The Red Pirates

Hopefully when Dave's band plays at the Bird's Nest it will be this cool

I shout out to one of my most valued friends in China, Dave Cooper (库柏大卫). His band Red Pirates is getting more and more well known, and they are starting to get some pretty big gigs! From an email I got from Dave, Red Pirates will be playing the half-time show for the X-Games (which are from the 27th to the 30th of October) in Beijing at the Birds Nest Stadium!


Earlier this month the band was interviewed by "Beijing Today." As an attempt to help out my buddy Dave, here is the MySpance and DouBan / 豆瓣 pages for the Red Pirates, as well as another piece written about the band in the Global Times.

Food and cooking in Chicago; Lemien Family Pancakes

I am currently in Chicago, having made the flight all the way here from Spain just so that I could pick up a passport and visa from the Spanish Consulate here. It is quite frustrating that my documents could not have been mailed to me, or that I couldn't have someone pick them up for me, so I consider this to me the most expensive visa ever: although there was no visa fee with the application (very nice), the money I had to spend in order to procure all the necessary documents, the costs of sending them, plus the trans-Atlantic airfare made this a pricey visa.

While I am here in Chicago I am staying with the wonderful Isa and her husband Daniel. They have a very nice apartment near Lincoln Park. While Daniel has been at work during the day, Isa and I have spent a good deal of time in the kitchen. Yesterday while Isa made a delicious spaghetti dish with bacon, creme, onions and garlic, I made my fried bananas. Fried bananas are kind of becoming a signature dish of mine. They are very sweet. I had them once in a Dai restaurant in Beijing, and I have loved the idea ever since.

Nutella on pancakes: tastes even better than it sounds

This morning I made banana pancakes, one of my favorite things to make. There is a recipe that my dad used when I was little that has now taken on the name of the Lemien family recipe with me (although he originally got it from a friend, not a family member), and it goes something like this:

3 eggs

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup white flour
2 cups milk (1 1/2 cups for waffles)

1/2 cup oil (sunflower - something tasteless)

dash of baking soda

While that is the basic recipie for pancakes, mashed bananas, slices of strawberry, or blueberries can be added into it for variation. Isa and I ate them with Nutella spread over the top like a think syrup. I love Nutella.

Chinese Restaurants in Spain #2: In Madrid with Yuanyuan

While I was in Madrid at the beginning of September I got to get together with Yuanyuan (媛媛), a friend from Kalamazoo who is studying in Madrid. We met up with a friend of hers, Meiling, from China who is also studying Spanish in Madrid, and we all went to a Chinese restaurant near Gran Vía. Although most of the shops around there are pretty fancy, the three of us wandered up a side street and found a little place that Yuanyuan knew.

As we strolled inside,  I instantly felt an air of authenticity. Granted, it was not identical to restaurants that I had eaten in in China. There were several tables full of Chinese families and groups of Chinese people, and rather than saying hola as we came in, a lady welcomed us in Mandarin Chinese. The three of us sat down and checked out the menu, I was pleased not only to see the items on the menu in both Chinese characters and Spanish writing, but also that dished I was familiar with were there. Yuanyuan's friend didn't even look at the menu, but just told the waitress that she wanted some 炸酱面, whereas I was excited to order 鱼香肉丝 (yuxiangrousi) as soon as I saw it on the menu.

The girls: Yuanyuan on the right and Meiling on the left.

The set up of the restaurant was similar to Chinese restaurants in the United States: the wall decorations seemed half faux-Chinese and half faux-modern art.The furniture was wooden and in a style that I think is common in middle class Chinese restaurants in China. It was also great to have an evening of speaking Chinese.

When the food arrived, I found it interesting to see that the portion was European-sized rather than Chinese-sized. This is going to be something difficult for me to adjust to. Despite the size of the dish being half of what I was accustomed to, I was eager to try it. My yuxiangrousi was definitly different from what I would've eaten in Beijing, but it was similar enough that I would've been able to identify it by taste. I also have to say that, although I greatly prefer to eat yuxiangrousi in Beijing, this was far for similar to Chinese food in Beijing than any dish that I have had in the U.S. or in Spain so far. I enjoyed the place, and I would definitely be willing to go back there again.

Creepiest advertisements that I have ever seen.

