Return from Korea

It's been a whirlwind of flights lately. I got back late last night from a 2 night trip to Jeju. Here's a placeholder for a blog entry and another note just to say I'm still alive. I've still got a lot of catch up work to do (chapter 5) plus preparing for and doing the big test (ch 4-6). jia you!

Return from China

I just got back from a trip to Beijing, Xian and Hong Kong. I'm waaaaay behind on word memorization and homework...so this will be a short entry just to say hello I'm alive and back.

I went with Geoff, Tim, Sam, Alani and Hannah. Some of my favorite kid quotes from the trip:

While driving to the Taipei airport and looking out the taxi window trying to spot Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world, Lani's thought on big buildings, "It's bigger than Jesus!"

On the flight to Beijing, on a very quiet airplane, Hannah at the age of 3 hasn't quite mastered volume control yet and shouted "DADDY! I've got a snotty nose!"

And while eating a pile of mangoes on my own in the kitchen, Hannah came up to me, looked up and said, "You know, you're supposed to share mangoes with little people."

The Best Chinese Study Method

I've just discovered the best method for studying Chinese. Get the kind of illness where you are bed ridden. Then you are forced to lay there with nothing but laptop internet access. After a while, you just can't read any more news or play any more Scrabulous...so it's down to studying Chinese. I've actually gotten a head start on the memorization for Chapter 5...instead of my perpetual being behind last minute cramming of this quarter.

So I've been on and off sick for a week with various ailments that I won't go into here. It really sucks. Yesterday I missed an alum lunch with my friend Tina (who I haven't seen since she moved back to TW) and all the new students and then Stewart and Vita's wedding. Today I'm missing disc (which is really unfortunate b/c I really need the exercise) and then a bbq at my friend FeiFei's house. These are once in a blue moon opportunities (besides playing disc)...ARG!

The upside is all this rest is getting me better. I know if I were to go out I would make everything worse. I've made that mistake before.

Oy.

In studying news, quizlet.com has added another game to their flashcard software. I stopped using it near the end of book 1 (near the time I started slacking off on my Chinese), but I've just entered in the first half of the vocab for Ch 5 in the new book (2nd edition, Book 3) and have been enjoying using it again. This time I input the regular pinyin pronunciation of the characters and then a separate set of meanings.

Tomb Sweeping Day

Today is a national holiday so I don't have school and most people don't have to work (only hundreds of thousands who have to go to work at 7-11 and OK Mart don't get the time off). The Chinese name is Qing Ming Jie which literally translates to Clear and Bright Festival. This is a prettier name than Tomb Sweeping, but the latter is more accurate about describing the activity that goes on this day.

My mother's side of the family still has a large presence in Taiwan. Her great grandfather came over from China oh so many years ago, and the descendants down the male line all meet every year at this time. Instead of cleaning the graves on Tomb Sweeping Day when it tends to be too crowded, my family organizes it a week earlier. So last Sunday I went with my uncle, aunt, cousin, and grandma down to Hsinchu. This was my first experience taking part in honoring my ancestors, including burning paper money as an offering.

After visiting the graves (including one of my great great great grandfather), we all went to a restaurant for lunch. Some relatives only go to this family reunion portion of the event. There are 13 along the generation at my grandfather's level. So including their kids, grandkids and great grandkids it added up to over 200 people there! The youngest man in my grandfather's generation was there as well as some wives in that same line. It was overwhelming to realize I had so much family all in one place.

Women in the direct family are allowed to go as kids, but once they're married, they become part of their husband's family. So my aunt didn't go even though she lives right in town. (But we did stop by to see her after lunch.) Every year, the responsibility of organizing rotates among the branches. Next year is my family's turn, so then I think it'll be ok for my mom and her sisters to come.

My mom has recently told me more stories about the family and it was nice to match faces to names. One of her cousins I'd heard about was particularly friendly and said as soon as he saw me he knew I was my mom's daughter. I usually think I look more like my dad so it was a surprise to hear that my face resembles my mom's so much.

Feed Your Baby

For all my new parent readers out there, I thought this Nestle study was interesting - talking about how you need to reintroduce previously rejected foods, as some babies take time to adjust. I for one can attest to a few foods that I've previously detested and now love...I'd say reintroduce throughout life - in my case, for some foods, it's taken 25 years!

