Flabbergasted
The fact that my building finds it necessary to post this notice is mind-boggling.
New Year party
The Consulate held its annual party to celebrate what they call Spring Festival here in China, but which I am more used to calling Chinese New Year.
There were the usual speeches,…
…then there were some performances.
I have to confess something: I am a tiny bit of a ham. Not a lot, just a little. Really. Stop laughing. I like to get on stage and make people laugh. So when there was the opportunity to sing a song and dance of stage, I admit that I sort of volunteered.
The point of the performances was to have a good time. In that spirit, I was looking forward to hamming it up on stage. Nathan, who is also a good sport, and I were the lead singers for our rendition of the Little Apple song.
This is what we normally look like. In my case, the word “normal” should be interpreted in the broadest possible sense of the word.
In the interest of good taste, I won’t share the video of the performance here, but here are some screen shots:
In my case, even green hair is an improvement!
After the performances, it was time to eat. The New Year holiday is an opportunity to really feast. We ate very well. And drank. And to be honest, there was a little, tiny bit of drinking before the performances. Just a little. I promise.
I can’t wait until next year’s party. I have already picked out the skit that I want to do.
Funny stationary
For some reason, Chinese people like to put English phrases on the covers of notebooks. I was in the store the other day, and saw these gems.
Getting ready for the New Year
In the store today, saw the decorations for the upcoming Chinese New Year. Can you guess what color is the most auspicious in Chinese culture?
Now THAT’s bling!
“Greek” Yogurt FTW
I love Greek yogurt. The “umami” or mouth-feel is luxurious. Unfortunately, Greek yogurt isn’t available in this part of China. However, I discovered that you can easily transform the local yogurt into Greek style yogurt.
Yogurt is widely available here, but it’s always sweetened, and usually flavored. I used a “natural” yogurt.
Here’s my setup: a large bowl, a colander, a piece of cheesecloth, and a dinner plate. Couldn’t be simpler.
Put the yogurt right onto the cheesecloth.
Put the dinner plate on top. This kept the cheesecloth in place, and sealed off the works off a bit.
Then I put the works into the fridge, and waited for eight hours.
After eight hours, much water had drained off the yogurt.
It looks like about 1/3 of the original volume had drained away as “yogurt juice.”
What was left was creamy and thick.
See how thick it is? Almost like soft cream cheese.
The yogurt came right off the cheesecloth.
Re-containering the Greek-style yogurt. Can’t wait for breakfast!
I like living in China, and I like Chinese food. However, sometimes I crave some American food. A lot of things are not available in the city where I live, but in this case, a little creativity really paid off.
Invasion of the Oreos
Oreos have invaded the China market. And like many things that enter a new market, Oreos have mutated.
Just one kind of Oreo would be too boring.
In addition, because it’s China, the mutation is over the top. We have many flavors of Oreo to choose from: original flavor, reduced sugar, green tea (blech), banana (blech), “ice cream” (what the heck?), strawberry-blueberry (intriguing), reverse (white cookie, chocolate stuff), lemon cheesecake (I had to buy that one to try it, sounds good), “birthday cake” (is that even a flavor?), grape-peach, vanilla, strawberry, and double chocolate.
At the very least, you have to admit that they’re bravely trying new approaches to the market.
The cutest tangerines in the world
This is a local variety of tangerine. Aren’t they adorable?
The fanciest brown bag lunch
There are occasional brownbag lunch meetings at the consulate, during which we have discussions about this or that. Today, the CG hosted a brown bag for all new first and second tour officers, to discuss anything that we had on our minds. The CG is the Consulate General, the head of the consulate. If this were an embassy, he would be the ambassador. In addition to being an accomplished foreign service officer, he is also a very good manager, and a very pleasant person as well. He is generous with his time, sharing his experiences, and giving advice to new officers.
Today’s brownbag lunch was held in the CG’s residence, which is on the grounds of the consulate. We occasionally have events there, usually in the sunroom at the back of the residence. Today’s event was held in the CG’s dining room, however. When I walked into the dining room and saw that the table was set with China, tablecloth, wine glasses, the works, I felt a little funny about what I had brought for lunch.
Several people had ordered lunch from the local Subway. I brought my own lunch. I didn’t have the chance to eat my lunch that I brought yesterday, so I had my lunch from yesterday today. My brownbag lunch looked kind of funny sitting on the CG’s good China.
Leftover peanut butter and jelly, eaten on fine China. Ah, the luxurious life of a modern diplomat.
Harbin Ice Festival 2: Snow Sculptures
Another part of the ice festival is the snow sculptures. I liked this more than the ice sculptures: they were less over-the-top, they were displayed in a park, there were a lot fewer people, and there was a lot of variety. It also helped that it was a beautiful day with very low air pollution (we could even see the blue sky!).
The upcoming year will be the year of the ram, so there were a lot of sheep designs.
Side view of the sheep sculpture.
A disappointingly large number of sculptures were of western things like Disney.
Western fairy tale
Something about fast food society.
No, that’s not made of snow. It’s part of the park’s permanent landscaping.
Lion Dance!
Lotus pods
Chinese phoenix
Erm,…
Erm,…
At least Darwin is appreciated somewhere!
The genius Einstein, and some snow sculpture in the background.
“The gift of the apple:” see Newton, Adam and Eve on the left, and Apple Computer’s icon on the right?