The Minority Dinner

Last night, we gathered in the lobby at 7 PM to go to a “minority dinner.” This consisted of getting on a mini-bus and driving about 10 minutes out of town to a small village where the residents were mostly Zhong (as opposed to Han). It was a little unclear where we were (was it an actual village or a tourist attraction?).

The surrounding limestone karst scenery was jaw-drop beautiful. We were ushered down a narrow street for about 500 feet, in between small one-story buildings (houses, I guess?). At that point, we entered a small building with a concrete floor and two very low tables with kindergarten-size foot stools arranged in a circle around each one. We were seated and brought bowls of peanut tea; this consisted of soup bowls with something resembling peanut brittle floating on top. There were three very cute puppies in the room, which was wonderful, though I got worried when they disappeared for awhile right after the food was served.

We were seated, and then brought different dishes by the hosts throughout the evening. The food was OK, a lot of it was pretty odd (roasted peanuts, some sort of green vegetable in a purple sauce, chicken with lots of bones in it, etc.). There was a big poster of Chairman Mao on the wall. Dragon explained the significance of the minority dinner to us—which is basically that ethnic minorities live harmoniously with the majority, in part due to the legacy of communism.

After dinner we made our way back to the hotel. It was around 9 PM. A bunch of us parked ourselves at an outdoor table in front of the hotel and had a few beers. Others went off exploring, and others went to bed I think. The street outside the hotel was quite lively, with lots of people strolling and passing by---really nice ambiance.

PS: The puppies reappeared before dinner was through!