CAUTION: Watching me do improv makes you drink.

I was searching the web for some ideas of what to do with a class today and I clicked a link that led to blogspot. Surprisingly, it went through! I am guessing that it's not blocked now...for some reason? Youtube and facebook are still gone but I guess being able to post in my blog normally is nice. Even though I will only be here for two more weeks.

Yep, we are officially at the two week point. June 25th I will be homehomehome.

School is reaching that point where my work I need to do outside of class far exceeds the stuff I need to do for and in class. I've got correcting up the wazoo. Tests to prepare. All that jazz. I know I haven't been posting much and I apologize. I have a bunch of stuff I plan on writing about and I will do my best to catch up.

The title of this post refers to what happened this Wednesday at rehearsal for Zmack's June 12th show (my last show with them). I know, I know, I've talked a lot about improv lately. Well, I love it and this is the last time I have to perform with these groups. Anyway, we were rehearsing at the bar (which was empty except for the workers, us and people who knew us) when a group of four men walked in. I saw them walk in and seem a bit confused about what was going on, but then I had to perform so I didn't see what they did next. After I did my scene (the dating game, where I played a very perky girl named Mary Joe seeking love), I jumped off stage and was called over to their table. They then proceeded to tell me (in Chinese) that they were planning on leaving until they saw me perform. They thought I was so great they decided to stay. And drink! One of the guys held up his beer and said "This is because of you!".

I thought it was funny and a somewhat odd compliment. Since they spoke to me in Chinese I assumed they couldn't speak English, but the rehearsal was in English. So that means they must have just liked my voice or body language or something. Ahh China. You are so silly sometimes. It also made me happy that I had no trouble understanding them. Boo-yah Chinese classes.

Hopefully more later!

Much love!

Improv Awaaaaaaay

It really sucks that I am leaving as soon as I started making some good contacts here. According to Lucy I have got myself an adoring public and now I am abandoning them. She was talking about improv.

Matthew, someone I met through Zmack, started his own improv group, the People's Republic of Comedy (shown above). I performed with them for the first time a few weeks ago. I thought I did horribly, to tell the truth. I was performing with people I had never met before and I was exhausted. Apparently I did ok, though, and he asked me to perform with them again this past week. That show went REALLY well, in my opinion. That's what the picture is from. All the advertisements for the show are done in old propaganda style posters, hence our far off gazes. I hope to perform with them at least once more before I leave.

In the Zmack front, I led the weekly lab the last two weeks and I think it went ok. I am running it again this and next week and then I believe it will be time for someone else to step up. I have a love/hate relationship with running improv stuff. It's kind of cool to decide the theme and pass on some improv tips, but it means I spend less time playing the games myself. And it makes me feel really self conscious. Here I am, the youngest person in the room telling everyone what to do. Ahh well. There is one more show with Zmack that I'll be doing in June.

In non-improv news, I am apparently teaching a new class for the rest of the semester. Whaaa? It's an intensive English class for the incoming class. I was hoping to use the extra time (now that my 12th graders graduated) for my job hunt, but I guess not.

In non-anything news, why doesn't my mind work anymore? I can't think straight at all. I can't sleep at night. I can't focus in Chinese class or at work. Bah. I need to whip my mental self into shape so that I can get all this stuff done!

In let's-focus-on-happy-stuff news, it's finally yangmei/waxberry/bayberry/whatever-you-want-to-call-it season again. I have a big basket on my desk that I've been munching on all morning.

Cooking With RaoLaoshi

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but "laoshi" is Chinese for teacher. So "RaoLaoshi" means "Teacher Rao".

Teacher Rao is my Chinese teacher. She came to an improv lab a couple weeks ago and on the subway ride back we talked about cooking. I said I really wanted to learn to cook more Chinese food, so we made a deal. She would teach me to cook some Chinese food and I would teach her to bake some cookies.

We finally ended up getting together this weekend. We cooked and ate lunch together. We ended up making three dishes.

Cola Chicken Wings: The first and most interesting (and in my opinion tastiest) thing we cooked was "cola chicken". Apparently this isn't as novel an idea as I thought it was since when I told a co-worker about it she shared her recipe for "Coke Roast". The way we made it was to boil some chicken wings in water. Then we put some small slices in both sides of the wings (according to Teacher Rao it makes it taste better). Then we fried up some garlic, ginger, scallions, and mildly spicy green peppers in some oil with the wings. After browning the chicken a little on both sides, she poured in about half a can of Pepsi. She brought it to a boil and then reduced it to a simmer until the sauce got thick. Spicy, sweet and delicious!

Pork and Beans: This dish was an interesting mix of savory and fresh. The beans that we used are apparently called "four season beans" in Chinese since they are in season all year round. To me they just looked like giant green beans. I chopped the beans into slices while Teacher Rao mixed some ground pork with flour and egg whites. Then it was all fried up together. Teacher Rao commented on how most Chinese dishes mix together meat and a vegetable while most American dishes have the two separate. I had to agree with her, since I've noticed the same thing since the first time I came to China.

I Have No Idea But It Was Purple and That's Cool: I can't remember at all what the last vegetable was called in Chinese and Teacher Rao didn't know the English name. It looked a little like lettuce to me, but that's about as helpful as I can be. She cooked it up in a little oil, water and salt. Eating it was fun since it turned our plates purple. There is an old Chinese belief that eating uncooked vegetables is always unhealthy and I think it's still affecting the food culture. I'm not sure what the vegetable was we were eating but my guess is if it was used in the US it would probably be eaten raw or steamed, not fried up.

