Cooking Show and Volunteering

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Through the Consulate, we were invited to a cooking show by Sichuan Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. We went to Sichuan Culinary Institute for a cooking demo. The school was huge. It had dormitories, hotel, golf course and cooking facilities. Their cooking facilities were pretty impressive just like a typical culinary school: lots stainless appliances, cooking stations, kitchen classrooms. It appears that there is increasing demand for Western dishes in China. Our chef prepared 3 common local dishes spicy flavor shredded meat, pineapple pork and dandan noodles. I plan on cooking some of these dishes at home. I hope the kids will show off what they learned in China and cook some dishes for their families.

With the consulate’s assistance, we came to Chengdu to volunteer and participate in community outreach. On our sixth day here, we volunteered at Bainian Vocational School. The students from Bainian are from poor families in rural areas. They get free housing and training at school to be able to get jobs in hotel, restaurants and travel services. Their ability to speak some English is imperative to their employment. Our kids along with college students from America and Europe were put in small groups with Chinese students to get to know each other or practice English or Chinese. There were a lot umms and ahas, laughter, gestures and body language in small groups. Every group was having a ball to overcome the language barrier. Afterwards, we went down to the fields to play badmitten, basketball, ping pang, frisbees and sing songs. I got to practice my badmitten and ping pang. The kids just loved to gather in a circle to sing their favorite songs. We ended the event with our school’s special presentation – hip hop dance and Tibetan dance from Bainian School. It was a blast!

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