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You read that right. I did indeed munch on a poor defenseless little dog. Did it taste like chicken? No, not exactly. It was more of a mix between roast beef and turkey, but a little more tough. It wasn’t as nearly as bad as I thought it might be. When I took more than my one intended bite, Phil asked me what in the world I was doing. I ate the dog because I could not go back home and say I passed up on the opportunity. I mean, really, how often are you offered dog on a plate back home and know that is dog that is being offered to you? My point exactly. If I went home without trying that particular Chinese custom, I would have been very upset with myself. Also, after being a meter reader, part of my soul was craving it. If you are or know someone who is a meter reader, than you know what I mean. I’ve seen dog before, but I just couldn’t bare to eat it, let alone order it with a clear conscious, but last Thursday, Phil and I got invited by Lilly, one of his co-workers at school, to go to some festival out in the country. Phil had been wanting to go to the country side, and to me it just sounded fun.

We were picked up at 5:00 pm on the dot by 3 Chinese men that could not speak a lick of English. The car they were driving was black and all of the windows were tinted. We got in the car only because it was the exact time Lilly said she would pick us up, but she was not in the car. We silently prayed in the back seat that we hadn’t just been picked up by the Fuyang Mafia and were being driven to our doom. After several minutes, we stopped and picked up Lilly. Yes, that now meant that this small 4 door sedan like car now had 4 Chinese people and two Americans. We weren’t entirely sure how we were all going to fit in the car, so I jumped up on Phil’s lap. We were both in the back seat. Lilly told us we couldn’t do that and that we would ALL have to sit on the back seat together. Four butts don’t fit easily in a 4 door sedan like car unless you all happen to be between the ages of five and eleven. Some how I squeezed down between Lilly and Phil. Poor Phil’s leg was being crushed, and I am sure that my hips were killing Lilly. I asked how far away the festival was, and she said something like 50 minutes. Thank God it was more like 15 minutes or else Phil’s leg might have fallen asleep forever.

We got lost a few times, but the driver finally found his way. We were pretty much in the middle of no where, so if Lilly had brought us to be sacrificed or something, we were pretty much screwed. Lilly lead us to this one building that looked like a mix between a restaurant and an apartment. The two main front rooms both had a big round table in them. Big round tables are the norm for when a lot of Chinese people get together to eat and be merry. They usually have a glass top that turns so that you can have a taste of everything without leaning across the table, but these had no glass tops. The 5 of us and 5 others joined us in the far most left room. Almost as soon as we sat down, the beer, wine and hard liquor started to pour. Phil had eaten anything all day, but decided to partake anyway because they would have hassled him until he had anyway. Me, I don’t drink(at least not that often), so they focused all of their attention of Phil. He was pretty much gone in the first 20 minutes or so I’d say, even though it hadn’t hit him yet. That will happen to you though if you Gan Bei(bottoms up) about 4 shots of the hardest vodka in the entire universe, followed by another 4 or 5 Gan Bei’s of Cheerday beer.

Soon the food was brought out to us. For awhile there, it seemed to be never ending. It was just one plate of food after another. They ran out of room in some places and so they just started stacking. We didn’t know where to start or what anything was, so we just started to pick up pieces with our chopsticks. Every fourth bite or so someone would toast someone and we would have to put our chopsitcks and drink whatever was in our bowl/cup. I was lucky. I only had to drink sprite the entire evening. Phil on the other hand – well, you know what he had to deal with.

That was pretty much the entire evening. Not much English was thrown around the table due to the fact no one but Lilly could talk to us. We tried to speak what we could in Chinese, but we were mostly just smiles and thank yous for the next few hours. There came a point in the evening where the Chinese people started filling Phil’s bowl to the very tippy tippy top. At first we thought they were just trying to plaster Phil(and they did), but it turns out that they were filling his bowl for him and ME because I wasn’t drinking wine, beer, or any other hard alcohol. That was the main reason Phil got as drunk as he did. He was drinking for the both of us.

It was a fun evening, and I’m glad that we got invited. After about 30 different pictures with them, my cheeks hurt from smiling. Everyone wanted a picture with the Americans.

And that was our trip to the country side. I hope we get invited again. Hopefully, they won’t serve us dog again though. Once was enough for me. 🙂