Yakity Yak, don't talk back

Why the title you ask? Well, I will tell you why. We had yak for dinner on Friday night. It was good. I have since Googled the yak and I'm not sure that was wise--seeing the before picture. We went to a fantastic Tibetan restaurant with Jiyi and his girlfriend Melody. Jiyi works with Mark. The waiters there are all Tibetan and wear elaborate costumes and put on a great performance with singing and dancing.

Before we ordered, Jiyi and Melody gave the kids their first Hong Bao (red envelope). They were thrilled. Traditionally, Chinese give children (and children includes young adults from my understanding) these envelopes in celebration of the Chinese New Year. The envelopes contained brand new bills in consecutive serial number order...part of the tradition. Apparently, you aren't supposed to spend the money until the next year--but I'm not banking on that with my kids. I think Emily had plans for her fortune before we left the restaurant.There are all sorts of other interesting facts about the envelopes...like they are red for luck, the amount of money given should be even and the number of bills inside the envelope should not be equal to 4. The number 4 is considered unlucky because the word for 4 is similar to the word for death. I just read that traditionally, the envelopes are not opened until the new year to avoid bad luck. Jiyi told the kids to go ahead and open them last night, so I'm guessing (hoping) we have the foreigner exemption to this rule.

On to the food and then the show.

We ordered all sorts of Tibetan dishes which included a dish of wild herbs (greens with tasty seasoning), the very dark, rubbery mushrooms which we were told are good for cleaning the dirt from our lungs. I guess that's a good thing when you live in China. I ate extra mushrooms. We also had yak ribs--and they were so hot, we had a hard time separating them. We had plastic gloves to use while eating them, to avoid the messiness. The equivalent of our bib for lobster. The best dish was an eggplant dish that was layered with ground yak (again with the yak)and covered with a yummy red sauce. The most interesting dish looked like little sand castles. They crumbled easily, but tasted good and were made out of some sort of grain pressed into molds to form these oval shapes. The service was a bit slow, and Jiyi explained the pace of the Tibetan people is a lot slower. The restaurant was packed and the waiters were also the performers, so I'm thinking that may have impacted the service as well. The kids had a good time and Nathan enjoyed the first half of the night but we lost him before the show started. That boy can sleep anywhere.

Jiyi told us a few things about Tibet since he's been there. He knew a lot about the different local dishes and that was very helpful. We learned that Tibetans are known to be good singers and they are also considered to be physically strong. We witnessed their singing talents and strength during the show. There was a tug of war event where 2 men wrapped themselves up in this harness/cloth rope and competed to pull the other over. Later, they invited audience members to compete against each other. Sadly, Mark and Jiyi didn't join in that fun. The staff passed out white scarves, which audience members presented to the performers who bowed to receive the scarves while they sang. The white scarf is called a kata and is part of an ancient Tibetan tradition. According to the beliefnet.com website, "the color symbolizes purity of intention and aspiration."

There were a couple birthday celebrations during the night and some very drunk celebrants who were as entertaining as the singers when they got up on stage to dance. Emily and I went down to learn a traditional dance, and later Mark was summoned to the stage to learn another dance. While we did try the Tibetan wine (sweet, thick, slightly medicinal tasting in my opinion) I was not in that fuzzy comfort zone that often follows drinking. Emily got pulled away from me by one of the beautiful women in the show, and I was left to my own devices dancing in this large circle of strangers on the stage. Mark went on his own, and I give him props for that bravery but he went to the far back corner so it was hard to capture the beauty of his dance moves on film.

When we were leaving, one of the women in the show came up to Emily and Emily gave her a big hug goodbye. The woman then presented Emily with a gift of a wolf tooth on a string. I think it's a real tooth. Nathan got one too but he was so tired, he barely noticed. It was a pretty late night, but we ended up taking the train back home. Traffic on Friday night is pretty heavy, so we made it home faster with the subway.

Saturday, we went to Pudong for a birthday party. Our friend Ray's daughter Alexis turned 5 and Ray had a really nice party for her. We took a taxi there and attempted to take one home but 3 out of 4 of us felt car sick and we asked the driver to let us out so we could take the train. The taxi rides are often bumpy and jerky and we all felt woozy getting out of the taxi. It was good to get some fresh air and walk a bit. We ended up in a familiar area of Pudong near many landmark buildings and a nice park we've been to before. There were a bunch of wedding parties doing photo shoots in the park. We spent some time watching the photo shoots before heading off to the train.

More stories from the weekend to follow....good stories and all I will tell you is there's a burlesque show involved and I know one of the dancers from high school. Good stuff. Stay tuned.

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