Holiday time is special and over much too quick. I too went to a New Year Eve's supper at a Chinese restaurant. I got to eat pig's ears and beef stomach. It all tasted very good. The most fun was visiting and talking while we drove to the restaurant which was an hour away.
Chinese people come to this restaurant from many smaller towns, so it is always full with people waiting. We had reservations, so we were able to sit down immediately. I kept feeling sorry for the people outside waiting, however. I took some pictures in the restaurant. The first one shows me in my Chinese silk blouse. I got it at Reed Flute Cave in Guilin last winter when my husband and I visited China as tourists. The people with me are visiting scholars at Morehead State University. They have come to stay in America for about two months. They are taking a few classes and learning about our culture. My husband and I have fed them one meal at my home. Two of the people in the pictures are former or present students of mine. I got to see a baby son of one of my former Taiwanese students there. She married an American man who lives only a few miles from Morehead.

Tomorrow night I will be presenting a program about Yangshuo, China to the Morehead Men's Club. They are a group of men who get together for a program of a informative nature. I will tell them about my trips to Yangshuo and our Sister City relationship with Yangshuo. I have a small DVD to show them and several items from China that show the culture. I hope I do a good job of presenting China and her culture.

Blessings,
Betty Cu
 

New Year Eve Dinner 

Panda garden 

Pig ears and beef stomach tasted really good. 

A fun time was had by all. 

New Year Dinner at Panda Garden 

Betty and Nanning visiting scholars 

Chinese New Year

Many of my friends are getting ready for Chinese New Year today. I will be traveling to Lexington, Kentucy to have a real Chinese meal with several of my Chinese friends. It will not be American-Chinese like most local Chinese restaurants. You can get real pig's stomach at this restaurant. The American-Chinese restaurants I ate in China didn't always quite get it right, so I can imagine the frustration of Chinese trying to get traditional food in Chinese-American restaurants here.

This is the year of the rooster. Who knows how far back these zodaic symbols go. They are different from the western symbols based back in Babylon or somewhere. The Chinese culture does it their own way. Their writing began from top to bottom because they were writing on strips of bamboo when others were writing on clay. Later they invented rice paper which can be rolled up and stashed away much easier than brittle western paper. When they invented gun powder, they sensiblily used it to celebrate New Year rather than kill their neighbors.

I have come to appreciate deeply the Chinese people. I teach several of them English at my church. They value learning and teachers much more than their western counterparts. It is their saying that a favored teacher becomes like a father or mother to be always honored. Any time I visit in China or Taiwan the door of my students or their parents' door is open to me.

I value their culture so much that I am trying to learn their language. At 59 that is not an easy task. I have a Chinese tutor who is patiently stuggling with my struggle. They are practical about their verbs not messing with all the tenses and verb form changes involved with English verbs. One verb does it all with a few time words thrown in for understanding. If you go to town, you go to town. In English if you go to town you have to go, went, and have gone. The characters are also interesting although they are not easy. I think of them as art and philosophy, and then I can appreciate then even when I cannot read them or write them. Being an artist myself, I appreciate the art involved in using a brush instead of a pen. Being computer literate, however, I really feel for the Chinese trying to put an e-mail thought into all those characters.

Enough for today.
Blessings,
Betty Cutts