Again, apologies for the extremely long wait. I can't even give a proper excuse for why it has taken so long, but everything has been really busy.

I'll start with my trip to Suzhou with my host family two weekends ago (wow I really am behind aren't I). Suzhou is about 2 hours outside of Shanghai. It is also my host father's father's hometown, and they still have a lot of family there.

We woke up ridiculously early in the morning, and drove out to the huge lake in Suzhou. There we met up with my Host father's younger sister, her daughters, her husband, and unidentified other woman. The two daughters were 8 and 2, and the 2 year old was completely adorable.

We drove up the mountain behind the lake. The streets up were lined with locals selling different fruits, but especially tangerines and persimmons. About halfway up we stopped at one of the fruit vendors and bought a basket of persimmons. We then stood along the edge of the road and ate the persimmons. The Chinese have amazing persimmon eating technique. the peeled the top part of the skin and then sucked out the inside. They were left with only and empty skin, which they tossed over the side of the road after the seeds which they spit out. My persimmon peeling/sucking/de-seeding skills are clearly not up to scratch. However, they have some of the sweetest and best fruit that I have ever tasted and stopping on the road for a fruit break was a blast.

We reached the edge of the lake and there was a restaurant that was partially on the docks and partially on a boat where we had lunch. The food was great and they brought us these little deep fried fish that were actually from the lake. I had another round of food failure with some snails. The Chinese can magically put there mouths against the snail and suck out just the right amount. I can't get a thing to happen. They finally took pity on me and found me a toothpick, for which I was profoundly greatful. Another really entertaining part of that meal was our drinks. there were no glasses to speak of so we all ended up drinking coke from our rice bowls which they did not find in the least odd but I had to work hard not to laugh every time I took a sip.

After that we went for a boat ride on the lake. We had been seeing speed boats go by all afternoon, so I assumed that we would be taking one of those. However, my host father's brother in law went into deep negotiations with the man in charge of boats and then we waited for half an hour. At that point this really sketchy looking boat pulled up. It did have an engine, but there were also long poles for it to be pushed around with. It also looked like at some point it might have been made from oil drums. We got in and it didn't sink or anything which made me happy.

It turns out that we requested that boat for a very good reason: large parts of the lake are restricted to speedboats because of the aquatic life. We were able to go into those areas. My host family seemed to know that certain plants were special and started to pull them out. Under the water lily type leaves of certain plants there were special little green prickly looking things that were apparently edible. They picked out the plants each of which had one of these items. They peeled the green part off and gave me one. Inside was this amazingly sweet little white nut thing which was really good.

It turns out that My host father's family owns a restaurant and hotel in Suzhou so we went there after our tour of the lake. That night we had dinner at the restaurant. That was one of the most challenging thing I have done in China, including negotiating with the authorities about my passport.

Suzhou is famous for crabs. The Chinese are trained from childhood to eat them. I was not. So after maybe 10 courses this massive platter of crabs arrives at the table. They are relatively small crabs, a bit larger than a softball or something like that. One was a bit bigger than both my hands holding it. Each crab is also wrapped up in string. My host dad proceeds to lift two crabs off the platter and place one on my plate and one in my rice bowl. My protests that one crab would be fine were useless as usual.

I then sat starring at my plate, my chopsticks, and my tied up crab waiting for something to happen. I don't really know what, I was kind of hoping that a crab cracker, a hammer, or even a pair of scissors would fall from the sky and save me. Needless to say, no such luck.

My host dad looked over at me and ordered "chi" "eat." I looked at the crab and was pretty much dumbfounded. I mean, really, would you know what to do with a crab and a pair of chopsticks?

I finally looked at my host mother, and to my credit, I asked for help in Chinese. She showed me what to do, but I still had to do it myself. It took me an incredibly long time to eat the crab. I had to deconstruct the thing with hands and chopsticks and then get the meat out. Again the Chinese can just put a crab leg to their lips and suck and all the meat comes out. Me on the other hand, I have to cram my chopstick through the leg and push it out. I finally finished to first crab and I was so relieved. My hands hurt, and had been stabbed repeatedly by the crab spines. But I had successfully consumed a crab. It was messy, I did it badly, but I had done it.

AND THEN MY HOST DAD DROPPED THE SECOND ONE ON MY PLATE. I seriously considered throwing it at him. My host sister Angel completely abandoned me and went to play with the two year old, and I had to eat another crab. On the bright side, by the time I was done with the second crab I knew what was up with eating crab, and I am absolutely positive that I burned more calories eating the crab than could possibly be gained from its consumption.

After I finished my second crab, my host father leaned over and said "today we learn crab, tomorrow we practice" Again I had to restrain the urge to pick up my plate and smack him with it.

We stayed the night at the hotel, and then went and had breakfast in the relatives apartment, which was the top floor of the hotel, and really really cool.

As promised at lunch the next day the crabs arrived. However, this time I was ready. I can safely say that I am now a master of crab. I can clean and eat a whole crab with a pair of chopsticks and my hands. That has to come in handy at some point right? Also, if anyone is taking marine biology and has any questions about crab anatomy I now consider myself an expert.

Afterward we went to a beautiful Chinese rose garden by the lake for a walk.

I met a lot of my host fathers relatives, but I am not completely sure of their exact relationship. There are some interesting results from the mixture of traditional Chinese values of family and the one child policy. The Chinese really large family, which the one child policy has removed somewhat, so they call everyone closer than a second cousin sister or brother. However, they also really value familial responsibility especially of children to take care of parents and each other. That is largely based upon the age of the children for example oldest brother has most responsibility to take care of parents and younger children etc. So while I don't really have any idea who are actually sisters and who are brothers, I do know everyones age in relation to everyone else's. There are two words for brother and two for sister; one meaning younger and one meaning older. They meticulously adhere to the correct age reference. It makes for interesting introductions.

One thing that is really wonderful about the Chinese families is that they are incredibly willing to accept another member (me) which I think is another side effect of the one child policy. Whenever I am introduced to relatives of my host family they immediately tell their younger children to refer to me as some variation of jie jie (older sister). To my host mom's two sister's sons I am "wai guo jie jie" which translated directly makes me outside country sister meaning foreign sister. To my host dad's side of the family I am "mei guo jie jie" or america sister.

The differences in the generations of the families are incredibly interesting. My parents generation was born during the beginning of the communist era. The political theory on the population was at the time "one more head two more hands" and all Chinese were instructed to have as many children as possible so that China could grow strong. At this point I have met two of my host mom's sisters, I think there might be one more, and on my host father's side I have met one brother and two sisters. However each of them has only one child. It makes for an odd dynamic, because they are used to being members of large families which are now being cut back.


Just some observations...