Mid Autumn Festival No. 2

I spent the Autumn Festival partaking in Host China, a project run by the language department that gives you the opportunity to visit a Chinese family. I turned up at 10, having purposefully not gone out the night before, there was no way I was going to spend the day speaking Chinese whilst hungover; and was met at the gates by the smiley Mum and her shy daughter (NiNi). They led me up to their apartment where the Dad was prepping food for lunch. We sat down on the sofa, I was obviously offered food, the first port of call for any proper Chinese host. I duly accepted an apple and obviously was given an apple, a pomegranate and an orange, which are green here by the way. The Mum then left the daughter and I to watch a film, and she chose ‘The Croods’, which is the first film I watched in Beijing with Leo. How ironic. However we didn’t get far into it before the Mum sent us off to do Calligraphy, on a special paper that when wet turns black and then dries clear. Reusable in a similar manner to Roman wax tablets, but more practical. I obviously impressed with my penmanship - should it be brushmanship? Or maybe brush skills? - they were delightfully shocked that some Westerner could do such a thing. I’ve decided it’s going to be my new party trick, though I will have to start carrying around all the tools, which could be rather laborious. Nini also performed for us on her Guqin, a Chinese harp that looks like a horizontal Harp. I’d never noticed before but you have to wear something similar to fake nails when playing it, but you wear them on the other side of your fingers. Looks pretty creepy out of context. 

As we were practising our Calligraphy the family’s friends turned up, I later discovered that they’d all gone to Uni together and the Dad and other couple had served in the Navy together too. They were very friendly with a slightly older daughter. 

I was pretty happy with my Mandarin at this point. I was hitting all those main talking points, who are you, where do you come from, what are you studying etc. Safe to say we were on pretty solid ground. However this would turn out to be a marathon not a sprint, and as we were making ‘jiaozi’. Which I could do all day every day, I love dumplings. I’m fairly sure I’ve made that obvious before. The conversation moved onto more complicated topics, as in what do kids study at Primary school in the UK. Now my strongest memories of primary school mainly involve dressing up for World Book Day, Roman Day, plays, any other tenuously linked reason the school could think of, so questions such as did you have to write compositions at Primary school, how many poems do you learn by rote or what Grammar did you learn, all in Chinese fazed me on two fronts. Firstly, Oh Dear God why isn’t there a textbook chapter titled ‘Discussing Education’, I don’t need to learn about ordering food or going to the Doctor’s. Secondly, do we learn Grammar at school? Was that a thing? Also at what point do we start writing compositions?!?!?! I think I gave them a bad opinion of our loose Education system, which was compounded when they mentioned the BBC show about British students being taught by Chinese teachers. So sorry fellow compatriots I think I let us down. Not sure though, I could’ve misunderstood the whole thing. I did manage to explain the difference between Rugby and American Football though. We also had very interesting discussion about how Westerners can’t differentiate between different Asian cultures, and visa versa with Chinese people and Western cultures. It’s good to know that we’re all equally dismissive of each other. 

     This post is going to involve a lot of food because, despite my little notebook telling me otherwise, my overriding memory of this day is of feeling constantly fit to burst. There was so, so, so much food given to me and I didn’t want to be rude and say no. It started with the fruit, then there was the green tea with so many leaves in it you literally couldn’t see the water, it just resembled a glass of thickly growing pond weed. Even the friends laughed at how much tea had been put in. Then there was lunch which consisted of jiaozi, some sliced beef, and some traditional duck from the Mother’s home city of Wuhan. It is aged in a chilli oil before being eaten, I however only found this out after I’d taken a bite... and then slurped up some very bitter green tea... That didn’t help, so I downed some coconut juice they provided me after witnessing my distress. Not a great moment there, reinforcing the 'Westerners can’t eat spicy food' stereotype. After that I basically stuck to jiaozi, food pouches are a safe bet. Post lunch we had some very tasty black tea, oh yeah we were getting crazy, it did take a while to perfect though as they keept leaving the leaves in too long. As a result the Chinese word for bitter, ku, is now ingrained in my head, so that’s a positive.

     During tea the girls went for a nap in Nini’s room, the Mum informed me that Chinese people like to rest in the afternoon. I was pretty aware of this and indicated that I was happy to ‘rest’ on the sofa. I was then escorted to the spare room, where the Mum pulled back the cover for me and indicated for me to get in. I had one of those incredibly long moments that are actually very short, as I weighed up how rude it would be if I refused, did I want to crease my nice top, and actually a nap is never a bad thing. So I got into bed, and the Mum legitimately tucked me in, at one point I thought she was about to go for the kiss on the forehead. Fortunately she stopped at patting the duvet down. So there I was 22 year old me, tucked into bed by a stranger, on a solid wooden bed trying to work out how I’d got there. Mum, take note I’m not going to feel loved and looked after unless you give me a nap schedule and tuck me in. Just saying. 

