I apologize that I haven’t posted in a while. This post was originally written on Wednesday, September 29. My host family’s Internet was broken for quite a long time, so I haven’t been able to make any posts.
Last Wednesday, September 22nd, was the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival). There was no school that day, and so I woke up to a pretty boring morning. I really did nothing all morning until all of a sudden at about noon the doorbell kept ringing. My host family had apparently invited guests over for lunch. A family of three plus a friend of the son and my host father’s friend ate with us. I had previously met my host father’s friend before, but I had not met this family. They were seriously one of the nicest families I’ve ever encountered. Exactly three seconds after I met them they gave me a really nice gift. It’s a book of what people keep telling me are called traditional Chinese “paper cuts” in English, but I don’t think that’s the actual name. I would look it up, but the Internet is currently broken (hence the huge gap between the time this was posted and the post before it). After I got this gift my host father’s friend also gave me a gift. He gave me this really fancy box of China’s “National Treasure” from Nanjing. There are four rocks inside the box, and I have no idea what any of it says, but I’m just going to trust that it’s a good gift because it looks nice. Anyway, at this point I was really embarrassed because I was given two awesome gifts, and I had absolutely nothing to give to them in return. Well, actually, I have a few Lady Gaga CDs with me, but I felt that those weren’t an appropriate “thank you so much for the gift. I have a gift for you, too!” type of gift.
For lunch there were seventeen dishes. Yes, I counted. I can’t even begin to describe what kind of dishes there were, so I’ll just talk about crab. Chinese people don’t take off shells or bones before food is served. When served fish, the head is almost always on, and every single bone is still inside. When a Chinese person goes to eat fish, they just stick it in their mouth and magically spit out the bones. I have sort of gotten used to this. I’ve also gotten used to taking off shrimp heads, tails, legs, and remaining parts of the shell at the dinner table. I thought that I had finally somewhat adapted to eating like a Chinese person. And then I was served crab during the Moon Festival. I was just sitting at the table eating some eggplant, and all of a sudden someone threw a crab into my bowl. A whole crab, just out of a boiling pot of water. I started at the crab for several minutes. I pretended like it wasn’t there. I ate more eggplant. I moved on to eggs. I even de-shelled and ate a few shrimp. Then someone mentioned the crab. I pretended that I didn’t hear them. Then another person mentioned the crab. I pretended that I didn’t understand the Chinese. Then someone pointed the crab and clearly told me to eat it. There was no way out of it. I picked up the crab. I looked at the crab. I put the crab down. I turned it over. I picked up the crab. I put the crab down. Finally I was saved. The woman sitting next to me offered to help me eat my crab. She picked up the crab, and three seconds later half of the outside shell was gone. Keep in mind that this woman had no knife, scissors, fork, or chopsticks to help her. The crab was delicious. She slowly taught me how to work my way around the crab. The legs took a bit of time, but it was definitely worth it considering how good it tasted. I am now proud to say that I am capable of eating a whole crab with only my hands.
About an hour after lunch I got in the car with the family that came over for lunch. I thought we were going to a park, but we ended up at a swimming pool. I have heard many horror stories about swimming pools in China. According to everything I’ve heard, they are extremely crowded, dirty, and full of spit (I guess just like the rest of China?). This was definitely not the case with this pool. It was very quiet, and there were maybe ten other people in the same pool as us. The family’s sixteen-year-old son and I swam for a while, and then I left and went home.
When I got home we ate dinner. This was the first time that I’ve had a smaller dinner than lunch in China. It still tasted great, though. I even disassembled two crabs and ate them. After dinner my host family and I watched a program on TV for the Moon Festival. It consisted of much singing and dancing, and altogether it was pretty well done. While watching we ate moon cakes and some unknown dried fruit. After the show was over, I was told to watch the moon.
Now, to be quite honest, I don’t really know what the Moon Festival is. It falls on a day in autumn when there is a full moon. My host brother told me that the moon on the night of the Moon Festival is the brightest full moon all year. As it says on one of my moon cake boxes, “May we all be blessed with longevity. Though far apart, we are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.” Moon cakes are eaten around the time of the festival to celebrate. The only reason people have given me as to why moon cakes are eaten is because “they are round, like the moon.” In the past two weeks I have eaten too many moon cakes. They’re filled with different ingredients such as eggs, coconut, bean paste, nuts, meat that really isn’t meat, and other fruits. People keep giving me moon cakes. My host father and mother each got a bunch of boxes from their companies, so they gave me many “to experience the culture.” I was satisfied with the amount of moon cakes I was given until I went to school one day where the principal gave me a gigantic box. Once again I was embarrassed because I had nothing to give in return. When my classmates saw the moon cakes that the school gave me, their first reaction was “Wow! Our school never gives anyone anything!” The second reaction was “Wow! Those are the most expensive kind!” Maybe I should bring a Lady Gaga CD for the principal…
On Sunday the 26th I went to Beijing for a YFU meeting. I travelled with the Thai student living in Tianjin. It’s really easy to get to Beijing and doesn’t take much time. When we got there, we had a little bit of time before our meeting started, so I suggested we do something touristy. We decided to go to Tiananmen Square. We had no idea about whether or not to get off at the Tiananmen East subway station or the Tiananmen West subway station, so we arbitrarily decided on Tiananmen East. When we got off, we did what we always do in China, and that is follow the crowd (and yes, there is always a crowd). So we followed the crowd for about twenty minutes until we were in this courtyard-like area between some really old and pretty Chinese walls and buildings. Finally we reached a gate where you could buy tickets and guides. We were really confused because there is obviously no entrance fee to get into Tiananmen Square, so we just left. On the way out we were just like “Where in the world are we?” until we got to the street and I realized that we had been trying to enter the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square was across the street. Woops.
We went to Tiananmen Square for a bit, and I have to admit that it was a little anticlimactic. Not really much to do or see there. We went to the YFU meeting, and it was really fun to see all of the students again. After the meeting we walked around aimlessly for a bit. The public transportation in Beijing is extremely convenient, so we took the subway to some area where they have a lot of street food. We ate a really tasty and random dinner, and then the Thai girl and I left to return to Tianjin.
Sunday, October 10 update: I am still hoarding moon cakes in my room.
