October 11, 2017

To start off this blog post, I have to be honest that this wasn't intended to be an entire blog post, just a simple daily discovery. Yet, I started writing, and the story become longer and longer on the page than it had appeared in my head... and perhaps more important and reflective than it, too, originally appeared. Small discoveries can always transform into truly meaningful experiences.

Today, like every Wednesday, I didn't have classes, so in order to procrastinate a little bit from preparing new classes, I took another trip to the market in Wuwei, which means another discovery. Without fail, each time I walk to the market, I encounter half a dozen fascinating things I was expecting to see, meet a couple interesting people, and try a new food or snack. Today, of course, was no exception.

My day at the market today was accompanied by an interesting progression of communication, that, if you'll forgive my use of what could be a cliche, started with a single grain of rice... or really, many grains of rice.

On my first pass through the market, I like to look and see what is new and available before committing to any purchases, lest I run out of money before I find the true discovery of the day. This was how I ran into the woman selling this small snack food - it looks like a rice taco. I approached the vendor and asked what it was, and I didn't understand anything that she said in her reply. Not the best start, so I asked... is it sweet? Yes, it is sweet! Does it have meat?

No matter how many ways I attempted to ask that last question, all she said was "I don't understand," which is to be expected when your Chinese isn't so great. I asked a bystander who had stopped to watch this interesting conversation between us the same question and received the same response. So, I looked closely, determined (guessed, really!) that it didn't have meat, and struggled with the language enough to ascertain the price (3 RMB) and order myself one of these 'rice tacos' (my name for it). It was actually pretty delicious, and a filling snack to tide me over for the walk back to my apartment to make lunch.

It was a soft, fluffy fried piece of bread as the shell (seen in the basket in back of picture) and was filled with the rice pudding type mixture from the bowl; I think that the rice pudding was flavored with solely with dates, giving it that dark reddish appearance in places, and didn't have any other sugar added. But don't worry! After filling, it was topped with a nice sprinkle of 白糖 (white sugar) and wrapped up! It was warm on a cold morning, and while the date seeds (rough, wrinkled, hard and sharp oblong shards) unexpectedly added a crunch at points, their quantity was definitely a testament to the flavor of the filling.

One of the men nearby saw me leave the stand, and walked with me, chatting a bit in Chinese as we talked. "Are you from Xinjiang?"(northwestern Chinese province with many minority groups whose appearance contrasts quite sharply from Han Chinese; NPR had a great article recently about this cultural note that I highly recommend reading. You can read it here). "Or are you a foreigner?"

"I am a foreigner, from the U.S." My Chinese proved to be successful in communicating with this new acquaintance.

"Your girlfriend must be from here, and you came to be with her."

"No, actually, I don't have a girlfriend."

"You cook your own food?" He was shocked. Or his eyebrows rise at the most coincidental times.

"Sometimes. Or I eat at the student cafeteria at Wuwei Occupational College. I am a volunteer foreign teacher there."

"Oh. I know the school. You're a foreign teacher!

"Yes! I teach English."

"An English teacher from America. Well, I'm going this way. Bye bye!"

I had switched from being hardly able to communicate, to successfully communicating in Chinese, but the final installment of my communicative progression on this trip ends with an English conversation.

On the way home, the encounters on the road were completed by a few students from the local elementary school that I passed. Like most younger children that I encounter, these students' gazes were locked on me until we passed each other, though this time it could have been because I was a foreigner, or because I was awkwardly trying to eat that 'rice taco' while trying to walk. Or both.

I gave a smile and a small hands-full-of-groceries-wave. However, unlike most younger children that I encounter, a few seconds after we passed each other, the taller of the two students came running back in front of me, and said, in English, "Hello!"

"Hello!" I smiled.

"Where are you from?"

"I am from the United States."

"Oh. Welcome to Wuwei!"

With that, he ran back to join his friend as they headed back to the school for the afternoon portion of class, and my bag of groceries was a little bit lighter for the last leg of the journey home.