{"id":706,"date":"2009-03-14T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T18:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=706"},"modified":"2012-07-07T20:53:38","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T02:53:38","slug":"country-roads-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/country-roads-etc\/","title":{"rendered":"Country Roads, etc."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"country<\/p>\n

Our friends, Peter and Esther, had us over for a truly Taiwanese family dinner a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 A feast of foods, mostly unfamiliar to us, was served.\u00a0 By the time I tried half of them, I was full.\u00a0 There was tofu served 3-4 different ways, shredded pork stew with a soy sauce flavored liquid, scrambled eggs with shrimp, a gelatinous rice-flour turnip cake (quite bland, anything could be chosen to put on top of it), fried fish and bell peppers, soups, steamed brown rice, jujubes (small green, apple like fruit), and grape tomatoes.\u00a0 I really can\u2019t remember it all, but here are a few pictures:<\/p>\n

\"country<\/p>\n

(above, top to bottom:\u00a0 predominantly mushroom? soup, brown rice, eggs w\/ shrimp, and turnip cake)<\/p>\n

\"country<\/p>\n

(In the white dish, fish with veggies.\u00a0 The metal dish just to the upper right had fried tofu, among a couple of other things.\u00a0 The pot just below it was filled with a tofu stew.\u00a0 I never got around to either of those things.\u00a0 I tried some of the pork \u201cstew\u201d in the pot at bottom right on my rice.)<\/p>\n

\"country<\/p>\n

(The ladies in this picture were also invited.\u00a0 The one on the left is the physical therapist for the handicapped daughter.\u00a0 The one in the center is actually from Long Beach, CA, but has lived in Taiwan for 14 years.\u00a0 She makes prostheses. She worked very hard at helping to translate all evening.\u00a0 One more lady, sitting directly opposite of them, is also involved in the oldest daughter\u2019s care.\u00a0 This friend is of Taiwanese aboriginal descent and spoke English very well.\u00a0 Peter, cut in half on the right, also speaks fairly good English, but was very content to benefit from someone else\u2019s translation this time.)<\/p>\n

Esther, the mom, knowing our desire to learn Mandarin, labeled many pots with Chinese characters.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t seem to understand English, except for a few words.\u00a0 However, the English words I have heard her say have been pronounced flawlessly.\u00a0 During the meal, she humorously showed us the results of a failed attempt at the turnip cake.\u00a0 As for the meal as a whole, some things were tasty.\u00a0 Somethings were hard for my palate to appreciate.\u00a0 But just being invited into their home and getting to know them more was priceless.<\/p>\n

The evening also included music.\u00a0 To begin things, Esther and their kids sang and danced a lovely Chinese Christian song of fellowship.\u00a0 We were shown the translation to follow along and it brought teats to my eyes.\u00a0 Then Jesse, Natalie, Carlie, and I sang a couple of our \u2018Bible verse\u2019 songs, which they followed along with in their Chinese Bible.\u00a0\u00a0 They seemed delighted with the sharing.<\/p>\n

After the food and some discussion of raising children, Esther brought out her guitar again.\u00a0 We were surprised to find the first song was \u201cCountry Roads, Take Me Home.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t think most of them understood the lyrics much.\u00a0 They were having difficulty piecing the tune together, so Greg offered my services and the group energetically sang all 3 verses.\u00a0 We would have never expected to be singing a 30 year old John Denver song after dinner in Taiwan!\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Peter and Esther came to say good-bye yesterday.\u00a0 We were able to pass on to them many food items and cleaning things that we can\u2019t ship home.\u00a0 They gave us a nice family photo.\u00a0 The kids climbed all over Jesse.\u00a0 Their 6 year old girl cuddled some with Natalie and Carlie.\u00a0 I helped walk their oldest daughter some.\u00a0 Esther tried to ask me more things about training children, but we just didn\u2019t have the common vocabulary.\u00a0 We settled on my writing to her and Peter translating.\u00a0 After hugs and waves, most of them disappeared down the elevator while 9 year old son raced down the stairs.\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad they are believers.\u00a0 That way I know I will see them again, even if it isn\u2019t in this life.<\/p>\n

\"country<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our friends, Peter and Esther, had us over for a truly Taiwanese family dinner a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 A feast of foods, mostly unfamiliar to us, was served.\u00a0 By the time I tried half of them, I was full.\u00a0 There was tofu served 3-4 different ways, shredded pork stew with a soy sauce flavored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}