We were invited to a dinner on Sunday by someone at Tom's work. We already had plans for a family to come to dinner, so we had to reschedule that. We weren't quite sure what the dinner was, but one hour before it (during Church) Jacky started messaging Tom telling him that it was a baby shower and that we needed to take ¥2000 in a red envelope ($280). Thankfully we had a red envelope and the cash on hand.
We were greeted by the grandfather (who had invited us) and we were ushered into a big room with 60 tables with 10 people at each table. We were ushered to Our seats were front and center. 😕
Here are some of the decorations: the baby's head on the kid's body cracked me up.
It was a traditional Chinese meal with 20-25 dishes. The cold dishes were on the table and as the meal progressed more dishes were added. Here is a sampling of a few of the dishes.
We sat by Alex, President Hu's grandson, who went to college in Australia so his English is quite good. He told us that the food for each table would be about ¥6000. That adds up to $50,400 for just the food (yes, US dollars). A note about the food. Chinese people really care about whether you've eaten or not. In Chinese there is not a phrase like 'have a good day', instead you ask if they have eaten. This part of their culture is reflected in these meals, they ALWAYS have an extraordinary amount of food left over at the end of the meal. In their eyes, it would be disgraceful to not. I would venture to say that maybe only 30% of the food served is consumed. They intentionally order more food so that everyone can eat to full and you don't feel bad about taking as much as you want because there is clearly plenty. I'm here to debunk any phrases about "starving kids in China".... (although, there probably are many just like there are many in the US that you don't always see, which is sad because there is so much waste at these parties.)
In addition to the food costs, there was entertainment, decorations and gift baskets for everyone. We don't know, but we think that perhaps this costly tradition stems from them having so few children so when one is born a very big celebration is given.
In the gift baskets, there were half a dozen eggs (so we came home with 2 dozen eggs), a mug, some noodles and some other snacks/treats.
For entertainment, they had some balloon activities for the kids, a magician, and a couple of games where the kids could win stuffed animals and shake-a-phone-game.
While we were there, President Hu came over to Tom and asked if we wanted to come back for dinner at 6:00pm. Being puzzled about why we were even invited to this big event in the first place, but not knowing the culture of courtesy for such things, we accepted the evening invitation. (We've also learned that if President Hu invites you, you must go.)
We went home and had a nap and Come, Follow Me and went back at 6:00. This time it was in a much smaller room--only 4 tables. It seemed to be a close family setting--everyone was related--so we were REALLY puzzled as to why we were invited. Another very puzzling thing about the evening dinner was that the food was *exactly* the same as the midday meal. Exactly. Tessa pointed out that there was a slight difference: the fruit was cut differently. (At lunch they had triangles of watermelon with the rind. At dinner they had triangles of watermelon without the rind and the rind was cut and sculpted on the plate.) I also wondered if some of food had been recycled, but it didn't look like it was. Another puzzling item? President Hu did not come. We really have no idea how it all works....
From the evening event we came home with a cute box of cupcakes. I wish they tasted good to us. But alas, they don't so they went to the garbage. (We tried to give them to some people, but they refused.) I wish I could send them to the starving kids in Africa.
Even after being here a year, we are still surprised by many cultural things. My Chinese teacher explained that so much of it is to show your wealth and said that our evening invitation was probably to show off the close relationship the grandfather had with some Americans (although, one could never justify a close relationship between Tom and his coworker. They sit at the same table at lunch--that is about it.) We've had several people who have told us that it is a bragging right to have American friends. That definitely seems to be the case. Too bad we can't invite all of them to our house for dinner. But I'd sure like to!
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