One of the favorite things of mine about living in China is eating. Chinese food here is mostly Cantonese food which means a lot of little snacks. I could write pages on the food I tried here but instead let me just show you a video I made back in September. Enjoy! You might want to let this warlock load before letting it play straight through...
Monday, April 18, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Week 6? Trailwalker...EXTREME!!!
Back in October I signed up with 3 colleagues to walk the 1st annual 'Macau Trailwalker' 10k fun-walk/run (we walked...more like, 'leisurely strolled'). It took us on a 10k trail around some nice vistas on the island of Coloane here in Macao.
It was relatively uneventful except for 3 things:
It was relatively uneventful except for 3 things:
1) MACAO IS A MAGICAL ISLAND: At the starting point, I and a friend of mine saw this German guy who totally looks like the character "Jacob" from the TV show "Lost". She quickly came up with some thin premise to take a picture with him so we can say we met the guy from "Lost" (incidentally we started ruminating on the similarities between our lives and that show; we live on an island, we are all living strange and different lives since landing, we got here in an airplane--although ours did actually land--and I once saw this lady here who looked like a Chinese Michelle Rodriguez). Anyway, I'll let you be the judge:
 |
| "Jacob" from "Lost" |
 |
| Boom! Caught you Jacob! Now give me three wishes! |
2) THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION: We ended up stopping for egg tarts and some sight-seeing. I'm not a professional athlete or trainer but this may have negatively impacted our finish time for the 10k 'walk'...which was 4 hours 13 minutes...
3) POWERWALKING!!!!! I got to powerwalk this thing...hardcore! As demonstrated by this video:
Macau-wabunga...EXTREME!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Week 5: A Dog's Life...in Macao
I'm back after a hiatus! Let's get caught up!
I knew I had to write about the packs of stray dogs here when I saw two dogs cross a busy intersection, dodging speeding cars and risking their lives, just to pee on some pandas. I became certain I had to write about them after one of them bit me and I spent MOP 2000 on treatment at the clinic. Allow me to explain...
Where I live in Macau there are stray dogs everywhere. It is odd to be in such an advanced, industrialized, city and to find that stray dogs--I am NOT kidding--control entire chunks of neighborhoods. For the most part these are dogs that people get to guard junkyards and construction sites but then let breed or let loose once the sites close. Most of them are OK in my book; just wandering around looking for food and/or something to attempt procreation with. They're plucky in a way. The aforementioned pair of dogs that braved traffic were strays that crossed into a busy traffic circle garden to pee on some decorative plastic pandas the government placed all over the city to celebrate the arrival of two panda bears to the zoo. However not every stray here is quite so charming. The occasional junkyard variety can get territorial and vicious. They REALLY don't like it when you run either.
Back in November, around dusk, I was jogging with a friend and we past a junkyard. As we passed two large dogs inside started barking at us and managed to escape from the fence that was holding them in. My friend and I were chased for about 100 yards, the dog chasing my friend couldn't catch him but my dog was lucky! He picked the slower, lazier American human and took a bite out of my calf as a I ran. I kept running and ran across the street hoping the dog would chase me there and get hit by a passing car...it didn't occur to me that the same might happen to me. Anyway, I eventually got away and my buddy caught up with me and we found a police officer ASAP. I pleaded with him to go back to where the dogs were and to let me shoot them, but alas something got lost in translation and he called an ambulance. He didn't speak English and anyone who has read my previous posts knows my Chinese skills are not appropriate for this conversation (or any, really...).
After a short visit to the hospital to bandage the wound and to get a rabies injection I filed a report with the police. I showed them the junkyard where I was bit and we even found the dog that bit me! When we saw it instead of calling animal control (open M-Fr from 0830-1600 hrs--convenient!) or macing it or letting me shoot it, he took a picture of the dog! Yes, he took a picture! Thew worst part is he got out of the police van walked right up to the dog and shoo-ed it away in order to take a picture. Before he snapped the photo he looked back at me and says "This is the dog?" (with his accent I couldn't tell if he was mocking me, but he should have been). Later after following up with the police they told me the property isn't owned by anyone and that they couldn't hold anyone responsible even though I see people on a daily basis enter the junkyard and there are even people living there. I planned for weeks, while attending bi-weekly rabies injections at a local clinic (5 shots total), my Titus-like revenge. I imagined sinister plots where I poison the animals or egg the junkyard or at least hurl insults at the dogs behind the fence---something, anything!!! But, the momentum of my job and my general apathy took over and I am here months later in disbelief that I once cared about it so much.
As a pithy epilogue to the whole thing, just a few weeks ago I was leaving my gym and saw the police officer who helped me the night of the biting on foot patrol. He was very nice and said 'hello'. At that moment 3 stray dogs passed us in a pack. I stared at the dogs and then looked back at him as if asking him, as a public servant, to do ANYTHING about these dogs...he sees the dogs and looks back at me with what I can only describe as jovial bemusement and says, "haha..dogs, huh?'....I stare back at him in disbelief..."yeah. I wish someone would do something.." He only laughed a little and said, "Yeah!".
Macau-wabunga, indeed.
I knew I had to write about the packs of stray dogs here when I saw two dogs cross a busy intersection, dodging speeding cars and risking their lives, just to pee on some pandas. I became certain I had to write about them after one of them bit me and I spent MOP 2000 on treatment at the clinic. Allow me to explain...
 |
| The traffic circle the dogs darted across and their intended target...a glowing panda |
 |
| Stray puppies, training for my next jogging session... |
Back in November, around dusk, I was jogging with a friend and we past a junkyard. As we passed two large dogs inside started barking at us and managed to escape from the fence that was holding them in. My friend and I were chased for about 100 yards, the dog chasing my friend couldn't catch him but my dog was lucky! He picked the slower, lazier American human and took a bite out of my calf as a I ran. I kept running and ran across the street hoping the dog would chase me there and get hit by a passing car...it didn't occur to me that the same might happen to me. Anyway, I eventually got away and my buddy caught up with me and we found a police officer ASAP. I pleaded with him to go back to where the dogs were and to let me shoot them, but alas something got lost in translation and he called an ambulance. He didn't speak English and anyone who has read my previous posts knows my Chinese skills are not appropriate for this conversation (or any, really...).
