"Oh That's Different" No. 5

I've been delinquent with blogging lately! With the Year of the Horse, here's plenty more to observe.

1. No kitchen drawers. I've seen a fair number of homes now, from luxury places to hutong apartments and none of them has kitchen drawers for silverware! My silverware organizer sits on top of a wire rack in our kitchen and it drives me insane because it gets dusty and it looks ugly. I blame chopsticks; you can arrange chopsticks neatly in a cup and tuck it away in a cupboard. It's not as easy with forks, spoons and knives.

Perhaps I should invest in one of these and let guests choose their wares.

2. Feed your guests. We recently went to a lovely dinner with our Mandarin teacher and her boyfriend, and they kept taking pieces of the dishes and putting them on our plates. Apparently it's a respectful thing to do; not only to serve your guests but to give them the choice pieces of meat. For one dish, that meant the fish's head, which is thought of as the best part. I can't say I loved it -- it's got a mushy and gooey texture -- but it was nice of our teacher's boyfriend to give us bites.

3. Don't drink until the food comes. It's common at Chinese dinners to not sip alcohol until the food comes, because alcohol on an empty stomach is bad for you. (They're pretty smart, huh?) So we didn't touch the baijiu (translated as white wine but really more of a clear liquor), and beer until the food arrived.

4. Let the name games begin. In the four months we've been here, I've noticed some pretty crazy names for shops, apartment buildings and restaurants. Some I think are copied as a sense of admiration; we live across the street from Central Park, a luxury apartment complex, and there are other posh residences in Beijing named Upper East Side, Palm Springs and Park Avenue. Here are some of my other favorite names so far:

Bla Bla Bra
A lingerie store (This is my personal fave; after shopping in such stores you do feel exhausted, and a little bla bla, right?)

Because bra shopping is bla. 

b+ab, Gotta Pick My Precious Love Collection
A women's clothing store. I'm really not sure what this is supposed to mean.

Me & City
A clothing store that sounds like it was trying to be like Sex & the City, but got lost in translation?

We're trying to be a Western brand. Really.