First Impressions II

First and foremost, I apologize for my tardiness again in updating my blog. Between working/being exhausted from working, drinking/recovering from drinking, sleeping and eating I have very little free time in which to keep my blog up to date. So anyway, from here on out I will make sure to update my blog every Tuesday (so, it should appear late Monday night to Tuesday morning in the Mother country).

Anyway, to make amends for my inexcusable tardiness, I offer you an extra long entry:

-The Birthday Party-

Thus far in my oriental odyssey I’ve successfully avoided eating anything really gross- no dog, no cat, no shark fins or even an ox testicle. While there have been several instances of gagging and funny faces (a la mom’s meatloaf circa 1993), I’ve been able to stomach everything thus far All this changed last Sunday with a seemingly innocuous invitation to a student’s birthday dinner.

After a long day of work (we work 9 hour days on the weekends), the unofficial golden boy of Kid Castle Educational Institute invited the director of the school as well as Matt and myself to his birthday dinner that evening. ‘Frank’ (all Chinese people take an anglicized name for themselves) has been at the school since its inception, and is very smart but a serious wise-ass. Needless to say, everyone loves him.

So, about 5:30 that evening, on a whim Frank invites us to come have rooster with him and his family. I’ll admit, I was initially a little apprehensive about going to dinner. Since I had never had rooster before, I didn’t want to discover that it made me throw up like the Avian flu in front of the school’s most beloved student and family, my boss, and the owner of the school. But, I strapped on my balls, pulled up my skirt, got over myself and went.

The place Frank selected for his birthday dinner was a ‘hot-pot’ restaurant. Very popular in China, hot-pot restaurants get their name from having boiling pots built into each table. Guests then cook all their own food in the pot and eating is an ongoing process. At this dinner, Matt I and sat with Frank and his friend Jason at one table (thank God), while the adults sat at a table across from us. By the time Matt and arrived, the rooster was already cooking in the pot. (Random cultural tidbit- Chinese people are obsessed with eating fresh food. At the supermarket there are very few frozen foods and a massive section to buy fresh vegetables and meats. That being said, many restaurants here kill animals on site). I knew for a fact that this restaurant happened to be one of those that butchered animals on site, because sitting next to the pot was a bowl of the rooster’s entrails soaking in its own blood. Upon making this observation I immediately began drinking. At this point in time, Frank and Jason began playfully teasing about putting the entrails into the pot with the rest of the rooster. I assumed by their playful nature that they were indeed just teasing. That is, of course, until they dumped the entire bowl of liver, intestines, and a pint of rooster blood into the pot.

With the addition of the blood, the water in the pot turned a deep reddish-brown color. Within a few minutes the water began to boil which signified that the meat was ready to be eaten. I watched as Matt fearlessly dipped the ladle into the murky depths of the pot to pull out strange chunks of rooster meat. When people eat in China say they are having rooster, they don’t mean the breast and legs; they mean the whole thing. This fact became painfully apparent to me when I dipped the ladle deep into the translucent blood bath to pull out a boiled rooster head ( ) along with a rooster talon (with the claw still intact). I felt like I was on fear factor (let me take a moment to formally apologize to my Grandma Shirley for refusing to eat your pot-roast. I now see how immature and ridiculous I was being. I am very sorry). To make matters worse, everyone around me was thoroughly enjoying the meal (I mean the kid picked this place to have his birthday dinner. That implies that the following conversation must have occurred:

Frank’s parents: Frank, you can have any kind of food you want, what would you like to have? Frank: Rooster talons!).

Having noticed my lack of appetite, in-between chewing on a rooster testicle (seriously), Frank asked me how I liked the rooster? “It’s wonderful,” I replied as I gagged down a token piece of some unidentifiable part of the rooster. Thankfully, we added a lot of other foods to the pot and I was able to scrape together a passable meal (and by passable I mean almost believable to those around me) of noodles, peanuts, and lamb. ( I found if I filled my plate with a variety of food, and ate only token portions of each I could create the illusion that I had eaten a full meal without having too much of any one thing to make me want to vomit ).

All in all, the night ended well. Frank’s mother was concerned that neither Matt nor I had had enough to eat or drink (in China it’s considered rude to NOT get your guests really drunk). But we quickly assuaged her fears and we all happily parted ways.

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I had originally intended to make this a two part my blog, but as you can see, the first part got a bit long. The next entry is a real humdinger, and to hastily jot something down in 20 minutes wouldn’t do the story justice. That being said, while there is an outside chance I may write it tomorrow, in all likelihood expect it next Tuesday. Thanks for reading!