Broccoli and Winter Melon, NOT cheese sauce on top
Pickled radishes, Lotus root and sticky sweet rice, pickled walnuts
Chocolate covered Purple Yams and fruit loops!
Shrimp, celery and peanuts
Now Act Two opens. We are still on the work
part of our trip, but we've switched companions from Mary and Johnny to Paul
and Tom. In Act Two we will still be visiting with factories. I didn't take
many pictures of the factory visits because the machines and things were not
that interesting to me...and I didn't want to seem too touristy!
For me Act Two
was about the people that I met who work with David. Paul Higgs and Tom Zhue
were our contact points now. It could be that because both Paul and Tom are a
younger team than Mary and Johnny that I felt less hurried during Act Two. Or,
I suppose it could have been that because I'd been in China for a few
days and was now used to this other side of the world. I'm not sure really. Oh,
maybe it was because we didn't eat any KFC during Act Two! Let me begin Act
Two, Thursday the 27th of September with
the story of our arrival in Han
Dan City.
Act Two, Scene
One: Our flight from Shanghai to Han Dan City was an hour delayed in leaving, so an hour
delayed in arriving in Han
Dan City.
There is only one flight per day, so you take what you can get when traveling
in country. While we sat in the airport, David, Stephanie and I, we chatted
about nothing in particular. And, in our chatting, lots of people watched us. I
think some of them were trying to understand what we were saying...some of them
did understand! And, some of them just thought it was strange to see Anglos in
a Chinese airport going to a very Chinese city away from touristy places.
As we waited we
met a young Chinese boy who said to us, "Have you got any money so I can
get something to eat? I'm really hungry. I'm an exchange student home from Canada. I can
trade you my Canadian money." I thought this was pretty strange. But, we
were in a very safe airport, so I knew he wasn't trying to panhandle us. David
gave him a few dollars and asked him where he was going. Now, mind you the boy
was speaking English, but when he answered David it sounded like he said,
"I'm muffin top." He really said, "I'm going back home."
But David did not hear it that way. For some reason, I think because we were
pretty tired from a very long day, this "muffin top" comment made us
laugh. We did wait until the boy was gone to get some food before we laughed.
Poor guy, he became known to us as Muffin Top!
We began to watch
the crowd grow bigger at the gate of our flight, and the frenzy of lining up to
get on. In China there really is no such thing
as a nice orderly line. You know how Southwest Airlines has their sign markers
for lining up by number and how crazy and rude that can get? Well, this is a
million times worse than that! The gate agents were even yelling at people to
get back. At least, we think that's what they were saying in Chinese. They
would make an announcement about the flight delay, in Chinese of course, and
then repeat it in English. It's a good thing I was on the trip because both
David and Stephanie never could understand the English bits. I had to translate
the English for them! It was pretty funny.
Finally we
arrived in Han Dan City
an hour and 1/2 later than we were supposed to be. It was about 9pm. All we
were thinking about was where we would be sleeping tonight. However, we were
whisked from the airport straight to a HUGE traditional Chinese dinner....at 9
pm!! Everyone from Max Health, along with Paul and Tom, had been waiting for us
at the dinner place. We found out that they had asked the chef to stay late
just for us! For this dinner there were eleven people; Dixon and his wife Wendy--the
owners of the factory that we would tour the next day--a cute couple whose
names I do not know who work for Dixon making rollator seats, Tom and Paul,
Jenny and Vivian, Stephanie, David and me.
This dinner would be our first traditional Chinese dinner.
Act Two Scene
Two: The restaurant was actually in a hotel in a sort of banquet room with VIP
on the door. There were lots of these rooms where other dinners were in
progress, but mostly finishing up since it was so late!
There are a lot
of interesting traditions involved in this type of dinner. The first one is
about the table. It is round and very big. In the middle of the table is a lazy
susan that is about the size of a normal round dining room table. All the food
is set on the lazy susan and passed by turning. The food kept coming and coming
in no apparent order. We started with some cold veggies, miso soup, hot tea, a
very interesting warm beverage made from a kind of nut that I didn't catch the
name of, cold chicken with bones, and Mao Tai--also known as Chinese wine.
Another tradition
is to make special toasts with this Chinese wine. It is really strong and
served in tiny shot glasses. The idea is that you drink the entire portion with
the toast to show respect and appreciation for the toast or the person to whom
you are toasting. The portion was about an ounce. Mao Tia is really strong, so
it's not a good idea to drink too much of it. I had read all about the toasting
in on of the China
travel books before we left, so I was prepared to pretend drink. I sipped mine
unless there was a challenge issued by the toaster to drink together the entire
drink. There were lots of toasts, "to our gracious and generous
hosts" , "to our American friends", "to good business", etc. I did
offer a toast to the cute couple after I found out they had only been married
for seven years. Everyone we had been meeting kept saying that David and I were
such a "cute couple". So, in my toast I said something like, "To
the real cute couple, long years, happy children, and a good life." They
giggled at me and responded to my toast by smiling and toasting me back. It was
kind of fun to engage in the tradition of Mao Tai.
