This might be my favorite picture that I have from France so far. Last week, my professors organized a picnic and asked us each to bring a typical lunch food from our country. In this photo, sweet Yang Qinglei is eating my chicken salad croissant with chopsticks. I simply couldn't convince him to pick the sandwich up and eat it with his hands.
The picnic was only the latest of my cooking adventures in France. My first opportunity to make something from home came up two weeks ago with the potluck lunch at the church, and I chose to make small chicken salad sandwiches for that event as well. Though I had noticed that French people never use croissants for sandwiches, I guess I hadn't fully realized that the concept was simply completely unheard of. As I finished the chicken salad with apples and nuts, Martine came into the kitchen to see me scooping the fresh salad onto croissant halves. You would have thought I was slathering the mayonnaise based chicken dish all over pieces of chocolate cake the way she reacted. She stood over me gasping and saying over and over that croissants were a sweet pastry, for eating with coffee. She called her husband in the room to see my sandwiches and the two stood in the kitchen looking very disturbed. I think the trepidation in their eyes had a lot to do with the fact that I was cooking dinner for them three days later. Martine and Herve declined to taste the croissants. I took the sandwiches to church only to hear many of the same questions of amazement. I kept being asked to clarify that yes, that was CHICKEN on a CROISSANT. And then came the moment of truth: the potluck began, and people began taking my sandwiches to try. I'm proud to say that they were a grand success. The chicken salad was gone before anything else, and several people had me explain to them how to make the salad. The South collides with France experience number 1.
For my host family, I went all out to make a real Southern meal. We had biscuits and fried chicken and mashed potatos and gravy and peach cobbler. I also made a green salad with strawberries and almonds, inadvertently creating another sweet/salty combination which seemed completely bizarre to Martine. Martine stood with me in the kitchen while I was cooking so she could watch how I cooked. When I poured the oil into the pan to fry the chicken, I think she wished she hadn't seen how I prepared the meat. When everything was nearly finished, though, she set a beautiful table for my dinner. She was so kind to really make the evening a special occasion. I think everyone really liked my food. They thought the potatos and salad were very good, and I think they liked the chicken, although that was by far the most bizarre part of the meal to them. The peach cobbler with ice cream was truly a smashing success; cinnamon is not a very commonly used spice in French food, and I think that was the taste they were trying to identify that they thought made the crust so good. Martine has since complemented me several times on my wonderful "cake" (after several attempts, she decided she can't say cobbler - read the mother in My Big Fat Greek Wedding trying to say bundt). The South collides with France experience number 2.
My third experience was more the South collides with the world. When my classmates and I talk at school, I sometimes forget what an incredibly diverse group we are until the professors remind me by asking that we arrange ourselves into groups of three and stipulate that no two people in the group can be from the same continent. The picnic this week was probably one of my favorite experiences relating to school so far. My four favorite professors hosted our picnic on the banks of the Rhone, and they all brought sausages and cheeses for us to sample. The fare for the day was chips and guacamole, empanadas, chicken salad croissants, stuffed bell peppers and six Chinese dishes. I will say at this point that the Chinese food was absolutely to die for - it was all incredibly spicy, and I finally fully understood why the Chinese kids think the French food is too bland. We had a really wonderful meal, and a wonderful time getting to eat together and talk about the culture behind each dish. This week I think we started really to bond as a class; when we said goodbye on Friday, I was actually sad that I wasn't going to be seeing everyone for two days! That's the happy group after the picnic posted at the top of this post.
I've started to become rather close to Yang Qinglei and Dia Xiao'ou, and I've been getting a lot of opportunity to learn about Chinese culture. I've gotten to accompany Dia Xiao'ou to the Chinese supermarket, which I thought was fascinating. I'm sure she was somewhat bothered by me trailing her around the store with a constant stream of questions while she tried to find a particular spice. Yang Qinglei marveled to me this week how heavy French food is. He thinks it must be horrible for the health of the French, and the cause of "all the fat people." If he thinks people in France are fat, he might just keel over and die to see Americans. We also talk about the government in China; I'm endlessly interested by the laws and the feelings of the people about each law. Yang Qinglei's parents had to pay the government twice the equivalent of the average yearly Chinese salary when he was born because he was their second child. Xiao'ou said later that she was sure they had chosen to pay for him because he was a boy and their first child was a girl. Though they don't like laws like that, they love China, and they both want to work very hard for the advancement of the country.
I took the two of them to see a grand cathedral in Lyon this week, and we started to talk about religion. Neither of them has any concept of Christianity, and when I was trying to explain the mosaics and statues in the cathedral, I realized I have never had to explain literally everything about Christianity. Qinglei and Xiao'ou don't speak English, so our broken and simple French is the only tool we have to communicate with each other. Xiao'ou understands my French better than Qinglei, so for many of my explanations, she had to translate into Chinese for him. Xiao'ou thought the story I was telling about a God who became a man and was killed to save humanity and then rose again was completely insane, and Qinglei thought it was downright horrifying. They were confused by literally every element of the story, and disturbed by the fact that I really believed this story I was recounting.
It would mean so much to me if you all would pray for my classmates and my ability to share the gospel with them. No one else in my class is a Christian. For some of my friends who think they know the story of the Bible, I need God to show them the true gospel through what I say and do. For others like Qinglei and Xiao'ou, I need the ability to communicate clearly so I can logically explain Christianity, and the wisdom to know how to best tell the story. I'm really becoming so attached to all of my friends, and it's very painful for me to think that they aren't Christians. My email link is in my profile on the blog if any of you has any ideas for me!
I am so appreciative to all of you who are praying for me. I can't say enough how blessed I have felt the entire time I've been in France. I know this is truly where God meant me to be this semester so that I could grow and broaden my perspective on God's kingdom in the world.
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