Finally found NOODLES!

Food.
Breakfast was American.  A good cure for my now mostly Chinese diet.  I find it helps keep Chinese food fresh and gives a boost of confidence to the stomach.  Today started with omlette 2.0, and updated version from yesterday with cheese--which was a bit strange, but edible.  Gregory's burners make a slightly browned omlette that holds together well.  I think I'm in love with these Chinese burners.  You may think this is an over-exaggeration but perhaps not when I mention the upcoming wedding of Johnny to Chinese burners.  See, it wasn't just some silly foreign fling, it was a real connection.  But I digress...  These burners happen to be the same ones that are in my apartment, which makes me happy. Small victories.

After breakfast, my silly jet lag started lagging.  I forced myself to fight it and began planning out my first lesson: What is Psychology?  It was kinda fun--not that I finished.  (Of course as I finished typing that sentence my principal just called, he's finally back in the country and can hopefully help me tomorrow).  I heard from Gregory, Elvis (a Senior year 2 (junior)), and Mike (an ex-Chengdu teacher) that the students rarely, if ever, read what is assigned.  Which may not be as crucial for math or science, but is more crucial for psychology.  Unlike the other subjects, one cannot just memorize all of psychology's quick facts because there are essays on the AP Exam.  The students are great at memorizing facts, but not in learning new concepts, so this could prove to be very tricky.  The book I picked seems good and easy to follow.  I went back-and-forth this morning with: what the hell am I doing here as a teacher, to oh this is gonna be so easy.  Guess I'll find out Saturday.

Then lunch time came around.  I had hoped to grab some noodles with Charles, but did not hear back from him so I headed out with Mike, the ex-Chengdu teacher, and his young Chinese girlfriend Lynette.   I heard from Charles later that he was feeling a bit under the weather.  All that sneezing was the start of allergies or a cold he thought.  I offered to bring him anything, but said he was gonna try to go find something to eat.

Lynette had gone to pick up a friend, Emma, so Mike and I walked to meet them at a restaurant.  I brought my camera in my messenger bag to look less touristy, but then felt weird taking pictures of the food with people I didn't know too well.  Where did my confidence go?  Whatever, I will eventually bust it out.  Lynette and Emma had ordered and the food arrived right after we did.  Fried jumbo shrimp served with fried corn landed on the table.  After eating shrimp in bacon yesterday, I decided I could probably handle this too.  The breading was more American, than Chinese.  I'm not sure what that means...maybe blander?  It was good, not such a shrimpy taste and the fried corn was wonderful: juicy corn within a crispy breaded crunch.  The other two dishes looked spicy with loads of peppers and peppercorn (my stomach shudders as I type peppercorn).

(A new paragraph to do this justice.)  The first of the two dishes was...eel.  It actually arrived first on the table, but the shock value is worth the switch, no?  Eel looks terrifying.  It's brown, long, wide and reminded me of a tape worm with the head piece, which Mike said I should not eat.  I took my time with some of the vegetables in the dish before I chopsticked an eel.  It was probably 6 feet long or, actually, 5 inches.  But it was a long 5 inches.  I set it right into my mou---the bowl.  Where I watched it, making sure it was dead.  As I learned later at dinner, eels are placed on the cutting board (alive) and a knife slits them open, the insides tossed (or probably used in some other dish) and then the fleshy part is cooked.  The eel looked dead (and clearly was) so I decided, hey, people must eat eel for a reason.  (Though China is known for eating all pieces of animals due to lack of funds as much as for taste).  I bit an inch or so off my eel and was pleasantly surprised.  The texture was firmer than anticipated and the taste was heavenly.  I don't think Lynette or Emma believed me that I liked it, so I ate another one later.  Eel is flavorful (as is all Chinese cooking, at least in the Sichuan province) and good.  Boy was I shocked.  Then my attention turned to the 2nd dish put down.

Emma looked at me and smiled, "Do you know what this is?"

"No."

"Frog."

"Frog????"

"Frog.  Try it, it's good. Be careful of the bones".

"Frog????"

