big things poppin. So i went to the town of Zhou Zhang, i think thats how its spelled. Its called "water town" or it has been referred to as "China's Venice" i wouldnt go so far to say that its venezia, but still, pretty unique in itself. This is chinas answer to the lock on the bridge in italy. all of these ribbons represent wishes. they lines the bridges, really beautiful. Just to clarify, Red is a lucky color here, not necessarily associated with red china. ( which i have also uncovered quite a bit about) Also i learned to count in mandarin, you have no idea how difficult this was just to learn to count. Seriously this language is so hard. There are four distinct tones and up to ten or so depending on which dialect you speak, and they sound incredibly the same. Also there is no word for just "no" it depends on what youre talking about specifically. Ive been reading articles about it like crazy, god bless the western person, hell the eastern person who can speak this language well. just between digits one through ten i accidentally said "chicken" and "to write" apparently a very slight change of tone from seven to chicken, and four to write. ee er san shr wu....i forget the rest...but i have been learning alot from jane and the other woman that hangs around here, they are patient with me unlike natlie. She becomes so frustrated easily, today Portia and i had to set up a meeting with her math teacher because she was so adamant that two times three equals ...four..at dinner last night that she was moved to tears when we all agreed it was six. She still thinks its four..ive never met a child with so much confidence, sometimes to a fault maybe. Anywho, heres some stuff from venice..
a TON of goldfish of some kind swarming around a green river in the water village. REally crazy, i love looking at this photo close up.
kinda like venice right? We took a "gondola" ride but really it was more like a bamboo canoe with a roof. just for the record, in smaller towns, if your western youre famous. I swear i felt like i was someone important come to visit the villagers, it was such a strange feeling..but kinda cool. walking down the street i found a chinese antique shop and bought the most beautiful jade talismen on a red string with a horse engraved on it after which i managed to remember the word for beautiful ( which sounds liek piow-leeur) and said it, both to the sparkly old man who sold it to me and to the talisman. I also bought a square red stamp wiht my name in Chinese made of marble. Good souvenir day.
Last minute we walked through the temples. eveything seemed really sacred here, probably shouldnt really have even taken this picture, whoops, dont tell. by the by, these are beautifully colored, the pics dont really do it justice.
This is natlie attempting to make dumplings, that half moon thing is harder to do than you think, there is kind of an art to it. I got it after a few tries, but obviously couldnt eat any :) either way it was still fun.
Surprisingly food hasnt been too much of a problem here save for the soy sauce thing. I was able to eat street food which never happens. This is a riceball, for lack of better words. just ball of sticky rice filled with veggies.mmmmm, tasted really good to eat something cheap and fast and shameless.
i didnt eat these but thought they were beautiful. Buckets of these things line the streets, dried out tiny shrimp and tiny prawns. sooo tiny. Ive had these in other dishes but not here, but gah you could smell those things a mile away, i thought the colors and repetition of them were really nice. click!
MMM such a good meal. Herbal tea, sticky rice, spinach and egg. you cant see but the egg has tiny fish in it. so tiny i didnt realize they were fish. Sophia and I had a great talk about sexual politics. She thinks a man should always buy a woman everything when they go out.. i then hopped on a pantomiming soap box about what "going dutch" means, i think shes coming around. Also we talked about how women marry rich old guys for their money, she seems to be in favor, im undecided.
I cant wait until summer im so getting at that awesome pool near by me.
Met two lovely new friends, a brit and an aussie. My favs so far.
Random...a guy that went to UT and runs long distance lives in the same compounds as me...ands writes sketch comedy for a chinese late night show. Yeah hes on my to meet and befriend list. Actually everyone i met does really cool stuff, nick works for an English shanghai magazine and gets to interview people that come to town (namely kylie minogue whom he called a goddess) not sure about that but im willing to consider her at diety status.
Ive instilled in natalie the world "please" and shes uses it. pat on the back to me.
Oh yes another new friend. Cory. Works for a bar here called je suis glamour on the bund ( which is beautiful you can google it) The guy first ordered the table fried frog legs, cheese, shrimp cocktail, fruit, many drinks, and some russian beet thing with sour cream....THEN when i had to decline the gluteny stuff...asked the kitchen to make a new batch of fried frog legs sans flour! what a guy! Seriously these two were beautiful people.
We had a long talk over food and drinks...life, love, art, england, aussie candy.
Hope i didnt say anything stupid, i definately recall a discussion about current politics. I was probably talking too much, and laughing too much, which i tend to do when i get nervous...i havent been out in a while so id just like to think either it didnt show or they were equally too drunk to notice. I do remember that we pretty fervently concluded that there a few things that translate:
math
food
sex
the weather
and karaoke....which we also talked of doing later, i look forward to THAT.
Ive been feeling so phony lately. Maybe im trying to hard. Hopefully ill shake this feeling soon.
fingers crossed. miss you guys.
j
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