Things

1. Ok, so, I didn't get to part 2 of the Hong Kong post. The moral is, we did and saw and ate many things and it was a very successful, enjoyable trip.  HK is cool. 
2. Then last weekend my wallet was stolen on the bus.  That sucked because I know exactly how it happened and just didn't realize it was happening at the time.  How did I travel all through sketchy parts of Europe for five months and retain all my belongings, and then come to China and have my phone and wallet stolen in the city where I live within two months?  
3. Then a few days ago, Thanksgiving, the school took us to this five-star restaurant for a "Western-style buffet".  It was hilariously weird.  First of all the Chinese idea of "fancy" is bordering on tacky, like what we think a fancy shopping mall should look like.  And there wasn't anyone else in the restaurant, so it was just all this food and all these waiters for like 20 Americans.  And the waiters are all a little uncomfortable looking, like they're not sure what they should be doing - which I've noticed to be common in Western-style restaurants but I thought would be different in a very shmancy place.  The food was Western-like but not Thanksgiving food - OK, a turkey - but they also had egg rolls, and sushi, and strange gelatinous desserts.  Hehehe.  I mean I enjoyed it.  But it's like, why can't this upscale restaurant manage to make appropriate and delicious American food?  Is it that they don't know how? Or that they don't bother to? Or that they don't want to?  What is the reason for the strangeness?   I'm not complaining - I don't expect to eat the same things I always do, of course.  Just wondering. 
4. Then yesterday, I decided to venture into the realm of cooking.  When I arrived in China I knew it would be a while until I felt ready to go there - just the thought of going to a supermarket seemed overwhelming.  I mean it is overwhelming.  But I miss cooking and I have enough Chinese to buy produce at the markets and my roommate has been wanting to, also.  And Cheikh has been bugging me about it, too, like he's so surprised that I haven't been cooking when we have this perfectly good (except...not really) kitchen.  At first I was a little offended by this, and reminded him that I was not his wife and didn't have to cook for him, but he was like, "whoa whoa, I don't mean you should cook for me, you should cook for yourself.  This dining hall food is not so good and you shouldn't eat it every day."  And he is probably right based on the number of students who regularly cite MSG as an ingredient when describing what's in a dish.  So anyway I went to Tangjia, the rundown part of town right by campus, and got some produce and stuff, and then later went downtown to this department store with a Western-ish grocery section and got a lot of food.  I mean, going to the grocery store in the states is a little overwhelming, so many choices, you never know where stuff is, etc.  Grocery shopping in Vienna was another level of stressful, because of all the unreadable labels and strange-looking things.  So grocery shopping here is just...difficult.  I went by myself which was one problem.  I should have taken somebody.  It's easier to make decisions when you can talk through the options aloud.  It was fun though, a little.  And it's just the same as most things here - you never know what stuff is, so you just choose, and hope it's what you think it is, or hope it tastes good.  For instance, the meal I was going to make sort of depended on me finding couscous, and I found this stuff that looked like couscous, but when I cooked it, it turned out to be this sticky, gooey grits-like grain.  Not quite what I was looking for, but it worked I guess.  But I managed to get everything (or a version of everything) on my list except for chickpeas, which I still can't find.  Then I got home and stuck everything in our rice cooker, and it worked out pretty well.  I made chocolate no-bake cookies in the rice cooker too, which have some consistency problems but overall taste good.  And today we bought a hot plate and a wok, and we have a bunch of spices and utensils, and although I hate that we will just have to leave all our purchases here at the end of the year, I think the investment will be worth it.  I didn't even think we needed the hotplate, as the rice cooker functions just like a pot, but my roommate is a little too concerned with making this place as comfortable as our American apartments.  I don't think she gets that it is going to be impossible to make this place feel like a normal apartment.  The other day I had to hold her back from buying a loveseat, which would have been her whole month's rent plus the trouble of finding a moving company to get it to our fifth floor apartment.  And her boyfriend really wants to buy a puppy, which is not allowed and impractical.  Geez. 
5. So I am doing well,  chillin', but I don't feel great.  I feel always a little down, like I don't want to do anything but knit or shop do rosetta stone or sit at the cafe or wait around for Cheikh to come over.  I don't feel dazed anymore, like I did at first.  I feel awake now but a little...I dunno.  I really think a lot of it has to do with the lack of music in my life.  I think it just zaps my energy to have to live, day after day, without an instrument.  So hopefully that situation can be fixed soon.   Also it was really really sad not to be home for Thanksgiving.  I mean it didn't feel like a holiday at all.  LIke it would have been quite easy for me to forget that it was a holiday.  Even at the dinner, we didn't say a prayer or say what we were thankful for or talk about thanksgiving or anything.  We just ate strange combinations of mediocre food.  And, I was telling Cheikh last night, I feel weird because I didn't anticipate being so homesick.  I just didn't anticipate that it would be this difficult to adjust and transition.  I knew that would be a major problem of course but I guess I had never experienced it so I didn't understand what it would feel like.  Because when I went to Vienna, I wasn't homesick at all.  I never missed the states.  I never craved American food or cried or even thought about it too much.  Part of it was probably that I loved Vienna so much, and I think China is not so immediately loveable.  For me, that is.  And when I was living in Vienna, I would think about all the changes I was experiencing, all the cultural differences I was noticing.  But now, when I think about it, those differences were nearly negligible.  The differences I'm living with here are so much bigger.  And before I came, I thought, yeah yeah yeah there will be differences, it will seem like a whole different world, it will be difficult and stressful, yeah yeah, but I have done that before, I know how to adapt because I did it in Vienna, no problem.  Well...yeah right.  This is not like living in Austria.  So anyway, I guess I just still feel shaken, and not myself.  Every single day I miss the states, which is a totally new feeling for me, and it was really really hard to think about everyone else at home on Thursday.  Also, in Vienna, no one stared at me.  I wasn't this celebrity.  It's hard just to be out in public here, because heads turn wherever you go.  In Vienna if I felt afraid, I put on the Viennese stern face outside, and whistled a happy tune inside, and pushed through the feeling.  But here, it's like I have no privacy, like people are watching my every move, and when I'm out alone I feel vulnerable.  So when I'm out, it's tiring, because of all the attention focused on me, and I'm afraid if I whistle a happy tune in my head that will interfere with my real listening and I'll get hit by a motorcycle, and if I put on a stern face people will think I'm mean and try to cheer me up by being friendly, but it is even more draining to be friendly back, and if I try to fight my fear with adventurousness, I will buy something that looks like fruit and turns out to be a disgusting something-er-other, and then be disappointed, and next time not have the courage to try the weird-looking fruit, etc.  Can you imagine if Americans looked at every non-white person inquisitively?  Like if Chinese immigrants were stared at by white people?  No way.  Whatever. 
It's not actually as bad as I make it sound.  No, sorry, it is, but I mean, I don't feel discouraged as that made it sound.  I'm having fun.  I just wish Harry Potter could lend me his invisibility cloak once in a while.