After a short visit to the hospital to bandage the wound and to get a rabies injection I filed a report with the police. I showed them the junkyard where I was bit and we even found the dog that bit me! When we saw it instead of calling animal control (open M-Fr from 0830-1600 hrs--convenient!) or macing it or letting me shoot it, he took a picture of the dog! Yes, he took a picture! Thew worst part is he got out of the police van walked right up to the dog and shoo-ed it away in order to take a picture. Before he snapped the photo he looked back at me and says "This is the dog?" (with his accent I couldn't tell if he was mocking me, but he should have been). Later after following up with the police they told me the property isn't owned by anyone and that they couldn't hold anyone responsible even though I see people on a daily basis enter the junkyard and there are even people living there. I planned for weeks, while attending bi-weekly rabies injections at a local clinic (5 shots total), my Titus-like revenge. I imagined sinister plots where I poison the animals or egg the junkyard or at least hurl insults at the dogs behind the fence---something, anything!!! But, the momentum of my job and my general apathy took over and I am here months later in disbelief that I once cared about it so much.
As a pithy epilogue to the whole thing, just a few weeks ago I was leaving my gym and saw the police officer who helped me the night of the biting on foot patrol. He was very nice and said 'hello'. At that moment 3 stray dogs passed us in a pack. I stared at the dogs and then looked back at him as if asking him, as a public servant, to do ANYTHING about these dogs...he sees the dogs and looks back at me with what I can only describe as jovial bemusement and says, "haha..dogs, huh?'....I stare back at him in disbelief..."yeah. I wish someone would do something.." He only laughed a little and said, "Yeah!".
Macau-wabunga, indeed.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Week 4: Order a Sewing Kit, the Fruit is Delicious...
NOTE: it has been a while since my last blog, I have been teaching classes and planning enough programming for our students to get my next job as a cruise ship activity coordinator....
So there are occasionally these moments that sum up your experience in a place with a sort of poignant metaphor. Mine was in Hong Kong.
There is this organization called the Hong Kong American Center (HKAC) and they help the Fulbright program with resources and advice for the Fulbright grantees, professors, researchers, etc. They paid for us teaching in Macao (there are four of us) to go to Hong Kong and meet the HKAC and the US consulate staff...you know, just in case we end up in jail or something. We attended various seminars and briefings, basically drinking out of a firehouse for two days, but it ended with a team building retreat. The team building was typcial team building. A group of people who haven't quite figured out how much they dislike each other yet, are grouped together and made to do several tasks that have these little Aesop-eque lessons at the end. The only problem is that the group collectively decided that we were going to play dirty to win these team-building events and so the little morsels of wisdom were lost on us. Split into various two-person teams we very quickly, almost wantonly, turned on each other and the greater group cohesion melted away like snowflakes on the pavement. Antony, our Chinese team-building coach, had his work cut out for him. Here's a typical post-team-building exercise dialogue:
Antony:...OK, so maybe next time we should respect personal boundary, is this right? Focus on safety...
Group: [mumbles something about the rules..]
Carlos: So who won that plastic ball tossing game? My team did right?
Antony: oh, OK, so maybe that was not a game for winning, but for learning something about...
Carlos: Cut the crap, "Antony", tell us who won...who is better than who...
Antony: [puzzled look on his face] hmmmm...OK so maybe that ball game is not normally competitive...You were supposed to realize ball tossing is best done with all team together, play together, win together...supposed to realize no zero sum game...
Group: [collectively eye-rolls so hard it almost makes a noise...]
That was poignant for different reasons, but the moment, the real moment that has summed up my experience in Macao/Hong Kong SAR was at the hotel. I was with friends in my hotel room at a posh hotel with excellent service and great views when I noticed my shirt had a loose button. I called down to the front desk and asked if they had a sewing kit. They said 'Yes' and that they would send someone up ASAP to deliver it. It was at this moment that I thought that maybe the language barrier wasn't significant and that this place is fairly live-able by a white devil like myself. I realize I could use some rubber bands as well, and so I call the front desk back:
Me: Hello? I ordered a sewing kit, room 1405?
Desk: Yes...it is coming sir, very soon...
Me: yeah, yeah, great, can I also get two rubber bands?
Desk:...
Me: uh...rubber bands? Hello...
Desk: uh..YES! Yes. two rubbah bands.
Me: [kind of surprised] Oh! Great, Thanks!
Desk: [whispering something inaudible in cantonese to someone off the phone] Excuse me, what is this?
Me: uh...Rubber bands?
Desk: yes sir, what is?
Me: uh...it's like a stretchy office supply, like to hold together pencils...
Desk: oh...tape?
Me: uh...no. No...that's tape...I'm talking about a rubber band, it is shaped like a loop, it is thin, it stretches...
Desk: oh! Yes, yes. room 1405.
Me: [incredulously] yes...
5 minutes later a bell hop shows up with a plate of fruit...an orange, an apple and a pear. The bell hop smiles and runs away as soon as I take the plate. My friend laughs hard at the site of the fruit and takes a picture.
I briefly consider that this is some kind of Cantonese message, maybe like a Sicilian mafia thing, you know, like three fruits of death or something. I call the front desk again...
Desk: Hello?
Me: hi! this is room 1405. I asked for a sewing kit...
Desk: yes. It will be there soon, sir.
Me: aha! yes, ok, somone came already...
Desk: Oh! good, anything else sir?
Me: um...yes, I received a plate of fruit...
Desk: yes...
Me:....uhhhh...yeah. Ok, so I asked for a sewing kit...
Desk: ohhhhh....ok. hmmmmm. 5 minutes, sir, it is on the way.
Me: So....no charge for the fruit...was this an accident?
Desk: oh, yes, maybe. NO charge fruit, sir. You get sewing kit soon, sorry.
Me: No problem-o, oh! and also maybe those rubber bands, yeah?
Desk: sure, ok.
Me: really? Rubber bands?
