We had breakfast at the hotel and went to Nainai’s house. There was not a lot do, so we just hung out until lunch. Mali, Sanda’s other daughter showed up with her new baby. It’s the chubbiest thing.
Then we all left to the restaurant where the big celebration was happening. In a typical setting for a celebration in China, we sat around two big tables, with a big Lazy Susan in the middle of each of them, and tons of dishes are shared family-style. Tize’s brothers insisted that I sit with them so that I can help them finish all the baijiu they bought.
Ada started opening up to Tize and all the other members of the family, which made us very happy.
Lunch was excellent, with a whole baked fish, stir-fried green beans, shrimp, Chinese bacon which is thicker than the American bacon and cooked in sauce, an amazing dish of eggplant with peas, and all kinds of noodley things that I’ve never seen before. Another dish they had was slices of pig skull jelly. I know, it’s sounds weird, but it’s actually really good, and it’s not that different from a Jewish dish of calve’s foot jelly.
The main conversation topic at the table is who had how much to drink. Everybody got a little flask and a tiny glass, and Sanda initiated toasts every few minutes. Most of the time just him and me drank, but he did try to include as many people at the table. When someone announced that they can’t drink anymore, somehow their flask, with the baijiu that they couldn’t finish, ended up next to my plate. Make no mistake – I drank it all.
We went back to Nainai’s house and Ada and I tried to take a nap, but it was too cold, and my head was hurting a little from all that Baijiu. In the living room, Julia mentioned that Sida wanted to take me to play pool, and since there was nothing to do until dinner, we left the house.
Sida doesn’t speak any English, and I can say in Mandarin things like “She is not cold”, “Don’t worry about it”, “I don’t want it”, “what are you looking at?” and “I don’t understand”. And so, the two of us walked silently through the market until Sida found a pool club.
People often say about music that it transcends language, and I think there are other activities, like playing chess, that are like that as well. Playing pool is almost like that, up to the point where you hit a situation where everybody plays by different rules. By the rules I know, when you’re down to the 8-ball, you have to announce which hole you’re shooting for, and if you accidentally get it in the wrong hole, you lost the game. In the only game that I kinda won, I got the 8-ball in the wrong hole. I think Sida treated it as if I won, and I was fine with that. Also, it happened to him in the following game, so there.
As Sida was busy tearing me a new one, a little girl, the daughter of the owners, walked in, and at some point I picked up her talking about me with her parents – I could parse the word “shushu” that means something like “random uncle”. I turned to her, waved, and said hello. Her dad said something in Chinese, and I’m pretty sure he said that she learns English at school and that I should try speaking English to her. I asked her for her name, and with the help of her dad she answered. I’m sorry, but I forgot what her name was. I let Sida explain to them what I was doing in town, and I asked the girl if she wants to see pictures of my family. OK, I just asked “ni yao kan ma?” (“do you want to see?”) and pointed at my phone. I showed her pictures of Julia and Ada, and then the dad asked to take a picture of me with the daughter and the mom. I gave him my phone to take a picture with it as well:
Then we walked back to the house. People stared at me, as they always do, but my new strategy is working great. In the past, when some one stared to much for my taste, I would turn around and say “ni kan shengma?!” (“what are you looking at?!”), but they would actually find that funny, think I speak Chinese and continue the conversation. That’s not the result I was trying to achieve. Now, I put a big smile on my face and wave until the person stops staring. It’s working way better.
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