“What is ‘Pancake’?”

(Lizzy)

We've all moved into our new host families, and I personally have been quite surprised by the differences between my two families. While my first family consisted of a daughter and her parents, I now have a host sister, mother, father, grandmother and cousin. Both parents work all day and often at night as well (though the father works at home), so the grandmother acts as the primary caretaker. She stays home all day, and only leaves to walk the cousin to kindergarten in the morning and go food shopping in the afternoon. She does all of the cooking and cleaning and has lived with the family since my host sister, Yi, was born. I am told that a live-in grandparent is very common among Yi’s classmates, as they often move in to help take care of kids when they’re small and never move out.

The grandmother certainly has her hands full, although Yi is seventeen. During the week her rambunctious seven-year-old cousin lives in the apartment to be closer to his kindergarten. Though his parents live in Hangzhou it would take them over an hour to drive him to school every day, and he can walk from Yi’s apartment. Though he is seven he still has not begun elementary school, but rather has had three years of kindergarten. Even so, he has to take classes on Saturdays at the Children’s Palace, where the younger set of future academic competitors learn important skills, including Chinese brush painting and jump-rope, which the cousin then has to practice at home while being timed.

Living with this younger cousin has really opened my eyes to what it’s like being a boy in China. No matter how noisy or rude he is, the family simply laughs at everything he does. Though Yi admits that he is naughty, he is never punished or even told not to do something, like yelling at his grandmother. My first encounter with him was when I first stepped out of bed on Monday morning and he burst into my room. He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him, and stood there staring at me, in my pajamas, for a good three minutes. Though I greeted him, he said nothing, and I eventually just closed the door, having the feeling that he had no intention of ending the staring contest.

Aside from the extra family members, there are further differences between this family and my last. For starters, my first host mother spoke excellent English, while in my current family my sister is the only one with any knowledge of the language. Though this is sure to help my Chinese, it does make communication difficult when Yi isn’t around.

This was especially a challenge when I presented my host mother with my gift to the family; pancake mix and maple syrup. Not only could I not describe what a pancake was to the family, but I couldn’t make it clear that it was a breakfast food, so I agreed to make it for dinner. As you can imagine, this was no easy task, though I was using a mix. The family had neither a mixing bowl nor a measuring cup, but I eventually was able to eyeball the ingredients in the cereal bowl they gave me. I was using a small frying pan to cook the pancakes, but my host mother got the idea that I was frying them like a stir-fry, so she gave me vegetable oil for the pan and kept lifting the pan off the stove to shake it back and forth so the pancakes couldn’t cook. I could not make it clear to her that the pan was meant to be left on the stove, so many of the pancakes came out with liquid centers. On top of that there was no hope to explain what maple syrup was, and though I tried to stop Yi from pouring it over the entire plate of pancakes at once, she managed to do it behind my back. This of course presented a problem in eating the pancakes, because the family only has two forks and had to use their hands. Despite all of this, the pancakes were a hit, and I was happy that the grandmother didn’t have to cook so many dishes for one night.

We have also been experimenting with food outside the kitchen. There is a fruit market on my way to school, so the other day I stopped in and looked around. The fruit here is surprisingly different from what we are used to in the US, and there are also many things I have never seen before. One such item is a huge, brown nut covered in spikes. The shell is about the size of a toaster, but the fruit inside is only about the size of a soda can. The fruit resembles the meat of a large clam, and it gives off a very strong odor. I bought one and brought it to lunch at school for us to try. During this process I managed to stink up both my backpack and our classroom, which eventually aired out, thankfully. Though Chris and Ryan declined to try the smelly fruit at lunch, the rest of us sampled it and were quite disappointed. Despite what I was told by the previous host family, the fruit tasted very much like its off-putting smell. On top of that Chris brought in some horrific crackers. When there is no English on packaging we have no idea what things are going to taste like. The food always looks great in the pictures, but little do we know that the label says “blueberry potato chips.”

The first thing that struck me about my new host family, upon arriving at their apartment for the first time, was how they got though the door. My host sister pressed her thumb onto a lighted pad which identified her by her print and unlocked the door. I then was quite surprised by the size of the apartment, which is also in a great location; only a few blocks from the school. My host sister even went home for lunch every day last term. For some reason she was told that she has to stay at school now because I am here, though I never see her at lunch. I feel bad that she has to suffer the cafeteria food because of me. I love being able to walk to school; however, and I have been very lucky that both my host families are on the same road as the school and only about ten minutes away. The new apartment also has a park, and my host sister said that it even has a gym. While she went to class on Saturday night, I asked if she could tell me how to get to the gym. She said that her grandmother would take me. After eating dinner in silence with Grandma, she led me out into the park. She then continued towards the gate of the apartment complex, and down the street, away from the apartment and from where I thought the gym would be. We eventually stopped in front of a cluster of exercise machines in a public park, outside. These public exercise areas are very common in China, and they are frequented by elderly Chinese tai-chi fans. Though it was dark out, many old men and women were scattered about on the various equipment, and some were simply walking back and forth on the same 20-foot path. Though not exactly what I was expecting, it was nice being outside, despite being stared at closely by my fellow exercisers, including my host grandmother, who insisted on sitting directly behind me on a stone wall (which she covered in paper before sitting on).

My new host sister is a very hard worker and a top student. She is busy with homework every night, though she somehow finds time to watch cartoons with her cousin. She also takes classes on Saturday nights until 9:00 – and that’s after having classes at school in the morning. When we were talking about food and I asked her what fruits she liked, she even said that she doesn’t have time for such things as eating fruit. She also answers questions with “not really” when she means “no,” which can be quite confusing when I am asking a “yes” or “no” question. For example, when I asked her if her cousin’s parents live outside Hangzhou, she replied “not really.” This of course makes me want to clarify what she means, but that is often frustrating for both of us with the language barrier.

In school we are continuing with our cultural Chinese classes, and none of us can believe that we have only one week left here. There is also another American exchange group at the high school from Georgia. They are here for only a week, but it is nice being able to talk with other American teenagers for a little, and there are even more Americans at English Corner now than Chinese. We are all looking forward to our trip to Shanghai this weekend, which begins with a bullet-train ride Friday morning.