Desk: hmmmm...what is that?
Me: Oh! I just talked to you about this, those stretchy thin office supply things...
Desk: oh...yes. two of them?
Me: [now filled with doubt about the whole rubber band exchange]...uh....yes, please.
Desk: OK.
5 minutes later a different bell hop shows up at my door...with a sewing kit! AND rubber bands! haha! Yes!...the bell hop is startled by my sudden celebration and sheepishly runs away while a do a jig at the door. I just about start sewing my button back on my shirt and talking to my friend when I get another knock at the door...we look at each other and I inch towards the door. I open it. It's yet another bell hop [at this point I wonder how many they must have constantly squirreling up and down this place] and he's holding...wait for it...a ball of yarn with a pair of bright red scissors stuck in it! He holds it out and makes what I would call frighteningly profound eye contact. This ball of yarn might be quite an honor. I turn back into my room as the bell hop scampers away and I look at my friend and openly wonder if this isn't some sort of mob-hit warning, like there is someone downstairs desperately trying to tell me I am being targeted by the triads; "I don't get it! I tried to warn him, I sent him fruit, then a ball of yarn with red scissors stabbed into it..I mean, c'mon?! Red scissors! What kind of idiot just accepts those random objects?"
This guy.
Anyhow as I stared at what I realized was a random assortment of hotel items on my room's desk I realized that this is like my experience in Macao so far. I do eventually gets some of what I want when interacting with the people here, but occasionally cultural and linguistic barriers rear their ugly heads to create the splendid type of confusion that normally ends with me acquiring a bunch of useless crap just to get what I originally wanted. This is any one of many restaurant experiences or classroom exercises with my students or my visit to the clinic (that's a different blog...). This is me having the waiter order for me because my Chinese is so bad and just sitting there waiting for him to decide what I want. This is one of my students writing their one-page essay on a sheet of paper from their Hello Kitty diary because I didn't clarify that I wanted it written on size A4 paper and sans the kitty.
As I sat there and mediated on these objects I knew my fate. It was a perfect metaphor; If I wanted a sewing kit I would first have to get some fruit and yarn. That is how I would describe living and working in Macao. I hope you're hungry.
Macao-wabunga,
El Carlos
So there are occasionally these moments that sum up your experience in a place with a sort of poignant metaphor. Mine was in Hong Kong.
There is this organization called the Hong Kong American Center (HKAC) and they help the Fulbright program with resources and advice for the Fulbright grantees, professors, researchers, etc. They paid for us teaching in Macao (there are four of us) to go to Hong Kong and meet the HKAC and the US consulate staff...you know, just in case we end up in jail or something. We attended various seminars and briefings, basically drinking out of a firehouse for two days, but it ended with a team building retreat. The team building was typcial team building. A group of people who haven't quite figured out how much they dislike each other yet, are grouped together and made to do several tasks that have these little Aesop-eque lessons at the end. The only problem is that the group collectively decided that we were going to play dirty to win these team-building events and so the little morsels of wisdom were lost on us. Split into various two-person teams we very quickly, almost wantonly, turned on each other and the greater group cohesion melted away like snowflakes on the pavement. Antony, our Chinese team-building coach, had his work cut out for him. Here's a typical post-team-building exercise dialogue:
Antony:...OK, so maybe next time we should respect personal boundary, is this right? Focus on safety...
Group: [mumbles something about the rules..]
Carlos: So who won that plastic ball tossing game? My team did right?
Antony: oh, OK, so maybe that was not a game for winning, but for learning something about...
Carlos: Cut the crap, "Antony", tell us who won...who is better than who...
Antony: [puzzled look on his face] hmmmm...OK so maybe that ball game is not normally competitive...You were supposed to realize ball tossing is best done with all team together, play together, win together...supposed to realize no zero sum game...
Group: [collectively eye-rolls so hard it almost makes a noise...]
PIC: Here we are... group of adults in a prestigious State Department program...fighting over small plastic balls, ready to maim and scream...you know, team-building
That was poignant for different reasons, but the moment, the real moment that has summed up my experience in Macao/Hong Kong SAR was at the hotel. I was with friends in my hotel room at a posh hotel with excellent service and great views when I noticed my shirt had a loose button. I called down to the front desk and asked if they had a sewing kit. They said 'Yes' and that they would send someone up ASAP to deliver it. It was at this moment that I thought that maybe the language barrier wasn't significant and that this place is fairly live-able by a white devil like myself. I realize I could use some rubber bands as well, and so I call the front desk back:
Me: Hello? I ordered a sewing kit, room 1405?
Desk: Yes...it is coming sir, very soon...
Me: yeah, yeah, great, can I also get two rubber bands?
Desk:...
Me: uh...rubber bands? Hello...
Desk: uh..YES! Yes. two rubbah bands.
Me: [kind of surprised] Oh! Great, Thanks!
Desk: [whispering something inaudible in cantonese to someone off the phone] Excuse me, what is this?
Me: uh...Rubber bands?
Desk: yes sir, what is?
Me: uh...it's like a stretchy office supply, like to hold together pencils...
Desk: oh...tape?
Me: uh...no. No...that's tape...I'm talking about a rubber band, it is shaped like a loop, it is thin, it stretches...
Desk: oh! Yes, yes. room 1405.
Me: [incredulously] yes...
5 minutes later a bell hop shows up with a plate of fruit...an orange, an apple and a pear. The bell hop smiles and runs away as soon as I take the plate. My friend laughs hard at the site of the fruit and takes a picture.
I briefly consider that this is some kind of Cantonese message, maybe like a Sicilian mafia thing, you know, like three fruits of death or something. I call the front desk again...
Desk: Hello?
Me: hi! this is room 1405. I asked for a sewing kit...
Desk: yes. It will be there soon, sir.
Me: aha! yes, ok, somone came already...
Desk: Oh! good, anything else sir?
Me: um...yes, I received a plate of fruit...
Desk: yes...
Me:....uhhhh...yeah. Ok, so I asked for a sewing kit...
Desk: ohhhhh....ok. hmmmmm. 5 minutes, sir, it is on the way.
