Chicken feet, a blind date, and porridge

I am making strides in becoming a little more zhongguohua, or chineseafied. Let’s take this past week as an example. In one week (and in this order) I accomplished the following: ate chicken feet without flinching, went on a blind date in a language I barely understood, and ate porridge with chopsticks… WITH CHOPSTICKS. I think the latter makes me the most proud. To tell you the truth though, it took me a good half an hour to finish my small bowl of porridge, called zhou in Chinese (pronounced like the name Joe).

Although these are a little more edible-looking than the chicken feet I ate, you get the idea

I still dread eating chicken feet not only because they look like bird talons minus the talons, but after spending countless minutes sucking the meat off the bones, I am rewarded with very little meat. Solely because this is a delicacy I will partake, but it is too much of an ordeal to actually enjoy eating them.

You see how there is a SPOON and no chopsticks?
 This is how zhou is usually eaten.

Last weekend, I told my host mom that I was having trouble finding a boyfriend good face wash due to everything being in Chinese. She then called her friend to come take me to the store and help me find one. Little did I know, she had previously told him that I was looking for a Chinese boyfriend. So, what I thought was going to be a short trip to the CVS-like store turned out to be a whole day excursion/date, ending in dinner. Like most good dates/boyfriends here in China he held my things for me, opened doors and treated me like a precious, porcelain doll. We spoke mostly Chinese with some English thrown in now and again. I did not realize until the end that it was sort of a date. The clue was when he asked if I was looking for a boyfriend, because that is what he was told. I was so surprised I had to cough to stop myself from laughing. I told him that this was news to me. He was very nice about it and now I have a new friend. He taught me  many new things like the fact that men stand on the left side of the girl in order to protect her from on coming cars, foot traffic, etc. I also learned about how fatigue affects language acquisition, because by the end of the night, my brain was so fried he may as well have been speaking martian to me. 

My last accomplishment as an adoptive Beijinger was eating zhou with chopsticks. I sat down at the table last Sunday morning,  my host sister practicing her English on my right and my nainai sitting on my left telling me to chi, chi, chi (eat, eat, eat). In front of me lay a gigantic bowl of zhou... and chopsticks. At first I thought it was a joke----eating liquid with chopsticks? But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. My growling stomach would not have it any other way. Although it took me a good half an hour, I somehow succeeded in scarfing down every last bite of that porridge. See, everyday in China is an adventure, even breakfast.