After class one day, one of my sweet students came to me and asked if I would come to her house for dinner one night for jiaozi (I always told the students how much I loved it!) . I was a little bit reluctant to accept the invitation at first because I wasn't sure how to communicate with her parents, but I agreed and we made plans to go the next evening for dinner. The next day during class she was so excited about us going and told me to meet her to walk to her house about 4pm. In my mind I was thinking that it was pretty early to be going for dinner, but I didn't question her. It ended up being so much fun because she also invited some of her classmates as well as another teacher.
I was in for a big surprise though. She told me that we needed to go to the market to pick up a few things for su
pper. So, we got into rickshaws and went to the market. I had assumed that we just needed to pick up a couple of items, but we ended up having to by everything to make jiaozi...FROM SCRATCH!! At this point I was still pretty excited about it because it was (like everything else) a brand new experience. All of the girls we were with started discussing and arguing over the different ingredients needed, but about an HOUR later we headed back to make dinner. I made one very big assumption though....I was under the impression that there were going to be parents eating with us. On the way home I was informed that my students parents were at work. It was at this point that I began to put the pieces together. We (as in four 12 year olds and two American teachers) were going to be making dinner by ourselves. I was in for an even bigger surprise when I found out that these girls had NEVER made jiaozi before on their own. One thought went through my mind, "this could be VERY interesting!"
pper. So, we got into rickshaws and went to the market. I had assumed that we just needed to pick up a couple of items, but we ended up having to by everything to make jiaozi...FROM SCRATCH!! At this point I was still pretty excited about it because it was (like everything else) a brand new experience. All of the girls we were with started discussing and arguing over the different ingredients needed, but about an HOUR later we headed back to make dinner. I made one very big assumption though....I was under the impression that there were going to be parents eating with us. On the way home I was informed that my students parents were at work. It was at this point that I began to put the pieces together. We (as in four 12 year olds and two American teachers) were going to be making dinner by ourselves. I was in for an even bigger surprise when I found out that these girls had NEVER made jiaozi before on their own. One thought went through my mind, "this could be VERY interesting!"We tried to help them prepare it, but they all insisted that Rachel and I just sit because they wanted to fix and serve us. We agreed and just enjoyed the conversation. I went to check on the girls to see how dinner was coming along and one of them (the crazy one) was chopping veggies with a butcher knife that was almost the same size as her. All I could do was hope that there would be no fingers chopped off in the process. After they prepared all of the ingredients, the students brought it to the table so that we could help put them together. I started laughing uncontrollably when my student said asked ME how to make the jiaozi....I was assuming (once again) that she KNEW what she was doing. And yet once again, my assumption was incorrect!
We made the jiaozi and then had a great time talking for the rest of the evening. These girls were so cute and so much fun to hang out with. One thing that I love about the Chinese students (all of them!!) is that they are so interested in getting to know all about us and what we enjoy doing.
Look what I made!! See guys...you just thought I couldn't cook!
Yi, Er, San...QIEZI! (1, 2, 3...EGGPLANT!)
That's what they say instead of 1, 2, 3...CHEESE!
The finished product! YUM!
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