China #7 - Almost Beijing!

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Ni Hao! This entry will have to be a simple one. I'm sitting in the Chengdu Airport's Executive Lounge writing this. Our plane to Beijing has been delayed 2 hours, so it give me a chance to give you a bit of an update. I usually compose my entry using WORD because I have done it on this website before and lost the whole thing. But I'll have to take my chances today.

My stay in Chengdu has been very memorable. I have enjoyed meeting so many people (you can't imagine how many!) and have had a chance to not just see the culture but to participate in it. The Chengduese are very warm and gentle people who have been very welcoming to me. I have been to private homes for special dinners where I was the honoured guest. They drink a lot of wine and make a lot of toasts where they tap the table twice with the base of their wineglass and "challenge" a person they choose to drink to the bottom of their glass...sort of like the Canadian chug-a-lug tradition more common, I think, to college years.

Two nights ago, we went to a very popular restaurant for a Chengdu-style hot pot. The restaurant was very large and seemingly emplty when we arrived. There were 18 of us for dinner -- Mr. Peng's family. As has been customary for our party, we have a private room for our group. There was a long table that had three huge, round, metal hot pots seated in them. The flame is turned on underneath. The hot pot itself is about 30" in diameter with a smaller "bowl" sectioned off in the centre of it. The outer "ring" is a molten boil of oil with many different kinds of hot peppers and spices in it. The centre one has a broth base loaded with vegetables and mild spices, and no peppers -- it is about 12" in diameter. As the meal progresses, the broth and oil each become extremely flavourful from all the ingredients that are added in a loosely-structured order. The food for our hot pot meal was brought in on 3 carts, ladden with more food than you could ever imagine for one meal! Among the meats, there were beef, lamb, pork balls, sausages and a bologna-like meat that was quite good. Seafood included: shrimp, crab, eel and fresh-water fish.

After two hours of eating mostly meat, the vegetables are added to the pot. There are cabbage and green, leafy things, lotus root (which I love), lotus flower (very sweet), celery and various roots and radishes.

I had to stop eating well before the 2-hour mark. The family was very lively and everyone was enjoying themselves. The kids, Wen Bo and his cousin Harvey, were soon busy playing Nintendo against each other. Then, when I thought that everything was quieting down, there was another round of eating. The talking continued. Then a very simple dessert was brought out. Dessert -- who could even think of eating more! I think that the meal lasted about 4 hours altogether.

We were home by about 10 pm and several people played mahjongg. By the way, I learned how to play mahjongg a few days ago and I won the game! It must have been beginner's luck! It was very fun. You should see the table they have for mahjongg. It is about the size of a card table -- very sturdy with seating for 4. There is a gizmo in the centre that the winner of the previous 'hand" presses and it shakes 2 dice. Whatever the number is is where the first player starts by taking his tiles. I won't explain the whole game here, but I wanted to tell you that it is quite a remarkable gadget, this table. At the end of every hand, the centre circular part raises up from the surface and we all push the tiles into the hoel created. The tiles are shuffled and aligned on an assembly line (inside the table) to their position where they sit until needed. Meanwhile, the next set of tiles is presented by a sort of mini-elevator, bringing four long stacks of tiles up in front of everybody to begin play at once.

I'll close for now. I have so many wonderful pictures to share.

On to Beijing! Zaijian!

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Comments

[normcc]

games, games!
it always warms my heart when someone mentions games. the table does sound awfully neat!