One of the first times I was staying at this apartment in the city, I wandered into a small 'baozaifan 煲仔饭' restaurant in the neighborhood, and the owner, Mrs. Zhou (I call her 'Auntie Zhou'-pronounced like 'Joe') had immediately warmed up to me, and she kept putting more and more food down for me and then said it was on the house! Then I found out that she has a young boy who struggles with English lessons at his school, and she wanted me to help him out. 'not again,' I thought. For some reason, strangers ask me to teach their children (or them) English all the time, even in line at the market or on the bus, and I just felt all 'taught'-out from work. So instead of a simple no, of course I said okay and smiled and left, grumbling about it as soon as I was out of sight. So from then on I always went around the back way to the apartment so she woudn't see me and call out for me to teach her son... sneaky me!

Now that I haven't been so busy -- and since I'm a wok's worst enemy -- I stopped by to eat there again, and it was free again... So I felt obligated to ask if her son wanted to practice some English with me, and we set a time to meet this past Tuesday. I got there when all of the cooks were eating their dinner, so it was kind of fun to get to know them. I was actually kind of missing teaching too, so it was fun trying to help 'Michael' (the name I call Auntie Zhou's son) get his numbers down, and I had him teach me how to play Chinese poker but only use English when he said a number. It was so cute, and it reminded me of all of the great kids I got to tutor ESL for back in Bloomington... After finishing teaching, Auntie Zhou told me that they would be closing for the holidays, and they were having a party the next evening before the workers all went home, and I was invited.

Last night I showed up a little bit too early and stood around awkwardly while I watched them bustle around. I felt rude, so I excused myself and went to buy a couple of drinks for them. I didn't want to be a cheapskate, so I bought the more expensive beer (expensive meaning $0.50 instead of $0.15), which was a budweiser. Maybe you don't need to bring anything if you show up at a party in China because Auntie Zhou made a big deal of it, saying I didn't have to do that...

As everyone sat down to the table, more and more pots full of steaming meat kept coming! I guess holiday meals consist mostly of meat because there was smoked chicken, regular chicken, mutton, dog meat, and 'fat meat' (literal translation... it just looks like slabs of grissle, but it's a local delicacy), all filled with chili peppers and accentuated with different sauces and vegetables! I'm assuming that Chinese vegetarians fast during the holidays???

Throughout the course of the meal, other people kept lumping on the meat in my bowl, which used to annoy me for a lot of reasons, but I found myself actually appreciating it this time-- how surreal! So for all of you who plan to come eat my cooking in the future, consider yourself warned! I'll be lumping more food onto your plates, and you can't stop me- I'm just being hospitable! :)

I noticed that no one was touching the 2-liter sprite and the beer that I brought, so I thought I'd start the trend and poured some for myself, then forced myself to look I was enjoying myself as I took sip after sip of the 'king of beers'... (ugh!) 'Wait a minute...,' I thought, 'maybe they think I bought this for myself because I'm too good to drink Baisha or Qingdao! Oh no, they think I'm a stuck-up foreigner with no manners, and I've insulted them!' I have no idea if any of those things crossed their minds, but I kept trying to pour it for other people... Either they all hate budweiser or they thought I was going to drink the whole bottle myself... I am sooo culturally unsavvy!

Anyways, I had a kind of funny language blooper. I'm not very good at the Changsha dialect, and since I haven't mastered very many words, I always think I'm hearing the few that I do know... So this older man was asking me some questions. He was asking about my age, and when I said 23, he asked "fully (manma 满吗)?" which I mistook for "mao mao 毛毛," the word for "baby" here. So he was probably a little stumped when I flushed and sat there sputtering like an idiot not knowing what to say... 'wait, does this mean he thinks I look like I'm pregnant --"with maomao," if you will -- or that 23 year olds should have kids already or what?' Finally I just asked back, 'mao mao?' Everyone started laughing and explained that I'd heard it wrong and he was just asking if I was 'fully' 23 years old, as in 'already-passed-my-birthday 23...' Oh, the confusion! For some reason, after that blooper I swear people kept saying 'mao mao' in every few sentences just to trick me, but apparently not... haha, what a crazy language day! To set the record straight, I am NOT with 'mao mao' and don't intend to be for quite some time! :)