My Fame Spreads

The guy from the guitar club in the Uni has asked if I would play the guitar and sing in a show organised by themselves. I gladly obliged. He is a student of mine and yesterday told me the deal. Allegedly there will be 1 or 2 thousand people at the gig along with guitar players from our Uni and other Unis. Sounds like a good show! Wow, I think that will be the biggest audience I’ve ever played for! He said I could sing maybe 3 songs. I haven’t decided what to sing yet… Suggestions on a postcard.

Said student, I may have mentioned before. I met him in the dining hall one evening last year when I saw he and his buddy playing their electric guitars. On another occasion he asked me to join their guitar club, which sounded like a great idea. To my surprise, in week 1 of semester 2, who should be sitting in one of my classes, but Mr. guitar club guy!

It does sort of skew things a bit if a friend is also your student. So far, I haven’t really been friends with any of the students. I felt (and from listening to others) that it’s better to keep a professional distance there. I could see that in that first class, this guy did seem a bit too relaxed in the class. I was also thinking that maybe other students might feel that he would be getting favourable treatment if he was a friend of mine. It would also feel a bit strange come exam time. If your buddy sits down in front of you, it is harder to give him a fair and objective exam. Loyalties and friendships need to be left outside the exam room door.

We will have to keep the classroom situation professional. There needs to be respect there otherwise it will turn into a joke. We can keep the guitars and jokes for outside class!

Shanghai Revisited

Back from a great Saint Patrick’s weekend in Shanghai. I think I enjoyed it this time a bit better than I did when I went last September. Maybe that’s cos I had a dose of the trots last time!

Paddy’s night, hit The Blarney Stone pub. Yeah, a good effort at an Irish bar. Pretty authentic. They had live music. All the old classics, Dirty Old Town, Raglan Road and so on. Introduced some Chinese people to their first taste of Guinness. I think they still need to acquire a taste for it! Yours truly did his usual singing bit and went up to sing The Fields of Athenry:

Seems that most Irish in Shanghai had gone to the Black Tie Saint Patrick’s Day ball. Tickets were sold out and were worth over a week’s wages for me, so I don’t think I would have gone anyway! It was a god laugh in the pub and got talking to some Irish people, including a fella from Galway, who was on his buying and selling trip to China, taking in 12 cities or something! A bit of a wheeler-dealer but a good laugh!

Ended up in the other Irish bar O’Malley’s on the Saturday night. Prob not as authentic as the Blarney Stone. Though it would be nice in summer with a big beer garden.

Shanghai does seem a lot livelier than Dalian. Not talking about night life even. More people around. And people actually cycle bikes in Shanghai. Dalian folks are afraid of a few hills. That’s the reason I’m told nobody cycles here. Shame on them! So, who knows, if I decide to stay on another year here, I might just head to shanghai!

Making Dumplings

This weekend I went to a friend’s house and was shown how to make Chinese dumplings or 饺子 (jiǎozi). Chinese people go mad for them!

It was good to see them being made from all the raw ingredients. I didn’t make the dough. I let the expert do that. But I did learn how to roll out the dough into circles and wrap the dumplings. So, here is how to do it, for anyone who’s interested:

1. The filling is usually pork or lamb. We had minced pork with celery. The celery was boiled first for a minute or so and then chopped up finely and mixed in with the meat.
2. First you gotta make the dough from special flour, water and salt. I guess it’s similar to making any other dough (not like I’m an expert or anything). Anyways, you then kneed the dough. Here’s yours truly giving the dough a good going over:
   
   
3. You then make the dough into a long snake and take off small pieces, which will become the dumpling wrapping. You then roll out the little pieces, demonstrated here by our model:
   
   
4. You then put some of the filling onto the circle of dough. You have to judge the right amount. Too little and yer dumpling will be too skinny, too much and you won’t be able to close the little bugger. Here’s me attempting it:
   
   
5. you then close and seal the dumpling and leave it beside its soon to be boiled brothers:
   
   
   
6. The dumplings are then boiled and consumed by first dipping them in a vinegar/garlic mixture and then sticking them in your mouth. Mmmmmm.
   
   

Paddy's Weekend in Shanghai

One nice thing about my contract is that we are entitled to a day off on our National Day. Well, since Saint Patrick's Day is on Friday, I'll be taking that day off thanks very much! I told yesterday’s students that there would be no class next Friday. I thought they’d all cheer but some of them seemed to e feeling the opposite way! Wow, I didn’t think my classes were so compelling. This week, I bamboozled them with some lateral thinking problems. Good to get them to think rather than regurgitate. Some of them did hear one or two of the problems before. Some said they knew them and others just got them way too quickly but swore they had never heard them before!

