Sunday, June 8, 2008

China Day 09: Farewell to Shanghai

Our last experience of Shanghai was a home-hosted lunch. The home-hosted meal is a signature Grand Circle "Discovery Event"; we had had a home-hosted dinner in Egypt, which we really enjoyed as a chance to talk to the local people.

In this case, they divided us up into groups of about eight and shared us among inhabitants of a couple of nearby apartment buildings. Our hostess was Madame Yee:
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She was a jolly and efficient person who guided us to the table
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and then vanished, only to reappear whenever another dish was ready on her stove, or when she thought we needed a refill:
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It turned out that she knew almost no English. Some of the hosts, we heard later, had kids or grandkids at home who knew English; their communication fared a little better. Madame Yee sure can cook, though - she even made us zong-zi, special steamed rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves that are always made for the Dragon Boat Festival!

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