In a typical week, Richy and I have 11-13 teaching hours and at least 10 hours of commuting time. That doesn't include lesson planning or grading, English Corner, meetings, office hours, or the extra time the commute takes when the city is in the midst of a massive diesel shortage. Our 45-50 minute commute each way has turned into 60-90 minutes, on occasion up to 2 hours. Long lines of cement trucks, long haulers, tractor trailers, cattle trucks and buses clog the roadways around any gas station with a supply of diesel. Many of these stations are near expressway exits, leading the line of vehicles to block major commuter roads. Men directing traffic in orange vests have appeared, and in some cases, traffic cones have been deployed, which eases some of the congestion. All this is little comfort to us who now commute for more hours each week than we teach. For a while, I used the commute to grade papers, but my students complained about their inability to read my jumpy handwriting, and forget about trying to finish my Chinese writing homework. I have a hard enough time writing the characters sitting perfectly still. I have learned to identify which driver is operating the vehicle before I choose my seat. I prefer to sit in the middle of the bus if it's one of the crazy ones, that way if we rear-end someone or get rear-ended I will hopefully be outside the crunch zone. If we have the sane, kindly-faced bus driver (who happens to look like Chow Yun Fat) then I can sit where I please. No matter who is driving the bus however, you can bet we will hit the same pothole everyday on the same overpass, going at least 40 mph. If the driver is crazy enough, we'll be going faster, which launches everyone on the bus 6 inches above their seat for a moment. Despite the roller coaster commute, you can examine the faces of Chinese passengers and drivers alike, and you will find no hint of malice, surprise or even anxiety. Everyone just looks bored, sleepy or as if meditating. The only time you will hear a peep out of our fellow passengers in regard to the driving, is a slight gasp if it seems that were are actually about to crash into something and the drivers brakes have locked up.
Needless to say, we have been very keen on rumors about when the teachers' housing on campus might open up. We had heard that most teachers would be able to move onto campus in the summer/fall of 2011. Although we hadn't mentioned it yet to our foreign relations office, we told our program manager on our site visit that we were interested in moving onto the campus as soon as possible. Considering the fact that we are supposed to start implementing secondary projects next term, we weren't really sure how we were supposed to find the time, wedged into bus seats 10+ hours a week, and living an hour away from the students we are supposed to be supporting and building community with. Our amazing program manager, after the requisite meeting with the school, advocated for us and learned that a few apartments on campus were in fact already available, and that we would be able to go take a look at them this very week. Upon further discussion with our waiban liaison, I discovered that they were not only willing to let us move onto the campus, but to let us keep our city apartment for staying in the city on the weekends! Although it will be a stretch on our budget to furnish a second apartment, we are hoping that eliminating the dreaded commute from our lives will make us more happy, healthy, and most of all, safe from China car accident #2 (if you recall, we experienced China car accident #1 back in July in a Chengdu cab).
On a more positive note, Richy and I successfully hosted a "mini-Thanksgiving" celebration last weekend, which turned out to not be so "mini" since we had 20+ guests (about evenly split between fellow PCVs and Chinese nationals). I pushed myself to the limits of my Chinese-ingredient-fueled American cooking abilities with: a pumpkin pie, a dutch apple pie, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (I even had to make the french fried onions from scratch), homemade ginger ale, apple walnut stuffing, and a roasted chicken we named "turkey." The chicken was really the most intimidating dish of the lot, considering that I had not yet purchased anything resembling raw animal flesh yet in China, I had never used the rotisserie function on my glorified toaster oven, and had never previously successfully roasted an entire member of the fowl family by myself without under cooking the inside and overcooking the outside. The adventure began when I first spotted the unusually large (by Chinese standards) chickens for sale at the Yonghui Supermarket. They fit all specifications for a western-style roast bird (already dead, plucked, gutted, plump breasts, feet removed) except that the animal still possessed a head. Not wanting to have to carry home an animal that I could still imagine looking at me, I mustered up my Chinese speaking ability (something I am rarely able to do successfully in the chaos of the Chinese supermarket) and spat out the following: "Wo yao na ge ji, keshi wo bu yao ji tou" or "I want that chicken, however I don't want chicken head." Magically, the woman understood me on the first try, grabbed my chicken, lopped off it's head with her cleaver (leaving the neck, but I wasn't about to complain), and proceeded to whisk me to the front of the meat scale line. Chicken purchasing success! I proudly carried my 35 odd pounds of groceries the 15 minute walk home.
Next, I researched several recipes and decided that my chicken deserved the following treatment: a thorough soaking in leftover cola from our Halloween party, a cavity stuffed with tangerines, red onion, garlic, bay leaf and celery greens, a liberal slathering of bacon grease (a good alternative when butter is hard to find), all tied and pinned together tightly with sewing thread and toothpicks (I couldn't find any non-polyester string for a proper binding), and finally stabbed with the rotisserie attachment of my toaster oven. Until the slowly rotating chicken firmed up with cooking, I was convinced that the thread and toothpicks wouldn't hold and my chicken would start flopping around in my oven any moment, but as it began to brown nicely, I was able to relax a bit and finish the mashed potatoes. When the chicken finally came out, it was nicely golden brown, still juicy, and smelled like something that might have been made in America. Richy carved it without a cleaver (neatly, in turkey-like slices), and for the first time in months, many of us ate a whole chunk of chicken without having to pick any shards of bone out! Chicken cooking success!
It was nice to be able to share the meal with our Chinese friends, who especially seemed to like the mashed potatoes, and prove to them that American cooking can be so much better and more interesting that what's on the menu at McDonalds and KFC. We also even got to stand around the table and hold hands and say what we're thankful for, which for me was being able to share the foods I love so much with new friends. It's hard being away from home for the holidays, but with a little bit of effort, I think we can make it worth the sacrifice.
~ Katie