Me: So....no charge for the fruit...was this an accident?
Desk: oh, yes, maybe. NO charge fruit, sir. You get sewing kit soon, sorry.
Me: No problem-o, oh! and also maybe those rubber bands, yeah?
Desk: sure, ok.
Me: really? Rubber bands?
Desk: hmmmm...what is that?
Me: Oh! I just talked to you about this, those stretchy thin office supply things...
Desk: oh...yes. two of them?
Me: [now filled with doubt about the whole rubber band exchange]...uh....yes, please.
Desk: OK.
5 minutes later a different bell hop shows up at my door...with a sewing kit! AND rubber bands! haha! Yes!...the bell hop is startled by my sudden celebration and sheepishly runs away while a do a jig at the door. I just about start sewing my button back on my shirt and talking to my friend when I get another knock at the door...we look at each other and I inch towards the door. I open it. It's yet another bell hop [at this point I wonder how many they must have constantly squirreling up and down this place] and he's holding...wait for it...a ball of yarn with a pair of bright red scissors stuck in it! He holds it out and makes what I would call frighteningly profound eye contact. This ball of yarn might be quite an honor. I turn back into my room as the bell hop scampers away and I look at my friend and openly wonder if this isn't some sort of mob-hit warning, like there is someone downstairs desperately trying to tell me I am being targeted by the triads; "I don't get it! I tried to warn him, I sent him fruit, then a ball of yarn with red scissors stabbed into it..I mean, c'mon?! Red scissors! What kind of idiot just accepts those random objects?"
This guy.
Anyhow as I stared at what I realized was a random assortment of hotel items on my room's desk I realized that this is like my experience in Macao so far. I do eventually gets some of what I want when interacting with the people here, but occasionally cultural and linguistic barriers rear their ugly heads to create the splendid type of confusion that normally ends with me acquiring a bunch of useless crap just to get what I originally wanted. This is any one of many restaurant experiences or classroom exercises with my students or my visit to the clinic (that's a different blog...). This is me having the waiter order for me because my Chinese is so bad and just sitting there waiting for him to decide what I want. This is one of my students writing their one-page essay on a sheet of paper from their Hello Kitty diary because I didn't clarify that I wanted it written on size A4 paper and sans the kitty.
As I sat there and mediated on these objects I knew my fate. It was a perfect metaphor; If I wanted a sewing kit I would first have to get some fruit and yarn. That is how I would describe living and working in Macao. I hope you're hungry.
Macao-wabunga,
El Carlos
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Macao Day 5: The A-Team Eats Fried Chicken
NOTE: This is from August 17th, posted late because my horoscope told me to...
How hard is it to get fried chicken in Macao? Not hard if;
1) You speak Cantonese
2) You can read Chinese characters
3) You know where you live and can communicate it to people
4) You don't care which restaurant you get the chicken from
The other three Fulbrighters and I, Rosa, Lexi, and Lin, have the capacity (as a group) for (1) and (2) above.
We had just finished proctoring our second TOEFL exam and were ravenously hungry and aching for an adventure after the marathon of misery that is proctoring the TOEFL (for a colorful description of TOEFL duty, see my last post). Rosa mentioned, having been in mainland China before, that the KFCs in China are really good--better than the states. It was with this in mind when we once saw a KFC delivery mo-ped and took down the delivery number written on its side. We didn't where there was a KFC on this island (we asked several people at the school I teach at, but inquiries into its location were filled with rumor and great mystery) but we found the phone number! Also the mo-ped was proof that they delivered to our area. We began scheming a way to order some delicious Chinese special fried chicken from KFC that combined the best of American gastronomical entrepreneurial zeal and the spices of a 5,000 year old culture.
It was not going to be easy.
We faced not insignificant challenges in achieving this oleaginous treat; first of all we didn't know where this KFC was located so picking up the chicken was out of the question. We do have an ace-in-the-hole; Lin speaks Cantonese but not enough to talk about specific types of chicken and what to order (we are very unfamiliar with the Chinese KFC menu and so ordering over the phone--without the ability to point to things--is tough). We also don't know how to communicate my address in Cantonese (but I know the Portuguese version!) thereby making phone ordering difficult. In summary, we don't know WHAT to order because lack of menu, we HAVE to order over the phone because we can't take directions and no one we ask knows where it is, we can't tell the delivery person--even if we could order--how to get to my apartment or the address in Cantonese.
I want to take a moment to address our motivation. You may find yourself asking, "Wow, that sounds like a pain in the ass, why not just get some awesome Chinese food? You are in China! Dump the American stuff and go around the block and get Chinese food! You can get KFC when you come back to USA...weirdo". That is true. That was my first thought as well, but there was a confluence of factors that fated us to the chicken chase. Not to sound grandiose about this but the three other ladies and I have something in common, and it increases exponentially in groups. As Fulbrighters, we are an eclectic group but down to each person we are nothing if not over-achievers and problem solvers. We don't like giving up and we don't like obstacles. We hate them. We are here to surmount obstacles. KFC has become an obstacle. It is no longer about the sweet, sweet promises of oily chicken. It has become about being masters of our fate! Why do we want the chicken? Because we can't have the chicken, dammit!!! We would rather spend the next 10 months chasing down this KFC than let this chicken win! This is personal now.
So after figuring out the challenges above in getting the chicken we hatched a scheme. Lexi suggests going to the library (we didn't have internet access in our new offices yet) and using the public computer to find the Macao KFC. We run to the library. We go on the computer. We find only Hong Kong KFC (Hong Kong is like a 40 minute ferry ride away). Alix suggests we use that KFC's page to look up the menu. Yes! We now know what to order! Rosa reads Chinese characters and so we look at the menu...in Chinese! We start listing all the food we want (by the pictures, of course) and Rosa writes them down. Our four faces are pressed almost simultaneously against the computer screen as we drool and start listing our favorite foods. Food, glorious food! It is "Oliver Twist" in the library internet lab.
