apartments, hot pot & restaurants

…and I have arrived in TEDA (Tianjin Economic Development Area), woot! My apartment here is significant nicer than The Crack Den and very large. I share with my Chinese TA, which I am completely fine with; we each have our own bedroom and bathroom and all that. She got here first though so she has the master suite, which kind of sucks, but whatever. That' s basically me bitching just to bitch at this point. It's still much much better than any apartment I saw in Songyuan. We have Western style bathrooms, a Western washing machine and Western stove, microwave and toaster oven (as opposed to a hot plate only in the kitchen) too. Pictures to come later.

It's also been confirmed that I still have new digs in Songyuan, regardless of where I am right now. My boss there came up to me yesterday, not knowing that I was planning on moving my stuff to the Indonesian Canadian's apartment until I returned, and said I should pack everything up so that when the Chinese American grad student leaves at the end of this week, she can have my things moved into his apartment to essentially claim it as mine. I asked a couple of the foreigners if they thought that was safe and the general consensus was that that should be ok, so hopefully I return to find everything there and intact!

After class yesterday I went home and finished the unpacking and repacking and then a Chinese friend of mine took me out for hot pot for my last meal in Songyuan. Hot pot is kind of fun, there is a hotplate in the middle of the table where they keep a pot of boiling water with whatever level of spice you like. You order meats and vegetables and such and put them in the water to cook them right on the table. There is also a crazy sauce bar where you mix your own sauces for your food. There honestly had to have been at least 20 options of sauces and things to mix in and people put a lot of different things into each sauce; I ended up with something very peanut-ey and something pretty spicy. I think I did pretty well for not being able to read what I was mixing and not wanting to be obviously sniffing every option. People stare enough as it is !

I have yet to cook in China (shocker), so I have been to a lot of different restaurants. Most of them have been the restaurant equivalent of dive bars, really cheap, not super clean looking but really good food. My business English class told me yesterday that China has a huge problem with food safety which was slightly unsettling, but I haven't gotten sick yet so I'm not too worried. The fast food chains here are more expensive than the divey places, and the Chinese idea of fast food is comparable to a Chiptole or Panera, as opposed to a McDonald's or Burger King. I've also been to a few pretty nice places (like the hot pot place), which in general have had significantly better ambiance but not necessarily significantly better food. Not enough to justify the expense.

It kind of makes me laugh a little when people ask me what I feel like in terms of food here. Whether we get dumplings or noodles or hot pot, it's all Asian food, so it all has similar flavors and makes no difference to me. So far, for the most part I've just been letting people order whatever they think is good for me. Most all meals here are family style, which I love since I always want to share and try everything. I'm still getting used to the over ordering though. The Chinese always order way more food than they need, part of it is to show that they can and part of it is to show respect for their company. Coming from a family where you had to finish everything on your plate in order to get up from the dinner table, this can get a little overwhelming! But they never expect or want to finish everything. They rarely take the extra food home though, which I need to get into the habit of doing (see above regarding not cooking!).