Moon Festival

The Moon Festival approaches. We've been invited to a party to have dumplings and moon cakes on Sunday. There are many versions of the myth of the moon goddess and I'm sure we'll hear more. And everyone gets the day off Monday.
We all make new discoveries every day. Even in the new China, with its Starbucks and KFCs, nothing is quite the same as in the US. I'm learning enough rudimentary Chinese to order food and get directions (although I don't always understand the answers). Nina has learned how to negotiate with the neighborhood xiguo (watermelon) seller. I taught her two phrases--duo shao qian (how much?) and tai gui le (too expensive), which is enough to bring home a large watermelon for 3 yuan (about 50 cents). And Marcus is adding to his Chinese vocabulary and is the only one of us who can read any Chinese characters.
We took the cable car to the top of Zijin Mountain on Saturday, a great view of the city from about 1500 feet up. The summer heat seems to be dissipating a bit and it was cool up on the mountain and mostly clear. There's often a mist over the city--I'm not sure how much of it is air pollution.
Nanjing may be small compared to Shanghai but it still has 7 million people and buses, cars, motorcycles and bicycles coming from every direction. The cars and buses generally stop for traffic lights, unlike the chaos of Shanghai, although there are no rules for the motorcycles and bikes. (I'm sure there are many rules but few people follow them. And most people are talking or texting on their cell phones while they walk, drive or ride. That reminds me of home but the sheer volume of traffic, even on campus, means you have to remain alert all the time.)
We've learned the route to the supermarket and our favorite new restaurant, Gold and Silver. We're really enjoyng the food--jia chang dou fu (home-style tofu with bamboo shoots and a spicy sauce), hong shao yu (whole fish, sometimes cooked in soy sauce, sometimes in a spicy broth with huge red peppers and peppercorns), suan cai mian (noodles and bok choy in broth), zha daxia (fried shrimp), and, of course, dumplings. We can eat a big dinner for three of us at the canteen next door for about 10-12 yuan (less than $2), or splurge at one of the restaurants and pay 70 to 80 yuan (about $10). And I've been able to do some cooking at home as well--spicy tofu, noodles, rice.
Marcus really likes his school, particularly since we let him take his psp for the long bus ride. They're studying micro-organisms in science (they did a little skit last week), the Aztecs in humanities, measures and metric conversion in maths (as the Brits call it), lots of writing in English, art, music and ICT, where they'll be making multimedia presentations. And he's in the advanced Chinese class, even though half the kids in it are Chinese. He loves soccer(oops, football) most of all and claims to be able to bend it like Beckham. And he's earning points and marbles (I don't understand the system yet) for being helpful to the little kids and being polite and respectful (which I hope he can bring home). Oh yeah. He loves his little British school uniform--maybe he'll wear it to school in Brookline.
We've been watching dvd's in the evenings, including Lawrence of Arabia, Big Fish (highly recommended) and Meet Dave (has some funny moments). We've bought a few that don't work in English or don't play at all, but they usually sell for for 10 Yuan or less.
My graduate assistant from Beijing (she's a doctoral student in history at NU) came here last weekend and we searched bookstores for books about Jews. Nearly half the books in one of the large humanities sections were books about the Torah and Talmud (apparently badly translated excerpts that quote passages about making money, educating children, etc.) and many books in the business sections about why Jews are so shrewd at business. (The Chinese consider this a compliment--they want to learn from us). We also met with Xu Xin, the head of the Judaic Studies program here at Nanda, and some of his graduate students. He's put together a $15 million center with a library, conference rooms, scholarships for students and funds to bring in visiting lecturers and scholars. Most of the money comes from American, Canadian and British Jews and his students seem well-versed in Hebrew, Torah and even Talmud (the real one). He's also got an Israeli Hebrew teacher on his staff who runs holiday services for visiting foreigners. I just recruited him to teach Marcus some Hebrew and tutor him on his Torah portion.
My classes start Tuesday. Happy Moon Festival from Nanjing.