Onions, the smell of fall

The sign of fall in the treeless urban jungle is the appearance of vegetables everywhere out to dry.

My 3rd year in China and I do still find this as fascinating as the leaf changes in the South. My awe is the amazing places they will put the veggies.

bike parking

And how they are so symmetrical and orderly with the arrangement.

hanging cucumbers

The fall butterflies just love the onions. In Shenyang we had a first floor apartment and people would ask us to dry their veggies between the bars of our windows. Nothing like opening your window in the morning to a stack of onions.

Butterfly

What I am really waiting for is seeing the herd of chihuahuas (that yips and wakes me up everyday) pee all over them. I am quite interested in the double standard that the chinese think everything that is on the ground is dirty-yet they leave their entire winter supply of veggies out on the ground to the mercy of the dogs and spitters.

Roll out the green onions...fall is here!

I have been told that they dry the veggies because in winter prices go up and it is too cold to go out anyway.

park bench last fall

Happy face red peppers

The funniest thing happened at the store yesterday. Actually yesterday was a really bad day for little guy but I don't want to talk about it. So I went to Carrefour by myself last night to buy groceries. The check out line at Carrefour is the slowest on earth. The lines are long and people finally get their two seconds with the cashier and want to pester the poor girl about the price of an egg. Like she can bargain with them or something. Anyway they will argue and hold up the line and about half the time after waiting in line 15minutes they will walk of in a huff with nothing when the cashier won't change the price. So I'm in line about 7minutes into my wait. Always people come along with just a few items and try to cut in front. So this guy has about 10 bottles of beer without a basket or cart and wants to cut. He is whining about how heavy the bottles were. I'm thinking- you picked them up, if you want them, deal with it. So the lady behind me lets him in between us. He continues his whining. I refuse to budge so he starts to rant about how I'm a foriegner and can't understand anything. I think he really worked up and was going on about how selfish I was to not let him infront to set down his beer. He stands there a few minutes and his cousin shows up (this always happens if you let them cut). The cousin has more beer and a bunch of tea with instant coupons on them. Instant coupons always result in a big argument with the cashier, so I was really glad I didn't let him in front of me. So I wait out the line, probably 10 minutes. The guy and his cousin continue to have there foreigners are stupid conversation and the woman behind them is contributing to the conversation. Nothing like enduring racial prejudice just to get your groceries. They did analyze my purchases too. Little Guy cooperates for marshmallows so I had about 5 bags of them, so they had lots of fuel for their foreigners are fat and unhealthy rant. Finally it's my turn and the cashier pokes a hole in my dried red beans and they spill all over. The guy then starts telling the cashier how I don't understand anything and I'm stupid. So I'm packing the groceries in my bags (brought from home-Mr. Beer was so smart that he hadn't remembered his). The cashier tells me the total in Chinese and I handed her what I thought was the right amount. I had miscounted and was off by 5RMB, so they guy is still going on about how I don't understand anything. I pulled out another 5 and handed it to the cashier and said "Ming bai" ("I understand" in chinese) in perfect tone and looked at the guy right in the eye and smiled. He was so embarrassed!!! He just covered his face and started laughing and all the other people behind him started laughing too. He said (in chinese) "OMG, she understood everything I just said." I felt so vindicated. I didn't say anything else and just left.

Onions, the smell of fall

Harbin, China