A Return to Form

I went running today—my first since being back—and it was beautiful.

Lights. Camera...

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Once upon a time, th…

Oh. Okay. You’ve heard that one? Yeah… I thought so.

traveltraveltravel.

I know what you're thinking: "He wrote in December all about how he was going to be more proactive with his blog. He promised writing, and hasn't posted since... He's got a lot of nerve showing his face around here again."

Maybe you're kinder than that. If so, thanks. If not, I KNOW! I am the worst. There are two reasons for my absence. First and most serious, my VPN hasn't been working at all. Without it, I'm trapped behind the Great Firewall, and therefore cannot post. I have been unable. That doesn't mean, however, that I haven't been writing. I have quite the backlog that I need to publish (sound familiar?). At the current moment, I'm mooching a friend's VPN and thought I might have enough time to post something. 

The other, more awesome reason I've not posted in a while is because I've been busy. Busy travelling. I spent the entire month of January and the first half of February enjoying everything Yunnan has to offer (and making a pitstop in Chengdu for IST). I will talk more about all of that at a later date. However in the meantime, I'd like to ask anyone reading to remember how happy I was about my summer travel...

December is for Creationism

I wrote this on the first day of December. I wanted to publish it as is, rather than editing it due to the delay in posting. Sorry about that, by the way; my VPN has been on the fritz lately. Enjoy!

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Don’t let this title alarm you. I’m not looking to have an evolution discussion, especially not here on my Chinablog (and besides, Bill Nye the Science Guy said it best). Instead, I want to talk about my own version of creationism…

My Own Hyperbole and a Half

This week, in my writing classes, I did a lesson on hyperbole. I discussed with my students the cultural trend in American English to be hyperbolic. They didn’t know the word, but when I wrote “hyperbole” on the board, they were familiar with it (I’m perpetually grateful at the level of my students English; the average PCV doesn’t teach students at this advanced of an ability).

I had them think about the way I speak when I teach class. I asked them how often I use exaggerated adjectives and adverbs. I watched them all grin, because I do it often. Some of them even started muttering certain words I use the most, like “awesome” and “magnificent”.

At this point, the teacher in me is pleased. My students are understanding what I am saying, and are on board for where ever I want to go next. It is times like these that I love being a teacher.

Numbing Spice, and Everything Nice...

I was a weird kid. There’s no way I can try to deny it. One of my more peculiar idiosyncrasies growing up: I loved it when my arms or legs would fall asleep. I thought it was cool that I could touch the “sleeping” appendage and I would not be able to feel the sensation on my skin. (Looking back, I’d like to say it was because I had a desire for empathy; I wanted to experience what other people felt when they touched me. But let’s be real… I was a kid; it was cool that I could pinch myself and it wouldn’t hurt.)

Even now, as an adult, paresthesia fascinates me (and as an adult, I know fancy-pants, science words). In China, I find tables are just not an adequate height for a tall waiguoren. I often cross my legs under the table, which inevitably leads to the moment when they fall asleep. The worst is when the pins-and-needles feeling is too intense, and it crosses that boundary from agreeable to painful. In China, you can get that exact same feeling in your mouth with the “flower pepper”—花椒 hua jiao.

This oral paresthesia has been one of many firsts for me in China. Those who have been following my journey since the beginning may remember that I wrote about the Sichuan numbing pepper after my first experience with hotpot. Despite the translation and my insistence on calling them peppers, they are peppercorns that, when you munch on them, create that same tingling sensation. In my previous post, I describe it as analogous to putting your tongue on a nine-volt battery.

After PST in Chengdu and my long train north to Lanzhou, I never got too many chances to enjoy hua jiao. While common and plentiful in Sichuan, unless I order specific dishes at my site, I will never taste the tantalizing tingle. While this is a personal woe for me, it should be noted that I am in the minority. The average PCV dislikes it, with some crazy individuals actively despise it.  

The question remains: why am I nattering on about hua jiao?