Mid Autumn Baked Goods

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!  The festival day is actually Sunday this year, according to the Lunar calendar.  The festival, also known as the Moon Cake Festival, celebrates the moon and maybe some deity who used to live on it.  Always held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, this holiday is around 3,000 years old though an official holiday in P.R. of China for only a few years--giving everyone in China the excuse not to work for a day.

The holiday is celebrated by eating moon cakes, floating lanterns, and matchmaking...so it sounds like many other holidays with one big exception: moon cakes.  These colorful pastries with wild fillings are found everywhere this week.  My boss gave me a couple to take home last Friday and one week later; there are no survivors.  The fillings ranged from delicious coconut to ghastly!  I bit into one a few days ago and met with the unexpected flavor of the sea--fish!  As much as I tried to consume the cake, I gave up halfway through.  Which set up a quick trip to a Chinese bakery the next day quite well.

Chinese bakeries are to bakeries as chicken feet are to chicken wings.  Similar as they share a word "bakery" but completely different.  I'm a bakery guy.  The smell of fresh bread is one of the best scents in the world and brings me right back to farming days in upstate New York.  This smell does not exist in a Chinese bakery.  Because they don't really make bread...they think they make bread, but they are sadly mistaken.  Milk breads, steamed breads, coconut milk breads, and more kinds than I've ever seen...but not bread bread, or should I say to clarify: Western bread.  I should add though, that they also don't carry Tibetan bread which is quite hearty.  So why was I in this bakery?  Curiosity and a doughnut shape.

Nothing could prepare me for my tour around the shop resulting in my discovery of cuttlefish bread.  I think there was some vegetable involved as well.  First of all, cuttlefish?  We're in Chengdu--miles away from the ocean and besides that, who thinks of these pastry ideas?  Sometimes I think it's someone in China's job to just see Western things and try as hard as possible to do the exact opposite.  I think a french baguette and cuttlefish are a prime example of this theory, so now I submit this to you as fact.

I must say I left the bakery with my doughnuts and a large smile on my face.  This country is often too much for me, but that night it was just amusing.  Perhaps I'll get the courage to try the cuttlefish bread.  But as of yet...I think not.  Something about that fishy moon cake taste still lingering in my mind.


All in all, the moon cake festival is becoming a favorite of mine as many of the pastries I have bitten into have delicious fillings.  That and the fact that this festival is back-to-back with Oct 1, Chinese National Day which combined gives us 8 days off work.

Moon cakes are sure to be available at your local China town/neighborhood this week.  Though not sure about their bakery presence, as funnily enough, the Chinese bakery wasn't selling moon cakes...puzzling.  Enjoy the full moon this Saturday night and don't forget to release your floating lantern and try to find your friends their perfect match!

What a long strange trip it's been...

Wow.   My last post was in May, ages ago as it's almost October.  October 2nd is my one year anniversary outside of the United States and one year in Asia.  I say Asia, and not China, as I spent about 4.5 weeks in Nepal this summer.  Summer already feels like another lifetime, clearly...it's been too long.

I haven't blogged because there's been too much to say and also not enough to say.  Life is interesting, always interesting and sometimes really confusing.  My first post on this blog, many many months ago was about what I am doing in China.  Well looking back, I lied a bit.  I didn't know and guess what, I still don't.  Glad to clear the air on that one.  A good friend has suggested I be more honest with those folks back home.  Here goes nothing.

I am no longer teaching AP psychology and now wear the title of "senior college counselor".  I am not entirely sure what it means, but now work in three Chinese high schools in Chengdu, doing my best to help kids figure out what they want in terms of higher education.  But really, it's helping them figure out who they are.  And when I write it like that, I feel good.  And when I feel good I sing.  Totally stole those lyrics from Jason Mraz, but also very true in my life.

The three schools: Shishi (A-Level), Shude (AP), and Chengwai (AP) will keep me plenty busy.  But unlike last year, I come home with no work to do.  A rule I hope to keep.  Sometimes someone will e-mail me after 6...and now I just let it go until 9 AM the next day.  It's part of my "this year will be better".  But will it?  I'm writing this almost 6 weeks after coming back--so clearly things haven't been going my way.

