Even though I'm on vacation, I have great motivation to get up in the morning: hot water. The hot water hours don't change for anything… holidays, vacation, anything. If it's a weekday, the morning hours are 6:30-8:30, non negotiable. Furthermore, when they say 8:30, what they really mean is that you shouldn't plan on any hot water after 8:15, and some days you might be pleasantly surprised that it actually goes all the way until 8:30. So despite the holiday, despite staying out late at night since all my friends are also free these days, I still have motivation to be up at a reasonable hour.
Today I even planned ahead. I had to do laundry, which is something I do far too infrequently by any American standards but still more often than most Chinese people. Since my laundry facilities are my bathroom sink and the rod that runs across my bathroom for hanging things like drying laundry, it's always more pleasant to do the chore when my hands can at least enjoy some warm water. (Honestly, doing laundry by hand is ridiculously unpleasant during winter when the only water you have feels like it just melted a moment before it came out of the faucet.) So I got up plenty early today to do some laundry before 8:15.
On the bright side, the warm water lasted until 8:25 this morning, which meant I got to wash a few more pieces of long underwear than I had originally planned.
On the not-so-bright side, somehow my "wet bathroom" turned into just a "wet room." Let me explain. A "wet bathroom" is one of those bathrooms only common in Asia as far as I know, where the shower head just hangs right over the toilet and the sink, without a tub or a shower stall. So whenever one showers, the entire bathroom gets wet. (Hence the name.) Well, I've lived in China long enough to be accustomed to a wet bathroom. I know where to keep my toilet paper so it doesn't get too wet. I know not to keep my cotton balls in the bathroom at all. And I know how to hang my towel so it actually has some sort of efficacy at making me dry after I'm done.
I don't know what went wrong today.
My toilet paper got soaked and my towel was dripping by the time I was ready to use it. Even my cotton balls would have gotten wet if I didn't keep them on the complete other side of my room. Because when I opened the bathroom door, I saw water covering the floor of almost my entire dorm room. Whoa. Talk about an unpleasant surprise!
It honestly took me half an hour to clean up all the water, and even then it took a while for the floor itself to dry. And now my floor is squeaky. Not a good sign.
Makes me glad I live on the seventh floor, where no one is above me. I just hope the room beneath me wasn't unpleasantly surprised by water coming from the ceiling!
So that was my morning. I have absolutely no idea why my wet bathroom couldn't be contained today, whereas usually only the towel on the floor just outside the door gets a little wet. We'll see how tomorrow morning goes. If it's anything like today, I'll be sure to keep you all updated!
While my morning was certainly unexpected and quite an experience, it hasn't been the highlight of my day so far. The highlight came around eleven.
I seem to have made a Chinese friend. Although I have been living in China for five months now, I actually don't have many (any?) Chinese friends. Don't get me wrong, I know a ton of Chinese people. But Chinese people who have any interest in interacting with foreigners always come with some sort of ulterior motive. Most of them want to practice their English or have help getting to the U.S. Then some of the guys have other ulterior motives, if you catch my drift. (White girls in China don't have the most moral reputation.)
But I seem to have made a new friend. Certainly, I think he enjoys being able to practice his English with me and I'll admit that I helped proofread some essays he wrote for Ph.D. programs in the U.S. But all told, it's a beneficial relationship both directions.
So this friend of mine came to my dorm today to bring me a variety of traditional Chinese New Year foods. He brought me a whole bag of homemade jiaozi (dumplings), the most famous New Year food. He also brought several kinds of nuts and some other candies.
Since he came around lunchtime, he offered to teach me how to cook the dumplings. Not wanting to admit that I've actually cooked dumplings many times in the past (because really, I've never actually seen a Chinese person do it), I eagerly accepted. So we cooked up some of the dumplings and had an absolutely delicious meal. Even more exciting, though, was that while eating, he explained a whole lot about this whole New Year festival that's going on right now. I've honestly been quite confused about which days are important, why it lasts so long, etc. But with his excellent English and his inside understanding of the culture, he was able to explain it quite well.
Here's what I learned. The biggest meal of the whole thing is on the last night of the old year (this past Sunday). The meal is planned for the typical Chinese dinner hour, around 5 p.m. or so. After it's all set out and ready, the whole family first goes outside and sets off some fireworks. Then they all go in for a big meal. Starting from 8:00 p.m., there is apparently a famous program showing on TV that most Chinese families watch. (Wish I had known about that before it happened!) As they watch the program, the family sits together, chats, and wraps the dumplings for later. (No dumplings are eaten during the big meal earlier.) Just before midnight, the family eats a few dumplings and then goes outside for the biggest fireworks celebration.
On the morning of the first day of the month, more dumplings are eaten, and often some candy. Some families have the tradition that no one is allowed to talk in the morning before eating some candy. Seems a little bit strange to me, but whatever. J Then that day is designated for visiting the parents of the mother. On the second day of the month, families visit the father's parents. Today is the second day of the month, but my friend was free because his father's parents live in Dalian. Only his dad went down to visit them.
The third and fourth days just seem to be more days off to relax and enjoy family and friends, and then apparently the fifth day is another big fireworks day. He didn't really know why, so I certainly don't either, but apparently I can look forward to more fireworks on Friday.
Then you have the rest of the two weeks of the celebration, until the 15th day of the month, known as Yuanxiao Jie. There's no good English translation of that. Yuanxiao are little round balls made from pounded sweet rice and filled with sweet peanut, black sesame, or similar fillings, usually served in a soup. I tried some when I was in China before, even though I've never been here for the holiday before. Very tasty, actually. Then Jie is just the word for "holiday" or "festival." Apparently that is the last legal day for fireworks as well. So I'm sure I can look forward to plenty more noise that day!
And that's the end of the festival.
Turns out I was wrong about something else, too, though. I had thought that Yuanxiao Jie was the day everyone gets their haircut. No, no. Apparently the superstition is that you will cause bad luck for your uncle if you get your hair cut anytime during the first month. So I guess it'll be a while before I get the haircut I'm wanting.
No comments:
Post a Comment