A Sunday in the Country

Sunday, November 23. Today, we are invited out to lunch, along with the other Senior English teachers, to Laura's parents' restaurant in the countryside. ("Countryside" appears to be a fairly elastic term here as there is a small section of "countryside" next to our school in ZZ). But this is about 30-40 minutes from ZZ by car. Laura's father-in-law has come into town to drive some of us, and Cynthia's husband and Rachel's husband drive their cars as well. We actually do pass through quite a lot of countryside before entering a smallish village.

The car stops in front of a collection of buildings, and it isn't obvious there is a restaurant there. However, Laura and her husband meet us and lead us through a doorway and up a flight of stairs into the restaurant, which is quite lovely and on the second floor. First, we have a quick tour of the kitchen and then Laura takes us into a room with two large tables. There is quite a mob of us: David, Tiffany and me; Rachel and her husband; Cynthia and her husband; Debbie and her husband; Tyler; Mr. Zhang; May; Cindy; Laura and her husband; and Laura's parents (actually her husband's parents, but she refers to them as her "mother" and "father" which I think is very sweet). We end up being divided between the two tables by "English-speaking" ability which means that all of the teachers are at the table with David, Tiffany and me, and all of the husbands along with Laura's parents are at the other table!

Needless to say, there is enough food for an army. The "starters" are on the table when we arrive: pomelo (which is a very large citrus fruit, tastes a little like grapefruit and is wonderful), toasted pumpkin seeds, and leechee. While we are feasting on this, Tiffany disappears, and we speculate that she has gone to the kitchen to watch the chef cook, which in fact turns out to be the case!

In the meantime, Mr. Zhang goes out with Laura's husband to find a lavish birthday cake for Tiffany! They definitely know how to do birthday cakes in China. Laura asked me on Friday if we would like to go fishing but, as it is a rainy-ish, cloudy day, that plan is unfortunately off.

Then the rest of the food starts arriving: wild mushroom soup, turtle (I know it is turtle because the shell is in the bowl!), small crabs, green vegetables, fish, chicken, and on and on. The lazy-susan just keeps going around and around until we are sated. All of it is wonderful. I cannot believe the variety of foods I have eaten while in China - and the variety of ways in which the same foods are prepared. Different spices, methods of cooking etc etc etc. It is an endless parade.

After lunch, there is mah-jongg (I actually have no idea how to spell that - hold on, I'll look it up - well, that's one option, anyway). There are some very serious mah-jongg players in the group (they have their own table where they are actually playing for money!), but also some good mah-jongg "teachers" who take David, Tiffany and me under their wings. Tyler is also learning mah-jongg so we have a table of "green-horns" with coaches sitting next to each of us! It's hilarious, especially since some of the tiles have the numbers from 1 to 9 on them in Chinese characters, and D, T, and I are not too sure about which is which! But each of us wins once, Tyler wins twice, and then it's time to leave.

Actually, this is more difficult it sounds because Laura's parents try to convince us to stay for dinner and they don't appear to be taking "no" for an answer, even though the whole conversation is in Chinese. Laura's mother is a force to be reckoned with! But finally we insist we must leave. And guess what? Outside, the sun in shining and it has turned into a beautiful day. So we have a lovely drive back to ZZ and pull up in front of the school in our 3-car caravan.

Then I must go food shopping because I am completely out of yoghurt. In the evening, I paste my calendar pictures on the large, blue sheet of paper, do my required "Weekly Teaching Assessment" and "Ups and Downs," catch up on blog and grade papers.