New Friends

A few days ago, Philip was out buying food and met a few friend. Philip exchanged phone numbers with him and was barely in the door before he started receiving text messages. The guy was very eager to get together with us. He beat us to punch and invited himself to dinner before we had the chance.

Spending time in China during college, Philip and I both had the pleasure of hosting many Chinese college students in our homes. Coming to China now as adults and as a family has been very different in many respects. Tonight, we hosted our first friends over for dinner in our current stage of life. We were a little uncertain of cultural expectations of hosting and knew that communicating primarily in Chinese would be difficult. But we were excited to embrace the challenge and make new friends.

I made baked ziti pasta and garlic bread for dinner and strawberries and peanut butter cookies for dessert. I wasn't exactly sure how many people to prepare for though. Text messaging had been very difficult because Philip does not read Chinese characters and this man does not speak very much English, and at one point there was mention of him bringing friends. I think the conversation went something like this:

Man: Do you have Chinese friends?
Philip: Yes. I have friends, but I always like to make more.
Man: Okay, I will introduce you. maybe bring some

We have had experiences in this culture, with expecting a crowd and only a few people showing up. However, we have also prepared food for two people and had them bring 8 others with them. Being a good host in Chinese culture means that you provide more food than your guests could ever eat or want and then some. So, I planned to ere on the side of caution and make lots of food. My solution was a big thing of pasta. Easy to make. Left overs heat up well.

Our friend came bringing only his girlfriend. Also, true to Chinese culture they were sweet to bring us a nice gift. There was plenty of food. We said "cheers" as we banged our cups together with each sip of coke. The five of us had a very nice night. After dinner, we planned to play board games. But they were not interested in that. Instead, we spent the evening talking. We started with the usual introductions of what do you do for work  and where are you from. Then we moved on to typical chinese introductions such as do you rent or buy your apartment and how much does it cost. Haha. Then we moved deeper into talking about ourselves and our families. We exchanged lots of pictures and stories. Our language was definitely stretched to the limit, but we were really encouraged by the amount that we could say.

Our little entertainer was happy to fill any awkward moments of silence with a dance routine. She had a good time with our new friends and showing off her moves. We made plans to get together with them again very soon. And they also mentioned that they would really like to introduce us to some more of their friends from work.

No time for pictures. Bella working with all her might to reach our friend's ipad.