Thanksgiving, Floating Lanterns, and the Countryside!

It's been a pretty full week here in Pengshan China. Even though we are not living in America, Thanksgiving surprisingly still ended up being a fun and busy holiday for us foreign teachers. I say "surprisingly", because we had actually just planned on having a small get together and maybe trying to make some American style dishes to eat...but it turned into so much more.

To start with, our "small get together" somehow kept adding people until we had a full house of about 15 people coming over to eat dinner at our combined apartments. Nonetheless, it was definitely doable. We went shopping the weekend before in Chengdu to acquire necessary ingredients, and some of our Chinese friends planned to do the brunt of the work by getting enough food to make jiaozi (dumplings) for all of the people coming. We were all very excited about our little Thanksgiving party.

And then, on Thursday afternoon, about three hours before our dinner was scheduled to start, the school decided to inform us that they were throwing us a Thanksgiving dinner. They had apparently gone through a lot of trouble to get a hold of a turkey and other traditional foods, and the president of the university wanted to eat with us. Which would have been lovely, if we hadn't already been planning our own Thanksgiving party for a few weeks. Once again, the Chinese administration was a little lacking in foresight. Big surprise.

After a little last minute scrambling, we managed to reschedule our own part for the next night, and we all at turkey (which tasted amazing) and a variety of other "American" dishes. Some of the highlights of these dishes was a fruit salad (apples, bananas, and cherry tomatoes in a honey-mustard dressing), chow mein, pasty mashed potatoes, and stir fried green beans. As I was eating, I couldn't help but wonder if this was what Chinese people felt like when they went to "Chinese" restaurants in the United States. So many of the dishes looked similar to their authentic counterpart, yet really tasted nothing alike. Ah well, they had done their best to supply us with American food, and we certainly appreciated the sentiment (and the turkey!).

The next night proved to be a great success, and it ended up being a great idea to have it on the Friday night instead of on Thursday. For one, I had a makeup class Thursday evening which means I would have missed most of the festivities. Secondly, it ended up being on the same day as a Chinese festival, so after our Thanksgiving dinner we had a night's worth of entertainment.

Dinner itself was spectacular. Making jiaozi has been one of my favorite experiences since coming to China, and this time did not disappoint. We spent a few hours together just talking, drinking wine, listening to music, and making jiaozi.

In addition to the jiaozi, some of the other foreign teachers brought/made some food. Devin and Jono brought the wine, James grabbed some green beans from a nearby store, and Brenna made a delicious apple crisp in her rice cooker somehow. I also made a big batch of mashed potatoes!

After dinner, we happened to look out the window and spotted some strange lights in the sky:

 Upon further investigation, we discovered that they were hundreds of floating lanterns being lit out on one of the university's quads, for a festival in honor of one of the Chinese minorities. Despite being stuffed full of Thanksgiving dinner, we managed to set off in the direction of the floating lanterns. What we found when we arrived was a festival, indeed. In addition to the floating lanterns lighting the scene, there was also a band playing on a stage, as well as three bonfires in the middle of the quad. It ended up being quite the night!

It was a wonderful night, spent with good friends. However, my favorite part of the weekend ended up being on Sunday, when some students invited me to go out to lunch with them. I was surprised when we didn't go out to a restaurant or to the river for a barbecue. Instead, I found myself being led on a trek away from the school, and out to the Chinese countryside. We passed out of the commercial area surrounding the school and were soon among small farms and quiet, if a little grimy, side streets. The house we went to was the home of one of the students, and it was a very small brick farm house tucked away behind a little bamboo grove. Altogether there were about 20 students and their teacher, and they were all so welcoming and sweet. Their English was fairly basic, but we communicated well with a mix of Chinese and English.

Together, we harvested some vegetables from the farm fields, and then went back to the house and cooked an AMAZING lunch together. We used a traditional Chinese stove, which consists of a humongous wok built into a counter top. It's heated by a wood fire that burns underneath, which we had to keep feeding while we cooked.

It was a really amazing experience, and I feel very lucky to have gotten away from the university bubble and seen a different side of China. The food itself was, of course, spectacular, and they even let me help with some of the dishes!

It was a fabulous day. I made a lot of new friends, ate a lot of good food, and have already made plans to go strawberry picking together this weekend! 

What a day. What a life!