Being wined and dined. It’s good!

And the following birthdays:
Nov. 30 – Ryan J. Thanks for the chats, I love hearing about what’s happening at home
Dec 2 – In memoriam for Jerry Lempe

I don’t know why birthdays are important for me to announce, but they make me feel a bit more connected to the people at home. Onward…

This past weekend definitely made me feel like I was someone important. Starting Thursday, Hagel and I took the Grimms to the Marriott for martinis. Thursday martinis are a tradition that I’ve been doing for a while and it was nice to finally get to go in Shanghai. I love the view from the bar, as it is on the 40^th floor and you get an amazing view of People’s Square or人民广场. The night was very fun and after the Marriott we went to a one year anniversary party for a bar named Judy’s Too. Funny if you went to UND. It’s a bit classier than the Judy’s you may know.

Friday was a great night too. Dan had mentioned to me last weekend that he wanted to get the people at USST who had helped us together for supper. I tried to get everyone lined up as best I could, but in true Chinese fashion I did not know how many people would be there until a few hours before we were to meet. This was fine, as I am getting used to it, but I can tell that this style would drive Type A people crazy. We went to a restaurant called Shanghai Memory. It has a Shanghai in the 20’s feel and features Chinese food, Western food, and Brazilian BBQ. People at the dinner were Dan, Hagel, myself, Hou Yong (who has helped many people at UND), Dean Wang (Dean of USST College of Management), his assistant Jessica, and the Grimms. We had a very good time with dishes ranging from sashimi to a mutton dish from the Xinjiang region but was missing was the chicken. Hagel tried to order his favorite dish, spicy diced chicken, but they didn’t have any because of bird flu. It’s not that you could get the BF from eating the chicken, but people are scared and a bit irrational. We all had a good laugh about it.

Saturday brought a different kind of experience. Hou Yong invited Justin and me to his house for supper. Our campus is located in the NE of Shanghai and his flat is in the SW. Hou Yong was on campus so he picked me up. He drives a cobalt blue VW Passat and the ride was enough to solidify the fact that I want one. VW is a big force in the automobile production in China and example is that most common taxi is the VW Santana. This is a model that was made only for China. So we set off and on the way picked up his wife Jean (her English name). It took us about 2 hours to get there, but we had stopped for a bit while waiting for Jean. We arrived at Hou Yong’s flat and he showed me around. It is the top floor of the building and has two floors. It is a very nice apartment for Shanghai, I was very impressed. For dinner, I was told that we were having…Chinese Dumplings! But the twist that I was going to help make them. (Hagel came separately and had not yet arrived) Now this may seem simple but and it was a bit more so after I got the hang of it. First take a small circle of dough (think pie crust texture, it’s made with flour salt and water) about the size of your palm. Then add the mixture of pork and vegetables, fold over the dough and then pinch circle closed into a half moon shape. It’s important to not let any of the filling out, which was stressed to me several times. Joining me in making the dumplings were Hou Yong’s wife, sister, daughter, and housekeeper. I definitely appreciate how much work goes into making them. We had some very delicious dishes and our host brought out the Chinese white wine, or baijiu. To give you an idea what this is like, it’s 52% alcohol. Hagel, Hou Yong and I finished the bottle with the typical over abundance of Chinese toasts. Luckily this was going on as supper was, so the effects were mitigated somewhat.