TheBanyanTree: Christmas in Pingguo - Part 4

[Pat M]

 Speaking of food...


I've been told that food is the most talked about subject in China and from
personal experience, I know why. When one has been deprived of tasty,
nutritious food one can't help but think about it all the time. My diet of
white rice and boiled cabbage and my desire for more flavourful and healthy
food frequently occupies my thoughts. On overseas calls with my family and
friends, I joke about it but in the quiet of my bedroom I find myself
wondering how I can possibly survive living here in the long term. Not only
is there a problem with the food but I've been sick nearly half the time
I've been here. It gets disheartening.

But the good meal I had on Christmas Eve in Nanning and the pork stew for
Christmas Day dinner cheered me, and I looked forward to eating stew
leftovers for lunch the following day. Instead of dreading mealtime, I
strode into the dining room with happy anticipation, but my gait slowed when
I glanced in the children's bowls. Cabbage! I looked into the huge stainless
steel bowls on the food counter. Cabbage. My good mood deflated, like air
from a balloon with a slow leak. I couldn't quite believe it; there was no
stew in sight!

"Where is the food from last night?" I asked, trying to keep the irritation
I felt out of my voice but failing.

Doris was using a large spatula to cut sticky rice into meal-sized chunks
and plopping them into stainless steel bowls for the children. She looked at
me blankly and shrugged.

"Pardon me," she said quietly.
Two weeks ago, she and her younger sister, Carol, arrived from Hunan
province where they worked in another of Agape's orphanages. Both girls are
large-boned, soft-spoken women in their early twenties who are painfully
shy.
My gaze scanned the kitchen counters and shelves looking for evidence of the
stew and finding none.

"Will we eat the leftover pork stew for supper?" I asked, hopefully.

Doris turned to Chen Bing and said something in Chinese.

"No, no Auntie." She pointed to the cabbage mixture.

"Do you mean he mixed the stew in with the cabbage?"

She nodded.

I frowned; I couldn't believe it.

Why hadn't Chen Bing put aside a little for me, especially since I'd paid
for the meat, given him instructions on how to cook it and complimented him
profusely on how delicious it was? Perhaps it was payback time for all the
hard work I'd created for him, but I doubt it. He simply didn't think and
obviously had no idea how much I hated cabbage and rice.

When I first arrived, I had unrealistic illusions of living the same as
everyone else at the orphanage but I'd given up my lofty ideals when I'd
noticed my haggard appearance in the mirror. My 'concentration camp' diet
was affecting my health. Now, I don't mind preferential treatment. In fact,
at times I expect it.

Disgruntled, I accepted a tiny bit of rice and some cabbage mixture. Only a
few minute pieces of tomato indicated there was any stew in it at all, but
the flavour was marginally improved and I tried to be grateful for that.

There were more good meals to be had during the week between Christmas and
New Year's.

A few days before Christmas, Peter had come to me as I worked in the
kitchen.

"My brothers and sisters from the church want to do something for the
children but I don't know what to tell them," he said. "What should I say?"

It took me only a moment.  "Maybe they could buy the ingredients for jiaozi
(small pork filled dumplings similar to ravioli) and I can pay some
villagers to make them."  (I knew it would take many hands and many hours to
make enough dumplings for seventy people.)

"We can do it ourselves," Peter asserted. "We could buy them ready made, but
then we don't know what is in them. Maybe it's not so good. And the
villagers, maybe they aren't clean."

I heard nothing more about it and, to be honest, had totally forgotten our
conversation until a busload of men, women and children arrived at the
orphanage on the Saturday after Christmas.

Alex came rushing to my room. "Auntie, we are making jiaozi (pronounced jow
dza). Do you want to help?"

A few minutes later, I joined the crowd in the dining room. The tables had
been pushed together to make a long working surface that stretched from one
side of the room to the other. Friendly-faced strangers and orphanage
workers were hard at work—some rolling the dough and shaping it into small
circles, some adding a dollop of ground pork and chives and forming the
dumplings, while others moved the filled trays to the kitchen.

I plugged in the CD player I'd brought, put on my recently-purchased Chinese
pop songs and joined the throng. I began to make dumplings. "Nan kan
(ugly)," I said with a chuckle. It was easy to see that my dumplings had
been made by a novice, but it didn't matter. They'd taste just the same as
the others.

