Silly Sports Day and Hot Pot

Saturday, November 15. It's Silly Sports Day for the Senior School today (yesterday was SSD for the Junior School). I go out at about 10:30 (after doing laundry and hanging it outside to dry) and there are sections of chairs set up, one for each Senior School class, around the edge of the "playground" with a big open space in the middle. (There are two sports fields at Beishida Fuzhong: one with a hard surface that they call the "playground" and the other is an oval track with grass in the center.)

When I arrive, I am swarmed by some of my students so I have a good time hanging out with them. They teach me some useful Chinese such as how to say "Come on!" And of course all of the Senior teachers are there too. At that moment, the "water relay race" happens to be in progress. There are big blue plastic trash barrels set up on either side of the empty area. The ones on the near side are filled with water; the ones on the far side are empty. Each class has a relay team, and they must carry water in a shallow bowl from the full barrels to the empty barrels as fast as they can. After a fixed period of time (3 minutes?), the water in each barrel is measured and the team that has the most water wins!

After this, there is a "centipede" race among the Senior 1, 2 and 3 teachers so of course I join the Senior 1 team! For each team, there are two long ropes with loops spaced a couple of feet apart. You put one foot in a loop of one rope and the other foot in the corresponding loop of the other rope. And then you put your hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you. Then you try to run, shouting "zuo, you" (pronounced roughly "zwo, yo" and meaning "left, right") at each step. It's hilarious. We practice for a few minutes, then line up for the race. And the Senior 1 Teachers win (despite my being on their team). Hooray!

Then it's time for lunch and a nap. I go back out in the afternoon for the basketball hoop-shooting competition, the darts competition and the "how slow can you ride a bicycle" competition! The basketball and darts are just what you would expect but the bicycle one is a hoot! It's just what it says: the winner is the person (or in this case, the team) that can take the most time getting from point A to point B. A couple of the boys are masters at this - more than 5 minutes to go 30 meters! Liam and the other Senior 1 team members borrow my bike but unfortunately do not win. But at least both my bike and I got to be a part of Silly Sports Day.

Hot Pot for Dinner. I am still not feeling great, but Sandi (Chinese student at Hunan Teachers College) has asked David,Tiffany and me to go with her to a "hot pot" restaurant and I don't have the heart to call her and cancel. And I figure I'm probably not going to get sicker by going. So we end up at a huge, crazy and crowded restaurant in downtown ZZ that serves only "hot pot." The interior is a little like Disneyland (or maybe like the Rain Forest Cafe - although I've never been there). Giant mushrooms and trees with leaves and lanterns hanging from them.

The hot pot turns out to be great - but we realize that this is a restaurant that we could never come to by ourselves. First, the menu is all in Chinese, there are huge lists of different items divided into categories, and you have to mark on the menu what you want. The waitress has also marked the paper menu with your table number. Then you take the menu up to a counter crowded with lots of other people with menus, and your menu goes in a big pile. A woman then feeds the information from the menus into a computer which figures out the total, then she calls out your table number and you pay her. Then you go back to your table and wait. Eventually, your food arrives on a big tray that is set on a small cart next to your table.

There are three kinds of broth that you can get but Sandi orders only one, the least spicy. Usually you would get two, a not-so-spicy and a spicy one, and they come in a big bowl divided into two sections that look like the yin and yang sign. However, our bowl has no sections. In the center of the table is a big hole for the broth bowl, and an electric burner underneath keeps it bubbling.

We have: beef, fish balls, three kinds of mushrooms, lotus root, tofu, spinach and noodles (spinach in China also makes your teeth feel fuzzy!). Everything comes raw and you cook it in the broth. The good news is that there are two ladles (one with holes) so you don't have to fish everything out with chopsticks! It is delicious.

Of course, as usual, the weiguoren are the center of attraction. Some of the waitresses (and the hostess) come over to ask Sandi many questions about us. Sandi says she doesn't usually get this kind of attention. We say "Welcome to our world!" :)