Happy Mothers Day to all the mama's out there, I remembered and wished both my Meiguo mama (aka Gail) and Zhongguo mama (aka host mom) a happy day.
The cold and rainy weather that I wrote about to not too long ago is just a distant memory at this point as the temperature and humidity here continue to rise. It's 7pm here right now and my computer says it's 81 degrees with 45% humidity, numbers that I'm not really accustomed to. Of course my house is equipped with A/C but we never use it, also it has become painfully apparent to me that there are no cold meals in this country, everything is served piping hot, not helping to relive the heat.
Whats funny to me now is that even though it hasn't rained in quite some time you can still find plenty of umbrellas, its just this time they're to keep the sun off. I think this probably has less to do with it being very warm and more to do with avoiding a tan, the pastier you are in this country the prettier. This also means that people (mostly women) wear an outrageous amounts of clothing. The other day we had a BBQ, courtesy of our program, and all of the host moms came wearing either pants or a long skirt, long sleeves, jacket, hats, gloves (I'm not kidding) and holding an umbrella; it was probably close to 90 degrees.
Just about three weeks till I fly home, starting to get excited about seeing everybody and eating lots of American food.
-AL
Hey Andrew: As you are well versed in history, I'm sure you are familiar with the same sentiment being shared here in the south in regards to looking "pasty". Granmush used to talk about that when she was young, having a tan indicated you worked in the fields. To be without sun color indicated a higher social status. Could be that same concept of social status is alive and well over there. (Thank goodness it's gone here now.) Just thought I'd throw that out to you.
ReplyDeleteSo what American food are you craving the most? Your mom's yeast rolls?
Thanks for the updates.
ly..ala
I'm sure the manual labor thing has a lot to do with it, makes you look like a peasant, not a good thing in this society.
ReplyDeleteAmerican food.... lets see, hotcakes, prime rib, PB&J (as strange as that sounds), milk, scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal, baked brie, sandwiches of all kinds, real orange juice, pie, Rosalies, Jordan's (both), milkshakes, old soaker root beer, beef jerkey just to name a few.
Beef Jerky, oh my...
ReplyDeleteHot food makes you sweat and then you get evaporative cooling (except that there is no evaporation in high humidity...). Not only is food piping in India and Mexico, but spicy too! I bet there are great health benefits. Staying out of the sun undoubtedly has health benefits--I really ought to take that up! Will you come tell us about your adventures if I promise a bottomless plate of hotcakes and bacon and eggs? We'll be glad to see you when you get here.
ReplyDeleteLove, Jill