Oh, you found a brownie? No...

The quote of the week comes from our special outing to Pizza Fun, a buffet type place in Guiyang. I, having just returned from scrounging for western food, looked down at Justin's plate and said,

"Oh.... you found a brownie?"

To which he replied,

"No, that's chicken.

:-}

I have had the sniffles lately and have been craving comfort food, so Ju is making some chicken noodle soup tonight. Yesterday we went out with her Chinese parents and a posse of other people to visit an ancient stone village and to eat dinner. Since they are pretty wealthy, they ordered speciality food which was... erm... distinctly not comfort food. Dishes included cow ankle fat, some opaque-brown mushroom looking things, green glutunous rice stick things, spicy SPICY chicken chunks (bones included), pig feet with fat and skin.... and many, many more. The most useful phrase I've learned so far is, "Zhe shi shenme?" ("what is THAT?!"). Even with the weird food that no one (not even they) really ate, they were very hospitable and friendly and made us feel like home. All said, we had a good time.

We also had a great time out in the countryside, although it was very different than anything I could have expected. First of all came Earl. Well, FIRST of all came a 5 hour bus ride that was pretty brutal... but we'll skip that part because it's no fun.

First came Earl. He was found in the marketplace running around with all the other chickens. We picked him because he was the biggest and we wanted a good gift to bring to the family that we were visiting, since they would probably be feeding us and giving us a place to sleep that night. After much haggling, we finally set a price and the lady scooped him up and started preparing him for travel.... or at least... so we thought. Let's just say we came very close to seeing our first chicken decapitation. It was a rush, let me tell you. After that episode, we felt that he was worthy of a noble name, and so Justin named him Earl and carried him, on a stick, all the way up to the village.

We hiked up the mountain to the village and arrived near to dusk, enough time to take in a stunning view of the valley with the terraced rice fields and lush mountainsides. That night we ate dinner with Juliann's friends, an older lady who we called "Abo" (granny), and her husband. Abo was hilarious.... she was a spry old lady who would yell around, fixing dinner, grinning wildly, and pointing at our seats whenever we would get up and try to help her, demanding that we should sit back down.

The custom in China is that everyone gets a small bowl with chopsticks that they eat out of, and then there is one large bowl (or many bowls) in the center that everyone takes food from and puts in their bowl according to what they want. You kind of pick up food as you go. Well in the countryside, these little old ladies will eye your bowl and fill it up with rice and other, um, "tasty treats" while you're not looking. They don't take no for an answer, either, because "no" to them means "ask me again". It's like a game trying to say that you're finished eating. Crazy.

The really crazy thing, though, is the rice wine that they drink in the countryside BEFORE the meal. They filled our bowls with a really potent rice wine that we had to finish before eating any rice. Since we had eaten very little for lunch and it was almost 9:00pm before we ate dinner, we had very empty stomachs... so.... Justin got a little giggly and had to be shushed by the old granny for laughing too hard. hehehehe.

Those old grannies really loved Justin though, antics and all. They said that we must come back and visit sometime. We are inclined to oblige.

While we were out we also helped with the rice harvest, which entails three positions: cutting the rice stalks, beating the stalks against a box thingie to get the rice out, and then tying the beaten rice stalks into bundles (resembling a mini teepee), all of which must be done a certain way. They were pretty amused at us foreigners trying to master the knot in the bundle only to watch it fall apart when they touched it. We finally got the hang of it, and they seemed to appreciate the help. It's hard work. Our arms were all scratched up and swollen from the rice for days afterwards.

And there you have it. Our time has been so full of outings and tutoring sessions that today I decided to take a sick day / sabbath and not do anything but rest and spend some time writing. We leave for Zhengzhou on Saturday, where I will spend three weeks teaching English at a school, fulfilling the requirements for my TESL certificate.

China 2