Kiki came for my tutoring today and we talked again about how totally SILLY the dialogues and stuff are in the text book. Here’s an example of the insanity. In lesson 3 (which is just past saying Hello and how are you?) you are supposed to learn the word for ‘reporter’, that’s right, reporter. Now in lesson 11 I just learned the terms for all the types of money and what they look like. The people using this textbook are supposed to be LIVING in China. Don’t you think knowing about money would come a whole lot sooner than learning the word for reporter? It’s just too funny.
Kiki brought Nadia a bunch of Chinese children’s DVDs as a gift. She also brought her some year of the dog business card sized calendars for Nadia that are too cute. For me she brought a book of her grandfather’s paintings that have been turned into postcards. What a gift!!!! I will treasure them. She told me last week that she misses him very much. They are really beautiful paintings of fish. That is what I will be doing in Week 4 of class and Jenny told me they are hard and now that I have looked at these, I can see why.
Several days ago Kiki and Jing invited us to dinner at their house tonight. I was very excited and so was Kiki – she’s been talking with me about it all week. We wanted to take something for a hostess gift and I was told that a dessert or fruit would be good, but nothing was expected. We decided to give them 4 Wonderbars (made in Texas) and I went to the pastry shop to get a cake. These cakes are so beautiful that it was really hard to decide on one!
We headed over to their apartment by bus, and let me tell you, that was an adventure in itself at rush hour. Kiki told us what bus to get on and what stop to take – thank goodness she wrote that down. We got on the bus. Here is how they work in Beijing. A) you have a driver. His job is to drive as fast as possible, stop for 3 seconds to let people on, and honk the horn really loud at the pedestrians and bicycles. B) you have a woman in the middle of the bus next to the back door who collects the money from the people who don’t have passes. She collects this after the bus is moving…none of that while on the 3 second stop.
Now I went through this once this week with Kiki in the middle of the week to go to the Tea House. Except for getting on and off in a hurry, it was a mellow event. Tonight we had as Mike said, “The Little Dictator looking out over her domain.” We got on the bus, she saw Mike with Nadia in the carrier and starts yelling at this guy to give up his seat. She then tells Mike to SIT! I give her the money and she asks where we are going. I show her the paper. She nods and gives me the tickets. Next stop. A seat opens up, so I take it. About 600 people jam onto the bus at this point. 7 get off. Next stop another 300 people get on, but at least 100 get off so it’s practically roomy inside. All the while I am trying to protect the cake! As we are getting close to the stop the lady tells Mike to get up!! And me to get up!! And she tells this other girl to take my seat and get out of the way. Then another person takes Mike’s seat. All right…..I am psyching myself out….we only have 2.5 seconds to push our way to the door and get off before the crazy bus driver takes off honking down the road. Oh yeah, don’t drop the cake! As we are standing up – jammed with all the people I say, “Oh the humanity!!!” The bus stops….we jam our way out and off the bus. I am laughing at this point because the whole thing was so crazy. If I could have got the camera out it would have been an awesome shot to see my view looking to the back of the bus. But sadly the sardine can didn’t allow me to get to the contents of my backpack.
Now we got to Kiki’s house and they were waiting for us in the courtyard area and took us up to their apartment. It was bigger than the one we are in and decorated very nicely. It was the same style though…a long rectangle with the rooms all branching off one area. Tiny, tiny kitchen. Bathroom with no shower curtain (why I ask you? why?) But, if I moved to China, their place is how I could see our apartment being. The place we are in now is just a rental, so it doesn’t have those homey touches or nice furniture. We got there and visited for a bit and Kiki served up some of her tea for us. She did the same kinds of things they did at the tea house which was fun – as she said, her set is just smaller. She had some strawberries out and Nadia had a great time playing with them rather than eating them.
Then Kiki started cooking and I had to go over and watch her with the wok (or whatever they call it here) and I was practically drooling from the smell and how fresh the veggies looked. She made snap peas with garlic, Chinese cabbage with mushrooms, pork and monkey-head-mushroom soup, English cucumbers stir fry, and rice. She also made a fabulous potato, onion and spicy bacon fry with pepper. Everything was delicious and I ate a ton. She had strawberry yogurt for Nadia which was really sweet. I was very excited about tonight because we were going to someone’s home for dinner. That was way more fun than going to a restaurant because you are able to see how people live and spend time with them in their home.
After dinner we all just watched Nadia. What’s new, right? Nadia was having a grand old time and Kiki said something about her dancing and so I started singing. Nadia started the toddler riverdance and I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. I have been working with her on it, but this was the first time that I have seen her really go to town and keep doing it for a long time. Nadia also liked their kitties, and one was almost as big as her! We all visited a little while longer and then we headed home in a cab because it was Nadia’s bed time. Oh, and Kiki gave Nadia one more Chinese DVD when we got there tonight.
Now about the cab. The guy took us right to our apartment building and as we were driving up to it he pointed to the building and I shouted out, “Si!” Then Mike swooped in and told the guy in Chinese, “Here.” I paid and got out and Mike started teasing about me saying “Si.” He was like, “We’re not in Mexico.” At that point I was just laughing hysterically. I just knew I needed to answer the guy in a different language, but the Spanish just popped out! That was a great funny way to end our evening out!
