Donkeys, dogs, and baboons, oh my!

It figures that I'd leave my camera at home today since we saw more bizarre things in four hours than we've seen our entire time here.

It all started when we went to Jin Ding for lunch at Mr. Pizza. Jin Ding is a little village a few bus stops north of us. When we got off the bus and crossed the street, we saw a donkey tethered to a tree in front of a restaurant where there's usually chickens on leashes. I'm pretty used to seeing live chickens tied up to all sorts of things, but donkeys are rarer. It was cute -- dark grey with floppy ears and a black nose. Dwight and I remarked to each other that it didn't look very happy.

We continued on to Mr. Pizza and had a tasty meal. Afterwards, we walked back past the tree where the donkey had been tethered only to discover that during our meal, the donkey had been slaughtered and was being skinned and gutted on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. It looked bigger dead than alive, and three men were bent over the carcass scraping all the fur off.

This was such a startling sight that we almost overlooked the skinned and gutted dog carcass hanging from a meat hook at a little stand in front of the restaurant. The stand was being used by the restaurant's staff as a meat prep area. The dog still had fur on its head, so it was easy to see what its face would have looked like had it been alive. The meat hooked was jammed through the back of its neck, and its face was staring out toward the busy street. The restaurant worker was busy chopping up another dog carcass into bite-sized chunks.

This scene was enough to make us stop and stare (where we, of course, provided staring material for the locals). Just as we regained ourselves and started to walk away, a pick up truck pulled up to the curb with a delivery for the restaurant: another dog, still alive, in a cage. It was a white dog, medium sized, with dirty fur. Just an average dog around here. Short-haired. Pointy ears. Cute doggie face. A woman from the restaurant tried to pry it out of its cage, but it was resisting. It was scared, and kept trying to evade her grasp by curling itself up in a little ball. It seemed to know that it was going to end up stir-fried.

All of this made our lunch -- which included animal products -- sit heavy in our stomachs. But none of these sights (except us waiguoren) even elicited a second glance from the locals.

We went our next destination, a small store called the Zhuhai Deli that sells imported foods. We'd never been there before, but had heard about it on an expat website. There, we able to stock up on goodies like refried beans, olives, and bleu cheese -- all things that are unavailable in the rest of Zhuhai. We paid a pretty penny for this stuff, but familiar food is worth it.

Then, on the way home from the store, we saw something that even surprised the Chinese people on the bus with us: a man walking down the street with three baboons on leashes. He was just walking them like you'd walk your dog. I don't think that baboons are common around here, and it wasn't clear why he had them, but it was funny to hear all the Chinese passengers say "ohhhhhhhhh!" when they saw it.

Perhaps the baboons were off to the stew pot, too. Who knows. This is China, after all.

Who's in charge here?

The semester here has almost ended. We've had our final classes and are getting ready for exams. Our holiday break begins January 18th, and runs to mid February. This academic schedule has been hard for me because it is so different from what I'm used to. But I am happy to have survived the first 6 months.

On the last day of class, I had D take photos of me with my students. Photo-taking, I found out, is a very popular last-day activity. In one of my classes, every single student wanted an individual photo with me. I do wonder what they do with these pictures. Maybe they take them home to show their parents?

Anyway, here are some photos for you -- two of my ARW classes (Academic Reading & Writing). Some of my smartest students were in these two classes -- I suspect that I'll keep in touch with a number of these students for years to come.

Human-powered transport

Most people know that bicycles are common in China (even if cars are becoming more and more common all the time). So, I wasn't surprised to see lots of bicycles in the streets when we first arrived here.

What does continue to surprise and delight me are the many ways that people here use bicycles to transport anything and everything. Here, two fellows move a couch. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photos, but the guy in the rear was highly amused that two laowai were photographing their efforts. He kept smiling and mugging for the camera.

Is it safe?

What's a fun way to spend a Saturday? The answer to this question is probably not -- as D can attest-- "getting [edited] a triple root canal."

D's teeth have been hurting for, like, 2 years. But rather than go to the dentist to find out what was wrong, he just started using toothpaste for sensitive teeth, assuming that the pain was due to clenching his jaw (from stress).

But last week the pain, which had been getting increasingly more severe, became too much. He couldn't eat anything without flinching, even liquid foods. And he was getting really bad headaches. We did the only thing that we could do: get a referral to a local dentist.

