POP!! Our little comfortable bubble has burst. Yesterday we were, for the first time since coming to China more than a month ago, immersed in non-modern Chinese culture. We live in an area that is 15 years old, so everything is clean, modern, non-smelley, pretty and really really nice. Yesterday Sean invited us to be part of his family's celebrations for the anniversary of New China - basically the rise of communism here in China. While we didn't particularly agree with the occasion for the celebration, we felt honoured and priviledged that his whole family wanted us to take part in this special day. Sean's uncle sent a car and driver to come and pick us up at 8:30 am and we then drove for about an hour to the other side of Suzhou. That part of town is more like what we expected China to be like before we came here. It was a bit run down, the buildings aren't as tall as here in SIPNC, and it was just more Chinese than where we live. There was a different kind of community feeling there, the children were playing in the street, the women were washing clothes with water from the well or the river, the men were playing mahjong or fishing while dogs, cats and roosters were roaming around freely.
In this area of town it was obvious that most of the people we encountered had never seen a white person in the flesh before - most stared blankly with slackened jaws, some lost all inhibition and shouted "Hello!", while others, obviously feeling very brave, asked if they could have a picture taken with us. Sean's grandparents live in the middle of that, but in a lovely house. Many Chinese families have their living quarters above the street, and their kitchen and work area is next to the street, it was the same here. We were invited into an open space with a TV, circular dining table and not much else. We were given a glass of green tea, and all kinds of fruit and snacks before lunch. At 10 am the grand military ceremony started in Beijing and the whole family gathered around the TV, and you could sense that there was a strong feeling of pride coming from our hosts. (You can probably see some of the parade online - it was very impressive, if a little out of date). We were watching the parade as well, albeit with slightly different feelings. Under our breaths we were scoring the soldiers' stretch marches out of ten, and joking about how out of date it seemed and that it reminded us of the Cold War and displays from N. Korea. After the main parade we were invited to sit down for lunch.
It was a regular feast, and there were a lot of things that we have read about but never tried before. The food included cold chicken feet (which looked like hands, but Joe seemed to like them), pig stomach, pig ears, pig tongue, chicken liver, a special kind of fish from Taihu (Lake Tai), eels, and then some fairly run-of-the-mill stuff, like prawns, beef, duck, chicken, and veg and rice. Joe felt more adventurous than Anette, but we both ate enough to fill us up. Joe was offered some homemade Chinese wine, and he politely accepted, and immediately regretted it. It tasted more like vinegar than wine, and he'd been poured a whole cup of the stuff. It smelled and tasted rank - the word "strong" doesn't cut it, this stuff was lethal - but there was no chance of getting out of drinking it. Sean's 'Little Grandfather' (what we would call a Great Uncle) was a cheerful man, who would not stop saluting Joe in drinking, and Joe felt obliged to drink every time! Joe soon found out that mixing the wine with Anette's Sprite made the drink not only slightly less lethal, but actually quite pleasant to drink - sort of like a white vinegar spritzer! After lunch Sean and his mother took us out for a walk up a small mountain and into a bamboo grove.
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It was really nice up there, as the air seemed cleaner and it was nice and quiet. After the walk we went sightseeing in the area, and the tour included the town where Sean's mother was born and a couple of temples. The last temple we saw was very nice. It is still the residence of several buddhist monks, and they were in the middle of one of their prayer sessions when we were there, so it all seemed very proper and lovely, at least until Anette saw that one of the monks had skived from praying and was watching TV in his room instead. Nevertheless, the area was very atmospheric because of the scenery, incense-smells, chanting monks and chiming of bells. The temple has been there for close to 2000 years, so it was pretty cool.
After our little sightseeing tour we returned to the grandparents, where dinner was getting ready. It was basically the same food again, with only a couple of new dishes added, and afterwards we got ready to return to our little bubble in SIPNC.
It was a wonderful day, and it showed us a face of China that is what we would call more "authentic" than where we live, which is so modern! It showed us that although China is moving and changing so rapidly people are still proud of their traditions - such as their food and their way of doing certain things, like washing clothes, fishing, playing together etc. and family is very important to the Chinese. We likened what we saw yesterday with English Christmas - a time when family comes together to celebrate, eat together, unite, have fun and share good times with each other. We could easily have come to China and lived in the 'Real China', but the fact that we live where we do, we believe, has really helped us settle in so well and avoid major culture shock, which we think would have been unavoidable had we lived somewhere else!
Today we took Sean out to Guan Qian Jie, where we treated him to one of the national foods of the United Kingdom - Chicken Tikka Masala - partly because we thought the cultural favour and enlightenment should go both ways and partly because we felt we needed a good curry! Tomorrow we will be returning to Sean's parents' house to celebrate Harvest Festival, and we have been promised that we will be eating, among other things, the local specialties of Giant Crab and 'Squirrel Fish'..! On Sunday we are going to meet Jez and Lynn in Shanghai and then go back with them to Ningbo, and stay there until Friday the 9th.
See you after the hols - and this time we mean it! :)
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