The Chinatown Trip

Today was one of the busiest and most interesting I have had for a long time. As I said yesterday, the Chinese class, some people who were in the Chinese class but no longer are, and a member of the senior class who is actually Chinese went to Chicago's Chinatown for a day of cultural immersion and exploration.

The car ride up (and down) took three hours, all of which I and the other student in the car slept through. Fortunately, neither of us were driving.

The restaurant the teacher had intended us to go to was closed for renovation, so we had to find a similar thing nearby, which fortunately wasn't too difficult - same restaurant type (Three Happiness Restaurant) but smaller. So instead of looking at real dishes, we looked at a menu to decide what types of dim sum to get for our table. Some of the more notable dishes I tried were (pardon the lack of real Chinese words):

• Extremely tough spare ribs
• Super salty ball of shrimp
• Noodle-wrapped chicken
• Sesame seed ball of red bean paste

I was actually fairly successful in using chopsticks. When we were all finished there, I was very full, as were the rest of the students. From there, we went on to peruse some shops. This happened for most of the day. A lot of the shops were very similar, with lots of Buddha statues, glass sculptures, fake swords, and a whole lot of other interesting stuff that I cannot identify with English words. At one such shop, I purchased a teapot, which I will hopefully use for holding tea.

We also went to a Chinese grocery store, which contained all kinds of interesting Chinese (surprise!) foods. I purchased a bag of White Rabbit candy, which is amazing.

There was a little museum of Chinatown history, which mostly contained information panels about Chinese festivals. On the second floor, we saw a short documentary about how Chinese men came to America during a gold rush, to Chicago via the then-newly connected railway system, and later brought their families to create Chinese associations in Chicago, which blossomed into Chinatown.

I didn't take a camera or any electronic device (and many shops prohibited photography), but some of my friends did take pictures, so I may be able to get some up later.

That was a really long and interesting day! Tomorrow, I have all the homework.