Making dumplings at a Chinese house!

From left to right: Sunny (Chinese teacher), Danielle (CTF in Harbin), me, other Danielle (CTF in Changchun), Brittany (CTF in Harbin) and Jen (UTP in Harbin)

This past weekend I traveled north to Harbin to visit some teacher friends. While I was there I got to meet a famous person (among the foreigners) in Harbin, her name is Sunny and she is a teacher at the CTF school. They had made plans to go to her house to meet her parents and make jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) so I got to accompany. I’ll tell you a bit about the day…

After getting off the bus we (7 teachers) followed Sunny through some crowded and somewhat dirty Chinese streets, up some stairs where you could see a little courtyard for her apartment complex, down some stairs, around and then up again to the top floor and the door of the apartment. We took off our shoes and put slippers on, as you always do in China, and were welcomed by her and her parents and ushered to sit down.

All of Sunny’s furniture was pretty low to the ground. Her sink and her stove were built into boxes stacked on top of each other. She had two bedrooms and a bathroom, all of which were separated from the rest of the apartment by a curtain that you stretch across and hook to the other side for privacy. It was a basic apartment but it was comfortable and Sunny was proud of it.

Her mom and dad, neither of whom spoke English, had already eaten and had gotten the jaiozi ready for us to make. So the 7 of us foreigners rolled up our sleeves and tried to copy Sunny and her parents. It takes a lot of skill to fold pieces of dough around meat. Most of us lacked the skill and our jiaozi didn’t turn out quite so pretty. We had fun with it though, one of the Harbin teachers made one that looked like a narwhal (the Harbin CTF mascot) in honor of their team.

Rolling out the dough for the dumplings

Doing our best to make them!

Brittany and Jen with their dumpling skills.

Sunny’s parents had to leave early and catch a train back home (that’s why they had already eaten) so her mom cooked for us and left. Chinese people are extremely hospitable so for her it was no big deal for to cook for us and not eat any of it herself. They didn’t leave without giving a toast- typical for Chinese – and a hug – not typical for Chinese (to hug a stranger).

Sunny and her parents

After lunch we had a good talk. Sunny isn’t a Sister but she noticed how ELIC teachers are different from any other group of foreigners she has ever met. It was awesome to listen to my teacher friends explain that it’s because we are part of G’s family, because we live to a higher standard of goodness. Sunny hadn’t always had a good idea of foreigners, one teacher had actually asked her (only her) to come to his apartment for dinner once. But the relationships she has built with the teachers at her school has given her a better idea of not just foreigners but given her an idea of the Family. Please lift Sunny up, she is surrounded by this Family and so has the opportunity to see the Father alive in them often.

The food they made us!

We finished up our time there with a fun game of catch phrase and then we headed out for our next event of the weekend. It was a tiring but definitely a good weekend, it’s good to see what the Father is doing in other cities.

The whole gang together.