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Monday, January 30, 2006
Spring Festival Madness
popular during the winter season because the sugar coating the fruits would stay hard.
Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. When I tried to go shopping a few days before the event, it was almost like Divisoria mall the day before Christmas.
Spring Festival Purchases
I think pink looks good on me. I do not have enough pink tops. This is to remedy that problem.
My Tinola
I dragged myself out of bed with the intention of going to the gym and working out. It's been a month since I last visited the gym and I didn't want my membership card to go to waste. I have my whole day planned. In fact, I even made a list last night. 1. work out. 2. LongShou Market to have my DVD player fixed. It's supposed to have a one-year warranty but then again, this is China so I'm hoping that that's true. 3. Since I'll be in LongShou Market, which is something like Divisoria's 168, I might as well look around at the interesting things they have for sale. 4. check out the phones Joyce was asking me about. 5. buy bluetooth, again an errand from Joyce. 6. hang out at Karen Coffee and do some writing.
I called up Wendy to see what time she could go to LongShou with me. I do not know how to say "warranty" in Chinese and I figured I should have someone Chinese beside me when I go to the store where I bought the player from. Her mom picked up the phone and since they sound the same, I started talking to her in English. I thought it was Wendy! Of course she didn't understand a word. It turned out that Wendy left her phone at home. And because this was totally unexpected, I panicked and all my Chinese flew out the window. Thankfully, she realized who I was and perhaps thinking how futile it was to have a conversation with me, she hung up in midsentence.
Fifteen minutes later, Wendy called. I was all dressed up ready to leave the house when she told me that LongShou is closed because of the holiday. Wow, when they said that Spring Festival is big, I didn't realize it was this big. Shops are closed for days! So basically, everything's closed except for XingLong, the biggest and newest department store in TieLing. I suppose I could do some grocery shopping at XingLong. I hadn't left the house for days and I was beginning to run out of food too. But then I remembered I still haven't cooked my tinola. It was the perfect time to do it.
Let it be put on record that I had never cooked tinola in all my life. I was/am terrified of actually cooking anything because I'd always been afraid that I'd just be wasting the food if it turned out inedible. But I had to conquer my fear sometime so I got all the ingredients out of the ref and started chopping garlic, ginger and onions. Should there be onions in tinola?
I swear to god, my tinola turned out great! It tasted like tinola! Even without papaya! It did not start out promising. As I was looking at all the ingredients swimming around the pot, I must admit it did not look like tinola at all. It just looked like, well, a mess all swirling about. I was actually ready to stop referring to it as tinola. I was thinking of a new name to call it, something less assuming. Something like, um, chicken soup. So I let it boil and boil and boil, until it actually started smelling like tinola. There was hope! It was time for the taste test. Something was missing. No patis! Uh oh, there was absolutely no way I could find patis in China so I put salt and tasted it again. Better. More salt. Just a tiny bit more until yes, it finally was tinola. I could not believe I was actually successful! Of course I will have to cook hundreds of tinolas more to rival Akoh's tinola, but hey, there is still hope for me! I can cook!!!
And as most of you know, after a good meal I have to go to the bathroom. My digestive system is very efficient. I promise to post pictures. Not of the digested tinola, of course. I am so gross! Hahahaha!
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Spring Festival 2
My phone rang at around 6pm. It was Rain asking what I was doing and if I wanted to hang out at Sunrise's parents' place. Having no plans for the night except for sleeping, I said ok. We had a great dinner at Sunrise's, chatted up his parents and grandma, then we went off to buy fireworks.
I was never a participant at fireworks-lighting in my country. There were too many images of blown up fingers, missing limbs, and burned faces on TV each year to make it worth lighting an explosive. When it was the new year back home, I made it a point that I was indoors, with the windows and doors closed so the smoke wouldn't come in, and to reduce the level of noise as well. You'd probably find me eating. Or sleeping, with the reminder for someone to wake me up a few minutes before midnight. Or I could also be watching the New Year countdown on TV. I could be doing so many things save that I was safely inside the house.
