Ice

It's been snowing a lot in Xi'an - not enough to close the transport lines, like in some parts of China, but still a lot more than the city is used to. It looks like it has stopped for now, but it is still very cold. I get ice on my apartment windows every morning, but I don't mind that. It is very pretty; see for yourself:

Tea and Comedy

Last night I went with Alex and his girlfriend to what we thought was going to be a traditional Chinese bar. What it turned out to be was a traditional Chinese tea house, thus, the only thing served was tea. The lack of alcohol disappointed Alex, but the tea was very good. They gave each person a teapot, and a tiny terracotta cup - about half the size of a shot glass.

This was different from most Chinese tea houses in that there was no majiang (mahjong); instead, they had a stage and a series of stand-up comedy acts. Most stand-up comedy in China is done in pairs engaging in comedic dialogue, although there were some solo acts that night. I couldn't understand a word of it, but it was fairly entertaining anyway; and they must have been reasonably good, since everyone else was laughing. I'll have to go back one day when I know more Chinese.

I Has a Phone!

I finally got a Chinese sim card for my phone yesterday, thanks to Ariel, so I'm not quite so out of contact here anymore. Today I went with Yoyo to a couple of streets near South Gate - one has a whole bunch of art galleries along it, and the other has a bunch of stalls selling jade and brushes. We went in to one gallery, and I was impressed with the art inside - I think it might be possible to take art classes here, and if so, I will give that a try. Along the other street I bought something that looks like a Chinese ocarina. I just wanted something I could make noise with!

Thanks to everyone who's been commenting, but for the same reason that I can't get to livejournal often, I can't respond to comments either there or here. I can't respond to comments here because although China lets me get to the main blogger site, including the part I'm using to write this post, it doesn't let me look at my own blog. This is kinda silly, but what can I do about it?

Also, although Beijing has all the cool tourist stuff, it is even colder than here, as someone pointed out to me today. This means I will probably go to Shanghai for Spring break instead, because I really don't want to be colder.

Snow! Yay!

There was a little snow here two days before Christmas - not enough to stay on the ground, but enough for it to be a novelty. I've never lived in a city that gets snow before, although I have seen snow and been skiing.

The last couple of days, though, it had a proper snow, and left lots of it all over the place, and I discovered that snow makes me very happy - especially here. Xi'an is a very grey city, as I've said before, but when the snow covers everything suddenly there is brightness and contrast. There is white instead of grey, and the edges between the white snow and everything else are much more interesting than the indistinct boundaries between shades of grey.

In other words, it's very pretty.

Also, there are one or two spots on the way to work where the snow has been packed enough to become ice, and so I can skate across it in my shoes. I don't even care that it's cold, because it's so much fun.

The kids love the snow, not suprisingly, and even the grown-ups get infected with playfulness - the other day I walked out of my apartment building to go to work, and the gate guard had a big snowball in his hands and a big grin. The next day, I saw all the cars that were parked outside my building had pictures and words written in the snow on their windows - even some words in English.

English over here makes exactly the same sort of fashion statement as Chinese characters do in the West, by the way, right down to some people wearing things that they don't understand the meaning of.

Anyway, here are some snow photos!

Nothing New

I haven't been doing anything interesting lately. I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot, since it turns out that one of the Chinese teachers, Ariel, is a fan of American TV series, and as a whole bunch of them on DVD (dodgy pirate versions, of course - real copies are out of the price range of the average Chinese person, and I'm not sure they even sell them here).

I'm currently trying to compile POV-Ray from the Unix source, since the Mac maintainer seems to have a grudge against OS X and the Intel Macs (the docs recommend running under OS 9 for speed reasons!), and the native Mac version does not have a universal binary, nor does the PPC binary work under Rosetta, nor does the Mac source compile easily with Xcode. At least it's open-source, and I have the option of compiling it myself.

Now that the gas is on I've been cooking real food, instead of eating instant noodles every night. I've also been swapping ideas with Alex's girlfriend; she cooks a lot when she's here. I'm gradually getting a feel for Chinese cooking, and I taught her and Alex how to make rice fritters.