Chine 2017, Day 13: Chengdu Nightlife

Tize and Fan were back, but the big fight never happened, and we were a little disappointed. Instead, we had a minor standoff with Fan, of which the only way to get out was to just stop talking. Fan’s logic is extremely convoluted, and I would have summarized our argument here if the mere act of thinking about it didn’t give me a massive headache. At the end, somehow, the reason the tour was so bad was our fault. Tize, who has spent most of his adult life with Fan, gave me a subtle Jedi gesture that meant “this is not the fight you want to get into”, and so we just let it go.

Tize and Fan took us on a bus to Bao Guang, a Buddhist temple in the outskirts of Chengdu. They have a hall with 500 sculptures of gods. That’s a lot of gods.

We ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant inside the complex, and then sat in the tea garden for a long time.

By the time we got home, it was time for dinner. After dinner, Julia and I went out to check out the nightlife. A taxi driver dropped us off at the river bank and told us to cross the bridge.
There were a few dozens of bars on that little strip, all had avid young men at the door trying to convince us to come inside, and all the bars had live music. The smaller bars had a single singer singing with playback music. The big bars had a full band.

We sat in the outdoor seating area of one of the big bars. It’s official - we’re old enough for the music inside to be too loud for us. We couldn’t read the menu so I pointed at a picture in the menu that the waitress confirmed that it was Chinese beer. I got a Budweiser.

A couple of guys sat down at the table behind us. One of them couldn’t stop staring at me. He asked Julia some questions about us, because he found the whole situation very confusing, but then he was distracted by the ear cleaners. Many of them were walking up and down the boardwalk, and our new friend decided to treat himself. He called one of them who came over and started examining his ear with a flashlight, trying to come up with a price based on how disgusting the ear was. Throughout the process, he kept staring at me, but now I was also staring at him.
- “I’m sorry,” he said to Julia. “I have actually never seen a foreigner before.”
- “That’s O.K.,” Julia replied. “He has never seen anybody getting their ears professionally cleaned before.”
Unfortunately, the price offer was too high and the deal was canceled. We left to another bar, a much smaller one, with a duo of a singer and a keyboard player. I tried getting a local beer again, and this time ended with a Carlsberg.

China 2017, day 12: Sichuan opera

​Erjiujiu offered to take Julia and me to a Daoist shrine, and I thought it would be nice to give him another chance. I did ask Julia to tell him to not push us around, and he agreed.

The shrine was nice, and Erjiujiu behaved himself, apart from several slipups where he tried to start an argument about which route is best, to which I replied with a sharp, internationally understood “ep ep ep ep ep ep!” and a scolding finger.

Then we hung out at the mall and got coffee. We went home to regroup, and the three of us left again to see a traditional Sichuan opera.
We took a taxi that dropped us off in a beautiful, unbelievably clean, pedestrian street. It’s really sad that we have nothing this nice in the US. We walked around for a bit, until we ran into a young man, walking around with an open laptop that had a professional audio interface connected to it and a nice webcam attached. He was interviewing people, so I guess he was doing some video blogging. He noticed me noticing him, so of course I was now in his show.

Then we went to a tea house that’s right outside the opera house, since free tea was included in our tickets. The tea house was full of ear cleaners. In China, these are actual people who walk around with a set of tools, offering people to get their ears cleaned for money. They clink one of them, which looks like giant tweezers, to announce their presence, which is really loud and annoying, because some ten cleaners are present in the tea house, and they are present very close to you.

The opera was fine. The set, lighting, and costumes are impressive. The story line is very thin, and the emphasis is on acts of acrobatics, singing and dancing. Some of these acts are good, especially the acrobatics. Some of them are pretty lame, like the dancing and acting. Generally speaking, the performers seemed very indifferent. Erjiujiu supplied some action as he kept pointing at things for us, in case we missed the stuff that was happening right in front of our fucking faces. Luckily, Julia was sitting right between the two of us, so he didn’t bother me that much.