I saw these adds in the Berlin Schönefeld Airport as I was getting on my flight to Madrid. I am disturbed enough by seeing the pope photoshopped with a baby, but there were about four more adds that I didn't take a picture of. I think I saw Angela Merkel there, too.

Thor... in Spanish

I had an interesting experience the other night: on the WWOOF farm we watched Thor. That's right. Normally we have dinner at 11:00 or so, (with plenty of red wine) and I sleepily go off to bed as soon as I finish eating while the Spaniards chat, smoke, and drink until God knows what hour. That night, however, we started dinner ludicrously early; perhaps 10:00 in the evening. Edua set up a computer and some speakers next to the table in the yard, and we all stared at the small screen for the duration of our meal. There were plenty of jokes about how (SPOILERS) naturally when Thor comes to Earth he lands in the United States, about how easy American girls seem in Hollywood movies, and something Remi said upon his seeing an Asian actor that unsettled me (due to my unsureness of what constitutes racism) about how the Chinese are everywhere, even in Asgard.

The film itself was nothing memorable; in fact, I would consider it to be less entertaining and of lower quality (in terms of an engaging story/plot that I could not predict) than most American blockbuster movies. Since the film was in Spanish, I didn't catch a good deal of the dialogue, but it wasn't too necessary to understand what was going on. I was, nonetheless, surprised by how much I did understand. Perhaps it was so clear form the context, perhaps, because I could have guessed the lines anyway, or perhaps due to it being spoken very clearly and without any think regional accent. I guess that it is a possibility that most of what I understood (linguistically) was not due to my Spanish language skills, but rather due to my childhood passion for mythology. I guess it just gows to show that not all of my childhood was wasted!

My Future

I know that I will spend this year in Albacete in Spain for the teaching job that I have, but I don't know if I will be in Spain for a second year as well or not. It is a distinct possibility that I will apply for the same program again, in a different location (probably Madrid or Barcelona), and spend a second year in Spain. It would certainly make sense to spend a first year in Spain getting my Spanish up to a good level, then start to learn Portuguese during my second year when I am in a bigger city with (presumably) more Portuguese speakers in order to prepare for a Fulbright scholarship for Brazil.

Then again, maybe I won't want to spend two years in Spain and one year will be enough. Perhaps I will end up applying for the Fulbright scholarship for Brazil during this year (2011-2012 academic year) and be in Brazil the following year (2012-2013 academic year). I can, of course, always re-apply to teach in Spain again as a backup plan. Sarah N tells me that having the language skills of the target country is a big help, so it might up my chances of getting the scholarship considerably if I learn at least some Portuguese before I go to Brazil. I think that this would be easier to do once my Spanish is better, as I would still like to focus on Spanish for a while longer, seeing as I am still far from satisfied with my current ability to use the Spanish language.

What about going back to China? I could (I think) easily get a teaching job just about anywhere in the country, but I am not terribly interested in teaching English in China, so that limits my options a bit. There are NGOs and educational organizations that I am keeping my eye on, so that if an job opening and my ability to take advantage of it happen to coincide I could take advantage of those opportunities. If I could work full-time for a micro-finance or poverty alleviation organization like WoKai, for an educational organization like CET, or for a tourism-focused company, I would love to do any of those. Even if I wasn't living in China but my work was focused on China and making use of my skills and experiences around China, I think that I could be satisfied with that. Working in Brazil, Spain, or the United States in a job that made use of my skill set would be great. There is plenty of Chinese business interests throughout all of Latin America, for instance, so if I could find a way to get involved with that it would be great. I could both make use of my intercultural and multilingual skill set, and I would be happy to improve people's livelihoods or to share and impart knowledge. I could see myself enjoying learning more about and focusing a career on environmental issues in China, Ethnic issues in China, international relations in relation to China (most likely in relation to the United States, although China-Brazil or China-Latin America more generally could be rivetingly interesting). Although at this point I am not really a fan of getting a masters degree or a PhD in any of these areas, I would love to give lectures and power points about any of these issues. If only I could be an assistant professor of Chinese studies with only a bachelors degree. Or if there were secondary schools had such extensive and specific programs as to be able to hire me to teach Chinese history or culture.

