Chinese Father's Day

Sunday, 17.06.2018

We were invited by Chinese moms to have a barbecue. We were supposed to meet at the mother's company in the afternoon near the Suzhou Museum. So let's go, tomorrow was a day off because of the Dragon Boat Festival 🐉 and no compensation day was scheduled. So we made a detour to Suzhou Center to enjoy some ice cream and arrived there around half past four. We were warmly welcomed, which was due not only to our sympathetic manner 😉 but also to the amount of red wine and whiskey that at least the adults had already consumed. 🍻

There was lobster to eat! In the store that the mom told us about, small lobsters are 'produced' for the Chinese market. The animals are heated on the grill, seasoned with a little sea salt, and then freshly consumed, very delicious!

The store is a branch of an American chain and is owned by two young Taiwanese. The Chinese operate it only.

Anyway, there was a men's table and a women's table, as tradition dictates.

The colleagues at the men's table insisted on drinking with me (Gānbēi) because today is Chinese Men's Day. It's very nice that they have that here too! They were delighted with the few words of Chinese we speak, and so the mood rose as the German-Chinese friendship was reaffirmed again and again and we were introduced to the art of eating lobster.

Chinese celebrations also include games. One is similar to the German 'rock, paper, scissors', only instead of showing 'scissors, rock, paper', fists are swung three times and then one to five fingers are shown. At the same time, each contestant says a number between 1 and 11. If one guesses right, the other person can 'ganbei' (clink glasses). The game is also suitable for learning numbers. 😉

The ladies testified to their new friendship with a glass or two of expensive Australian red wine.

The children played and Jule was passed around.