A Short Letter Home

Lazing on a Saturday afternoon

Field Trip Report, Part II
After our brewery tour, we were treated to dinner at a nice little restaurant outside of town. The architecture out here is slightly different than that back home. I mean, besides the little curves they used to put on the corners of the roof. Things are a lot more open to the air. The shops, for example, generally don't have front windows or doors--just a large garage type door. You roll it up and you are open for business, with your entire shop open to the elements. I suppose it's a tropical thing, though I haven't been up to northern China to investigate this. Anyway, the restaurant had that same open air feel. Like many restaurants here it's a series of rooms situated around courtyard. In the courtyard of this place were little patios with a vine covered trellis overhead. We went there first and were treated to sunflower seeds, tea and playing cards as we waited for our lunch to cook. A few of the teachers offered to teach us to play cards. It was an odd game that used a double deck of cards. It was similar to pinochle in that you had a trump suit and one set of partners tried to get more points than the other. But I couldn't quite figure out which cards counted for points or even how the cards were ordered. Were face cards high or low? I didn't get much of a chance to learn as dinner was soon served.

Our group was ushered into two different rooms, ours had two circular tables in it. We were joined for dinner by a muckety muck from the brewery and the vice magistrate of the county. For a change, our family wasn't seated at the "head" table--that honor was given to Sandra, the other foreigner on the trip. A much better choice, I have to say, since she is probably a much better conversationalist than we. (Plus she actually speaks Mandarin.) Dinner was delicious, of course, and to no surprise was served with glasses of Lancang River beer. The only two surprises was that one of the courses was purported to be moose and that another was Cantonese-style pot-stickers. Ironically enough, the latter tasted like home.

After dinner everybody drifted out of the dining room and sort of hung about. We had a few hours before we were scheduled to leave for home. Thad had mentioned to us the day before that he was going to introduce us to his family, but Licha was talking like everybody was just supposed to hang loose until the bus left. I was trying to think of a tactful way to check with Thad what the plans were when he showed up and started telling people to get on the bus. We drove off back to town and then walked a couple of blocks to his mother's house. A very nice place from what we could see. It was about the size of an American home, although built up rather than out. According to Thad it was only two years old and had replaced an older home. We all sat in the courtyard under the shade trees. Tea was offered all around and later they broke out the sugar cane. This was a new experience. We were handed a couple of four foot stalks and a big cleaver. Thad showed us how to hack off a section and whittle away the outer layers. Then he peeled off a little bit, chewed it for a bit and then spat the de-sugared cane onto the ground. We gave it a try, but didn't do it quite as well. One of the other teachers then trimmed a piece for us, claiming that we hadn't whittled off enough "bark". We gave those pieces a try but still didn't do quite so well. It was a cross between chewing a soft toothpick and a piece of gum. The sweet flavor (mildly sweet by American standards) soon went away indicating it was time for a new piece. All in all, it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Give me processed candy or a piece of fruit any day. But it was an interesting experience. And now we can recognize spent sugar cane when we see it on the sidewalk.

We only spent an hour or so at Thad's ancestral home. Then some folks were talking about having a bit of a walkabout through town, so we joined them. Basically we walked back to a place near our bus and then folks wanted to get some noodles. I guess it's a local specialty. I would have liked to have given them a try but I was still stuffed from lunch. Yau Neih was eager to keep walking, so we and Sandra strolled down to the river. Despite their desire to rest, a couple of teachers pressed to escort us but Sandra finally convinced them that we were quite capable of strolling alone. Anyway, we strolled a bit, returned to the noodle shop and immediately followed our colleagues to the bus. There we were treated with yet another free sample of the bottled tea. (A welcome gift after walking in the sun.)

The ride home was quite subdued, though the scenery was as beautiful in the afternoon light as it was in the morning. It was an enjoyable time and started me thinking that it might be worthwhile to consider taking a day trip or two on our own. Of course, another language lesson or two might be needed before then.

posted by John @ 12:37 AM