With what to order now in hand we needed someone to call the KFC and order the food, but our only Cantonese speaker, Lin, can't read chinese. We think. We need someone who knows where I live and speaks Cantonese...THE DOORMAN!! We all exclaim as we run to my building, like four little Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of our quarry. The answer lies with the doorman! The game is afoot, Watson!
We get to the doorman, 4 sweaty, yet well-dressed, Americans clamoring as we push a piece of paper filled with food orders at him. Lin, explains to him that we want to order food and we need his help and we don't know where I live and if he could just tell the guy where I live and how to get here and please, please, please read this paper to the phone. She says all of this as the crumpled paper with our order is extended to him like a precious stone...He looks at Lin, then me...then all of us and tries to decide whether or not to call the police or perhaps the mental hospital...he decides.
He looks at Lin, "Bla Blabla".
The three of us, in unison look at Lin...Lin turns to us, "He'll do it!". We suppress high-fives and group at the doorway of the doorman's office in the lobby as he and Lin talk over the phone with the KFC. They talk. After a while there is too much talking. The order seems in peril. We hang on pauses and terse exchanges as if the very ground under our feet may give way with the ebb and flow of the phone conversation. Finally, Lin turns to us and says, "the total is 224 petacas". They all look at me...I do the math--that's my area-- (for those that know me that's the sign of how unpopular math is in the group--I'm the expert) the total is about 80 petacas too high, but, after having weighed the benefits of this tenuous phone conversation with the Chinese KFC, I give a nod, "Screw it...just say 'yes'".And with that we hung up the phone. Not but 40 minutes later our food arrived and we pounced on that giant sack of food like jackals after the famine. Having feasted we recline in my living room, fat and happy with our victory over fate. We reflect on the team work it took to secure this meal, and we decide jointly that this will probably go on all our resumes...
I love it when a plan comes together.
Macao-wabunga!
Hannibal
How hard is it to get fried chicken in Macao? Not hard if;
1) You speak Cantonese
2) You can read Chinese characters
3) You know where you live and can communicate it to people
4) You don't care which restaurant you get the chicken from
The other three Fulbrighters and I, Rosa, Lexi, and Lin, have the capacity (as a group) for (1) and (2) above.
We had just finished proctoring our second TOEFL exam and were ravenously hungry and aching for an adventure after the marathon of misery that is proctoring the TOEFL (for a colorful description of TOEFL duty, see my last post). Rosa mentioned, having been in mainland China before, that the KFCs in China are really good--better than the states. It was with this in mind when we once saw a KFC delivery mo-ped and took down the delivery number written on its side. We didn't where there was a KFC on this island (we asked several people at the school I teach at, but inquiries into its location were filled with rumor and great mystery) but we found the phone number! Also the mo-ped was proof that they delivered to our area. We began scheming a way to order some delicious Chinese special fried chicken from KFC that combined the best of American gastronomical entrepreneurial zeal and the spices of a 5,000 year old culture.
It was not going to be easy.
We faced not insignificant challenges in achieving this oleaginous treat; first of all we didn't know where this KFC was located so picking up the chicken was out of the question. We do have an ace-in-the-hole; Lin speaks Cantonese but not enough to talk about specific types of chicken and what to order (we are very unfamiliar with the Chinese KFC menu and so ordering over the phone--without the ability to point to things--is tough). We also don't know how to communicate my address in Cantonese (but I know the Portuguese version!) thereby making phone ordering difficult. In summary, we don't know WHAT to order because lack of menu, we HAVE to order over the phone because we can't take directions and no one we ask knows where it is, we can't tell the delivery person--even if we could order--how to get to my apartment or the address in Cantonese.
I want to take a moment to address our motivation. You may find yourself asking, "Wow, that sounds like a pain in the ass, why not just get some awesome Chinese food? You are in China! Dump the American stuff and go around the block and get Chinese food! You can get KFC when you come back to USA...weirdo". That is true. That was my first thought as well, but there was a confluence of factors that fated us to the chicken chase. Not to sound grandiose about this but the three other ladies and I have something in common, and it increases exponentially in groups. As Fulbrighters, we are an eclectic group but down to each person we are nothing if not over-achievers and problem solvers. We don't like giving up and we don't like obstacles. We hate them. We are here to surmount obstacles. KFC has become an obstacle. It is no longer about the sweet, sweet promises of oily chicken. It has become about being masters of our fate! Why do we want the chicken? Because we can't have the chicken, dammit!!! We would rather spend the next 10 months chasing down this KFC than let this chicken win! This is personal now.
So after figuring out the challenges above in getting the chicken we hatched a scheme. Lexi suggests going to the library (we didn't have internet access in our new offices yet) and using the public computer to find the Macao KFC. We run to the library. We go on the computer. We find only Hong Kong KFC (Hong Kong is like a 40 minute ferry ride away). Alix suggests we use that KFC's page to look up the menu. Yes! We now know what to order! Rosa reads Chinese characters and so we look at the menu...in Chinese! We start listing all the food we want (by the pictures, of course) and Rosa writes them down. Our four faces are pressed almost simultaneously against the computer screen as we drool and start listing our favorite foods. Food, glorious food! It is "Oliver Twist" in the library internet lab.
With what to order now in hand we needed someone to call the KFC and order the food, but our only Cantonese speaker, Lin, can't read chinese. We think. We need someone who knows where I live and speaks Cantonese...THE DOORMAN!! We all exclaim as we run to my building, like four little Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of our quarry. The answer lies with the doorman! The game is afoot, Watson!
We get to the doorman, 4 sweaty, yet well-dressed, Americans clamoring as we push a piece of paper filled with food orders at him. Lin, explains to him that we want to order food and we need his help and we don't know where I live and if he could just tell the guy where I live and how to get here and please, please, please read this paper to the phone. She says all of this as the crumpled paper with our order is extended to him like a precious stone...He looks at Lin, then me...then all of us and tries to decide whether or not to call the police or perhaps the mental hospital...he decides.
He looks at Lin, "Bla Blabla".
