Dinner with the neighbors

Last Friday evening I was walking up the stairs to our apartment after work when I ran into our downstairs neighbors. We'd met them briefly when we were at the market with our Chinese friend Dan Yan - they came up to explain to her that they lived downstairs from us. Since then we'd said hello to them a couple times in the stairwell. In any case I met them outside their door and they pointed upstairs and motioned "long hair" with their hands to ask where Mary was. I acted out "riding a bicycle" to indicate that she was out and about. They then said "Chi, " which means eat, and motioned that I should come into their apartment. I set down my backpack, replaced my shoes with the slippers they offered, and joined them by the TV.

Their family includes the man and woman in their sixties, their son and his wife in their thirties, and their daughter who's four. They have a small apartment the same size as ours, with two bedrooms, a living room/dining room space, and a kitchen and bathroom.

I sat down in a chair, and the woman offered me cantaloupe and clementines (only with green peels), and tea. They drink green tea with large loose tea leaves in a glass, and the fruit is EXCELLENT. I showed my best Chinese manners by eating constantly and drinking the tea while saying XieXie (thank you) and Hen Hao (very good) at appropriate intervals. And smiling ... I got a lot of mileage out of smiling. They asked something Mei Guo Ren, which means American, and I nodded yes and said Mei Guo Ren. I think our other main verbal communication was about ages. The older woman said that her daughter was 4 and asked Ni Ne (and you?) a phrase I recognized from my Chinese studying. So I replied Er Shi Er, meaning 22, and they were quite appreciative of my language abilities.

So we watched TV together and I ate fruit, while the woman prepared dinner and offered me more fruit. XieXie ... Hen Hao ... smile ... They pointed upstairs and gestured "long hair" a couple more times so I tried calling Mary and left a note for her upstairs, telling her to come join us when she got back.

We sat down to dinner ... an impressive spread of ten or more different dishes including very fresh crab and shrimp, omlette, vegetables and tofu, and egg drop soup, dried shredded fish, something thin and white dipped in soy sauce, etc. Luckily I've been to a few banquets already so I was accustomed to the range of different types of dishes and the eating etiquette (you're free to spit out bones and shimp and crab shell bits onto the table top). Again I just ate one thing after another, smiled, and said Hen Hao. The son noticed that I wasn't drinking down my wine glass and pointed at the alcoholic content on the wine bottle to try to induce me to drink more. They also took pity on me as I tried to break off a piece of the omlette with my chopsticks, and got a knife for me to use.

Around then Mary knocked on the door and joined us at the table. She was able to communicate more substantially with them, and the meal finished off nicely. One by one they left the table and after we'd continued eating for a while with the son, we all moved back to the TV area and ate some more fruit. Mary asked them about tai chi and they told us to come by their apartment at 6:30 the next morning, and they'd take us to do tai chi with people they know. They gave us some shells as a gift, and eventually we went back up to our apartment.

It was great of them to invite us in for dinner, and they're a very nice family. I've since seen the grandfather taking his granddaughter to preschool on his bicycle, and "talked" to the grandmother around our apartment complex. We're hoping to have them up for dinner sometime, as I told them in very broken Chinese that night. We'll have to work to come up with as impressive a spread of dishes, though. It will take some thought to host Chinese people in a Chinese way - including ash trays, alcohol, many dishes, and lots of fruit!