Awesome Apples

I think this is SO much fun!

A Sheet Surprise!

I bought a bed sheet, took it home as one is wont to do with the goods they have exchanged money for, and opened up the package.

  Well, hello there! What are you doing on the cheapest sheet for sale? Inside the packaging?

I was a little annoyed, and quite perplexed, but in the end I just sacrificed the imprisoned sheet-corner for the sake of not having to go back to the store.

"You owe me, Security Tag! That sheet corner was a vital element of the overall integrity of that sheet. You have not heard the last of me!"

Proof that Chinese cuisine just doesn't *get* cheese.

Mooncakes? Meh.

Last week, on the 12th, China celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival by giving me the day off.

The gourmet specialty of Mid-Autumn Festival is the mooncake. I sampled three kinds.

 L-R: pear, red bean, & pumpkin.

The one filled with red bean paste was labeled 豆沙, which literally translates into  "bean sand" :D .

pear, red bean, & pumpkin

Mooncakes are like less-than-excellent fig newtons. (Maybe you'd say that fig newtons are less-than-excellent fig newtons, but I happen to like them, especially the raspberry ones.) As you can see, they're cake-like shells filled with very dense, lackluster paste of whatever filling. 

And I am not alone in my dissatisfaction. Estimating that I see 75 different students a week, I'd say only about 10% of them said they liked mooncakes.

~

One last thing: I don't have photos of it, but I unknowingly had a bite of a mooncake with some sort of egg yolk in it, and it was foul!!! As well as fowl.

ba-dum-dum-tssssssh!

With Jules in mind: The Onion for China

Next time you're online, using your time efficiently and being a dynamic member of the weberverse, I recommend wasting a little time reading the headlines (or maybe even the articles!) on this blog: Chinese Daily Show. It has absolutely nothing to do with my beloved Daily Show, but in fact takes its name from the English-language newspaper, China Daily. Fittingly, it's pretty much a knock-off of The Onion.


A selection of the collection of ludicrous articles*:

*Clicking on the images should take you to the articles themselves, if you're interested.

Wikipedia doesn't know what it's talking about...

Yard long beans are too a yard long!

Tell me that's not a yard.

What the heck kind of fruit is this?

It looks vaguely like an apple, has the texture of an apple with a thicker peel, and, here's the catch, a pit.

Combinations of the terms "apple" + "pit" turned up nothing relevant in Google.

"A Pictorial Guide to Life in China"

Want to live in China? Head on over to the blog Sinosplice for a facetious but entirely accurate Know Before You Go list.

"So environmental protection has not exactly “caught on” yet in China. You might find this disturbing at first, and think about it a lot. Don’t worry, soon you’ll be wallowing in toxic apathy with the rest of us!"

Adventures in Chinglish: More Trash Can Commmentary

These were in front of the elevator one day.

YiWingKi's Grasshopper

This is YiWingKi [pronounced /ee-wing-kee/].

Self-named, YiWingKi is one of the most affable, eager students I have ever met. I'm pretty sure she'll be fluent in English by the time she graduates high school.


Today she brought in a hand-folded paper envelope with a live grasshopper inside. She only had it because it was cute, she said, and that after lunch she would do the kind thing and return it to it's home near her house.

When I avoided holding it, citing that I don't like bugs because they have so many legs, YiWingKi graciously offered to remove a couple for me.


I declined.

Spotted in Shanghai...

They totally still rollerskate / rollerblade here.

rp: What Are Young Chinese People Thinking?

I sincerely recommend checking out this chinaSMACK post about the thoughts of some young Chinese people, recorded in photographs by a British photographer. I was moved a little by some of the reflections. [There are English translations typed below the photos with Chinese script.]

 

There are even more photos at the photographer's site, www.adrianfisk.com --> New Stories --> iSpeakChina