Tuesday 20 January 2009

Ouch

I burnt my tongue on the soup from a soup dumpling today. 

I then tried to read our table's food docket (which was all in Chinese), and I must've had a combination pained/puzzled look on my face, because my friend asked me if everything was okay.

"Oh yeah, I'm just trying to read this thingy..."

Curse you, delicious soup dumpling.

Thursday 15 January 2009

It's probably better that I don't know

I don't know what one of the components of my dinner was tonight.  I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing.

I went to a nearby little restaurant that I haven't tried before.  I ordered takeaway beef on rice with green veges.  Fairly safe, I hoped.

Unfortunately, they were all out, so I had to make another choice.  I had a look at the pictures, and nothing else really looked appetizing (or recognisable).  The guy suggested the last picture, which looked kind of like pork ribs, although I didn't recognise any of the characters in the name (there wasn't even the one for meat!).  So I hope it was some fancy name for something that I'm happy eating, because it was more expensive than the beef.

In any case, it was pretty average.  The soup was fine and so were the rice and veges.  The meat was ribby, and a little gristly. 

I still ate most of it.

I'm really not that picky, especially when I make an effort not to think about the possibilities.

Friday 9 January 2009

Mmm. Medicine I can't read.

One of my new coworkers has been sick since he started, and, bless him, he's concerned about my wellbeing. I have blamed being really tired for being late to work the last three days (it's a six-day week, and I stay late, dammit), and yesterday he gave me a packet of some kind of medicine to take. He didn't want me to pick anything up from him, which is lovely.

This morning I did wake up feeling sketchy, so upon arrival at work (slightly late), I decided to give the magic packet of something a go. I poured it out into a glass, and it looked kind of like Bisto (the granules, not the powder). I've also had ginseng tea that came in the same sort of form. I added some hot water, and it still looks like Bisto. It smells and tastes like liquid Ryvita, though, which is really weird. Not entirely unpleasant, but I'm going to let it cool down a little before I chug the lot. Let's hope it doesn't make me feel worse.

Monday 5 January 2009

Small Change

I have an unnecessary number of small bills in my wallet at the moment because during several of my last cash transactions I haven't understood the cashier, so just handed over a hundred RMB note to be safe.  They seem to like giving me my large amounts of change in 5RMB notes, too.  I really need to learn the special word for 20 (used only when talking about money).  It took me a long time to come to grips with it in Cantonese (and I've since forgotten what it is), and now I have to learn another one.  Boo.


Saturday 3 January 2009

Introductions and new beginnings

I've been meaning to start this blog for a few months, since just before I arrived in China.  I fully intended to document the experience of being a Chinese foreigner in China, lacking the ability to speak or read the language, but looking for all intents and purposes like I can.  As it is, I have been either too lazy or too busy to do it, and nearly four months have flown by in the meantime. 

I've never written under a pseudonym before, but for whatever reason I decided to do it here.  Partially I don't want my current or future employers, or people I don't really know, to read it, but that's mostly because I intend to express a lot of the emotions I'm really experiencing, which I have no doubt will leave me feeling somewhat exposed, which I'm not entirely comfortable with.  So for reasons that I'll probably explain later, I'll be writing as Starla May Chan. 

My family is originally from Guangdong province in China, but my siblings and I were born and raised in an English-speaking country, with not that many other Chinese around (at the time).  I am third generation on my mother's side, and find I use that as an excuse for not speaking Chinese much more than I probably should.  In any case, even if we did speak Chinese, we would've been raised speaking Cantonese, not Mandarin, which wouldn't do me much good here in Shanghai. 

In any case, I just wanted to say hi to the world.  I hope now that it's a brand new year, I will be making regular contributions here.  Here's hoping.

Nice to have you here, and have a happy 2009!