• xiang gu - Chinese dried black mushrooms. Their taste is very strong and when I first had them as a kid did not like them at all. I was still a kid when I started to not just like them, but love them. They're an essential ingredient for homemade jiao zi.
  
• tofu - I couldn't stand tofu when I was a kid -- all the way to my early 20s. To me, it was a bland cube of mushiness. And sometimes it was a bland cube of fried mushiness. No thanks. Then a few years ago in Seattle something changed and I started loving tofu. I ordered it whenever I could instead of meat. I still can't get enough and like all kinds. My dad used to get cho tofu (stinky tofu) and it was just more reason to dislike tofu as it stunk up everything in the fridge, and when he started cooking it outside on the back porch, would stink up the whole neighborhood! I never even ventured a bite (why would I put something so stinky in my mouth when I couldn't even stand being within a 50 foot radius of it?!). However, last year, when I visited my aunt and uncle in Kaohsiung, I ventured to try some at the night market. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. Now that I've moved to Taipei I've had it on a few occasions and enjoy it.
• tea - I've hated tea my whole life. Being in a Chinese family, this proved particularly difficult as every Chinese person I know drinks tea. Every Chinese restaurant serves you tea. Every Chinese host offers you tea on arrival. And I always have to refuse as my true longing is for a nice large cold cup of water. It's not just the heat of the drink that bothers me but also the flavor. And when I got older I realized that the caffeine has a strong effect on me, so just one more reason to avoid it. However, in my first visit to my cousin in Malaysia, she offered me tea from one of her many beautiful tea sets. How could I refuse? And it wasn't as bad as it usually is. Usually one sip makes me want to gag, but this was doable. Since then, I can drink tea in social situations.
• green beans - boy did I ever avoid this dish when I was a kid. Since the rest of my family liked it, my mom would always make it. The taste was always too unpleasantly strong. At friend's houses for a traditional Thanksgiving meal, I would politely take 3 little strands and force them down my throat begrudgingly. But again, this one changed recently...maybe while I was at my sister's a couple years ago. I think the sauce balanced out the flavor and I've since become used to the natural flavor.
  

There's still a list of foods that I can't stand (celery, licorice, papaya) but maybe in the next 25 years that will change too.

Apples

This week everyone in class has to do a bao gao on where they're from. Since most everyone already knows the major stuff about America, I decided to do mine on where I've lived in Seattle. In researching information about Washington, I found that they are the number one producers of apples in the US. Since I always like to bake and share with the class, I found a recipe that could be easily split among 11 people using apples. WA actually produces an even greater percentage of the nation's red raspberries, but they're not in season here, so apples were the next best choice.

Anywho, I got all the ingredients EXCEPT I forgot the cream cheese! By the time I got it in the morning, it was too late to make, since the dough needs an hour to chill and I was still putting together the pictures for my presentation (as well as what I was going to talk about). So I made them last night after class and brought them in this morning.

Mini Apple Turnovers
These were really delicious fresh out of the oven. However, if you can't have them warm, they are also nice cooled off. The dough comes out flaky as if you've gone through the pain of layering it without any of the work. I found the original recipe's sugar to be too much for the kind of apples available in Taipei now (Gala and Fuji), so I've cut back in the version below. I also lengthened the baking time as the small ovens common in Taiwan aren't as efficient.

• 1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 c butter, softened
• 1 egg, separated
• 3 T cold water, divided
• 2 c all-purpose flour
• 7 c thinly sliced peeled tart apples (about 6 medium)
• 1 t grated lemon peel
  
• 1/2 c sugar (*reduced from 3/4 c)
  
• 2 t cinnamon
• dashes of ginger, allspice, nutmeg
  

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix cream cheese and butter until smooth. Refrigerate the egg white. Mix egg yolk and 2 T water into mixture. Gradually add flour until well blended. Shape pastry into a ball. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. In a large skillet, combine the apples, lemon peel, sugar and spices. Cook over low heat for 8-10 min or until apples are tender.
3. Turn the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and press to 1/8" thickness. Cut into 24 four inch circles or squares. Top each piece with apple mixture. Brush edges with cold water; fold pastry over and seal edges well. (If you are working with a mini oven as I did, divide the dough in half and keep the other half in the fridge while the first half is prepared and baked.)
   
4. In a small bowl, whisk egg white and 1 T cold water; brush over pastry.
   
5. Place on greased baking sheets. Bake at 190°C for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.