All together it was a lot of fun. We spoke about half and half Chinese and English, which was cool. I was a little worried that since we weren't officially in class she would just switch 100% to English. After we made and ate lunch, I taught her to make cookies. We made oatmeal butterscotch cookies, using the butterscotch chips my mom sent me about a million years ago. They were quite yummy. I have done a lot of baking since I got my toaster oven, but these were the first cookies I made from scratch instead of cutting corners with a mix. It was a lot of hard work without a mixer! But I have to use up my baking supplies before I leave so I forsee more on the horizon!

Shanghai 80's Roller Disco....Seriously!

I went to college from 2004 to 2008....so why is it that every 80's song I hear reminds me of Drew U?

Lucy invited me to a roller disco this weekend. I had to read the e-mail a couple of times before I actually believed there was going to an 80's roller disco in China. But that's Shanghai for you. Turns out they have these a lot at the place we went to.

I invited Sarah along (we've been hanging out so much we are starting to act like a married couple) and we got our 80's outfits planned. I destroyed a cheap t-shirt and then wore about every brightly colored item I owned (which was a surprisingly small amount). Sarah wore some nice big bangles and pulled out all the stops with some leg warmers.

I was a little worried about roller skating since I haven't done it at the very least since high school. I have a vague memory of driving myself to good ole' Ron-A-Roll way back when so I guess I was at least 16 but that could be my mind making stuff up again. I was also worried about being run over by drunk people on skates.

In the end I only fell once (because some jerk crashed into me), knocked down Sarah once (because another jerk crashed into me, which pushed me into her) and had a few spectacular close calls. I'll tell you, spilled beer (despite the clearly posted signs that no drinks should be brought on the skate floor) certainly makes skating a bit more a challenge. And it was CROWDED. I was never so scared for my feet than when I was walking around in socks after turning in my sneakers but before putting on my skates. My poor toeses got rolled over a bit. I'd like to go back when it wasn't so packed.

Sarah and I got there a lot earlier than Lucy and Andreas so we only ended up hanging out all together for a short while. I hope to see the two of them later this week though.

Scary Clown

Just a bit of weirdness to break up our regular scheduled programing.

Earlier this week the art teacher, Sarah, asked me to come in and discuss my first hand experience with the IB art exam with her students (who are also my English students). After I told them all about it and answered some questions, they went back to work on their projects.

I was getting ready to go back to my office when Sarah suggested I stay and paint. I suddenly felt the need to create something. I asked the students for ideas and the first thing any of them said was "a scary clown". The picture you see is the result. That face gives me the creeps (the painting...not me).

This weekend I hope to see Lucy, who I feel like I haven't seen in forever, and also have a plan to get together and cook with my Chinese teacher. Should be fun!

The Wedding Banquet

About two weeks ago, one of my co-workers, Ned, got married to his lovely partner Zhi Hui. It was apparently in the works for a while but we didn't hear about it until about two weeks before he got hitched. Last night they held a nice big dinner to celebrate his marriage with all the Pinghe folks.

My office mates wanted to go in together on a gift for the happy couple and for a while we couldn't think of what to get. I suggested a gift card for the massage place I like. I figured it would be useful and enjoyable. In the end that's what we got. Also, the office came together in a bit of a group effort to make a card. I made the basic design of the card (white base, blue panel on the front, outlined in gold ribbon with a gold square in each corner) and then Lotus bumped up the design on the front and Lena did the back and the inside. I wish I had a picture of it. It was pretty. Then it was off to dinner.

It was a normal Chinese style dinner with tons of dishes (my favorites were the scallops which were resting on mounds of salt and then LIT ON FIRE) which were all delicious. They had rented three rooms connected by wide open double doors and a big round table in each room. Since Ned's lovely wife is Chinese and the majority of the guests, some of the traditional "dirty tricks" (as June put it) had to be played.

One involved Zhi Hui shimmying a cell phone up one of Ned's pant legs and down the other, but not before a phone call was made *ahem* in a strategic position. A cherry tomato was also strung on a string as a necklace for Zhi Hui to wear and Ned had to find and eat it without using his hands while blindfolded. The last game of the evening had them sitting back to back and writing down answers to questions about their relationship. The inquiries started out pretty tame but got worse as it went on.

The evening was a lot of fun but also made me sad. I can't believe how little time I have left here.

Hanoi Pictures and Impressions

Here are just some pictures from my trip, including water puppets, the cathedral, the grilled fish, and the boat ride to the Perfume Pagoda.

Just some last things I wanted to mention about Hanoi. It was weird because if I had never been to China and Vietnam was the first Asian country I ever went to, it probably would have been a totally new experience, but it was so much like China that it wasn't surprising to me at all.

I am used to sales people shouting at me to buy things, I am used to bargaining, I am used to squat toilets, I am used to making my way across a street with no apparent traffic rules, I am used to people staring at me, I am used to spitting and the differences in hygiene and personal space. Even the stuff vendors were selling in all the touristy places was mostly exactly the same as stuff I see in China all the time. It was actually a challenge finding presents for people that were obviously Vietnamese and not Chinese.

There were some differences though. I can't understand a word of Vietnamese. In Japan I didn't feel quite so out of place since there was often Japanese kanji, which borrows a lot of words from Chinese. But in Vietnam? Nothing. It felt very strange. Also, because of the french influence, the vendors in Hanoi were always yelling "Madam!" at me to get my attention instead of "Lady!", which I thought was fancier. Ha.

I suppose that's all really.

Much love!
Stephanie