“Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it and the imagination to improvise.” – Sylvia Plath
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Author: ana
about me
a big portion of the weekend is spent answering emails that have been piling up through the week. from trivial questions, location changes requests, “i think this user is acting fishy”, people whose “english is not very famous” (that quote actually made us laugh almost to tears!), their email is not working, how much is a stamp to madagascar…
we try to make the effort to answer even the silliest email (quicktext and the quickmove extensions for thunderbird give us a precious hand, common sense is also an underestimated tool).
complaints and requests, most of the time. mais hélas, once in a while, a little kid (or a full class), a grandma or a family somewhere writes to say how sending postcards makes them happy or is keeping them in touch with the world.
and all is right and meaningful again. it feels really good to be part of a project that doesn’t specifically target “people our age”, but instead stretches to reach people everywhere, young and old, more or less internet savvy, with interests as vast as bunny-hopping (as in training bunnies to jump around – i kid you not!) or carol singing.
the only common thing between them is the love of something offline: postcards on their mailbox, when they get home. :)
(on the picture, what i do when i have too much to do: as levi would say, “pantominate”. take pictures, arrange flowers, catalogue coffee marks. what do you do?)
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a thousand islands
we went to qiandao (literally, thousand islands) lake last weekend. it’s a man-made lake near hangzhou, that resulted from the construction of a hydroelectric station: when the water rose, +1000 “islands” were born, hence the name.
the landscape is impressive, if sad.
while the ferry hops between the different islands (curiously themed and mildly touristically explored), one has the feeling of floating between mountain tops, cirurgically cut with level lines.
(more photos, on flickr.)
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hua jiao = flower pepper
one day we were strolling around the crowded carrefour and couldn’t help to notice the huge pile of these little dried berries… they spread a strong scent across the corridor, quite irresistible… so I packed a handful and brought them home, willing to experiment with them. “hua jiao” they are called, literally “flower pepper” – promising.
on the first occasion, i poured quite a few on our steaks. the result was… hum… interesting. despite the name, they’re not spicy at all. the steaks were ok, but, as we discovered (amidst a laugh attack) the berries are actually very, very tongue numbing! that was totally unexpected! we spent the rest of the meal dodging them on our plates… they looked so innocent!
as i’ve later discovered, they’re used in sichuan hotpot to improve the other tastes and the spiciness of the meal itself.
more on gastronomic discoveries to come.
sunday. we enter the elevator with some kids and their parents. the kids (2 boys of around 7) are giggling and mutter “waiguo ren” (foreigners).
they’re talking about us, so i gently correct him and say “putaoya ren” which means portuguese. (and also that we can understand him :P).
he laughs, a bit shy, and conspires with his friend and parents which urge him to speak to us, and then he says “how do you do?”, in english. i say “fine, thank you, and you?”, “just so-so”, he replies and then they leave the elevator.
“just so-so” is the translation of “mama huhu”, the typical answer for a “nihao ma?” (how are you?). the chinese will not usually say they are good, or very good, or any other extreme feelings, and rather settle for a moderate answer.
they are just so-so. it’s a funny detail.