Last night, I promised the Chinese homestay students in my mother’s house that I would teach them how to make chocolate chip cookies. I made a batch two weeks earlier - just to put my antique Hamilton Beach stand mixer to good use. The mixer was a relic from the 50s, acquired on a weekend getaway to Victoria with the Hopewells. The cookies were not from the original cookbook that came with the mixer, but a generic cookie recipe that goes as follows:
Chocolate Chip Cookies
The wet stuff
1 cup of butter
1 tbsp vanilla
2 medium to large eggs
The dry stuff
3/4 cup of white sugar
3/4 cup of brown sugar
2.5 - 3 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup of butterscotch chip
Preheat that oven to 350 degrees farenheit.
Basically, start by softening up that butter…you can use a microwave. Mix all wet ingredients in the same bowl. Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl. Beat the wet ingredients until fluffy. Gradually toss dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix well.
Scoop dough balls and place on a baking tray with enough space between (2cm). Bake for 14 - 16 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
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I made a print out of the basic recipe, outlining vocabulary for them. I made my batch of cookies using narration to teach them how to listen to my English, and pick out the sense instead of hanging on individual words and getting lost.
Next up was Lu Yang, the youngest in the house. At 19, he reminds me of my shiest boys from Changsha. Always stopping himself before finishing a sentence, he laughs nervously and buries his head in his hands when put in a situation when he could communicate with others.
He also irritated me like my shy students in Changsha: he tended to speak in Chinese rather than try to use what vocabulary he had to ask for help. And he tried to make his cookies by memory than by looking at the printed instructions.
I looked at “Eddie”, the other boy, whose English was much stronger. Lu Yang repeatedly ignored my suggestions to read the sheet, and do his vocabulary; so much was his desire to make his cookies and eat them, that he reckoned this exercise wasn’t one to take seriously enough.
“You’re the chef,” I threw my hands up and walked to the next room to watch a little bit of TV. If he didn’t listen to me, he could learn from his mistakes.
Mom tried to help Lu Yang when he couldn’t remember what came next in the process. Her eyes are weak, so team Iron Chef China plus mom were stuck for five minutes doing what should have taken 30 seconds.
In the end, Lu Yang got his cookies in the oven, and was overly pleased with himself.
Eddie was more thorough, but self-doubting. He reminded me of myself in Organic Chemistry at University. Lingering over every detail, uncertain.
They both came out with good cookies, and promptly gobbled them.
It was then time for some culture. Canadian Culture
Scott picked us up and I took the boys out on the town for a little bit of live music at an old haunt that’s tried and true: the Railway Club.
Last night, the Buttless Chaps were performing on stage. My fears for the night were realized when Scott and I basically talked amongst ourselves about Viviane, Jessica, womanly woes - my mind kept straying as we discussed this topic - alternative energy, and cross-Canada trips. With a pint of weak Guiness in hand, I offered the celebratory toast, and the homestays watched the mix of hot, luke-warm, and ice-cold Canadian girls meander through the pub. Scott and I weren’t oblivious to the women, but we were more engaged in discussing ideas for travel, alternatively deconstructing the female flake.
Eddie did fine, actually talking to other people in the pub. Lu Yang, at the age of 19, believing that seeing men and women kiss was disgusting, and feeling unconfident with his English, suffered quietly as the rest of us just chilled.
We walked about downtown Vancouver afterward, with me giving the boys an opportunity to have a guided, guarded tour of the scary nightlife.
An African man said ‘hello’ to the boys, prompting them to come into the bank where I was withdrawing money from an ATM.
“Cold outside?” I asked.
“No,” Eddie offered, “a black man said ‘hello’ to us, and we did not feel safe, so we came inside.”
I smiled, and resisted giving them a lecture on the race card.
I looked at the clubs, I would not fit into; Scott concurred. These places would make me feel the loneliest unless I went their with loads of friends.
Eddie concluded that there were not many Chinese people out on the street, frequenting these clubs. I wondered at that observation, given that there were Chinese people abounding, some wearing wigs, some with colored hair, others sporting tattoos.
So as we walked past each Chinese person I could pick out, I’d call out, “Chinese” within earshot of my homestay students, amusing Scott along the way.
And what is Canadian Culture?
I think the boys could see how youth and whatnot entertain themselves in Vancouver. But it’s much the same wherever you go.
I could answer that Canadian culture is Molson Canadian beer, hockey, late night shwarmas or as they call them in the UK and Australia, Kebabs.
But then, change the sport from Hockey to Football or Soccer, and you get any other country out there.
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