Yes, another list.
10. Green Oranges. During the summer, the only oranges you can find are green. Orange oranges have now come in, but for a while it looked like you could only buy limes. If I only could have been so lucky, they don't have limes in China.
9. All of China turns their heat on on November 15. There is no heat in my building until then. I could use it now....
8. There are no personal ovens in China. People don't bake things. There are bakeries, but no one bakes cakes or baked goods on their own. I have seen one oven in China and it was in a foreigner's appartment. There are toaster ovens, but they just aren't the same...
7. There are also no dryers. Everyone line dries their clothes. In the dorms there are lines outsidein the hallway and on the roof and they are always lined with clothes. I wonder how they get their clothes to dry in the winter when it's snowing, maybe they just hang everything up inside where it's warmer.
6. Pretty much every phone in China is a pay-as-you-go phone. I don't think I have met anyone here with a phone plan. There are no hidden fees or over usage penalties, when you run out of minutes on your phone, it stops working. I kind of like that. But I found out that I couldn't put money on my phone in a different provience, I couldn't put money on my phone in Beijing because I had a Zheng Zhou area code. But aside from that I like my plan-free existence.
5. My campus plays music or talk radio in the morning in the dorms to make sure everyone is up. For example, this morning I awoke at 7 to "In the Arms of an Angel" by Sarah Mclaughlan. Some times it is the national anthem, or a woman talking in Chinese. Ole said he's heard a woman speaking in English and it's the worst because her acccent is not very good and you know that most of the students can't understand what she's saying anyway. Might as well put on some Lady Gaga or "My Heart Will Go On" or something.
4. I think the most popular American movie in China is Titanic. Almost everyone has seen it. Everyone can sing "My Heart Will Go On."
3. There are not take out boxes in China, expect at foreign food resteraunts in big cities like Beijing. Everyone takes their food to go in a double layered plastic bag. Sitting in Italian Square at lunch or dinner time you can always watch students walking by their their bags of noodles or egg and tomato with rice, or dumplings, or whatever. When Dad was here, he couldn't get over 'food in a bag'.
2. The Chinese language doesn't have 'he' or 'she' differentiation. So my students often use the wrong gender pronoun when talking about other people. So when I talk to my students I need to keep track of the original name of the person and ignore the pronouns after that.
1. There are no movie rental store here. I really miss walking into Video Isle on Queen Anne and browsing through all the movies and renting one. Here there are some DVD stores but you just buy them, and granted it's for about a $1 but there is something I miss about renting. Or maybe it was just the popcorn I got from Video Isle. All of the popcorn here is sweet.
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