I have decided to head down to Shanghai for Saint Paddy’s weekend. I figured it might be better craic down there with more Irish expats. Got to find out where the decent Irish pubs are. I did a search and found O'Malley's to be the most popular. Seemed very professionally run anyway and had some good reviews. I don't think I'll be drinkin much of the Guinness, at 65 RMB (around €6.50) a pop for a large one (I guess a pint)! You don't even pay that in Cafe En Seine in Dublin! Not as pricey as the whopping 12,000 Won (around €11.15) for a pint f the black stuff in Seoul!

The weather is getting warmer here in Dalian. We had the dizzy climbs of 5 or 5 degrees above zero last week. This weekend seems to be a bit colder unfortunately! Roll on the summer!

A Classic Photo

I was looking at Rob's blog last night (Rob being one of the lads that went on the Shandong/Jiangsu/Zhejiang leg of my winter trip) and came across this familiar pic:

Rob was setting up his tripod to take a picture of us at the Zhongshan Memorial outside Nanjing. Ben spotted this dude eyeing us up and snapped this brilliant pose! I think it perfectly captures the inquisitive nature of some Chinese people we encountered on our travels, i.e. the unashamed gawking at foreigners! This dude felt no shame in crouching down right beside Rob and gawking at what he was doing! The expression on the Chinese dude's face is priceless! Ah, a classic shot.

Ski Sunday

Back in the swing of things this weekend! Boozin' with the lads in Noah’s Ark and JD’s on Friday night. Out til 4am. Haven’t done that in a while. I was coerced by some Japanese people into playing the guitar and singing in Noah’s/ So, I let it rip. Good sing-song, so it was!

Today I went “on the piste” as opposed to on the piss, which was Friday night. Went skiing to a place called Ming Hu, about an hour from Dalian. This was my first experience of skiing, and also skiing in China! I had a great time! The set-up was really good. No problem getting the cloches, proper sized boots and skis that we wanted. Some people got snowboards. Also no problem. I heard that it was a pain in the ass in some places.

Since I never skied before, I decided to get a lesson. There was myself and 2 girls, who were to be taught by this teacher guy. He was more interested in chatting up the women than teaching. So, I only half learned how to stop and turn. After lunch, I just headed onto the other slopes, graduating from the baby one.

I was getting the hang of it at this stage, although I was still a bit crap at stopping. Then for some unknown reason, I decided to hit the biggest slope, which was 3 times as high and 3 times as long as the other ones! I figured that I probably wouldn’t get to ski for a while, so why not! There was a proper ski lift up to this one, not the pissy little seat-pole things that drag you up the smaller slopes.

I got to the top and said. Oh shit, how am I gonna do this. It looked like it went straight down! So, off I went. Man, it was a bit different. Just started accelerating like mad. No control whatsoever, so, 5 seconds into it, I went flying! Next I knew, one ski was 20 feet behind, next was one pole, my hat and then the other pole! It was such a mad rush flying down that slope. I eventually got my ski back and tried again. Went flying again. The snow had turned to slush at this stage, so conditions weren’t great. I got to the bend in the ski run. Maybe half way down. Before the bend, the course had levelled out but after the bend, it took another almighty dip downwards! I went for it. I found myself falling backwards, but instead of falling over I found myself in a crouching position, still flying down the hill! Great craic it was!! That was the biggest buzz of the day!

It’s a shame that the ski season is over. Today, the snow wasn’t great and the temperature was above zero. We were all sweating after the skiing! I’d love to try it again and maybe learn how to do it properly!

Winning Start for Stan

Just saw that the Irish football team under new manager Steve Staunton, put 3 past Sweden last night in a friendly in Dublin. I'm impressed. Duff, Robbie Keane and Miller scored some nice goals in what looked like a cracking match (well from the brief highlights I saw).

Such a shame that we won't be going to the world cup. Sweden qualified, and we managed to beat them 3-0 last night. I'm sure we would have done ok and the Irish fans would have brough that atmosphere of fun to Germany, as only we can! Well, I reckon nearly every Paddy would be trrying to get the their ass over to Germany for the party!

I'll have to support South Korea and Australia instead! Oz and Ireland always had close ties, since most of them over there have Irish roots! Aussie will have a tough time and don't look that promising to get through a group with Brazil, Croatia and Japan. But who knows. Korea have a better chance of progressing to the next round, with their group containing France, Switzerland and Togo. I had a soft spot for Korea during the last world cup. The passion of the players and the fans really affected me and after visiting Korea and meeting the people and feeling their enthusiasm, it definitely got me hooked. Come on Dae Han Min Guk!!