called out

So we got to go to another wedding reception yesterday. I was told that when folks get married, they have to have a ceremony in the bride's parents hometown, the groom's parents hometown, and then finally in the townwhere they are living. It makes for a lot of parties, but I think they make some pretty good cash on the deal as meals are pretty cheap here in China and every guest brings a cash gift. Which you have to appreciate the directness of the Chinese. Don't screw around with registering for gifts and all that. Just keep it simple. We all want cash. You all have cash. Just drop your dough off in the slot and call it good. And while we're at it, lets skip the bouquet toss, cake cutting, and any other ridiculous ceremony. Lets just eat together.

So at this reception, they actually had sweet and sour pork as one of the entrees. The lazy susan couldn't quite go the full 360 degrees before that stuff was gone. Turns out the chinese food we always get in the US is not the chinese food they eat in NE China. So when this little goody showed up, my four kids went to work. Lucky for us there were a couple Chinese folks at the table who could ask the waitress to bring another round so the non-stouts at the table could give it a try.

Another strange thing happened at this reception. Our table was chatting away when we realized that we were the only ones in the room. 2 minutes before there were 150 folks eating away. Now, just a solitary table of 10 white folks. It was like a bad B-movie (the disappearing Chinese zombie movie). I asked a guy later what had happened. He said 'Chinese folks go to wedding receptions to eat. When the eating is done, no one knows what to do so we get uncomfortable and leave.' Apparently 90 minutes is how long it takes for every Chinese man, woman and child to eat at a wedding reception. At 7:29 the place is full. At 7:30, empty.

In the end, we decide maybe we should go as well (since it was already super late at 7:45). As we are getting ready to leave, Nathan asks why we always leave so much food on the table when we go out to eat and we have to finish our plates when we eat at home. I told him that in Chinese culture it would be considered bad manners to only bring enough food to the table that folks wanted to eat and that leaving food on the table was a way of saying 'you served us so much food we couldn't even finish it all'. He didn't say anything, turned to the chinese woman next to me and said 'so what's the real reason why everyone leaves so much food on the table at restaurants'. He was genuinely surprised when she said, 'it's like your dad said'.

From here, Nathan had to ask the next logical question. 'If there is all this food left over on every table, what keeps us from picking out the sweet and sour pork from every table and taking it home with us?' Dee explained to him that this wouldn't be a good idea because it would make us look 'desperate'. This required Dee to explain what being desperate is, which is a surprisingly difficult word to explain to a 10 year old. In the end he came up with 'so we aren't taking the pork home because we don't want people to think bad things about us'. Dee said 'yeah that's pretty much it'. He ended the conversation with 'huh, that's not very normal for us.'

Out of the mouths of babes. . .