Same Time, Different Days

This past Saturday my friends Yeheng and Liyin prepared several traditional Chinese dishes and invited me to join them. I walked to Ruihe’s apartment, who would be making the rice, and where everyone would gather to eat. I met a friend of Ruihe’s, Fran (also from Taiwan), who joined us for dinner. We all sat on the floor around Ruihe’s coffee table to eat. Ruihe served me a traditional drink from Taiwan made from dried plums (which he brought from Taiwan). It was okay, but very salty. We had pork with carrots in a nice broth, green beans with chicken in it, Chinese cabbage, and a dish made up of scrambled egg and large pieces of onion and green peppers. After eating, around 10:00 p.m., Yeheng used Ruihe’s computer and got online to talk with her parents in northern China (in the city of Changchun). It was 10:00 a.m. on Sunday in China. Yeheng was very excited because her family was going to get to meet me (via webcam). I have never used a webcam before so this was a new experience. I was a little self-conscious at first, running my hands through my hair and worrying about how I looked. However, with Yeheng’s boyfriend translating, her parents commented that I was "very beautiful." Of course, there is the possibility that something got turned around in the translation. :) It was very heartwarming to see Yeheng’s mother, father, maternal grandmother, uncle, sister and boyfriend all crowded around the webcam as they spoke to us. Ruihe had a microphone so they could also hear our voices. This is just amazing to me. A young woman in Tennessee can see and speak with her family in northern China, half a world away, in real time through the internet. No wonder letters are becoming obsolete. Yeheng enjoyed having me say the few Mandarin words I know into the microphone. Yeheng’s grandmother, a very small, petite 81 year old, was absolutely adorable as she kept peering into the webcam and never saying anything. I hope to get to meet her one day. I typed several instant messages to Yeheng’s family members and her boyfriend (whom she will become married to in December when she goes home) translated for me. Once again, a comfortable, relaxing time among my new friends.