A mysterious text asking about eating hot pot tomorrow

prompting warm memories of hot pot in China

Ding. My phone received a text. "Shall we go eat hot pot tomorrow?"

Hmmm. I like hot pot, but I don't know who this is texting me. So I ask who is asking me about hot pot. "Didn't you save my number?" No, sorry, I still don't know this person.

"Nina from LA" had the wrong number. But hopefully she can reach Mike about hot pot tomorrow.

Nina thanked me for being friendly, and I think she was hoping we would become friends. (Maybe she was trolling, and later I blocked that number just in case.) I told her I hoped she and Mike were able to enjoy the hot pot in Los Angeles tomorrow. But this conversation made me kind of hungry.

I haven't had hot pot in a long time. Is there a good place for this around here besides at my Asian friend's house? After a little investigation, it appears the closest hot pot restaurant is 45 minutes away from our place in Oregon.

Memories of going out to hot pot with friends in China floated back into my awareness. One of my students at the medical college where I taught years ago invited me and some others in the Oral Skills Class to go out for hot pot one weekend. It wasn’t unusual to do outings with our students, and since several students were planning to go, I thought it sounded fun.

Most of the classes I taught were for those studying to become doctors. But now and then I had the joy of teaching a group of nursing students. And post graduates were a joy to teach, too. Now and then I also taught a group of professionals from the area, which gave me a glimpse into their lives. This Oral Skills Class focussed primarily on conversational English, and getting to know people from different backgrounds and professions was fun. Besides, quite a few of them were close to my own age or sometimes older than me.

The young man who arranged for us to go out for hot pot went by the English name of Mark. He was an engineer who designed vehicles. Another time, he took me and some other friends for a tour of the factory where he designed these small utility vans. These compact vans were all painted a navy blue color and he had proudly showed us the factory.

As we rode our bikes along the busy streets of Nanchang, the others who were joining us began making excuses, and one by one they peeled off. As they turned their bikes down side streets or alleys, I started to feel suspicious. In reality, Mark seemed to have ulterior motives…dinner alone with his teacher, which wasn’t something I had planned on. We were about the same age. As a practice, I didn’t go out with men who were my students.

Riding a bike in China demanded focus as other bikers darted in and out of this stream of humanity. The population of the city was something like a million people, a big contrast from the farm I’d grown up on in the Pacific Northwest region of the US. So not knowing what else to do, I continued pedaling along as Mark darted into an alley and then we turned as he pulled up alongside a fairly primitive looking restaurant. To be fair, most places in this city had a charming old vibe. But I had cringed as I saw that part of their offerings were out on the street near the restaurant…dogs were known as a “warming” food, and it was still a colder time of year. My heart sank. These dogs were going to end up served for dinner, and I felt sick at the thought. When I saw this sight, I wanted to grab my bicycle, and get out of there as fast as I could pedal, but quite honestly I didn’t know my way back home. Our route had felt like a maze, and I didn’t have any choice but to make the best of this awkward evening. We locked up our bicycles in the row of other bikes and strolled inside.

This restaurant was partly open to the outdoors, and the dim interior looked cozy. But my thoughts gravitated to the dogs. Back then a few wild dogs were sometimes seen running around the neighborhood, but they weren’t viewed as pets. More like a protein source, but almost anything that moved seemed to be a candidate for the dinner menu. Tofu had never looked so good as in the open air markets where meat hung in the warm sun. I ate a lot of styles of tofu, and homestyle tofu became a favorite. (In fact, I wish I could have some now. I looked up a recipe for this popular dish that still makes my mouth water just thinking about it. It was one of the first dishes I learned how to say in Mandarin, so we ate quite a bit of it.)

Mark and I sat down in old wooden chairs, and the bubbling large cauldron on the table looked like it hadn’t been washed in quite a number of years. I often prayed for protection when it came to eating in China. Back then one of the other foreign teachers had accidentally drank unboiled water, and she got hepatitis.

