It was a funeral.

While it was still dark this morning I heard voices down in the street and saw this strange procession of what I assume were relatives and friends carrying belongings from the apartment across from us and putting them into cars and vans. The flowers were all gone too. Just a moment ago, at 7:13 am, fireworks erupted and chased away evil spirits.

addendum

When we were coming home from a friend's place last night, it started to snow. I took a picture of the flowers with a little snow on them, and then this morning everything was covered with it.

window things

I was in my kitchen this morning making pancakes for Erin. Our kitchen is my favorite spot in our apartment, because you can see all of the other people in all of their kitchens in all of the surrounding apartments. I like the feeling of everyone cooking at the same time. Now that it's winter, I especially like to look out the window and see all of the windows steaming up at once. When the sun is setting, this look the best, but I can never get it to come out in a picture very well. One of the reasons the buildings are all constructed the same way is because the gas for the stoves is piped to the same place in each of the units. I think the uniform construction of Chinese apartment buildings is beautiful and pragmatic. At least, it seems that way to me. I'm sure that I'm missing a good deal of what is happening around me on a daily basis. My interpretation of events is wonderfully askew. For example, this morning when I was making pancakes, I looked out the window and there were these flower arrangements in front of the door to the opposite apartment building. I looked at these for a long time trying to figure out whether they were for a wedding, or for a funeral. I'm still not sure. "I'm Waiting For My Man" by the Velvet Underground was playing on my Ipod in the kitchen while I was cooking, which would be appropriate for either occasion.

"Pizza for Women"

Apparently, my idea to post something every day didn't work, owing to my truant disposition. I digress, though. I'll move on.

I was teaching some of my younger students different food and restaurant vocabulary and they asked me, with genuine seriousness, whether I had ever eaten pizza. Once I told them I had, they asked me what my favorite kind of pizza was. I, in turn, asked them what their favorite kind of pizza was and they informed me that, OF COURSE, it was Potato Pizza. There was much horrified sighing and rending of garments when I informed them that I had never eaten potato pizza, and they were positive that I was lying to them. According to my students, every American MUST have eaten potato pizza, since pizza is American food, and everyone loves potato pizza. (Sorry Italian peoples of the world. Apparently my country has appropriated your food. We have a tendency to appropriate things. Mea culpa.)

My very serious student Carol repeated, half to herself, under her breath, "But Mr. Cartwright, potato pizza is so delicious. Is is SO delicious."

What could I do? I asked my students where the best place was in Tianjin to eat Potato Pizza and I promised them that I would try it. Carol also said "You should try corn. Corn is good, but Potato is the best pizza." My students told me to go to Mr. Pizza for Potato Pizza. Luckily, Erin and I knew where this place was, since it is close to where we buy groceries. Mr. Pizza is memorable, to me, because their slogan in English, under the name, is "Mr. Pizza--Pizza for Women." Erin and I have tried to figure out why Mr. Pizza has pizza for women, but it is a mystery.

Here are some highlights of potato pizza:

1. Potatoes (naturally)
2. Corn flakes (?)
3. Mayonnaise (??!)
4. A stuffed crust filled with warm, pureed pumpkin. (??!($#*(##(@*@!)

"distressed" bicycles

Erin and I just got home after having dinner with her friends Miguel, Juana, Lihuijin in this tiny restaurant inside of an apartment building. I liked it. It felt like a secret restaurant. Most of my favorite restaurants and bars feel like secret restaurants and bars. For example, in Seattle, I love the Alibi Room. It's in an alley off of Pike Street. There used to be this coffee shop, or maybe a bar, (I can't remember which and I think that means I'm getting old) in Port Townsend, Washington, and you had to enter the place through this little half-door. Maybe if one of my cohorts from those days reads this they can comment and tell me the name. I can't remember the name of it.

After dinner Juana and Miguel told us about this guy who sells cheap bikes down the street from the restaurant. The cheap bikes are actually new cheap bikes, not stolen cheap bikes. Erin and I jumped at the chance to somehow circumvent her earlier moral dilemma about buying a stolen bike. Juana and Miguel kindly offered to show us the place. The bikes cost what amounts to about $25 after conversion, so we jumped at buying one for Erin. Bicycling is the most practical way to get around here, and getting one's bike stolen is nothing to write home about. The timing was perfect, too, since I had previously taken a taxi from my school to meet up with everyone. Erin had our one remaining bike with her, and I wasn't looking forward to hoofing it home in the progressively bitter cold of a Tianjin winter. After we bought the new bike we both got to ride home.

On the ride home I kept thinking about the word "distressed" because Erin and I had already discussed wanting to rough up a new bike, if we bought one, so that it would look less appealing to steal. In the states, at a Pier One, or some other store, "distressed" tables are being sold for exhorbatent fees. At clothing stores "distressed" jeans are also being sold for exhorbatant fees. Distressed leather jackets, distressed baseball caps, the list goes on. I've been thinking lately that America may be unique in its need for "distressed" goods. From what I can glean, Tianjiners distress things on their own, and don't need manufacturers to do the distressing for them. In fact, things here maybe be a little too distressed at times. The air is distressed, the water in the canal is distressed, the frozen globs of spit on the sidewalk are distressed. But I digress.

