Confucious say...Happy Moon Festival

What a week this has been....la da da duh da da. Yesterday at 8:30am, I was one of 19 foriegn teachers ranging in age from 22-67 (and one son, aged 11) who boarded an air-conditioned bus. Destination: Qufu--the home of Confucious. Our guide, "Lucy" entertained us with jokes about stopping to use the "happy house" and informed us of Chinese family planning laws over a microphone on the 2 hour journey up. Our Chinese bus driver maneuvered the bus in such ways that demanded applause on several occasions. At one point, our lane ended with no warning. We had to reverse on a six lane motorway ---and we served as the warning for the oncoming traffic! Our driver then had to angle the bus through concrete blockades spaced about 12 ft apart dividing all three lanes on our side in order to get us into the middle lane. Not too slowly, but very surely we narrowly missed all concrete blockades as traffic inched up on the back of the bus. It was a very impressive move. In Qufu, we were quite the spectacle. I imagine the place attracts a lot of tourists, but this was the first time I had seen Kaleel and his Mom, Aneeka, who are African-American followed and asked many times to pose in photographs. They politley declined on all but one occasion when Kaleel had had quite enough and not-so-politely declined. I sure didn't blame him. He was stocked to a certain degree. I found it amusing that our group was more of an attraction to than the place itself according to some folks who watched us curiously. A couple of times, someone will come up very close and listen to your conversation. Maybe some folks are just that eager to learn English, I couldn't quite figure it out. I thought about switching into Spanish to through a curve-ball. Lucy told us snippits about Confucious' life. We visited his mansion, a beautiful forest, and his burial site. We had lunch in front of a stage at "the only 3 star hotel" in Qufu. On the stage, four beautiful Chinese women in costume danced and tip-toed around to loud music. Sadly, Josh had to work, but I brought him home this cultured and classy souvenir:




Today is the Moon festival, and we will celebrate later by sampling some mooncakes!
"The most famous legend surrounding the Moon festival concerns its possible role in Chinese history. Overrun by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, the Chinese threw off their oppressors in 1368 AD. It is said that mooncakes - which the Mongols did not eat - were the perfect vehicle for hiding and passing along plans for the rebellion. Families were instructed not to eat the mooncakes until the day of the moon festival, which is when the rebellion took place.
Today, Chinese people celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival with dances, feasting and moon gazing. Not to mention mooncakes. Roughly the size of a human palm, these mooncakes are quite filling, meant to be cut diagonally in quarters and passed around. A word of caution: the salty yolk in the middle, representing the full moon, is an acquired taste. More elaborate versions of mooncakes contain four egg yolks (representing the four phases of the moon). Besides lotus seed paste, other traditional fillings include red bean paste and black bean paste. Unfortunately for dieters, mooncakes are rather high in calories."
"...Mooncakes may be filled with everything from dates, nuts, and fruit to Chinese sausages. More exotic creations include green tea mooncakes, and ping pei or snowskin mooncakes, a Southeast Asian variation made with cooked glutinous rice flour. Haagen-Daz has even gotten into the act by introducing a line of ice cream mooncakes in Asian markets." That little tid bit of info came from http://chinesefood.about.com. So there you have it! We were given a box of mooncakes from the University. When Josh gets home from work, we will slice 'em up and have taste!

Josh rode to work this morning and I am anxious to hear how it went!! I'd say a third of the bikes rolling around here have two people on them. One person jogs along side for a few moments while the rider gets up a little speed, and then the jogger hops onto the back to ride side saddle with one hand on the riders stomach. Josh and I had many unsuccessful attempts at this. We wobbled and crashed like it was our job. It was a great laugh.