The food at this
dinner was very traditional. David would try to tell me what things were. I
finally just said, "Don't tell me! I want to try everything, but if you
tell me what it is, I might not want to."
I tried jellyfish because I thought it looked like ceviche, which I do
like. I was surprised that it was very crunchy. After I tried it, David said,
"That was jellyfish!" eeeeww!! We also had yummy fish with the head,
tail and fins still on. You don't have to eat those parts, but some people do
like them. There were no forks, knives or spoons...all chopsticks!! I did
pretty well. Actually there were big
serving type spoons that most people used to eat their soups with. I used mine
to serve myself from the dishes, otherwise you would use your chopsticks to
grab what you want. Eventually I did that because it was getting too difficult
not to do it that way.
These are the
things I remember eating:
Yams...which were
white and had donut sprinkles on top! They tasted like sugary Thanksgiving
sweet potatoes.
Sushi salmon with
cucumbers...delish!
Chinese tacos,
little steamed dough things that you put a piece of beef, cucumber sprouts in
the middle of and then ate with your fingers. I learned later that this is the
traditional way to eat Peking Duck too.
A thick fishcake
which seemed like it was fried, not sure what type of fish it was. The base of
the fishcake was something strange and crunchy, served warm. Later I would
learn that it was lotus root at the base of the fishcake.
Almond fishcakes
which were skinny compared to the other ones. This one was made on a base of nori
(seaweed paper) with chopped fish sprinkled with sliced almonds, also served
warm.
Watermelon....something I love and which was very easy to find at every
meal!
Noodles with a
light sauce, broccoli and excellent shrimp.
This was hard to eat with chopsticks, I had to use the funky Chinese
soup spoon to hold the noodles still so I could grab them with my chopsticks!
Some kind of
fried dough that Wendy really liked.
Poppy Seed
dumpling...a dumpling that was stuffed with poppy seeds....way interesting.
Something that
was called, "fruit soup". I believe that the true ingredients of this
soup were lost in translation because there were no fruits in the soup! It was
red beans, carrots and some other vegetable in a curry broth and served warm.
I have to say
that I really liked all the food I ate. I was pretty full when dinner was over!
Things I did not
eat:
Duck--because it
had bones in it and, I had eaten goose at an earlier meal and really, really
did not like it.
Silky
tofu--mostly because it kept getting spun past me!
Pork steamed
buns--because I was getting too full.
Plain steamed
broccoli--again, too full!!
This was all at
ONE meal! We didn't finish until about 10:45pm. There was so much left over food.
No one asked for a doggie bag, and no one offered one either! We slept very
well that night. It was a lovely meal and I felt truly as though I had been the
guest of honor at the home of dear friends for the evening.
Act Two Scene
Three: We went to Dixon's
factory in the morning and toured all eleven buildings before meeting in the
conference room to talk about current business. At about lunch time we learned
that we were going to eat lunch as the special guests of the local Government
Officials. This would be my second Chinese traditional meal, which would be
less like eating a meal with friends and more like eating with Officials. We
were told that the invitation to lunch was, "Because Stephanie and Sarah
are here the Government Officials want to meet with us. So, we go there for
lunch!" The last time David was in China he had the honor of meeting
and eating with the Officials. We hopped in the car and drove a couple blocks
to the Government building, kind of like a City Hall. We were greeted by the
door by the secretary of the Official. She took us into the building and up the
stairs to a room very much like the one we had eaten in the previous night. The
food was much the same...as was the Mao Tai toasting...only these toast were
more along the lines of, "thank you for coming and honoring us".
Somehow I was served red wine instead of Mao Tai...which was fine with me. Once
your glass was empty, someone was at your elbow immediately filling it up
again! There was never a time when you could say, "oh, sorry, I can't
drink the toast" because you always had something in your glass! Every
time a new Official came in the room to meet us, more toasts! It got to be a
little comical! It was Friday and we figured that the Officials were drinking
their lunch more than they were eating it! Conversation got a little silly at
one point when we started talking about Chinese signs and who was what. I was
born in 1968, the year of the Monkey.
Any year with an eight at the end is a Monkey year. I learned that I was
one of four other monkeys in the room, and the only girl monkey. So, I toasted
all the Monkeys! It was pretty silly stuff which I really hope doesn't go on
too much in US
government lunches....but it probably does! It was very interesting to get to
be a part of this very official and traditional lunch. On the way out we
Americans were saying that we were glad that the only room in the very large
Communist Government building that we got to be in was the lunchroom....none of
us wanted to begin to imagine what goes on in the other rooms.
Tomorrow I'll
give you Act Two Scene Four: more about the people I met.
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