Making 饺子！

This morning Henry and I went to Katrina's grandparent's house to learn how to make jiaozi 饺子 (dumplings). It was one of the most amazing experiences I have had! Katrina's grandparents are so sweet. Her entire family is so hospitable. Her parents told me they would be my parents in Ma'anshan.



Katrina's grandma (nainai 奶奶）taught Henry and I how to make the 饺子 . The filling of the dumpling is a lot like making meatballs. There is a serious art to making 饺子 though. You have to
knead the "dough", let is sit for 10 minutes to receive all the positive energy in the house, then roll it out into a snake, cut the snake into smaller pieces, then roll out those little pieces a certain way. Eventually you have a little flat circle, you fill that with the meat filling (not too much, not too little) and then you pinch it. They key is to get the 饺子 to stand up. It took me forever to figure out how to pinch the 饺子  together the "correct way".

When we were done making the 饺子 , the rest of Katrina's family came over for a big lunch. Katrina's mom made all the other dishes you see in the picture below. She is an awesome cook! Her relatives are SO nice. Katrina calls her cousins her brothers and sisters. One of her "sisters" is 20 and they all said I look just like her....

I got to practice my Chinese with her family. Their accents are pretty strong so it's sort of difficult to understand them. Thankfully Katrina repeats what they say slowly!

During lunch, her uncle said, "I never thought I would have lunch with two American's". It's a pretty cool/surreal feeling to be the first American someone has ever met.

Lunch was an incredible experience that I will never forget. I told them next time I'll make the 饺子  and they can come over to my apartment for lunch. Hopefully I've mastered making 饺子 by scratch by then!

It rained all day today so this afternoon was a pretty lazy afternoon. I watched a ton of Modern Family, uploaded pictures and helped Henry buy a guitar. It's sort of fun being a translator.

I start teaching this Tuesday. My classes are an hour and 35 minutes long. I'm hoping introductions and the game "two truths and a lie" will take up the majority of the time so I can gauge their English level and then base my following lessons off of that!


I forgot to mention yesterday that I spent 3 hours, THREE HOURS, trying to find a ticket to Hong Kong for the National Holiday. I have off from September 28- October 7th. Finally I found a reasonably priced ticket into Shenzhen (city right outside of HK, still part of mainland China). So I'll fly there and then take the bus to HK! My parents are going to Phuket for 4 days while I'm there. Not sure why I'm not invited... Just kidding. But really???