Phone Duty

As much as I love (*cough cough*) phone duty, I do get to have some great conversations.

Me: Schoolhouse, Elizabeth speaking.
Guest: Hello, I'd like to make a reservation.
Me: Sure, for our restaurant, a room or a home?
Guest: Wow, and you speak wonderful English too!
Me: Umm...Thank you...


Tour Guide: There is some construction going on and they aren't letting our bus come to your restaurant.
Me: Yes, you just need to drive up to the wall, around and back down.
Tour Guide: We tried that but there is too much water in the parking lot so we can't go through.
Me: Your guests might have to get out and walk then. It's only about 5 minutes.
Tour Guide: All 27 of them?
Me: There really are only 2 ways to get here and if your bus can't go either way, I don't really see another option.
Tour Guide: Can't you just bring our meal to us up here at the wall?


Guest: I'd like to make a reservation for 4 on Saturday.
Me: Ok. For what time?
Guest: How about noon? Is it going to be raining on Saturday?
Mona: Only the Chinese government can control the weather.

Chinese Math

Once again I found myself with no idea what to blog about today, so I will follow my dad’s suggestion and write about math.

His first question: "If you took the entire population of China and divided it by the prime number that corresponds most closely to the population of Shanghai and then multiplied it by the log of the current Yuan/dollar exchange rate, what would the answer be?”

The answer:
C= Population of China=1.35 billion
P= closest prime to the population of Shanghai= 14,009,999
R= Current exchange rate= 6.28073
L=log of current exchange rate=1.83749

Answer=C*L/P=1,770,060.07 (Thanks to wolfram alpha for the data)

This lead to me having to explain what a log is, but anyways...

Other numbers of interest:

Hours I typically work in a week: 54
Price of my favourite stuffed buns in Beijing: Rmb 0.8
Number of new Chinese words I learned today: 3 (wind, door and tree)
Days I have been in China: 85
Pageviews on my blog so far (including the old blog): 619+475=1094
Days until I go to Inner Mongolia: 1
Number of e-mails I wrote today: 16
Current number of interns: 2 (William arrived today)
Number of digits in a Chinese phone number without area code: 8
Temperature today: 35 degrees with 51% humidity
Number of times I said “Sorry, do you speak English?” today: Too many to count...

Chinese numbers: I have never found a language with easier numbers than Chinese. As soon as you can count to 10, you can count to 100. 21 is literally 2*10, 1 (er shi yi) and all the numbers work like that.

yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu, shi

Now you can do it too!

Chinese also has a hand gesture for every number...unfortunately they are not the same as the ASL ones (which I know).

As for the characters, I know the first 3...1 horizontal line, 2 horizontal lines and 3 horizontal lines. I guess it would be a little tedious to continue like that. Oh, and 10 is a cross...

Great News and a Resolution

I caught a ride into Beijing with Mona this morning and had to say goodbye, which was very sad. Once Wang Jing (the driver) let me off, I walked to the visa renewal office, which was a lot easier than last time since I actually knew where I was going. Here comes the great news: They told me it was impossible to get a 4 month visa, but they gave me a 6 month one! This not only saves time and possibly having to leave the country to renew it again but about $100!

I walked around the area for a little while searching for a post office -- which I found -- so I can now send my postcards! I then had lunch at Subway, which was weird because my chicken was cold. Otherwise, it was pretty much the same as in Canada

I made my way to the bus station and travelled back to Huairou without spending very long in Beijing because I wanted to catch one of the mini-buses to Beigou and they stop at 6. Once I got to Huairou I did some grocery shopping and then made my way to the mini-buses where they tried to charge me Rmb 80 instead of Rmb 5 ($15 vs. $1). I knew what the price should be so I didn’t go for that, but it’s still annoying.

I made eggplant, onion and zucchini for dinner, but it wasn’t as good as yesterday’s food.

I have decided that I need to work on my Chinese more so I am going to learn 2 new words/phrases every day. I doesn’t sound like much, but had I been doing that from the start, I would have 180 words already! Today’s are “I don’t understand,” “what are you saying?” and “work” -- yes I realize that’s 3 but I had to make up for only having one yesterday (“How much does it cost”).

Yummy Food

Green Pepper and Eggplant
1. Chop half an onion, a small green pepper and half a round eggplant into large pieces
2. Put it all in a wok with a small amount of oil
3. Heat for a couple of minutes and add salt
4. Add 1 cup of filtered water
5. Add a handful of raw peanuts
6. When water is mostly gone, add soy sauce
7. Enjoy!

Chinese Pasta Sauce
1. Chop a tomato and quarter of an onion into large pieces
2. Heat a with a small amount of oil in a wok
3. Add vegetables and heat
4. Add 1 cup of water and some soup noodles
5. When noodles are soft (1-2 minutes) add soya sauce and remove from heat
6. Add a handful of raw peanuts
7. Enjoy!

Giulia left early this morning so I got up early to say goodbye to her. I miss her already and keep wondering when she is coming back into the room. It’s going to be really weird after Mona leaves tomorrow as well.