I again went for the vegetables.  In the frog stew was the same lime green vegetable that was in my first Chinese meal on my own, though Emma nor Lynette could not tell me what it was.  Well, I thought, I've tried eel, how bad can it be?  Just something about a frog made me more hesitant.  But I found the frog piece in my rice bowl, and eventually I found sweet, delicious frog in my mouth.  I couldn't believe it, I mean it was good, like really good with a texture that was superb.  There were some tiny frog bones to place on my napkin, but my gosh was it good!  However, as good as the eel and the frog were it is still hard for my eyes to eat them.  That's really were the hesitation comes from, frog bites and eel slices do not look very appetizing.  All throughout the spicy and delicious lunch, I was laughing at myself for failing to take it slow with the new food.

Emma just graduated from Sichuan University with a degree in English (like most of the graduates).  Thus like most American English graduates, she works as a waitress.  But unlike American English majors, she works in a Chinese karaoke bar.  Where one can also ask for a girl.  Not a prostitute, but you are allowed to touch(??), according to Mike.  How is this okay? I wonder, forgetting that such things exist in the US as well.  Mike likes Chinese girls, especially Lynette, and thus assumes that I must be crazy about Chinese girls as well.  He and every Chinese girl I've met assumes I want to know how to get a Chinese girl.  I assure them that I want to find friends first, but I'm not sure they believe me.  Mike mentions how I could easily find a girl to live with me and do my laundry, cook, and clean up in front of the girls, even suggesting Emma.  Granted I assume when Emma was a roommate of Mike's, Mike paid her share of the rent and thus, perhaps, more fair than it sounds, but it still struck me as an awkward arrangement.  Not wanting to explain all my views on gender equality, I instead mention that I can cook for myself.  Lynette smiles, and I switch the conversation to music before biting into the peppercorn from hell.  Or the fires of Mt. Dune.  Or maybe the red hot sun:

My celebration about all this new food was severely dampened by a mistaken bite into a Sichuan peppercorn.  My mouth caught fire and then went numb.  My gums felt strange and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I may not have only eaten something spicy, but my body might be slightly allergic.  I'm not sure.  My face flushed to the slight concern of Emma and all of a sudden I was exhausted and all my glee about new food was gone.  I kept my composure and after a few minutes, my tongue, cheeks, and gums regained sensation.  My lips were warm for maybe an hour or two after and the exhaustion eventually lifted.  Hard to say how much was jet lag, anxiety, or the actual peppercorn. Regardless, I will not be making that mistake soon.  My stomach was not very happy at the end of lunch, nor my mind.  So I found myself at home, in my bed, in jet lag comma.

After catching up on news and Domino's, a friend from Vassar who is Auparing in Germany, blog, which is wonderful, I went back to the task at hand of lesson planning.  Then Linda arrived.  She was just promoted at her work in the US consulate.  Though should I ever go there I can't mention I know her.  She is 23 (Lynette being 22) so I have met some people my age.  We headed out to dinner with Mike to get...NOODLES!  Lynette ordered off the all-Chinese, no picture, menu and the noodles were delicious.  Some sort of meat, garlic, onions, spices, MSG, soy sauce; the best really.  Over dinner we talked about US vs. Chinese governments, Linda's desire to vote and search the web unrestricted, good clubs, good food including snake, snake eggs, deep fried scorpions, and more.  Lynette and Mike were headed to a new club, but I felt I had to blog--no, not really.  Mike seems to party very very hard and that didn't sound like a great idea with my body this week.  Linda and I exchanged numbers, as I did with Emma.  I now have four phone contacts of people who speak Chinese and English, the other two being Sarah from Dipont and Lynette.  Linda said she wants to work on her English and I desperately want to speak Chinese--at least enough to order food and ask someone how they are and understand their answer...maybe directions too.  I head back to Gregory's where gwy-gwy greets me.

A good day for new foods and new friends.  And an okay day for lesson planning.

And maybe my "my gosh I'm in China moment" won't ever come.  Or maybe I'm still in disbelief.  Or maybe I'm worried about teaching and my job before I can take the mental energy to process this move.  My money's on maybe I just need to see a panda.