Hakuna Matata: Means Something in Mandarin?

Badminton in the Park

How to Eat 小龙包

This is 小龙包 (pronounced xiao [shao] long bao) and it is perhaps my favorite food in the whole world. On the outside, they may look like ordinary dumplings, but we learned in elementary school not to judge a book by its cover. Inside, there can be anything - just as long as it isn't ordinary. These ones have meat and a spicy sauce. The other ones I bought here were filled with a yellow curry. Others still have shrimp, crab, eggs, yams, or bacon, always accompanied by some sort of soup or sauce. They are the ultimate evolution of the dumpling. Calling a xiao long bao a dumpling is like calling a human an ape! Or an amoeba!

"Xiao long" means "small dragon" in Mandarin, which also happens to be the given name of Bruce Lee. It's no coincidence. His parents named him after the greatest food in China and told him that if he could be half as fantastic and powerful as his namesake, he would become world famous. And so brought about the greatest kung fu actor of all-time, until the pressure of being as consistently amazing as his dumpling equivalent brought about his early death. This scrumptious dish creates and destroys heroes.

And so one must always obey proper rituals when eating xiao long bao. They are as follows:

Pick up your xiao long with your chopsticks and place it in your spoon. Have your vinegar (I believe Chinese vinegar is mixed with soy sauce. This is unconfirmed, but may explain its deliciousness) ready, you will need it soon. Using a spoon is not cheating. While the fork and knife are foreign to China, spoons are used on a meal-to-meal basis. Let's keep going:

Next, bite off the top and slurp out the delicious juice/sauce/soup/curry from the inside. I originally took two photos, before and after slurpage but they looked exactly the same. Recapping this is making me hungry.

Step Three (or Four if you count biting and slurping two separate steps). Use your chopsticks to drop your xiao long into your vinegar. I usually poke it around until vinegar gets physically inside the dumpling. That may be against protocol, I'll have to ask my superiors.

Finally, using either your spoon or chopsticks - or both - eat your xiao long. This results in temporary bliss, but are you truly satisfied? Heck no! These things are tiny! Back in September, I ate 30 of these little guys! Taste-wise, they are truly in a class of their own, but must be accompanied with another dish in order to ensure the filling of your stomach.

Alternative Method: Step 1, dunk whole xiao long in vinegar. Step 2, eat it. However, do so at your own peril. The rush of flavor from the meat, vinegar, dumpling skin, and juice/sauce/soup/curry can be overwhelmingly good.

While I've seen people prepare xiao long bao, how they make it is still a mystery to me. If I learn how, I'll share the secret with all of you here. And then this will become the second signature dish on my menu at Scuba's Ji Dan Bing and Xiao Long Shack!

Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

鸡蛋饼: Shanghai's Breakfast of Champions

鸡蛋饼 (pronounced ji dan bing) is the best way to start a morning in Shanghai, so I figured it's also the best way to start the blog back up. Ji dan means egg and bing means wrap/burrito; that pretty much sums up the overall concept. Here's the video of how it's made:

There are three ji dan bing vendors within easy walking distance from my apartment, and this lady not only makes the most delicious one, but also makes it the fastest. Her stand is outside of Metro Line 3's Chifeng Lu Station (赤峰路) and one costs 3.5¥ (or $0.54). Let's break this down step by step:


(0:00) By the time I start rolling, she's already putting down the dough straight onto the circular flat iron stove. In five seconds, she's covered 97% of the area with the thick, gooey substance by using a flat metal tool. I imagine that she would destroy me in arm wrestling.


(0:07) Cracks an egg open and covers the whole area (including small holes in the dough) with the same metal tool (wish I knew the name of that). Cooking the dough and frying the egg at the same time - so simple, yet so genius.


(0:15) Throws on some cut up greens and little spiced yellow things. I have no idea what either are.


(0:18) Quickly separates the dough from the pan using the ji dan bing device (there's got to be a catchier name for that). I'm realizing that if I ever want to learn to make this, I need to get one of those.


(0:24) Folds it in half and adds a slimy brown substance. I learned that this is primarily soy sauce and flour, in addition to probably sugar and other things - it's really sweet.


(0:28) She holds up the hots as if to ask whether I want some. I say "dui de" or "correct" which isn't technically the right answer, I should have said "yao" or "I want" - the pressure of my first blog video got to me! Aiyo! By the way, hots in your breakfast is a great wake up call.


(0:32) She puts in some crunchy bread, there is also an option of chewier doughy bits. Both are good.


(0:35) Flips it together and uses the ji dan binger to cut it in half. I stop rolling just before she smiles and gives me a wink. Clearly a rookie mistake.