Advertising language keeps coming up in my thoughts and my writing, lately, because I'm coming to terms with the fact that many sounds and sights that make me feel nostalgic, or safe, are really just Pavlovian responses to advertising. For example, after about a month in, here in China, I walked into a Fomax store and was in the drink aisle when I suddenly felt an emotional tug towards a plastic bottle with a familiar color scheme. It was a Minute Maid bottle of "orange drink". Here was the distressing part, before I move on to discuss "distressing" a bike; I don't read characters. I have merely been trained, through all of the years of my childhood, to know that the colors orange and black mean "Minute Maid". At first I thought it was a fluke, but a week later I was in Carrefour, in the toothpaste aisle and felt a similar, nostalgic tug. After I felt the tug I pointed to a display and said "That's Crest." Then I pointed to another one and said "that's Colgate," and then I felt a little like a trained monkey. And also, shamefully, a little bit at peace.

But back to the bike.

Once we got the new cheap non-stolen bike home I ran up to our apartment and got some supplies: 1) the steel wool from the kitchen, 2) a roll of strapping tape, and 3) a plastic bag. Then I proceeded to scratch the new cheap non-stolen bike as much as I could. I wrapped a piece of strapping tape around it. I used the steel wool on the "leather" of the seat. Erin grabbed some dirt and we rubbed it on the bike for good measure, before locking it up. Voila. We successfully "distressed" a bicycle.

I'll take a picture of the distressed bicycle tomorrow and post it.

If it hasn't been stolen.

here's something

I'm not very good at blogging consistently. I'm going to try and post at least one thing each day, even if it's short. Here's my first try:

Today I had one of my classes listen to music as part of their grammar lessons. I played songs that have the phrase "I feel" used in different ways, because I've been teaching them different ways this phrase is used, and different sentence patterns it is used with. My students huddled around my miniature Ipod speakers and fought over who got to sit directly in front of the speaker. They asked me if I could play Sara Vaughn's cover of "I feel pretty" three times in a row. Some days I feel like teaching in a Confucian culture, though absolutely maddening at times, has spoiled me and that I will find it difficult to go back to teaching brooding, trustafarian JoCo college Freshmen. That is my moment of the day. Also, I learned that in Korea crows are bad luck. The word for the number four is also bad luck, because it rhymes with the word for death.

School Festival

Last week, on Friday, my school had their yearly festival. I’ve never been to something like this in the United States. I’m curious if some U.S. schools, maybe private schools, have festivals like this. Unfortunately, Erin and I both forgot to take our cameras. It was a real spectacle. My students told me this week that they posted a video from the festival of them singing and dancing to a K-pop song on some Korean version of YouTube. If I can find it, I’ll link it here. My student “Alex” said to me: “Mr. Cartwright, I am sure that we are going to be famous now. Our video had maybe twenty hits on Friday, and then I looked today, and we have 300 hits!” I’m kind of at a loss to explain exactly what happened at this festival in some way that makes sense. There was food. It was in a giant, fancy auditorium. Parents were there. Teachers were there. Students danced, and one student sang opera in Italian. There was a movie about two students who love the same girl that was shown. Students dressed up like waiters would run up and down the aisles and deliver things to people. There was some strange raffle where everyone had to stand up and look for a number on the bottom of their seats. A lot of my fellow teachers got on stage and danced with giant lollipops to a K-pop song called “I am kissing you.” There was a dance contest. Some of my twelve year old students dressed up in drag and sang a song called “Hey Mister!” from a Korean movie. They looked a little like the supremes. They were wearing a lot of blue, silver and gold lamay. A lot of things are more intense and confusing because of my lack of language over here. I felt a little like Hunter Thompson while watching all of it.

It was interesting to introduce Erin to my students, who are really fascinated by her. They’ve slowly gotten comfortable with talking to me, and seeing me every day, but I think Erin threw them for a loop. Some of my students would run up to us in their bowties and waiter uniforms in the auditorium and would start chattering away to me because they were excited to see me, and then you could visibly see them notice Erin out of the corner of their eye, who was sitting beside me, and they’d freeze up and get tongue-tied and the exchange would go something like this:
“Mr. Cartwright…is this…your wife?” I would say yes and introduce them and my students would sort of wave and say “hello!!!” really loudly, clearly very excited, and then they would look nervous, as if Erin’s presence threw a wrench in the script they were planning out in their head for what they would say when they saw me. I remember making scripts in my head like this in all of my French and German conversation courses. I think they’re curious about what exactly Americans do. They’re always watching me very closely, which was a little anxiety-inducing at first, but it’s just normal curiosity, and there is no cultural taboo against staring here, I think. It’s certainly not meant to make me feel uncomfortable. I always feel like I’m kind of a letdown, though. I don’t have a colt 45 to take out of my pocket and twirl around. Sometimes I think they’re waiting for me to order pizza. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do at those moments. Sing the national anthem? Start a business? Call a limousine? I like my students.