“Angi, its 6:20,” my roommate for the month, Summer, whispers across the gap between our beds.
“Thanks, Summer,” I groan from my side of the cold hotel room. As I do, I remember where I am, and what I am doing awake at this crazy hour.
We don’t have class until 9am, and I am awake more than two and a half hours early. I am meeting Jeff in ten minutes to teach him how to fetch breakfast, China-style.
It is chilly in our hotel room. The weather here in mid-November reminds me of October at home. Evenings are cool, and as soon as the sun goes down, it gets cold. Mornings have a good bite to them, but the days, the days are beautiful. Perfect for blue-jeans and a tee-shirt, or a sweatshirt when the wind blows.
At 6:30 in the morning though, when Jeff and I step out of the hotel, it is still cold. I’ve made one of my buffs into a hat of sorts, and with my hair down beneath it, I’m feeling as though I look a bit thuggish. It is still dark here (China is all in one time zone), and the street lights are off to conserve energy. I pull my hood up on my sweatshirt and stuff my hands in my pockets to stay warm. We walk quickly to warm up, about 1.5 km, to a side street where breakfast foods are being prepared.
We pass by tea-eggs (eggs hardboiled in tea, so tasty), but we’ll stop here on the way back. We walk up a hill to the first of the street vendors from whom we will procure the pieces of our Chinese breakfast.
We approach one vendor, whom I visited yesterday, and I hope she is in a better mood today. I hold up my index finger and say, “yi jiaozi” (gee-ow-dza). The old woman crinkles her eyes in my direction, as if deciding whether or not I am worthy of eating her food. I am rewarded quickly this morning. Her decision made, with a deft move, she dumps about a dozen (one order) little steamed-pasta dumplings into a styrofoam container and puts it in a plastic bag, tossing in chopsticks as a last minute challenge. By now, I’ve learned that these bits of tastiness cost 3 yuan, or about $.50. I hand her the money and say, “xie xie” (shay shay), and she replies with a grin, “bou yon xie” she replies. This exchanges means ‘Thank You’ and ‘No thanks needed.’
I hand the food to Jeff (my sherpa for the morning), and we head further up the street to another little vendor. This time I ask for biaozi (bow-dza), and the woman asks me how many; I hold up my hands in a sort of ‘hang ten’ sign, and say “liu.” I’ve asked for six orders of this stuff. These are also steamed dumplings, little pillows of dough stuffed with about a tablespoon of some unidentifiable meaty goodness. At the same stand, I ask for ‘man toh’, which is just steamed bread. After the lady here hands me the requested food, I fork over the 8 yuan, just over $1. We do the same thank you exchange, and Jeff and I head down the hill, this time stopping at the stand with the tea-eggs.
This man likes me, and happily tolerates my broken Chinese. “Ni hao” I say to him, and I am greeted with the same. Again I hold my hand in the hang-ten sign and say “liu.” He quickly scoops six eggs out of the frothing dark liquid and into a plastic bag while I ready my six yuan for him. Xie Xie and bo yon xie are exhanged, and Jeff and I head back to the hotel. Our grand total for breakfast is seventeen yuan, or about $2.50, and this will feed seven of us.
The whole process has taken us less than a half hour, and we’ve worked up an appetite. Our team, plus Mary, our contact for the month, congregated in Jeff and Joel’s room to dig in!