But then there came China. Or more appropriately, I came to China. I was at first reluctant to participate in this fireworks madness, but being with two grown up men who suddenly turned into little boys at the sight of fireworks, I was left with little choice. In no time, I was also eagerly looking for things we could blow up. Interesting finds that we had: a potato, an egg, a styro, a plastic bottle, a bulb, oranges. We were running around the neighborhood like twelve-year old kids, vandalizing posters so we could have something to wrap our explosives in and at one time even plotting to blow up a window in an abandoned building.
I must note that I still think that the pinoy new year is noisier and far more dangerous. The only difference for me is that I was actually participating in the noise and danger here in China so that made it more dangerous for me. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised that it was almost comparable to our fireworks back home. After all, they invented it.
Once we had our share of our juvenile fun, we went to Sunrise and Fashion's house, which was actually very near Sunrise's parents' house. We watched TV and waited for ZhaoBenShan to appear onscreen. This was the first time that I would actually lay eyes on the famous ZhaoBenShan so I was a little excited. A little backgrounder: I have been told many times since I came here that ZhaoBenShan is a "Chinese superstar" who used to be a farmer in TieLing. He is well-known and well-loved all throughout China, and he uses the DongBei, specifically TieLing, dialect in his comedy routines. When I finally saw him, I could understand perfectly why. He has the same charisma as Dolphy. In fact, if he weren't talking in Chinese, I would have thought he was Dolphy. I did not get more than half of what was being said but yes, I like him. ZhaoBenShan rules!
After watching ZhaoBenShan's skit, we went back to Sunrise's parents' house to eat dumplings. Dumplings are traditionally eaten during the Spring Festival. There's a Chinese saying that goes something like, "there's nothing more delicious than dumplings." I was told that in the olden days when people were so poor, the only time they could eat dumplings was on the Spring Festival. Everytime I hear stories like these (It's not even a story. It was just something that was told in passing), I always think of Angkong and how it must have been for him growing up in impoverished China and leaving everything to start a new life in a country that was free but was not always kind to him and people like him. On a ligther note, nope, no tikoy here. Tikoys must be a tradition from the southern parts because I have not seen a single one here. I really have to go and check out Fujian one day.
As we were stuffing ourselves with the dumplings, we totally missed the countdown and rushed to the TV a few seconds too late. Mei shi, we went back to the kitchen and ate some more. The 29th is also Rain's birthday and he was born in the Year of the Dog. Somebody once told me that if it's your year, you have to be careful because you'll be unlucky.
We went back to Fashion's home to hang out some more. We fooled around with the computer, played some cards, talked, they drank beer, etc. Sunrise showed me a red sash-like thing that he wears for protection. It turned out that Rain, Sunrise and Fashion were all born in the Year of the Dog. Rain explained that they had to wear something red to ward off I'm not sure, evil spirits, I guess. True enough, Fashion's red underwear was peeking out of his underpants. Rain said he also has a similar red sash but that he just wears red socks. I looked at his foot. Nope, he wasn't wearing them.
I wasn't there when it happened because I was in the bathroom. When I came out, there was a flurry of activity in the living room. It was flooded and Sunrise was trying to stop the water spurting out of the radiator. Because we never need a heating equipment back home, allow me to explain a little. There's this government regulated heating system that is mainly a big piece of metal that has hot water inside. I personally love these warm objects because, well, they're warm.
What happened was, as Rain explained to me, he picked up the guitar right next to the radiator. With the guitar, he accidentally and ever so lightly hit the radiator when suddenly, water was spurting out of it. It was quite busy after that since someone had to constantly hold the hole and try to lessen the amount of water flowing out. The basin had to continually be emptied, and the floor mopped (although there was no mop so we had to wipe and squeeze, wipe and squeeze with rags). The "repairman" came and told us that somebody would come to fix it the next day. He did turn off the water though so at least Sunrise and Fashion could sleep without the fear of drowning. They'd just have to take care not to freeze to death. Rain felt so horrible about it that he must have apologized a hundred times to both Fashion and Sunrise.
He should've worn his red socks. What was he thinking? Just because he's a foreigner the evil spirits would spare him?
I got home at around 3:45am. See, there's no need to make plans in China. Things just happen.
Friday, January 27, 2006
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