Our colleague gave us a number, "Call Dr. Bob. He's good. Speaks some English. His office isn't as clean as what you're used to, but they open the packs of sterile instruments in front of you."

D called Dr. Bob and was granted a same-day appointment. The good doctor told us that his office was off the 68 bus line, tried to explain the name of the bus stop, and said he'd meet us at the bus stop at 3:00 [This kind of thing no longer surprises us here. There's nothing odd about a dentist offering to meet a new patient at the bus stop. This place is so chaotic that this is often necessary]. We left our apartment 2 hours early, knowing that we'd probably have trouble finding it since a lot of the stops are missing the pinyin versions of the names.

But first, we had to get some food in D, who was feeling a bit light-headed. We stopped at a restaurant, where D tried to find something on the menu with a good number of calories but that didn't require much chewing. He settled on a cream soup and an omelet. He managed to eat the food despite the pain and the fact that the omelet looked like, in his words, "something that someone sneezed out."

After eating, we tried to find the dentist's office, with no success. We ended up calling Dr. Bob for more detailed directions to the bus stop, and he asked us where we were. When we told him the name of the restaurant, he replied, "I know where that is. I will come get you." And about 5 minutes later, he showed up in a little car and whisked us off to the clinic.

When we arrived at the clinic, Dr. Bob hustled D into a chair (see above photo), and then suggested to me that since I was there anyway, I might as well get my teeth cleaned by another dentist. I was in the chair getting the plaque scraped off when they made the assessment of D's problem -- his tooth pain was the result of him needing [edited] a triple root canal (or "root canal treatments," as Dr. Bob called them). In addition, he had a molar that was too pointy and was poking into another tooth; it needed to be ground down a bit.

My cleaning only took about 10 minutes -- a different procedure than what they do in the States -- and I spent the remainder of my time alternately watching D get his procedure done and reading Ethan Frome.

I was able to watch D the whole time because the entire clinic was about the size of an average U.S. hotel room. Had the dental chairs been facing out toward the front door of the clinic, the patients receiving treatment would have been able to see all the activity on the sidewalk outside. For all intents and purposes, the treatment areas were public places, with visitors coming in to chat with Dr. Bob while he drilled into D's teeth. People walking by on the street could look right in and see procedures being done. There were even sound effects: The man in the chair next to D's howled in pain as he was being worked on by another dentist.

D told me that as Dr. Bob scraped out the nerves and stuff, he would hold up the little strips of flesh so that D could see what he was taking out. Dr. Bob was very concerned that D be comfortable and would frequently ask, "Is there pain?" If D grunted, "yes," Dr. Bob would give him more Novocaine. Dr. Bob and his staff were very polite and very considerate.

All told, D spent about 2 hours in the chair. Cost for three root canal treatments [edited to add] (that is, removing three nerves), one crown, and one molar grinding: 800 RMB, about $106 USD. My cleaning was 50 RMB, about $6 USD.

D has at least one more visit. He has to go back on Friday. He's hoping that the procedure can be completed then. So, this story is to be continued. . .

Fresh Fish

The wet market is the center of a lot of village activity. It's the place where most everyone comes to buy fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, and assorted other items. The market is set up in a big square. Most of it is under an open-sided covering -- kind of like at a state fair. Inside, the walkways are lined with troughs that capture all the liquid produced from slaughtering and from hosing the place down. Outside, vendors put their wares on the ground flea-market style.

On Saturdays, the wet market is full of live chickens -- all the chicken vendors come to town and line up their wares on the back of the market, forming what I call "the Hall of Doomed Chickens." On other days, chickens and other fowl are sold, but not in the same quantity. This picture is kind of blurry, but you can see that someone is buying a chicken for dinner. After D snapped this picture, the vendor neatly twisted the chickens's neck to kill it. I haven't been brave enough to buy a chicken yet, but I probably will before we leave China.

Mondays are fish days, when the fish-
mongers take over the open area outside the main market. The pavement is covered with shallow containers of water filled with living critters and piles of freshly killed sea creatures of all stripes. When you buy a fish, the vendor will kill it for you and clean it. The men in the photo to the right are cleaning a fish for the person standing in front of them. The square blue containers you see have living critters in them.