     Feeling revived after my nap I rejoined the family to find that we were making a kind of mooncake to celebrate the festival with. 

     These were different from mooncakes I’ve seen before. They used the same dough as jiaozi and were filled with a meat filling. You placed the meat in them, then pulled the edges together in a circular motion and tucked under before rounding the ball out. You then apply an egg wash and black sesame seeds before baking them in the oven. They taste kind of like sausage rolls, if you used a denser pastry. 

     I think they could be really great if you used thinner, or flavoured pastry. Should be fun to test out. I’m glad we had those mooncakes instead of the traditional ones with lotus and red bean paste because I can really not stand them. So the next couple of hours passed with us eating eating, yes, still eating, and chatting. The Mum showed me her collection of dolls from all 56 ethnic minorities in traditional dress, and Nini dressed up in her Yunnan outfit, because the Mum is from a Yunnan minority. They dress very colourful with lots of bright flower motifs and silver elements. 

     Then the friend’s daughter pulled out her calligraphy kit and started to write out a poem for me. So it turns out maybe Calligraphy could be my party trick? Hers however was beautiful, despite the admonishments from her Mother. I thought it was very impressive. The poem itself roughly translates as, ‘Even the longest journeys start with a single footstep’, quite appropriate really.

     We then went out to a food street for dinner. Now maybe this assumption is a ridiculous one, but I would’ve thought that on one of the designated ‘Family’ days of the year when everyone gets together, one would reserve as table somewhere. You would wouldn’t you, you wouldn’t say walk up to a restaurant and be disappointed/ surprised that it was going to be an hour and a half wait. Personally I wouldn’t, but maybe I’m odd like that. The food street itself was very fun and I want to go back when it's quite. However it was nice walking along, checking out the different stalls and restaurants. 

Bit busy...

     However I was already overfull so I had to turn down everything, especially the sour yogurt. Admittedly that wasn’t such a hardship. I did try some of the Rice wine, it was terrible but it comes in really nice jars. Is it bad I’m tempted to buy it just for the jars? So a new plan was formulated, after buying grass woven insects, a fun addition to the evening, we picked up various foods from snack shops and jumped in the car to head to a lake to watch the moon. These snacks notably included some prawn dumplings which had brightly coloured and striped dough, like hard boiled sweets, and a small spiced bird. I’m assuming it was some sort of Guinea Fowl esque thing, it was incredibly tasty but also incredibly bizarre to just sit in the car eating some tiny bird with just my bare hands. 

     We were headed to DongQian lake to watch the moon, and after a bit of getting lost - the Dad would just not ask of directions, much to the Mum’s chagrin - we arrived. The lake is huge and definitely somewhere else I would like to visit, it was lit purely by the silvery light of the moon reflecting across the waters. We moved along to a comfortable picnic spot and laid out the food. It’s traditional for Chinese families to gather and eat under the light of the moon, the Mid- Autumn Festival is the second most important in the Chinese calendar. 

My phone camera may not be great, but it was stunning. 

     So what happened next was potentially the most Chinese experience one could possibly wish for. We sat under the moon, watched the Chinese lanterns being let off in the distance and recited (well they recited) classical poems. The poems are all quite melancholic, about being separated from loved ones, but taking solace in sharing the light of the moon. Again, very poignant for me. The effect was only slightly diminished by the toxic grape juice in my hand. 

     After a while we were joined by my classmate Toby and the family he’d been visiting. They also brought a plethora of food with them, including dreaded mooncakes. I had to take a bite of one of them, but the taste and texture were so abhorrent that even swigging the grape juice didn’t help me swallow them. It took 3 tries. Fortunately the darkness allowed  me to secret the rest of it to a bin without anyone being offended. The only thing I downright refused to eat all day were the chicken’s feet, I don’t mind them crispy and deep fried, they are actually pretty tasty. But, these were fleshy, and the texture of the skin was still intact, and they were very clearly feet. I had a good stare off with it, fighting myself, persuading myself it would be fine. Alas I couldn’t quite bring myself to eat it. It was too foot like. 

Then 12 hours after I’d turned up at their house I headed home. Exhausted after all the work trying to speak Mandarin, I think it was about 80% Mandarin, 20% English, and happy after such an interesting day. They were really very lovely and I look forward to another day with them in the future. Not least because they gave me 3 bags of food to go home with!