Patrick (AFS student)

I truly believe that food is a celebration of community. In America, my life revolves around cooking and shared meals. You are always able find someone in our family kitchen with music blasting and a pan sizzling in their hand.

Once I arrived in China, I was thrilled to find out that my Chinese family shares this same love and respect for food. One of the first things that I heard when I arrived in Changzhou is that: "the Chinese eat everything in the sky except for the planes, everything in the sea except for the boats, and everything in land with four legs except for the dinner room table." I've taken this mantra to heart and decided to abandon all reservations when eating new foods. My new policy is try everything at least twice.

Along with being able to sample a variety of different dishes, I've had the opportunity to cook with my host mother and learn about her family's culinary traditions. She suprised me one afternoon with a stack of dough and filling. She sat me down and I watched as she quickly stuffed and folded the edges of a wonton dumpling. She then looked at me and I realized that it was my turn. I picked up a piece of dough and my hands fumbled as I clumsily creased the edges of my first wonton. After four or five, I got into a rythm of filling, creasing and folding.

While my wontons never seemed to look exactly like my mother's, I was nonetheless proud of my work. My mother then showed me how to boil the wontons and I made my own dipping sauce with vinegar, oil and chili flakes.

I look forward to cooking with my family in the future.