For this year, we took a different approach, and decided to give you all a treat – a sticky rice dumpling treat to be exact. A local community center had a dumpling-fest, and we decided to take the Teaboy along and make it a family outing. We were told it was a free event, and all we had to do was pick up the ingredients, do the basic preparations at home, then bring the rice, filling, and bamboo leaves to the center for wrapping. What we weren’t told was that we were preparing 5kg of materials for all the other neighbors to share, and that we were only allowed to keep 6 dumplings for ourselves. Despite not getting to keep enough dumplings to make more than a snack for the three of us, we did have a lot of fun, and the people were very friendly.

The basic procedure is as follows:

Fold 2 bamboo leaves into a pocket.

Spoon in some rice (uncooked).

 Add meat or other filling. 

Then a bit more rice.

Fold the top down, pinching the leaves together (makes a ‘wedgie’ – (snicker)), and then fold the leaf around one side to seal it.

 Tie the dumpling together with a string.

After preparing the dumplings, they are steamed or boiled until the rice is cooked, then eaten.  Yummy!

Here are a few more photos from the event – the Teaboy and myself giving it our best shot, and some of the more ‘professional’ grandmas and aunties in attendance. You’d have thought they were baking pies the way some of them were going at it. Enjoy!

I set my bamboo tea tray up at the end of my tea table so that we’d have room for writing. Since it was a very informal session, I brewed some Dong Fang Mei Ren (Oriental Beauty) in a gaiwan, and poured it off into a ceramic pot as a serving pitcher.

The Teaboy is starting 1st grade now, and is getting pretty good at copying characters, as you can see from the photos. I’ll post some of my own brushwork when it’s a bit more presentable! (could be a real long time, so don’t hold your breath!).

By the way, that’s ‘Mao Mao’ (translates roughly into English as ‘Cat cat’ – which is his name!) also enjoys his tatami time as well. He’s a great ‘people cat’ and enjoys hanging out with us and guests when we let him.

This is my absolute favorite book of Chinese poetry. The English translations are beautifully rendered, and he also provides a word-by-word translation that includes the Chinese characters so that you can get a much better feel for the real meaning of the poems (because he includes the Chinese, I can use these poems for calligraphy practice). In addition, he includes anecdotes and background on the poets and the environment in which they produced these poems, which further enhances the reading experience. I shared this book with Aliang last week, and he insisted I leave it with him for awhile! Hope I get it back some day!

Anyway, my point today is to remember – while tea drinking in and of itself is a noble pursuit well worth your time and effort, it’s also a great companion when you’re feeling lazy on a rainy Saturday, so do yourself a favor and go drink more tea!

It’s surprising how easily he can pick up the mannerisms and techniques of tea making, although I must say he’s seen his fair share of the inside of teahouses! (It doesn’t hurt that he loves to hang out with dad either). I coached him some on the basics, but smelling the teapot lid (the porcelain picks up the aroma from the steam and helps to tell how strong the tea will be), and pouring the tea is his own style.

These pictures are certainly worth a thousand words! Here’s round 1:

And once he got warmed up, things really got jumping!

Some of you might be thinking he’s too young to be drinking tea, but he doesn’t actually drink very much, and I water his cup down a bit when he isn’t looking. When he was younger, I would put out a special pot of warm water that I could pour when he joined our tea drinking. In this session, he had a total of 3 one-half cups of Tie Kuan Yin, and you can see in the picture how small the cups are, so I don’t feel that it’s a problem. When I see the junk food and soda some kids his age get, it keeps things in perspective. Besides, I think that including him in some ‘grown up’ activities helps teach him motor skills, patience, cooperation, and social graces. As far as quality time goes, this evening was priceless!

                      ”contemplation”                                                                      “Hey, Dad!”

Despite all the other excitement of the day (see ‘Name that Snake’ post), Keith put on the best show, and I look forward to seeing him in action more this summer. I was asked if I’m worried about ‘the competition’, but I answered, “At least when I retire I won’t have to worry about who’s going to make tea for me!” And if anyone still doubts the benefits of tea drinking, all I can say is, this next picture should pretty much tell you all ya need to know!