Daily Discovery

November 29: It looks like I am back on that food cooking grind here in Wuwei. I put together a bit of hummus this morning - it was my first attempt at making hummus in China and it turned out pretty darn well. Substitute in one of those white flatbreads that are sold everywhere in Gansu for the missing pita bread, and it is a delicious treat.

The only downside? The cost of lemons in Wuwei. They're not exactly local, or probably in season, so buying two lemons for the week cost me half of the amount I would normally spend on vegetables for a week here. But it was worth it!

If anyone from Gansu is reading this post, then you'll be in on the game a bit early: I'll be making a bunch of hummus to take to our Friendsgiving in Tianshui this weekend - a bunch of PCVs from Gansu will be heading there together to hang out and have a potluck dinner.

November 27: Most of my classes this year take place at night, during the student's normal evening self-study times. Essentially, students are required to be in their classroom for 2 hours every evening before lights out, usually from 8-10 pm. Whether students actually study during this time is another point of debate, as some students really want to study, but it is made difficult by peers who just want to sleep, chat, watch TV or play games during that time.

Teachers aren't really around during this time, and the monitoring of students falls to the second-year students in each department, who set up a desk on the ground floor near the only door that is unlocked, and make sure that nobody leaves the building during the class time.

November 25: It's a great Sunday with a few great friends here in Wuwei. A colleague of mine and her husband invited me to get lunch with them, and originally we planned on cooking food at their house, but they were a bit tired from the weekend, so we changed plans and headed to the Wanda Plaza to eat some food there.

Luckily, they had purchased a big meal-deal type coupon on Single's Day a few weeks ago for Pizza Hut and decided that today would be the day to cash it in.

So we stopped by for a veritable feast at Pizza Hut: chicken wings (for them), pizza (for all of us), french fries, ice cream, a chocolate cake, a cup of fruit tea and an imported beer. It was an interesting combination, particularly since the ice cream was the first thing served here, but it was all quite good, made better by the company of good friends.

November 23: It's Black Friday - shopping galore .. perhaps .. if you are in the States. But here in Wuwei, it's just another day.

Unless you go to the Wanda Center, then it can be a day of shopping if you like. I was just picking up a few essentials like eggs, but walking out I noticed this store.

Tommy Crown. With the exact same logo as Tommy Hilfiger. But, looking online in a quick search, I see no results for Tommy Crown as a legitimate brand of clothing, or as an off-shoot label of Tommy Hilfiger. Fascinating.

I'm not big into the clothing world, so I really have no idea if it is legitimate or not... but, either way, it's interesting.

November 21: It's not quite Thanksgiving yet, but it's coming up quick! I'm teaching my students tonight a short lesson about Thanksgiving in my family, and extending our previous lesson on foods to include some of the special treats found on Thanksgiving: cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, stuffing, and a few others. Then we will talk about Black Friday and how it is similar to China's 11.11 (Single's Day), but started out as in-store deals.

I bought some butter a few days after Single's Day, because it was super cheap ... half the price of what I would pay in the States, so I am not positive that it is real, pure butter, but we will see tomorrow as it finally arrived today. I'll be putting it to the test with some cookies tomorrow as I celebrate Thanksgiving with my students.

It's not Thanksgiving yet, but it's never too early to be thankful - today I am extremely thankful for my counterpart teacher who thought that 10 days without internet for preparing classes (and writing to you all) wasn't a good solution, and managed to get my internet back in a fraction of the time! Thank you, Mr. Zhou!

November 19: The gym that I go to when I have the time is close to the Wanda plaza, and if I decide to walk home from the gym, then I usually walk past the Wanda center just to see what is going on.

Today I saw huge lines of people standing outside waiting to get into the Wanda center, so naturally I had to go and take a look.

I was fascinated to see that each person was waiting in line with multiple bags - seasoned professionals, clearly - at each of the two lines set up, and once they arrived at the front of the line, someone was handing out a cup of rice, a couple of eggs, or some cooking oil.

I noticed that the people handing out these items were wearing and standing under advertisements for different companies or shops in the plaza's stores, and when I asked my host mom about it, she told me that this is extremely common in China, despite the fact that I hadn't seen it before.

Companies and brands will have giveaways like this daily to advertise their products or draw people to areas with their stores. Sometimes, they give away larger items, like men's leather belts, but these require the people in line to add and subscribe to their social media accounts.

Another day .. another discovery! And tomorrow, perhaps a few bags of my own.

November 17: I'm walking back from the gym today, and I discovered that they were still watering the grass view the water sprinklers everywhere on campus.

I was a bit sad these days that it wasn't snowing - many of my fellow PCVs in other cities in Gansu are sending/posting videos and pictures of beautiful snowfalls.

