Today Kiki came to tutor and the best thing she said was, “Don’t be afraid of Chinese, you are doing well.” She also said that my pronunciation has come a long way since last week. I find that the hardest thing for me is the grammar. I can remember most of the words and what they mean, but putting them in the right order just throws me for a loop. And don’t get me started on the measure words. Apparently, pretty much every noun has a little “measure word” that has to go with it. I am not even sure I understand how to use them, much less all the different ones.
Tonight was the “social night” for the school. Our social evening was to go out and have the famous Beijing Roast Duck. None of the other students came, so it was just us and Nancy and Crystal who work at the school. We went to a place that is close to our apartment called Dong Lai Shun and it was very good. For starters we had sugar snap peas stir fried in garlic, kung pao chicken, tempura shrimp and fried corn (also in the tempura batter). We had that while the duck roasted since it takes about a half hour after you order. Then the guy came with the duck and carved it table side and we got some photos. The duck is served with these little pancakes (tortillas for you Texans), sliced cucumber, sliced scallions and a hoison sauce. So you roll them up and enjoy! I thought all of the food was wonderful and I was very happy to try the dish that the city is known for. And we brought the left overs home for our lunch tomorrow. YUM!
Nancy told us that the most famous restaurant in town for roast duck charges 3000 yuan for the duck!! That translates to $420 US….just for the duck!! She said that the only time she ever went there was during the SARS incident because they offered it for half price. And she said that the place was empty and in the end it tasted just like the ducks she had at other places. We were talking with her about how cheap it was to eat out and she said that prices have really gone up in the last year. Her example was that the kung pao chicken was 12 yuan last year when she brought some students. Tonight it was 18 yuan, so 50% mark up in less than a year. She told us that there was a very important meeting going on in Beijing this whole week that involved issues for the whole country and asked us if we were aware of it. She said that one of the things they were going to talk about was the rising food costs and how the government could control the costs to help the people. I told her that Kiki told me about it one day when she came to tutor.
And here is the traffic out our window before we left for dinner.
