I should thank my husband for giving me a chance to practice on an international doctor and his family who were visiting from China. The pressure was lessened considerably by the fact that we will probably never see them again. We don't have any shared acquaintances. They leave for home the same time we leave and the chances of our paths crossing in the future are nearly zero. Unless we plan a visit to China.... maybe. No pressure.
What to make for dinner? I was stressing over that decision. In the end my husband thought my homemade pizza would be good. Ok. Pizza. Fancy. What else? Certainly not Chinese food! You hate to make something that is offensive to someone, but pizza is global and benign right? To be safe we made a vegetarian and a meat pizza - you never know.
We only had two moments where I thought things were going south, and luckily they both happened before our guests arrived. While getting ready to make the pizza dough I accidently dropped the bottle of oil and it spilled all over the floor. I reacted quickly and only half the bottle spilled. But have you ever tried to clean up oil off ceramic tiles? That's fun.
And then after I had made the dough I needed help getting the stone pizza pan out of the cabinet and asked my husband for help. I lifted what was on top of it, and my husband pulled it out. But.... he didn't hold both sides and it slipped out and broke in half on the floor. Oops! Time to improvise!
In the end, dinner turned out fine. The pizza wasn't my best, I blame it on the cookie sheet. And you can't go wrong with cut vegetables - everyone eats some kind of vegetables and I made sure we had plenty.
How was the conversation? The doctor spoke some English, the wife spoke none, the young son spoke great English. So... it was interesting. Considering I don't speak Chinese and she didn't speak English, it really was good. How can that be? We know an American who does speak Chinese that came and provided translation. Well, it was translation and conversation. We provided the food, they provided the conversation. And that's fine by me. I laughed when they laughed, nodded, and in general acted like I knew what they were talking about. Maybe I know Chinese but just can't speak it?
What was amazing is how similar their 8 year old son was to my 8 year old son. They got along like the brothers they never had! They ran around, played with light sabers, played angry birds, talked about school - and had a great time.
Since I am in the mood for playing hostess don't forget to come back here Monday for our monthly edition of Medical Mondays. A link up party with all your favorite people checking in and saying hi. It's my favorite day of the month. This month we also have a special giveaway to one lucky participant - that should be fun!
See you Monday!
great story. never say never. china is a great place to visit as is hong kong.
ReplyDeleteThat is above and beyond the call of duty. However, I will say, it does remind me of a dinner I once attended with a doctor (a non-med doctor) and his mail order Russian bride who didn't speak a stitch of English. True story.
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