China 2017, day 11: Emei Mountain

The day before, the organizer gave us two options for spending this day. The long route, 19 kilometers in length, requires waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning, getting a very light breakfast, and the highlights - sunrise, some halo over a Buddha sculpture head, and the view of the valley - will not be visible due to the weather. The shorter route is only 11 kilometers, requires getting up at 7, breakfast will be available at the hotel, and you get to hang out with monkeys. Moreover, it was cheaper. It was obvious that we were being manipulated to choose the shorter route, but with my healing foot and our inherent laziness, we played along.

The first half of the day was extremely similar to the previous one: we got new badges and a new, but just as annoying, tour guide named Xiao Yang, who explained that she does not get her commission based on the crap that we buy. We saw a temple, and then we were taken to meet… the fucking Yi. You’d think that this time they would tell us something interesting, but then you would be wrong. We were led to one of some ten rooms, each one had a tour group, with a Yi woman explaining, once again, the benefits of silver. Then we were taken to a store, even bigger than the one we were in the previous day. Julia and I waited outside, and as time went by the entire group was waiting with us. Except for Miss Rainbow, who Xiao Yang actually had to pull out from the store.

Today, Xiao Yang explained, lunch will be at 3PM, but we’ll stop for some snacks around noon, and the tea and alcohol will be free. By now we knew that they’re going to try to sell us something. We started walking down a mountain. On both sides of the path, there were merchants selling mostly snacks and tea, but also sticks, to scare the monkeys away in case they jump on you, and many small restaurants where tour groups sat with their guide, and all these restaurants looked exactly the same. Around noon, we were led into one of them as well. We were served tea and got a big pitcher of some weird alcoholic drink. Then a young lady who works at that joint started her spiel. Basically, she was pushing tea leaves and herbs to us to put in your cheap booze. Everybody was reluctant to cooperate, but surprisingly, it was Xiao Yang that moved to more aggressive marketing. “You seem like a nice guy,” she said to one man in our group, as she massaged his shoulders, “help me out here!” She tried different techniques on different people. When her eyes met our dismissive expressions, she said “you’re probably more coffee folks…”. It’s really incredible, how shameless this whole operation is.

A couple of people bought some stuff, probably in an attempt to silence Xiao Yang’s tiny, piercing voice, while I and a couple of guys just took shots of the liquor. We finally left, and as we continued walking down the mountain, we noticed that the merchants are selling the same kind of tea for much lower prices, the further we were from one of these restaurants, the lower the price was. At its cheapest, it was about one eighth of what Xiao Yang tried to peddle at.

We stopped at a pavilion and were given directions: if we wanted to go see the monkeys - go 3 kilometers up the path to the monkeys, go 3 kilometers back to the pavilion, and continue 3 kilometers to meet for lunch. This gives us a full Xiao Yang-free 9 kilometers.

So we got to the monkeys, and received a fascinating lesson on the evolution of monkeys, humans, and economics. Since people come to see the monkeys, the merchants also come to sell things to the people, mostly tiny bags of nuts. The monkeys jump on the people to take food from them. When monkeys jump on people, the merchants give the people tiny bags of nuts to convince the monkeys to get off, and then the people must give the merchants money. This encourages the monkeys to jump on people, which encourages people to come to the monkeys, which encourages merchants to come to the people with tiny bags of nuts. Witnessing this whole situation is heartbreaking, especially in light of how fat the monkeys have become.

One monkey jumped on Julia’s head, and immediately a merchant was there with a tiny bag of nuts. I pushed her away, because I didn’t want her in the picture I was taking, and felt some remorse for not buying one​ of those sticks. She stayed out of the frame, but kept yelling at Julia, trying to make her take the nuts. Even with a monkey on her head, Julia managed to resist.

