Wake up to ramen in your cup

Breakfast in China is not quite the same as it is back home. The selection leaves something to be desired. If you think of breakfast food maybe a hundred items come to mind: scrambled eggs, toast, pancakes, hash browns, oatmeal, cereal, french toast, crepes, yogurt- the list goes on. In Beijing I ate bao zi for breakfast almost every day. It’s steamed bread (formed into rolls) with some form of meat (I don’t ask what) on the inside, it’s actually quite delicious. It costs about $.80 for 8 or so.It was convenient to eat there because a restaurant made it outside our hotel. But after our week there I was looking forward to a new breakfast dish that I was certain to find in my city of Xiangtan.

Unfortunately we haven’t made it to a restaurant to grab breakfast yet (we’ve been making PB&J’s with the PB we bought at a foreign market). So I took the opportunity to ask some students in my evening class last night what their favorite breakfast foods were. The response was a unanimous “bao zi”! I told them that I had tried and really liked bao zi but was wondering what else they ate for breakfast. After a short pause and some pondering they repeated “bao zi. yes bao zi”. I’m sure they noticed the confusion on my face. One student continued by explaining “I don’t wake up early enough to make ramen, so I usually buy bao zi on my way to class” There it is! My breakfast choices are ramen or bao zi. One day they may grasp the full beauty of western breakfast foods, but for now, I will enjoy my bao zi.

Teaching

We are officially foreign teachers in China. I began teaching my classes on Monday. We teach the “Conversation English” class here at Xiangtan University. Each of my classes have 70+ students and are two hours long. The students are some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. After each class students will line up to talk to me but end up just giggling…a lot. Many of them have never seen a foreigner in their life so they are very excited for the chance to try out their English skills and learn anything they can about western culture. It has been interesting being here because this country is very homogeneous so we stick out everywhere we go.

Can you even imagine growing up having never met a foreigner? I can’t remember going through even one day where I didn’t see someone from another country or at least with a different ethnicity, and that is in my small town of Rexburg! So as you can imagine, these students are very excited/nervous to meet a foreigner, especially from the states. They are so fun and have an innocence about them that is hard to believe sometimes. A student that Doug had last time he was here asked him how many people he has killed…thank you Hollywood! They have a skewed perception of a lot of things outside their culture because the only contact they’ve had is movies.

They have made me want to try harder to learn Spanish (I learned a lot in college, but was always too afraid to actually try to use it). I had one of my students come up to me during their class break that just wanted to talk. He knew hardly any English but still jumped at the chance to practice! I was so impressed. We have a few neighbors from Spain so I will try to practice my Spanish with them and perhaps I will try ordering our dinner tonight in Chinese.