Friday of 7th Week

I just finished talking (in Chinese, of course) with another American
studying Chinese at a different summer program at BeiYu. It turns out
she went to college at Bryn Mawr, which is very close to where my
family is. We also had a lot of Romanians going through the hotel
this week; a "BeiYu bubble" definitely exists, separating the rest of
Beijing from the international BeiYu. In fact, one of the teachers
told us in class that BeiYu's nickname is "Little United Nations."
The air pollution here, for lack of a better word, sucks. Yesterday,
a visibly thick layer of smog blanketed the city, and my throat was
actually burning with particles when I went for a run. This might
have been mainly due the construction next to the track, but really,
the smog isn't helping.
Today we had a special opportunity. After the exam this morning,
three other students, two professors and I went to Qinghua university
to interview an Inter-Universities Program (another Chinese program)
teacher who is getting married in two weeks. We got to ask her a lot
of questions about marriage traditions and how marriage is done in
China. One thing I found quite amusing is that the morning of the
ceremony, the bride's family and friends will gather at her house.
When the groom comes to pick her up, they will try to prevent him from
entering or prevent the bride from leaving, for example forcing him to
sing a song to their satisfaction before letting him in or hiding the
bride's shoes. Probably the most interesting part was an exclamation
from our teachers - when we (the students) were explaining the concept
of a gift registry, they burst out, laughing, "Too direct!" (In
China, friends and family often give money to let the bride and groom
decide what they would like and less often give concrete gifts, but
nothing like a list of what the bride and groom would like so that
there will be no conflict/duplicates exists). Afterward, we went to
the mall in Wudaokou for Chinese table (at a pizza place - to be
frank, this pizza has a long way to go, as the kind we had would only
really pass for boxed and frozen pizza in America).
For those of you who have heard the phrase "the omnivore's dilemma",
of the places I've eaten at, this is nowhere better exemplified than
in the street food of Beijing (for those of you who haven't, it means
that omnivores have a dilemma in eating new, untried food - it may be
tasty and provide vital nutrients that you aren't already getting, but
it can also be bad for you or make you sick). There are two
prevailing opinions on street food - that eating it is pretty much a
guarantee of painful digestive tract problems, or that it's not only
the best food around but also cheap to boot. Both have truth. Street
food is very hit-and-miss - some stands are much better than others,
some cover up poor ingredients with an overabundance of oil, and some
are just flat-out unsafe - undercooked and other problems. The good
news is that not only is it fairly easy to tell what tastes good (look
at the number of people trying to buy a stand's food) but also you can
see the entire cooking process and notice if something's not going to
be good for you (for example, I saw a stall that didn't cook it's food
through and duly avoided it). Of course, this doesn't apply when you
can't see the process, but in most cases it is evident. The best meals
I've had have have been street food - specifically malatang
(ingredients cooked in a boiling spicy broth). I don't get the point
of "ma" (numbing flavor found in Sichuan peppercorns) flavor, though;
if you numb your mouth, you can't taste anything, which isn't good.
No planned activity this weekend, so I'm thinking tomorrow I'll go to
either the hutongs (old town), the Forbidden City, or just walk
around. I really need to decide this weekend where I'm going to go
for my post-HBA trip . . . Yunnan's looking good, though I need to buy
plane tickets for that (38 hours by train is really not worth it).
Sichuan's not bad, either.