Mark and I used some boiled water to wash our tea cups and utensils before daring to pour some oolong tea into our cups. The hot tea tasted good. The warm broth in the big hot pot on our table boiled and they began offering us various meats to put into the hot broth to cook. I told Mark I really did not want to eat a dog. So he turned that meat down at my request. My stomach rolled at the thought. Some pretty dicey looking meats were dropped into the broth, and I still remember the reddish tint to this spicy broth. I requested tofu and vegetables, which were always a safer bet for me. Our conversation came fairly easily as we sat by the steaming hot pot, and we ate until we were full. It’s customary to continue offering food beyond that point of being full, but I said, “Wo cher baola!” I am full, thank you.

Finally, we paid the tab, and headed out into the evening air.

Mark always dressed in slacks and a stylish jacket. I still remember his handsome young face, and the dimple he had when he smiled. While he was a hard working fellow with many good qualities, I intended to focus on my work as a teacher, and I didn’t think dating students was a good idea. Even ones who were my age.

We pedaled back across this busy city to the more peaceful north campus of the medical college where I said goodnight before pulling my bike up to the Foreign Guest House where I lived.

Mercifully, it didn’t happen that evening, but eventually Mark asked me to marry him. All told, he asked three of us female teachers (one by one) to marry him, but he didn’t find a wife among us. He had a desire to move to the United States and marriage looked like a good avenue to him. I still remember that hot pot restaurant, though and the sneaky arrangements that led to dining for two.

While I have had hot pot since that time that was very delicious (and I love it when I know the ingredients are clean and things that I enjoy eating), I have to thank Nina from LA for serving up some memories.

That particular hot pot restaurant with Mark led to some anxious moments for me. I fell back on the safety of a few foods that I thought would be least likely to cause an upset stomach, but there were lots of things swimming around in that hot broth which looked to me like it had been recycled for a few weeks. Who knows what ended up in my bowl. My stomach felt pretty upset for the next 24 hours or so after this mysterious hot pot that Mark had proudly taken me to eat. I had felt a mixture of amusement and dismay as one by one the other three or four from our class made excuses and turned their bikes off in other directions as we rode our bikes to this place, leaving me with the one who had obviously planned this dinner alone.

In China, my friends loved to bring over ingredients and teach me to make some special dishes from scratch. One of the doctors on staff at our medical college spearheaded a cooking lesson one time, inviting other colleagues to prepare a meal in my tiny one propane burner kitchen. These friends were dedicated to ensuring I learned to make jaotzi, and I treasure those memories.

Some of the young men in my neighborhood took it upon themselves to ensure I learned how to waltz also. Friday nights were often a time for ball room dancing on the dance floor above the Emergency Room of the First Affiliated Hospital. I still remember the thoughtfulness of these friends who taught me to waltz, to make local dishes from scratch, and how to bargain in the open air markets as I bought my food for dinner. They knew that foreigners were usually overcharged, and they wanted to make sure I knew how to bargain. “Walk away when they turn down your proposed offer, and don’t fall for price gouging!” When the vendor would call me back and offer me a fair price, we would eventually develop a rapport and mutual respect.

Thanks to this unexpected and mysterious text earlier this evening, I visited my life in China of long ago. Those were simpler times. Cell phones didn’t yet exist. We waited weeks for mail to cross the ocean on ships, so receiving a letter from home represented a special occasion. Having reliable electricity and fuses that didn’t blow if you used a blow drier seemed pretty high tech to us and remained elusive.

We lived a little ways south of the Yangtze River, which flowed through Nanchang not far from that hot pot restaurant Mark took me to try that evening. The campus of Jiangxi Medical College was located on the south side of the river, which was the boundary line in China for a critical thing. Central heating didn’t exist when you lived south of the Yangtze River, so winter months meant wearing layers of clothing, even in the classrooms. My teammates who lived across the hall often heated up hot water bottles to warm themselves with in bed in the winter months. We had quite an uproarious laugh after they told me when one of their hot water bottles burst in the night, creating a soggy mess for this dear older couple just trying to stay warm.

Thanks for joining me for hot pot and a few memories.

I hope that you have the joy of sharing a nourishing meal with someone you love.