National Day of the People's Republic of China "国庆节" (Guóqìng jié)!

Oct 1st is China's National Day "国庆节" (Guóqìng jié).

This past week was the last official Chinese holiday for the year. It was China's National Day. National Day is a public holiday remembering China's rebirth into the People's Republic of China.  The first national day was October 1, 1949. Since then the county has celebrated the occasion on every 1^st of October.  All government workers get seven days off and being that I work for the school system means that I, too, get seven days off. It's quite a nice break. Most of my students use this time to travel back home to help with the fall harvest. Some of my students find part-time jobs, some take extra classes, and some travel. I was planning on traveling myself but those plans were canceled when I got sick. My lost blog post detailed my visit to the clinic. What I didn't talk about was the fact that it has taken me all week to recover. I'm still not fully recovered. I've still got a little cough. But I am feeling a lot better. Thank you, everyone, for your concerns. I got your messages and it made me feel better knowing I have so many good friends in America who are thinking about me.

Mostly I spent the week on the couch in my apartment drinking lots of hot water, sleeping, and watching Foyle's War. My parents gave me seasons 1-6 of Foyle's War on DVD and I've been enjoying every episode. There is nothing better than watching a sophisticated British gentlemen detective solving murder mysteries in World War II Britain. It's a lot of fun. You should go watch it. Yes, you. Go watch it. Now! It's amazing. Go watch it now! You can come back and read the rest of the blog once you've watched the first episode. Go, ahead. You can go watch it. I'll wait............................. done yet? Wasn't that good? Ok, so back to the blog.

National Day started out rather bleak for us here in the city of Langfang.  It was raining quite heavily and it was cold.  I had made plans to go to the park but that was no longer a good idea.  As I looked out the window at the downpour I received a telephone call.  It was my good friend, Apple.  She invited me to join her and her friends for lunch. The group was getting together to make dumplings. Homemade dumplings are the best!  I accepted the invitation, put on my coat, grabbed my umbrella and headed outside to hail a cab.  I arrived at their apartment around 11:00 am.  Apple met me at the main gate with umbrella in hand.  We swam our way across the massive puddles and inside the apartment to make dumplings.  We made at least 200. We had pork and mushroom filled dumplings, leek and egg filled dumplings, and leek and pork filled dumpling. Apple spent most of the time with the rolling pin flattening out the dough. The girls shaped the dough into flat little pancakes. We then took the pancakes and put the stuffing mix in the middle. Then we folded the pancakes making sure to press down firmly on the edges to close the dumplings. Our assembly line was working quite hard. Some of the other girls were in the kitchen putting the dumplings to boil. Dishes of freshly cooked dumplings started coming out and we all took turns eating our fill while the others continued cooking. The leftover dumplings went into care packages that were then delivered to elderly friends in the community. The Chinese love their food and every holiday usually has a good amount of delicious treats to go around.

After lunch we all say down to play a game of Uno. Most of the girls had never played Uno before so I had to teach them the rules. Uno is a great game here in China as you don't need to know Englsh to play. It does help however if you can say the names of numbers and colors in Chinese as it is hard to know what is being called on the wilds otherwise. We chatted, played games, and then ended the afternoon with a movie. We watched Edward Scissorhands in English with Chinese subtitles.  Then we went to the park in the afternoon after the sky cleared, we drank some warm milk tea and had a simple dinner.  The day may have been a simple day but simple is good. Sometimes the best vacations are the simplest ones where good friends get to come together to eat good food. Well, the holiday is now over and it's back to work for me tomorrow... I guess I better go get my teaching materials ready!

Rolling out the dumplings.

Cut, roll and press.

Fold and fill.

Egg and Leak

The Dumpling Cooks

Cooked Dumplings!

A full pan ready to be cook.

Red clouds on a clear sky.

Foyle's War... Go watch it... now!