Julia woke up much better than yesterday. I was aware of how
cheerful and chatty she was this morning, versus yesterday. Thank goodness. We had a pretty quiet day at
school; 10 children and 5 adults, so a lot of hands on. Some of the children are so eager for
information; and some are interested only in ‘play.’ Now, for a couple this means a lot of art, and one could
argue that that is also information! Or education, anyway.
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| Working together in the classroom this morning |
We were invited to dinner with Alex and his family, at a
‘good’ restaurant right here next to our community’s front gate; we have walked
by it twice a day for 60 days.
Alex asked to see Julia one more time, after the gifting of the scooter;
nice boy!
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| They had a chance to scooter together - here they check to be sure they're both ready |
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| Down the hill! |
So, Alex ‘insisted’ says his mother, on providing Julia with a
present of his own choosing. He
picked the sweetest pink princess dress you can imagine! He wrote a dear note, too. See you again, in the United
States. I told his mother she
should just send him to us for a visit. Who knows?!
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| The dress unveiled! |
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| Happy, sweet friends |
The restaurant was wonderful; a very different approach to
food than in America, but interesting.
Because of the ocean, Qingdao restaurants have a lot of fish; there were
tanks of swimming fish in the lobby, dinner options all, including the lobsters
and turtles. Then, behind the
tanks, models of the ingredients which go into each dish—so you can order it
and also see the model for what’s in it.
Most things also had a glossy photo accompanying the food models. Many, many options, including soup,
meat, veggie food, dumplings, many kinds of fish—it was so funny to listen to
Maggie, and Sabrina (who was invited with her husband, as well), talk about
what to get with the waitress; they ordered about 12 different items!
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| The tiered tanks of soon-to-be dinners |
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| Food models |
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| More models |
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| Some of the colorful pictures of different dishes |
The first thing was “India Cake” –we got the sweet
version. We were treated to a live
demonstration of the making of this paper thin cake, fried in lots of oil! And
sprinkled with sugar before frying.
The cook began with a disc of dough, pounded it out on the rotating
wheel, and then picked it up, swirled it over his head, slapped it onto the
table top again, and back around.
This procedure was continued for about 8 times; each time, the disc got
wider and wider. Then it was
sprinkled, folded, fried, and then chunked up into pieces. Julia proclaimed it better than a fry
stick because it was sugared!
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| The small, original circle of dough |
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| Eager onlookers! |
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| He swung the dough up so high! |
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| Getting bigger |
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| Finally full-sized and ready to be folded, fried, and sugared |
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| India Bread! |
Neither of the husbands speaks much English at all. But they were very clear that they
wanted to be extending hospitality and friendliness to us. One way this was done was by plying me
with beer! They explained the
Chinese custom here: if one wants
to indicate that one is happy, one quaffs a whole (tiny) beer in concert with
the other drinkers, having clinked glasses. It was very festive.
Sabrina’s husband clearly felt weak on his English and yet he wanted to
say something, and, as well, he wanted to be part of the ‘thank you.’ So we cheered a lot! As he said, he will ‘speak with Qingdao
words,’ the beer in this instance!
Also, they explained that the table seating had meaning. I sat in the chair of the ‘most
important guest’ while Alex’s dad sat in the chair of the host, next to my
left, and next to him sat Sabrina’s husband in the seat of…’entertainer!’ He did a good job of being joyful and
funny, in any language. Maggie sat
in the chair of designated driver!
And Alex was the sub-host; he and Julia cheered with their Sprite about
63 times!
You can somewhat see from the photos that we ate many kinds
of foods, and they were all delicious (ok, Julia didn’t like anything she ate,
but she has definitely fixed her attitude on the food not to be moved on
that! Smell has impacted her
decision!) We had a really good
mushroom soup, and also a marinated mushroom dish that was particularly
good. There was a corn, mushroom
and shrimp dish that was so good, very corn flavored, and the ladies drank corn
drink –simply pureed corn, hot. It
actually tasted quite good, very full of corn flavor, although, not something I
really want to drink! There was a
delicious beef dish with peppers and snow peas, and marinated peanuts, and a
greens salad with peanuts, and dumpling sticks, with a delicious filling, and
sweet and sour pork (for Julia, which she wouldn’t touch!), another beef dish,
mushrooms and also greens in a good brown sauce, and a truly delicious
crab/shrimp puff thing with crunchy bread coating that was not good for you but
really tasty!
We had a wonderful time, even though some of us were antsy
and some of us couldn’t talk to the others of us! I ‘answered’ questions for a short time; Maggie’s husband
teaches political science at the high school level, and has once visited the US
(New York particularly). He had
very positive things to say about the citizens of the US, and wanted some
insight into why it is that Americans seem to be ‘good and also happy.’ It was an interesting question and
perspective. They asked me about
Americans’ view of ordinary Chinese.
So we had an interesting chat about these things (they stressed that they
were asking just as among friends, which was also interesting); with the need
for translation, it is a little hard to have substantive conversations. And the social environment didn’t lend
itself to real exploration, nor did the noisy children! But I appreciated the desire to make
the connection a bit deeper.
Sabrina’s husband offered his position, a dream, of world unity; we all
laughed, as the beer talked, but still, I could note that in fact, overlooking
national boundaries is part of an international adoption. And I shared with them my new insight
as to the necessity of including China as a central part of Julia’s world view;
a gesture toward unity!
The kids finally got a last opportunity to scooter, in the
growing dark, which meant that their sparking wheels could light up. We took a few last hugging photos, and
waved goodbye 23 times as we parted.
The kids have had
fun
together; not anything heavy or profound, but just real, continual fun. That is a great gift; I am so grateful
for that to have been part of Julia’s time here.
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| Some silly goodbyes... |
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| And some sweet ones! |
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| Silly scootering outside the restaurant |
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| We will miss Alex! |
As we walked home up the hill, it was bustling with groups
of people socializing, riding vehicles, talking, walking dogs. Americans, in their own homes, miss
this social scene. Just today, we
saw morning tai chi, we saw afternoon roller bladders, and then we saw night
time socializing. We twice saw
people we recognize, and we got a hearty Ni Hao from our veggie vendor. We bought a donut (reminded Julia of
Maine donuts) at 4:30 pm, and noted the ongoing renovation of a new store on
the hill—the 3
rd such opening that we’ve seen in these 60 days. It all makes a good case for
neighborhood shopping areas, rather than delegating it to larger mall shopping,
which has to be reached by vehicle.
One last note:
this morning, as we walked to the bus stop, I spotted this chalk
drawing. Note that it is the
ABCs. How weird is that? In China,
for children to chalk the English ABCs?