I'll do better next time,
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

Restarting the Scublog

Hey all,

I've returned to Shanghai for Year Two with some new goals in mind. One of these goals is to not only blog more often (which wouldn't be difficult really)... but much more often. Last year, after setting the bar rather high in Europe, I kind of faltered out once real life started in Shanghai. In retrospect, I wish I could have kept it going, but I realize now that when my life changed - from vacation to career mode - I should have changed my blog format too. During vacation in Europe, I had only one responsibility: blog about the cool stuff I did. So I devoted hours to long, gushing entries then reviewed and edited them several times before publishing. I no longer have this much time and, since I'm cramming my brain full of Chinese, sometimes I forget the interesting things I do on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, I'm going to switch my style up.

If I know one thing about myself, it is this: I've got two gears, first and fifth. I'm all or nothing when it comes to a lot of things. Trying to blog once a week, for example, is way too close to blogging zero times per week. So instead I'm going to go all out: by blogging everyday. So if I miss a few days, you can still get me three or four times a week. Mostly I'll do short blurbs, maybe a photo or a video with a little analysis or just something I learned/thought of that day. In addition, I'll try to have a "feature length" article each week, with the amount of depth that you've come to expect from me (whenever I actually posted something). I figure not only will this keep you guys up to date with what I'm doing, but force me to take more photos and do more awesome junk more often so that I can make my blog (slash life) fun.

Without further ado, here's some goals/topics I'm plan to achieve/write about in the coming year:

• The Qing Dao beer festival
• See the Terra Cotta Warriors
• Visit (and high five) a live panda in its natural habitat
• Chill down a river in Guilin or Yangshuo
• Make stops in Hong Kong and/or Taipei
• Cook Chinese food (post step-by-step recipes)
• Go to a professional badminton and/or ping pong tournament
• Rate the video arcades of Shanghai (I can't find listings or ratings online, so I need to take this into my own hands)
• There is supposedly a World of Warcraft based theme park outside of Shanghai, I never got into WoW, but I that won't stop me from dressing like an orc and riding all the roller coasters (zug zug)
• Ride a horse
• Celebrate the many Chinese holidays
• Potentially go to India, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam this winter break (fingers crossed)
• In the case of a lockout, see as many NBA players as possible in the Chinese Basketball League

That is a lot of future articles right there, hopefully I can pull this off.

Speaking of Chinese holidays, Chinese Valentine's Day was last Saturday and today is Chinese Father's Day. This is because today is the 8th day of the 8th month [8/8] and the number 8 is pronounced ba in Mandarin. 8/8 = ba ba and ba ba is the informal term for father in Mandarin. So Happy Father's Day to all the fathers in the world (especially you dad).

I would love to make this blog more interactive too. So if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, additions or subtractions (no multiplications or divisions though), please send them my way.

Until next time (uh, tomorrow),

Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

A Tangeant for Thailand: The Baan Dada Walk

I'm going to take a step away from my irregularly scheduled ranting about my life in China to talk about something much more worthy of your time and attention. There is an orphanage on the Thailand/Burma border called Baan Dada, which serves as a home for over 60 children, many of whom lost their parents to unspeakable unspeakable atrocities by the military junta that controls Burma.

My good friends Gaelen Engler and Ben Landry both spent time volunteering at the Home and came away with only incredible things to say about the children and the director Ricardo Zoleta. Gaelen shot a documentary there, which I saw in Sudbury that left me with tears in my eyes. They both recently sent me messages about a fundraiser for the Home to raise enough money to build a technical school there. I'll use their words now to give you the details:

Gaelen:

"The Home is so much more than an orphanage- it's basically a community development organization. And at the moment, it is taking on it's biggest project yet: building and running a Technical School for youth in the surrounding 20 villages- the closest existing one is over 130 miles away, pretty far if your main mode of transportation is either a bike or your own two feet. Because of the crazy laws surrounding building schools for refugees in Thailand, it's going to cost a crazy sum- and the Home is seriously, desperately struggling to come up with enough to just start the process. The average wage per day in the area is $2.80 (!!), so obviously they are looking far and wide for donations and grants."

Ben:

"On October 23-24, I'm walking 40 miles to benefit Baan Dada Children's Home in Thailand - the goal is to build a technical school next to the Home. My fiance (Erica King) and good friend (Brian Cochran) will also complete the walk. Prior to law school, I visited the home for 2 months and helped build a library, a classroom, and a play structure. Since my visit, I have kept in touch with the home and organized some small efforts to raise money. I continue to be drawn to Baan Dada because 100% of donations directly benefit the children. Additionally, I've never encountered children who are so eager to better their own situation through hard work."

