I wanted to go until March 1st with my Chinese food fast, but I didn’t make it. Xiao Ji picked me up at work at 6:30 and asked me if I had eaten (which also corresponds to a familiar greeting). I said “mei yao” – no. And then he proceeded to ask me some questions beyond the usual simple Chinese. I finally gathered what he was talking about. “My friends”…”eat”…”you come”…”yes?”…”Hunan food”…”Very spicy”…”Party”…”you come?”. Of course, he wasn’t talking this way, but that’s what I gathered from the multiple repeats. I was planning on eating western food tonight. “Oh jeez”, I thought to myself. “You have the opportunity for a great experience here! Hang out with Xiao Ji and his friends, eat some spicy Hunan food, who knows what else?” So, I went, of course.

The party (Xiao Ji is leftmost in the first pic) and the *hot* Hunan (a province in China) food (notice I’ve got my Chinese sheet w/ me):

Well suh, Xiao Ji’s brother was there, two friends, one of the friends wives, and then another woman with a young girl. After saying “hello” to everyone and some basic basic Chinese, I started to eat. Wow, nice and hot, very hot. Tasty stuff. My small glass was filled with beer and on each proposed toast, everyone had to drink the the entire glass. After a few of these, I had to slow down. “No problem! No problem!” said the best English speaker of the group (maybe a little better than my Chinese). That was a relief. I tried to tell them I had work tomorrow. “No problem!” OK, glad we got that straightened out. Most of the evening was filled with all sorts of funny attempts of Chinese and English followed by raucous and rowdy laughter. The woman with the small child left after maybe 15 minutes, I never saw her again. The leisurely dinner continued on, maybe for an hour and a half or so. Towards the end of the meal, Xiao Ji, whose English is improving quickly said, “Wash feet!” “Wash feet!” What? Wash my feet, huh? I wasn’t sure what he was saying. “We go wash feet!” and he made a rubbing motion on his foot. Oh!!! “An mo!”, I said. “Yeah yeah yeah!!” OK, let’s go!

“An mo” = Massage. I can’t remember the word for foot.

(l-r) Waiting for the girls to show up, It starts with a back massage (sorry, I nearly fell asleep so I didn’t take a foot massage picture, but there’s not much to see but feet!):

We stood around for a while waiting for a free room. Xiao Ji explained that, for me, the price would be jacked up, but we had negotiated a group deal and Xiao Ji’s brother insisted on paying. So, I don’t know how cheap this little delight was. We were led to a spartan, brightly-lit yellow room with a TV bolted on to a steel rack near the ceiling. There were four large plush chairs in the middle of the room that we each took a seat in (the other two guys were in a different room). The girls came in (and one man for the solitary woman of the group), had us turn around and sit on the ottoman while they gave us a quick back rub, then washed our feet, and massaged our feet for a good 30-40 minutes, followed by some cleaning lotions, hot towels, and a final rub down on the feet and shins with heated rocks. I was so sleepy afterwards. Very nice!