There are three things you can do in the face of violence: absorb, retaliate, or escalate. I don’t believe in retaliation - it leads nowhere. I usually prefer absorbing. Most often, it breaks the circle of violence. However, I do think escalation is appropriate in certain circumstances, like when time is a crucial factor, or when absorption doesn’t work. Sticking nuts in your hand when you have a monkey on your head and then charging you for it is a violent act, and the timing did not allow me to absorb. Using my hands to push the merchant back is not acceptable in China, and therefore it’s perceived as escalation. The merchant was very upset, but she did move away to a distance which I was happy with, so escalation did work. But this is my point of view. From the merchant’s point of view, and generally in China, her acts are not violent at all, and my actions were not escalation of the violence, but rather an initiation of it. I don’t have a conclusion here, just some thoughts to share.

We walked double time to make it back in time for our 3:30pm deadline.We were a little worried, because the only person we ran into on the trail was Miss Rainbow. When we finally made it to the rendezvous point, we realized that other than her and us, nobody went to see the monkeys. They have been sitting the whole time in a restaurant waiting for us. During these entire two days of hard peddling, there were two things worth seeing - the giant Buddha and the monkeys. These people gave up one of them. I don’t get it.

We got on the bus and started the long ride back to Chengdu. At home, we told Yeye and Erjiujiu the entire story. They were incredibly upset and blamed Fan, who was still away with Tize for his reunion. Erjiujiu showed us pictures of the things we were supposed to see on the mountain, like beautiful shrines and amazing views, none of them looked familiar. Erjiujiu was furious. We went to bed in great anticipation for the big fight that would happen when Tize and Fan come home.

China 2017, day 10: Leshan

For the time Julia’s parents were away for Tize’s college reunion, Fan bought Julia and me a two-days organized trip. For that, we had to be outside, ready to be picked up, at 5:30 in the morning. Then, we witnessed again, as we did last time we were in China, tourist trafficking at its best: a van, already occupied by other tourists, picks you up, then it runs a few red lights, drops somebody off who gets picked up by another car, and so on for 5 minutes, until you get dropped off and get picked up by a bus. A lady on the bus, the organizer, gave us some ground rules. Julia translated for me, and there was no real substance. Still, the lady wouldn’t shut up for half an hour, while we just wanted to catch up on some sleep.

Eventually, we got to a crystal museum near Anzitang. We got badges to wear and a neatly dressed, young tour guide. The place is beautifully designed, with some impressive crystal art. The tour guide kept emphasizing that we should stick around with him if we want to see the good stuff. That was odd. Where else would we go?

We were then led to the huge store in the upper floor, where we were supposed to wait 30 minutes until 9:30 in the morning, when they would let us into the restaurant for us for lunch. At 9:30. The organizer’s argument was that later, when we’re travelling, there would be no other opportunity. Julia’s theory was that they want to keep us in the store so that we would buy bullshit crystal jewelry, and lunch is just an excuse.

We got back to the bus and went to see the Leshan big Buddha. On the way we picked up a new tour guide, Xiao Peng, a young woman with chubby cheeks, who refers to herself in the third person. When we got there, she explained to us the proper ways to take a picture with the Buddha, like having him in the background and stretching​ your arm to make it look like you’re rubbing his nose or ear. These are supposed to bring you good luck or some other bullshit. Anyway, we looked at the Buddha from up the hill, and then started climbing down.

There’s a certain degree of violence that is acceptable in China. It’s ok for you to squeeze in line in order to get ahead of other people, even if it causes significant discomfort to them. This is really hard for me to grasp, even as an Israeli. Even though we were doing our best to go with the flow with the rest of the people, everyone seemed to be passing us. Julia overheard a person who noticed us summarizing to his friend the cultural gap: “do foreigners even know how to shove?”

We got to the bottom and started climbing back up the stairs.

Back at the top​, we joined Xiao Peng and our group, and we all walked to a temple.

