One Week Away...

In the past week I have been making all the final preparations for Harbin, but I'll get to that later. A few crazy experiences in Chinese restaurants are worth noting. The first in Delaware a few weeks back and the second in DC just a few days ago (see picture above).

So my parents took me out to an "authentic" Delawarean Chinese Restaurant and they told me that I should practice my Chinese by ordering for everyone. So I went ahead and did it (they even had 铁板牛肉! - sizzling beef in a skillet, or one of my favorite dishes at a place at Peking University called the Medicine House). In short, the waitress was really impressed by my Chinese (as all Chinese are when Westerners can speak some Mandarin) and she told me that she would come back later to talk in length. Eventually she came back to the table and invited me to live with her family in Shaoyang (west of Harbin but north of Beijing). She said that she was once a professor at a university there along with her husband. I could never figure out just how she ended up at a Chinese restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware of all places. The waitress said that I could make a lot of money teaching English and living with her family. Although this sounds crazy to meet someone and immediately be invited to their home, this is quite normal with Chinese people. When I was living and studying in Beijing, once you were able to penetrate the so-called "cultural wall of separation" people were extremely open, friendly, and welcoming. Despite this, I was still surprised that a Chinese restaurant waitress would invite me to live with their family thousands upon thousands of miles away. Well, maybe this guanxi (connection) could pay some dividends in the future. To make it in China you have to "pocket" this sort of guanxi and call on it when needed. Who knows? Haha.

The second recent experience at a Chinese restaurant was, of course, at 五月花 (The Mayflower). My friend Althea, who I was in China for four months with, gave me a call and said she wanted to grab some Chinese food. So all we could think of was the terrible, well maybe not so terrible, Chinese place in Tenleytown near AU. After we tried to order "off the menu" for dishes we used to get in Beijing, to some failure and some success, we went and sat down only to find the sign (picture above) on the wall next to us! Only 30 minutes to eat our food and leave. After laughing for a while we settled that it was indeed practical given the max capacity of 10 (if that). But then how many people do you ever see inside Mayflower?? Usually no one or maybe a few high school kids grabbing an after school snack. Ahh Chinese restaurants...it will sure be nice to have the real thing all the time with a whole lot more of a selection. Only five more days...

THE FINAL HARBIN COUNTDOWN

Here is the official final countdown clock to...Harbin (actually this countdown is really the exact time I should be landing in Beijing):

BACK! And it is almost time for Ha-er-bin

Alright, so today marks the first post to the blog in 2009. This is of course because I will be returning to China this summer (Harbin specifically) and need a place to record my thoughts and experiences for my friends and strangers (you) and for myself. Hopefully I will have some time to upload pictures and write here during the intensive immersion Chinese boot camp that I am about to embark on...in about three weeks time. Check out the new YouTube feed for all that you need to know about Harbin (or what YouTube would like you to know). There's also an air pollution monitor that I added to the site out of curiosity. Harbin is in the northern most province of China, Heilongjiang. More to come soon about what I'm thinking about Harbin, this summer, and the crazy experiences awaiting me. That's all for now. Please leave me comments and I'll get back to you (and follow my blog on the right side of the blog to get updates as soon as I post!)! The language pledge is only a few weeks away now...