Letters from China No 18

11th December 2008

Last night saw Barbara and I being taken out for dinner by some of her students. You must remember that we live in the countryside here, so fine dining is not on the cards. We duly met at up the college gates and walked the few hundred yards along our not-too-busy-now-that-the-quarry-has-shut-down highway. We reached the “Small City Story” restaurant – some kind of literal translation that went wrong – and were guided to our table. The restaurant could be called “al fresco” as it is actually a large lean-to that backs onto the road and has effectively no walls, well sort of if you count a large photographic hanging of the river and mountains at Guillin as a wall. You don’t take your hat, jacket, scarf or anything else for that matter off to dine here. In fact it’s a very good idea to eat the food as soon as it arrives before it freezes over from the chill northerly breeze that blows through the place. Very hot green tea is served, but before you get a chance to drink it you soon realize that it is being used to sterilize the bowl and cup you’ll soon be eating and drinking from. Dish-washing machines do not exist here, so a large metal bowl and several pots of hot tea are provided to wash the dishes before dinner, plus, you do the washing, but in our case two of our hosts did! The waitress-cum-owner’s wife takes the metal bowl and throws the contents out onto the highway behind us and then we get down to trying to decipher the menu amongst chuckles and giggles when the students try confuse us into eating donkey’s whatsit, but some kind person has scribbled translations on the menu and we are saved. Things you don’t want to mention, far less see on a menu, are quite common, such as pigs intestines with garlic and ginger, as if that would make much of a difference.

We compromise on spring greens (it’s still winter, but they are good) stir-fried with garlic, Japanese tofu and chilies, fried deep-fried chicken in a batter which tastes of star anise, some well chopped pieces of pork, bones and all, fried aubergines, mixed diced vegetables with cashew nuts and a bowl of rice big enough to serve forty normal people although there are only nine of us at the table. Our chopstick skills soon come under scrutiny and we surprise our hosts and ourselves by picking up individual grains of rice and cashew nuts with a nonchalance that defies description. Pots of hot tea come endlessly as does another huge bowl of rice and we trundle our way through what has turned out to be a quite delicious meal. The total bill comes to around $10, or just over $1 a head. We waddle back to our house, sumptuously full, knowing that Friday is our last actual day of classes and that next week holds the routine of testing 100 students individually.

Next Friday we will all be treated to a Christmas dinner, hosted by the local government, in the grandest hotel in the nearest town. They go out of their way to make us all feel very welcome, so it’s very nice of them to treat us all to dinner which will include some entertainment provided by some of our very talented teachers.

A big difference from Christmas afternoon tea in the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, accompanied by their mini orchestra and carol singers, that we plan on having on Christmas Eve……..