Steamed noodles from the village

One of my favorite things to do here is walk through the local village. Even when I'm completely sick of being here, I always enjoy the craziness -- the sheer difference that this village offers.

Yesterday, I set out early to the wet market. I wanted to visit my regular fruit lady and stock up on clementines, and I wanted to get some potatoes and onions for a potato salad.

One the way, I needed something to eat, so I stopped a a street side restaurant. All of the cooking took place on the sidewalk. Patrons could then choose to eat under a roof or out in the open. The food is my favorite kind here -- simple. The cook scooped a bit of flour-water from the red bucket on the ground and dumped into one of the trays that she took from the steamer. Then she added a tiny scoop of ground pork from the metal bowl on the table, some bean sprouts. One one tray, she added an egg. All of this steamed briefly, and then she scraped it into a container (I got mine to go) and added a little broth. The result was freshly steamed noodles, to which I added a bit of hot chili paste. Tas-tee.

That creep can roll

One of the perks of living in our gated compound is that it has a bowling lane on the premises. It's small -- four lanes -- but the lanes are regulation. D and I took a break from work today to knock down some pins.

The best part about playing in the clubhouse is that usually a little cheering section of mums and kids form. The kids love to watch the bowlers bowl, and whenever we'd knock over any pins, they would clap for us.

You can see from the photo to the right that there are some imports from the U.S. to China. All the balls were Brunswick.

Here is an action shot of D:

Neighborhood Mutt

This dog, which I saw on my walk though the village today, is fairly typical of the most common breed of dog around here. It looks like some kind of dog-dingo hybrid. The local dogs (other than the pampered toys mutts in my compound) are a fairly independent type of dog. I never see them on leashes or tied up. They have free reign of the streets. They're not aggressive toward humans, even if they sometimes fight amongst themselves. In fact, they're generally indifferent toward humans. They're smart, too. For example, they seem to understand how to cross the street without getting run over by the crazy drivers. And they can take a nap anywhere. This doggie was taking a nap on a sidewalk, just feet from where a huge group of old dudes was playing Chinese chess. Cars, motorcycles, and bikes were whizzing by on the street, and a local school had just let out for the day -- kids were swarming everywhere. Did. not. matter. I wish that someone would bottle and sell that kind of calm. . .

My favorite local dog is a little rougher around the edges -- a scrappy, filthy little thing with an underbite that makes it look incredibly grouchy. It lives in a dirty little house on one of the main streets in the village, and it lords over its doorway with a kind of haughtiness that I've only seen in cats. I see it every time I go into the village -- one of these days, I'll remember to snap its photo.

Hazy Shade of Winter

To the right you can see the atrocity forced upon the poor palm trees living in our compound: tinsel and other assorted x-mas decorations. Having grown up in places where winter = snow, this seems wrong to me.

We're hearing a lot more holiday songs being played over store speaker systems these days, too. Songs like "Jingle Bells" and "What Child is This? [instrumental version] are played all year 'round here (Chinese folks seem to dig x-mas carols for some reason), but there's been a definite uptick in the airtime given to tunes like "Up on the Rooftop." One of the villa owners in our compound has even strung up some cheesy holiday lights (I keep expecting the compound guards -- who practice military drills every morning -- to drag the owners out into the street and beat them. Our compound has a very "planned community" feel. It seems to me that a lights display probably violates some clause in the property agreement).

Street Food

The crackdown on unlicensed food vendors didn't last long. This is good news. One of the more interesting aspects of China are the impromptu noodles stands and whatnot that one finds on most village street corners in our neck of the woods.

Plus, I like the food that the vendors sell -- I'm sure that eating it is strengthening my immune system. We usually stop here for sustenance after consuming a few refreshing beverages the expat bar across the street (an over-priced Brit-owned place called The Old Chinese Junk. Its main virtue is that it's within walking distance of our compound).

I snapped these photos the other night after we placed our order at our "regular" vendor. We got grilled eggplant, lamb (I think), chicken, fish (the whole fish, head and all), and sausage. If you ask, the cook will coat everything in a spicy MSG-chili mixture that I love.

Close-up of pre-cooked food:


Adding the spicy coating:

Sick in China

So I've finally developed a full-blown cold, complete with chest congestion. I'm trying to take it easy, but that's hard to do when one teaches 6 classes. Taking a sick day around here is more trouble than it's worth -- tons of red tape and every class missed needs to be rescheduled for a later date. It's almost like they want to kill off foreign teachers or something.

