Mid-Autumn Festival

We're not entirely sure how we got this little gig, but it was a fun one!

I got the We-Chat contact of a Chinese person who was associated with a themed hotel that featured Chinese history.  I planned on using it down the road for an educational field trip.  But the person was quite persistent that we come soon.  So I told him we'd come September 16th.  Then he asked if we could come for the Mid-Autumn festival the weekend earlier.  I suggested Friday the 9th (so we could be home for church).  But he insisted on the 10th for the actual festival.  We got permission to check out a half hour late so we could do our church meetings from the hotel. (although, they didn't know that's why we needed a later time!) 

We arrived at the hotel after lunch on the 10th and were greeted by several people.  After we were checked in, the girls and I had to pick out traditional clothing to wear (Tom got out of it...) and they took us up to our rooms.  The beds were only 1 meter wide, so we needed two rooms.  Minors are not allowed to stay alone in hotel rooms (do the people managing quarantine people know this???) so Tom and I each stayed in a room with one girl. We couldn't complain about that because, the rooms were only $45 each, which included quite a nice breakfast.  (However, we got a remarkable deal.  Their suites, were listed for more than $800 per night.)

After we were dressed and went back downstairs, we were joined by an entourage and a photographer giving us a tour of their hotel and all of the artifacts it had.  We also played a traditional Chinese game of throwing arrows into a small box and solving puzzles/riddles in Chinese characters.  Of course this was impossible for us, but they even stumped the entourage as well, so they just gave us our prizes and moved on.  Then we went upstairs to a room set up with tea and moon cakes.  We didn't drink the tea with them, but we sampled their moon cakes.  They are a all different sizes with different fillings--some meat, some gelatinous fruit flavors.  The meat ones were kind of a pastry texture surrounding a slightly sweetened nut and meat mixture. The meat was like a very dry pulled pork texture.  The fruit ones might be compared to a large gum drop inside a cake pop, with neither the cake nor gum drop being very sweet.  They were okay, but not something I'm clamoring to figure out how to replicate in my kitchen...  

After tea time, they took us up to a room where they had simulated golf and massage chairs.  They let Tom hit a couple of balls and then told everyone to sit down and relax.  Then they turned on a Chinese movie and left the room and shut the door.  If we hadn't been in China, we might have become highly suspicious of ulterior motives being shut in a room like that!  But they really were just trying to show us a good time.  During the movie, different people from the entourage came in bearing gifts and saying goodbye since they were leaving for the day and they wouldn't be back the next.  It definitely was royal treatment--- and by then we had figured out that we were being used for advertisement... 

After the movie we left the hotel for dinner. We walked the streets a bit and found a hot pot to eat at.  I'm extremely surprised that we've been here 4 months and this was the first time we had eaten a hot pot.  They are a typical Chinese meal where they have a boiling broth in the middle of the table and you add in different types of meats, vegetables and noodles watch them cook and then dish it out and eat it.  

While there, as usual, we got lots of attention.  This time, though, we had a video made of us to put on Chinese Tik Tok (they told us as such) and a picture with the girls that I'm sure ended up on someone's We-Chat Moments.  

It's not every day you get served your hot pot meat on a Barbie.....

A note about the baconed-Barbie...we didn't actually order this.  At restaurants you always order from the menu you pull up on your phone.  The pictures are small and of course it's in Chinese and 95% the time we don't know what we are even ordering.  We couldn't quite tell what that image was so we didn't choose it, but we opted for the plated beef strips--it was cheaper and looked a little less fatty. But when they brought out the neighboring table's baconed-Barbie I got a kick out of it and took a picture of it.  They must have decided to treat us and 'upgrade' our item.  Though we weren't fans of it, it did give us a good laugh.  We decided that it was good fodder for the game 'two truths and a lie' in the future.

After we ate, we went back to the hotel and got the moon cakes they left in our rooms and went across the street to the park to eat them and watch the moon.  The moon was gorgeous and the temperature very comfortable and the moon cakes edible, so it was a fun time.  However, we seemed to be the only ones celebrating the festival like they told us we should. Either we totally misunderstood, or were too early or too late to the party because we were the only ones in the park looking at the moon eating moon cakes.  But hey, it was a great time enjoying each other, the experience and the moon! 

The next day, the owner messaged me asking my permission to use our pictures on their website (I do have to give him credit for asking---that is so un-Chinese!).  Our opinion is that whenever we can have the light of Jesus Christ shine through us, we should. Personally we can do without the limelight, but Jesus Christ's Light is needed in this nation, so we are happy to share what is in us.