 Gaelen:

"A 'Walk For Education' is actually taking place on October 12 [in Thailand] - check out the link on my wall for more details. It is basically a 138 mile walk to the nearest city with the goal of raising enough money to start building the school. And because volunteers and the director of the Home have found so few sponsors, things aren't looking good - therefore, the founder of the Home has decided to continue walking until enough money is collected. This could take months, or it could take over a year. And if anyone on this planet would take such a drastic, selfless measure, this is the guy. He will walk across the continent if that's what it takes."

Ben:

"The man who runs Baan Dada, Ricardo Zoleta, has little overhead costs and gives selflessly of himself. As one example, he sleeps on the concrete floor of a 6'x8' room that also doubles as his office and storage space. His goal is to put each child through college or vocational school, in addition to supplying the kids with medical care, shelter, and food. Because they are Burmese refugees, they are restricted to living and working in a small area of Thailand along the border with Burma with few educational and economic opportunities. There are no technical schools nearby, so this will enable the children in the area (boys and girls) to learn trades so they can support themselves.

In Thailand, Ricardo is walking over 200 kilometers (the equivalent of walking from Boston to slightly beyond Portland, ME) with some volunteers and children who chose to participate. Afterward, Ricardo will continue his walk alone until the entire $1.8 million is raised. It seems like a lot, but he has to comply with Thai building codes and buy equipment for the school. He hopes to be back to the home in time for Christmas.

If can you afford to help, please make pledges to me via email and then complete donations through the website: http://prsarkartechnical.wordpress.com/donate/. Any amount helps, no matter how small. If you have any questions, you can visit http://www.baandada.org."

Gaelen is going back to Thailand on November 30th and I'm going to try and join her during my three week break at the end of January to early February. Every dollar truly does count when it goes to Baan Dada, from every account I've read and heard Ricardo Zoleta sacrifices everything for these kids. If this post raises even $1 (30 Thai Bahts!) for them, it was worth it. Hopefully, Gaelen can find a way to upload her documentary online (anyone know how to do that with huge files?) at which point I will definitely link to it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

Orienting to Shanghai Part 3: I Teach English Good

Usually my clothes are nicer than this

Of all the incredulous things in Shanghai, one thing keeps me dumbfounded: I'm a teacher?!? A middle school teacher!?!? A middle school English teacher?!?!? If I could IM randomramsrock (my old AIM sn) about this, Middle School Scuba would certainly have thrown himself out of a window. To be fair, all of my classes were on the first floor at Curtis, so it would have been more strange than suicidal... but that's not the point! English was consistently my least favorite subject then; even though I liked a lot of the books (To Kill A Mockingbird is still one of my favs), I was bloody awful at grammar - I didn't know my predicates from my participles! Somewhere, Mrs. Hoaglin's pencils are rolling in her apron.

Perhaps I changed a little over the past ten years. In high school, Mrs. Frommer, Ms. Stein, and the Plotts were a few of my favorite teachers and I took a couple interesting English courses at Maryland. But I was a business major, in a very math intensive focus... and now I'm in China teaching English to 13 year-olds. You may be wondering: how's that working out?

Surprisingly (or not), it's really fun, challenging, and not at all what I expected. Let me give you a rundown of sorts:

Challenging:
I have 19 classes, 17 Junior II's (13-14) and 2 Senior II's (16-17). There are about 25 kids in each Junior II class and 16 in each Senior II class, which means I have roughly 455 students. I see each class once a week. They've all memorized my name, it's kind of tough (see: impossible) to remember all of theirs.

Not At All What I Expected:
Beforehand, I was told that the students were quiet and you need to force them to volunteer. The latter is definitely true for a few of my classes and at least a handful of kids in each class. But the former, is just straight up false. These kids can get as loud as any classroom I ever sat in. And when it comes to the distribution of good kids, troublemakers, and everything in between, I'd say it's pretty much equal to that of an American high school classroom.

Fun:
This summer, I had no idea of what the kids' English proficiency level would be. They would be 8th graders, so should I teach at a 6th grade level? Or even lower? While it varies from class to class and student to student, they aren't completely fluent, but they're really good on a whole. I would kill to speak Chinese as well as they speak English.

I did Ice Breaker games for the first three weeks to try and get to know them as well as possible. Three common themes popped up: they love basketball, computer games, and... Lady Gaga (in increasing order of lovingness). In fact, while my Sr. II's will say "Oh my God!" when they are surprised - something they picked up from American movies, TV Shows, etc. - my Jr. II's say "Oh my Lady Gaga!" I pretty much lost it after I heard that for the first time.


