Manners

I have had such a dream for a number of times:

"It was a luxurious buffet. I saw a lot of food I like. But we had to wait for the rest of the guests to arrive before we could start. I stared at the food and waited and then woke up."

Each time I woke up like this, I blamed myself, "It is in a dream. It is safe to do whatever I like as there won't be any consequence to face. Why care about manners. Just go ahead and eat. Don't be silly next time." But each time, I was still unwillingly waiting in my dream. I think sometimes people care too much about their manners than what they really want.

Yes. I just had such a dream last night.

Housework

When I was very young and lived with my parents, I always heard working women complaining about the burden of doing housework. So each time my dad asked me to either study or do housework, I chose to study because it seemed to be a much easier and less boring task. Although I did not do much housework at home, at that time in China, students were supposed to take turn to clean classroom themselves. So I did some cleaning in school before.

When I live oversea, I have to do some housework myself. To my surprise, maybe more advanced cleaning facilities and detergent have emerged, doing housework seems to be a very easy task. It turns out to be a great pleasure to see the kitchen and bathroom shine in few minutes.

What motivated me to write today's blog? I just realised that I could be a plumber as well -- unblocking the blocked basin and bathtub in few seconds. Well, I think everybody can do that. Only the person, who did it for the first time, feels so proud of herself.

回家吃饭

过年了，真想回家吃饭！

小的时候，每次做饭前，妈妈都问我：“今天想吃什么”。我的回答每次都一样：“随便”。我是个不挑食的孩子，有什么就吃什么，只要可口就行。妈妈后来对我说，每次问我是为了尊重我，每次我的回答都让她觉得很贴心。没想到我随便的回答竟也给了妈妈一丝温暖。

每次回国，也是回家，妈妈都问我：“想吃什么”。我的回答总是：“家常便饭”。不是我不挑食，而是在国外吃上一次地道的家常便饭很难。有人说，最好吃的饭菜还是妈妈做的。的确如此。

Chinese lunch today

Guess what? INRIA canteen cooks Chinese food for today's lunch and they provide chopsticks! Not only that, the canteen is also decorated with Chinese lanterns. What a surprise! 

The Chinese population in INRIA is quite small and I appreciate that they have this Chinese lunch during the Chinese New Year period. Today, one main vegetable dish is spring sprout, which is made from soya beans, which is also a good representative of Chinese vegetable dish. Spring sprout is the name I see in UK supermarket, Chinese call it Dou Ya, meaning bean sprout.

Some time ago, someone: I stayed in China for one year and I missed cheese very much because you do not find cheese in supermarkets in China. How can you people live without cheese?!

Dana: I know exactly what you feel because I cannot find Tofu in supermarkets in Europe and it is also hard for me to believe that European people can live without Tofu!

While cheese represents the west, soya bean represents the east. Besides bean sprout and Tofu, there are hundreds of food made from soya beans just like there are many types of cheese.

So INRIA canteen chose a right vegetable today!

Making wishes

New year, new wishes! I would like to make wishes. Making wishes is like setting goals or reminding yourself what you want at that particular time of your life.

I bought a French novel last Saturday. Bingo! One of my wishes is to master French. (Of course, I also have other wishes and subwishes.) I remember that my English was improved rapidly after I read a series of books titled "The Famous Five". This is a curiosity-driven way of learning a language. As you keep wondering what happens next in a novel, it pushes you to look up dictionary to find the meaning of those new words. As looking up dictionary is a tiresome job, you will try to remember as many words as possible so as to reduce the frequency of looking up the dictionary. After staying in France for one year, I feel that I am somewhat used to the French grammar although I did not feel comfortable at the beginning. One linguistic professor says that, once you accept a language, you can learn it fast.

Each time I learn a foreign language, I recall a Chinese great master JI Xianlin's words, "Cultural exchange is the main drive for humankind's progress. Only by learning from each other's strong points to make up for shortcomings can people constantly progress, the ultimate target of which is to achieve a kind of Great Harmony".

So look forward to the day that I can write blogs in French. Bingo! That is one of my subwishes.

Strolling

Last weekend, the weather was beautiful. (Actually you can see blue sky quite often in France even in winter. Feel jealous?) It was definitely not a good day to stay at home and write blogs so I went out for a walk.

I like strolling especially along a river. That is why I need a good pair of shoes which allow me to stroll for a couple of hours comfortably and gracefully.

The royal garden outside the chateau of Versailles is the best place to have a walk. There are ponds and a canal in the garden. You can see a thin layer of ice on the surface of the ponds. But the layer of ice is thick enough for swans to walk on it. Looking around, statues are there as usual. Do statues feel cold? I cannot help wondering because they are quite naked.

Standing in the royal garden, looking to the north, I hardly see any high buildings. I was told that there was a law in the past stating that no windows of a building should be seen from King's bedroom. So in order to  have slightly higher houses, people hide them by planting trees around. It seems quite true as I can only see roofs of some buildings which are not higher than trees around them. I do not think there is still such a law nowadays. I guess people do not build high buildings now partly because it is not necessary and partly because it may destroy the peaceful scene of Versailles.

There are benches made of marbles in the garden, pure and elegant. Imagine that lovers used to sit over there having a long chatting under the moon. I would say that the garden was quite a romantic place if all tourists and their cameras disappeared. (But I was one of them the first time I visited Versailles.)

Walking and thinking, walking and thinking ...

I feel lucky that I am a person who lives in the 21st century. I also treasure whatever I have today.

Shoes

It is very hard to find a good pair of shoes that are both stylish and comfortable. But I had found one before winter came. They are warm, smart, comfortable and lovely.