Friday, November 18, 2011

A Trio of Dumplings 饺子! 水饺!


Chinese Phrase: 你吃饭了吗?
Have you eaten?
"Anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven, is edible."
(Cantonese saying. Source: The Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo)
This past week I learned how to make homemade dumplings (饺子或水饺) three days in a row!  The first night all the international students were invited to one of our teacher’s homes to make dumplings and have dinner. The second night after I taught English to my student her, her mother, grandmother and I all made dumplings together.  The third night I went to my Chinese friend’s house and we ate dumplings her mother had made. These three days I really had 口福 (kou fu)! 口福 is one’s luck to always get nice food.
 Dumplings are a big part of Chinese culture. Every Spring Festival
春节, the Chinese New Year, it is tradition to make dumplings. A coin will be placed inside one of the dumplings. The person who eats the dumpling with the coin inside is said to be lucky in the upcoming year.


Making Dumplings at my Teacher's House
Flowers for Wang Zheng for welcoming us into her home.
Step 1: Make the dough for the skin of the dumplings and prepare the filling of the dumpling.

Step 2: Roll out the dough into long slendor pieces then cut them. Take the small pieces make them flat like pizza crust.
 
Step 3: Take the filling and put it into the flattened pieces of dough and seal  the dumpling. Make sure they are all sealed tightly or else the dumpling will come apart while cooking.
The Finished Product!


Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Daily Life in Jinan

Quotes to live by:
 “Don't go through life, grow through life.”
Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live
“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”

Chinese Phrase: 兴高采烈 (xing gao cai lie)
Happy and Excited/ In Great Delight

Staying in shape! Still running in Jinan!


Tutoring English twice a week

Food in Jinan
If you want to order food to go in Jinan you will always find that it is in a clear plastic bag. I even saw someone walking with beer in a clear plastic bag! In the supermarket and convenient stores you will find that milk and other beverages are also in a bag. In the third picture you can see that even popcorn will come in a clear plastic bag! (The popcorn in this picture was chocolate and banana flavored! 很好吃!)

Family Dinners

My First Meal at McDonalds in Jinan (it only took me two months to try it!)
In my opinion the McDonald’s in China tastes better than the one in America because they do not smother your burger in condiments!

The Strangest food I have eaten in Jinan, but it was delicious!


Karaoke(KTV)
Benjamin and Celine both look confused because they selected a French song to sing but the song was definitely not French!


Football (Soccer) Saturday’s!



In Jinan I am never in lack of essential girl talk!