But, my students are very sweet. They are concerned about me. One of them, upon hearing my croaking voice and my hacking cough, said, "Runningburro, I have some Tylenol in my dorm room. Maybe I could go get it for you?" Another wanted to make me tea with honey. Many of them told me that I should go home and get some rest -- which I intend to do right now.

And now a word from the resident pain in the ass . . .

D, it seems, caught wind of how I represented -- or, in his opinion, misrepresented -- our conversation about what constitutes a burger. I have graciously agreed to post his amendment to my post, but only this one time (after all, those who want their say should start their own damn blogs, no?).

D's 2 cents:

On numerous occasions, Running Burro (RB) and myself have talked about
the concept of a list of criteria to accurately and consistently define foods [Incidently, this may be differently conceived as identifying foods.]. For example, to be appropriately labeled a sandwich, does the stacked concoction (sitting on a plate [or perhaps a cutting board]) need to include cheese among its multiple layers?
And what about the inclusion (or exclusion) of a condiment/spread?

Typically (in such discussions), I take the position [just for the 'sake of argument'] of assuming that checklists are apparent necessities, whereas RB is both more reluctant to invoke the checklist concept as well as more willing to permit a short checklist (i.e., I usually assume that such checklists [if they were to exist and be instructive] would need to include many items).

So, in order for something to be rightly called a burger, what should it include? As I recall, these were the only two items mentioned: (i)ground up* composition; and (ii) some specific percentage [or proportion] of the ground up product needs to be beef. We did not get into any specific details such as "What kind of beef?". Or "What numerical value should this percentage [or proportion] take?" - e.g.,
95%, 88%, etc.

*Footnote: I believe that many times (i.e., during our discussion) we were
talking of burger when we really meant to be saying something about
the patty part of the burger. Also, I should have added that the
patty itself needs to be of a form resembling a geometric shape (e.g.,
approximately circular or square depending upon various factors
including the desired outcome and whether the patty is formed 'by
hand' or by machine), but…I did not think of any of this at the time.

And now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

Guangzhou II

On Saturday, I, D, and 18 of our colleagues chartered a small bus to Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton).

Our first stop was the haizhu market. Almost everyone in the group was intent on buying Christmas decorations here -- kind of hard to come by in China. This market is typical of China -- a multi-story building filled to the rafters with hundreds of odd little shops selling all kinds of stuff. It's easy to get lost in these places.

I picked up some little trinkets -- little goodies to pass out in class for "prizes" or to give to people as small gifts. D, however, came across the atrocity pictured to the right. For some reason that I fail to understand, D fell in love with it, and now it lords over our apartment.

Our second stop was for lunch, which we received free of charge from the Spanish consulate in China. It seems that Spanish Chamber of Commerce was co-hosting some big shin-dig, and one of our colleagues, who is from Spain, arranged to get us in. Lunch was served outside in a part alongside the water. Free Spanish beer, Spanish-style hors d'oeurves, and paella, which was cooked up in gigantic paella pans. It was a good way to spend the afternoon, and if Metro's siren song hadn't been calling, we probably would have wasted day there drinking cerveza and stuffing ourselves with free grub.




I've posted a bit about Metro before -- it's a useful store to have relatively nearby since it has food from non-Chinese countries (ex., Olive oil, bleu cheese, etc.). D and I mainly treated it as a booze run since Metro also stocks US favorites like Seagram's Gin and Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum.

This store is kind of tricky. In some ways, it's like Cosco -- bulk sizes of popular groceries. Odd collection of things like light bulbs and bathrobes and printer cartridges. But then you'll encounter something like the meat aisle, which in Metro looks like a slaughterhouse (like in the first Rocky when Rocky uses the sides of beef as punching bags). At Metro, you can buy a half pig that's hanging from a big meat hook. You can buy parts of the cow (also hanging). Fish in various states of life, death, and dressing are available too. And then there was this:


It even had it's teeth and eyeballs still in its head. Now I can't get that damn song from D's Barbecue Blues album out of my head:

Take a big slice of gator,/put it on a big piece of bread./Salt will make it better./So go ahead, go ahead, take a big bite, Fred./ Alligator/Alligator meat! Alligator!/Alligator meat is really all you need.