There, Xiao Peng would not shut up. Some of her spiel was about Chinese astrology bullshit, and how some people are missing one of the five elements, and an analysis of a person's name and date of birth can determine which. Some of it was about herself: she has been a tour guide for 12 years after graduating from a school for tourism. I guess you can say she got a B.S. in BS. She said her commission is per group, so she only has to take one group a day, and then she can go home to play Mahjong. Speaking of Mahjong, she wins nine out of ten games, because she’s very lucky, as one can tell from her name and date of birth. Naturally. She offered to anyone who’s interested to write their names and date of birth on a piece of paper and she’ll gladly figure out which element that person is missing. Some people, led by a pretty young lady wearing a rainbow scarf, rushed to give her tiny pieces of paper. We thought that Xiao Peng can go fuck herself.

We walked down the mountain and then the entire group had to take a public bus, which was strange, because we had a bus. We went two stops to see pictures of funky things that happened to the Giant Buddha, like how it looked like he was crying or closing his eyes after natural disasters. The pictures were located on a wall in a store, that sold little buddha pendants. As the tour guide then explained, different kinds of pendants complement the different elements people are missing, and what do you know - some people in our group discovered, very recently, what element it is! Miss Rainbow was super happy about this fortunate coincidence and bought herself a stupid little pendant.

It was now pretty clear that peddling is a major part of this trip, and we must, as the zeitgeist commands, resist.

Next, we were taken to visit the Yi, a minority group that lives in the area. A Yi lady greeted us, took us to a room where we were served boiled potatoes, something that looks like tamales, and a tiny shot of some alcoholic stuff. Then she started talking about the Yi. Very quickly, the focus of her talk moved to two topics: how poor they are, and how their health is maintained by using silver bowls in which they mix their medicine. Sure enough, when she was done talking, we were led to their store, where we could buy silver stuff. This must have been Miss Rainbow’s lucky day. She bought herself a silver bracelet.

Dinner was actually OK, and it included a show, which was also pretty good. We sat a table with people from our group and another group and had hot pot. The show included a Wu Shu act, a pair of acrobats and an act of traditional Sichuan opera face changing masks: the performers wear masks that change instantly as they move around on the stage. The technical side of this artform is kept secret, and I couldn’t find a definite explanation of how this is done.

Afterwards, two Yi fellas brought out twisted balloons flowers and lit a small fire. The evening ended with a rampage of old Chinese people fighting for balloon flowers and dancing with them around the fire, like a bunch of idiots, to the singing of the Yi.

China 2017, day 9: Dujiangyan

Early morning, Julia and I, the parents, Lili and his wife (everyone keeps calling her “Lili’s wife”, even though she has a perfectly valid name which I don't remember) and Erjiujiu and Erjiuma, drove to see the Dujiangyan irrigation system. Like any other day, I got stared at a lot, but this time, one family insisted to take a picture of me with their toddler. There were a few seconds of commotion, me and the toddler just facing each other in confusion while swarms tourists threatening to trample us both down, so eventually the mother just stuck the toddler in my hands. It wasn’t happy.

The irrigation system itself is an incredible engineering endeavour, built around 2300 years ago to control the water supply for agriculture in the Chengdu basin. I have to admit, I still don’t fully understand how it works.

Then we went to a hotel for a big family reunion over lunch, to celebrate Yeye’s 90th birthday.

As I explained a few posts earlier, Chinese family members call each other by their relationship, like “Erjiuma” - wife of the second maternal uncle. Therefore, a significant portion of time was dedicated to figure out how each one of the 30 or so family members should call all the other ones. Also, being politically correct, polite, or tactful are not qualities recognized by the Chinese people, so people feel free to comment on other people’s weight, or touch their bellies and ask if they’re pregnant. To put it in other words, I’ve seen Julia in a better mood.

Lunch was great. Once again, my drinking capacity was challenged by one of the uncles, which was fine with me. Then we had cake, which was decorated with fruit, including some cherry tomatoes. Julia protested, while Lili’s wife claimed it’s legit, since tomatoes are technically fruit. Hours later, out of nowhere, Julia exclaimed that eggplants are fruit too, yet “nobody puts a fucking eggplant on a cake!”.