I went back to bed and got up around 11, at which point I spent most of my day fighting to get my VPN connected. In the meantime I read some of a book and cooked lunch (see green pepper and eggplant above). It was awesomely tasty! I went to the local vegetable store to buy supplies and apparently I’m still not trusting enough. You have to go into a cellar behind the store to get your vegetables and when I came back with an eggplant, a green pepper, an onion and a tomato the owner started weighing them to calculate the price. I kept seeing numbers like 30 and 40 on the scale-cash register thing and her calculator and I was thinking “oh boy, they’re going to cheat me now that I’m not here with Tana.” And then she turned to me and said “5 quai” which is approximately $1. My faith in nice locals has been restored!
On the other hand, when I got home I discovered that the peanuts I bought weren’t the tasty ones Mona got last time, but raw ones (hence the use of them in my recipes).

I made the second above dish for dinner and it was one of the best things I have ever tasted! Perhaps it was a tribute to Giulia’s Italianness. We were going to go to Begalar (the local restaurant) for dinner, but we decided to just hang out here instead.

I’m going to pick up my new visa tomorrow (yay!) and am catching a ride into the city with Mona.

On an even more awesome note, I’m going to Inner Mongolia with Tana next week!!!!!

I Don't Know

Okay, I give up, Chinese internet just sucks. I'll just read a book, or sleep more, or find a new chess partner... Except most of my workday is spent on the computer...so somehow that just doesn't work. Anyways, the reason my blog posts have become so infrequent is that I can rarely connect to VPN and thus rarely post. Tonight, for example, my mom has to log in and post for me.

Giulia had her last day at work today and Mona's is Thursday. I hope the new intern coming soon will be nice and will speak English, though it might be nice to practise some Spanish as well, since he is from Spain. On the other hand, I already seem to put a bunch of Spanish words in my Chinese -- I guess my brain doesn't like new languages.

"I don't know" seems to be one of the most common phrases here. Staff say it jokingly just to be annoying or in a shrug it off kind of way. I was thinking about how confusing a phrase it actually is when learning a new language -- bear with me here since I was thinking this around 7:30 during breakfast after night duty the other day. Anyways, one of the cooks came up to me and started trying to ask about a guest  and whether they had checked out. I told her I didn't know but couldn't get across the fact that I didn't know whether they had checked out, rather than that I didn't know what she was saying. A confused-looking face seems to get me to about the same place.

I tried to walk home from work today but it started raining as soon as I began my walk, so the car picked me up :( When we got back Mona was going to the gym as she often does. I don't usually join her because I hate gyms, but I decided to go and dance tonight. It was great! I miss dance class and I am going to miss Mona and Giulia!

Canada Day Stickers

Because I am a Girl Guide (okay, okay, maybe my Mom had the idea) I came prepared for Canada Day in China with stickers and temporary tattoos. Giulia looked at me like I was crazy this morning--until she put one on herself that is. I think I eventually had everyone from kitchen staff to the big bosses wearing at least one. I brought the sticker sheet out in the Brickyard at the end of the day and turned my back for only a second before it disappeared. Apparently the kitchen staff there wanted more...I saw a corner of it later peaking out from under a pan :)

Jake and Alex headed home today but we managed to get a nice group photo before they left. It’s going to feel funny not having them around. I posted it on the Schoolhouse Facebook page and got more response in one day than we usually get in a week.

We finally have internet access back in the residence, but I am sitting out in the living room because Giulia is trying to sleep in our room so she can get up in the middle of the night to watch the big soccer game between Spain and Italy. Bet you can’t guess who she is rooting for! Perhaps she needs some Italian stickers...

I’m not Dead, the Internet Just Sucks Part II

Happy Birthday to my Mom today! I wish I could be at home with her!

I haven’t posted on my blog in a long time because we have been having serious internet troubles. First we lost access in the residence and then the Chinese government started attacking our VPN and we lost access to non-Chinese internet everywhere (the restaurant, the residence, the Beijing office...). It was a serious problem because all of our reservation information is on Google documents, which we need VPN to access. All this to say that blogging has become very difficult.

I did eventually get my visa documentation sorted out and I should be able to pick up my passport with an extended visa in 5 days or so. I think they purposely put the entry-exit section of the public security office in the middle of nowhere so people won’t try to stay longer, but perhaps I am just directionally challenged. I went into Beijing just for the day to give in my passport but because we had no internet, I had no googlemaps. All I had was the name of the building and a street. Now if you’re from Montreal, just picture knowing you were looking for an office building on Sherbrooke. You might think it a daunting task! Now I did the only logical thing I could think of and started at the subway station named after the street (Sherbrooke metro in your imaginary tale). When I got outside I didn’t magically see a large office building appear, so I walked into a store, pointed to the address Mona had thankfully written in characters on a piece of paper for me and said: “is where?”

How the women in the clothes shop knew what direction to point me in, I have no idea, but I began walking, asking the same question along the way and eventually made it there. I even ran into another girl asking the same questions along my path and we searched together. I went through an agency, so there wasn’t much to do other than give them the paperwork I had already filled out and some money. I had to follow them into the main building where you would go if you were alone to have my picture taken and I think the extra money was worth it not to have to go through the fuss and lines. I will have to renew it one more time before I leave, so hopefully it will be even more painless.

Today was our first day of sun in about two weeks and boy had I forgotten quite how hot it gets! It was great to be able to walk home again tonight though :)

Jake and Alex had their last work day on Thursday so there was a goodbye party at Jim and Tang Liang’s last night. Lots of good food and good people and apparently good alcohol...Mona and Giulia have their last day on July 13th and 12th respectively, so everyone will be gone soon :(

I will try to blog again tomorrow, but a lot depends on the internet situation.