Chinese Dinner

Yesterday, we hosted Michael's Chinese student, Derong and his wife, Lulu for dinner. The children and Michael have been enjoying learning about China as Michael has prepared for a 10-day visit starting on the 14th of this month. (Derong will be serving as Michael's guide.) The children enjoyed sharing the things that they had learned with Derong and Lulu (which Chinese year they were born in, information about Pandas, etc) , and learning new things from them.

For dinner we ate Chinese takeout. We set the table with bowls and chopsticks (we also set forks next to the children's plates 'just in case'). Derong and Lulu helped us through our first Chinese-style meal. First, each bowl was filled with rice. Then one bite at a time was taken from the serving bowls and eaten with the rice. Derong and Lulu explained that setting food into another person's bowl was a sign of respect (to an older person) or a sign of love (to a younger person). It was very nice, the children enjoyed giving and receiving bites. I was surprised how well the children did with chopsticks, not a single child used their forks (Patrick did use his chopstick as a spear, and supplemented with his hands) Andrew loved the bites of sticky rice served to him with chopsticks. Edmund loved his fortune cookie (A desert that doesn't exist in China). We had a traditional American desert too, root bear floats.