Of course, there are other options than merely listing off countries. One career that I have considered in the past (due in great part to the influences of Corinne McKay, Jill Sommer and Benny) is translation. To do this in either of my language pairs (English-Chinese or English-Spanish) I would have to improve my non-English language skills, and lacking any miracle of personal growth this means likely with more schooling. A masters degree is something that I do not think that I would want to do in the United States, merely due to the cost. I could see myself happily pursuing a Masters in translation at a university in Spain, or possibly something similar at a university in China. Studying in the United States is something that would need a lot of other positive factors thrown into the mix in order to overcome the disadvantage of price. I can always apply to work for the State Department again, which I am considering as a possibility a few years down the road. There are ups and downs to working for the Unites States government, but being involved in it certainly provides more opportunity for positive change than twiddling my thumbs from outside of it.

There are some other possibilities that are more distant, such as getting some kind of an advanced degree in China (Chinese language, translation, international relations, or ethnology), getting an advanced degree in the United States (most likely translation, anthropology/ethnology, or international something), applying to the Princeton in Asia program, going back to China to teach English full-time, or applying to the JET program and going to Japan. These are all fairly unlikely, though.

If only I could be a professional language learner like Benny. I have desires of various levels to learn Portuguese, Italian, French, Russian, Ki-Swahili, German, Hindi, Japanese, and Arabic. I doubt all of these will come to pass, but I can recognize that the desire and motivation to learn these languages is present in me. Perhaps I will get to two or three of these in the next decade, but the kind of job or lifestyle that will allow me to travel to the various countries where I would want to use the languages is dubious at best. Getting paid to learn is pretty rare, which leaves me a few other options: I could either continue to be an English teacher for the next 6 years in various countries (a possibility that I am less than thrilled about), find various jobs over the next several years that allow me live in or travel through these places (a possibility), or find a single job that would allow me to visit and/or live in multiple places (a rare a unlikely jackpot).

Stretching, Sunshine, and Nudity

I spent most of this morning scanning over a part of Tim Ferris's 4 Hour Body. I originally purchased it online as an ebook via amazon last winter, making it my first ever purchase of electronic reading material. I would have probably bought the physical made-from-dead-trees book, but I was unable to find it from the cheap booksellers on the streets of Beijing, and international shipping would have cost considerably more than the book itself, not to mention a delay of a few weeks before it would have arrived. Making my first purchase of an ebook was a little bit intimidating (not because of the process, but due to my own caution of doing something that I had never done before). Lacking amazon's kindle device, I am still perfectly able to read it on my computer or on my phone. What do ya know: instant satisfaction! Anyway, to come back to the present, I was scanning through various exercises in the book, and I decided to resume a regimen of regular exercise. I have now composed a list of exercises that I hope to do daily here on the farm. Perhaps only a few times a week in the future, but I have plenty of time during the daily siesta here on Finca Las Morras, so I might as well make use of the time by adding physical exercise to my daily activities. According to my timing of my exercises today, they should take me about 30-35 minutes to complete everything, including a small amount of muscle strengthening, a good amount of stretching for greater hip and leg flexibility, and some random things, such as finger fitness that I learned from Özgür, neck stretching from Matthieuw from Beijing, Nauli and belly rolling, and vertical waving (hip hop style). I think that basking in the sunshine next to the swimming pool will be a good place for me to do these exercises on a yoga mat. After I stick to this routine for the next two weeks, I should be able to feel a difference in my body.

Since I am not really doing any full yoga routines (such as sun salutations), but rather just certain poses and stretched from yoga, I can't really claim that I am doing naked yoga. Naked stretching still feels pretty good, though! Apart from the comfort of the sun and the wind on bare skin, there is a great feeling of naturalness.  

Chinese Restaurants in Spain #1: LiDuFandian (丽都饭店) in Toledo

丽都饭店 – I arrived in Toledo on a Friday, and although Clara had originally planned to arrive in Toledo that afternoon and meet me there, she had some unexpected delays and couldn't make it until the following day. This left me, unexpectedly, with the whole day to myself. Having just been deprived of the internet for two weeks, I spent most of the afternoon and evening sitting in my hotel room, graciously updating podcasts and trying to catch up on the world's recent events. I did, however, make a point not to spend the whole afternoon on my computer but instead to get out the hotel and stroll the nearby streets, though, and in doing so I found what I hadn't even thought I would encounter in Toledo: A Chinese restaurant. And so, it is with pride that I announce the beginnings of a new project for myself: explorations and reflections on Chinese restaurants in Spain.