So today I ran across a bit of the homemade, unintended, beauty on campus, as each of the bushes along this street were half covered with icicles.

It's a temporary boost of morale as winter begins, but I'm hoping for real snow soon.

I've also got a new full-length blog post out today, so stop over at check it out: One City, One Wanda Plaza.

November 15: I'm finally get caught up on my Daily Discoveries after a few weeks of incredibly busy classes and commitments combined with sporadic and unreliable Internet, so thanks for checking back in to see what's happening in Wuwei.

It's always nice to have a great class of engaged, motivated and excited students - it makes it really easy to be a teacher.

It makes it very delicious to be a teacher when those students come from different hometowns and your local Wuwei student decides that it's unacceptable for her classmates to have never eaten a local Wuwei specialty (that happens to be one of my favorites), therefore having her mother make treats for the whole class to enjoy. It was a great day with a great class.

Does it look familiar? It's the fried bread, rice and red date treat that I am always posting for its delicious qualities.

November 13: This is the third month where the 13th day results in a post about construction, but I can't help it... it's daily, it's a discovery, and it's quite fascinating since I have no idea of the plans or what is going on.

All I know is that the concrete curb filled with metal bars that formed a barrier between the school and the old teacher's apartment building was there yesterday, and gone today.

I'll be curious to see what happens in the coming days and weeks.

November 11: I love this time of year in China for finding delicious and inexpensive fruit. Whenever I go to the market I see truck beds just overloaded with these small oranges - they are super sweet and super delicious, and you can usually get a pound of them for around ¥2 ($0.30).. so needless to say, whenever I am sitting around my apartment, I tend to find myself just eating 3 or 4 here, 3 or 4 there... because I will definitely take advantage of this opportunity while I have it here in China.

It's also Single's Day here in China (11.11, because all of the ones are single, and alone) which is kind of a mixture of Valentine's Day and Black Friday. Those with a partner tend to find themselves hanging out and enjoying the day, while those without are often shopping online and ordering billions of items throughout China.. clogging delivery services for the next few days, as each seller tries to deliver the items within 2 or 3 days. It's a delivery operation of an incredible scale. I didn't need anything, so I didn't partake, but many of my students were up at midnight last night placing their orders.

November 9: It's Friday, Friday, Friday! Which means, no classes - usually. Tonight, however, is the second round of speeches in the annual speech contest, where the 38 students that made it through the first round will vie for the 12 spots in the finals.

I was invited to help judge this round and select the finalists, and upon arriving at my office, I found that it was rearranged and decorated with the omnipresent red banners that are prepared for every occasion: the Fifth Spoken English Speech Competition!

November 7: After finding a market on Sunday with my students, I went back and bought a few vegetables for myself today .. but I am not as big of a fan of this market as I was of the previous one, because of both the people I knew there, but also because the prices are much more expensive at this market.

I found a cheap deal on peppers today and the seller didn't let me get away without half a dozen more than I needed, so I decided to try out a new recipe and just cook up the peppers with oil and salt ... it's quite delicious in the restaurants, but after I made it, I think they don't use these peppers, because let's just say, it was SPICY!

November 5: Another week of classes has arrived, and I had many things prepared for this week ahead of time, so I found a few extra minutes to head to the gym this morning.

Waiting at the bus stop, it struck me that I see something every day in almost every place, but have never shared it with you.

It's the 12 Characteristics of Modern Society that are displayed everywhere in China, talking about important values: Freedom, Rule of Law, Patriotism, Loyalty, Friendship, to name a few.

You can see them displayed everywhere in China: electronic tickers above stores/banks, in the stores, on the construction barriers, in the classrooms, on signposts along the road and of course in the busses.

November 3: I spoke too soon about my market yesterday .. and I had no idea that it would be the last time I visited my market, so it's quite a sad day today.

Apparently, the market has been shut down - I'm not sure why, I think they are just continuing the construction that has been going on for almost a year now in the park in which the market is located. All I know is that all of my favorite vendors and the people I've gotten to know over 14 months at site are all gone, scattered across the city in other markets, and tomorrow I will have to search and find a new place to buy all of my food.

November 1: Happy November! Today my host family took me out for dinner to celebrate Halloween.

To my surprise, we went to the school cafeteria that was recently renovated over the summer. Now, I am not a big fan of the new cafeteria - perhaps, I am just stuck in the past where the food was cheaper, more plentiful, and I had my friends taking my order and cooking my food in a cafeteria that just felt more comfortable, rather than extremely fancy - but, perhaps I can learn to think of this not as the old cafeteria, but as a new place in and of itself.

The hot pot was pretty good tonight, and the company with my great host family was even better. Take a look!