The three of us, in unison look at Lin...Lin turns to us, "He'll do it!". We suppress high-fives and group at the doorway of the doorman's office in the lobby as he and Lin talk over the phone with the KFC. They talk. After a while there is too much talking. The order seems in peril. We hang on pauses and terse exchanges as if the very ground under our feet may give way with the ebb and flow of the phone conversation. Finally, Lin turns to us and says, "the total is 224 petacas". They all look at me...I do the math--that's my area-- (for those that know me that's the sign of how unpopular math is in the group--I'm the expert) the total is about 80 petacas too high, but, after having weighed the benefits of this tenuous phone conversation with the Chinese KFC, I give a nod, "Screw it...just say 'yes'".And with that we hung up the phone. Not but 40 minutes later our food arrived and we pounced on that giant sack of food like jackals after the famine. Having feasted we recline in my living room, fat and happy with our victory over fate. We reflect on the team work it took to secure this meal, and we decide jointly that this will probably go on all our resumes...
I love it when a plan comes together.
Macao-wabunga!
Hannibal
Lin and I, at the doorway while the Doorman talks to KFC...
To the victor goes the spoils! Our feast!...look at the bones...
Friday, August 20, 2010
Macao Day 4: "If You Still Have an Ink Pen...You Have Failed This Test, Please Leave."
NOTE: This blog entry is from August 16th and 17th (I'm catching up!), it was posted late because I was born this way, people!
Stand in a room pacing back and fourth for 3 hours while 200 people stare at you in stupefied indifference. You can't talk and you can't eat. This is exactly what proctoring the Test of English as a Foregin Language (TOEFL) here in Macao Univeristy is like. One of our many duties as a Fulbright Grantee here at the University of Macao is to help administer the TOEFL for incoming students. We have to do this three times. I have already done it twice and I'm thinking of drinking some sewer water just to get sick enough to miss the last test. It's like being in an increasingly faster and faster centrifuge of boredom and tedium that will eventually make you vomit and pass out.
This delightful task starts thus: you help a mob of students check in (students btw that create e-mail names that they obviously didn't think about before giving out as their admissions contact because they figure not a lot of people will be able to understand them, e.g. one student blushed when I pointed out that his e-mail on the check-in sheet was "MasterDick2334@*****.com"), then you have to spend an hour (AN HOUR!!!) as a room of 200 students try to fill out 6 fields on one form; name, student number, test booklet number, test form number, language spoken, etc. Every conceivable error possible in answering every single one of those questions is committed in the hour it takes to get everyone to fill this section out. As a proctor (there are 5 of us per room of 200 students) you are crisscrossing the room back and forth attending to the confused and apathetic. It's battlefield triage on the beaches of Normandy.
It's not that the students are not intelligent, indeed, they might be geniuses...in their own language. I could be talking to the Stephen Hawking of Macao, but when operating in English these students might as well be eating paste with their bare hands off the floor. I am not unsympathetic; in Mandarin, when trying to order lunch here (where they speak Cantonese), I have received many stares from behind the food-counter that suggest this all would go much smoother if only I wasn't so incredibly stupid. If I had to order lunch in Chinese with a number two pencil and a scantron I would devolve a couple of millennia too.
I would like to think these students are so frustrating because they are culturally trained to be reserved when confused or not to impose so as not to lose face but that's bullshit--it is much better to think of these people as exactly what they are and what exists almost everywhere in the developed world; dear-in-the-headlights, apathetic to the point of coma, completely lost incoming freshmen. They are just out of secondary school, spent some summer months dorking around and now are looking down the barrel of 4 years of misery in a college system they have no experience in. You add the language factor and suddenly you are running a 400-meter sprint in the mud with concrete shoes...drunk.
An illustrative example: the announcer for the test, with the microphone and his best radio voice, announces several times at the beginning of the test that all ink pens should be put away. If they are not, the students will accidentally use them on the pencil-only scantron and end up not having their tests counted. The reminder goes out 4 times, calmly, and spoken ever so slowly (as if trying to get a parrot to repeat the phrase); "Please put away all ink pens. There are no pens allowed on your desks or on this test. You do not need ink pens for any purpose, they are useless today and should be put back into your bags... right now. Please, do not use any ink pens. Thank you". A few moments pass by as the proctors fan out among the lost souls and one of us runs up to the announcer to let him know we are still finding people using ink pens to fill out their names. The announcer, one of our English teachers from the States named Richard, (who, by the way, really does have some radio experience and is able to affect a smooth gravel-wrapped-in-velvet voice) repeats as slowly and clearly as possible (convinced, perhaps, that he used too many words last time...), " No ink pens, please." [he holds up a pen and shakes it back and forth, as if the ink pen itself was shaking its head in disapproval] Do not use ANY ink pens. You do not need any ink pens."
The other proctors and I continue squirreling our way throughout the throng of students as they heroically attempt to fill out their name and student number and, incredulously, continue to find pens. The level of frustration amongst us proctors starts to wax as we hold up, high in the air, like Braveheart animating the Scottish armies, every ink pen we find in the students' hands or desk. Richard seeing this, his own cockles rising, gets back on the microphone, "[hypothesizing his air has been much too reserved and warm, adopts a more..stern, paternal, attitude about this whole pen thing] okay, everyone look at me....NO PENS. alright? NO PENS. PENS? NOooooo." He then holds up a pen again, this time expressing pantomimed shock at discovering it in his hands, he swiftly, bending slightly at the waist and knees, gestures the pen down underneath his imaginary desk in an arch-like motion. In this way he has modeled the correct action, in a non-verbal, and hence arguably universal fashion, to take upon any student finding a pen in his or her hand or on his or her desk. He caps this gesticulating skit with more verbal directions, thereby reinforcing the put-your-pens-away concept, " NO PENS. ALL PENS SHOULD GO AWAY." Every sentence takes on a more metaphysical connotation, "PENS ARE BAD. WE MUST REMOVE ALL PENS".
After an hour we are ready to take the actual test (not true, it turns out; upon inspecting the students' forms as they take the test we find glaring errors in their names and ID numbers according to a list we have for double checking). This is actually the boring and tedious part, apparently the hour-long didactic nightmare we just experienced was the fun part. The next two hours crawls by with the speed of a glacier. The time for the test finally, mercifully, runs out and we collect the tests. We tell the students they may leave and they bolt out of the classroom, released into a renewed second life free from the test. As we sort and count tests I look at their renewed freedom longingly...a convict yet to be released.