Then Erjiujiu drove Tize, Julia, me, Lili and his wife to the old city of Dujiangyan, where we just hung out. When we came back, all the aunts were sitting and gossiping in one of the lobbies, while the men were playing Mahjong in the Mahjong room.

Julia’s parents left to the airport, to go to Tize’s college reunion, while Erjiujiu drove us back to Yeye and Laolao’s place. After he left, the four of us had dinner and sat down to play Mahjong. Back in the days, they would shuffle the pieces by hand. Now, of course, the table does it for you.

China 2017, day 8: Dayi

We had a full day planned by the family. First, we all drove to Liu Manor in Dayi. Liu Wencai was a rich landlord who leased land to farmers and cheated them in order to keep them in a constant state of debt. After the communist revolution, his manor was turned into a museum, with items from the estate on display, and a set of sculpture depicting the injustice done to the farmers. It’s an impressive exhibition, even if the facial expressions of the sculptures is extremely exaggerated.

Then we walked around in the old city of Dayi. You know this video?

So they were selling these in the souvenir shops. I grabbed a bunch of rubber chickens that were hanging from a hook and tried to recreate this fantastic effect. Instead, I חן managed to drop the chickens and toys from some of the other hooks. I tried to hang them back and instead dropped more toys. Then I accidentally made eye contact with the store owner. Then I ran away. Then I saw the expression on Julia’s mom’s face. I thinks it was disappointment. I’m not sure, because she wears that expression a lot.

Next stop was the Jianchuan Museum Cluster. Julia and I like to take our time when we visit museums, but this is not the way the family, namely the Xiaos, does things. Julia and I were constantly pushed to move faster so we can see as many museums as possible in the two hours we allotted to the cluster. Fan’s (Julia’s mom) rationale is that it’s the same thing spending an hour or four hours in a museum because you’re going to forget everything anyway, but if you come back it will all come back to you. I don’t understand this woman at all.

So we saw the Earthquake Museum, dedicated to the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, and a couple of museums dedicated to the second Sino-Japanese war. I sat out of the fourth museum. This whole ordeal took only two hours or so.

For dinner, we met with Fan’s high school friends for hotpot. Julia and I sat at the kiddies table with Lili and his wife and two other couples in their late twenties. They spoke no, or limited, English, which I was OK with as it gave me the opportunity to concentrate on my food.

As you come in, they give you a bowl, an apron, and a small bag of sesame oil, and send you over to the dipping sauce making station, where you put the oil in your bowl and add vinegar, garlic, oyster sauce, and other goodies.

Then you go to the giant fridge and pick the meats and veggies you want. These come in little trays or on skewers. Most of the veggies are unidentified leafy greens. The meats range from simple chicken and beef slices, through tripe and kidneys, and all the way to pig brains.

Then you sit at your table and start cooking your food in the broth. At the end of the meal, all the skewers at your table are weighed to determine their amount, and the trays are counted. Then, as the custom in China goes, you physically fight for the right to pay the bill for your table, unless you sit at the kiddies table, even if you’re over 40. Then you get to sit back and watch grownups fight.

China 2017, day 7: Pandas!

We woke up to a lot of yelling, which is how the Xiaos, Julia’s mother's family, communicate. From what I later gathered, Erjiujiu was mad because we saw the Wuhou Temple without him, while he was looking forward to this reunion so that he could spend time with us. He made all these plans, rented two cars, but then everything gets trumped by Julia’s mom who just has to be in the center because she’s the favorite child. Julia’s mom was mad because she thinks Erjiujiu just resents her for being the favorite child.

So Julia and I dragged her mom out to go shopping. We got me a jump rope which I need to start using to recover my healing foot, and a nice traditional Chinese shirt. For Julia we bought 7 pairs of socks for 10 Yuan. Then we went to the shoe district to buy Fan some shoes. There are enough shoes here for the entire population of China.

