  My grade 11/12's started on Microsoft Word and Excel, and my ESL class have already written something and have all posed questions and formulated answers in speech!

Today, my friends and I went to a mall and a Wal Mart.  We decided to eat at a Pizza Hut.  In any other instance, I would disagree with that choice of restaurant.  But I was really hungry and needed to ask a worker "ce suo zai nali?"

Forgot to take pictures.  The Pizza Hut proved to be an interesting experience.  They had a WAY better and more extensive menu than Pizza Huts back home in Vancity.  We got the Chicago pizza and the beef steak pizza (which didn't taste a thing like a beef pizza back home. Very strange, but it was good!  We also had smoothies.  Mine was a mango smoothie with some sort of really great tasting green fruit on the top. I only had one, but probably should have gotten 3.

The Yellow Crane Tower

Yesterday, four of my new colleagues and I went to Wuhan's landmark, the Yellow Crane Tower.  From the top, we could see a good chunk of Wuhan.  The view was spectacular.  But the view from each floor's balcony was the same, so by the time we got to the top, it was just the same old view from the balcony below.

Before ascending the tower, we walked around the area surrounding the tower.  We ate at a Mama-Papa hole-in-the-wall restaurant in what seemed to be a back alley of a residential area.  We were walking down that road when a woman came out of a side door and beckoned us to come in.  We did.  I don't think any one of us regret the decision.

We had a large bowl of rice, vegetable noodle soup, and a spicy ji rou (chicken) noodle dish.  Everything was great; I certainly left the place satisfied. It was 35 yuan for all 5 of us.

lfg raid apt 403

Yesterday, Jennifer, one of the veteran teachers at my school invited me and another new teacher to an apartment that was fully furnished.  She said that the teacher that used to live there wasn't coming back, and everything in the apartment was up for grabs.

So I went at it. I got some pretty neat stuff.

- Frozen mozza cheese
- 2 mugs
- a beer mug
- 20 hangers
- a rice cooker
- a pan
- various cleaning chemicals
- an ironing board
- a clothes rack for drying
- a bowl
- 3 plates
- paprika
- cinnimon

...and my grand prize...


A bottle of Pouilly-Fume white wine from France.  The Loire Valley to be exact.  No one wanted it but me, so I got it.  If it was going to any one of the new teachers, I suppose it should have been me. Why, you may ask? Well...hmm...

Eatng Out in Wuhan!

So today I got my cell phone.  I'll post my number sometime later on my Facebook.  After that, the staff at my school and I went down to my principal's favorite restaurant to eat.  It was a fine dining place.

All the food was delicious.  We had:

- bitter-melon soup
- fish ball, egg yolk, and chicken soup
- Chinese lettuce wrap with a fine noodle stuffing
- garlic-steamed soft tofu topped with chillis and Chinese onion
- squid braised in a fried garlic and chili sauce
- long beans slathered with some sort of oily, garlic sauce
- Sweet and sour pork
- frozen, thin-cut sashimi
- boiled potstickers with a lemon/soy sauce/fish sauce dip

 - Chrysanthemum Tea
- Some sort of Pijiu (which the Teacher-Librarian at my school said was a top shelf Chinese beer)

This was probably one of the best Chinese meals I've ever had.

The first 3 days

No pictures so far. Forgot my camera back at my apartment every day my tongshi ("colleagues" or "comrades") have gone out.

3 awesome things that have happened so far...

1. Earlier today, I went to a workout gym off the school grounds.  It was so humid, I was sweating buckets.  The gym itself was dark, dirty and old.  I think the weights on the dumbbells were rusted because people sweat on them too much.  It totally was a place for hardcore gym rats.  There was an Eastern European guy with boxer-t on that seriously looked like the guy in Rocky IV.  It totally would be the place Arnold would go workout back in the 1970s.

2. Walked down a road with some of my new colleagues. It looked like a bomb had hit it. It was broken, and dirty and had its share of "city farts," as my friend Jeremy would put it.  We had street food for lunch.  I ordered a vegetarian noodle stir fry cooked with sesame oil on a searing-hot iron wok.  It was so good!

3. My occasional affinity for whiskey and UBC Mandarin courses really paid off 2 days ago.  Had a night of eating and drinking with my colleagues, principal, and vice principal.  Most of the new teachers left the party early, but a few stayed.  Those that did stay (I myself included) polished off 2 bottles of bourbon whiskey. No baijiu just yet.

I decided to try and catch up with the next group of teachers that left, but got lost (the party was at an apartment about 40 min away by foot from the school).  I hopped into a cab and gave the driver the school card, but he gave it to the security guard at the gate of the apartment complex.  He tried to take me across the Yangzi River, which would be the wrong, and long way.  I guess it was his attempt to up the cab fare.  I yelled out "bu nali! Bu bu bu yao! Wo men qu zai nali?!  Minzu lu Zai Wuchang qu!!" (Not here!! No, no, no I don't want this!  Where are we going?!  Minzu Road in Wuchang District!).  The driver turned around and went straight to my destination within 5 min. I would've been lost without directions in a foreign city. Scary thought.  Next time I won't be so stupid to leave the school without 3 or 4 cards.  I'll never let them go either.

Lesson learned.