Party Time!

Today my host mama had a party with some of her friends, and she took me along. It was probably the highlight of my time here so far.

I came running in from playing Frisbee at about 4.30, and we started getting ready. Took a shower, and then I got big points by volunteering to change into my nice shirt, which I don’t think they knew I had. They told me to go change, and my host mama started getting a gift ready. When I came out, she was hunched over the fish tank, net in one hand and a double plastic baggie in the other. She proceeded to corner and withdraw eight small goldfish and place them in the double plastic baggie, which she then hung on the doorknob so we wouldn’t forget it. I’ve never brought live fish as a present to a party before, but I think I might in the future.

Next we had to get there. We headed down the stairs from our apartment and went to the shed, where my host parents proceeded to tie our presents, which included a potted plant and a fleece comforter as well as the eight fish in the double plastic bag, to various handlebars and bicycle seats. This was my first time riding a bike in China, and it was quite the experience. After two weeks I now feel borderline comfortable crossing the street here (see Kate’s description. Note that if you're enjoying this blog you should definitely read hers: it's another Swattie, another Minnesotan, another study abroad in China), but a bicycle was a new level entirely. When you’re walking, you only are in the middle of traffic for limited amounts of time, and you can travel in packs with the other pedestrians to achieve some appearance of safety. But on a bicycle your fellow cyclists are enemies, not friends: get too close and you’ll both fall to the floor, where you’ll instantly be hit by three more bicycles, six motorbikes, two cars, and a bus. Plus, though two-wheelers usually have their own lane, this includes motorscooters going about four times the speed of a bike and coming on all sides from nowhere while honking incessantly. And crossing the roundabout was something else entirely. All this was especially harrowing for me as I was on my host father’s bicycle, which is the same size as the Huffy I had until fifth grade. And the nerves weren’t helped by the fact that she actually did hit at least two people during our trip. She’s supposed to be an expert!!

Eventually, though, we made it, and we had a wonderful time. We were visiting with three of my host mom’s oldest friends—they all were sent to the same village during the Cultural Revolution—it was really touching to see how fond they were of each other. At one point we went for a walk, and the sight of my mama and her old friend walking arm in arm down the street, oblivious to their surroundings, stirred emotions that I don’t feel frequently.

We sat and talked and drank tea for a while, and much of the conversation centered on me—I think my host mom was showing off a bit. I managed to do an okay job of answering their questions, helped in large part by the hostess, who is an English teacher. Mostly they wanted me to compare Zhongguo and Meiguo. I tried to keep things neutral, but stumbled on some of them: “Do people in the US really dislike China as much as we’ve heard they do?” Answer that one diplomatically and with acceptable nuance using only “China”, “the US”, “people”, “good”, “not”, and “say.”

Then we ate. And ate. And ate. It went as follows: first they brought out a bowl of broth with pieces of duck in it. We took those and put them in our bowls of la—spiciness—and ate them. Then they took a big bowl of vegetables and dumped them into the broth and let them cook for a while before fishing them out and eating them. Then repeat with pork and meatball kebabs, what I think were green rice noodles, cabbage, lettuce, slices of beef, mushrooms, and probably some other things I’m forgetting right now. Then, start the whole cycle over again, and go through two or three more times. It was sort of an overwhelming amount of food (I counted ten kebabs between my mama and me, and I don’t think we split them equally. And that was only one of the three kinds of meat), though each bite was of course heavenly. I got some respect for being able to take the la, though I had to make big pauses at some points: the one problem I still haven’t figured out with food here is that in any given meal, every dish is either temperature hot or spicy hot. So you start to eat, and pretty soon your mouth is on fire, and you can’t put it out because there’s nothing that can help you—you don’t even have water to drink, sino hot tea. Basically you just sweat and bear it until it subsides a bit, then dive back in.

About two-thirds of the way through dinner I was asked if I liked/wanted wine. Responded ‘yi dian dian’—this is the right answer to any question involving food—and was presented with about two shots worth of probably the strongest amber-colored liquid I’ve ever drunk. I took one tiny sip and my mouth exploded into fire, followed by my esophagus, and then my stomach. It was a type of rice wine which had been made by the hostess herself, and as far as I could tell part of the secret is that besides being strong alcohol it’s actually spicy (surprise! This is Yunnan!). So you get the burn two ways. Not something that I’d thought of before, but pretty amazing. I didn’t drink very much—see the second paragraph for why—but it was a really cool taste and experience.

All that was more than four hours ago now, but I’m still stuffed. Time to go to bed.