It took us forever to find something Fan was happy with, but we finally did, and then it was time to walk over to the restaurant where we were supposed to have lunch. The grandparents joined us, as well as Erjiuma, who is Erjiujiu’s wife, and Lili, their son, along with his wife, Liu Shuting. Lunch included a soup served in a unripened papaya, that had frog meat in it. It was actually pretty good.

Then, to try to bring peace back to the family, Julia and I drove with Erjiujiu to the panda park. They have pandas, and red pandas, which are even cuter, and peacocks.

They also have a small museum of endangered species, with some of the world’s worst taxidermy.

Throughout our visit there, Erjiujiu drove me crazy. If he thought there was a better viewing angle than where we stood, he would forcefully grab me by the arm and drag me while yelling at me in Chinese. He would also get impatient when we watched a panda, and yell at us “zou le!” (let’s go). Finally, he would walk twice as fast as us, and scold us for being too slow.

We drove back, but now Erjiujiu asks if it’s cool for us to tag along to get the second car. I didn’t want my frustration with him to affect our relationship, so I agreed - it’s just picking up a car, right?

Two hours later, we were back home. I’m never letting him take me anywhere anymore.

China 2017, Day 6: Chengdu

An airport is also a good opportunity for coffee. We had already settled down at the gate, so I decided not to bother Julia and Tize and get coffee on my own. I walked around, found a place with a lady in front, and asked “you meyou kafei?” (do you have coffee?). She led me inside and pointed at a table. “Bu yao zuo.” (I don’t want to sit) I said. Then she took me to the barista and showed me a menu. I pointed at the cappuccino, and gave the barista 100 Yuan bill. She gave me my cappuccino and 22 Yuan back. “Liu shi ba!” (sixty eight!), I exclaimed, and after checking with her boss, she gave me 10 Yuan more. After 10 minutes of being unbelievably satisfied with myself, I realized I had just bought shitty coffee for ten bucks.

Then Julia wanted to fill her water bottle from one of the water fountains. In China, people don’t really drink cold water, so the fountains dispense water in three temperatures: hot, warm, and cold, in case you have completely lost your mind. As Julia examined the machine, an airport employee decided she needed help.

- “You want hot water?”
- “No, cold."
- “You mean warm?"
- “No, I mean cold.”

He didn’t like it, but filled her bottle with cold water. Half way.

- “Do you want to add some hot water to that?”

At the airport in Chengdu, Julia’s mom, Fan, picked us up, and we took a taxi to her grandparents’ home. Yeye, Julia's grandfather, is an impressive man who will be 90 in June, yet can't sit still for more than five minutes. Laolao, the grandmother, is a tiny old woman who, how shall we put it, is more affected by her age. We were also welcomed by Erjiujiu (another second uncle, but on the mother's side), Fan's brother, who is very warm, if sometimes loud and too physical for my taste. I still like him. It was also good to finally be back in civilization, with running water and WiFi and stuff.

We all went out to get lunch. And then Julia and I wanted to see the science museum, so her parents tagged along. The weather was great - so much better than in Shanxi. We took a bus and got to the science museum, which unfortunately was closed for renovations.




Julia high-fived Mao.



Then we checked out the library. It's a beautiful building, and the difference between it and the public library in San Francisco is incredible - this one is quiet, packed with young people, and there are no used needles lying around or homeless people changing clothes in the aisles.



Then we went to the Chengdu museum. This building is also beautiful.We spent most of our time there in an exhibition about shadow puppetry, and in the little time we had left, we quickly went through most of the other galleries - these have exhibitions about Chengdu in various points in history. The museum is really great.

Then we went to the Wuhou temple.



And then to Jinli market. We bought all kinds of street food, and that ended up being our dinner. We had things like squid, and rice cakes, and the highlight of the day: pig noses on a stick.

