oh good, they have pictures

Most of our meals have been as a group. All 14 of us sit and watch in awe as our professor and instrctor order for us in Chinese. The plates of food come one at a time and quickly fill the lazy susan in he middle of the table. Ying and Edwin have tried to expose us to the Chinese culture as much as possible and have encouraged us to try new things and local dishes. In China, if you eat a nice restuarant, it is taboo to eat all the food on your table and even more taboo to ask for a doggy bag (to go). If you are wealthy, you show it by ordering too much food and leaving whatever you don't eat (ususally quite a bit) on the table. This sounds silly, but it's kind of tricky. We went out to eat with some Chinese artists and they treated us to dinner. Even though we were supposed to leave food on the table, they kept encouraging us to eat and asking us if we liked the food. I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to do in those situations. I don't understand these customs.

When we manage to venture out on our own, our only hope is that the menu will have pictures. Otherwise, the only thing I know how to say is beef noodle soup and dumplings. Don't get me wrong, beef noodle soup and dumplings are delicious, but it would be nice to try some other things. So a group of us found ourselves near Tiananmen Square and hungry. We found a restaurant and sat down. Oh good, they have pictures. We looked through the menu and ordered one plate with meat, one plat of vegetables, and some dumplings. We tried to pick meat that looked like chiken or beef. When the dish came, it looked like neither. It didn't even look like the picture of the dish we had ordered. The pieces of meat looked like fingers. We were unable to identify what animal they had come from. We were also unable to identify what part of the animal they might be. We decided, after looking at the menu a second time, that they had brought us the wrong dish. Sylvan had clearly pointed to the dish on the bottom right hand corner of the page, and they had brought us the dish from the top left. Our waiter didn't speak English but I managed to ask him which dish he had brought us. He pointed to the one at the top left. I somehow convinced him that it was the wrong dish and he took it away and brough us the right one. It was fried in a batter and looked more appetizing, but unfortunately we were still unable to identify it. We at it anyway and enjoyed a meal we'd ordered on our own. Most of the meal was spent guessing what we were eating. Christian thought it was some kind of organ. I joked that it was duck butt. I just figured that since we'd sent a dish back, the kitchen staff was pissed and served us duck rectum or something. We were curious to see what we'd eaten so we took a picture of the menu and decided to ask our professor later that evening.

The good news is that both of the mystery meat dishes were duck... so at least we weren't eating dog. The bad news is that the one we sent back was duck tongue and the one we ate was duck heart. Another great adventure.