The last weekend in November, we kicked of our holiday season with an extended weekend in Zhanjiang. Over four days we spent much needed time with friends, ate an abundance of Chinese food, laughed a lot, celebrated reunions, and cherished enjoying a bit of familiarity. Thus, with our socializing beaker overflowing, our halls sufficiently decked with 100 meters of lights, and the final stretch of the semester before us, we welcomed December and its tales.
Disgraced Deities
Close to the Donghu village gate is a tiny temple that we have watched gradually become rather dusty, neglected, and disowned by the locals. We are unsure as to why this little shrine has become discarded - perhaps pissy ancestors, gods are on holiday, or the exorbitant amount of construction around the place has disturbed the fengshui. While the reason eludes us, the repercussions of a temple falling out of favor have been quite visible. While used incense sticks and the common temple bric-a-brac piled up over a couple of weeks, the addition of deities in plastic bags caused us to stop and investigate one week. Thus began the disgraced deities dump saga; which was us finding the abandoned bestowers of luck, knowledge, and prosperity in different dump positions every time we walked past until one afternoon stroll they were missing. Either someone took pity on their disgraced status and placed them in another temple, they made the jaunt to a much larger deity dump, or the locals were so fearful the two foreigners who kept stopping to admire them were going to steal them and bring famine and dishonor on the entire village.
After 10am on Fridays I am free, thus these became days when I would either lay in the sun, take gloriously long naps, or embark on solo explorations. On one such exploration this month, I wanted to see what was beyond a rather solitary traditional gate close to Haojiang. The immediate area past the gate was rather nasty and neglected, but a dented brown sign, adorned with a temple symbol, pointed up the hill.
A kilometer and a half up the hill, I discovered a vibrant and very thriving temple complex. The workers were just as bewildered to my presence as I was to theirs, though they set aside their gawking long enough point me in directions in which I needed to explore. I spent a couple of hours wandering the many layers, even spending time sitting and listening to the afternoon chant session taking place in the meditation hall.
The offerings before the deity are often something I like to take note of when wandering the temples. Most temples have the staples of fruit and buns, but, around here, actual food dishes are popular. Plus the presentation tends to be very picturesque. In my quest to find the offering halls on this day, I actually found the holding area for ancestor gifts. This was a first to see life-size paper furniture sets, houses, and even a car with a driver. I had no idea that Mercedes was the choice vehicle of the afterlife.
A Few Lights
As mentioned earlier, our halls were decked with 100 meters of Christmas lights this year. Our lights from years past met a nasty short last year, leaving our tree not so illuminated for the latter part of the holiday season. So, Taobao came to the rescue for our seasonal ambiance. My husband's bewilderment was so evident on his face when I pulled out a rather large wad of lights when the package arrived.
"One hundred meters!" he exclaimed.
"Yes."
"Amanda, do you know how long 100 meters is?"
"Long....I saw the hundred and got excited," I responded.
"It is the length of a football field," said my husband, with his hands on his hips.
"It was a good price," I said as I happily wound many lights around the tree.
One hundred meters is really long, so not only was the tree saturated but so was the window and the entire living room. Post-holiday season, we plan to drape the entire apartment, which is much nicer lighting than Chinese florescents and naked bulbs.
The third weekend of the month, we ran away to Hong Kong and it was a glorious three days. We think our hearts felt the semester was over, so our brains just followed the giddiness of freedom being fully cognizant that we still had three weeks left. Even so, we embraced this bustling metropolis and fully immersed ourselves in its offerings of abundant Christmas decorations and artwork on nearly every spare space.
Though we loved the slices of pizza, ever flowing chai tea lattes, ease of transportation, and the hours of aimless meandering, the real reason for our trip to Hong Kong was two fold. First, it was the opening weekend for The Last Jedi. Being the avid Star Wars fans that we are, we felt that we could not wait the extra three weeks for it to land on the mainland without it being spoiled in some way. Though, Star Wars is a brilliant excuse to do anything.
The second reason, was to meet Ada and Roger for a day in their transit to Australia. This meet up included a night at the theatre to watch The Nutcracker. This was my first experience to see the iconic Christmas production in totality and on stage. I was really excited and it was stunning. Though, for as much as I thought I knew the story, there were moments I was confused, especially concerning the Rat King - I definitely thought he had a more prominent role.
After our theatre stop, we had drinks at a swanky bar bar overlooking the harbor. Over our cocktails, mocktails, and juice, we enjoyed sharing memories of Hong Kong, travel stories, and the travels soon to come. We so enjoy our friendship with these two.
Culinary Explorations
With the lack of food in this no mans land, I have definitely expanded my cooking repertoire. Perusing holiday recipes, I spotted a recipe for babka. I love making bread, so the idea of such a pretty bread was intriguing. A couple of days later, I made the embarked on my first venture into babka making and I am hooked. It is the prettiest bread to make and it tastes so good. With the first batch, I watched my husband devour an entire loaf. The first round, I made the chocolate version. Second round, it was cinnamon sugar. While both are good, the chocolate wins for moistness and flavor.
The Extra Stuff
Intermingled with the highlights are the day to day adventures of teaching and living. The last two weeks were our final exams, which have been a source of ample frustrations and tear-inducing laughter. We have had students not show up for their exam, groups speak Chinese for the entire exam, and even a student or two walk out during the exam. We have had students, who could not speak English, try to get a friend (who speaks minimal English) to beg for a passing grade. It is here that we see the failure of the Chinese education system; we are at a degree mill, not a school.
We were invited to a new year school celebration which actually ended up being a oh-hail-communism extravaganza. Not only was it a bait and switch, but we learned there is a one-performance-fits-all for the show we saw was one we had already seen at GDOU. Different people, but same songs and same dances. While I would love to say that I am surprised, I am not.
We received holiday love in the form of cardboard boxes from friends and family, near and far. Of course, we had a debacle with one and I had a lovely battle of words with our liaison.
We have been asked so many times by students if we are returning next semester that I am suspicious that we have been fired and the office has yet to tell us. However, our fellow foreign teacher discovered in one of her question sessions that the foreigners last year left before Christmas and never returned - as one student said, "they left for the Christmas and we never saw them again."
We dealt with the lack of water and honed our bucket bathing skills. When we left for Hong Kong, we were without water, and when we returned, there is was no water. It was not lost on us that our FAO told us about campus having no water until after he knew we were in Shantou.
This was probably our quietest holiday season since moving to China. While not unpleasant, it was weird. We are on the cusp of our annual winter holiday travel and I think we are both really excited to get out, see people, eat something more than my cooking, and experience a bit more day to day life than we have here.
