Chinese Fiesta!

Last night we had a few people over for Chinese food. And when I say a few people, it's a straight-up lie, because there were like 15 people here. I invited Cathy, the teacher I taught with last year, and two of our students (the same ones I took touring BYU earlier this summer, Ariadna and Livier) and their families. Last week, Ariadna's family invited Kevin and me over, and we got to talking about making and burning food, as well as real and fake Chinese food. So I wanted to invite them. Livier's family had invited me over that day of the BYU trip, so I wanted to invite them also. Then I hadn't seen Cathy all summer, and I knew her husband speaks Spanish, so it would be nice to have someone that can talk to everyone. :)
So it was quite the fiesta!
I made some cold Chinese dishes earlier in the day (soy eggs, tomatoes & sugar, and cucumber salad), and then when the guests came, I had some hot eggs and tomatoes ready with rice. And the awesomest part about it was that since my garden is now in super-production mode, I didn't have to buy anything for those dishes except for the eggs (like $1.50).
The main attraction, though, was the Chinese dumplings, jiao zi, potstickers, or whatever you want to call them. Kevin and I started making them in the kitchen, but one by one, most of our guests came in to try their hands at making some. Honestly, this just the Chinese version of the Tom Sawyer trick, and it worked marvelously! I got to go eat my food and talk with everyone in the living room, and there was a little jiao zi factory going on in the kitchen.
Howie was a main attraction for the kids at the party. There were some little brothers there (about 9, 10, and 4 years old), and they dragged him all over the place. He jumped all over trying to catch his toy they would hold for him, and wherever they went, he followed. This is kind of amazing. Howie is always like that, but we thought he'd be a bit chill last night because he had just gotten neutered the day before. But I honestly don't think he even noticed he'd had surgery. He had a blast with those boys! I can hardly wait until I have kids that age. They were wild and crazy, loud and rambunctious, but they didn't break anything or pull things off the shelves like the most well-intentioned toddler does just by being in a room. They went to play soccer outside when they got full and then bored. And I didn't have to worry about them falling head-first into the pond. They just went. And then came back. Kids are the best.
We have a Chinese calligraphy painting on our wall that people always ask us about. The characters are written so that each paintbrush stroke is a small bird. It is a love poem, but Livier's dad, Juan Carlos, told his boys that it said "DON'T PLAY WITH THE CATS." The boys knew he was joking... sort of. They left Howie alone for a few minutes after that.
And my favorite part of the evening, the reason I am blogging about this (besides my goal to make everyone jealous of me), is that after the party, Ariadna's and Livier's moms both started to clean up. I thanked them when they stacked dishes and put them in the sink, and then I tried several times to tell them they didn't have to wash them. But the more I protested, the more their eyes sparkled and told me they would clean every single dish and the kitchen would be sparkling when they were done. I tried and tried to protest, but then I figured I couldn't stop them, so I might as well do my part. It is my kitchen, after all.
So Livier Sr. washed, Maritza rinsed, and I dried. It was fun to have that little assembly line going on, and it was fun to talk with them. I don't speak much Spanish, and they don't speak much English, but we got along marvelously. You just have to be more expressive and listen more carefully. After a while, it was just the two of them talking, but that made me happy that they were so comfortable in my home.
And at the end of the evening, my kitchen was SPARKLING. It made my evening and really my entire weekend. When I go to people's houses in the future, I'm going to do something like that. I usually give up when people protest, thinking they really mean that they'll just do it. But where I would have been up until 10 doing dishes (or more likely leaving them for today), they were finished, and I got to go to bed knowing I'd wake up to a perfectly clean home. That's something I need to do for my friends.