Carlie’s SOD Blog

Dragon Boat festival

May 29th, 2009

The Chinese people seem to celebrate everything. They make the most beautiful cakes and since we have been here we have celebrated 3 birthdays with the staff. I always take pictures of the cakes because they are nothing that you would see back home. They usually have some kind of fruit in them but are not really that sweet. I have grown to really enjoy them. Our room is right outside the, what we call orange couches. The orange couches are where everyone sits and gathers to talk or play games. Right now I am sitting out here and Matthew is amusing everyone by making balloon animals. You would think it would be kids out here but it is all adults watching him. I think it is so funny…

Anyway, yesterday morning around 10 am we walked out our room and they had a HUGE spread of fruit and drinks and even Snickers bars. I think they put those out for out benefit. They told us they were beginning their celebration of the dragon boat festival which goes on for about 3 days. And I know you are all wondering if fireworks are involved and yes of course they are! It was so cool. We sat at the tables with the Chinese people they told the background of the celebrations and then translated it into English for the rest of us. They are celebrating a famous Chinese poet who fell off a boat. I will have to do more research because I could not understand the translator very well. Then they brought of this rice wrapped tightly in bamboo leaves. I said I’ll try anything once and since there was no live animal involved I decided to give it a try. They were all different. Some were just sticky rice, some had red beand, chocolate. It was like opening a gift at Christmas, you could make a guess but you really did not know what you were going to get. Matthew and I did not want to waste so we shared one. Ours was rice with beans. Dr. Bing was looking over our shoulder as we were making a plan on how we were going to eat it. Matthew started to stir it really hard and Dr. Bing let out a real laugh. I said I think he is laughing at us and sure enough he shook hos head yes, he was laughing at us. You are supposed to eat it like a candy bar. He told us put sugar on it. Well that is just great, I have sticky rice, red beans, corn, and sugar. I picked out the beans and took a bit and to my surprise it tasted like oatmeal. Not bad at all. It is not something I would request but it was defiantly worth trying. The Chinese people devoured it! After my couple bits I sat back and watched the Chinese people eat. The fruit was also very good. They had cherries, grapes, watermelon, bananas, and so much more! I did like that. But the way, the Chinese people peel grapes…like we do an orange. Anyway when we were all done eating I took a picture of the table because the side that the Chinese people ate at looked like a war zone…they went nuts! It was so nice of the staff to share their traditional celebrations with us!

We should have our schedule today and I will let you know when her next spinal treatment will be.

Entry Filed under: sod,Uncategorized