 

Lidufandian is a small buffet in Toledo situated near the Alcázar in the old section of the city, the casco viejo. When I entered for dinner around nine in the evening the place was completely empty. Granted, having dinner at nine is quite, almost ludicrously, early for Spain, so it wasn't terribly unusual that the place was empty. I was feeling hungry from a lack of lunch, though, so I knew that I wasn't going to be able to wait until eleven or so, a much more reasonable dinner hour according to my experience in Castilla-y La Mancha. As I walked into the restaurant and a little old lady showed me to a seat, I asked her where she was from, and after she responded China I asked which part. She said the south; I asked if she was from Guangdong, and she responded Hong Kong. I find it interesting that she didn't say “I'm from Hong Kong,” but rather she let me know that she is from the part of China that is called Hong Kong. I wonder if it is common for people from Hong Kong to consider themselves from China. Legally/politically it is a pretty tricky situation, and with the mixture of cultural influences from the British, the Chinese, and others, it is a complicated issue culturally as well. But what kind of a reflection on a restaurant focuses on the self-identification of a host rather than the food? I suppose that I should get onto that part.

For € 9.95 I was able to eat as much as I wanted (hence: buffet), but although I got full, disappointing is the word that jumps to mind the most concerning the food itself. It was similar to some Chinese buffets that I have had in the United States, but of even lower quality.

French fries and coconut yogurt are both classic Chinese dishes?

First, some of the food was of a distinctly non-Chinese variety. I have to deny myself being an expert here, since although I have lived in and studied China, I know very little of the cuisine of southern China. In fact, I just learned from a fellow traveler this afternoon that pigeon is a common dish in the south. I lived in China for two years and I had never heard of this before in my life. Just goes to show how humility is a wonderful trait to have when your life involves a country as big and complex as China.

Secondly, the actual quality of the food, and here I mean taste, was quite sub-par. It didn't just leave something to be desired; it left a lot to be desired. What appeared to me as a hard-shelled jiaozi was crunchy and tasteless, some attempts at spring rolls (which I have never actually seen in China), and very sparse stir-fried rice made this meal one of the worst meals of "Chinese" food that I have ever had. I think that is really saying something, since I had one or two really bad experiences of dining on Chinese food with Julie back at Kalamazoo.

The final thing that struck me about the food is that in total is that it was, as well as the restaurant as a  much more similar to Chinese restaurants in the United States than in China. I certainly didn't expect Chinese restaurant in Spain to be completely identical with one in China, but I was shocked at the similarity it held to one in the U.S.. It was as if U.S.-based Chinese food was taken as the model to be emulated for Spanish-based Chinese food. It makes me wonder if Chinese food in Europe and North America in generally similar. I don't have nearly enough experience to make such a claim, but I do plan on checking out a lot more Chinese restaurants here in Spain and seeing what they are like.

Cultural differences, and awareness of them

I have never peeled shrimp before, which caused something of a stir in the kitchen of the WWOOF farm that I stayed at. I guess the Italian girl expected me to be able to peel shrimp. It isn't a horribly unreasonable expectation, but when I told her that I had never done it before, it suddenly became big news. Are shrimp often pre-peeled in the US? I don't know. Over the past few years I got into the habit of eating the outside as well, so I haven't bothered to peel them: when I able to comfortably eat the skin, what is the point?

Sometimes I feel a desire to express something about multiculturalism or different cultural backgrounds in righteous anger, and it is a practice in both humility and self-control to not speak out indignantly at the fact that it is thought to be usual that I have never performed X action which is common in their (sub-?)cultures, but the fact that they have never performed Y action (which is common to other cultures in the world) in not considered. I have never berated anyone for being unable to make 饺子 or to use chopsticks, because I have no expectation that someone not introduced to this things should be able to use them. It would be just as ludicrous for me to expect a random Chinese friend of mine to know what gazpacho is and how to make it; it is culturally specific. Similarly, I have an assumption that they have not been introduced to these things until proven otherwise (maybe I consider people innocent in their ignorance until it is proven that they 'should' know?) Such speech strikes me as inconceivably petty, though, merely indulging in my own desire to feel righteous and express that I have been offended, while not serving any significant goals nor accomplishing anything. In fact, I have few doubts that such a declaration (outburst, dare I say) would insert a decidedly negative air into my relations with people.

