The Dumpling Party!

Ting Shian (the cooker) and her daughter are on the far left

One day  a few weeks back I was talking to Sunni, one of the girls at Christine's work who is often the go-between between me and the cooker who doesn't speak a word of English. She told me the cooker thought I would like to learn to make dumplings and was offering to come to my house some Saturday to teach me. I said I thought that would be great. And then Sunni explained that actually, the cooker thought it would be good to come with her sister-in-law (who is also our landlord!), who is really good at making dumplings. And the cooker (whose name, by the way, is Ting Shian) also thought it would be fun if all the women in the office came too. Turns out Sunni had already asked around, and everyone could make it the Saturday after next.  This is definitely the easiest way to throw a party -- someone else organizes the guest list, sets the date, gets all the RSVPs, takes care of the entertainment (dumpling making), and the food (dumpling eating), and then tells you you're having a party. I need someone like this when I go back to California!

Since Chinese meals usually consist of four or five dishes, Christine and I did come up with a few things to go along with the dumplings. We started with very simple quesadillas which were gobbled up before anyone got a picture, followed by chili, cabbage salad with Chinese noodles, and crab with  onions and peppers. Jinna, whose father is a crab fisherman, had given me the crab, and it was fun to have the chance to share it with her and the other girls. Not sure if I did it justice in terms of how the Chinese serve crab (with garlic greens!), but they enjoyed my version enough to eat every bite:)

We loved having everyone at our house and loved learning to make dumplings. The first video is the cooker showing us how, and then our attempts to follow her instructions!

In addition to the beautiful bouquet that  Kynza is holding, we received several gifts of fruit that we thoroughly enjoyed. Including dragon fruit--why didn't I take a picture?? Evidently, when you go to someone's house for a meal, it's nice to bring fruit as a hostess gift. Very useful information!

We watched a video of Sandy's wedding for entertainment. It was fun to see her in all kinds of different dresses for wedding picture shoots. And I learned bunches about Chinese wedding customs! Like the day of the wedding, her groom came to fetch her at her house very early in the morning. She leaves the house with him, and he closes the door behind them. Her parents do not come to the wedding. All very symbolic. He takes her to his family's house. That is where the first festivities take place, and that is where they will live.

Back to the dumpling party:) I enjoyed getting to know our landlord a bit. She doesn't speak much English, but she is a very social person, so she figures out ways to communicate. She brought her 10 year old son, and I had a fun time looking at English words on the iPad with him. Here she is with her little niece, who Ting Shian's daughter.

My budding friendship with the landlord  blossomed when she's invited me to see the sights with her a few times in the past weeks. Such an unexpected and fun bonus of my time here. I think her name is Linda. I know it seems odd that you wouldn't know a friend's name, but I've found myself in that situation a few times. It is very common for people here to choose a western name because Chinese names are too difficult for foreigners to pronounce. But from what I can understand, since people choose their name, they sometimes change names until they find one that really suits them. A bit confusing for the likes of me! So "Linda" sent me a text message the other day telling me (via my translation app) that her English name is Linda. That gave me a smile, and I replied that my sister's name is Linda. She wrote back and asked me to help her choose a name that would be good for her (or at least that's what I got via machine translation). I told her I thought Linda was a great name, and so I'm leaving it at that until I hear she has chosen another name!

Everything about the dumpling party was a highlight for me. As I write this, my last week in Xiamen is coming up, and I'm looking forward to a couple more stints of entertaining friends who have been so gracious to me. Tacos and tomato soup, here we come!