The Principal of the Matter

No, the title is not a misspelling. My first day at NDFZ the principal, who is new to the school, invited Sophie and me to his house for lunch. Seven months later (I had to recount that a few times… I’ve been here for seven months? That’s insane!) he finally set a date for the occasion.

We were informed last week that we would be having lunch with the principal on Sunday the 10^th. A car would come to pick us up (not as fancy as it sounds, it’s kind of a “thing” here) at 9 AM, since, as you all know, 9 AM is when I start most of my lunches. Sophie and I had no idea what to expect, because in China, expectations are always a bad idea: they’re always wrong.

Surprise number one, Zhou Laoshi, the head English teacher for the Juniors who is incredibly generous and is kind of our second supervisor after Fang Laoshi, was in the car waiting for us! So I guess she was invited as well. Surprise! When we arrived, we were led through a labyrinth of apartment buildings, and finally up to the top floor of one of the identical looking homes. The principal’s house was gorgeous.

I have been in enough upper middle class Chinese homes by now to make a few generalizations, so here they are… First of all, as many of you know, it is considered impolite to wear your shoes in someone’s home. Some houses I’ve just worn my socks, in some houses they have “guest slippers” for visitors, but in the principal’s house, they gave us those plastic shoe covers that scientists or surgeons wear, so in my mind, seeing these higher up NDFZ staff walking around in bright blue plastic shoe coverings was pretty funny. Also, no one took off his or her coat the entire time. It was like the opposite of an American get together, where it would be shoes on coat off. That day, it was coats on shoes covered in weird plastic elastic.

Next commonality between all houses I’ve seen: professional photos. There are professional photographs of the woman of the house everywhere. And they are always super edited so that she looks like she’s, say, reading a magazine or cooking in the kitchen or sitting by a plant or whatever, in a movie dream sequence. As the visitor, you always have the option to look through her photo album filled with said professional pictures. And all engagement photographs have a few themes, one traditional Chinese, one in a Western white dress and tux, and then regular engagement photos: them at the park, them with photo-shopped flowers in the back, etc.

While we were having a tour of the house, surprise, all the vice-principals were also invited so our number was more like fourteen instead of the original six (the principal, his wife, Fang Laoshi, Zhou Laoshi, Sophie and me.) We all sat around and ate (which, in China, means that the host or hostess is constantly handing you more food that you cannot decline and pouring you more tea.) I stocked up on fruit, nuts, and chocolate because I knew afterward we were going to a banquet style lunch, and those can either feature incredibly delicious foods or foods that are mostly animal fat, and I didn’t want to be hungry later. One of the vice principals told me it was good that the principal invited us (me and Sophie) to his home, because it gave the principal and his wife a chance to clean the house, prepare for guests, and “learn how to love each other more fully.” Not sure what that means, but I’m happy to have helped. I guess.

I knew that we would be eating lunch at a restaurant, but what I didn’t know is that it was a restaurant/golf resort. Surprise! When we arrived (around 11 AM, by the way) we found the principal and his wife on the balcony of our private room hitting golf balls into a large field. I successfully swung and hit a few balls into the green while Quit Playing Games (with my Heart) by the Backstreet Boys played in the background. Inexplicable, as per usual. As an appallingly frightful mini golf player, I was worried that those skills would hamper my regular golf ability in front of respected leaders of NDFZ. But it was no problem. I golfed with the best of them.

I tried to learn how to play a popular Chinese card game by watching the principal, Fang Laoshi, Zhou Laoshi, and the school’s driver (I guess since he drove us to the place he was able to join us for lunch?) play but it literally made no sense. Sometimes they put one card down, sometimes more. Sometimes the cards they put down had something in common (they were a straight, same colors, same numbers, same suit) and sometimes they seemingly had nothing in common. Sometimes they took turns around the circle, sometimes they didn’t. Plus it was played with two decks, so who knows…

The food was banquet-y, which means some dishes I really liked and some were continuously heaped onto my plate and I nibbled slowly and pretended it was delicious. I have gotten really good at dealing with banquet food. Basically, it is impolite not to at least try the things that the person next to you has put on your plate or urged you to eat. However, if it is congealed duck blood soup or crystallized pork fat, it might not taste as good as expected. So what happens next? I realized early that regular tea often isn’t served at these banquets; instead it’s an extremely sweet, gloopy liquid that is either purple or white and, in my opinion, is undrinkable. So you can’t take a sip of something to ease the crab stomach you just ate down your throat. And the only food you liked, some vegetable or noodle dish is all the way on the other side of the lazy Susan. So, lately, I’ve been stocking up my plate with things I know I like (preferably bread-y or vegetable stuffs) and then when someone insists I try something like “pigeon” or “tofu and raw meat soup,” I chase it, if you will, with something I know I like. It’s been working out fairly well, especially because it allows me to eat more of the food that is truly delicious at the banquet. Worse comes to worse, fruit is always served at the end of the meal. The fruit plate usually has watermelon, but the other fruits are a surprise. It often has tomatoes. Birthday cakes, other pasties, and fruit salads often have tomatoes in and around them as well. Not sure who to cite here, but I saw a great quote about this phenomenon on Facebook: “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” Truer words, guys, truer words.

Before I arrived in China, I had ceded the fact that I would spend a lot of time listening to people speaking Chinese and would have no idea what was happening. Sophie, Fang Laoshi, and Zhou Laoshi are good about translating for me, but there are still a bunch of times where I just sit there daydreaming while they converse. I’ve gotten really good at learning the cadences of the Chinese, so I know when to smile (because they’re telling a joke) and look concerned (when they’re talking about something serious.) But during this banquet, I was excited to discover how much I understood. I couldn’t necessarily answer the questions in Chinese (posed in Chinese) but I could answer them in English! And I couldn’t contribute to the discussions happening, but I could follow a few conversations. My Chinese has improved so much! I am really looking forward to May, when I will start having serious lessons 2-3 times a week rather than just one.

By 12:45, which felt like late afternoon for me, we headed home. I fell asleep in the car. Spending the entire day translating and trying to be culturally acceptable is difficult! But at the end of the day, this China Doll was just happy she didn't have to eat the snake skin sitting out on the lunch table... it's the principal of the matter.