I make the students sound insufferable but in reality it is a mutually tedious affair. Those students that understood all the directions, the first time, also had weary, jaundiced looks on their faces as they begged for a swift end to this test. It was an inattentive minority that dragged this out for all of us, really. Also I was surprised by how different the Macao students are from mainland Chinese students. The Macanese (that's the word we use..yes, yes, it sounds like Mac-and-Cheese...) students reminded me so much of American freshmen, so unlike the eager and eager-to-please Chinese students I have known before. In fact in briefing after briefing from our supervisors and co-workers we are told that a significant amount of these students show up late to class, ignore you during lectures and try to slide by in their classes because they just want to graduate and work. As I hear these things I smile slightly as I think, "Throw in some binge drinking and a mediocre sports team and your in America, baby!"
Did You Know?...In English medium schools in China, students get to choose their English names. Some REAL life, self-selected, English name examples; "Easy", "Happy" and "Angel"...they would fit in well in East L.A.
Macao-wabunga, indeed.
El Carlos (friend of Banana)
Stand in a room pacing back and fourth for 3 hours while 200 people stare at you in stupefied indifference. You can't talk and you can't eat. This is exactly what proctoring the Test of English as a Foregin Language (TOEFL) here in Macao Univeristy is like. One of our many duties as a Fulbright Grantee here at the University of Macao is to help administer the TOEFL for incoming students. We have to do this three times. I have already done it twice and I'm thinking of drinking some sewer water just to get sick enough to miss the last test. It's like being in an increasingly faster and faster centrifuge of boredom and tedium that will eventually make you vomit and pass out.
This delightful task starts thus: you help a mob of students check in (students btw that create e-mail names that they obviously didn't think about before giving out as their admissions contact because they figure not a lot of people will be able to understand them, e.g. one student blushed when I pointed out that his e-mail on the check-in sheet was "MasterDick2334@*****.com"), then you have to spend an hour (AN HOUR!!!) as a room of 200 students try to fill out 6 fields on one form; name, student number, test booklet number, test form number, language spoken, etc. Every conceivable error possible in answering every single one of those questions is committed in the hour it takes to get everyone to fill this section out. As a proctor (there are 5 of us per room of 200 students) you are crisscrossing the room back and forth attending to the confused and apathetic. It's battlefield triage on the beaches of Normandy.
It's not that the students are not intelligent, indeed, they might be geniuses...in their own language. I could be talking to the Stephen Hawking of Macao, but when operating in English these students might as well be eating paste with their bare hands off the floor. I am not unsympathetic; in Mandarin, when trying to order lunch here (where they speak Cantonese), I have received many stares from behind the food-counter that suggest this all would go much smoother if only I wasn't so incredibly stupid. If I had to order lunch in Chinese with a number two pencil and a scantron I would devolve a couple of millennia too.
I would like to think these students are so frustrating because they are culturally trained to be reserved when confused or not to impose so as not to lose face but that's bullshit--it is much better to think of these people as exactly what they are and what exists almost everywhere in the developed world; dear-in-the-headlights, apathetic to the point of coma, completely lost incoming freshmen. They are just out of secondary school, spent some summer months dorking around and now are looking down the barrel of 4 years of misery in a college system they have no experience in. You add the language factor and suddenly you are running a 400-meter sprint in the mud with concrete shoes...drunk.
An illustrative example: the announcer for the test, with the microphone and his best radio voice, announces several times at the beginning of the test that all ink pens should be put away. If they are not, the students will accidentally use them on the pencil-only scantron and end up not having their tests counted. The reminder goes out 4 times, calmly, and spoken ever so slowly (as if trying to get a parrot to repeat the phrase); "Please put away all ink pens. There are no pens allowed on your desks or on this test. You do not need ink pens for any purpose, they are useless today and should be put back into your bags... right now. Please, do not use any ink pens. Thank you". A few moments pass by as the proctors fan out among the lost souls and one of us runs up to the announcer to let him know we are still finding people using ink pens to fill out their names. The announcer, one of our English teachers from the States named Richard, (who, by the way, really does have some radio experience and is able to affect a smooth gravel-wrapped-in-velvet voice) repeats as slowly and clearly as possible (convinced, perhaps, that he used too many words last time...), " No ink pens, please." [he holds up a pen and shakes it back and forth, as if the ink pen itself was shaking its head in disapproval] Do not use ANY ink pens. You do not need any ink pens."
The other proctors and I continue squirreling our way throughout the throng of students as they heroically attempt to fill out their name and student number and, incredulously, continue to find pens. The level of frustration amongst us proctors starts to wax as we hold up, high in the air, like Braveheart animating the Scottish armies, every ink pen we find in the students' hands or desk. Richard seeing this, his own cockles rising, gets back on the microphone, "[hypothesizing his air has been much too reserved and warm, adopts a more..stern, paternal, attitude about this whole pen thing] okay, everyone look at me....NO PENS. alright? NO PENS. PENS? NOooooo." He then holds up a pen again, this time expressing pantomimed shock at discovering it in his hands, he swiftly, bending slightly at the waist and knees, gestures the pen down underneath his imaginary desk in an arch-like motion. In this way he has modeled the correct action, in a non-verbal, and hence arguably universal fashion, to take upon any student finding a pen in his or her hand or on his or her desk. He caps this gesticulating skit with more verbal directions, thereby reinforcing the put-your-pens-away concept, " NO PENS. ALL PENS SHOULD GO AWAY." Every sentence takes on a more metaphysical connotation, "PENS ARE BAD. WE MUST REMOVE ALL PENS".
After an hour we are ready to take the actual test (not true, it turns out; upon inspecting the students' forms as they take the test we find glaring errors in their names and ID numbers according to a list we have for double checking). This is actually the boring and tedious part, apparently the hour-long didactic nightmare we just experienced was the fun part. The next two hours crawls by with the speed of a glacier. The time for the test finally, mercifully, runs out and we collect the tests. We tell the students they may leave and they bolt out of the classroom, released into a renewed second life free from the test. As we sort and count tests I look at their renewed freedom longingly...a convict yet to be released.
