Dinner prepared by my students
On Friday, my students came over to cook me a Chinese meal. They wanted to thank me for making them a Western meal earlier in the week. I wasn’t feeling well at all all week and yet I entertained my students. I went to the clinic and have been on antibiotics. I worked Thursday but had this Friday off. I was sleeping in and heard a banging on the door. It was my Chinese tutor Lee. Behind him were a brigade of my Chinese students. It was an Asian Invasion!! I was groggy and sick but let them in.
Busy bees making dumplings
As the girls were bombarding my kitchen, Lee began to teach me pinyin. It is my deepest desire to learn Chinese. I really want to communicate to the people living here. Who knows maybe I can attract a Chinese cutie if I can at learn to speak Chinese. Also I am sick of pointing at this and saying that one and smiling. I am in China so I feel obligated to learn the language out of a mixture of respect and survival.
When my lesson was over, I invited Lee to stay but he had to go back to his campus. The girls were ready to make dumpling. Dumpling 101 commenced! I was shown the technique, first you you get the round circular dough, you gather the filling using chopsticks and place in on top of the circular dough. Next you dip your fingers in a bowl of water place water around the edges and fold in half. Then you pinch the dough using a pleated methods. Sounds and look simple enough. The girls made it look easy. My first attempt looked more like baozi and less like a dumpling. Yes it was an ugly dumpling. so the girls showed me another way to make the pinches.
It took me awhile before I made an acceptable dumpling. My dumplings were definitely not as pretty as my students. Rome was not built in a day it will definitely take more time that and day to learn who to make dumplings. The hardest part was the pinching part. My folds just aren’t pretty. I can tell when I am eating the dumplings which one I made.
My first and fifth dumpling. I am improving
While there was a crew of us making dumplings there were other girls making a variety of dishes. there were about seven students in my kitchen. It was smelling so yummy. I was so happy. A home needs to have people in it. I haven’t really experienced a homey atmosphere since my mom died. My friend Lisa opened her home to me prior to me leaving the US and it was at that moment I realized that I hated living alone.
It was so nice chatting with them as we were folding dumplings, it was a girl bonding moment. I don’t experience much of that. My childhood friend was not a gushy girly girly, so she had no ides about female bonding. When i got older I had more gal pals and we did female bonding rituals. I really missed that and the dumpling making really helped me.
Finally dinner was ready, we had tomato and egg, cucumber and sausage, dumplings and a dish of just sausage. It was very yummy. Oh and they begged me to make my garlic bread again. They said it was so delicious before that they wanted to taste it again. The best part was the fellowship and the company. Oh I forgot we left the door open and my neighbor walked in. He wanted to borrow water to get tea. The water guy who delivers our water was MIA, once the Chinese teacher saw the girls he decided to stay. I was feeling very tired and my students are nursing students and they saw my meds so they knew that I was a sick teacher. we talked for a bit and I showed them my Facebook and they talked to some of my friends that were on Facebook on Friday.
All in all Friday was a fun night. I can’t wait until I get to make dumplings with them next time.. One of the girls even likes karaoke! Score!!!!