I'm not a fan of pork and in Canada I don't buy it but those jiaozi tasted
very good and I ate two heaping bowls of them with soya sauce, brown vinegar
and chopped garlic dribbled over top of them.

Two days later, to keep up the momentum of delicious meals, I made kidney
beans (with pork, fresh tomatoes, onions and garlic) for supper, this time
enough for everyone. (I'd made a small test batch 2 weeks earlier.) It took
most of the day to make enough for all of the children and staff but I felt
a huge sense of accomplishment when I saw how much everyone enjoyed them.
Everyone that is, except Peter who did not even try them, instead choosing
to eat cooked cabbage on his rice.

Previously, when I spoke with him about the quality of the food served here,
he indicated he thought it was okay. When Ron and Pat were here recently, I
told them just how bad the food was and suggested they speak to Peter about
providing the children with a varied and balanced diet. I suspect his
rejection of my cooking when everyone else was devouring it as if they
couldn't get enough was a small act of rebellion.

That night, Peter from the language school sent a car for us so we could
attend his Christmas party. Our Peter, Amelia, Caitlin, Heung Ge (a little
boy), Luke and I were packed into a luxurious white car. By now, I was used
to the gut-jarring motorcycle cars and the orphanage van's hard seats and
rough ride. What a pleasure to sink into the car's rich, cushioned
upholstery. What joy to experience its smooth ride and feel the power of its
engine ready to leap forward with the slightest touch of a foot to the gas
pedal.

Fifteen minutes later, we were delivered to the language school where we
were greeted and warmly welcomed. The school was spotless, which impressed
me, as so much of China is decaying and dirty. The wooden desks and seats
were new, and they shone with a coat of shiny clear varnish—quite a contrast
to the orphanage where the desks and chairs are probably decades old and
looked it.
I was the first 'guest of honour' to arrive at the party. Fifteen minutes
later, a group of nine caucasians arrived. There was Nikki, a woman from
America, her three children and six university students who had come to
visit China for two weeks for some teaching experience.
We were seated in the front row. Bottles of water, bowls of oranges and
bananas and a plate of chocolates sat on the table in front of us. I was
hungry for conversation and after I introduced myself began to ask Nikki a
litany of questions.
Nikki's husband is a business consultant and they and their three children
are permanent residents of Pingguo. He wasn't able to attend the party as he
was leaving for Thailand early the next morning. They studied Chinese in
Nanning for one year before moving to Pingguo. Nikki homeschools her two
older children and her youngest attends Chinese kindergarten.

"Where can I get some good food in Pingguo?" I asked.

She shrugged and smiled wryly.

"Well, there really isn't any unless you make your own. But you can't even
find the ingredients you need to do that," she said.

"What about Wal-Mart?"

She shook her head.

"There is one place in Pingguo that serves something similar to waffles.
These students have been going there a lot. Sometime when you're in Pingguo,
we can meet and I'll take you there."

"Great!"

The entertainment part of the evening was a bit of a disaster. There were so
many attendees that Peter (the language school owner) couldn't control the
crowd. Language school students performed songs and dances; some gave
speeches in English but there was so much noise that no one could appreciate
their efforts.

Heung Ge had earned the right to attend the party by competing with the
other boys at the orphanage. He told a story and it was so good that none
dared compete against him. I hadn't known he was going to tell his story at
the party until he struggled through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd to get
to the front of the room. I gave him a thumbs-up but his words were drowned
out by the unruly spectators. What a pity!

When the party ended, we toured the school before the car took us back to
the orphanage.  On the way home, I said to Peter, "Please tell Heung Ge that
he did a good job and I am very proud of him."

Peter translated and Heung Ge smiled with pride.

On the way to the girls' dorm I stopped in to visit the little boys who live
directly beneath the girls.  Several of them shouted, "Hello auntie," and
ran into my open arms for a hug.

The following day I had a bowl of porridge in my room for breakfast and was
looking forward to beans for lunch.  To my dismay, at lunchtime cabbage and
rice again filled the children's bowls.

"Where are the beans?" I asked Doris.

She said something to Chen Bing and translated his answer.

"They are gone. We ate them for breakfast."

"And you didn't save any for me?" I asked incredulously.

At that moment, I made up my mind. In future, if there was delicious food,
especially food I'd made, I would take some to my room for the following
day. I finally got smart.
*****

Pingguo China 2008 photos can be viewed at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ms.Pat.Martin/Pingguo#