Am I just highly aware of this? As a person that has so far entered his third country, I think that I am becoming more conscious of the differences in the ways that people live their lives. Perhaps it is my awareness of these differences that causes me to be so shocked when people assume that other people have had, or should have had, similar experiences to them.

Concerning the people on the WWOOF farm with me, I repeatedly state that I have not done such and such in this way before (because it would be a lie to say that I have not done some of these things before, but it would also be misleading to let them think that I had done things just like this). For instance, I have used a stove before; but I have never used a gas stove before. Another simple example is peeling potatoes. Remi told me that I should peel it toward myself, using my thumbs. For me, this is much slower than cutting away from myself, so I suspect that people observing me extrapolate that I cannot peel potatoes in general, rather than attributing it to the specific context. I see cooking in general as similar; in a kitchen with many unfamiliar ingredients and which is lacking many of my preferred cooking materials I am understandably handicapped. I think that I am the only one who sees it this way, though, which everyone else just thinking that I lack skills and experience, while I think that I have different skills and experience (or to phrase it differently, we lack common skills and experiences).

Should I approach every situation assuming that I lack common experiences with other people until I have reason to believe otherwise? I wonder what Kwame Anthony Appiah would say? All opinions concerning philosophy and religion aside, WWKAAD does not roll off the tongue nearly as smooth as WWJD does, though.

Dreams of Past Lovers

Last night I dreamed of Lili. I have no idea where it came from, since I haven't been thinking of her lately. Indeed, I have been thinking of several other lovers that are far away, rather than this ex that is far away. I don't remember much of what happened in the dream; if it was us talking over dinner, a hot and steamy night, or if it was some strange dream-thing like flying through clouds or eating peanut butter. I don't know if they were memories or fantasies, but it was one of those dreams that seemed oh so real. Regardless, I woke up with an intense and very strong longing to be with her, to hold her close, and to see her smile and laugh. Memories, or perhaps half faded dreams, flooded though my mind of the times we spent together, and I don't know whether they are tears of sorrow at her absence, longing for the past, or tears of sweet remembrance that now form in the corners of my eyes.

Dreams can cause some really powerful emotions. I recall a dream I had about a girl in my high school (it involved something about us driving a van) and I remember that I started to be very attracted to her. Seriously; all initiated by a dream, my view of her suddenly changed from "a nice girl who is fun to hang out with" to ""a nice girl who is fun to hang out with" and with whom I would love to have a close and loving relationship." I find it amazing what strength of emotions can come from dreams, that sometimes seem so real.

This happened once with a dream of Sara last winter, and I was so overcome with emotion that I asked for the day off work and it dominated my thoughts for several hours. Thank god that was a Friday, because I think it took me a few days of distraction to fully get over that. It makes sense to me that this has occurred concerning both Sara and Lili, since were two of my longer and more serious relationships. Lili and I's relationship involved here basically moving in with me for about two months, with added new stresses that perhaps wouldn't have existed if she had stayed in her dorm and if I had had my apartment to myself. Also, both my relationship with Lili and with Sara ended with my getting on an airplane to go to the other's home country. There was still plenty of passion and affection at the end of both of these relationships, and plenty of tears at their ends as we said goodbye; Lili and I at the airport before I had to proceed alone through the security check, not caring about the other people around watching a crying couple exchange their last embrace; Sara and I at Kalamazoo College in front of the library, the bright sun shining down, me trying to cut it off more cleanly and she trying to gain another 30 minutes with me before we said our goodbyes, and then with me laying in the grass trying unsuccessfully to stop my tears and hide my sorrow after she had left, waiting for Julie to come and console me, trying to let go of the past as I tried to focus on the future.

