Farmers for a Day

Well, actually we were only farmers for an hour, and then we got kicked off the job.

Last week, Alvin and I stayed with our friend at a nearby country village. It is about 6 hours away from our house, up near the mountains. We stayed at our friend's parent's house. In this small village, all her neighbors were here relatives.

The community grows goji berries. They have acres of just goji berry trees. During our stay, our friend took us to help out in their field pruning the trees. Unfortunately, after an hour, her mom told us that our services were no longer needed.



The people in her village were very hospitable. One morning, we were invited to and had three lunches at different people's homes. The food was very good, the scenery beautiful, and we learned a lot about Chinese villages.

Conversation Expectations

We have learned quite a few things since moving overseas 2 years ago (that's right - yesterday marked the 2-year point of our arrival to this country). One of the things we have learned is how awkward-but-must-have conversations are to be conducted here. Learning this has helped us to have good expectations, preserve relationships, and avoid frustration.

What is an awkward-but-must-have conversation? Something like... discussing with your landlady about renewing your apartment lease for a year, and negotiating the rent for the coming year. That's the conversation that I had tonight.

In the States, there would probably be no conversation. You would get a notice on your door (or maybe an e-mail) that says, "Your annual lease will be expiring in 30 days. You are hereby notified that, if you would like renew your lease for the coming 12 months, your rent will increase by 14%. Please notify the property manager if you would like to renew your lease, or give proper notice of your intent to vacate your apartment. Thank you." There... that only took 2 minutes to read. Everything black and white. Choices are clear. Move along.

It's not like that here. Instead, it starts like this...

Two weeks ago, I run into my landlady while walking home. I say, "Oh, by the way, our lease is about to be up! We should talk with you sometime about renting for the coming year!" She says, "Oh yeah, that's right. Well, when the time comes, we'll talk." (Literally, she says, 到时候我们再说吧, which means, "When the time comes, we'll talk.")

Then a few days ago, I say, "Wow, look at that... the time has come! We should talk!" She says, "Ok, we'll connect sometime next week."

Then today she calls me and says, "Did you want to talk about renting for the coming year?" I say, "That sounds like a good idea. Thanks for bringing it up! Sure, let's talk!" She says, "Ok, come on over to our home tonight after dinner."

By now, we have had three conversations about the rent, but we have also had zero conversations about the rent. Tonight's conversation, at her home with her and husband... this would be the conversation. And I knew to set aside at least 90 minutes for this conversation.

I go over to their home. We all know why I'm there. We all know what we're gathering to talk about. But, we do not get right to the point. That's not how things work here. If I walked in and said, "Alright... so, let's talk rent..." - that would be awkward and disrespectful. What's more important is the relationship we have with each other, not how much rent they're going to charge. So, I sit. We talk.

We talk about where we all traveled during May 1st holiday. We talk about whether we're going to travel for the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival Holiday. We talk about how work is going, how the business registration process is going. We talk about looking for office space. We talk about how office space is a lot cheaper on this side of town. We talk about how everything seems to be getting more expensive these days. We talk about their daughter. We talk about how much homework she has. We talk about how learning Chinese can be pretty difficult at times for us.

We talk about a lot of things, but we all know what I'm there to talk about.

After about 40 minutes of chit-chat, my landlady says, "Oh... so, about the rent..." And then they refer back to the part about everything getting more expensive these days. They say that they did some calculations, and rent is going to have to go up this year. Up by 7.8%. "Oh, I see. Hmm...," I say. No quick answer. No visible reaction from me one way or the other. It is not yet time to end this conversation. So, we talk more.

We talk about the other apartments they're renting out, and how much rent has gone up or will go up for those apartments. We talk about how much the rent increase was for us last year (13.3%). We talk about the baby that's on the way. We talk about whether it's more of a financial burden to raise a boy or a girl in this country. We talk about the benefits of renting a home instead of buying.

My landlady goes to the fridge to bring out a bag of bamboo-leaf wrapped sticky rice (粽子), which she made for us. After all, next week is Dragon Boat Festival. I say thank you. We continue talking. I have now been at my landlady's home for 75 minutes.

When I find a good segue, I say, "Oh yeah, so... about the rent. I understand why it needs to go up this year. It makes sense. After all, the cost of everything seems to be going up this year. What do you think about a raise of only 5.8%?" (I'm using percentages here, but we were talking about RMB amounts.) The husband hears the number, asks his wife, "What does that come out to?" She calculates. He says, "Yeah, yeah... that should be fine. Close enough. After all, we're all friends anyways!"

There. The deal is done. But... you can't just end it there and say, "Alright. Well, we're all settled then. I'm off now!" That would make it look like the only thing you came here to talk about was the rent, and now that the rent's settled, you want nothing else to do with them. Come on, you should have learned that by now!

So, we talk. We talk for another 15 minutes. The weather. Raising children. Whether or not a woman should wash her hair for the first month after giving birth. Whether or not not washing her hair is linked to later-in-life arthritis in her knees. The standard stuff.

90 minutes in, I say, "My my, look at the time. Well, thanks again for letting me come over, and also for the 粽子 - these will be great! Oh yeah, I'll get that rent money to you first thing on Wednesday. I guess I should head home to the wife now...!"

