Today has been much like the other days this week. I have not been feeling my best, and so I’ve taken it easy – checking email, preparing applications for summer internships, writing scholarship applications, reading, and playing guitar. I studied a little for my test, but on the whole, the test this week isn’t going to be that hard, partly because the text simply isn’t as hard as ones in the past, and partly because I don’t have an excuse not to study.
My phone has been out of minutes for 5 days now, and my host family invited me to eat supper with them tonight. I wanted to get out of the dorm for a little while if possible, but I had no way of contacting them. I talked to my “host sister” about going, and we both agreed that we would set out from the dorm a little after 5:00 that evening.
What was the nature of our tramp into the city, you ask? Today is the world-renowned Lantern Festival, and marks the first full moon of the Chinese lunar year. The Chinese typically celebrate this day by eating with their family, viewing the moon, drinking alcohol, and setting off fireworks. Why the alcohol? There is an old Chinese poem about how one can never drink by oneself when the moon is full: you have yourself, your shadow, and your moon. That sounds like as good of an excuse as any, I guess.
Our host father picked us up from the subway station around 6:00, and drove us to a Beijing-style hot pot restaurant. We rode in his Passat, and he executed some of the most daring driving maneuvers that I have ever seen. We crossed one intersection while we had the red light, and he drove straight into a line of uncoming traffic. Sandra and I had to check that we were both alive on several instances. We parked the car, and made our way into the Beijing hot pot restaurant.
Also present this evening was another guest. She was a lady from Si Chuan, which is where my host mother and father re both from, as I learned that evening. The most logical relationship between the guest and the host family is that the guest must know my host mom, Bing-Bing, from MinZu, for that is where they both work. Otherwise, my host dad must have a thing for middle-aged intellectuals. The guest, whose name I never did divine, had an extremely thick Si Chuan accent, and was quite spirited. She was a lot of fun, but that may have had something to do with the large quantities of bai jiu that she consumed tonight.
The restaurant was a fairly big establishment, and we had our own private room. Allow me, dear reader, to elaborate on the finer points of Beijing-style hot pot. Beijing style hot pot, unlike Si Chuan-style hot pot, which is run off of Sterno fuel or a natural gas eye in the table, Beijing-style hot pot is heated by placing charcoal inside a hollow cone. This cone tapers to a 3-inch hole at the top, which serves as both the source of air and also the exhaust for the device. One can vary the size of the hole at the top to alter the amount of heat that the charcoal generates. The water is held in a circular basin that wraps around the heating cone. When the water heats up, as is the case with regular hot-pot, you simply boil your food and enjoy. Beijing style also has a few minor culinary differences: whereas Si Chuan hot pot primarily relies on beef and pork, Beijing hot pot uses almost exclusively lamb. There are some minor differences in the accepted vegetables that one eats with Beijing hot pot, as well as the soup, but on the whole they are very similar. I have to say that I like Si Chuan style better, though.
The meal was enjoyable, and I avoided our SiChuanese guest’s numerous attempts to entice to drink bai jiu. We had another Christmas-tree conversation, but the majority of it revolved around American college life. Ben-ben, as mentioned earlier, plans on going to college in the States, and I believe that his parents are trying to “feel-out” American college life.
From there, we traveled to the host family’s apartment district and set off some fireworks. The neighborhood looked much larger the second time that I was there, and I asked the host family how many houses (apartments) were in his neighborhood. The answer? 2,000! He said that that number is the standard size of neighborhood in Beijing! Setting off fireworks was quite the adventure, and setting them off myself was as fun as watching the insane firework displays of other families. Our fireworks included a lot of Roman candles, a few large fireworks, a huge chain of firecrackers, and several standing fireworks that made a lot of sparks. Other displays included a 2-inch diameter firework whose sole purpose was to make an incredibly loud noise, and several other noisy and dangerous-looking displays.
Our host father took us back to campus for the evening, where I attempted to study a little more, before retiring to sleep much later than I should have in my state of health.
I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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