It is strange and emotionally quite overwhelming when this happens, and perhaps if I hadn't decided so clearly and let Lili know so clearly that we were definitely over as a couple, I would send her an email to let her now how I missed her. It is tempting to write something telling her that someday I will have more money and I will go back to Beijing and I will treat her right and be there for her; that we will travel together and explore and laugh. But I won't do that. I remember trying to spend time with her during my second time in Beijing, after we were no longer a couple, and I remember that it was simply far too trying for me. Spending time with her as a friend involved me constantly desiring to be more than that with her. I know that we would quarrel a lot as a couple, though and I remember all the stresses and things I didn't like about us being together. Our clashes, whether they were cultural, personal, or something else, are something that I don't want to repeat. I would be satisfied (happy?) with something more relaxed and casual, but Lili doesn't want something more in-between or more in the gray area between platonic friends and a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. She is basically in the market for a linearly progressing relationship: boyfriend → serious boyfriend → husband. I don't want to make to big of a generalization, especially since she doesn't seem (to me) like a standard Chinese girl, but that is a very common mindset for Chinese girls. Since I don't want to go along with that progression, since I was not willing to commit to the possibility of marriage, there is no room for me there. Although the strong emotions of last night's dream are imbued throughout my mind, but don't want to lead her on to believe something that will not happen. Even when (if?) I go back to Beijing eventually, I shouldn't spend time with Lili. As I said, desires and urges to be a lover of hers made it too difficult to be a friend of hers, so there is no kind of relationship that we are able to have.

Postscript: Thank goodness that faded. I don't need or that distraction. By that evening it wasn't even crossing my mind anymore.

War and Peace

I've started War and Peace again. I have never actually finished it. It makes me think of Olga, just because it is Russian. I remember her saying that "Tolstoy is a beautiful philosopher," while the philosophy professors I got to chat with in Duluth generally and vaguely agreed with the statement that Tolstoy is "less of a philosopher and more of a classical pop-moralist." I have "read" (via librivox) many of his short stories, which I find beautiful and touching, and I have a general agreement with the morals that he has in them, which are normally not subtle. I do find much of his writing beautiful, and it is no accident or conspiracy that War and Peace is often considered among of the best novels ever produced by humankind. I first started War and Peace as an audiobook during the summer before I went to China for the first time, the summer of 2008. I continued to "read" (listen to) War and Peace during my first year in China (2008-2009). My entire time reading it was supplemented by Wikipedia and Sparknotes to deepen my understanding of all the complexities going on in the novel. I was not using these to replace the reading of the book, but rather to help me grasp and keep a mental hold on the multiple plot lines and dozens of named characters of varying important. Many of the names of which were completely foreign to me as well, having never been introduced to the Russian language before. An added complexity was that characters were often referred to by their titles (Count Bezukov) in some i passages and by personal names (Andrei) in others. But I managed to "read" it anyway. It was in intervals, though, depending on motivation and what chapters were available from librivox. At one point during the Spring of 2009 I had to stop for several months due to the fact that the next parts of the book hadn't been recorded and released yet. During the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009 I tended to listen to it on the bus while on my way somewhere or before I went to bed, so sometimes I would fall asleep midway through a chapter, missing important information. I would usually try to go back and listen to it again, but sometimes I would just continue on, satisfied with just knowing the general direction that the story was going, without bothering to re-listen to it in order to get all the details of a particular chapter. This was pretty slow going, with more nights in total spent not listening to War and Peace than listening to War and Peace. This was mostly due to the availability of the chapters on librivox rather than my own motivation, actually. There were certainly nights when I didn't feel like it, or when I was too exhausted, or when I had something better to do, but I do recall numerous times both during the fall and spring semester in Beijing that I spent the minutes before sleep listening to the adventures and the lives of Pierre and Andrei, the idealist and the cynic. The small islands of daily (or nightly) listening to War and Peace were surrounded by vast seas of waiting for the next section of the book to be released on librivox. I briefly resumed listening to War and Peace during the beginning of my senior year of college at Kalamazoo, and (spoiler alert) I recall that I got as far as the chapter describing the final moments of Andrei. I think that was about 90% of the way through the book. That is as far as I ever got. To this day I still haven't finished War and Peace, despite my claim that I have read it. As I am finishing Errant in Iberia though, a very mediocre read by my non-professional non-trained judgment, I think that I will replace it's presence on my currently-reading list with War and Peace, and hope to finish War and Peace before I leave Spain. Since War and Peace is apparently in the public domain, and is among the e-books available for free download via kindle, and I just so happen to have download it a few months ago when I started using kindle.