Our first week in China has been devoted to figuring how to live in a foreign country where neither one of us speak the language. The accomplishments of the week are pretty impressive.
We have:
1. met our hosts
2. setup an apartment
3. opened a bank account
4. taught our first class (Mel: mine is really tomorrow)
Today's post will look at setting up the apartment.
Kitchen: The kitchen is very small by American standards. So small the refrigerator is in the living room and the washing machine is out on the patio. The sink only has cold water. But after you wash your dishes, you put them into an electric sanitizer, which gets them hot enough to kill any germs.
A two bur
ner propane gas stove is our main cooking devise. We do have a microwave in the second bedroom. Since everything is cooked in the pot (wok), they don't see a need for more. We bought a sauce pan, as Marsha and I do not like the same cereal for breakfast, all other food from omelets to dinner are cooked in the pot. Rice is cooked separately in an electric ricer, the same type that is found in the States. When we are not using it, we store the ricer in the living room on top of the refrigerator. Our final cooking vessel is our tea kettle, which they call a steamer.
The last item in the kitchen is the water "cooler". All drinking and cooking water comes from the cooler.
We have:
1. met our hosts
2. setup an apartment
3. opened a bank account
4. taught our first class (Mel: mine is really tomorrow)
Today's post will look at setting up the apartment.
Kitchen: The kitchen is very small by American standards. So small the refrigerator is in the living room and the washing machine is out on the patio. The sink only has cold water. But after you wash your dishes, you put them into an electric sanitizer, which gets them hot enough to kill any germs.
A two bur
ner propane gas stove is our main cooking devise. We do have a microwave in the second bedroom. Since everything is cooked in the pot (wok), they don't see a need for more. We bought a sauce pan, as Marsha and I do not like the same cereal for breakfast, all other food from omelets to dinner are cooked in the pot. Rice is cooked separately in an electric ricer, the same type that is found in the States. When we are not using it, we store the ricer in the living room on top of the refrigerator. Our final cooking vessel is our tea kettle, which they call a steamer.The last item in the kitchen is the water "cooler". All drinking and cooking water comes from the cooler.
You learn to keep things neat, as there would be no room to work if everything does not have its spot. The water is delivered to the ground floor. Each bottle weights 45 lbs. When we need more, we need to have Davy order it.
Laundry: We have a washing machine. But there is no dry or even wringer. The process is a little more difficult than in the States. After washing, Marsha does the first wringing, I do the second. After putting it on hangers, I put it on a long pole and hang it from a pole on the roof of the patio. Drying the clothing in a humid environment is a challenge. Marsha asked one of her students, Yu-Mi (pronouced you-me), how to get it dry. Her answer, hang it for two days, then put in in front of a fan. Our experience, she is correct.
Bathroom: A single sink, western toilet and the whole room is a shower. The hot water tank is at the top of the picture. I think it is electric.
Computers: They have set-up our Ethernet. Unfortunately they have had no experience with Vista operating system. On Marsha's XP computer things are working a bit better. We still are having problems with interactive programs, e.g. Skype. Sometimes we are surprised and it works. Also we lose Internet conductivity every once and a while. Today it is working better. Hopefully this is a new trend. Here is Marsha working in the den.
Living room: We have a wood couch and side chair left by a previous resident. Unfortunately only 1/3 of the couch has a cushion and none of the chair. The TV is a brand new flat screen with cable. We get two English language stations, the World from Hong Kong and English (that's its name) from Guangzhou. On other channels a movie might be in English with Chinese subtitles. The craziest one I saw was a Japanese movie dubbed in English with Chinese subtitles. The rest of the living room is different from the States, we have a kitchen table with fold up stools and a refrigerator.
Shopping: We have reached the point were we can successfully shop on our own. It is bad enough shopping in a new supermarket in the States. Imagine shopping were you cannot read most of the labels. Surprisingly some have English on them. Yesterday we successfully purchased: eggs, milk, meat, BBQ, produce, tea cups, soup ladle and Lay's potato chips.
Marsha added: Some items were harder than others. We found an English label on wine vinegar but we wanted plain vinegar. Everything else around it was only in Chinese and double the price. So we looked on the translator for vinegar, found the Chinese characters and realized that the items next to it were vinegar, but we checked with a clerk who was nearby anyway. We pointed to the translator and then to the item. He indicated we were correct by giving us a thumbs up!
Too bad we had to carry it all to our fourth story walk up!
2 comments:
What is an Asian style toilet?
To just me (is that Joe?) - in Japan with an non-Western batheroom, you squat rather than sit. I assume that was what was meant. http://users.bestweb.net/~bennetc/JPNLowToilet.jpg
Post a Comment