I got back from visiting former student, Julie, in Xuzhou. I am glad that I don't live there because I could often end up in the wrong city. I can't seem to get pronunciation correct. Whenever I say the name people think I am saying Suzhou (Soo-joe) because I say shoo-joe for Xuzhou but the proper way is more like shew-joe with a different 'U' sound then we have in English. When I bought my train ticket the clerk sold me one for Suzhou so I had to write the name so she could understand what I wanted.
I only stayed one night. That was enough. Julie is a smart girl but very serious. Her friend Emma is a friendly and pleasant girl. Julie's parents were very nice. Whenever I have dinner with Chinese families I am always treated very well. They want me to be pleased with their hospitality and they worry that I may not like their food. Always very hospitable.
I arrived on Tuesday about noon and I checked into the hotel and then we went for lunch. Julie ordered a lot of food for only three of us. THere was a lot left over to take home for supper. And we had dog, gourou (go-roe). I didn't know it was dog until the next day. She told me it was duck. Well, that's what I heard but she said later that she had said dog, but with the accent and restaurant noise I heard duck. It was served with a spicy green vegetable and we rolled it a pita bread and ate it as a wrap. I found it a bit tough and dry. I can't really tell you what it tasted like because, first of all I thought it was duck so it tasted something like duck to me, and, second there were a lot of spices in the vegetables so it was difficult to tell the flavour of the meat. It was very dark, but so is duck. I only had one because there was another wrap with ground pork and another vegetable that I liked better and I had a couple of them. In Chinese rou (roe) is meat. Like jirou is chicken, yuroe is fish and niurou is beef, etc. But sometimes a special dish can use that too; like bazirou (pork cooked in a special way with a tasty sauce) so I assumed that gourou was some special dish rather than a type of meat. But gourou means dog meat. That night a bought a box of gourou to give to her family as a thank you. When I gave it to her the next day, that was when I found out that it was dog. All along I had thought that it was just some kind of specialty dish.
We saw several historical sites that were interesting. The best was the Han Tomb built around the 1st and 2nd century. They carved the tombs inside a small mountain. It covered a lot of area. It was quite interesting. We also visited a Buddhist temple, Yulong Lake (but it was too foggy) and a memorial to the PLA victory over KMT in the Huaihai campaign.
On Tuesday evening I had dinner with her family and an aunt and niece. There is a picture of part of the spread. One of the fish that we had is poisonous if not prepared properly. As usual the food was very good. Most times there are one or two that I don't care for but there are lots of other dishes to choose from. There is no excuse for getting up from the table without being full.
It was a pleasant trip but not outstanding.
Don
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