Chinese Birthday Cake – Lotus Candle
I’ve been meaning to put this up forever, but finally managed to allot myself some time last night in order to get it uploaded to youtube. It is not a fantastic video or anything, but I thought that the lotus candle was really cool. I wish we had candles like this here. (Perhaps we do, but I’ve never seen one.) They would make birthdays even more exciting.
First, the story. Then the video clip.
When I went to the cake store to buy Phil and Maya’s birthday cake, I ran into Mr. Zhou, the Foreign Affairs Director. He didn’t waste half a second to offer to purchase the cake for me when he found it why I was buying it. He pulled out several crumbled bills out of his pocket and handed it to the lady at the cash register. Talk about perfect timing. He saved me about 100 yuan. Actually, it was probably less than that, but I can’t remember exactly.
I thought that I would have to call to have the cake made in advance, like we do in here, but all I had to was point at a picture and wait 15 minutes. They already had the cake made, all they had to do was decorate it. I got to look through the window and watch as they made it, which was pretty cool. The woman who made the cake did it very quickly, like she had done a half a billion before this one. If I have to decorate a cake all fancy, it takes me hours, not minutes.
When she was all done, she handed me the cake in a box, a few plates, some folding forks, and a bag with a candle in it. And off to the party I went. It was probably one of the easiest most painless things I had ever done in China.
Of the 11 laowais living in Fuyang during my 5 months stint, we celebrated at least 9 birthdays. Toward late December, I didn’t want anymore cake. I think everyone was starting to get sick of cake. I still think it is amazing that we had a birthday to celebrate almost every two weeks.
I’ve got more stories to tell about the candle, but I will save that for a later post this week. Until then, enjoy my retarded little video. If you can see any of the room, it is our living room. Pretty big huh?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxThxm-oOs[/youtube]
The singing candle that wouldn’t die. You have to tell the rest of the story.
May 21, 2008 @ 11:50 PM
The Cake, looks so appetizingly
May 22, 2008 @ 7:15 AM
“Its a cake. It’s for indoors.”
Can you not eat cake outside?
May 24, 2008 @ 3:51 AM
Wow. That candle is quite bad ass. I want one.
May 24, 2008 @ 3:52 AM
@ Dad – I’ll get around to telling that story eventually.
@ Sascha – Yeah, it was a pretty good cake.
@ TOPolk – Haha. I was talking about the candles. Marie, the older lady in the video, was concerned that the candles were going to kill us all or something. I was trying to explain that it was a candle and not a firework. But yes, cakes are for the outdoors, too. 🙂
May 27, 2008 @ 12:39 PM