Birthdays Galore

The past week has been fairly quite, aside from my senior classes ending, and celebrating birthdays of two friends. I gave the seniors a short final and asked for feedback on the back of their test paper. I think one of the best comments was "James, you are my 2nd favorite foreign teacher. (Aaron is my first)." I thought it was a great compliment and felt very touched by her words, honestly. I heard a rumor that we would have the same students next semester, which bodes well for me, since, I really enjoy the students that I had.

Last weekend, I met Kevin's two friends, Monique and Jessica, who was celebrating her birthday. We had a nice, frigid stroll along the Song Hua River and ended in a bakery, sharing some cake and hot "chocolate." Along the way we found a pack (group?) of bull statues and enjoyed the sunset (which I think starts around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, *tear).

Our Korean friend, Joo also celebrated his birthday this past week. We went to this pretty fancy restaurant, where the "lazy Susan" was the epitome of lazy, it was battery operated! Anyhoo, the party was fun and as Matt said, "this place certainly has the best presentation of any restaurant in Jilin, I hope its not too expensive." Towards the end of our festivities, we played an infuriating game called, "two up, one up/one down, two down." Its actually an amusing party game which involves drinking, if that's your bag.

The birthday boy, Joo and his favorite cake
The spread on the self-rotating table
oddly colored vegetable shrimp and fish
Hooray! 好哇!

Triple Birthday and a trail of Donkey carnage

Last night, we met up with foreign teachers and Chinese friends to celebrate Matt's and two Japanese teachers' birthdays, Mikao and Sannei. We had a private room with a gi-normous table for 16 people with a lazy susan. We ended up ordering a set menu and thus a myriad of dishes came to us. Often in Chinese cuisine, certain dishes are not recognizable and require one to ask about the content. I totally understand this predicament, as I try to avoid meat. However, last night during the meal, there was quite a spectacle.

One of the guests, aptly with her chopsticks, picked up a pita pocket thing, filled with meat and started to eat it. She has been a teacher in Jilin for about 2 years, I believe, so I would expect her to have some cultural sensitivity or at the very least good manners. So when someone asked what was inside and the response was Donkey, she immediately hurled the pita pocket which landed on the table and made a huge commotion by spitting out the food and screaming. I sympathize with her that she had donkeys on her farm growing up and couldn't fathom eating a childhood friend, but at the same time, if I had accidentally eaten a furry friend, I certainly would not throw, spit or scream. I, as my other friends, were horrified and felt awful for this show of disrespect towards our friends who had planned this wonderful evening. As we strolled along the trail of Donkey Carnage, others stopped and enjoyed the pita pockets and hopefully made some small amends towards our hostesses. Matt ingeniously placed his camera on the edge of the lazy susan and set it to video (can you find me!?)

The candle on the cake was also quite spectacular and we took a video of the show, as it blasted the Happy Birthday song and blossomed:

Imagine in China, using chopsticks to eat cake!

Birthday Fun

I turned 27 years old yesterday and at first I thought, "eh, its only 27" but when it actually happened, I felt odd as I am only 3 years away from 30. Maybe its because most of the people in the program are younger than me that has made me feel old. For example, I had mentioned that my high school classmates are planning our 10th year reunion and my friends in the cab were shocked. One of them said that in 1998, he was in seventh grade!

Regardless of turning 27, yesterday was interesting for me because I've started to delve into the paradigms of being an "ABC" (American Born Chinese) and now living in . I've heard mixed feelings from the couple of Chinese-American Teachers who have already gone through the program.

Their students could not fathom how someone who looks like them could not speak their language, which is my case and kind of exemplifies the "ABC" phenomenon Furthermore, they experienced some discrimination by other Asians! When the foreigners sat at a dinner table, they made the ABCs eat at a different table because even though they were American, they still looked Chinese and were not worthy enough to eat at the visitors' table.

I had some anticipation of this sort of treatment, after all, I experience it all the time in the US. Questions like "so, where are you from?" my answer: Connecticut, their response "no, I meant where are you from?" my answer: Connecticut. Nevertheless, in a way, I was hoping to find some sort of connection, besides appearance, with my Chinese ancestry. I guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

In keeping with my Asian heritage, I took a pose with Bruce Lee:



Anyhoo, I had a great birthday. The folks in the program were super great and got me a cake and card. We went out to Victoria Peak which has some spectacular, panoramic views of Kowloon.

Usually, when I stand on the balcony, there are clear views of the beach and somewhat out into the ocean, but yesterday, I was able to see the islands and beyond because it was there were no clouds or pollution. This was the perfect set up for going up to Victoria Peak, and I took a video and am digging this new video option on blogspot:

1st Birthday Party

Wei-En turned one year old today and to celebrate, we had an "American" dinner. Everyone had mashed potatoes, corn/pea mix, salad, and steak, but me, who had some salmon. In addition, there was some cream of chicken soup. My aunt later in the evening said, "oh its okay that Jimmy eats the soup."

My aunt keeps on trying to trick me to eat meat. Earlier today, I was helping myself to dumplings and she was encouraging me to eat it and served me some sauce. As I cut into the dumpling, I thought that it resembled a little pork ball. So I turned to my cousin and asked her and she confirmed my suspicion. My aunt replied, "oh, its okay." Its actually amusing and I don't mind as she's only trying to look out for me.

In Chinese culture, noodles are served to people on their birthday because its believed that eating long noodles grantees a long life. So Wei-En is enjoying some noodles and as my cousin pointed out "eating it primitive style" with his hands.


One of his gifts is the yellow polo shirt pictured is all the rage right now in Thailand. The shirt was created last year and honors King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the 60th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. Its yellow because Thai tradition assigns color for each day of the week. He was born on a Monday, thus now Bangkok is blanketed daily in yellow. When I wander outside, each day, there are plethora of people wearing this shirt. The support of royalty here is incredible.