Just as the weather was getting colder, winter was approaching and people were starting to wear padded pyjamas in the street, China decided to turn it around. Yesterday was 23ยบC and sunny. It definitely won’t last so I thought I should gloat about it while I still can.
One of Terry and Javid’s classes invited us to a BBQ in an orange grove as their ‘English Corner’. English Corner is run by the students and usually happens every Wednesday night. It is supposed to be an extra-curricular activity to give the students more opportunities to practice their English. Usually it results in us Westerners being forced to sing songs, play games or give little speeches. We always provide them with appalling performances and it becomes a battle to see who gets landed with the more embarrassing tasks. Somehow they keep inviting us back.
So it was a welcome change from our ritual humiliation to be invited to a Sunday morning BBQ. We took the bus from the front of college, got off about 10 seconds later and then trekked through the Pingxiang countryside to an orange grove.
It was free to eat the oranges while we were there (and I snuck quite a few out) so we did a little orange picking in the sunshine. There were some families out picking too, as well as men in the orange business. Here’s one guy purchasing some oranges with the highly modern method of a weight on a stick.
Terry and Taz tried to play orange cricket with a massive log.
We then spent a while threading food onto sticks. Chinese BBQs don’t involve burgers or sausages, but we had meatballs, meat-on-a-stick, fish-on-a-stick, tofu, cabbage, aubergine, tarot root, potato, pepper and a type of suet.
To be honest, I wasn’t fully convinced we were going to be able to cook any of it, especially when my ‘team’ tried to start the BBQ with wet leaves. There were some other unconventional attempts at fire-starting from one of the other teams...
Fanning the flames with a broom did not help.
Fortunately the monitor had brought charcoal so we managed to get a fire going with newspaper and the coals eventually started heating. I was quite pleased with our efforts actually. Miraculously everything cooked, and we only burnt the odd meatball.
This is April, who did most of the cooking, including marinating everything in oil, chilli and paprika. The food actually tasted amazing.
Here’s Team Tan. We had the best fire.
Taz had brought some beer and everyone was very happy.
Chrissy and I had to leave early as we had lots of work to do, but naturally there was time for a few more photos.