I make the students sound insufferable but in reality it is a mutually tedious affair. Those students that understood all the directions, the first time, also had weary, jaundiced looks on their faces as they begged for a swift end to this test. It was an inattentive minority that dragged this out for all of us, really. Also I was surprised by how different the Macao students are from mainland Chinese students. The Macanese (that's the word we use..yes, yes, it sounds like Mac-and-Cheese...) students reminded me so much of American freshmen, so unlike the eager and eager-to-please Chinese students I have known before. In fact in briefing after briefing from our supervisors and co-workers we are told that a significant amount of these students show up late to class, ignore you during lectures and try to slide by in their classes because they just want to graduate and work. As I hear these things I smile slightly as I think, "Throw in some binge drinking and a mediocre sports team and your in America, baby!"
Did You Know?...In English medium schools in China, students get to choose their English names. Some REAL life, self-selected, English name examples; "Easy", "Happy" and "Angel"...they would fit in well in East L.A.
Macao-wabunga, indeed.
El Carlos (friend of Banana)
Macao Day 3: Pepe Lepew Does Macao
NOTE: This is a belated blog from Sunday, August 15th, I am posting this late. Why? WHY?! Stop being a blog Nazi, dude!
His name is Henri. He is French. Very French. When I meet him there are three things that dominate the conversation; he likes hitting on the girls here (use your best Pepe-Lepew accent: "Eet ees easy Cahlos, you goh to ze park and talk to zem and voila! in 5 minoot you have zer fone numehrs"), he hates Chinese food--he scowls at the mention of passing up McDonald's to go get noodles--and he is a *touch* lazy ("Eet ees too Fahr" is a common answer to any request to meet him more than 20 feet from any bus station...). In a word: he is AWESOME. I meet him through a co-worker as we, my three other female Fulbrighters and said co-worker, walk back from lunch. He is on the way to go swimming and, after asking our co-worker (his friend) if she wants to go swimming, wastes no time in hitting on my companions. This seemed to be an involuntary thing, like blinking or sneezing, and it did not stop, even while ogling women in every plaza we went to. I <3 Henri!
Later on, Henri convinces me to text him so we can meet and he can show me how he picks up foreign girls, without the restricting presence of "zee Girls" (as he calls my co-workers). I quickly take his number and agree to meet later that evening at the arcade, but to see Macao with my co-workers. Around 8pm, We meet up; him, my co-workers and myself. We spend the evening with him as our reluctant yet surprisingly effective tour guide.Within a few hours we see practically all of Macao, including the call girls that roam the lobbies of the nicer hotels here like used car salesmen on a busy lot, shows at the MGM and the Wynn resorts---A mechanical puppet display in the lobby and a water fountain show, respectively. We eat $4 MOP per plate sushi (less than $1 USD per 4 pieces!) I even ate chicken wings at McDonald's. At the end of the night Henri informs us that we have seen all that Macao has to offer. Everything. That's it. He has lived here for 4 years. The Samuel Johnson of Macao he is not.
We part company and he sees to it that we find our way home safely (for all the bluster he is actually quite a good host and considerate, if not terse). On the way out he nods to me, in a tacit appointment-making gesture that assures me he still wants to take me to the plazas (sans zee Girls) to show me how he does what he does best and even quickly manages to arrange one of my co-workers to "tutor" him in Mandarin ("Oh, joo speek Chinese? Joo cahn teech moi...") then playfully bounces away skipping, with his tail wagging in the air behind him. Oh, Pepe!
Macao-Wabunga!!!!
Carlos
His name is Henri. He is French. Very French. When I meet him there are three things that dominate the conversation; he likes hitting on the girls here (use your best Pepe-Lepew accent: "Eet ees easy Cahlos, you goh to ze park and talk to zem and voila! in 5 minoot you have zer fone numehrs"), he hates Chinese food--he scowls at the mention of passing up McDonald's to go get noodles--and he is a *touch* lazy ("Eet ees too Fahr" is a common answer to any request to meet him more than 20 feet from any bus station...). In a word: he is AWESOME. I meet him through a co-worker as we, my three other female Fulbrighters and said co-worker, walk back from lunch. He is on the way to go swimming and, after asking our co-worker (his friend) if she wants to go swimming, wastes no time in hitting on my companions. This seemed to be an involuntary thing, like blinking or sneezing, and it did not stop, even while ogling women in every plaza we went to. I <3 Henri!
Later on, Henri convinces me to text him so we can meet and he can show me how he picks up foreign girls, without the restricting presence of "zee Girls" (as he calls my co-workers). I quickly take his number and agree to meet later that evening at the arcade, but to see Macao with my co-workers. Around 8pm, We meet up; him, my co-workers and myself. We spend the evening with him as our reluctant yet surprisingly effective tour guide.Within a few hours we see practically all of Macao, including the call girls that roam the lobbies of the nicer hotels here like used car salesmen on a busy lot, shows at the MGM and the Wynn resorts---A mechanical puppet display in the lobby and a water fountain show, respectively. We eat $4 MOP per plate sushi (less than $1 USD per 4 pieces!) I even ate chicken wings at McDonald's. At the end of the night Henri informs us that we have seen all that Macao has to offer. Everything. That's it. He has lived here for 4 years. The Samuel Johnson of Macao he is not.
We part company and he sees to it that we find our way home safely (for all the bluster he is actually quite a good host and considerate, if not terse). On the way out he nods to me, in a tacit appointment-making gesture that assures me he still wants to take me to the plazas (sans zee Girls) to show me how he does what he does best and even quickly manages to arrange one of my co-workers to "tutor" him in Mandarin ("Oh, joo speek Chinese? Joo cahn teech moi...") then playfully bounces away skipping, with his tail wagging in the air behind him. Oh, Pepe!
Macao-Wabunga!!!!
Carlos
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