Chinese New Year

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Dean always calls his friend Fred Joe on the Chinese New Year's but otherwise we do very little or nothing to mark it. This year, he had to email Fred Joe, but we did go out for Chinese food to at least mark the day in a small way. We chose a nice restaurant that is frequented by my students (we even ran into some of them there). However, Dean called the entire restaurants authenticity into question. He is convinced that the waiters/owners of the "Chinese" restaurant we chose were not actually Chinese because they all kept asking him if he was Korean. (Generally, he finds that people of Asian descent assume he is at least partially whatever ethnicity they are). It was a great night out though and the children impressed us with their willingness to try new things (clearly a product of having to try all new things in a foreign country.) Usually at a Chinese restaurant, we have to order them white rice and sweet and sour chicken without the sauce (otherwise known as chicken mcnuggets). But for the Chinese New Year's they ate noodles with sauce on them, sweet and sour chicken with sauce (I don't know how to say in Italian "please put the sauce on the side"), and satay beef. It was amazing. I think they worked up an appetite walking all over the city. I am just hoping this whole experience is opening them up to trying new things (Hopefully, that is working for me and Dean, too.) Happy Year of the Rat!

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