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.

French home dishes

Why home dishes? I believe most people, who read my blogs, have been to a French restaurant in their country and know what French food is like. But what do French people eat at home? Is it as complicated and artistic as what you see at restaurants? The answer is "Yes". I am surprised to know that they make chocolate, ice-cream, sausages, etc. themselves at home. One reason to take all the trouble to make them at home is for the sake of health -- you know what you are eating. The other reason is to enjoy the great fun of making food for yourself and for your family. It is not difficult for me to imagine. I am pretty sure that I would feel a great pleasure if my children enjoyed the meals I make.

I have been invited by a French family for a Saturday dinner at their house together with another two guests. One thing to note is that usually the host says you can come at 7pm, but you are actually expected to be at their house at 7:30pm. Dinner in France usually starts at 8pm. They may provide you some snack (e.g. simple salad) to eat and pre-dinner wine to drink from 7:30-8:00pm and also have some pre-dinner chatting. If you reach too early, they may not know how to handle you. This is quite different from Chinese convention that guests usually reach slightly earlier to help out a bit, such as arranging tables and chairs, or even washing vegetables. In France, the hosts do everything themselves probably because they would like to do things in their way.

Children were put upstairs at 8pm so that hosts and guests can start their meals. The main course at the dinner was roasted lamb together with a glass of red wine. I had been asked beforehand what I do not eat because some people may be allergic to some food. I said, I could eat any meat as long as it is fully cooked. Well, this seems to be a relaxed requirement, but it turns out to make the host's cooking slightly difficult because they usually eat lamb that is half-cooked. It is harder to make it fully cooked and yet tender, timing is very important. Anyway, to respect my eating habit, the lamb was made fully cooked. It was roasted in a small machine in their garden (i.e. open air) with coal burning at the side of the machine. Coal? Yes, coal, because it just tastes better than those roasted in an electric oven. I read from newspaper that some harmful gas is formed when fat burns on coal, so having coal at the side is a smart design. I am not sure what spices have been put on the lamb, it tastes very delicious.

Each person was only served with one slice of lamb. After the main course, I still felt hungry. Well, so did they because there were still many other courses waiting for us. Immediately I was served with cheese and bread. Everybody knows that French people have invented more than 300 kinds of cheese. As a foreign guest, I must try. At home, they eat 5-6 kinds of cheese with bread after the main course. I tried a little bit of each and concluded that they were eatable. Of course, cheese and wine always go together. (A colleague of mine organized a cheese party a few months later. I found out that I could eat any cheese, so I passed the cheese test in France.)

The host made the desert himself as well -- something creamy and sweet in a cup. All dishes have their names, but I am not good at remembering names. Besides the dessert, some home-made chocolate was served, then the post-dinner wine. You may notice that the host is a male because I use the word "him". Yes, the host's wife confirms that her husband does all the cooking and he enjoys doing so. Yes, I myself also enjoy cooking and have a feeling that I am an artist when I happen to cook something nice. After this dinner, I feel I should practise more.

You might ask that, do they learn cooking from their mother? I presume women did all the cooking in the old days. But I found out that each such an artist has a sophisticated cooking book at home, which can be 1000-page thick, very professional. I would really like to buy one myself.

After drinking different kinds of wine and having a lot of interesting chatting and laughing, I started to feel sleepy. But I was told that such dinner (or gathering) usually ends at 2-3am. Because I am not a close friend of the family and also because they are no longer in their early 20s, we ended the dinner earlier, i.e. at 12:00 midnight.

Cinderella went home safely.