And then, I walk home. 90 minutes well spent. The rent conversation is done. Rent went up, as expected, but only by a reasonable amount. Relationship is intact, if not even strengthened, perhaps. And, going in with the expectation that this would be a 90 minute conversation wherein only 6 minutes of the conversation would deal with the actual topic of rent... having this expectation definitely saved some frustration. All in all... a good evening, and a good conversation.

The Neighbor's Yak

After waking up this morning, I made my way to the outhouse squattie. Coming back, I noticed that there were two yaks in the yard, eating the grass.

Apparently, this is common. Just like how, in the States, the neighbor's dog gets into your yard and starts digging up your Azaleas, so also here the neighbor's yak can wander into your yard and start eating your grass. One of the boys here chased them off.

Looks like it's not going to rain or snow today where we are, so maybe it will be a good day to take some pictures of the local people and the local mountains...

Adventure Weekend

A friend and I are spending the weekend in a neighboring province to learn about some work that is being done in computer education and software development there.

We have both left our pregnant wives at home to fend for themselves.

At present, I'm blogging from something like 12,000 feet above sea level. I shot this picture while we were on our drive up the mountain. On our way up, we were talking about what adventurous things we've done in our past. For myself, I realize, I'm not that adventurous of a guy, not much of a risk taker. No cliff jumping, no river braving, no skydiving (in skydiving - my wife has already surpassed me in adventurousness). In fact, I don't even buy fireworks/firecrackers even though they're cheap and legal where we live.

Where we're staying this weekend, we are sleeping in sleeping bags on top of an unheated concrete kang. There is a furnace in the middle room which we have to keep going by adding yak dung and coal. Our bathroom is a wooden, outhouse squattie. It snowed last night. The family we're staying with has mentioned nothing about showers.

My friend and I have concluded that this weekend's pseudo-camping trip counts as adventurous.

Too Much English, Perhaps?

Recently, Bethany and I have been spending some of our Saturday afternoons at the city library, just to study and be in a nice study environment. In recent weeks, my Database Class professor has been coming too, to bring her 6-year old daughter to see me in order to practice English. This has been alright - it was something that I agreed to do. It gives Bethany about an hour of time to chat with my professor, which is great language practice for her. And my professor's daughter is totally adorable and smart.

This last Saturday, it turns out my professor was also babysitting a 6-year classmate of her daughter, a boy who has very little interest in learning English but has tons of interest in cars. So, this boy came along too for the English lesson. After about an hour of working through English together - me and these two 6-year olds - we called it a day.

The boy ran to the magazine racks to get magazines about cars, and then he came back to talk to me nonstop about this or that car... all in Chinese. I couldn't understand a lot of what he said.

My professor said to him (in Chinese), "Shao Ge, you have to speak slower to uncle when you are talking to him. Uncle doesn't understand all of the Chinese that you are speaking."

The boy looked at me curiously, and then looked back at my professor. "Is that because he spent too much time learning English?"

Yes, Shao Ge, you nailed it. That's exactly it.

Romanian Dinner

Did you know that the 1st of March is the traditional celebration of the beginning of the spring in Romania? The holiday is called Martisor. On that day, our Romanian friends took over a local restaurant and hosted a Romanian dinner for a fair price.

It was my first time having Romanian food, and it was delicious. Unfortunately, we forget to take pictures, but to find pictures and more about the dishes, check out this page.

First, Alvin and I shared a soup called "bors." It tasted like a hearty chicken, vegetable soup.

Second, we had "sarmale." This is cabbage rolls with meat inside served with sour cream, hot pepper, and bread or polenta.

For dessert, our table was presented with "prajitura," a plate of about 8 different desserts. All of them were very good.

Pasta with Tomatoes

One of our friends, when his wife was feeling nauseous around the first trimester, asked me to write up some recipes that he could cook for his wife. I handed him three simple recipes, and then one day we cooked together for his wife and Alvin. Many of the recipes do not include meat because the wife was feeling sick at the smell/taste of meat at that time.

The first menu was pasta with tomatoes and a side of roasted carrots. The pasta with tomatoes was a recipe given to me by my sister-in-law MSolari (but I did tweak it a little).

Pasta with tomatoes
Serves 4
Ingredients:
½ package of pasta
3 tomatoes, diced
1 teaspoon dried basil (or 1 T of fresh basil)
8 oz. mozzarella, diced (about a handful)
2 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
5 drops of lemon juice

Directions:
1) Boil pasta for 10-15 minutes, until pasta is soft. Remove and place pasta in strainer.
2) While pasta is boiling, sauté garlic in oil until garlic is soft but not burned.
3) Pour oil and garlic over pasta.
4) Add tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, and lemon juice. Stir.
5) Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Optional meat: Chicken chunks
2 chicken breast
¼ teaspoon olive oil

1) Sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper over chicken.
2) Drizzle 1 teaspoon of olive oil over chicken.
3) Bake for 15 minutes in oven at 176 C (350 F)
4) Remove, let sit for 5 minutes.
5) Cut chicken in large chunks, and add to pasta



Roasted carrots
Serves 4
Ingredients:
4 carrots, cut in ¼ inch rounds
2 T of olive oil

Directions:
1) Put carrots in oven safe pan.
2) Preheat oven to 200 C (400 F).
3) Drizzle olive oil over the carrots.
4) Sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper over carrots.
5) Bake for 20 minutes, or until tender. Halfway through the baking, mix up the carrots to prevent burning.