Awkward lunch and awesome dinner!

While I was working in my office on Thursday morning, one of my co-workers (a Chinese English teacher named Bill) got a phone call from Rebecca (Chinglish teacher also), inviting the three foreigners out to dinner with the minister of our school, along with our bosses and English teaching colleagues. The offer couldn't have come at a better time, actually. Free food and beverages are just what we needed, after week of being broke, and a pending three day weekend of being broke. So I walked into the lunchroom, happy to share the news with Rory and Cecilia. Rory wasn't there yet, but I started to tell Cecilia about the sweet invite.

Me: Hey, the school wants to take us out to dinner tonight-- (cutting me off)
Her: I'm not going anywhere, I'm not feeling well.
Me: Oh, well that sucks, but they want us to meet at 7:30 at the-- (cutting me off. again)
Her: I'm not feeling well, so I'm not going.
Me: Okay, I know, you're not feeling well, but I'm just telling you what they told me. We're meeting at the gate at 7:30 to go out with the minister and the other English teachers. (Rory walks in) Hey Rory, the school's taking us out to dinner tonight--sweet!
Her: Well, I'm not going. I'm not feeling well.

This is how every freaking conversation is, actually. So secretly we were rejoicing because she wasn't going to go. We wouldn't have anyone looking over our shoulder, speaking on our behalf, being rude to everyone. Sweet relief! Rebecca walked into the lunchroom to share the good news; she didn't realize that I'd been in the office when she spoke with Bill. So she reinvited us to dinner, and Cecilia told her she wasn't going to go because she wasn't feeling well. But this was the fourth time she had to tell us, so she was getting irate, speaking really quickly and unitelligibly. And Rebecca didn't really understand what Cecilia was saying, so she continued to invite the two people who were still actually interested (Rory and me), saying "I think you'd better be at the school gate at 7:30" (Rebecca never says "should", it's always "you'd better"). Cecilia was fed up, and she barked: "I'm not going to go! I'm not feeling well, and you can't force me to go if I'm not feeling well!" Like, how dare you invite me to come eat and drink for free with my colleagues! The nerve! Rory and I just sort of looked at our plates. It was really awkward and sort of comical, in an "are you kidding me?" sort of way. Cecilia then continued with this long diatribe about menopause and hot flashes and periods, again, speaking super-quickly and angrily (unintelligibly for us, so imagine the difficulty for Chinese folks). Then she gave up, and she told me that Rebecca didn't understand what she was talking about--I'd better explain it to her. Like I'm a menopause expert all of a sudden. So I said, "uh, maybe I'll try to explain later, as much as I know Rory loves all the gory details." So weird. So awkward. So often...

So Rory and I met the others at 7:30 to go to dinner. We were stoked! There were ten of us total: Rory and myself, Rebecca, Bill, Bill's fiance Wendy, both of our bosses, another English teacher, the van driver and the minister. The first restaurant we went to was full (we hadn't made reservations), so we had to drive to a different restaurant. We walked into this really fancy seafood place, and under normal circumstances, I would be really intimidated or grossed out at the thought of a strictly seafood meal, but I remembered how much we had liked the seafood at that first luncheon we attended. We were taken to our private room, and there was a round table set up, with one important seat designated by a specially-folded napkin. The most important person sat there, and the next two important people sat on either side. So the minister sat at the head of the table, and Rory and I sat on either side of him. It was nice.

The minister kept saying that his English was bad and that he wasn't smart, and Rory had the highlight line of the evening with: "well, you have to be smart to be the minister!" After it was translated, the minister turned to Rory, hugged him and told him that he loved him. It was really funny. The whole experience was great. It was just so much fun, and they were so nice to us. We drank beer and baiju (sp), and I think that they were all shocked that Rory and I could handle our Chinese liquor. They said that "the Americans are very good drinkers!"

While all of this was going on, more and more food was being brought out to the table (again, lazy susan-style). There were clams and mussels and chicken feet (and plain ol' chicken, too), some soup with octopus and the Japanese tofu, fish dumplings (which I know sound gross, but were actually really good), some buttery cabbage with beef and shrimp--the best dish of the evening, I thought. They could see that we liked it, so they brought out another plate of it--these almost sweet fried bread things with a bunch of ham/bacon, the list goes on and on. And the whole time they were all asking us if we had "anything like [it] in America...". So we explained that there was nothing quite like baiju and that people don't typically eat octopus and/or squid in the midwest, unless they're at a sushi place. We compared the art on the wall (absolutely beautiful) to things you might see in the U.S., and the exchanges that took place were really nice. They were genuinely interested in our background and interests.

At various points throughout the evening, each person was supposed to toast. Rory toasted for the both of us--and did a damn good job, too. They were pleased--and everyone took turns. When it was time for Bill to toast, he asked us if we knew why he chose the name Bill for his English name. We didn't know. So then he told us about how his idol is Bill Clinton, because he stands for democracy and freedom. It was a real highlight of the evening for me, because he was speaking with conviction and confidence, and you could tell that he really wanted to share this with us. Speaking of confidence, he was saying that he has confidence in his English skills, and that makes him a more confident person. It was really refreshing to hear that, because the biggest problem with Asians who are learning and using English (based on my experience, anyway) is a total lack of confidence. So to hear Bill declare that he did, indeed, have confidence, was really nice.

Rory's boss was really cool. My boss is cool, but she doesn't really speak much English. Rory's boss speaks better English than most of the people we've met thus far in China. He was asking Rory if he liked basketball, so Rory sort of threw that one my way, and we started talking about Patrick Ewing and other different (oldish school) basketball players that I grew up watching on tv. There was a discussion going on as to what kind of monkey he most resembled. I think that chimpanzee was the winner. Then it was decided that we had to have a basketball game: primary school (my school) versus junior/senior (Rory's school). Not the students--the teachers. That should be pretty funny, now that we have a reputation for being better basketball players than the Chinese folks (after only one night of playing).

A few more toasts--the kids love you and think you are great (Rory and me)--and we were ready to go, full of seafood and the knowledge that this one evening out with the coworkers meant so much to all of us. It was a really good time, even if we aren't all bilingual. It made me proud to be here, and it gave me confidence in my teaching abilities and the impact I have on these kids. These awesome little kids.