China 2017, Day 5: Taiyuan

We woke early in the morning, packed our stuff, had breakfast, said our goodbyes and got into a taxi that drove Tize, Julia, and me back to Taiyuan. It was a long and extremely uncomfortable ride, but after four hours or so, we were in our hotel. Tize wanted us to have some local food, so we walked around and surveyed restaurants for quite a while until we found one​ that Tize liked. Each of us got a bowl of noodles. Tize’s and Julia’s had goat internal organs in theirs. Mine had goat face meat. Achievement unlocked.

We went to see the most famous attraction of Taiyuan, the Jinci shrine. It’s known for its extremely old trees, some over a thousand years old.

When we were done, we finally had time to attend to one of Julia’s main goals of this trip: to see the Trump chicken. Since it’s the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese calendar, one of the malls in Taiyuan put a big statue of a chicken in its plaza and gave it some of Trump’s prominent features. So we took a taxi to the mall and took a bunch of pictures. Some kid got really excited to see a foreigner in the middle of Taiyuan and asked to take a picture with me. We also took a picture with my phone. After all, why should he be the only one who gets a picture from this encounter?

A mall also seemed like an opportunity to finally get some coffee, but Starbucks was closed, so I settled for coffee at Burger King. It was terrible and yet everything I wanted at the moment. The mall also had the best indoor playground I’ve ever seen - it’s basically a giant ball pit, with slides and balls of all sizes, including ones a grown man can climb into.

Tize found a restaurant that served other kinds of local food, so we had several dishes with different kinds of noodles, and went to bed early - tomorrow we leave for Chengdu.

China 2017, Day 4: Xingxian

There was a lot of commotion again around the bathroom this morning. It turns out that last night it was Julia who clogged the toilet. We're not being very good guests.
Tize took us for a walk around the city. We walked to the main street that branches to the market.

Everybody was staring at me. The vast majority of people here have never seen a foreigner. Some followed us around for a while, some did the "double take", and some people inside the stores stopped everything they were doing to stand at the storefront to stare.
We went into a temple. The term "temple" can be confusing around here, as society is mostly secular, but they do build temples to commemorate people and events. This one is for the the local people who participated and died in the communist revolution.

We walked over to the main square and watched the old folks play Chinese chess.

We went back home for lunch. Sida kept his word, and the food he made was much better than the food we had at the restaurant yesterday. We played cards for a bit and took a nap.
Let's role back a couple of days: right when we got here, Julia got a phone call from her mom. She said Julia and I should cook a meal for everyone to show gratitude for their hospitality. We don't need to worry about anything because she packed the ingredients for us in Tize's suitcase.
Now, there are two problems here. For starters, we don't mind doing it, but we generally don't like it when decisions are made for us (and you know how a mother-daughter relationship can take that notion up a notch), and second, the packed ingredients were two packs of pasta, two cans of tomatos, Italian salad dressing, and a can of chicken breasts - not what we would have picked. Anyway, it looks like we're making pasta. When we came to peace with the idea, we decided to upgrade our dish with some fresh ingredients from the market.
Back to today, Sida volunteered to go with us so that the vendors won't rip us off. We got a nice fresh piece of pork, some tomatos, cucumbers, onions, and red sweet peppers, and a bottle of some really nice rice liquor.

We went back home, took a nap, and started cooking. You can't get ground meat here, so Sida ground our meat for us with a butcher knife. We fried some onions, added the pork, and then we were ready to add the canned tomatoes. There's no can opener. The pork was getting over cooked. I lowered the fire while Sida was hacking the cans with a knife. Ergugu noticed the fire was low and turned it up. I turned it back down. "Oh, low heat!" she said in awe and Mandarin. The water for the pasta was boiling. Dagugu turned the stove off. I turned it back on. We added the tomatoes to the pork. Mali, who somehow was also in the kitchen that really can't​ hold more than two people, ran outside to report to anyone who wasn't in the kitchen, which according to my math was no one: "they are cooking the pork with tomatoes!"
We served them the pasta along with some Israeli salad, which they found even more confusing, except for Sida who enjoyed it. Sanda started another drinking duel with me, which ended poorly for him. Then Sanda took us to another place where we could take a shower, and called it a day.