Halloween and other developments

Last night I went to a Halloween party in the district closest to the school. It was at a restaurant called A Taste of Singapore. It's a foreigner friendly place with owners who speak English. The food was disappointing; a buffet with Western style Asian food... strange how the fake Chinese food costs more than the real food in China. My costume was a bit unimaginative, and I have just decided to name it Zionist Zvi.

On a different but related note, I may be interviewed on some school tv program run by journalism students from the university next door. They get different foreigners to talk about random Western things, and I will probably have a conversation about Halloween. So quick, tell me what fun things I should make up to tell them.

English Corner

My neighbour university is a foreign language institute. A couple of times a week they have an "English corner" where students come to practice speaking. Tonight I subjected myself to the onslaught of questions for the first time. There were the typical, mundane questions...where are you from, how long have you been in Chongqing, what do you like most about China... then there were some more interesting and in-depth questions.

One young lady lept out of the gates with "are you Christian?", to which I simply replied no, but then there was the follow up question "why not?"..... well you see my family is Jewish..."Is Jesus your God?" ... uhhhmmm no... "what do Jewish people believe in?"uuuhhhh, well............. etc.

Then there were a few who thought I should be an expert on the American financial crisis. All in all an interesting experience, but not one I really need to repeat.

Museum

Yesterday I finally went inside the museum that sits just outside the university campus. It commemorates a coal mine that was turned into a prison by the KMT. In November 1949 the Communists came and "liberated" Chongqing, but just before they arrived all the political prisoners in this jail were executed. Most of the museum is dedicated to pictures and stories of the prisoners who were killed. Not exactly the most fun thing to learn about on a Sunday afternoon. I managed to get off one picture inside the museum before security guards told me photographs are not permitted.

I’ve been meaning to write a longwinded account of my time here in CQ now that I’ve been here over a month. So here are some of my observations. More to common later.

The weather at the beginning of October here is still like the middle of summer in Toronto. Still highs in the low 20s for the next few days. I've been told that even in the winter it will remain humid here, and that the area only has 2 seasons, summer and winter. Of course their winter will feel like fall to me. The air is not too bad on the old campus, since there is so much foliage, but when I leave campus I can definitely feel a difference.

I like being on the old campus because it is fairly small and quiet, and is where all the graduate and post-graduate students take courses. The new campus is large and expansive. All the undergraduate courses are there, and in September you can see the freshmen marching around in their baggy army uniforms. All college students are supposed to go through a month of basic training, but it does not appear to be anything strenuous or useful.

Leaving campus one gets to experience the craziness of driving in China. CQ city probably has a population of about 12 million, but there is no subway system. More than half of the vehicles on the city road are buses. Lanes are simply suggestions, three lanes turn into four of five, passing on the shoulder is common place, as is driving on the wrong side of the road. Pedestrians don’t obey your signals, or you might just get run over by someone nonchalantly driving through a red. Using your horn is a must to let other drivers know you are simply there, or passing them so as to make sure that don’t change lanes into you.

The food here can be quite different than what you find in Toronto Chinese restaurats. Everywhere you go they ask if you want lajiao, which means a chilly pepper puree they enjoy spreading around. Even if you decline the food is most often spicy. There is also the special characteristic flavour of the area called mala, which means spicy and numbing. If you bite into the peppercorn that is used, an area of your mouth will get tingly and numb. Some aspects of the food are better and some are worse than the Chinese food usually found in Toronto; I won't be finding any Cantonese style dimsum or baked buns.