Family Dining

My Chinese roommate invited me to his house for last week for dinner.  I am not sure how often they have get-togethers like this but the crowd included his mother, uncle, two friends, and a neighbor.  At home we have gatherings of this size, but our house is able to fit this amount of people comfortably.  My roommate’s house, however, is in a section of public housing referred to as a Hu Tong.  Hu Tongs are narrow alley ways that curve back and forth.  The walls have doors with numbers about every ten feet and behind the doors are small houses built into the walls.  It seems very easy to get lost in this maze, especially since it was pitch black and we were using our cell phones to guide the way.  My roommate could navigate his Hu Tong with his eyes closed so the darkness did not affect him, but it was playing tricks on my eyes.  Multiple times I stepped on rubble or what I thought was rubble and ended up being a cat’s tail.  That scared the Hell out of me.  We finally reached Hu Tong 24, my roommate’s house, and entered through the rickety steel door.  Inside were the people I mentioned surrounding the television, and they were watching some weird Chinese dating show.  The mother was cooking dumplings in the kitchen, which was five feet from the TV and the uncle was just exiting the bathroom, three feet from the TV.  If I did not paint a good enough mental picture let me just say it straight up, the house was one room.  Now that that is out of the way we can get to the dining aspect of the night.

The spread was laid out on the coffee table, which served as the dining table as well.  There were plates of cold dishes like cucumber, Chinese beef jerky, sheep’s stomach in spicy sauce, and breaded fish.  The main dish was the dumplings which were made right next to the table and served hot.  The dumplings were delicious, but I did not care for the sheep’s stomach.  The strangest part about Chinese dining, other than everyone trying to put as much food on your plate as possible even though you insist you do not want it, is the fact that they never drink anything with their meal.  I am used to drinking about four to five glasses of water when eating, but the Chinese only have a small glass of alcohol with their meal.

The night went on with some jokes and discussions about politics and the United States.  I was having a good time and started putting food on other peoples’ plates as well.  I did this more as a revenge tactic than being polite, because I discovered that as long as they are eating they will not put anymore food on my plate.  The night ended late and my roommate said that the uncle liked me so much that he invited us to his restaurant next week.  I thought that sounded great, and by “his” restaurant I thought he meant his favorite spot…not actually HIS restaurant. 

Fast forwarding to last night, my roommate and I arrived at the uncle’s restaurant.  My best translation for the title is the Great/Vast Land Restaurant.  We entered through the back and were escorted to the vacant second floor where a side dining room was reserved.  As I walked by other tables I started to get excited looking at the huge lo mein plates and smelling the delicious fried smell that only comes from Chinese restaurants.  We entered the side room, and it was beautiful.  The room had red velvet couches and the walls were painted in gold with Victorian style borders.  The spread looked like a Thanksgiving Day buffet, except with weird Chinese dishes.  The whole crew was there again, siblings and all.  I saw some of the same things like the cucumber and stomach, but there were additional cold plates like a ham and tuna salad.  Surely the lo mein was coming later, so I saved my appetite.  At dinner we had Chinese rice wine and again no water.  This rice wine was probably the most awful tasting alcohol I have ever had.  Imagine dipping a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, setting it on fire, and then swallowing it.  That is what Chinese rice wine tastes and feels like.  To combat the spicy flavor of the rice wine they also had small glasses of this sickening sweet fermented rice drink, which tasted like liquid cotton candy.  That might sound good, but believe me it was equally terrible.  The main dishes finally came and the whole family looked excited.  My roommate told me all of these plates were delicacies in China, so right away I became skeptical.  The plates were set on the table by workers trying to impress the uncle aka their boss (I have never had such great service.)  On plate was a beef stew that one would see at any American establishment, fried chicken in no sauce, fish with a mustard flavor over bread, steak over bread, and by far the grossest thing I tasted in China…cold pork fat jello cubes.  Of course the jello cubes were the most expensive and everyone had the guest i.e. ME try some.  Imagine biting into a jello cube that tastes like meat and getting hard fatty pieces in every bite…oh, and by the way, it was COLD!

I am sure that most of these dishes were meant to impress me so I kept saying how delicious everything was and how great it tasted.  The night ended in the upstairs bar here the family passed around microphones and sang karaoke.  They taught me a Chinese Navy song called “Shui Shou" (Mariner) which is a song about how the Chinese Navy is never afraid.

The hospitality and warm reception was a nice feeling and I was glad to have a dining experience like this one.  I was finally able to practice all of the customs and courtesies that I study in class, such as phrases to say and what to bring (I brought Pittsburgh Steeler T-shirts as my housewarming gift).

The night did not end until late and for a Tuesday I am pretty sure that this is uncommon for most Chinese families, but I could tell they liked entertaining a Westerner.  They invited me back to the restaurant next week to celebrate the mother’s birthday…I can only hope they have better food, but I am preparing myself for more fire wine and meat jello.