BAO ZI!!!!!!!

If you have ever seen Kung Fu Panda, then you probably love the movie. If you have seen it and you don't love it, please stop reading this post and I do not want to talk to you ever.

But, if you have... you will be familiar with dumplings being small round lumps of fresh meaty goodness. That pandas are obsessed with. Well now that I have lived in China for a month, I am also obsessed with them. Once I set my eyes on them, I immediately thought "KUNG FU PANDA!!!" and initially referred to them as Kung Fu Panda dumplings. But, much to my liking, this delicious little treat is about as popular as hamburgers in the States. They are everywhere. It is heavenly. They come in all different shapes and sizes, but the best ones look EXACTLY like the ones on Kung Fu Panda.

They are called "bao zi", which is pronounced "ba-ow TZ-eh", and also sometimes "jiao zi" depending on the shape and contents. There will be plenty of pictures of them soon on the Facebook albums.

In other news, I completed my fourth week of China-living and my third week of teaching and am well on my way to PAYDAY - April 10. I still haven't experienced much of the night life here, half because there isn't a LOT of night life, and half because I'm on a tight budget until I get my paycheck. My paycheck is also known as a "wad of cash", which is delivered to me in RMB 100 bills. Baller. I'm not quite sure what to do with this yet, but I do need to buy some clothes - since I only have four long-sleeve shirts and five tees, and all of my tees have become very baggy since I haven't been to a gym since February and I don't have a dryer so my clothes don't get re-shrunk after washing.

BUT I did find a gym. And it's not too small. The first gym I went to visit was about the size of a walk-in closet, and had maybe six machines in a small 2nd floor room. The room was painted black and there wasn't any natural light, just multi-colored florescents and loud techno music. Very weak. Not even basement-esque. More like a small private room at an 80s disco club. The other gym is at an athletic club with a track, pool and tennis courts. Natural light, mirrored walls, all your basic weights - enough to get it done. Everything is in kilograms though, so I have to do the conversion in my head - not too hard since 1 kg = 2.2 lbs - but every time I lift in kilos it throws off my natural sense of mass and weight. I lift 10 kilos and it feels like I'm lifting 15 pounds, then I lift 60 kilos and it feels like I'm lifting 160 lbs. Or maybe I've just lost that much strength from not doing anything? Perplexing. I'm making a spreadsheet with what I could lift when I left the States, and then using that to build a routine in KGs. Hopefully it works.

Either way, being physically active again is a major plus. It makes me feel more productive, more powerful strength-wise (not influentially) and more energetic. I also need to start making progress on Project Learn Chinese, also known as Project Leach. Maybe that's a bad name for the project. I just came up with it so ... it's a work in progress.

Hm... what else... last night I went to KTV... again. Unfortunately, I was dragged into it because two of my co-workers had their birthdays. Damn I hate it so much. I like the social aspect but the singing part sucks. If the songs had the actual vocal track also included, then I'd be a huge fan. I could match pitch, and it would sound much better. Without the vocal track, my pitch is way off half the time, and most of the time I can't even remember what the notes are anyways so I don't sing. I tried to sing A Beautiful Day by U2... it didn't work very well. I sang Come Together - much better. Also better for my range. Another downfall: the music selection is weak. I think I said it before, but I'll say it again. There are very few good songs. The Chinese haven't even heard of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Blasphemy.

On that note. I'm off. This was a very haphazard shpeel. Next time I'll try to implement more structure. C-ya!