I've been upset about staying, upset about being here and just plain upset.  This experience, which I haven't often spoke of like this before, is really really really really really difficult.  Like super difficult.  Like what the hell am I doing in China difficult.  It's not just a language barrier, it's a culture barrier.  It's sometimes the little things of getting upset at Chinese etiquette on buses or bigger things like asking dangerously big questions to an empty room.  It's also the empty room.

I have a weekend roommate, Lynette, in our new place downtown.  Spent last weekend finally making it feel more like home, which for anyone that's ever lived with me knows means putting shit on walls.  I strung some white Christmas lights around the window and dining area, put up large black construction paper to become a photo wall, and, of course, strung up Tibetan prayer flags (mostly contained in my room).  Too many trips to IKEA and too much money spent resulted in some extra furniture to help the small kitchen function and my mind feel more sane.  That expression "life simply so that others may simply live" sometimes haunts me truthfully.  However, if I can make this home a safe haven from all of it--a retreat to return to and relax, then I think having a better year will be far easier achieved.  I feel better when where I live feels like a home.  Which yes, truthfully, involves other people and not heartless IKEA furniture. 

Jerry came over last night to pick me up and try to de-hermit me and was nice enough to comment that I'm a good at this--this being making bland apartment's into Johnny's home.  It's a skill I picked up in my Freshmen dorm room when I dared to put blue painter's tape on the wall.  Perhaps it's my form of OCD--controlling my home environment when the rest of life feels so out of control.  But once it is done, I sleep better, I breath better, I smile more while home.  Because I'm home and not living in an apartment in Chengdu that has cockroaches, even if this home does have cockroaches.  Meh.

The hermit-ing was more a side effect of a run in with glandular fever (mono) that knocked me off my feet for two weeks, even though I made it to HK for a quick business trip.  A friend from the UK Steve, who I met in the summer from Nepal, was visiting when the mono struck.  But it hit hard after a day that started with viewing the Chengdu pandas being so active.  They played King-of-the-hill, adorable style as well, they're freakin' pandas! 

I hope to take Chinese classes, but I've been saying that since back from Nepal.  But with the stress of returning to work (and China) and mono, it hasn't happened yet.  I think it will after the holiday, for this Sunday starts 8 days of holiday.  Between the mono, the stress, and a visa renewal my plan to try and see Mongolia fell apart.  Perhaps it's okay, as I'm still getting over the mono and am supposed to "take it easy" whatever that means.

So conclusion: life is okay.  It's not great, this isn't always where I want to be.  But hey, if I can do this, the making this year a better year thing, then I can do it anywhere.  Really though, I hope to use this year to figure out next year.  I'm still no closer to a goal of sorts and from watching friends I see how important having a goal is--really gives one a sense of direction.  It's going to be a journey this year, that's for sure.  Last year was so busy that I didn't have the time to think it felt and when I did think it was often exhausted negative thoughts about China.  But I can do better, I can always be better.  Because I can learn, right?  Isn't that's what liberal arts colleges are for? To teach us how to learn. 

Oh and, I learned that when it's your year (like how it's my dragon year currently) it's not a lucky thing.  You are supposed to wear red to bring luck because actually, it's a HARD YEAR -- supposed to test you.  So watch out everyone for the years you're turning 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, and beyond.  Then again, not everyone moves to China to turn 24.  Silly me I suppose, but hey, right now I feel good.  I'm home, I'm comfortable, I ate a reheated dinner that I cooked yesterday, and was able to find the health care I needed for mono--so all things considered, I'm good, really good in comparison to the quality of life I saw this summer in Nepal.  Then again, the Nepalese seemed to smile much more than any other people I've met.  A price of the 1st world lifestyle I suppose.

So this is me, honestly, and this is my second year.  Now join me and test me and help keep me honest as I battle self-doubts, fears, and whatever else comes my way as I try to make this the best year yet.  And finally I leave you with a quote that a friend of mine once posted to Facebook from, I think he said, an Indian proverb or saying:

Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.