MissHarmony

Busy-ness of Harmony's Jinan
2004-02-12 09:37:28 (UTC)

1/15-1/17/04 Sophia?s Gaomi

I met Sophia, a lovely girl with excellent English skills,
last Fall as she was one of the coordinators of the ?Speak
English Freely? Open House event for the Shandong Youngster
Activity Center. We were supposed to take the train to her
home in Gaomi, about 2 hours East of Jinan and one hour
West of Qingdao. As luck would have it, I was given the
opportunity to make some cash doing voice recordings for
the day, so Feng Shouli offered to drive us late that
night, as he was going to his second home in Qingdao for a
spell.
Being the good Chinese girl that she is Sophia was
a tad skeptical of some strange man driving us to her home
in the middle of the night. After lots of questions and
reassurance, we hopped into the car around 10:30pm with
Feng Shouli and his daughter, Fang Fang, in tow. We soon
learned that some boy had been careless in his dealings
with his daughter and was being chewed out by Feng. Fang
Fang remained silent, while the two of us chatted in
English in the back of the car. Sophia then hit it off with
Feng Shouli and the two talked the rest of the way to her
home. Aaahhh?I was tired and feigned sleep to rest my weary
voice.
When we arrived at Sophia?s home, which turned out
to be the upstairs of the restaurant they owned, her father
greeted us with hot water and cigarettes. Gaomi is a small
city that is rapidly developing, but not quickly enough as
the restaurant was having trouble staying open for
business. As it is currently on the outskirts of town, foot
traffic is low, so they had recently converted the upstairs
into their living area. The heating was dependent upon the
stove in the restaurant kitchen, which wasn?t up and
running but for several hours during the second afternoon
of my visit, and a huge space heater, adequate for a room
of dining guests but not a family of 4 living in 3 rooms.
There was a wonderfully warm electric blanket that made
life in bed super toasty, even a bit too hot at times. Much
of my down time was spent there, reading or sleeping or
socializing with Sophia. Being a gracious guest ranked
lower on my list of priorities than the warmth of my toes
at the time.
On the morning of the 16th we hopped into a ?cab?,
which ?round those parts was just a minivan with six others
hopefully headed in a similar direction (thankfully it was
only 1-2 yuan per person). We walked around the main hub,
basically one major intersection with a policeman in the
center directing traffic as tons of people were shopping
preparing for the Spring Festival. Lunch with Mom, Dad,
little sister and an uncle and his driver ended up being
the only family meal we shared together. Mmmm?.fish head
hot pot?yum. Actually it was better than it sounded. The
condiments for dipping were different than in Jinan and
there was considerable more meat than just the head of the
fish. Our afternoon adventure consisted of visiting a
friend at a new Gortex garment factory to see about a
possible internship for Sophia over the vacation. The
owner, a British bloke of Indian descent was cordial enough
to Sophia but quite elated to speak to a native speaker and
expressed his concerns regarding his lack of trust in the
local English speakers. Interesting?hmmm. I put on my best
vacationing professional airs and have yet to contact him,
as he was rather indifferent towards our existence once his
potential client arrived. We then moved on to visit some
other friends of Sophia?s. This time we took the bus, that
was even smaller than the ?cab? but it did have an old
school money slot box and little folding stools, both of
which I found amusing. Dinner with the rich boys was tasty
but that may have been affected by the fact that it was
hike in the cold to get there, only to find a scant menu of
available vegetables to accompany the Bejing duck. Usually
food is served quickly by over attentive waitresses, such
was not the case that evening. We finished each dish before
the next arrived and I was sure the waitress was an android
who?s personality program had gotten a virus. But Felix
made the effort to speak some English and clean up his
Mandarin so that I could join the conversations, while
Sophia convinced 2 of the other boys to serenade us all.
On the 17th it took us a bit to get going, lack of
vehicles and cold, but magically Feng Shouli arrived
earlier than expected. So we convinced him to take us out
to visit some of Sophia?s family who live out in the
countryside to see how the special Spring
Festival ?mantou?, aka steamed buns are made. The houses
were quite lovely, newly built in the old style. The ?big?
steamers were not as massive as I?d expected for being the
local producers of mantou, holding only about 10 buns at a
time, but the hand carved wooden molds were worth the trip.
Some were in the shape of ornate fish while others looked
like the Chinese gold bullion. We were also given a peek
into the back room where there were red buckets on 6
shelving units stacked 6 high and at least 6 deep filled
with dirt and some sort of medicinal bugs that were happily
wriggling about in the warm smokey room. Eeewww! Bugs! I?m
such a danged girl sometimes. We then interrupted a
neighbor?s freshly cooked dinner to check out the ?kang?,
the large cement bed and eating area next to the kitchen
that uses the heat from the cooking fire to keep it toasty
warm. Our hosts were very gracious while Feng Shouli jumped
on the bed to demo how it worked, however I was feeling a
bit like the foreign intruder so I refrained from picture
taking. Finally after a stall session and some polite
banter between Feng and Sophia?s father about us staying
for dinner, we headed home.




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