Lantern Festival

Last Saturday Elizabeth, Yan Ran and I made the two hour trek to Yan Ran's house in the "countryside." We were technically still within the city of Shanghai and there was no shortage of buildings in this town within a city, but there was the peculiar addition of little farms interspersed between homes and shops. Yan Ran's hometown is very clean and beautiful, and looked nothing like the Shanghai we are all used to seeing on the TV and Internet. Elizabeth and I got to see trees for the first time since arriving in China which was certainly a sight for sore eyes. It was a short drive from the subway stop to Yan Ran's house (her mom picked us up in the family car). Yan Ran and her parents live in a nice apartment complex complete with a million beautiful portraits of Yan Ran. It is pretty common for parents to become very involved in their children's lives since the onset of the One Child Policy. We spent most of our time at a friend's house which was VERY spacious although sparsely furnished. Over the course of several hours we consumed most of a ten course meal. The homemade dumplings were DELICIOUS and Yan Ran's family and friends even taught us how to properly eat sugar cane (it involves a lot of chewing and spitting). The best part of the evening was playing Mahjong with some of the aunts and uncles. Everybody gathered round to watch the white girls struggle to keep up with ancient traditions, but it was definitely entertaining for all who were involved. After several rounds I was asked if I had become addicted to Mahjong and I answered with an enthusiastic YES! Which is true by the way...I still don't fully understand the rules and if you sat me at a table with a pile of tiles I would not know the first thing to do with them, but nonetheless I am addicted. We ended the night with a fireworks display that could rival those at Disney World...keep in mind this all went down in a drive way surrounded by trees, buildings, and small children on roller skates. I let our a scream when the first fireworks started exploding from ten feet in front of me. Elizabeth and I had not expected to be thrown into a war zone that night. The men of the family piled all the fireworks next to each other on the driveway and then proceeded to smoke and mingle within feet of the explosives. There were also a variety of handheld fireworks (which were always pointed at someone when being lit), baby fireworks, sparklers, and of course the infamous Chinese fire crackers. There were times I feared for my life and limbs, but at the end of the night I was just so overcome with joy. There were about twenty to thirty people gathered to celebrate and everyone treated us like family (we even got to hold the newest member of the family- a tiny/fat baby who giggled and drooled whenever Elizabeth and I tried to explain to her that we were now her American aunties). Yan Ran's mom even told us to consider her as a mother and we should visit on weekends whenever we have the chance. She also sent us off with a TON of sugar cane for our apartment.