NAAWIE:
Funny Economics-esque Observation:
After a few days, I realized that some of the best students in the class were the troublemakers. At first, I was confused; they goof off in the back while the other students quietly pay attention. Then it hit me. The students in the front speak well because they volunteer all of the time. The kids in the back speak well because they are forced to speak all the time. I'm guilty of feeding into this as well... when a kid is causing a commotion and becoming a distraction, I would tell him to come up and volunteer for the activity in progress. This is also the reason I know all my troublemakers names already. I'm sure formally trained teachers are saying "No Duh" right now, but for me this was profound stuff. The kids who are least proficient are the quiet ones in the middle - I've got to find a way to get them involved.

Challenging:
I try to mix in those American pop culture references they love so much into my classes and I truly believe that the majority of my students like my teaching. Yet still, a few of my kids have told me straight up "that class was boring." I've heard that I can't make everybody happy, but goshdarn it I'm going to give it my damnedest!

I'm finding it difficult to (a) teach relevant material, (b) hold the students' attention for an entire period, (c) gain their respect (at least not become a total pushover), without (d) having to be an authoritarian.

Is this possible?

This is the golden question. Next week, I'm going to be doing a unit on American culture and if things go well I'll break it down by relevant regions of the United States (sorry Great Plains, you didn't make the cut) with games for each territory. If that doesn't cut it... I guess we'll do interpretations of Gaga lyrics or something.

Fun:
The good students definitely make any hurtles completely worth jumping.

Fred from my 10A Friday class gave me a novel he was writing. The first six chapters were very entertaining (even though I learned they were loosely [exactly] based on a video game he was playing) and I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Anaka from my 2A Monday class wanted to interview me about my thoughts on the Expo, unfortunately I haven't gone yet (SACRILEGE!). Instead, we talked about her aspirations as a journalist and about my experience as one in college and at the Olympics. She's really bright and seems like she's going places.

One of my students (whose secret I promised to keep) is applying to private boarding schools in Massachusetts. She asked me what life was like there and I gave her the whole scoop on that. Speaking of which, does anyone who reads the blog know anybody at the Concord Academy, the Cambridge School in Weston, the Governor's Academy, or Tabor Academy? She's definitely the best speaker in her class and one of my best students, so I'd be willing to write her a recommendation or something to help her out.

Oh and my favorite story so far...
I was playing this game called "Back to the Blackboard", where I split the class in half and have two kids come up to the front of the room with their backs to the blackboard while I write a word behind them. Their teammates had to get them to guess the word using other English words.

At the beginning of class there was a big kid sitting in the back named Tommy, and I asked him to move up to an open seat in the second row. He said, "I can't, I'll break seat." So I let him sit in the back.

When it was his turn to come up and represent his team for three points, the other team cheered when his name was called (thinking he was easy points against one of the smarter kids in the class). I forget the words I wrote on the board, but he raised his hand first and got the correct answer for the first point.

Pandemonium. Both teams gasped then just screamed.

Second point. Opponent gets first chance. Gets it wrong. Tommy guesses. And scores!

Kids are jumping up and down now. In disbelief on one side and jubilation on the other.

Third point. Tommy shoots. Nothin' but the bottom of the net. The class chants "TOMMY! TOMMY! TOMMY!" as he walks to his seat at the back of the class. Freaking epic. I won't forget his name for a good long time.

...

So, it's been a crazy five-and-a-half weeks here. I feel like I've lived here a year. There's so much I've left out of these entries, but I'll keep trying to capture the key moments for anyone out there who's interested.

School notes I couldn't fit in relevantly above:
- When they have vacations here, they make them up on weekends... I had a three day holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and had to work the preceding Saturday and the whole weekend afterwards. I don't know if I'm for or against it, it was just an unusual concept, even for me.
- The kids here come from some prestigious families. When we go out to eat food after work, we pass by a long line of Rolls Royces fully equipped with professional drivers. Just ridiculous. (Matthias, I'll try to get you a photo)
- Oh and not only am I a teacher, but also a student! I take two Mandarin classes a week, plus a computer program I have, plus everything I pick up at work and on the street. I can feel the progression and I love it!

Until next time (hopefully sooner than later),
Zaijian!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

...

UPDATE!
I somehow forgot to mention that I was in a tug-of-war competition for the SFLS Sports Day! We got second place... CLOSE ENOUGH! Here is your reward for reading the blog:

Most people don't get the Eye of the Tiger, I've got two